Hell Hath No Fury: Chapter Eight

    Commander of Five Hundred Alivar Neshok looked up from the notes transcribed into his personal crystal as two of the troopers assigned to his Intelligence section hustled the latest prisoners into the large room Neshok had taken over for interrogation purposes. The room in question had originally been meant to serve as a secondary armory, as nearly as Neshok could tell. It was part of the same building as their main armory, at least, although it appeared that the fort's garrison must have been awaiting substantially more weapons and ammunition, since it had been empty when the Arcanans occupied it.

    The five Sharonians' hands were manacled behind them, and most of them were white-faced, obviously shocked and not a little terrified.

    Good, the Intelligence officer thought. Apparently even these barbarians are capable of absorbing object lessons . . . if the lesson's pointed enough, at any rate.

    He returned his attention to his crystal, ignoring the prisoners as obviously as possible while the handpicked, carefully instructed guards kicked and cuffed them into position.

    Very few of the Sharonian garrison had survived. In fact, only eleven of the Sharonians actually in the fort at the moment of the attack had lived long enough for the Healers to reach them. Two of those had died anyway, which was unfortunate. Prisoners represented intelligence, and intelligence was the most deadly weapon of all, especially in a war like this.

    And it was Alivar Neshok's task to wring every single drop of information out of these Sharonian scum. It wasn't always a pretty job, but someone had to do it, and Neshok knew he did it well.

    Too many of his colleagues seemed to forget the psychological aspect of interrogation techniques. Probably, Neshok often thought, because they'd basically been nothing but glorified policemen for the better part of two hundred years. There'd been no wars, no true "enemy" personnel to interrogate, since the founding of the Union, after all. For the most part, specialists in Neshok's particular area of expertise had been interrogating brigands, bandits, claim jumpers—the sort of scum who routinely preyed upon society out here in the frontier universes. In the process, they'd gotten lazy. That sort of criminal was hardly trained or motivated to resist questioning the way soldiers were, and the interrogator generally had a pretty detailed idea going in of what he expected to learn. A few basic verifier spells, and the prisoner's knowledge that those spells were in place (and of the consequences of adding perjury to the charge list), were usually enough to get them talking.

    It was going to take a little more in a case like this, though, which was why Neshok had designed his prisoners' "preparation" so carefully.

    The Healers wouldn't let him talk to their patients yet. That was also unfortunate. If he'd had his druthers, Neshok would have interrogated those "patients" before they were ever allowed to see the Healers in the first place. Pain and terror were great psychological motivators, after all. But Commander of Five Hundred Dayr Vaynair, Two Thousand Harshu's senior medical officer, had other ideas. He'd gotten up on his high Andaran horse and taken the position that the Kerellian Accords applied even to these people, which made him irritatingly representative of Healers in general, in Neshok's experience. Well, Neshok was Andaran, too, but he wasn't about to let the antiquated Andaran "honor code" get in the way of his responsibilities. All very well for Vaynair to stand upon his Healer's Oath without even bothering to hide his contempt for the people charged with securing the information the operational commanders simply had to have. This entire operation had gone so well so far solely because of the activities of people like Alivar Neshok, but did Vaynair recognize that? Did he realize he'd had so few Arcanan patients expressly because Neshok and his Intelligence team had done their jobs so well?

    Of course he didn't! He was too occupied with his contempt for the despised Intelligence people's efforts to continue to do their jobs.

    Well, we're just going to have to do something about Five Hundred Vaynair, aren't we? Neshok reflected. But not yet. Not until I've had time to build my case, at any rate.

    But if Vaynair wasn't going to let him interrogate his precious patients just yet, then Neshok would have to make do with prisoners like these.

