They damn near picked me up and threw me out. Bastards. They could at least have given me a chance to dry off—
At least they'd told her where the Skybolts had gone to ground; she'd ridden two days through more heavy rains to get there, so numb that she wasn't even thinking about what she was likely to find.
The camp didn't seem much smaller; she'd feared the worst, that half or three-fourths of the Skybolts were gone. But it was much shabbier; the tents were make do and secondhand, and the banner at the sentry post was clumsily sewn with a base of what looked like had once been someone's cloak.
The rain slacked off as they reached the perimeter of the camp itself. Hellsbane halted automatically at the sentry post; the sentry was a youngster Kero didn't recognize, probably a new recruit. He seemed very young to Kero.
So new he hasn't got the shiny rubbed off him yet.
And he looked eager and a little apprehensive as he eyed her.
Probably because I look like I just dragged through the ninth hell.
She dragged out her Skybolt badge and waved it at him. "Scout Kerowyn," she croaked, days and nights of being cold and wet having left her with a cough and a raspy throat. "Reporting back from the Menmellith Border."
Before the boy could answer, there was a screech from beyond the first row of tents, and a black-clad wraith shot across the camp toward her, vaulting tent ropes and the tarp-covered piles of wood beside each tent.
"Kero!" Shallan screamed again, and heads popped out of some of the tents nearest the sentry post. Hellsbane was so weary she didn't even shy; she just flicked an ear as Shallan reached them and grabbed Kero's boot. "Kero, you're alive!"
"Of course I'm alive," Kero coughed, slowly getting herself out of the saddle. "I feel too rotten to be dead."
By now more than heads were popping out of the tents and she and Shallan had acquired a small mob, all familiar faces Kero hadn't realized she missed until now. They crowded around her, shoving the poor young sentry put of their way, all of them laughing (some with tears in their eyes), shouting, trying to get to Kero to hug her or kiss her—it was a homecoming, the kind she'd never had.
She looked around in surprise, some of her tiredness fading before their outpouring of welcome. She hadn't known so many people felt that strongly about her, and to her embarrassment, she found herself crying, too, as she returned the embraces, the infrequent kisses, the more common back-poundings and well-meant curses. They're family. They're my family, more than my own blood is. This is what Tarma was trying to tell me, the way it is in a good Company; this is what makes Lerryn a good Captain.
"I have to report!" she shouted over the bedlam. Shallan nodded her blonde head, and seized her elbow, wriggling with determination through the press of people. Gies showed up at Hellsbane's bridle and waved to her before leading the mare off to the picket line.
She knows him—yes, she's going, she'll be fine.
Word began to pass, and the rest parted for her when they realized what she'd said; a merc unit didn't stand on much protocol, but what it did, it took seriously. Somewhere in the confusion someone got the bright idea that they should all meet at the mess tent; the entire mob headed in that direction, while Shallan took Kero off in the direction of the Captain's tent.
"I've got the legendary good news and bad news." They slogged through mud up to their ankles, and Kero blessed Lerryn's insistence on camp hygiene. In a morass like this, fevers and dysentery were deadly serious prospects unless a camp was kept under strict sanitary conditions. The blonde looked up as the gray sky began dripping again, scowling in distaste. "So what do you want first?"
"The bad, and make it the casualties." Kero sighed and braced herself to hear how many friends were dead or hurt beyond mending; this was the last thing she wanted to hear, but the very first she needed to know.
Who am I going to be mourning tonight? she asked herself, the thought weighing down her heart the way the sticky clay weighed down her steps.
"Right." Shallan grimaced. "That's the worst of the bad, because number one was Lerryn and number two was his second, Icolan. In fact, most of the officers didn't make it out. It's like every one of them had a great big target painted on his back; I've never seen anything like it." She glanced over to see how Kero was taking the news—and Kero didn't know quite what to say or do. It was just too much to take all at once.
