By the Sword (54 page)

Kero closed her eyes for a moment to think. There might yet be a way to spare her people. “We've tried this before,” she reminded him. “Getting the shrine was one of the first things we thought of, and we couldn't even touch it.”

“But not using the horse-archers,” he retorted. “We didn't have a clear shot at it with the archers before; we tried for it using magic. It's shielded against magic, but I'd be willing to bet it isn't shielded against plain old fire-arrows. It wasn't shielded against that ballista shot that took off a corner of the roof. If it can be hit, it can be burned.”

Dear gods, there's no hope for it. Either they go in, impossible odds and all, or we lose.
Her stomach knotted, and her throat ached with sorrow for the slaughter to come. Bad enough to send her people into an ordinary battle, where the odds were in their favor because of their strike-and-run tactics. But this—

She swallowed, stared off into the distance, and tried to think of them as markers on a table. Running the tactic straight-she'd lose about half of those that went in.

But she had the only force that
could
get in, get the job done, and get out.

It's a suicide mission!
half of her cried in agony.

It's necessary,
said the other half, coldly, logically.

She took a deep breath, lowered her eyes, and looked straight back into Daren's. And saw that he didn't like the odds any better than she did. He hated the cost of this as much as she. She saw the same pain she felt in the back of
his
eyes, and it steadied her.

“All right,” she said. “Give me time to set this up, right to requisition what I might need from your quartermaster, then get us an escort in and out. Leave the rest to us. Geyr, on me.”

She turned on her heel, and walked off without another word.
How can I even up the odds? There has to be a way.
The black man whistled to his dog and followed after her, as she strode down toward the picket line, and the rows of horses drowsing in the sun, oblivious to the battle beyond.

“Get me Quenten,” she called as she reached the lines and lounging fighters jumped to their feet. She scanned them, looking for the bright white of Lieutenants' badges. She spotted one, and providentially, it was exactly the person she needed most. “Losh,” she ordered, not slacking her pace in the least, as she kept straight on through the lines. “Get the horse-archers to the Healers' tent. The rest of you, at ease.”

A third of the Skybolts went back to their scraps of shade, veterans enough to know and follow the maxim that a fighter rests whenever he can. The rest left their beasts in the care of friends and followed after her to the Healers' tent.

Quenten turned up just as she got there, popping out of the Healers' tent so suddenly he seemed to appear out of the air, like one of his illusions. And seeing that started an idea in the back of her mind.

She left it there to simmer a while, as she gathered her troops around her, and explained the mission. The horse-archers sat or stood, each according to his nature, but all with one thing in common; absolute attention and complete silence.

As Kero drew a rough map in the dust and laid out the plan, she couldn't help but notice how appallingly young the gathered faces were. One and all, they were veterans, yes, without a doubt-but none was over the age of twenty-five. Most were under twenty.
Young enough to believe in their own immortality and invulnerability. Too young to really understand what bad odds mean, or really care if they do know. Each and every one of them thinks he can beat the odds and the omens, however unfavorable.
She felt sickened; as if she was somehow betraying them.

As she completed her explanation, the glimmering of an idea burst into full flower, and she turned to Quenten. “You're in on this because I want
you
to do something to make them harder to hit—maybe make them harder to see,” she told him. “They're already going to be moving targets; I want you to make it so hard for the enemy to look at them that he has nothing to aim at.”

He scratched his peeling nose thoughtfully; like most redheads, he sunburned at the merest hint of summer. That was probably why he had been in the Healers' tent; either sensibly avoiding injury or getting his burns seen to. “I can't make weapons bounce off ‘em, Captain,” he replied uneasily. “I think I know what you're thinking of, and I'm not as good as your grandmother was, I haven't got the power to pull that spell that makes 'em look like they're a little off where they really are. And I sure's hell can't make ‘em invisible.”

“That wasn't what I had in mind,” she said, impatient with herself for not knowing how to explain clearly what she
did
want. “You're damned good at illusion. There's a lot of sun out there today—hellnres, the way it comes off that shrine roof, you get spots in front of your eyes trying to look at it. What about if I get real shiny armor issued for everybody—can you do something to make it brighter?”

Quenten brightened immediately. “Now
that
I can do!” he enthused. “I can double the light reflecting off of it, at least—maybe triple it. ”

“Good man.” She slapped him lightly on the back, and he grinned like a boy. “You work on that while I see what I can do about armor.”

In the end, she scrounged shiny breastplates and helmets from Daren's stores for all of her horse-archers, and Geyr had the clever notion of fixing mirrors to the top of every nose-guard and the nose-band of every bridle. Quenten worked a miracle in the short time she gave him; not only did he concoct the spell, creating it literally from nothing but the light-gathering cantrip mages used when working in a dimly-lit area, but he managed to cast it so that the Skybolts themselves were immune to its effects.

“That's the best I can do,” he said, finally. Kero watched the effect on some of Daren's troopers; they winced, and squinted, and eventually had to look away. She nodded; it wasn't full protection, but it would tilt the odds farther in their favor.

“Quenten, you've outstripped what your training says you should be able to do,” she told him honestly, and gratefully, mopping her neck with her rag. “You've managed a brand new spell in less than a candlemark. I think my uncle would salute you himself.”

Quenten glowed, and not just from his sunburn. Kero turned to one of the junior mages, a grave, colorless girl whose name she could never remember.

“Jana, is the way still open to the shrine?”

Jana's eyes got the unfocused look she wore when she was using her powers to see at a distance. “Yes,” she said, in a voice as flat and colorless as the rest of her. “As open as it's ever going to be. ”

Kero looked over Jana's head at the rest of the horse-archers. “The plan is simple enough. You with the fire-arrows, ride in the middle. The rest of you try to keep them covered and yourselves alive. Get in, and get out. We're not in this for glory or revenge, so don't take stupid chances. Got that?”

