"I suppose you'd better look after getting our people off the train while I go find this Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik," he said finally.
"Better you than me," Garsal muttered, but quietly enough Markan could pretend he hadn't heard. Then the windlord saluted. "I'll see to it, Sir," he said much more crisply.
"Good," Markan replied, and climbed down from the platform.
Actually, "go find" was scarcely the correct choice of verbs, he admitted as a tall Ternathian officer?and aren't they all tall? Markan thought wryly?stepped up to greet him.
"Lord of Horse," the Ternathian said in barely accented Uromathian. "Welcome to Fort Salby. I'm delighted to see you."
"Regiment-Captain," Markan responded in Ternathian, offering his right hand for a Ternathian-style handclasp. He was impressed by chan Skrithik's command of Uromathian, which was actually better than his own Ternathian. Nonetheless, there were appearances to maintain. A Uromathian lord of horse?and a pedigreed sunlord, to boot?could scarcely permit a Ternathian to be more cosmopolitan than he was, after all, he told himself sardonically, and rather suspected that he saw a matching flicker of amusement in chan Skrithik's eyes.
"We got here as quickly as we could," Markan continued. "Indeed, I was rather astonished by how quickly the TTE was able to arrange things once our troop movement was authorized."
"TTE's always been good at improvised movements," chan Skrithik agreed. "And just so we get off on the right foot, let me say that I'm as grateful as I am delighted to see you. I realize there's always been a certain degree of friction between Ternathia and Uromathia, and I don't imagine your men are going to be any more immune to that tradition than the Ternathians in my own garrison are. However, this isn't about Ternathia or Uromathia?it's about Sharona, and I've seen to it that everyone under my command understands that. As one Sharonian to another, then, welcome to Fort Salby."
"Thank you," Markan replied. He was impressed by chan Skrithik's willingness to confront the situation so openly. And pleased, as well. And the Ternathian had shown considerable tact in suggesting that the "friction" existed only between his own empire and Uromathia, he thought. Any Arpathians and Harkalans in the Fort Salby garrison were probably torn between welcoming Markan's troopers with open arms and shooting them in the back at the first opportunity.
"I've stressed the same points to my own personnel," the sunlord said, and indeed he had. "I'm sure there are going to be at least some incidents, anyway, of course. But my officers have been instructed that if?when?such incidents occur, they are to be reported first to you, as the base commander and the senior officer in the PAAF chain of command. They've also been instructed to warn their men that any breach of discipline will be severely punished under our own regulations after any penalties you may see fit to award under the Authority's."
He showed his teeth in a tight smile.
"That's good to hear," chan Skrithik said. "Of course, your troops' internal discipline is your own affair. I'm sure any difficulties which arise can be dealt with expeditiously."
"As am I," Markan said with a slight bow.
He didn't add that he'd told chan Skrithik about his instructions to his officers for a specific reason. Markan's own rank was the equivalent of the Ternathian rank of brigade-captain, which made him senior to chan Skrithik. But chan Skrithik was the ranking PAAF officer present, and this was a Portal Authority post. More to the point, one instruction Emperor Chava had made crystal clear was that Markan was not, under any circumstances, to do anything which might be construed as attempting to undermine the Authority chain of command. In fact, Markan had been specifically ordered to obey chan Skrithik's orders, regardless of who might technically be senior to whom. Clearly the Emperor wanted no unfortunate incidents in the field while the Conclave back home was still debating what sort of political arrangements were going to emerge out of all this.
Markan doubted there was any need to be more explicit with chan Skrithik. The man was obviously intelligent, and the quality of his spoken Uromathian suggested a certain degree of familiarity with Markan's native culture. He would recognize Markan's message?that Markan intended to obey the spirit, not just the letter, of the orders subordinating him to chan Skrithik's command?without the sunlord having to be more direct.
"In that case, Sunlord," chan Skrithik said after a moment, "let's see about getting your people settled in."
"I think that's an excellent suggestion, Regiment-Captain."
"About damned time!" Hardar Jalkanthi announced with profound satisfaction as the signal arm swung into the upright position and the signal lamp glowed green.
"Try to be at leaitst a little patient, Hardar," Charak Tarku grunted with a laugh. "I'm supposed to be the impatient barbarian around here."
Jalkanthi chuckled. Tarku was his regularly assigned senior fireman, and he knew he'd been lucky to hang onto him under the present chaotic circumstances. The burly, broad shouldered Arpathian was a rarity in TTE, given the usual Arpathian attitude towards technology, and Jalkanthi was glad to have him. He knew better than most just how sharp a brain lurked behind the typically Arpathian fa?ade Tarku chose to present to the rest of the multiverse. The engineer wasn't quite certain why Tarku had decided to play to the Arpathian stereotype, and it often irritated Jalkanthi, but the two of them had been together for almost four years now. That was more than long enough to cement a solid friendship, despite their very different backgrounds, and Tarku knew him better than just about anyone else.
"I always thought Arpathians were supposed to be deadly nomadic hunters, patient as the very stones," he said now, as the two of them swung up the high steps to the footplate of TTE's Paladin 20887.
"Nothing but a fairytale," Tarku said, waving one hand airily. "Just another baseless exaggeration we put about to bolster our fearsome reputation and mystique."
"Well, I think it's about time your mystique settled down and started doing its job," Jalkanthi told him.
"Orders, orders. Always orders," Tarku grumbled with a grin. Then he caught hold of the vertical handrail and leaned well out to peer back past the bulk of 20887's integral tender, the auxiliary sixteen thousand-gallon water tender, and the second Paladin and tenders coupled in behind 20887.
"See him?" Jalkanthi asked.
"No, not?Ah! There he is!" Tarku leaned a bit further out, waving to show Train Master Sheltim he'd seen him. The train master waved back from his place on the station platform, but the green flag was still tucked firmly under his arm.
"Well?" Jalkanthi pressed.
"No point fretting at me," Tarku told him. "Sheltim will waggle his little flag at us when he's good and ready to."
Jalkanthi grimaced, then tapped the glass face of the pressure gauge pointedly. Tarku only grinned, and Jalkanthi produced an oily rag and carefully wiped the already gleaming bronze of the burnished throttle lever. He was always inordinately proud of his big Paladin's speed and power, but today he had a special reason for his impatience to be off.
Jalkanthi was Ternathian, from the city of Garouoma in the Province of Narhath, but his wife was Shurkhali. In fact, it was almost frightening how much like a taller version of the murdered Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr Jesmanar Jalkanthi-Ishar looked. Jalkanthi might not have been born Shurkhali, but he'd absorbed more than enough of his wife's culture to feel the same fury which had swept across her native kingdom. Worse, Jalkanthi had just enough Talent to have Seen SUNN's Voice broadcast of Shaylar's final message. He didn't really care what the assembled heads of state decided in their precious Conclave. He'd been gratified by his own Emperor's attitude, and he wasn't very happy about even the most remote possibility of winding up with Chava of Uromathia running things, but he didn't have time to waste worrying about either of those things just now. He knew what he wanted to happen to the bastards responsible for the Chalgyn Consortium crew's massacre, and he was impatient to deliver the first installment of Sharona's vengeance.