fireball spells' apparent lack of penetration, they ought to resist even direct hits almost indefinitely.
He'd also arranged a few other things he hoped would come as nasty surprises to any potential attackers, but he'd always been aware that he'd be hard-pressed to stop any attack in force.
Many of his men (and at least some of his junior officers), on the other hand, thought he was being alarmist. He knew that. Despite his best efforts, they remained supremely confident-even overconfident
– of their ability to deal with anything the other side might produce. Yet as chan Tesh had pointed out at this morning's conference, people always learned more from failure than from success, and what Sharona actually knew about Arcana's military capabilities remained pitifully inadequate. At least some of the Arcanan troops his command had defeated two months ago had managed to escape, however-
that had been obvious from the moment Skirvon mentioned the confirmed death of that Arcanan civilian, Halathyn, in the attack-which meant the other side had probably learned more than he would have liked about Sharonian capabilities. But even if that weren't true, the natural response would be for Arcana to be bringing up the equivalent of its big guns (whatever the hells that might be) just as quickly as it could, and that could turn very ugly very quickly. Especially if those damned boats of theirs were any indication of their general mobility.
Chan Tesh himself was painfully well aware that much of his earlier victory owed its success to the Arcanans' complete lack of familiarity with modern firearms and mortars. The peerless stupidity of their commanding officer hadn't hurt, either, and that advantage, in particular, was something he couldn't count on the second time around. Just as-as he'd reminded his subordinates this morning-they couldn't afford to assume for a single instant that what they'd seen so far out of Arcana was, in fact, the best Arcana had.
There's a hell of a lot of difference between a four-and-a-half-inch mortar and an eleven-inch howitzer, he thought, and the other side hasn't seen that yet, either, has it?
At least chan Baskay's dispatch had helped him ginger up his platoon commanders. Which was remarkably little comfort compared to the way it had underscored chan Tesh's existing concerns.
He snorted again, this time without any humor at all. Chan Baskay's message had at least seen to it that chan Tesh's entire command was at a higher state of readiness. He hoped to all the gods that those among his subordinates whothought he was jumping at shadows turned out to be right. He was confident he and his men were as ready as they could be, but he was also more aware than ever of just how exposed, vulnerable, and- above all-unsupported they actually were.
Commander of Fifty Tharian Narshu had been carefully chosen for his present duty.
Despite his junior rank, Narshu had seen more than his fair share of combat against everything from brigands to cattle rustlers to claim-jumpers to landowners using 'guest workers' as virtual slave labor.
More to the point, perhaps, he wasn't the Regular Army officer he appeared to be. He'd been trained in the far harder, tougher school of the Union of Arcana's Special Operations Force, as had half of the men under his command. Two Thousand mul Gurthak had grabbed Narshu and the single squad of his platoon he'd had with him, snatched them (and the transport dragon which had been moving them to join the rest of his platoon in Jylaros) out of the regular transport queue, and hurried them forward to Two Thousand Harshu. Harshu had been delighted to see them … and he'd used them to provide the core of Master Skirvon's 'honor guard.'
The honor guard's other twelve men were primarily windowdressing, along solely to make up the numbers, who had no idea their commanding officer and fellow troopers weren't, in fact, Regular Army at all. Narshu wished fervently that all of them could have been Special Operations, but there were never enough SpecOps available. Two Thousand mul Gurthak had been unreasonably fortunate to to have even one of Narshu's squads available this far out into the boondocks when it had all hit the fan. Besides, a dozen SpecOps troopers ought to be more than sufficient, especially with Sword Seltym Laresk to run the squad. Narshu and Laresk had served together for almost two years now, and the fifty had total confidence in the noncom.
He was glad he did, too, because Tharian Narshu, unlike the late, unlamented Hadrign Thalmayr, wasn't about to underestimate his opposition. This Platoon-Captain Arthag, for example, was as tough and competent as anyone Narshu had ever seen. But competence didn't matter, he reminded himself, when it was offset by complete ignorance and total surprise, and these people knew nothing about even the simplest magic.
