Kordos just snorted rudely and Brith Darma’s lips twitched sardonic.
“I won’t say I’ve lost sleep over her,” he said, “but I’ve had some damned unpleasant nightmares.”
Githrak nodded. “Well put. I’ve got a much clearer idea, now, about what happened out there on our side-initially, at least. I still don’t have a godsdamned clue what mul Gurthak and Harshu have been up to since!” The Intelligence officer clearly didn’t like that admission, but he made it unflinchingly. “Having said that, though, I damned well want to know a hells of a lot more about these people and their mental weapons. And more about their physical weapons, as well. And frankly, I want to see these terror weapons in operation. Hundred Olderhan’s descriptions were brutal. Chief Sword Threbuch’s were ghastly. And I’m in awe of Magister Gadrial. A civilian, a woman, caught in the middle of that, with men whose wounds leave me queasy, just trying to picture them. But she was in there treating those wounds, damn near killing herself with exhaustion keeping those men alive. The woman deserves a medal.”
“Damned good idea,” Kordos agreed. “I’ll bring it up with the Commander General. I’m scheduled to have dinner with him and his wife, tonight.”
Brith Darma nodded. “Yes, please discuss it with him. I’d like to see her get something more out of this than a disrupted life, days of questioning, and a brusque thank you while we rush out the door to prepare for battle.”
A brief silence fell as the officers contemplated the enormous task facing them. Gods, a war fought through multiple universes.…
Brith Darma brought his attention back to the matter at hand.
“I’ve already made arrangements to have Hundred Olderhan demonstrate the enemy’s weapons this afternoon, at the officers’ firing range. He’s brought samples of their long weapons, their hand-held ones, and several other intriguing pieces of their gear, shipped with him the whole damned, long way.”
“That ought to be interesting,” Kordos muttered. “Try as I might, it’s hard to imagine building a civilization without magic.”
“Why,” Brith Darma gave the Fleet Third a sardonic smile, “do you think I’ve been having those damned nightmares?”
Githrak sat forward in his chair, pouring more water into his glass from the self-chilling carafe on the long table at which they sat. He sipped thoughtfully for a moment, then leaned back with a shrug.
“Right. Let’s see what this Voice has to say,” he said crisply. “I want to take her measure as a person, as well as a weapon. She claims she’s the first woman allowed to work with their point survey crews. I want to see what sort of woman our enemy considers qualified enough to do that tough a job.”
“Agreed. Particularly since we do that job with soldiers.” Fleet Third Kordos toyed with his stylus, his expression frankly worried. “That girl’s going to tell us a hell of a lot about these people, no matter what she says or does.”
Brith Darma glanced at their Master of the Sword, whose job it was to secure the door and usher those being questioned into and out of the room.
“Call the Voice, please, Master Sword.”
The noncom saluted and opened the door to the adjoining, sound-proofed chamber, a small room where witnesses awaited their turns for interrogation.
“The Board of Inquiry commands the presence of the Sharonian Voice. Enter the Inquiry Chamber, Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr.”
Brith Darma expected several things. He expected a frightened civilian. Even Gadrial Kelbryan, who was merely a witness, with no personal consequences hanging over her testimony, had shown signs of stress and worry, so he fully expected to see signs of prolonged strain in this Voice. He also expected uncertainty and quite possibly a few legitimate tremors and tears.
The witness was in a terrifying situation, totally helpless, and fully aware of the hatred rampaging through Arcana’s populace as conflicting versions of events at the frontier were splashed across the journals and public message crystals. He even expected questions about what would become of her.
He did not expect what walked through the door.
The Voice was tiny. She was a slip of a girl, smaller even than Gadrial Kelbryan, who was a slender, petite Ransaran. Brith Darma didn’t like the instantaneous reaction he felt at first sight of her: a rush of chivalric protectiveness. She was so small…and so self-controlled and poised, it shocked him. She marched across the room in her rustling skirts as regally as any duchess and halted when the Master of the Sword told her to stop.
Then she stood there, hands folded neatly in front of her, her silence and her stance as solid as any soldier braced to attention. She met Brith Darma’s gaze with stunning power, neither flinching from his cold, deliberately hostile stare nor losing her composure when he ran his gaze rudely up and down her body. When he identified the emotion that simmered deep in her alien eyes, a shockwave ripped through him.
She was angry.
“State your name and occupation,” the Master of the Sword intoned.
“I am Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr, employed as a civilian exploratory survey crew Voice by the Chalgyn Consortium, a privately owned company engaged in the exploration and development of newly discovered universes. I hold a survey license from the Sharonian Portal Authority. My mother is an ambassador to the Kingdom of Shurkhal, where I was born, a nation that is more than three thousand years old. Who are you?”
That took Brith Darma aback. All of it did. Her command of the Andaran language was terrifying. Her grammar was perfect, her word choice flawless, and her accent less pronounced than most Mythlans and Ransarans he’d encountered. And she continued to hold his gaze, ignoring the other officers. Someone had told her he was the Board’s presiding officer. Either that, or she’d plucked the fact from his mind. His intellect was inclined to believe the former, with Magister Gadrial as the likeliest source.
But the deeper part of his mind shouted a warning of intense and incredible danger. She’s a living weapon! He drew down a deep, silent breath, taking care to breathe from the diaphragm so that his chest didn’t rise and fall, and narrowed his eyes, watching her closely even while he wrestled with his own mind. He’d vowed to conduct this proceeding with honor, and if he allowed irrational fear to rule him, he would learn nothing from her.
He decided to begin with something she might not be expecting him to ask.
“Why are you angry?”
He didn’t throw her off stride. Instead, her eyes sizzled even more ferociously. She looked like a dragon in the instant before it spat searing flame.
“Why am I angry?” she repeated softly, the question on a rising note of utter contempt. Then her voice went hard as flint, and she spat out her answer like hailstones. “I was hunted down like a dog and nearly murdered. I watched my friends, my professional colleagues, slaughtered without pity. My crew leader was shot through the throat with a crossbow bolt. Why? For the crime of standing up without a weapon and saying in a calm and reasonable tone ‘That’s close enough.’ Have you ever watched a man choke to death on steel and blood? A man you’d spent months with, working together under exhausting, dangerous conditions? A man who’d saved your life at least three times? A scholar who taught young people how to build cities, who came to the frontier to find new places to build them? Your soldier murdered him! And you ask why I’m angry?”
He started to speak, but she wasn’t finished.
“My husband was burned alive. The only reason he didn’t die of those horrifying burns was the mercy and Gift of Magister Gadrial Kelbryan. Have you ever seen human skin touched by the fireballs your weapons produce? It cracks and turns black. You can see the flesh beneath it through those cracks. It blisters like paint on a skillet that’s been shoved into a campfire. Have you ever smelled what that unnatural fire does to human flesh? Some of your own soldiers vomited from it. From smelling the remains of young boys who’d just left school and wanted to build something wonderful for themselves and the families they hoped to start. And you can sit there and ask why I’m angry?”