The questions hammered through him, and his jaw tightened as he realized the answer to the last one, at least. They’d gotten into position to attack Hundred Gorzalt’s position because C Company had let them. He’d known-known-Gorzalt hadn’t even tried to properly picket the portal. And instead of trying to do anything about it himself, instead of finding some way to prod his own fifty into doing something about it, he’d sat on his own mental arse and wasted his energy bitching at his officers. It was damned well an officer’s job not to let something like this happen, but when they didn’t step up and do it, someone else had to.
And he hadn’t.
“What the hells is all that racket, Sword?!”
He turned to see Fifty Ustmyn bursting out of his tent, buckling his sword belt as he came.
“Only one thing it can be, Sir,” he said grimly.
“But how in Shartahk’s name could Sharonians have gotten all the way down-chain to Nairsom?!”
“Don’t know, Sir.” Forstmir’s tone was flat. “Hells, maybe they do have their own version of dragons! Doesn’t really matter right now though, does it?”
“You’re right about that,” Ustmyn said after half a breath and squared his shoulders. “If they’re here, they’re twenty-five hundred miles closer to Hell’s Gate than Two Thousand Harshu. And if they got here this quickly-”
He and his platoon sword looked at one another sickly. To get to this point, the Sharonians had traveled almost eighteen thousand miles-six thousand of them across the Treybus Ocean in the middle of winter-in no more than four months…and that assumed they’d started instantly. And if they could reach Nairsom that quickly, they could almost certainly beat Two Thousand Harshu to Hell’s Gate and cut his communications behind him.
“Must’ve missed us somehow, Sir,” Forstmir said quietly. “Either that, or they figure they can tidy us up anytime after they deal with the rest of the Company. But they’ll be coming.”
“I know.” Ustmyn rubbed his chin, then inhaled sharply. “Get the men turned to, Kilvyn. It probably won’t matter, but we can at least try. And in the meantime, these bastards must not’ve realized we have a hummer cot of our own.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Tell Galvara I need him.”
“Yes, Sir!”
Forstmir slapped his breastplate in salute and headed off into the gathering twilight, shouting orders to the shaken men of 2nd Platoon. Ustmyn looked after him for a moment, then sat on one of the fort’s burned timbers, pulled a recording crystal out of his belt pouch, and began dictating his report.
* * *
“You wanted me, Sir?”
Ustmyn looked up as Lance Gordymair Galvara, the leader of the three-man hummer section Hundred Gorzalt had attached to 2nd Platoon, slid to a halt beside him. Gorzalt hadn’t sent his most capable hummer master out to share 2nd Platoon’s misery, but at least Galvara didn’t seem to be panicking.
Probably lack of imagination, the fifty thought mordantly.
“Yes, Galvara,” he said out loud and extended the crystal. “Get this transferred and into the air as soon as possible. It’s critical this message get through, so copy it to every hummer you’ve got.”
“But if we send them all off, Sir, we won’t have any left for additional messages,” Galvara pointed out.
“No, we won’t,” Ustmyn said almost gently. “On the other hand, I don’t really think we’re going to need them. Do you?”
Galvara stared at him. Then his eyes widened and he swallowed.
“No, Sir. Don’t reckon we will,” he said, reaching for the crystal.
“Which makes it especially important to get this one right.” Ustmyn gripped the lance’s shoulder. “Make sure you do, Gordymair.”
“Aye, Sir. I’ll do that thing.”
The lance’s Limathian accent was more pronounced than Ustmyn had ever heard it, but his jaw firmed and he nodded sharply.
“Good man.” The fifty squeezed his shoulder again. “Now, go get it sent,” he said and turned to follow Forstmir as Galvara ran towards the hummers.
* * *
“Oh, laddie, that’s a bad, bad idea,” Wendyr chan Jethos said softly.
“Can’t blame them for trying,” Fozak chan Gyulair replied and drew a deep breath as he settled even more squarely behind his Mark 12. “And it’s why we’re here.”
“I know.” Chan Jethos shook his head. “Doesn’t hardly seem fair, though.”
“And what those bastards did to every Voice between Hell’s Gate and Traisum was fair?”
“Didn’t say that.” Chan Jethos closed his eyes, concentrating on his Talent. “Good news is there’s only one of ’em so far. Might be the others’ll take the hint.”
“Maybe.”
Chan Gyulair had his own eyes closed as he squeezed the rear trigger, transforming the one in front of it into a hair trigger that could be touched off almost with a thought. He ignored the bulky, powerful telescopic sight mounted atop his rifle. In fact, he hadn’t even opened the protective lens caps. There were times he needed that sight, because his was a very special Talent. He was a Predictive Distance Viewer. His range was too short to be useful for the artillery, where ranges of up to fifteen or even twenty miles might be required, but it was more than long enough for other purposes, and the Army aggressively recruited men like him for its snipers. He had to know where to Look, which was why he was normally paired with chan Jethos, whose Plotting Talent located his targets for him. Without that sort of spotter, he had to search for them the old-fashioned way, using his eyes first and his Talent second, which explained the sight.
But today, he did know where to Look, and as he Watched Gordymair Galvara racing towards the hummers, he recognized the exact moment when he’d be in exactly the right spot.
Of course, it wasn’t enough to simply know where the target was. No Talent could provide the breath control, the steadiness, the ability to gauge the range and put a bullet precisely where it needed to be precisely when it needed to be there. That took years of training and constant practice, but Fozak chan Gyulair had invested those years in mastering his trade.
* * *
The 320-grain bullet was still traveling at almost nine hundred feet per second when it struck Lance Galvara directly above his right eye like a five hundred and seventy-pound hammer.
Chapter Forty
March 23
“Your boys have done one hell of a job, Renyl,” Arlos chan Geraith said, exchanging a forearm clasp like hammered steel with Brigade-Captain Renyl chan Quay. “I knew I was asking a lot of you, and you’ve done all of it and more. Especially chan Malthyn and young chan Mahsdyr.”
“They have done the Brigade proud, haven’t they, Sir?” Renyl chan Quay was almost a foot taller than chan Geraith, with hazel eyes and the dark hair of his Teramandorian birth, and white teeth flashed against his dark complexion as he smiled broadly, pleased with the division-captain’s well-deserved praise.
“They’ve done the whole damned Army proud,” the division-captain corrected. “There were so many things that could’ve gone wrong with this march that I couldn’t even begin to count them. I’d say probably at least a third of them did go wrong, for that matter. But the entire corps pulled my arse out of every hole we almost fell into, and your brigade’s done more of that than anyone except-possibly-chan Hurmahl and the other engineers.”
Chan Quay nodded, his smile fading into a more sober expression, because chan Geraith had a point.
Breakdowns had accelerated at an alarming rate over the last couple of weeks. Third Corps was down almost half of the Bisons which had been assigned to it at the beginning of its epic march. Some of those had been made up out of additional Bisons sent down-chain as replacements, but the corps remained thirty percent short of its theoretical establishment and the Steel Mules and steam drays couldn’t compensate for the missing Bisons’ massive hauling capacity. It was like using switching engines in place of one of the TTE’s Paladins, and it was beginning to bite their logistics badly.