She felt stunned, as if someone had just hit her in the stomach and it hadn't begun to hurt quite yet. Lerryn? Dear Agnetha—it didn't seem possible; Lerryn was everything a good Captain had to be. There was no way he should be dead.... "He? His?" she said sharply, as the sense of what she'd just heard penetrated. Shallan never worded anything by accident. "Does that mean—"
Shallan's head bobbed, her short hair plastered to her scalp by the rain. "Both the women made it. The only problem is that the higher-ranked one is—"
"Ardana Flinteyes." Kero took in a deep breath and held it. That was bad news for the Company, or so Kero judged, and she was fairly certain Shallan felt the same way. Ardana should by rights never have risen above the rank she'd held before the rout. She's a good fighter, but she's got no head for strategy, she blows up over the least little thing and stays hot for months, and—I don't like her ethics. No, that's not true. I don't like the fact that she doesn't seem to have many. "So Ardana's a top-ranker? Not over—"
"Worse," Shallan said grimly, then looked significantly at the Captain's tent, with its tattered standard flying overhead. It wasn't the crossed swords anymore. It was flint and steel striking and casting a lightning bolt.
"She's the Captain?" Kero whispered, appalled by the prospect.
Shallan nodded, once.
Kero took a deep breath. The Company had to go to someone. At least Ardana had experience, and with this Company. It was better than disbanding. Well, it was probably better than disbanding. She stopped where she was and stared at the new standard, oblivious to the rain pouring down on her. After all, she was already soaked.
"The good news is that all the scouts made it," Shallan said hurriedly, as if to get her mind off the uneasy prospect of Ardana as Captain. "And I've got a tent, a whole one; it fits four and there's only me and Relli. You can come on in with us, we don't mind."
Kero sighed; she'd rather not have shared with anyone, but she doubted there was a choice. It was shelter, and the company was good. She'd rather have her own—but maybe she could manage that in the next couple of days. Obviously the Company had lost all of the equipment left behind during the rout.
"I'll take you up on that," she said, surprised at the gratitude she heard in her voice beneath the weariness. She straightened her back and squared her shoulders. "Might as well get this over with while I can still stand."
She smoothed back her soaked hair with both hands, and smiled slightly at the younger woman. Shallan patted her shoulder encouragingly, and led the way.
Kero stared up at the stained and mildew-spotted canvas overhead. It wasn't her tent, but it was waterproof, and Shallan and Relli had gotten the mildew stink out of it somehow. She was happy just to be lying down, and dry, and warm. Granted that the bedroll was looted from who knew where, smelled of horse, and had seen better days; that didn't matter. Dry and warm counted for a lot right now.
The interview with Ardana had not proved the ordeal Kero feared it might be. Except that she ignored half of what I said about the Karsites, where Lerryn would have had me in there till I fell over, taking notes. That was disturbing; more disturbing was that Ardana really didn't seem interested in the things she had asked about. It was as if she was going through the motions, as if she had some other opponent in mind than the Karsites.
But just about everyone had deduced from Hellsbane's condition what Kero's must be like; when Ardana let her go, they'd sent Shallan over to bring her to the mess tent—but then they sat her down and got her fed, and didn't ask too many questions. Then someone had brought in a spare shirt, and someone else produced breeches and socks, and
a third party a heavy woolen sweater—
They'd stripped her to the skin right there in the mess tent, amid a lot of laughter and rude jokes about how it would be more fun to bed her sword than her, right now.
"So change that!" she'd retorted. "You can all start buying me steaks!" Meanwhile she had been pulling on the first warm, dry clothing she'd had in a week.
Then they ran her over to Shallan's tent under a pilfered tarp, so she wouldn't get wet again. It had all been a demonstration of caring that had left her a little breathless.
Maybe that was why she was having trouble falling asleep.
I was right, she thought, staring at the mottled ceiling, listening to the rain drum on it. I was right to come back. This is where I belong. I could never fit in with Eldan, with his friends, no more than I could have with Daren and the Court. I'd have only made both of us miserable trying.