The fighters grunted, or nodded, or otherwise showed their assent.
At least the foolhardy were weeded out early,
she thought, watching them mount up with an aching heart and an impassive face.
If they wanted out of this life, they could get out.

She saluted them as they wheeled their mounts and took off at a gallop. Losh was leading them in a feint toward the center of the left flank. Only at the last moment would they turn and rush up the watercourse. By then they would be out of unaided sight, and she would not have to watch them fall and die....

They'd do this if I wasn't Captain,
she told herself for the hundredth time.
This is what they're good at; it‘s their choice. And if I didn't lead them, someone else would. Someone with less care for them, maybe, or less imagination.

And as always, as she waited for the survivors to return, the words comforted her not at all.

Daren finished the last of his dispatches, and slumped at the folding desk in his tent, very glad that he'd brought an aide who knew massage. Right now, he was torn equally between a tired elation and a sense of deep and guilty loss.

When the horse-archers had moved in, the shrine went up in a glorious gout of flames, just as he and Kerowyn had planned. And exactly as he and Kero had known it would, the Prophet's line collapsed in a panic. The only thing they had not predicted was how
total
the rout would be. But now that he thought about it, the reaction only made sense—Vkandis Sunlord was a god of the sun—hence, fire—and when his
own shrine
went up in flames, it must have seemed to the Prophet's followers that the god himself had turned against them.

After that it had been so easy to defeat them that an army of raw recruits could have handled the job. The worst casualties were from men who had gotten between the fleeing Karsites and the Eastern border.

He'd heard that Kerowyn's people got in and out with about a twenty-five percent loss, which was excellent for such a risky undertaking.

Excellent-except that these aren't just numbers we're talking about, or the counters we used to plan strategy with. Those numbers represented people. Kero's people. Fighters that she's recruited and trained with, and promised to lead intelligently.
He stared at the papers on his desk without really seeing them, knowing how she must be feeling. It wasn't quite so bad for him, now that he was Lord Martial of the entire army. He didn‘t, couldn't know every man in his forces the way Kero knew every fighter in hers. But he remembered very well how it had felt to lose even one man, back when his commands were smaller.

He stood abruptly.
I'll go see her. It helped me to have old Lord Vaul to unburden myself on. Maybe I can do the same for her. I'm supposed to see if she's willing to come talk to my brother, anyway. And I can bring her horse-archers a bonus at the same time; gods know
they've
earned it. My coffers are plump enough, I can afford it.

“Binn!” he said, not quite shouting, but loud enough for his orderly to hear. The grizzled veteran of a dozen tiny wars slid out of the shadows at the back of the tent, coming from behind the screen that kept his sleeping area private.

The man saluted smartly. “Sir,” he said, and waited for orders. They were not long in coming.

“Saddle my palfrey, and get me—hmm—two gold per head for those horse-archers Captain Kerowyn sent in.”

The orderly nodded, and saluted again. “Sir, general funds, or your private coffer?”

“Private, Binn. This is between me and the Captain. If my brother decides on an extra bonus, that'll be a Crown decision.”

“Sir. Begging the Lord Martial's pardon, but—they deserve it. Don't generally see mercs with that kind of guts.” The man's face remained expressionless, but Daren fancied he caught a gleam of admiration in his eyes. That in itself was a bit of a surprise. Binn seldom unbent enough to praise anyone, and never a mercenary, not to Daren's recollection.

“No pardon needed. As it happens, I agree with you.” He straightened his papers, and locked them away in the desk, as the orderly moved off briskly to see to his orders.

He mounted up and rode off as the first torches were lit along the rows of tents. He had left his scarlet cloak back in the tent, so there was nothing to distinguish him from any other mounted officer, and the men paid him no particular heed as they went about their business.

The dead had been collected and burned; the wounded were treated and would either live or die. The survivors tended to themselves, now—either celebrating or mourning. Mostly celebrating; even those who mourned could be coaxed into forgetting their losses for an hour or two over the strong distilled wine he had ordered distributed. They'd have wicked heads in the morning, those who were foolish enough to overindulge, but that was all right. If their heads ached enough, it would distract them from the aches of wounds, bruises, and hearts.

He passed over the invisible dividing line between the camp of the army and that of the mercenaries, and was, as ever, impressed by the discipline that
still
held there, victory or no. Kero's people still had sentries posted, and he was challenged three times before he reached the camp itself. The Skybolts had lanterns instead of torches, an innovation he noted and made up his mind to copy. Torches were useless in a rainstorm-lanterns could be used regardless of the weather. And lanterns, once set, didn't need the kind of watching torches did. It was just the kind of detail that set the Skybolts apart from the average mercenary Company.

By the time he reached the actual bounds of the camp itself, word of his coming and who he was had somehow, in that mysterious way known only to soldiers, preceded him. Since he was not in “uniform,” he was hailed only as “m‘lord Daren”—but it was obvious from the covert looks at his bulging saddlebag and the grins of satisfaction (or envy, from those who were
not
archers), that these men knew of his penchant for delivering bonuses, and knew who those bonuses were due.

He asked after Kerowyn, and was directed to the command tent. All about him were the sounds of the same kind of celebration as back in his own camp, but more subdued, and there were fewer bonfires, and nothing like some of the wildness he'd left back there.

He dismounted at Kero's tent and handed the reins of his horse to one of the two sentries posted there, taking the saddlebag with him. When he pushed back the flap, and looked inside, Kero was bent over a folding table identical to his own, going over lists. The lantern beside her seemed unusually smoky, and the pungent odor it emitted made him sneeze. She looked up, smiled wanly, and nodded at a stool beside the table before going back to her task. Her eyes were dark-rimmed, and red; her cheekbones starkly prominent.