That seemed simple enough, and Lan nodded.
"I hope you've got an arrow in your quiver that's a bit more subtle than what you did at the pass," Calum continued. "We won't need to burn down the forest; in fact, the people that live here wouldn't appreciate that."
"I do, sir, I do!" Lan hastened to say. "I—we—we've never done anything like that before, Kalira and I. I—didn't know we could." If the last words came out in a faltering tone, Calum didn't comment on it.
"Good. That's a relief. Yo, Ben, Diera—come over here and tell the boys what they're likely to be up against, will you?" Calum waved at the old man and the young woman with the magnificent horses, who cut across a line of brush to take their places on either side of Lan and Tuck.
"I'm Diera Ashkevron, and this is Ben Dotes, our Horsemaster," the young woman said.
"Retired, missy," the old man corrected. "Barnebin be every bit the Horsemaster I ever was."
Diera smiled, and continued. "We volunteered, first thing; brought a string of horses from the Home Farm and volunteered ourselves. We don't know this country, but we do know scouting and horses, so here we are."
Diera was not an attractive young woman; she had a face like an abused ax-blade, but her friendly and open personality made her face irrelevant. But it was Tuck who identified her, not Lan.
"Ashkevron?" he gulped. "The Ashkevrons? Of Forst Reach?"
:Oh, my ears—that's the family that Herald Vanyel came from!: Kalira exclaimed as the girl nodded.
"We're all girls but my one brother, and he can't fight, he's laid up with a leg broke in three places," Diera continued. "There's more of us coming, but I was the only one ready to go now. Fancied I'd go into the Guard, and been training for it."
"And I wasna about to let her go off alone," the old man added, with a stubborn set to his mouth. "But thas' neither here nor there. We're to tell you 'bout what we know, eh? So les' get to it."
Over the next league or so, the ill-matched pair detailed the three or four pockets of Karsite strength they thought would fall to Lan to eliminate. Rather as he had expected once they began, these places were all small fortresses, manned by no more than twenty or thirty, that overlooked key passes. With that handful of fighters, the Karsites could easily delay the Valdemaran army by a day and perhaps more, if they had Sun-priests with them who could command similar powers to the Heraldic Gifts.
The excitement of being called a hero had long since worn off, and when he realized that he would be expected to burn these people out, he began to feel queasy. Kalira sensed his unease, without knowing the cause, and enveloped him in a wordless blanket of assurance.
There were hundreds, thousands of fighters in the army depending on him, who could—would—lose their lives if he didn't do what he was expected to do.
"You'll be able to take care of them, won't you?" Diera asked anxiously. "If you can't—it would be bad, very bad, I think."
I hesitated once. I swore I never would again, and I won't. I won't.
When that didn't extinguish the queasiness, he called up the mental image of Pol with his bandaged eyes... Ilea beside him, with a reproachful look aimed straight toward him.
That awoke guilt, but guilt was better than indecision. "Just get me there," he told Diera. "I'll do the rest."
*
SINCE they would travel with the Lord Marshal and the bulk of the army, Pol and his family were left at loose ends until everyone was underway. There were servants to pack up the Healers' gear, and the Lord Marshal's people dealt with Pol's. So Pol found himself with a rare moment of leisure to share with his wife, as they perched on a log with the last scrapings from the mess kettle to eat (nothing went to waste when a Guard-cook was in charge) and tried to stay out of the way.
"What's wrong with Elenor?" Pol whispered to Ilea to get her mind off of her own failure to restore his sight, although he was afraid he already knew the answer. His daughter's listless behavior since Lan had awakened was something he would have called moping in anyone else. Most of her conversation was in monosyllables, and although he couldn't actually see her face, he suspected that her eyes were reddened from secret crying.
"What do you think?" Ilea replied, with a distinct edge to her voice. "Lavan woke up and didn't ask for her, didn't look for her, didn't even thank her. In fact, Lavan hasn't even looked at her since your accident."
"Ah." Well, that was what he had expected. Though it would have been better for poor Elenor if her infatuation had turned to anger that Lan hadn't prevented the accident. "And you? How do you feel about the boy?"
"I am... mixed in feeling," Ilea admitted. "It's not the boy's fault, but I am annoyed with him; I wish he'd at least notice she's in love with him! But he's so thick-headed!"
"Boys that age usually are, if they're unaffected by the girl in question," Pol said dryly. "If they do notice, they're generally so embarrassed they try to avoid her altogether, and I can't see where that would be an improvement so far as Elenor is concerned."
"At least it would be rejection, and maybe she could stop trying to convince herself that if she just proves her devotion he'll repay it," Ilea responded, and took the empty bowl from him. There was more irritation in her voice now, and Pol guessed that she was more put out with her own daughter than with Lavan.
"It's Elenor I'm really irritated with," she continued, confirming his guess. "How much will it take before she gives up? The boy couldn't be more indifferent to her, and she's a Healer. She has to be able to sense his lifebond with his Companion by now!"
Interestingly, Ilea's annoyance with her daughter lessened Pol's. "She won't see it until she stops believing it isn't there," he told Ilea, and put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her a little closer. She resisted for a moment, then gave in and relaxed against him. "She doesn't want to see it, and at her age, what you want seems more important sometimes than what is."
"Gods," Ilea groaned. "We may be dealing with this for years, then. Can't you do something?"
"Lan doesn't need me now," Pol replied, after a moment of hesitation. "Not after White Foal Pass. If—when this war is over and the Karsites are driven back, perhaps it would be wisest to have him stationed here permanently...."
Even though he was thinking aloud, the idea caught hold of his imagination, and he could see how well it would work out. Elenor would not be allowed to go far from the Collegium; Mind-Healers were too rare, and most people that needed them were brought to them rather than the other way around.
And for Lan, this would be the ideal place. He could be left here on circuit for the next two years with a senior Herald, then take over the circuit on his own. If the Karsites dared set foot across the Border again, Lan would send them back with their tails smoking.
"That would be perfect!" Ilea replied, seizing on his idea. "Separate them! She can't obsess about someone who forgets to even answer her letters!"