If there'd been any doubt about that, it had been dispelled several days ago when Narshu and his men first started bringing their daggerstones with them.
Narshu had been in two minds about the wisdom of issuing the daggerstones that soon. He'd been afraid that, despite Five Hundred Neshok's and Master Skirvon's assurances to the contrary, the other side might have some way of detecting them. It wasn't as if they were particularly hard to spot, after all-that was why they were so seldom used by the Spec Ops teams, despite their firepower-and their maximum effective range was barely ten yards. The possibility of getting the ridculously short-ranged weapons close enough to do any good was minimal in the face of even the most rudimentary security spells.
Two Thousand Harshu had insisted, however, and Narshu couldn't really fault the two thousand for it.
Unlike these Sharonians and their 'Voices,' there was no way for Narshu to report the success or failure of his current mission in time for the two thousand to modify his own plans. That was the entire reason Narshu was out here-to level the communications playing field, as it were-and if his mission had been likely to fail simply because the Sharonians could, indeed, recognize a daggerstone for what it was, finding out at the very last moment would be disastrous.
No one on the other side had noticed a thing, though. Nor did any of them seem aware of the real reason for all of the last few weeks' 'incidents.'
And, he thought, glancing idly at his chronometer, it's about time the game began.
Rithmar Skirvon kept his attention focused on Viscount Simrath, and not on Fifty Narshu, just as he'd been very careful to avoid any casual glance at his own chronometer. Despite that, he was almost agonizingly aware of Narshu's presence behind him, and despite the coolness of the dry northern air, he felt sweat gathering along his scalp as the tension coiled tighter and tighter inside him.
It was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain his air of concentration, to respond to Simrath's statements with the proper degree of normality. He'd expected some of that, but he hadn't anticipated just how difficult it might prove, and he found himself unexpectedly grateful for Simrath's earlier abrasiveness. The Sharonian diplomat had introduced a confrontational atmosphere which, in turn, offered an acceptable pretext for any sharpness on Skirvon's part, especially in the wake of all of the unfortunate outbursts of temper over the past couple of weeks. As a matter of fact, those 'outbursts' had been carefully designed for the specific purpose of covering any last-minute tension on the Arcanans'
part if the Sharonians happened to notice it.
None of which made the diplomat feel one bit calmer as the last few moments trickled past.
Tharian Narshu's right thumb hooked into his broad, stiff sword belt.
It was a completely natural-looking mannerism, if not precisely the most militarily correct posture in the world. In fact, he'd taken considerable pains to display that particular'sloppy habit' to the Sharonians for the last couple of weeks. It was about as unthreatening as it could be-his hand was on the opposite side from his sword's hilt, after all-but he'd wanted that sharp-eyed bastard Arthag to be accustomed to it.
The last thing Narshu needed was for the Sharonian officer to notice anything out of the ordinary on the day when it finally mattered.
The fifty's own eyes never strayed from their slightly bored, incurious focus on Viscount Simrath, but his carefully trained peripheral vision made one last sweep to confirm that the rest of his men were in position. Only his SpecOps squad had a clue about what was going to happen. The rest of his 'honor guard' detachment were all tough, capable vets, but they weren't SpecOps. They lacked the specialized training and experience of Narshu's own squad, and he'd decided against briefing them in ahead of time on the theory that what they didn't know was coming they couldn't inadvertently give away.
I'm going to have to apologize to them when this is all over, he thought. They're good troops, and they're going to have a right to be pissed off when they find out what's really been going on.
But he'd take care of that later; at the moment, he had other things to think about.
He completed his methodical check of his troopers' positions. Everyone was exactly where he was supposed to be. That was good. In fact, the only flaw in Narshu's satisfaction was that Arthag was outside his field of view.
It was just like the bastard to be uncooperative, the fifty thought sourly. He knew where Arthag was, of course, but he wasn't about to turn his head and look for the man-not at a moment like this. Besides, Arthag