    So far, the cavalry patrols Thousand Carthos had sent spreading out from the captured fort had swept up over thirty Sharonians who'd been outside the fort itself at the time of the attack. Most of them had been engaged on the sort of work details any military post had to provide. The tree cover on this side of Hell's Gate was just as bad, from the prospect of aerial operations, as on the other side, which explained why Carthos had been forced to rely on his unicorns to get out under the branches to secure the prisoners. Neshok suspected there were still at least one or two work parties who'd managed to evade the cavalry this far, although the odds of their continuing to do so much longer were slim.

    All of the prisoners they'd so far taken had been close enough to see the attack on the fort itself, which meant they'd finally realized that Arcana had combat capabilities which tremendously outclassed their own. They'd seen the dragons, seen the explosions of searing heat as the reds belched their fireballs. They hadn't seen the yellows' gas clouds, but Neshok had made certain they'd seen the consequences of both dragon types' breath weapons. That was why he'd had them marched straight here, across the fort's still-smoldering parade ground into this log building. The Sharonians hadn't peeled the bark off the conifer logs from which all of the fort's buildings had been constructed, and the radiant heat from the fireballs had turned that bark into flaking ash on every wall which had faced the parade ground.

    The bodies hadn't been policed up yet, either. They lay where they had fallen, twisted and contorted. Those who'd died of gas inhalation after the second pass of the attack wore expressions of horror and agony. Most of those who'd been killed by the fireballs in the first pass, on the other hand, showed no recognizable expression at all. There wasn't enough left of the shrunken, twisted chunks of charcoal which had once been humans for that.

    Now Neshok entered a few notes into his PC. They didn't actually say anything particularly important, but it was one more bit of windowdressing, and he gave himself a curt nod of approval, then looked up.

    The prisoners knelt in front of him. One of them—a short, wiry fellow kneeling at the left end of the line—reminded Neshok of Hulmok Arthag. That would have been more than enough to inspire the Intelligence officer with a lively sense of dislike, since there wasn't much doubt that whatever had gone wrong at Fallen Timbers, Arthag had almost certainly been at the bottom of it. Worse, though, this fellow wore the four red collar pips of a senior-armsman. That made him roughly the equivalent of a javelin, or possibly even a sword, according to the tentative table of organization Neshok had managed to work out for the Sharonians.

    It also meant that he was the senior prisoner, which made his hard eyes and mask-like expression unpromising.

    The other four were about as physically diverse as a similar sampling of Arcanan military personnel might have been. One of them—a towering, broad-shouldered, red-haired bear of a man with the two red pips of a petty-armsman, which made him the next senior prisoner—was bigger even than the Sharonian diplomat, Simrath. The other three ranged in height between the big petty-armsman and the Arthag-like senior-armsman.

    "Well," Neshok said finally, relying upon a translating crystal to render his words in fluent, idiomatic Ternathian, "I do hope you . . . gentlemen are prepared to be reasonable."

    None of the prisoners said anything, and Neshok allowed himself a slight frown as their faces hardened defiantly.

    "Now, I suppose you may be feeling heroic," he continued. "Of course, that would be a particularly stupid thing for you to do, under the circumstances. I'm sure that what you saw on your way across what used to be your fort has already suggested as much." He smiled thinly. "It isn't going to be very long before we move on to your next fort—in Thermyn, I believe you call it? And after that, we'll be continuing on up-chain. We won't be getting all the way to Sharona this time, of course. But by the time your reinforcements can get here, we'll be in position to run right over them before they even know what's happening."

    He smiled again, even more coldly.

    "You've seen what we did to your precious fort," he said. "I assure you, your portal fortifications were even less effective. So just what do you people think is going to happen when our dragons catch your reinforcement columns in the open, without any protection at all?"

    Two of the prisoners' faces had crumbled as Neshok spoke. They had no way of knowing how vastly the Intelligence officer had overstated the ease with which chan Tesh's positions had been taken. Nor could they possibly know he'd just expended almost his entire store of knowledge about what thousand Harshu's expeditionary force was likely to run into on its way up-chain. All they knew was that he seemed to be well informed, already. The big redhead, and the wiry little senior-armsman, on the other hand, appeared less impressed. The smaller man's expression showed no reaction at all—which, of course, was a reaction in its own right. But his taller companion seemed to be less adept at concealing his reactions. His eyes narrowed, his mouth tightened, and his shoulders squared.

