“Quenten, you’ve outstripped what your training says you should be able to do,” she told him honestly, and gratefully, mopping her neck with her rag. “You’ve managed a brand new spell in less than a candlemark. I think my uncle would salute you himself.”

Quenten glowed, and not just from his sunburn. Kero turned to one of the junior mages, a grave, colorless girl whose name she could never remember.

Jana. That’s it.

“Jana, is the way still open to the shrine?”

Jana’s eyes got the unfocused look she wore when she was using her powers to see at a distance. “Yes,” she said, in a voice as flat and colorless as the rest of her. “As open as it’s ever going to be. ”

Kero looked over Jana’s head at the rest of the horse-archers. “The plan is simple enough. You with the fire-arrows, ride in the middle. The rest of you try to keep them covered and yourselves alive. Get in, and get out. We’re not in this for glory or revenge, so don’t take stupid chances. Got that?”

The fighters grunted, or nodded, or otherwise showed their assent. At least the foolhardy were weeded out early, she thought, watching them mount up with an aching heart and an impassive face. If they wanted out of this life, they could get out.

She saluted them as they wheeled their mounts and took off at a gallop. Losh was leading them in a feint toward the center of the left flank. Only at the last moment would they turn and rush up the watercourse. By then they would be out of unaided sight, and she would not have to watch them fall and die....

They’d do this if I wasn’t Captain, she told herself for the hundredth time. This is what they’re good at; it‘s their choice. And if I didn’t lead them, someone else would. Someone with less care for them, maybe, or less imagination.

And as always, as she waited for the survivors to return, the words comforted her not at all.

Eighteen

Eighteen

Daren finished the last of his dispatches, and slumped at the folding desk in his tent, very glad that he’d brought an aide who knew massage. Right now, he was torn equally between a tired elation and a sense of deep and guilty loss.