“I can see it in my mind,” Stammel said. He had been quiet all afternoon. “We’re up above the road, around the bend from the noise … and that way is Valdaire … it’s getting dark; we’ll see—I’d see the lights soon, even from here.”

“D’ you remember the first time you saw it, Stammel?” Arcolin asked.

“Oh, yes.” Stammel smiled. “Just a lad I was then, a recruit who thought he knew more than he did. I’d seen Vérella and thought I knew all about cities. Mountains, too, I thought I knew. And then we came over the pass, and the Vale of Valdaire opened out below, all the way to the sea, it seemed, and a southern breeze came up with smells I’d never imagined. I’ve seen it on their faces every year since, the northern recruits.”

“I saw it first from the west,” Arcolin said. “You know I came from the Westmounts. Very different view, walking in from Czardas. Lived there a year, off and on … but I never really knew it until I’d gone north and come back, over the pass.”

“I suppose … now … there’s no chance my sight will come back, is there, sir?” Stammel’s voice held no complaint, only resignation. He lay stretched out on the ground, hands behind his head.

“I don’t know,” Arcolin said. “There’s always a chance of healing.”

“If the gods choose,” Stammel said. “The Captain of Tir—I saw him in Cortes Vonja.” Arcolin waited. “He said Tir must be pleased with me, but he said, too, that I should face the reality: I was blind, and would always be blind.”

“Tir doesn’t heal eyes?” Arcolin asked.

“No, sir. Or, the Captain said, maybe if a Blademaster—closest thing Tirians have to paladins—but not the same, really.” Stammel turned on his side. “Captain, if I don’t—if I’m not ever going to see again—I can’t really be your senior sergeant. You need someone who can see what the troops are doing, in a battle. See if the merchant’s giving good weight, spot trouble in the street.”

“Like scare off forty or fifty enemies by standing there shooting them one by one without looking at them?”

“That—was different. I don’t know what that was.”

“You, Stammel. That was you and your years of experience. Think if our troops could use crossbows at night—shoot accurately at sounds.”

“It’s still not the same.” Stammel sat up and faced Arcolin directly. With the angle of light, Arcolin could see the cloudiness deep in his eyes, not the same as the film old men got. “And the Captain said I should tell you I want to quit, but—but I don’t want to. But I should. For the Company.”

“It’s not your Company,” Arcolin said. “It’s mine now.” Even as he said it, he knew that was wrong. It was Stammel’s Company—not his to command, but his in the same way it was Arcolin’s, by right of all those years. He couldn’t unsay it, so he went on. “And I think you are good for it, blind or not. There are things you can’t do—well, there are things I can’t do, and one of them is hit a target with a crossbow with both eyes open, let alone blind. I can’t stop you from quitting—you’ve long since earned the right to retire, and a pension with it—but I don’t want you to retire. I think the Captain of Tir was wrong. You’ve had a hard time; you will have a hard time, but you are and always will be a soldier and of value here. Besides, there are other sources of healing. A Girdish paladin—”