"And?" Harshu prompted.
"And he never tilts his head back, Sir."
Harshu frowned at him for a moment, and then the two thousand's eyes narrowed slightly.
"So you're suggesting that since they don't know about dragons, he's not looking up, just out?"
"That's what I think he's doing, Sir," Neshok said, and this time he chose not to mention that it was one of his noncommissioned analysts who'd actually first spotted the Sharonian lookout's head movements. "If they don't have any flight capability of their own, it would make a lot of sense for them to be concentrating on surface threats. After all, they wouldn't know there was any other kind, would they?"
"No, they wouldn't," Harshu agreed slowly.
His eyes were focused on something else, something only he could see, and they stayed that way for the better part of two minutes. Then they refocused on Neshok.
"Anything else? Anything new?" he asked.
"That's most of the new information, Sir. I've prepared a complete download for you, of course. Shall I transfer the file to your PC?"
"Yes, go ahead."
"Yes, Sir."
Neshok arranged the transfer with brisk efficiency. As he did, he noticed the headers for the documents Harshu had been working on when he arrived. Troop strengths and arrival schedules, the acting five hundred noted without very much surprise.
"There you are, Sir," he said as the little icon that indicated the file transfers were complete appeared in both crystals.
"Thank you." Harshu considered him for a moment or two, then nodded. "Aside from a certain tendency to denigrate the enemy, that was an excellent brief, Five Hundred," he said. "Keep up the good work … and try like hell not to let the fact that you dislike these people lead you into making the sorts of mistakes contempt produces. Am I clear?"
"Yes, Sir! You are, Sir!" Neshok said, bracing quickly to attention.
"Good. Carry on, Five Hundred."
"Yes, Sir."
Neshok turned with rather more than normal military precision and marched out of Harshu's office. The compliment on the quality of his work had felt good … which, of course, only made the sting of Harshu's admonition sharper.
Well, the two thousand was good at that sort of thing. It was one of his hallmarks. Everybody got a zinger from him every so often, Neshok reminded himself; far fewer got the compliment which had gone in front of this one.
He decided to concentrate on that as he stepped out onto the Fort Rycharn parade ground.
Rycharn wasn't much of a fort, he thought. About right for that broken down ass-kisser Klian to command. At the moment, though, it was crowded to the bursting point and beyond by the scores of dragons thronging its improvised dragonfield. There were more transports than Neshok had ever seen in one place in his entire life. The heavy transports' cargo pods were parked as neatly as possible around the field's perimeter, but there wasn't room to be very neat about it. The tactical transports and the battle dragons were based on the western side of the field, as far away from the fort's palisade and the troop encampments as they could get. Three of Two Thousand mul Gurthak's planned four reinforcement waves had arrived already, and the fourth was due within the next week.
And what happens then, I wonder? Neshok mused, listening to the sounds of the immensely overcrowded encampment. Everybody's still being very careful to insist that no final decision's been made yet. I wonder just how true that actually is?
He snorted wryly at the thought. From what mul Gurthak had said to him in his own private briefing before he was sent out here, especially about the importance of not allowing the enemy to tighten his grip on Hell's Gate even further, he was fairly certain what the Fort Talon commander had in mind. Of course, he could be wrong, and even if he wasn't, circumstances might have changed?depending on what Skirvon and Dastiri had been able to accomplish diplomatically?since Neshok had been sent forward himself. And there was also the problem that Harshu was the commander actually on the spot. mul Gurthak couldn't push Harshu too hard without being rather more direct than Neshok was pretty sure the Mythalan two thousand wanted to be.
Which, of course, is the reason he sent me out here, isn't it? A military commander's decisions are always based on the intelligence available to him. Which means that the fellow who provides him with that information has a better chance than most to … shape his probable command decisions.
Commander of Five Hundred (Acting) Alivar Neshok smiled thinly as he gazed out across the ranks of dragons, the cargo pods, the white canvas tents of the waiting troopers, and the rows of field-dragons lined up so neatly in the artillery parks, and reflected upon the influence which had come to rest in his hands. It was a heavy responsibility, he told himself. One which had to be discharged carefully, thoughtfully.
And the fact that it put him in a position to help kick that sanctimonious, cowardly son-of-a-bitch Olderhan's gutless plans to just hand the biggest, most important portal cluster in history over to the enemy right in the balls was totally beside the point.
Chapter Fifty
"You look unhappy, Five Hundred."
Sarr Klian looked up. Two Thousand Harshu sat across the table from him, holding his wine glass loosely cradled in his right hand. That table was covered with a white cloth and empty plates, for the two of them had just finished dining in what had been Klian's sitting room before Harshu arrived to take command of the steadily growing military power which had come to be based here at Fort Rycharn. Klian didn't resent giving up his quarters to the two thousand. Not precisely, at any rate. He did rather resent giving up his office space, but he knew that was silly. Harshu was the senior officer present. He needed the best facilities available, and it was inevitable that he should have them.
"Unhappy, Sir?" Klian repeated, and Harshu smiled.
"Sparring for time, are we, Five Hundred?"
His voice was almost gentle, at odds with his normal public persona, and he shifted his hand slightly, tilting his wine glass. The gleaming light elements of the wall-mounted lamps had been turned down, reducing their normal brilliance to a level more comfortable for dining, but they were bright enough to light a red glow in the heart of the glass.
"I suppose I am, Sir," Klian admitted levelly. He looked across the table into Harshu's eyes. "It's been my experience that when a superior officer makes that sort of statement, it's often the prelude to a … counseling session, shall we say?"
"Ah." Harshu's smile grew broader, and he cocked his head to one side. "I suppose that's a fair enough observation, Five Hundred. In this case, though, I'm genuinely curious about your thoughts. You've been sitting out here at the sharp end longer than anyone else. I don't say that automatically gives you any sort of special insight none of the rest of us can share, but I'm very well aware that I've come waltzing in and taken over your territory with less than three weeks' experience on the job, as it were."
"Curious about my thoughts about what, precisely, Sir?" Klian asked. "If you mean about being effectively superseded, I don't suppose any commanding officer worth his salt is ever happy to see that happen. But I'm certainly not sitting here nursing a sense of resentment over it. That would be pointless, at best, and stupid, at worst. I'm a five hundred, and what we're looking at out here right now is a five thousand's command?maybe even a ten thousand's. Exigencies of the service or not, there's no way I'd be fitted to command a force that size, even if I were the senior officer present."
"I think you actually mean that," Harshu observed. He sipped a little wine, then shrugged. "I'm relieved to hear it, too. After all, you're going to be in command of our logistics node here, no matter what happens. I can think of very few things better suited to trip someone up in a field command than having his logistics … creatively tangled, shall we say, by a resentful subordinate."