Hell Hath No Fury Read Online Free PDF

particular bivouac wasn't going to be much fun for anyone, he reflected. Maybe that would be for the good, though. Men who were thoroughly pissed off after spending a wet, muddy, bug-infested night not sleeping were likely to show a little more … enthusiasm when it came to shooting at the people responsible for them being out here in the first place.
    Hulmok Arthag was an unhappy man.
    Someone who didn't know the platoon-captain well might have been excused for not realizing that. Or, rather, someone who didn't know Arpathian septmen well might have been excused for not realizing Arthag was any unhappier than usual, given how little an Arpathian's expression normally gave away.
    He stood under the forest canopy-thinner than it had been when the Chalgyn Consortium survey crew had been slaughtered, just over two months ago-and gazed into the predawn darkness, longing for the empty plains of home. Life had been harder there, but it had also been much less … complicated.
    "Copper for your thoughts, Hulmok."
    The platoon-captain turned at the sound of Platoon-Captain Dorzon chan Baskay's voice. The Ternathian cavalry officer looked improbably neat and clean-not to mention well-dressed and freshly shaved-for someone who spent his nights sleeping in a tent in the middle of the woods with winter coming on.
    Arthag had sometimes wondered if there were a special Talent for that, one that was linked by blood to the families which routinely produced the Ternathian Empire's diplomats. Not that chan Baskay had ever wanted to be a diplomat, whatever the rest of his family might have had in mind for him.
    Which just goes to show the shamans were right. No man can outrun his fate, Arthag reflected with the faintest lip twitch of amusement.
    "I don't know if they're worth that much," he told the Ternathian after a moment.
    "I'm pretty sure they are," chan Baskay responded. Hulmok raised one eyebrow a fraction of an inch, and chan Baskay shrugged. "I've heard all about your 'instinct' when it comes to picking people for your command. And while I'll admit you've got a remarkably good gambler's face to go with it, it's pretty clear to me that something's jabbing that 'instinct' of yours as hard as it's jabbing every single one of mine."
    "Really?"
    "Hulmok, they've been talking to us for a month now," chan Baskay said. "In all that time, they haven't said one damned thing except that they want to talk, instead of shoot. And they've been throwing grit into the machinery with both hands for the last week and a half. Which, you may have noticed, exactly corresponds to the point at which I finally got formal instructions from the Emperor. You think, maybe, it's pure coincidence that they got even more obstructionist as soon as I stopped sparring for time?"
    "No." Arthag shook his head. "No, I don't think that-not any more than you do."
    The two men looked at one another. Chan Baskay's expression showed all the frustration and anger he couldn't allow himself to display across the floating conference table from the Arcanan diplomats, and Arthag's very lack of expression showed the same emotions as both of them contemplated the Arcanans' last week or so of posturing. Rithmar Skirvon, the senior of the two Arcanans, had hardened his negotiating posture noticeably. His initial, conciliatory attitude had all but completely evaporated, and he seemed determined to fix responsibility for the initial violence of the clash between his people's troops and the civilian survey crew on the dead civilians.
    That was a pretty significant shift from his original attitude, all by itself, but it was obvious to chan Baskay that Skirvon's instructions were exactly similar to his own in at least one regard. Neither side was prepared to give up possession of the Hell's Gate portal cluster to the other under any circumstances.
    Chan Baskay hadn't found it necessary to be quite as … confrontational as Skirvon, since Sharona currently had possession of the cluster, but he