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No wonder mul Gurthak is staying safely in Erthos! he thought with another snort. He knows damned well what kind of nightmare he's about to dump on me.

It was the first truly amusing thought the five hundred had entertained since Skirvon and Dastiri turned up in his office.

He didn't expect to have a great many more of them over the next few weeks.

Chapter Forty-Four

"You look tired," Regiment-Captain Namir Velvelig observed dryly, tilting back his head to regard the enormous young officer who'd just dismounted from the magnificent blue roan Shikowr.

"Thank you, Sir," Platoon-Captain chan Calirath replied with exquisite politeness. "Somehow that had escaped my notice."

Velvelig's lips twitched. For the hard-bitten Arpathian, that constituted the equivalent of anyone else's deep belly laugh, and Prince Janaki smiled. He'd been attached to Velvelig's command for just over six months before being sent forward to New Uromath when Company-Captain Halifu appealed for help covering the vast new frontiers the Chalgyn Consortium had been so unexpectedly opening up back in those ancient days?all of two months ago?before everything had gone straight to hell. During that time, he'd developed a deep respect, even admiration, for the shorter, squarely built regiment-captain, and in turn, Velvelig had made it clear that he intended to treat young Platoon-Captain chan Calirath like any other junior officer … within limits, of course.

"I didn't expect to see you back so soon, Platoon-Captain," Velvelig said now, his voice lower, as Janaki handed his reins to an orderly and stepped up onto the wooden veranda which fronted the administrative block of Fort Raylthar.

No, he reminded himself, it's Fort Ghartoun now.

He'd noticed the new name on the signboard outside the fort's main entrance, and he wondered whose idea it had been to rename Raylthar. From what he knew of Velvelig, he rather suspected what the answer was. The regiment-captain was as immune to fear and as implacably determined as any Arpathian stereotype, but there was a warm and caring human being down inside all that armor.

The fort itself lay on the eastern flank of New Ternathia's Sky Blood Mountains, barely ten miles from the deep, beautiful waters of Snow Sapphire Lake and within twenty miles of the legendary Sky Blood Lode, probably be biggest silver deposit in history. The discovery of this portal was going to make the Fairnos Consortium, which had first surveyed it, unbelievably wealthy once the railhead steadily advancing from Fort Salby reached it. Although the portal and the fort which covered it were located at little more than forty-five hundred feet of altitude, the Sky Bloods' higher peaks between Ghartoun and Snow Sapphire rose to almost ten thousand snowcapped feet. Their lower flanks were heavily forested, although Ghartoun itself got precious little rain or snow, even in the winter, and the lower mountains and foothills east of the fort were drier and far less hospitable. Still, Janaki preferred Fort Ghartoun's normal climate to the soggier environs of Company-Captain Halifu's post. This late in the year, the temperature was dropping close to freezing at night, but it was no more than pleasantly cool during the day, with just enough nip to make a boy from Estafel feel refreshed and vigorous. For the last two weeks, Janaki had been looking forward to spending at least a day or so out on the lake, but Velvelig's remark reminded him of why he'd really returned to Ghartoun.

"I didn't expect to be back so soon, Sir," he said now, his expression turning grimmer. "Then again, a lot of things no one expected have been happening lately, haven't they?"

"That they have, Platoon-Captain," Velvelig agreed. He looked up at Janaki for another few seconds, then twitched his head at the admin block door. "Come into my office."

"Yes, Sir."

Janaki followed Velvelig into the administration building, down the short, rough-planked corridor to the regiment-captain's office, and through its door. He closed it behind himself and started to brace to attention, but Velvelig shook his head impatiently.

"Forget that nonsense," he said briskly. "Consider yourself already reported on-post."

"Yes, Sir. Thank you."

"Don't start thanking me yet," Velvelig snorted. Janaki quirked an eyebrow, and the regiment-captain seated himself in the swivel chair behind his desk with a grimace.

"May I ask why I shouldn't thank you, Sir?" Janaki asked after a moment.

"Because I'm pretty sure you were hoping to spend at least a day or two resting up before heading on up-chain to Failcham."

"Ah." Janaki nodded slowly. "I take it that's not going to happen, Sir?"

"You take it correctly … Your Highness."

Both of Janaki's eyebrows went up at that, and Velvelig leaned back in his chair and sighed.

"I know you specifically asked not to receive any special treatment when you reported to me eight months ago, Janaki," he said, "and overall, I thought you were right. Still do, in fact. I'm not Ternathian myself, of course, but I've always thought the Ternathian tradition that the heir to the throne ought to have military experience?real military experience, not just a token version of it?makes a lot of sense. That's why I went ahead and deployed you forward to New Uromath when Halifu needed reinforcements. But I'm sure you're aware of how things have changed out here in the last month or so."

He paused, his head cocked slightly to one side, and Janaki shrugged.

"Of course I am, Sir," he said quietly. "And I also understand why I was detailed to escort these prisoners to the rear. I don't say I like it, but I understand it. But if you'll pardon me for saying so, you sound as if you've got something even more specific in mind."

"I do." Velvelig turned his chair just far enough to one side to be able to gaze out his office window at Fort Ghartoun's parade ground. "You don't have a Voice assigned to your platoon, do you?" he asked.

"No, Sir." Janaki was a bit puzzled by the question. "Company-Captain chan Halifu considered sending one along with us, given the prisoners we're escorting. But we're short along this entire chain, especially with all the troop movements going on. Certainly too short to start assigning Voices to mere platoons. Besides, the company-captain knew Darcel Kinlafia was coming with us, so we were covered. Until he … went on ahead, of course."

"I know." Velvelig chuckled slightly. "Kinlafia came through here a week and a half ago like his horse's tail was on fire. For that matter, he looked like a man whose arse was on fire, too! But he didn't even state to soak his saddle sores." The regiment-captain appeared to be studying something on the empty parade ground with great intensity. "Seemed to be in quite hurry, now that I think about it. Had a note from you, too, I believe."

"Yes, Sir. I, ah, felt it was advisable to get him home to make a firsthand report as quickly as possible."

"You did, did you?" Velvelig glanced back at the crown prince. "Well, maybe you were right about that. But my point is that you've been more or less out of communication since you left Brithik."

"Yes, Sir."

The long overland march from Fort Brithik had taken the next best thing to three weeks. He'd been able to make better time (until, at least, he'd hit the mountains between Brithik and Salby) after leaving the majority of his wounded prisoners, in no small part because there were actual roads between Brithik and Fort Ghartoun. Several small towns?little more than a handful of roughly constructed buildings clustered around Portal Authority remount stations and Voice relay posts?had been strung along those roads like beads when Janaki and his platoon originally deployed forward from Fort Raylthar. On the journey back, many of them had been deserted, except for the Voices and Authority personnel still manning the remount stations.