Which is just as well. I have the feeling I’m not going to like this meeting.

By the time they reached the mess tent, only iron will kept her from tearing the bandage from her shoulder and scratching the wound bloody. She ground her teeth with the effort it took to leave the thing alone.

Shallan found a place for them by dint of glaring at a couple of the skirmishers until they gave up their seats on the splintery half-log benches. A few more arrived after they did; not many, though, and when Kero looked around, she realized with a start that the Company was down to less than half the strength they’d had when they rode in here. Ardana’s incompetence had decimated them that badly. But worse than the numbers was the fact that many of the mercs wouldn’t meet her eyes, or looked away after a moment.

There was no sense of unity as there had been whenever Lerryn held a meeting. Only unhappiness and unease, and a feeling of resignation, as if they all knew the orders would be bad, and no longer cared.

Ardana finally showed up, with one of the merchants following like a fat shadow, stalking to the front of the tent with a jerky, stiff-legged gait that reminded Kero of a half-mad, half-starved dog she’d seen once that was trying to face down a much bigger animal over a bone. Outmatched, but too crazy to admit it.

Ardana’s scowl, which had become as much a part of her face as her flint-hard eyes, didn’t do anything to change that assessment. She knows she can’t handle this, but she can’t give it up, Kero thought wonderingly. She’s so eaten up with the importance of being Captain that she won’t step down even though she’s killing off her own Company. What is wrong with the woman? Did she get hit over the head when we weren’t looking? What turned her into this monster?

The Captain tugged at the hem of her tunic constantly, trying to pull out wrinkles that weren’t there. Like the scowl, it was a nervous habit that had emerged after her elevation to Captain.

“Our employers aren’t happy with our progress,” the woman said, into the sullen silence that followed her entrance. “They say they have reason to believe that we’re slacking off.”

A few months ago, that pronouncement would have been met with angry shouts. Now—a low rumbling, a weary growl, was all the Captain got as a response. They don’t care anymore. Not about our reputation, not about pride-they’re like saddle-galled horses, still going only because they’re being prodded and quitting hurts more.