    Good, Neshok thought coldly. Always best to start with the biggest one, especially when he's one of the noncoms the others will be looking to for leadership. It makes the point so much more effectively for the others.

    The acting five hundred looked at one of the two guards, and nodded very slightly.

    Javelin Lisaro Porath stepped forward without a word in response to the silent command and raised his heavy infantry arbalest to chest level, then brought its butt down in a flashing, vertical stroke. It struck the top of the petty-armsman's left shoulder like a hammer. It also took the big man completely by surprise, and he grunted in hoarse agony, despite himself, as the vicious stroke landed. Privately, Neshok was impressed that the man had managed not to cry out, although he wasn't about to let any of that show in his own expression.

    Pain and the physical impact drove the prisoner forward and down. With his hands behind him, he couldn't even try to catch himself, and he smashed face-first into the rough, split-log floor. Blood erupted from his flattened nose and pulped lips, and Porath reached down, caught him by his hair, yanked him back upright, and then drove a kneecap brutally into his spine. The impact hammered him forward again, his hair "slipping" from the Porath's fingers, and he thudded back onto the floor, where the guard proceeded to kick him repeatedly in the ribs.

    The second guard watched the other prisoners alertly, his arbalest ready, but they seemed too shocked, too stunned, to pose any kind of threat, and Neshok watched them closely as he let the brutal, systematic beating go on and on. He wanted them to stay shocked, wanted them to reflect upon what could happen to anyone who failed to provide the answers he sought.

    By the time the acting five hundred finally waved one index finger gently and Porath stepped back, panting with exertion, the big petty-armsman was unconscious. The arbalest butt had almost certainly broken his shoulder badly, and Neshok rather doubted that he had a single intact rib. His face was a mass of blood, bubbling on his lips as he breathed through his mouth rather than his flattened, broken nose, and his right cheek and lower jaw were a caved-in ruin of shattered bone. Neshok never doubted for a moment that the prisoner also had internal injuries, and a dark, vicious light of purring cruelty glowed in his eyes.

    "Drag that garbage out and get rid of it, Javelin Porath," he told the guard. The translating crystal obediently rendered the order in Ternathian for the other prisoners' benefit, and the trooper gave a harsh half-grunting laugh, grabbed the unconscious petty-armsman by an ankle, and dragged him out of the interrogation room. The sliding, scraping body left a trail of blood as the brutalized face scrubbed across the splintery floor, undoubtedly taking still more damage in the process, and Porath paused long enough to administer a final, savage kick to his victim's side before he dragged him the rest of the way out the door.

    That door closed behind him, and Neshok allowed his attention to return to the other four prisoners. Or, rather, he allowed them to see his attention return to them, as if he'd forgotten the crystal would translate his instructions to the guard into Ternathian. He smiled coldly at them, then looked up again as the door opened once more.

    Javelin Porath stepped back through it. His arbalest was slung across his back, and he was just settling his short sword back into its sheath. He rebuttoned the retaining strap across the quillons as he walked back to stand behind the remaining prisoners without a word.

    Very nice, Neshok thought approvingly.

    Porath had taken the Intelligence officer's instructions to heart, and he clearly had a thespian bent. Neshok had been half-afraid the trooper would do something like ostentatiously wiping his blade, or something equally obvious. Instead, he'd opted for something understated enough to clearly imply the desired effect without overdoing it, and his satisfied expression was more effective than any theatrically homicidal leer.

