The Price Of Command v(bts-3 Read online

  Shallan’s mouth fell open; Geyr looked as if he thought he hadn’t rightly understood what she’d said. He scratched his curly head, as Shallan took a deep breath.

  She waited for them to recover; Shallan managed first. “But—but—”

  “You’ve earned it, both of you,” she said. “I’ve been shorthanded with the horse-archers, and that’s really where Losh belongs. The troops know you, and you’ve both been handling squads up until now with no complaints. I think you’ll do fine.”

  “What about the dogs?” Geyr asked slowly, the whites of his eyes shining starkly against his dark skin. “Do I keep on running the dogs?”

  “Damn bet you do,” Kero told him. “The only difference this command will make in that, is that now you and I will be the only ones deciding when to run them, and when it’s too dangerous. I know you and Losh didn’t always agree on that.”

  Geyr grinned, showing the gold patterns inlaid in his front teeth. “Khala il rede he, Ishuna,” he replied, in the tongue that he alone knew. “Blessings follow and luck precede you, liege-lady. I and mine thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, with a little weary amusement. She had yet to get Geyr to understand the difference between Mercenary’s Oath and swearing fealty. Maybe in his land there were no differences. She turned to Shallan. “What have you to say, Lieutenant?”

  “I—” Shallan swallowed hard and tried again, her eyes dilated wide in the lamplight. “Thank you, Captain. I accept.” She glanced out of the corner of her eye at Geyr, and Kero saw her face grow thoughtful, her expression speculative. “This isn’t an accident, is it?” she stated, rather than asked. “You picked us both because we’re she’chorne, and we’ll be able to work together without sex getting into it.”

  Kero chuckled. “One reason out of many, yes,” she admitted. “And by seeing that, I think I can safely say you’re starting to think like an officer. Good.” She rolled up the map in front of her, and passed it across the table to them. Shallan took it. “This is the initial battle line for tomorrow. I want you two to study it, and come back to me if you have any changes you’d like to make. Otherwise, that is all I have to say to you for now.”

  She picked up the two Lieutenant’s badges that had been hidden under the pile of papers at the side of the table. Both her new officers took them gravely, saluted her with clean precision, and took themselves out. The tent flapped closed behind them, letting in a breeze that was a little fresher, but no cooler. It’s going to be impossible to sleep tonight without some help. Kero sighed, reached once more for the wine flask, and downed the rest of the contents in a single gulp. Better risk a bit of a headache than no sleep.

  She peeled herself out of her clothing before the wine could fuddle her, and left the uniform in a heap for her aide to pick up, falling onto the cot as a flush of light-headedness overtook her.

  Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have a lover, she thought muzzily as she allowed sleep to take her. Between battle plans and supply lists, I’d never see him unless he disguised himself as a gods-be-damned map.

  “What are you trying to do, work yourself into an early grave?” Eldan crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her. “Or are you planning on drinking yourself there first?”

  Kero matched him, glare for glare, anger and shame burning her cheeks. She knew very well she’d been hitting the wine flask a little too hard, and she didn’t like being reminded of the fact. “I don’t drink that much. Just enough to put me out for the night. And you ought to be thanking me for working this hard—it’s the enemies of your precious Valdemar I’m up against this time. “

  Inside she was quaking, a cold fear clutching at her heart. She’d had her wine. She shouldn’t be having this dream. Drinking had always kept the dreams away before—

  “Oh, you’re up against one faction of Karse, all right. One minor faction of Karse—and meanwhile the real power in Karse is free to—”

  “What? Free to what? Nobody’s made a move in Karse since the Prophet started her power play. So what’s the big problem here?” She turned her back on him, and spoke to the vague, gray mist that always surrounded them in her dreams, hoping he wouldn’t see how her shoulders were shaking. She wasn’t sure of anything. She was terrified he’d touch her—and she wanted him to touch her, so badly, so very badly....

  “You know what I think?” she said before he could form a reply. “I think the big problem is that I’m fighting for money. That just sticks in your throat, doesn’t it? And it sticks in your throat that I’m good at it, that I could probably teach your people a trick or two, that—”

  A hand touched her shoulder, and the words froze in her throat. “Kero—” he said, humbly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—I worry about you. You do work too hard. “

  “I don’t have much of a choice, “ she reminded him tartly, without turning around. She was afraid if she did, she’d never be able to stay under control. “There are people depending on me—and you know what’s really bothering you. It’s that I do this for money.”

  Eldan stepped slowly and soundlessly around her, so that he was looking into her eyes. She averted hers, looking down at her feet. This is only a dream, she kept telling herself. It doesn’t mean anything.

  “That does bother me,” he said earnestly. “I think it’s wrong. There are other things you could be fighting for. You could be killed, and is money worth dying for? Honor—”

  That word again. That stupid, suicidal word. It made her cheeks flame, this time with unmingled anger. “Honor won’t put food on my troopers’ table, or pay in their pockets, “ she snapped. “Honor won’t pay for much of anything. It’s all very well to prate about honor, when you’re on a first-name basis with a Queen, but my people rely on me to see that they get the means to live!”

