Ulthar snarled in frustration. How pathetic was it when the best he could find to say was that the Healers wouldn't heal someone?
Something snapped down inside him at that thought. The iron self-control he'd forced himself to exert slipped, and he spun on his heel and started stalking across the parade ground towards the office block, unsnapping the retaining strap across his short sword as he went.
"Fifty Ulthar?"
The voice reached him even through the red haze of his fury, and he paused, looking over his shoulder.
He didn't really know the man who'd called out to him. He'd seen him around the fort, but he wasn't an Andaran Scout, and Ulthar had been too focused on what Thalmayr was up to to pay him much attention.
"Yes?" Ulthar's one-word response came out sounding strangled and strange, even to his own ears, and the other man grimaced.
"I think we need to talk, Fifty Ulthar," Commander of Fifty Jaralt Sarma said.
Commander of Two Thousand Mayrkos Harshu sat in his tent at the foot of the precipitous cliffs and pushed the last few bites of his supper around the bowl with a spoon. A glass of wine sat largely untasted at his elbow, and his expression was unusually grim.
The sentry outside the tent called out a challenge to someone, and Harshu raised his head, looking towards the entrance. A moment later, the sentry lifted the flap and looked in at him.
"Thousand Toralk is here, Sir. He says you're expecting him."
"I am, Sword. Send him in, please."
"Sir!"
The noncom snapped a salute and disappeared. A moment later, the flap rose again, and Klayrman Toralk came through it.
"You wanted to see me, Sir?"
"Yes, please. Have a seat."
Harshu gestured at the camp chair floating on the far side of the table, and Toralk settled himself onto it.
The thousand never looked away from Harshu as he sat, and Harshu smiled sourly.
"I've just received some ... interesting dispatches, Klayrman."
"Sir?" Toralk's eyebrows rose as Harshu paused.
"One set is from Carthos," the two thousand said. "That's the good news, such as it is. He's detached Hundred Helika's strike. We should see Helika in about three more days. The only bad news from him is that I'd asked him how much transport he needed to move his prisoners to the rear. If I were the Sharonians and I had the capability, I'd try pushing down the secondary chain before I tried to fight my way down these cliffs. I don't think they do have the capability, but if it turns out they do, there's no way we can reinforce Carthos enough to hold against a serious attack. The best we can do is to keep the approaches picketed and make sure they don't manage to get past him and sneak up on us undetected from the rear. So I thought to myself we should send his POWs back to Five Hundred Klian so he could move quickly, without any encumbrances. Fortunately, we don't have to worry about that."
"What do you mean, Sir?" Toralk asked, his expression unhappy, when Harshu paused once more.
"I mean he doesn't have any prisoners. Not one. Apparently—" Harshu met Toralk's eyes levelly across the table "—every single Sharonian died fighting rather than surrender."
Klayrman's Toralk's belly muscles tightened. It wasn't really a surprise, of course. And a part of him couldn't help feeling a sudden surge of fury directed not at the distant Thousand Carthos but at Two Thousand Harshu. It was just a bit late for Harshu to be feeling upset with anyone over violations of the Kerellian Accords after he'd sown the seeds for everything Carthos had done by what he'd allowed Neshok to do!
Something of the thousand's emotions must have shown in his face, because Harshu's jaw tightened. But then the two thousand inhaled deeply and made himself nod.
"You're right, Klayrman. It is my fault. And if I'd listened to you in the beginning, it wouldn't have happened. But it has, and it's going to be a hell of a lot harder to stop it than it would have been simply too never let it start."
He shook his head, then leaned back in his chair with a smile that was even more sour than before.
"Of course, there's always that second set of dispatches to help distract me from the Carthos situation."
"Second set, Sir?" Toralk asked cautiously.
"Oh, yes. The set from Two Thousand mul Gurthak."
"From Two Thousand mul Gurthak?"
Surprise startled the repetition out of Toralk. Mul Gurthak had been oddly silent ever since the Expeditionary Force began its advance. In fact, as far as Toralk was aware, he hadn't sent Harshu a single message in all that time.
"Indeed," Harshu told him. "It would appear that Two Thousand mul Gurthak is most distressed over the way in which I have misinterpreted his desires and grossly exceeded his intentions."
Toralk's eyes went wide. He couldn't help it. He'd read most of the official instructions and memoranda mul Gurthak had sent forward to Mahritha before Harshu launched his attack.
"But, Sir, that's rid—" he began.
"Don't say it," Harshu interrupted. Toralk closed his mouth with a click, and Harshu grimaced. "Given a couple of things he said in his dispatches, Klayrman," he said very quietly, "I think he probably has his own eyes and ears out here, keeping him informed. It might not be very wise to ... express your opinion overly freely in front of anyone besides myself, if you take my meaning."
It was Toralk's turn to sit back, and his jaw muscles tensed as the implications began to percolate through his brain.
"That's better," Harshu told him. The two thousand picked up his almost forgotten wineglass and sipped from it, then set it back down again.
"According to Two Thousand mul Gurthak, it was never his intention for us to advance beyond Hell's Gate. And, in fact, he always regarded the use of force to retake even Hell's Gate as an action of last resort."
"Sir," Toralk said, despite Harshu's warning, "I don't see how any reasonable individual could have interpreted his instructions to mean anything of the sort. Certainly not in light of the verbal briefings he gave both of us before he deployed us forward!"
"Klayrman," Harshu said chiding way, shaking a finger at him, "you're letting your opinions run away with you again."
Toralk clamped his mouth shut, and Harshu snorted harshly.
"The interesting thing is that if you read his written instructions without those verbal briefings of his, they can actually be interpreted exactly the way he's interpreting them at the moment. While I would never wish to imputes duplicity to a superior officer, I find that I can't quite shake the suspicion that the discrepancy between his current very clearly expressed views and what you and I understood his instructions to be isn't ... accidental, shall we say?"
"Sir, I don't like what you seem to be saying."
"I'm not overjoyed with it myself. In fact, the thing that bothers me most right now is that I can't decide whether mul Gurthak is simply trying to cover his own ass now that the shit's hit the fan, or if he deliberately set us up—well, set me up, at least—from the start. Did he simply shape his written instructions this way so he'd be covered if something went wrong, or did he want us to do exactly what I went ahead and did, but clearly—for the record, at least—without his authorization?"
Toralk started to open his mouth again, but Harshu's raised finger stopped him. Not, the Air Force officer reflected a second later, that it was really necessary for him to say what he was thinking.
But why? Why would mul Gurthak want us to start a shooting war out here "without his authorization"?
He's still the senior officer in command, even if he did delegate the field command to Harshu.
Ultimately, surely the Commandery is going to hold him responsible for what happens in his command area. So why go to such elaborate lengths?
The thoughts flashed through his brain. He had no answers for any of the questions, but he was sinkingly certain that if he'd had those answers, he wouldn't have liked them.
"Of course," Harshu continued in a lighter tone which fooled neither of them, "Two Thousand mul Gurthak is not yet aware that we've managed to kill the heir to the Ternathian Crown, is he? That's going to be just a bit unexpected, I imagine. As is the way the Sharonians are going to respond to it."