    As if I had any intention of wasting an intelligence asset that quickly, Neshok thought contemptuously as he watched the prisoners draw the desired conclusion. The wiry senior-armsman's face showed absolutely no change of expression. If anything, his eyes simply hardened even further, but his companions were quite another matter. There was still anger in them, Neshok decided. In fact, their anger burned hotter and fiercer than ever, yet its heat was at least matched by fresh, choking terror. Obviously, they believed exactly what he'd wanted them to believe.

    Hard to blame them for that, really, even without that neat little bit of acting, he admitted. Just the beating probably would've killed the bastard in the end, and these fucking barbarians have never heard of proper Healers. Even if they had, it might not have occurred to them—yet—just what that implies when it comes to the application of . . . forceful arguments in favor of cooperation. Well, they're going to find out exactly what that means, aren't they? Eventually, of course.

    He was going to have to deal with Vaynair first, no doubt. One of the things the Kerellian Accords specifically prohibited was the use of Healers in the interrogation of prisoners. Alivar Neshok had no intention of allowing his hands to be tied that way, however. Which was really the main reason Five Hundred Vaynair had to go. Vaynair would almost certainly go ahead and Heal the battered petty-armsman this time, but he'd never sign off on the use of torture or allow any of the Healers under his command to cooperate by healing the physical consequences of a . . . rigorous interrogation session only to let the questioners begin all over again without accidentally expending their intelligence assets.

    In the meantime . . . .

    "Perhaps the rest of you are feeling inclined to be a little more cooperative now?" he suggested, and one of the prisoners—a young under-armsman who couldn't have been much over twenty—swallowed visibly. Neshok noted the reaction with satisfaction.

    "I'm sure, for example," he continued, "that one of you would like to help me out by telling me exactly which of the other portals Viscount Simrath and Platoon-Captain Arthag might have chosen to make for."

    No one answered, and Neshok showed his teeth in something no one would ever have mistaken for a smile.

    It had become abundantly and painfully evident that whatever else had happened at Fallen Timbers, Narshu's mission couldn't possibly have been a complete success. It was going to be a while before they could prove that conclusively, however. The forest fire which Neshok was personally certain Arthag had deliberately started to cover his tracks was rapidly turning into a demonic holocaust. The tinder-dry autumn forest, with its deep drifts of leaves, had proved the ideal target for the Sharonian's arson. A booming, crackling wavefront of flame was spreading out—it was actually moving upwind, as well as downwind—and there was no possibility of containing or controlling that raging fury. It had already completely blocked the overland route between the swamp portal and Hell's Gate, and unless some divine agency chose to intervene soon, it was going to burn all the way back to both of those portals. Not to mention burning the gods only knew how far in every other direction, as well.

    From the Sharonians' perspective, simply blocking the trail would have been completely worthwhile in its own right, especially if they'd set the fire before they discovered the Air Force's existence. It was going to be a pain in the arse for Arcana even with the advantage of dragons and levitation spells; without that advantage, it would have delayed Two Thousand Harshu's offensive for days, probably even longer. The fact that it was going to completely destroy any possibility of tracking the Sharonian fugitives from Fallen Timbers was simply gravy from their viewpoint. But Neshok wasn't about to let them get away with that. If Rithmar Skirvon and Uthik Dastiri were still alive, Neshok wanted them back, and not just because they were accredited diplomats of the Union of Arcana. He wasn't supposed to know just how . . . friendly the diplomats were with Two Thousand mul Gurthak, but he was an Intelligence officer. As such, he had a pretty shrewd notion of how grateful mul Gurthak would be if Neshok could manage to retrieve them.

    "Come now," he said almost gently as the silence stretched out. "I'm sure none of you want to be so . . . uncooperative that you make me angry. Believe me, you won't like me when I'm angry."

    "We don't know where they'd go!" the young under-armsman blurted suddenly.

    "That's enough, Sirda," the senior-armsman said quietly, almost gently.

    The youngster darted a look at the older man, then clamped his jaws with a visible effort and stared at the floor directly in front of him, avoiding any possible eye contact with Neshok.