  “But—” he began.

  “More stupid wars have been fought over honor than I care to think about,” she continued inexorably, raising her eyes just enough to stare angrily at the middle of his chest. “Seems to me that honor is a word that gets used to cover a lot of other things. Things like greed and ambition, hatred, and bigotry. It’s honorable to attack someone who doesn’t believe in the same things you do. It’s honorable to fight someone over a strip of land you covet. It’s honorable—”

  She looked up at his uncomprehending face, and threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t know why I bother! At least I’m honest about my killing. I do it for money. I try to pick the side that was attacked, not the attackers. Most of the rest of the world wages war to support one lie or another—”

  “Not here, “ he said, softly. “Not us. “

  She would have rather he argued with her. She would much rather he’d shouted. Instead, this hurt expression—the look in his eyes, pleading with her to believe him.

  “I only know what I’ve seen,” she said gruffly. “And what I’ve seen says that most of what people call ‘honor’ is no more than self-deception. Maybe you people in Valdemar are different.”

  “We are, “he said. “Please, Kero, you know me—you know what I’m like. You’ve been inside my mind—”

  “Right,” she interrupted hastily. “All right, you are different. Maybe all you Heralds are. That doesn’t make what I do any less valid. The rest of the world isn’t like you. And if there are going to be people out there making war on other people, don’t you think it’s a good idea for some of those people to at least follow a code of ethics? Not ‘honor,’ but something you can pin down and be sure of, something with the same rules for everybody. That’s what we’re doing. And if we do it for money, so be it. At least someone is doing it at all.”

  She looked back up, to see he was smiling, ruefully. “You have a point,” he said, with a sigh. “Kero, that wasn’t why I came here—”

  Before she knew what she was doing, she had responded to that smile, to the invitation in his eyes, and was locked in a mutual embrace with him.

  Part of her was in terror. This was re
al—too real. Eldan’s arms felt too solid; his body too warm against hers. I’m going crazy, I must be! Being alone—

  But the rest of her welcomed his embrace, the warmth of his lips on her forehead. The only intimate human touch she had—Even if it wasn’t real.

  “I didn’t want to argue with you, “ he said in her ear. “I am worried about you. You’re trying to do too much. You take to much on yourself. And you bottle up your own feelings, never let anything out. You’re going to destroy yourself this way—you can’t be everything to everyone. “

  “I thought you said you didn’t come here to argue with me,” she heard herself saying. “Keep that up and you’ll start another one.”

  “Oh, Kero,” he shook his head, and she looked up into his eyes. “Kero, what am I going to do with you?”

  “You might try—”

  He stopped the words with a kiss, a kiss that led to more kisses, and then to something more intimate than mere kisses—

  Hands warm on skin, illusory clothing vanishing as they touched each other in wonder and pleasure and joy—

  “Blessed Agnira!”

  Kero woke up with a start, and the moment she was actually awake, she began to shake with terror.

  The wine hadn’t worked. The dreams were back, more vivid than ever, and the wine hadn’t helped. This one-it had been real. Too real, too close to home. Part of her had wanted it, that was the worst thing; part of her had welcomed not only the dream, but the fantasy lovemaking.

  She flung off the light blanket, and sat up on the edge of the cot, shaking. I’m going mad. I’m truly going mad. It’s all been too much for me.

  Easy to believe she was going mad, Easier than to believe that she had created the dream because she missed Eldan, and wanted him so much....

  Before she realized it, tears began to burn her eyes, and her throat closed. She buried her face in her hands.

  It wasn’t a mistake. It never could have worked. We—

  Oh, gods. Oh, Eldan—

  Seizing the flask of water that stood beside her bed, she drank it dry, hoping to drown the tears. Instead, they only fell faster, and she was helpless to stop them.

  As helpless as she was to stop the loneliness that was the price of command....

  She seized her tunic, groped for her cloak, and went out into the cool night, hoping to pace away the doubts, the fears, and most of all, the memories.

  This place had been pretty, before warfare had scarred the land; low, rolling hills covered in grass, tree lines that marked streambeds and river bottoms. Now the grass was trampled, and dust rose above the scuffling armies like smoke. Sun burned down onto the battlefield like Vkandis’ own curse. Kero stood beside her old friend, magnificent in his scarlet cloak of the Lord Martial, and squinted into the distance. Beside her, Geyr stood as impassively as a black stone statue. She could not imagine how he was able to stand there and look so cool and unmoved.

  Maybe he doesn’t feel the heat. Maybe this isn’t that bad to him. If that’s so, I don’t think I ever want to visit his homeland.

  Up until now, the Prophet had held several groups of infantry in reserve. It looked as if those last groups on the Prophet’s side had finally joined the battle. “This is it,” Daren said quietly, confirming her observation. “The Prophet just committed herself entirely. And so have I. If we don’t win this one—”

  “You’ll lose the war, the province, and a hell of a lot of face,” Kero finished for him, wiping her sweaty face with a rag she kept tucked into her belt. “But that won’t be the worst of it. If you lose, she’ll have a power base, and you’ll have to fight her every time you turn around, or you’ll lose the country to her a furlong at a time.” She scowled, though not at him, but rather at the thought.