Her eyes burned; she sniffed, and rubbed them with her sleeve, glad that Shallan and Relli were off somewhere else. Probably in the mess tent; they were both passable fletchers, and the Skybolts had lost a lot of arrows....
A lot of other things, too. Kero thankfully shifted her thoughts to the general troubles. The Company was in trouble. Equipment lost, officers decimated, about a third of the roster gone and another third on the wounded list—and Menmellith had declined to pay them more than half their fee, on the grounds that they hadn't stopped the "bandits," and they hadn't come up with real proof that they were operating with more than the Karsite blessing. The Guild, when appealed to, had reluctantly ruled in Menmellith's favor.
It could always be worse. The Wolflings are going to have to find another Company to combine with. There's hardly enough of them left to fill out one rank.
Dearest goddess, I'm going to miss Lerryn.
There were a lot of people she was going to miss. And right on the top of the list was Eldan.
Her throat closed again, and she choked down a sob. I love him, and it would never have worked. I love him, and I'm never going to see him again. He probably thinks I deserted him under fire or something.
She'd been hoping for some kind of message from him when she reached the camp; he knew what her Company was, and messages moved swiftly through the aegis of the Guild. But there had been nothing.
He probably got back to Valdemar and came to his senses. He's probably sitting with friends now, with pretty little Court ladies all around him, thinking what a lucky escape he had, that he could have been stuck with this barbarian merc with a figure like a sword and a face like a piece of granite. She blinked, and a couple of hot tears spilled down her temples into her hair. He's probably so grateful I left that he's burning incense to the gods. He's probably even making jokes about me. Like, "how many mercs does it take to change a candle—"
More tears followed the first. It doesn't matter. I love him anyway. I'll always love him.
And I'm better off alone. We both are.
She turned over on her side and faced the canvas wall, with one of the blankets pulled up over her head so they'd think she was asleep if anyone came in. She muffled her face in her sleeve, and cried as quietly as she could manage, with hardly even a quiver of her shoulders to betray her; only the occasional sniff and the steady creeping of tears down into her pillow. And somehow she managed to cry herself to sleep.
When she woke, the tent was dark, and there was breathing on the other side of it. The steady breathing of sleep; somehow Shallan and Relli had come in and settled down without her being aware of it.
She didn't wake very thoroughly; just enough to register that she wasn't alone, and remember who it was.
I'm not alone. Somehow that was a comforting thought. I have friends. I can live without him. That was another. Holding those thoughts warmed her; and warmed, she fell back asleep.
It was raining again. A half-dozen of them were in the mess tent, attaching heads and feathers to grooved arrow shafts. Kero reckoned up the weeks in her head, and came to a nasty total.
"This is the winter rains, isn't it?" Kero asked Shallan, as they reached for feathers at the same moment. "We've gone over into winter, haven't we?"
Shallan's studious inspection of the arrow fletchings didn't fool Kero a bit. "Come on," she said warningly. "I'm going to find out sooner or later. Cough it up."
"We've hit the winter rainy season, yes," Shallan replied, glancing uneasily over her shoulder at Kero. "It did come awfully early, but—"
"But nothing. If this is winter, why aren't we in winter quarters?" Kero lowered her voice, after a warning look from Relli. "What are we doing still out in the field?" she hissed.
"Well," Shallan said unhappily, taking a great deal of time over setting her feather. "You know we didn't get paid enough. And we lost a lot of manpower and material—"
"And? So?" Kero had a feeling she knew what was coming up, and she wasn't going to like it. "That's what the reserves are for, Right?"
"Well—uh—" Shallan floundered.
Finally Relli came to her partner's rescue. "We aren't going to use the reserves," she said tersely. "Ardana has a line on a job."
That was what I was afraid of. "In winter."
