The last one was placed, and the man who'd placed them returned to the edge of the clearing and rejoined his companions. Their commander said something further, then turned once again and looked at Shaylar, with something terrifying and almost pleading in his eyes. He took something from the pocket of his uniform blouse, looked at his men, and spoke again.
His voice was harsh with command, and every one of his men snapped to attention. Their right hands struck their left shoulders in what was obviously a salute, and they held it as the commander drew a quick breath, as if for courage, and touched something on the object he taken from his pocket.
Light flared, so bright Shaylar had to look away, her eyes clenching shut in reflex. When she got them open again, her entire body stiffened. The bodies laid so carefully on the ground were burning.
She choked, tried to whirl away, and lost her precarious balance. She was falling, dragging the other woman with her. Someone was screaming mindlessly, and a corner of her mind realized it was her. Strong hands caught her, kept her from sprawling across the ground, and she fought like a wildcat, striking out with her fists and nails, frantic to escape this newest horror. She might as well have tried hitting a mountain. The hands were strong, terrifyingly strong, yet strangely gentle, and their owner was saying something in a voice filled with raw pain.
And then her Talent betrayed her once again.
His emotions battered her bleeding senses with someone else's regret, so sharp it was like a knife in her own heart. And that wasn't all. She felt his aching desire to erase her suffering, and a bitter acknowledgment that his attempt to show respect to her people had backfired hideously. He would have done anything in that moment to ease her pain, and she knew it. Knew it with the absolute certainty possible only to a telepath.
It was the cruelest thing he could have done to her. She needed an enemy to hate, and he gave her this?his bleeding heart and the agony of a man whose every instinct was to protect and who knew, with a certainty which matched her own, that he'd destroyed her very life, instead.
Shaylar opened her eyes and stared up into his, and then shuddered violently and went limp, undone by that last realization.
Jasak stared helplessly at the tiny, wounded figure slumped in his arms. He'd tried to show her companions the same honor he'd paid his own fallen men. He'd hoped?prayed?she could understand that there were too many dead, too few living to carry them home again. Too many for them to bury in earthen graves if they had any hope of getting the wounded back to safety in time for it to do any good.
He couldn't?wouldn't?leave any of them for the buzzards and the carrion crows. Her companions had been as human as his own men, and he was already beginning to suspect that they hadn't been soldiers at all. They'd been civilians, but they'd fought trained soldiers with a courage?and a ferocity?any man of honor must respect. If anyone had ever deserved proper treatment from their enemies, these men had.
But he should have realized what those fiery bursts of light and flame would do to someone who'd just seen all of her companions slaughtered in deadly explosions of fire. Especially when there was no way for any of them to explain to her what they were doing.
Jasak didn't know what to do. No training manual, no officers' course, covered something like this, and he glanced up at Gadrial, hoping for enlightenment, or even a simple suggestion. But he found her biting her lip, her own face twisted with guilt and a sense of helplessness which matched his own.
But then the slender woman he held lifted her head. Her eyes were wet and wounded, reddened from too many tears, but they studied him for a brief, dreadful eternity. He was unaware he'd been holding his breath until she turned that deadly gaze away, releasing him from the paralysis which had gripped him, and looked out at the still fiercely blazing funeral pyres.
She wrenched away from him and stood watching the flames, her body swaying for balance, her face ashen. When she started to speak, Jasak's pulse jumped in shock. Her voice was a thin, fragile sound against the roar of magic-induced flames. He couldn't know if she was invoking a deity, or speaking a eulogy, or simply saying their names, but a chill ran across his skin as he watched her face the flames and all they meant.
Everyone else was staring at her, as well, and several of his men shivered. Jasak wondered how many of his men she'd killed. She'd still had a weapon in her hand when they found her. Who was she? They didn't even know her name, much less what she was, or why she was here, and the totality of his ignorance appalled him.
She finished speaking at last and closed her eyes. She stood silently for long moments, tears sliding down her cheeks. Her face was bruised and swollen, blood had dried in her hair, and the poignancy of her grief tore at his heart like considers. She nearly crumpled when Gadrial wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and Jasak started forward to capture. But she caught herself, stiffened her knees, and stayed on her feet.
"Jathmar," she whispered brokenly, and Jasak watched Gadrial guide her back into the trees and help her sit down beside the man who wore the cuff that matched hers.
Jasak watched for a moment longer, then dragged his attention away and focused on the next task at hand. Somehow, he had to transport his own wounded, a woman with an obvious concussion, and a man so badly injured he literally hovered at death's door, through almost twenty miles of rough wilderness. And somehow, he had to figure out what happened here, and how a handful of people had slaughtered Fifty Garlath's command in such a tiny handful of minutes. First Platoon had gone into the fight with fifty-six arbalestiers and dragon gunners. Twenty-seven of them were dead, and another nineteen were wounded, some of them critically.
With Threbuch and one other trooper dispatched to find the other side's portal, he had fewer uninjured men than he had wounded, even counting his six engineers and the baggage handlers.
He didn't look forward to the rest of the day.
Haliyar Narmayla struggled to hold back tears as the carriage clattered through the cobbled streets of New Ramath. The cavalry escort riding in front of her cleared the way, giving her carriage absolute priority, and the port master had already been alerted to expect her arrival. The dispatch boat was undoubtedly raising steam even as the well-sprung, rubber-tired carriage swayed and vibrated over the cobbles.
It was impossible to see much, or would have been, if she'd had the heart to look out the window in the first place. New Ramath was a respectable small city?or very large town, depending on one's standards?but it was no huge metropolis. It was also out towards the end of the explored multiverse. In fact, it's only reason for existence was to serve Fort Tharkoma, perched in its mountainous aerie almost four hundred miles inland, where it covered both the exit portal from the universe of Salym and also the railhead from Sharona itself. Additional track was being laid beyond Tharkoma, of course. In fact, the actual railhead was currently no more than a few hundred miles short of Fort Salby in the universe of Traisum.
But New Ramath was a critical link in the chain which bound the ever expanding frontier to the home universe. The entry portal for Salym was guarded by Fort Losaltha, almost fourteen hundred miles from Fort Tharkoma. The rail line could have been extended from Losaltha directly to Tharkoma, but Losaltha was located at the Salym equivalent of Barkesh in Teramandor, where the fist of the Narhathan Peninsula and the Fist of Bolakin closed off the eastern end of the Mbisi Sea. A rail line would have had to skirt the northern coast of the Mbisi and penetrate some of the most rugged mountains to be found in any universe. With its long experience, the Portal Authority and the shareholders of the Trans-Temporal Express had opted to avoid the huge construction costs and delay that would have entailed and utilize the water route, instead.