They fired the rifle dry, and the bastards were still coming. No time to reload. Darcel went for Shaylar's Polshana, but it was Shaylar who acquired the first target. She brought the gun up two-handed, centered a charging soldier, squeezed the double-action trigger. The man staggered, clutched at his chest, and then his face exploded as their second hollow-nosed slug hit him squarely in the forehead and she shot him down like carrion.

Rilthan wreaked havoc on the center of the charging line. Each time his rifle cracked, a soldier screamed and sprawled in the debris, leaving a widening gap in the middle of their line. Shaylar tracked to the side, acquiring a target at the right hand end of the charge and firing, again and again, as she worked her way inward, and Darcel knew their revolver was almost empty.

The charge wavered. Halted. Broke apart. Shaken soldiers ran back into the cover of the trees, and someone was shouting orders from back there. More men were moving into position. Gods-how many of them were there?

Reload! Darcel shrieked at Shaylar through their connected minds. Reload!

Shaylar swung out the Polshana's cylinder, tipped it up, hit the ejection rod. Empty cases fell glittering to the leaves, and her left hand steadied the cylinder as her right snatched the speedloader from her pocket. The fresh rounds slid into the cylinder, perfectly aligned despite her choking terror, and she twisted the speedloader's release knob and dropped it, even as her left hand snapped the cylinder back into place. Then she reholstered the revolver and reached for the ammunition box ready at her elbow. Reloaded the rifle with hands which had steadied down to a mind-numbed, rote-smooth motion. Cartridge in, press it down, next cartridge in, press it down- Darcel caught motion from the corner of his eye. He slewed around, and Shaylar brought the rifle with them, rising to a half-crouch and firing as a third artillery crew laid in their fire mission.

"Jathmar! Down!"

Two blasts erupted from the mouth of hell.

A fireball ripped through the fallen trees again-and writhing through the incandescent flames came a jagged streak of lightning. It slammed into Barris Kasell, who was still shouting orders. For one horrifying second, he twisted in midair, lit by blue actinic fire that burst from his very skin.

Thunder struck. Fire crackled everywhere. The entire world was ablaze. Then the cool air was back again, and they gasped, shuddering, fighting for breath.

Shaylar passed her rifle to Jathmar to give him a backup weapon and fumbled for her pack. She yanked it open and started dragging out her maps, her notebooks-the records of every universe they'd mapped, with the locations of every portal in the cluster they'd been exploring, and-far worse-every portal between here and Sharona itself.

She dragged them out, snatched a branch from a blazing pile of deadwood, touched flame to each and every map in her possession. Burned them to ash. Ripped out notebook pages and fed them to the flames, as well. Rifles cracked, men screamed horribly, and still she consigned pages to the flames, destroying her work in a desperate bid to keep the savage killers from overrunning every portal they could reach. And even as she burned them, Darcel heard fewer and fewer rifles still firing, knew his friends-his family-were dying around her under the fury of those impossible, horrifying balls of flame and bolts of lightning.

She set the final page aflame, then tossed the leather binder and map case themselves into the burning deadwood. Only a handful of rifles were still spitting defiance, and she snatched out her Polshana again, turned back towards her firing position.

And then it happened.

Jathmar had realized what she was doing, and how important it was. He'd stood over her, firing steadily, protecting her while she worked. But as she tossed the final load into the flames, he jumped down to pull her back to a safer spot . . . just as another fireball struck. It caught his back, flung him against a fallen, crosswise tree branch. His belly and chest struck hard, and he doubled up around the wood, pinned for horrible seconds with flames scorching his back.

His clothes ignited. Fire crisped hair and skin.

"JATHMAR!".

This scream tore her throat. Shaylar and Darcel were scrambling forward, trying to reach Jathmar as he slid off a branch and fell to the ground. Lightning branched and slammed inches away. The concussion of thunder hurled them sideways. Their head struck something incredibly hard with bone-crushing force- Darcel exploded back into his own body.