    "No, Sirda," the Arcana said, his voice almost as quiet as the senior-armsman's, but far, far colder. "It isn't enough. It isn't nearly enough."

    The under-armsman—Sirda—clenched his chained hands into fists behind him. His face was pale, and he bit his lip, hard, but he didn't speak.

    Neshok nodded to the second of the two guards, and the Arcanan trooper bent over Sirda from behind, twisted his fingers in the young man's hair, and yanked his head back so hard the youngster couldn't quite smother his cry of pain. The pressure on his scalp forced him to look up, meet Neshok's eyes, and the Intelligence officer's smile was cruel and thin.

    "Someone is going to tell me what I want to know," Neshok said softly. "Whoever it is, will probably get to live. As for whoever it isn't . . ."

    He let his eyes drift to the trail of blood the big petty-armsman's face had left across the floor, then looked back at Sirda. The young man's throat worked, and sweat coated his face.

    "In that case," the senior-armsman said levelly, "why don't you ask me?"

    Neshok allowed his eyebrows to arch and gazed at the Sharonian noncom thoughtfully.

    "I hadn't realized you were so eager to be reasonable, Senior-Armsman," he said. "Very well, which portal did Simrath and Arthag make for?"

    The senior-armsman looked back up at him for a moment, then said something in a language the translating crystal didn't understand. The long sentence—or sentences—sounded guttural, yet flowing and edged with a sort of harsh music, but the language certainly wasn't Ternathian, and Neshok frowned.

    "Speak Ternathian."

    The Intelligence officer managed to bring the words out calmly, suppressing—barely in time—the urge to snap them out. Using anger to generate fear in someone else was a useful interrogation tool, but allowing a prisoner to successfully bait him would be a sign of weakness.

    "Oh," the senior-armsman said. "Your rock doesn't speak Arpathian?"

    "Speak Ternathian," Neshok repeated almost tonelessly, and the kneeling prisoner shrugged.

    "If you want," he said. "I said, he already told you. We don't know the answer to your question."

    "And what else did you say?" Neshok asked softly.

    "Actually, what I said was, 'He already told you. We don't know the answer to your question, you syphilitic, camel-fucking son of a diseased sow and a hundred pig-fucking fathers,'<thinspace>" the senior-armsman replied . . . and smiled.

    "It was, was it?"

    Neshok tried to keep his voice calm, level, despite the sudden, savage bolt of white-hot fury which burst suddenly through him, but he knew he'd failed. He heard the anger crackling in his own words, heard the way they quivered about the edges, and saw the satisfaction in the senior-armsman's eyes.

    Eyes, Neshok suddenly realized, which, like the cold smile below them, held not a single trace of fear. Which dared the acting five hundred to do his worst. And as he realized that, Neshok realized something else, as well. The senior-armsman had deliberately redirected Neshok's own attention—and anger—to himself, and away from the terrified young under-armsman.

    The five hundred glared at the Sharonian in front of him. It would have been inaccurate to say that Neshok reached a decision. That would have implied a deliberate, at least semi-rational process. He told himself, later, that it had been exactly that. That the coldly calculated need to undermine any defiance the senior-armsman might have managed to inject into his subordinates was what inspired him. Certainly a trained, determined interrogator would never allow a prisoner's words—the only weapon the prisoner possessed—to fill him with such sudden, volcanic fury that he acted without truly thinking at all.

    Alivar Neshok looked at the guard standing behind the Arpathian prisoner, clenched his fist at shoulder level, and jerked it downward.

    The Arpathian must have understood what that gesture meant, but his eyes never flinched and his smile never faltered as the short sword hissed out of its sheath behind him and the guard's free hand gripped his hair and yanked his head back.

    "Now . . . Sirda," Neshok heard his own voice say across the coppery stink of the huge fan of blood which had erupted from the senior-armsman's slashed throat to fill his nostrils, "I believe you had something you wanted to tell me."