“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.”