“Thank you.” Lorn crosses the platform and straps his gear behind the saddle. He mounts easily.
As he rides with the three lancers along the granite-paved street, far dryer and dustier than those of Biehl, he looks around the town. Assyadt is a smaller version of Syadtar, the headquarters town for his first assignment at Isahl under Majer Brevyl. Like Syadtar, Assyadt has clean and square stone or white-plastered buildings, green shutters, and tile roofs. He sees none of the slate roofs so prevalent in Biehl.
The compound is less than a kay from the firewagon portico, and yet is on the north edge of the town. As in Syadtar, the gates are open, with little sign that they have ever been closed. The lancers halt outside the first building inside the walls. “This be the commander’s headquarters, ser.”
Lorn dismounts, and unfastens his bags. “Thank you.”
“No problem, ser. Best of luck, ser.”
As Lorn turns and walks up the steps and through the square stone arch, with his chaos-heightened hearing, Lorn catches a few whispered remarks.
“…young for a sub-majer…really young…”
“…doesn’t look like a butcher…”
The new sub-majer keeps a pleasant smile on his lips as he carries his gear through the open double doors and into the foyer.
“Ser!” The squad leader behind the foyer desk is on his feet. “You must be Sub-Majer Lorn.”
“I am,” Lorn admits.
“Both Commander Ikynd and Majer Dettaur would like to see you. If you would let me tell the commander you are here…? Oh…you can set your gear on the bench there. I’ll be just a moment, ser.”
Lorn has barely set his bags on the golden oak bench and straightened his uniform as best he can when the lanky senior squad leader is back.
“This way, ser.”
Lorn follows the squad leader down the short corridor and to the door on the left, and into a study smaller than the one Lorn had as commander at Biehl.
Ikynd stands as Lorn enters. He is a squarish man, clean-shaven, with short-cut salt-and-pepper hair and unruly and bushy eyebrows. His black eyes survey Lorn for a long moment, until the squad leader closes the study door. Then he grins and shakes his head. “Sub-Majer…. a pleasure to meet the Butcher of Nhais.”
Lorn offers a rueful smile. “Ser, I cannot say I had heard the term before.”
“Sit down.” Ikynd gestures to the chairs before his wide table desk. “I’m sure that you haven’t. Majer Dettaur coined it. We’ll talk about that later.”
Lorn seats himself, keeping a faint and pleasant smile on his lips.
“First…congratulations. You did what most thinking lancer officers are trying to do on every angel-cursed patrol.” Ikynd raises his bushy eyebrows. “How did you manage it?”
Lorn shrugs self-deprecatingly. “Luck, having the right information at the right time, good lancers, and good District Guards…”
Ikynd smiles broadly, genially, before speaking. “That’s a good line for Cyad. It’s horsedung here. You want to try again?”
Lorn studies the commander for a long moment. “I exploited the rules of the Emperor’s Code, invoked the authority of the Majer-Commander, found some old maps and updated them, used surplus payroll to recruit and train additional lancers, and gambled that the information I had was correct. I slaughtered every last raider because I knew no one would be sending any patrols after me. It cost me half my command, a third of the guards, and the lives of fivescore Cyadorans. Is that what you wanted to hear, Commander?”
Ikynd nods. “Almost.” The smile returns. “How did you know the barbarians were even there?”
“I wasn’t totally sure,” Lorn lies, “but I knew that the Hamorians were landing scores and scores of blades, and the trading captains had heard that the raiders were going to strike where they never had before. To me, that meant the area east of Biehl. I told everyone that I needed the maneuvers for training and to test the District Guards. If I hadn’t found the raiders, that’s all that would have been known-and I’d have been able to recommend a company’s worth of lancers for transfer to the Grass Hills.” Another shrug follows. “Once we left the north beaches, the smoke was an obvious sign to anyone who’d done patrols in the Grass Hills, and we just followed them until I could trap them.”
“Ingenious-and dangerous,” observes the commander. “You were a captain under Brevyl, weren’t you?”
“Yes, ser.”
“You don’t have to say, but what was his opinion of you?”
Lorn’s eyes are hard as he fixes them on the senior officer. “Ser, he said I was one of the best captains he ever had, that I got more out of my men with fewer losses than anyone, and that he’d never liked me and probably never would.”
Ikynd laughs, a deep rolling chuckle. Then he shakes his head. “Old Grind ’Em and Gut ’Em…always making sure a compliment has a thorn in it.”
Lorn waits.
“You’ve got both kinds of guts, Lorn. The kind that’ll risk telling the truth when people don’t want to hear it, and the kind to take on a job everyone looks the other way on. My orders for you are simple. Give you Inividra, and make sure you lead a company as often as any buck captain. Give you adequate support, but nothing special, and keep you here until you do something stupid enough to get killed.” The commander’s lips curl. “And my second-in-command, the most honorable Dettaur’alt, with all his connections in Cyad, is sitting on his most esteemed rump, ready to report to the Captain-Commander if I deviate from those orders. Even if I’d never met you, I think I’d respect you for the class of your enemies. My respect won’t help you much, not with everyone looking over my shoulder.”
Lorn nods. “I think I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Not so much as you do, I think, but enough.” Lorn pauses. “What are the limits of what I can do?”
“You’re the outpost commander. So long as you kill lots of barbarians, and you kill more than four for every man you lose, I can replace your lancers seasonally. If you lose a lot, regardless of the barbarian kills, that will depend on the Majer-Commander, though, because we only hold about a company here in Assyadt in reserve for the unexpected. You drop below three kills for every lost lancer, and the Captain-Commander, through your friend Dettaur, will have you out for some trumped-up disciplinary action.”
All of what Ikynd says is the truth, but Lorn can sense, almost without truth-reading the officer, that there is more, far more, left unsaid.
“How far can I take patrols?” Lorn asks warily.
“The patrol jurisdictions are on the maps-so far as the lands of Cyador go. Stay out of the other outposts’ Cyadoran patrol lands. If you want to risk going into Jeranyi territory, I don’t care-just so long as you bring back your men, and there aren’t too many lancer bodies left behind. And there aren’t any District Guards to conscript.”
“What about firelances and recharges?”
“We’re down to three, perhaps four recharges a season.”
Lorn winces visibly.
“It’s tight and getting tighter, Sub-Majer.”
“Mounts?”
“Those shouldn’t be a problem. Before he left yesterday, Sub-Majer Kysken reported that he had twoscore extra from captures.”
“Officers and companies?”
“You have five companies at full strength. Two undercaptains, and three captains. You rate an overcaptain, but you won’t get him, not for several seasons, at least.”
“What sort of raids is the area taking?”
“The numbers aren’t much different than before. Say two raids every three eightdays in your territories. The difference is that the raiding parties are larger.”
“More blades,” Lorn suggests.
“Could be. Could be anything.”
Lorn catches the off-balance feel of the response, but merely nods. “Is there anything else of special importance to you that I should know, ser?”
The genial smile reappears. “I don’t like reading long and puffed-up reports. I liked your battle report. Keep them like that, and we’ll be on the same step.”
“Yes, ser.”