The air was clear. No smoke. No screams. No dying men. The portal, silent as sunlight, stood thirty yards to his left as he lay sprawled across the ground. Psychic shock held him immobile for long, soul-shaking moments. He heard distant voices shouting and saw someone running toward him from the far side of the portal, where a slow but steady rain was falling. Darcel shoved himself into a sitting position, groped for a rifle that wasn't there. Then he realized who it was running toward him. Grafin Halifu, himself. Commander of the new fort that was only three hundred yards from where Darcel lay sprawled, stunned, in the sunlight.

"What's wrong?" Halifu demanded, his own rifle in his hand as he closed the last ten yards. "You started shouting something about soldiers in the woodline!"

Darcel lifted unsteady hands, scrubbed his face, tried to reorient himself.

"Attack," he managed to say in a wheezing groan. "Our crew's under attack. Infantry, artillery fire-"

"What?" Halifu's face washed white with shock.

"I was linked with Shaylar." Darcel shut his eyes. "Oh, gods-Shaylar!"

He tried to contact her, tried frantically to get through. But he found only deathly cold silence.

"She's not-" Halifu's horror-choked voice broke off, unwilling-or unable-to complete the question.

"I don't know." Darcel was shaking, unable to control the runaway tremors. "We were hit by an artillery blast of some kind. Thrown by the concussion. Hit our head on something."

He wrapped his arms about himself, gulped down air.

"Ghartoun's dead. So are Barris Kasell and Braiheri Futhai. Elevu Gitel. And if Jathmar's still alive-oh, gods, the burns were horrible-"

He realized he was rocking back and forth only when someone else's arm around his shoulders steadied him and Halifu pressed something metallic against his chattering teeth.

"Drink!"

Darcel gulped, choked, wheezed as the whiskey went down. His eyes smarted . . . but his whirling senses steadied.

"Thanks," he whispered as the world stopped looping around him.

More people were arriving from the fort, armed for battle and staring a little wildly at the trees around Darcel's camp. Company-Captain Halifu got a second deep gulp of whiskey into him, then waited until the worst of the shakes had eased up.

"Can you give me a report now?" he asked quietly.

Darcel couldn't look into the officer's worried eyes. He knew if he did, he wouldn't be able to speak at all. So he stared at the ground instead and started to talk.

He rambled, his voice unsteady and hoarse, trying to convey the horror, the terrifyingly alien attack, the inexplicable weapons that had sent death crashing across the terrified, outnumbered survey crew. Most of them were civilians, totally unprepared to deal with something as brutal as an all-out attack by trained troops.

Darcel realized he'd finished talking when Company-Captain Halifu ripped out a hideous oath. He clenched his jaws so tightly his teeth creaked, still sitting on the ground.

"Stinking bastards!" Halifu snarled. "I may be supposed to have a company here, but all I've got is two understrength platoons, less than a hundred and fifty men, and Platoon-Captain Arthag's cavalry detachment. And he's riding straight into a trap with half of his men right fucking now! I can't possibly meet an attack by weapons like that-not without reinforcements-and we're over five thousand miles from the nearest railhead! The column from Fort Salby's due any day, but how close it is yet is anyone's guess."

The fort's commander made himself stop, draw a deep breath. He stepped back from his rage and fear and shook his head.

"Armsman chan Therson!"

"Sir!"

Chief-Armsman Dunyar chan Therson, Bronze Company's senior noncom, snapped to attention.

"Get Bantha. Tell him we need to get a dispatch to Petty-Captain Arthag at once. He's to stop where he is and hold position."

"Yes, Sir!" Therson said.

"Then find Petty-Captain chan Shermayr. His infantry's going to have to assume full responsibility for our security here; I want the rest of Arthag's men in the saddle and moving up to reinforce him inside the next five minutes. See to it that Arthag knows they're coming and that he's not to move another yard until the rest of the rescue party catches up with him."

"Rescue party?" Darcel choked out. "What's the fucking point?"

