She looked up over Hellsbane’s shoulder, as Tre waved, his dull scarlet shirt identifying him even at a distance. He’d never yet worn the thing out on scout, but he inevitably changed back into it as soon as they hit camp. “Kero! Shal! Back to camp on the double! Meeting!”

She waved back to show that they’d heard, and tossed the currycomb to Shallan. The younger woman caught it deftly, and the two of them ducked under the picket line and trotted toward the mess tent.

“I wonder what it’s about?” Shallan said, trotting along with an ease that reminded Kero of Warrl’s lazy lope. Her eyes glinted with an eagerness that Kero thought held just a hint of battle madness. “Maybe they’ve decided to put on a push so we can get this over with!”

At that point, they reached the edge of the growing crowd, so Kero was saved from having to make a reply. Most of the Skybolts had already gathered at the mess tent when they arrived. They worked their way around to the side; as leader of a scout party, Kero had just enough rank to get in fairly close to their Captain.

Lerryn Twoblades did not look like much of a fighter. He wore the same scuffed leathers as any of his Company; his only concession to rank was a round pin of carved silver Kero had made him, showing two crossed swords bisected by a lightning bolt. Thin and not particularly tall, and just now at rest, he wasn’t very imposing, either. But when he rose to speak, it was immediately apparent that he was whipcord and steel over bone, and moved with a lazy grace that spoke volumes to anyone who had studied hand-to-hand combat. Those limpid brown eyes missed nothing; those foppish curls covered a skull with frightening intelligence inside it. There wasn’t one single horse in the entire camp he couldn’t handle, up to and including Hellsbane, which had surprised the hell out of both Kero and her horse. And all he had to do was say three words, and it was no secret why the Skybolts were fanatically devoted to their Captain.

He scanned the crowd slowly to let the muttering die away. Only when he had relative silence did he speak, in a calm, but carrying voice. “We’ve voted, and we’ve decided to make a push,” he said. “Otherwise we let these whoresons force us to piss away our troops against them, while there may be groups out there we haven’t bottled up taking pieces out of the Border.”

There was the start of a cheer—when he raised his hand for silence. He got it, too—something that never failed to impress Kero.

“The Skybolts won’t be fighting,” he said firmly, “and I’m not taking any volunteers to go on temp to the other Companies. And that’s an order.”