The Shasht War by Christopher Rowley

and Filek heard again those piercing wails of terror. "I'm afraid, 'almost' will just not do. Hustertav has to pay. The men have to see that their commanders will not get away with such a poor performance." The admiral hunched forward at the table.
    "But, if we don't want to suffer the same fate as Hustertav, we must do our damnedest to make sure that Dogvalth wins the next battle."
    And so for a while they calmly discussed ways of helping the army improve, as if a good man hadn't been dragged screaming from the room an hour before. Filek told himself that this was war. In war the craziest things became commonplace.
    Heuze had the light of fanaticism in his eyes. The admiral was a fanatic in pursuit of one cause, his own survival. Whatever it took, he would find generals who would win.
    "I will not allow us to fail again. We survived the winter. We conquered this island just in time. And so we recovered from last summer's disaster. Just as we will recover from this defeat and achieve victory. Remember, Aeswiren didn't win the throne in a day."
    At last the meeting ended. Filek was released to deal with his own domain. In his cabin, which also served as his office, there was a small pile of notes and other papers for him to read. The fleet had thirty-three separate surgeries, and now in addition a small hospital was set up ashore. Filek was responsible for the provisioning and smooth operation of all of them. He went through the papers and signed those that required his signature. Other papers were filed away in wooden folders and pigeonholes. He had developed this system before, when he ran the hospital in the city of Shasht. In that other life, that warm life. But he quickly shut off those warm thoughts before they turned to memories of his dear departed wife. How lonely life was without her.
    When the papers were finished he left the office, locking the door carefully behind him, and went down the winding stair to the lower decks of the ship. Down closer to the waterline he came to the barred gate to the women's deck. As a husband he had access, of course, and the eunuch guards lifted the bar and waved him through.
    He wound his way through the narrow passages to Simona's cabin door. At his knock he heard her rise from her chair with a creak.
    "Father? Is that you?"
    "Yes, dear."
    The door opened a moment later.
    Simona was one of the few women who had elected to stay aboard the ship rather than go to the new purdah buildings ashore. Because she was the daughter of the powerful fleet surgeon, she had been able to have her way. Now the women's deck was relatively uncrowded, and Simona had been able to have her cabin extended by removal of a bulkhead. Now she had room for a table, a chair, and a place to hang her hammock.
    They embraced and she drew him inside. He sat on the small chair, and she sat on the floor in front of him. He stroked her hair. It was a comfort to still have his lovely daughter, even if his wife had been snatched away by fate.
    He observed a copy of Gallin's Meditations lying on the table. He felt a surge of pride in his intelligent, well-read daughter.
    "Did you hear the screams earlier?" he asked her.
    "Yes. We all wondered what was happening."
    "They took General Hustertav away."
    "The general?"
    "Yes. They just dragged him out. The priests have him. He will scream for the Great God tonight. They will kill him in the morning."
    "Oh, that is terrible, the poor man."
    "Yes, it is, but the admiral had to do it. There were more than a thousand dead, more are dying all the time from their wounds. We cannot afford failure like that."
    "Father, you sound like the admiral."
    Filek nodded, accepting her words.
    "Oh, my dear, my darling, sometimes I am afraid I am becoming like them. Am I just another insensitive brute?"
    "No, Father, you are better than that. We both know it."
    "Do we? Well, I hope so. But in this situation I can see the pressures that are building up on the admiral's head. He must have