Company-Captain Halifu went white again.

"Surely there must be some survivors," he said hoarsely.

Darcel never knew what showed on his face, but suddenly Halifu was crouched in front of him, gripping his shoulders with bruising force.

"Don't give up yet," the Uromathian said in a voice full of gravel and steel grit. "I'm sure as hell not giving up, not until we've seen proof. If I were the commander of that military force, I'd want survivors, someone I could question-"

Darcel flinched, and Halifu bit his lip.

"I'm sorry, Darcel. I know they're friends, almost family."

"Shaylar," Darcel groaned, closing his eyes in despair. He was half in love with her himself. He'd treated her like a kid sister, mostly to convince his heart it didn't actually feel what it stubbornly insisted it felt. Oh, yes, he'd loved Shaylar, just as he'd loved Jathmar for treating her like a queen, as well as a beloved spouse and professional partner.

Shaylar, he whispered into the dead silence of his broken telepathic link. Wake up, please. Please, Shay!

But her voice remained lost in a black nothingness at the center of his soul, and Darcel slowly lifted his head. He came to his feet, scrubbed at wet eyes while the others scuffed tufts of grass with their boots and dug divots out of the ground rather than embarrass him by noticing the tears.

"Company-Captain Halifu," he said in a voice of steel-sharp hatred. "I believe you said something about needing reinforcements?"

Halifu met his gaze levelly-met and held it. Then he nodded.

"Yes, I did. If you'd be so kind as to transmit a message for me, requesting them, we'll get started on that rescue mission."

"Compose your message, Sir," Darcel said very, very softly. "I'll be waiting when you're ready to send it."

He turned away then, without another word, and started breaking out the ammunition boxes in his gear.

Chapter Nine.

"Cease fire! Cease fire!"

Jasak plowed into the nearest infantry-dragon's crew. He caught the closer assistant gunner by the collar and heaved him bodily away from the weapon. The gunner didn't even seem to notice . . . until Jasak kicked him solidly in the chest.

"Cease fire, godsdamn you!"

The gunner toppled over with an absolutely astonished expression. For just an instant, he didn't quite seem to understand what happened. Then his expression changed from confusion to horrified understanding, and he shook himself visibly.

Two of First Platoon's four dragons were still firing, blasting round after round into the tangle of fallen timber. There hadn't been a single return shot in well over a minute, but the gunners didn't even seem to realize it. They were submerged in a battle frenzy, too enraged by the slaughter of their fellow troopers-and too terrified by the enemy's devastating weapons-to think about things like that.

"Graholis seize you, cease fire!" Jasak bellowed, charging into a second dragon's crew while Chief Sword Threbuch waded into the third.

The fourth dragon hadn't fired in some time; its entire crew, and six other troopers who'd taken their places, were sprawled around it, dead or wounded.

Threbuch tossed the last operable dragon's gunner into a tangle of blackberry bushes at the clearing's edge just as a final lightning bolt sizzled from the focus point and slammed into a fallen tree trunk. Bark flew, smoke billowed up with the concussive sound of thunder, and then the discharge fizzled out.

Silence, alien and strange, roared in Jasak's ears.

He stood panting for breath, his pulse kicking at the insides of his eardrums like a frantic drumbeat. He made himself stand there, fighting his shakes under control, then dragged his sleeve across his face to clear his eyes of sweat and grime. Only then did he make himself look, make himself count the bodies.

His men lay sprawled like gutted marionettes across ground that was splashed with far too much blood. There were bodies everywhere, too many of them motionless, not even moaning, and his stomach clenched in the agony only a commanding officer could know.

Graholis' balls. Half his entire platoon was down out there. Half!

"You're bleeding, Sir."

The quiet, steady voice punched through his numb horror. Shocked, he slewed around to find his chief sword tearing open a medical kit.

"What?"

"You're bleeding, Sir. Let's have a look."

"Fuck that!" Jasak snapped. "It can't be more than a scratch. We've got to search for the wounded-all the wounded. Theirs as well as ours."