Shallan nodded. "In winter. It's south of here—"
Kero just snorted. "I come from south of here. We're going to be fighting in cold rain if we're lucky. If we're not—snow, up to our asses, for the next three months. And ice. I trained in weather like that, but most of the rest of you didn't. Think what it's going to do to the horses, if you won't think of yourself!"
"It's not that bad," Relli said sturdily, though she wouldn't look Kero in the face. "It's in Seejay. Flat as your hand, and not more than a couple of inches of snow all winter. And it's not supposed to be a hard job—it's a merchant's guild thing. Economic. One side or the other is going to get tired of paying, and we can go home. Frankly, it's better to fight there in winter than summer—summer you're like to cook in your armor."
So instead we drown—provided we don't die of exhaustion on a forced march down through Ruvan.
"So is this just a rumor, or have you got something more substantial?" she asked.
"I'm pretty sure it's going down," Relli told her. "I got it from Willi."
Since Willi was the Company accountant, it was a pretty fair bet that the bid was in. Kero sighed.
"I suppose it could always be worse—"
Three months later, she found herself wishing for that hip-deep snow.
She cleaned mud off her equipment and Shallan's, scouring savagely at the rust underneath on Shallan's scale-mail. Rain dribbled down on the roof of her tent, and down the inside of the shabby walls. Practically anything would have been better than the bog that was Seejay in winter.
A cold bog. One that froze overnight and thawed by midday, only to freeze again as soon as the sun set.
And they were the only Company that had been hired.
That should have told us something from the start, she told herself, for the thousandth time. We should have walked before we took this one.
Fighting beside them were the cheapest of free-lancers, one step up from prison scum; drunks and madmen, vicious alley rats who'd knife an ally quick as an enemy. No point in depending on them—and no turning your back on them. The sentries caught the bastards sneaking around camp every night and most days, and everyone had something missing.
Facing them were more prison-scum and a "company" of non-Guild conscripts; old men too damned stubborn to quit fighting, and bewildered farmers hauled in after the harvest.
That was the reason for holding this "war" in winter in the first place: it was after harvest and trading season. No money-making opportunities lost to combat, she thought cynically. As witness the little "bazaar" just outside camp. Everything they think a merc could want; from flea-ridden whores to watered wine.
This entire setup had Kero completely disgusted. Ardana's "deal"—such as it was—had been for half pay and half resupply. First of all, she should have known never to trust them o
n that. Secondly, she should have gotten the resupply in advance.
The total had come to half their usual fee, which Ardana covered, stridently defensive, by pointing out that they were undermanned, and she couldn't ask the full fee for what was effectively half a Company. Then the "re-supply" train had shown up—late—and there was nothing Ardana could say that would defend what came in with that.
We got tents, all right—old enough to have served the Sunhawks in Grandmother's fighting days; patched, and rotting. We got armor—cheap and rusted. We got weapons—and I practiced with better under Tarma; dull pot-metal that wouldn't hold an edge if you got a gods-blessing on it. And food—stale journey-rations that could have given the Karsites lessons in tasteless, barrels of meat too salty to eat, flour full of weevils. And as for the horses—Kero shuddered. They'd had to shoot half of them, and half of the ones they'd shot had been so disease- and parasite-riddled they couldn't even be eaten.
By then it was too late. They'd given their bond. If they defaulted, the Skybolts' reputation—already suffering from the defeat in Menmellith—would be decimated.
We should have defaulted, Kero thought angrily, cursing under her breath as the metal scales on Shallan's armor came off in her hands. We should have defaulted anyway. Anything is better than this. The Guild would back us, once they heard about the "supplies."
The "war" had turned out to be waged within a House; two factions of the same merchants' guild. Kero wasn't sure what it was about—mines, or some other kind of raw material, she thought—and she wasn't sure she cared. Neither side gave a rat's ass about the welfare of the troops they'd hired—the Skybolts were just so many warm, weapon-wielding bodies to them, and if they thought about it at all, they probably assumed that the Company members welcomed a certain number of losses, as it made for fewer to split the pay at the end.
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