“Trust me, the Fifty’s thought about that, too, whether he wants to admit it or not,” Harnak said after a moment. “On the other hand, I sure as hells wouldn’t want to be the poor sod who got in the Duke’s way when he thinks the Second Andarans’ honor is on the line. Sure, having Sir Jasak ‘in the middle of it’ may…complicate things for him, but not Shartahk himself could stop him in a case like this. And if there’s one Andaran duke in all the multiverse you don’t want pissed off at you, it’s Duke Garth Showma.”
Karuk nodded with immense satisfaction. It wasn’t as if Harnak had just said anything he hadn’t already heard before from Thermyn Ulthar and Jaralt Sarma, but over the years Hordal Karuk had seen quite a few officers with touching faith in fables, magic charms, moonshine, and the honesty of their superiors. Some of them seemed to feel there was some kind of code that required them to believe the official truth even when they knew better. He hadn’t thought Ulthar or Sarma fell into that category, but it was always a relief when a good levelheaded noncom who’d seen the bison confirmed their judgment.
“Well, in that case-” he began, only to stop in midsentence as Regiment-Captain Velvelig and Fifty Ulthar appeared out of the snowy darkness.
“Chelgayr, that feels good!” the regiment-captain said, and Karuk heard something suspiciously like a smothered laugh from Evarl Harnak’s direction.
“Yes, Sir, it does,” the master-armsman agreed, pointedly not looking at his Arcanan colleague. And it was true. The portal’s vestibule was a bubble of blessed warmth. The steady portal wind wasn’t especially strong-or, rather, most of it was going straight up instead of blowing outward at ground level-but there was at least a ninety-degree difference between its starting temperature and snowy northern New Ternathia. That heat bled off quickly, but not before it had produced a zone perhaps three hundred yards deep in which there wasn’t a trace of snow, and the sky on the other side-actually visible, thanks to the clearing that abutted the portal-was a deep, moonlit sapphire sprinkled with the stars of another hemisphere.
“I suppose we should get our arses over where it’s warmer, then,” Velvelig continued and glanced at the two senior noncoms. “Should I assume in your customary efficient manner the two of you have confirmed our nose count?”
“Yes, Sir,” Karuk replied. “Evarl and I’ve been the sort of keeping an eye on that all the way here.”
“I thought you had.” Velvelig produced another of his infinitesimal smiles. “Good noncoms are an officer’s greatest treasure, Hordal. Now we just have to find me one.”
“You go right on looking, Sir,” the master-sword said easily. “Be a comfort to retire and put my feet up in front of the fire when you finally find one.”
Velvelig snorted, conceding the exchange, and twitched his head at the portal.
“Take us through, Hordal.”
“Yes, Sir! Chan Byral!”
“Here, Master-Armsman!”
The tall but slightly built-and very young-Distance Viewer appeared out of the darkness.
“I apologize for disturbing your beauty rest, young Hanyl,” Karuk said in his most fatherly tone, “but if it would be possible for you to spare the Portal Authority a moment of your time, I’d appreciate your taking yourself to the other side of that portal and Looking around. I’m sure Sword Harnak would be happy to ride along and keep you out of mischief.”
“Yes, Master-Armsman.” The youthful Distance Viewer glanced at Evarl Harnak, and the Arcanan shook his head with a smile.
“No rest for the weary,” he observed. “Oh well, Hanyl, I guess we’d best be about it before the Master-Armsman thinks of something else for us to do.”
Chan Byral smiled and sent his unicorn pacing forward.
Behind him, the rest of the column was closing up with remarkable speed, given the weather conditions and terrain. The Portal Authority wagons, floating on the dwindling Arcanan levitation spells, had moved through the treacherous, burned out, snow-covered forest with an ease the Sharonians still found profoundly unnatural. Welcome, yes, but definitely unnatural.
From Namir Velvelig’s perspective, those levitation spells had offered another advantage. The passage of so many unicorns had churned the snow badly enough, but not to the same extent wagons would have under normal circumstances. Given the current heavy snowfall, the traces of their journey between portals should be completely obscured by dawn. He hoped so, anyway. He had a suspicion that tracks in the snow would be glaringly visible to an aerial observer once the clouds broke, and the last thing he wanted were any arrows pointing in the direction of their flight.
Platoon-Captain Sedryk Tobar and Platoon-Captain chan Brano, the most junior of his four surviving line officers, brought up the rear. None of the Arcanans had commented on the fact that their column’s rearguard was solidly Sharonian, or on the fact that Company-Captain Halath-Shodach and Platoon-Captain Larkal just happened to be commanding the scout parties on either flank for tonight’s march. To be honest, he wouldn’t have expected them to complain about it, but he’d seen no sign of silent resentment on their part, either. He doubted very many of them could have failed to understand why Tobar and chan Brano were keeping an eye on things, but rather than resenting it, what he’d seen the most evidence of was satisfaction. They knew what would happen to them if they fell into the wrong hands, and they were strongly in favor of anything likely to prevent that from happening.
Now the regiment-captain watched through the portal as Harnak and chan Byral rode into the humid, blessedly warm rain forest and paused. Not for the first time he wished they had at least one Plotter, although a rain forest was probably so stuffed with living critters as to knock any Plotter’s reach back to little more than range of sight. He also would have liked to send chan Byral through the portal’s other aspect, as well, to let him get a good Look around the huge blind spot it created, but they didn’t have enough time for that.
Several minutes passed. Then chan Byral’s unicorn came trotting back across into Hell’s Gate.
“I don’t See anything I shouldn’t, Sir,” he told Velvelig with a salute. “I’m not saying there isn’t anything out there-just that if there is, it’s well enough hidden I’m not going to pick it up in the dark. There’s no sign of any Arcanan pickets, anyway.”
“I suppose that’s the best we’re going to get,” the regiment-captain said simply. “Let’s go.”
He touched his unicorn with his heel and started across the interface between universes. The air grew steadily warmer as he approached the actual portal; by the time he crossed it, he was shedding his gloves, unbuttoning his heavy coat, and already sweating heavily. Not that he had any intention of complaining.
The damp, powerful, earthy smells of riotous vegetation enveloped him, and the sound of night birds and gods only knew what other night-roaming creatures filled the darkness with a welcome chorus of living things. After the cold winter weather of their journey, the sudden flood of noise was as welcome as the gentle breeze stirring the night and he drew rein to remove his coat completely and hang it on the pommel of his saddle while he turned and watched the rest of the column follow him into the nameless universe.
He couldn’t see much, and all he really knew about this particular universe was that the portal probably opened somewhere in the Dalazan Rain Forest. There’d been no time for any further exploration before everything went to hell, which meant that probability had never been definitively confirmed. They’d probably get a chance to do something about that, assuming they could find another break in the overhead canopy and establish exactly when local noon occurred. The PAAF was as accustomed to taking noon sights to establish latitude and longitude as any mariner, for obvious reasons. The problem would be finding the aforesaid break. The area immediately around the portal was choked with thick, luxuriant herbaceous varieties: vines, leafy ferns, low-growing shrubbery. Clearly something-possibly the formation of the portal itself-had killed back the towering hundred-foot high trees beyond that tangle and let in the sunlight which had created such an explosion of growth. He had no intention of hanging about this close to the portal, however, and once they’d gotten a few hundred yards further in-universe, they’d be back in typical triple-canopy jungle, where undergrowth was blessedly uncommon and the sun and stars were seldom seen.