"So order a search. But you're still bleeding, and I'm still going to do something about that."

"I'm not-"

"Do I have to knock you down and sit on you, Hundred?" Otwal Threbuch snarled so harshly Jasak stared at him in total shock.

"You're our only surviving officer, Sir," Threbuch's voice was like harsh iron, fresh from the furnace, "and you will damned well hold still until I find out why there's blood dripping off your scalp and pouring down your side!"

Jasak closed his mouth. He hadn't realized he was bleeding quite that badly, and he made himself sit quietly while the chief sword swabbed at the scalp cut he hadn't even felt. Worse was the furrow that something had plowed through the flesh along the edge of his ribs. Whatever it was, it had barely grazed him, but it had left a long, stinging wound in his side, ripped his uniform savagely, and left an impressive bloodstain that had poured down over his side. Another few inches inward, and it would have gone straight through a lung, or even his heart.

Jasak gritted his teeth, directing his surviving noncoms-there weren't many-to search for the wounded while Threbuch applied a field dressing. The instant the chief sword finished, Jasak strode out into the clearing, checking on his own wounded as he headed for his real objective: the enemy.

Some of his men had already reached them.

"We've got a survivor, Sir!" Evarl Harnak called out. "He's in bad shape."

Jasak hurried over to Garlath's platoon sword wondering what miracle had brought the sword through alive, since Harnak had led the charge the other side's weapons had torn apart. It was hard to believe that any of those troopers could have survived, Jasak thought bitterly. And that, too, was his fault-he'd been the one who'd thought the dragons had suppressed the enemy's fire.

He climbed through a tangle of fallen tree limbs and hunkered down beside Harnak. The sword was kneeling beside a man whose entire left side was badly burned. He'd taken a crossbow bolt through the belly, too, doing untold and probably lethal damage, even without the burns and the inevitable severe shock.

He was breathing, but just barely. It was a genuine mercy that he was unconscious, and Jasak was torn by conflicting emotions, conflicting duties and priorities. This whole disaster was his fault, which meant this man's brutal injuries were his fault. He reached for the wounded man's unburnt wrist and found the pulse. It was faint, thready, failing fast. Helpless to do anything else, he watched the stranger die.

"More survivors, Sir!" another shout rang across the smoke-filled clearing. "Oh, gods! One of them's a woman!"

Jasak ran, sickness twisting in his gut. He cursed the debris in his way, fighting to find a path through it, then flinging himself down, crawling under a fallen tree trunk to reach them. There were four survivors, fairly close together. Three had been burned badly; the fourth was scorched, but the infantry-dragon's breath had barely brushed her, thank Graholis.

She was unconscious. One slim hand was still wrapped around a weapon that was the most alien thing Jasak had ever seen. Drying blood caked the hair on the right side of her head, and a ghastly bruise was already swelling along that side of her face. A nasty lump ran from her temple to the back of her head.

"She must've been thrown against the tree trunk," he said, turning his head, eyes narrowed.

Yes, there was hair and blood caught in the rough bark, and it took all of Sir Jasak Olderhan's discipline not to slam his bare fist into the bark beside them. His only medic was dead-had been shot down, trying to reach wounded dragon gunners-and at least three of these people were so badly hurt they probably wouldn't have survived even with a medic.

"I need Magister Kelbryan," he barked over his shoulder, turning back to the savagely wounded survivors. "Now, damn it!"

Somebody ran, shouting for Gadrial, and Jasak bent over the unknown woman. Her pulse was slow under his fingers, but it was steady, strong, thank the gods. She was tiny, even smaller than Gadrial, with a beautiful, delicate face. She looked like a fragile glass doll lying crumpled in the ruins, and Jasak's heart twisted as he raged at Garlath and even at this woman's companions for coming here, for killing Osmuna and starting this whole disaster. And worst of all, for bringing this lovely girl into the middle of the killing his men-and hers-had unleashed in this clearing.