  Beside them, a handsome—and very young—noble assigned as Daren’s aide looked puzzled. “Why is that, m’lord?” he asked. “Won’t she be content with what she’s won?”

  Daren snorted, and wiped his own face with a rag no cleaner or fancier than Kero’s. “Not too damned likely. If we don’t eliminate her now, it’ll prove that her god really is on her side, and we’ll be fighting religious fanatics all over Rethwellan. This kind of ‘holy war’ is like gangrene—if you don’t get rid of it, it poisons the whole body. If we can’t burn it out, it’ll kill us all.”

  The young aide gave Kero a sideways glance, as if asking her to confirm what Daren had said. She’d already discovered that she had a formidable reputation among Daren’s highborn young fire-eaters; she was using that reputation to reinforce his authority. There could only be one Commander of all the forces, just as there could only be one Captain of a Company.

  “You’re dead right about that, my lord,” she said, answering the boy’s glance without speaking to him directly. “I can’t think of anything worse than fighting a religious fanatic, especially one that’s sure he’s going to some kind of paradise if he dies for his god. That kind’ll charge your lines, run right up your blade, and kill himself in order to take your head off.”

  She peered through the sun, the heat-haze, and the dust, and cursed again under her breath, resolutely shaking off the weariness that was the legacy of her sleepless night. It was pretty obvious that both armies had stalemated each other. Her people were out of it, for now; they’d done what they could early this morning, and now they were behind the lines, taking what rest they could, and awaiting further orders. And with only a handful of dead and twice that wounded. New recruits, mostly, and no one I really knew well. Gods pass their souls.

  For once, she wasn’t having to prove herself and her Company to anyone. Daren had made her pretty well autonomous; he trusted her judgment and her battle sense. He knew she had twice the actual combat experience he or any of his commanders had. He knew that if she saw an opening where the Skybolts could do some good, she’d send them. That was more trust than Kero had gotten from any other Commander, and she wondered if he treated all mercenary Captains like that, or only her, because he knew her.

  Right now, the action was all afoot, and hand-to-hand, and there was no place for a mounted force to go—except for the heavy cavalry, who kept trying to plow through the enemy lines without getting trapped behind them.

  A glitter of sun-reflection caught her eye and she grimaced at the shrine of Vkandis anchoring the left flank. The damn thing is the rallying point for the entire line, she thought angrily. Every time those idiots haul it forward a couple of paces, the whole left flank follows it.

  It was pulled on clumsy rollers by nearly a hundred of the most manic of the Prophet’s followers. Every day now they’d added captured booty and ornamentation to it, making it more impressive, more elaborate, and doubtless making it heavier as well. The latest trick had been to gild the roof; that was what had caught her eye, the shine of sun on gold-leaf. She wondered how many poor peasants had been starved to pay for the ornamentation.

  Another blur of motion caught her eye, and one more familiar—the yellow-gray streak that marked the passage of one of Geyr’s messenger-dogs behind the lines. The poor beasts looked like nothing more than bags of bones, but they moved like lightning incarnate. Geyr had brought them with him when he’d joined; Kero gathered that in his country, men raced the pups the way the folk of the north raced horses. He had the notion that they could be used as messengers, but only Kero had been willing to take a chance on his idea. They were amazingly intelligent for their size; once they knew that a particular human carried a horn full of lumps of suet or balls of butter on his belt, they had that person’s name and scent locked in memory for all time, and anyone could put a message in their collars and tell them to find that person, and they would. No matter what stood in their way. The scrawny little beasts would literally race through fire for a bit of fat. Geyr had once said, laughingly, that if you buttered a brick, they’d eat it.

  The little dog evaded people and horses with equal ease, then stopped dead for a moment. Before Kero had a chance to ask Geyr what was wrong with it, t
he beast was off again, this time streaking in their direction, so low to the ground that his chest must be scraping the earth.

  “Meant for me, which means you, Captain,” Geyr muttered, as the dog dove fearlessly among the hooves of the Skybolts’ horses and out the other side of the picket lines. She recognized it now by the scarlet collar—it was the one they’d sent with Shallan’s scouts.

  It flung itself through the air, landing in Geyr’s waiting arms; panting, but not with exhaustion. This punishing heat was no more bother to Geyr’s dogs than to Geyr himself.

  The black Lieutenant gave the little animal his reward, and passed the message cylinder from its collar to Kero. She opened it, and scanned the short scrawl with a sinking heart. Shallan had seen something important, and had dutifully reported it. And Daren would most certainly see the way to break the deadlock that Shallan’s observation opened up. She knew how he thought, and it was the only logical course of action—only now it was no longer counters on a sand-table they put at risk, it was her men’s and women’s lives. But something had to be done, or they’d risk more Karsite intervention before they had neutralized the Prophet.