"I've never had t' kill an enemy like this before," Dyn said.
Tirnya pulled her sword free. "None of us has."
Already she could see soldiers thrusting their blades into the chests of sleeping Fal'Borna. Some of the soldiers were from Qalsyn; others were from Fairlea or Waterstone. All of them seemed disturbed by what they were being made to do.
"We should check the shelters," she said. "There'll be warriors in many of them."
She approached the nearest of the structures, which had been fashioned out of wooden poles and rilda skins. Pushing aside a flap that covered the entrance and stepping into the shelter, she found half a dozen sleeping children and two women, both of them holding spears.
"Damn," she whispered.
"Capt'n?" Oliban called to her from outside the shelter.
"It's all right," she said, her teeth clenched against a sudden sick feeling in her stomach.
She considered ordering Oliban into the shelter and telling him to do this. But she quickly dismissed the idea. Then she wondered if she and her men should drag the women out of the shelter, so that the children wouldn't awake to find themselves with two corpses. But would they be any better off leaving the shelter and finding the bodies out there? And did she want anyone else to see her do this?
In the end she decided that she didn't. She stood over the first woman and pulled her sword back, intending to stab her through the heart. These women were white-hairs. Their people had taken Deraqor from the Onjaefs and had killed thousands upon thousands of Eandi over the centuries. This should have been easy for her.
Her sword hand dropped to her side. She opened her mouth to call for Oliban, knowing that she wouldn't be able to carry out her orders.
But at that moment, the woman before her stirred and her eyes fluttered open. Golden yellow they were, and for just an instant, she stared up at Tirnya.
Her heart abruptly pounding, Tirnya jumped forward and plunged her blade into the woman's chest. The Fal'Borna cried out, flailed briefly, and then was still, blood staining her shirt.
The piece of rilda skin covering the shelter's entrance was thrown back. "Capt'n!" Oliban said. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," Tirnya said, breathing hard. "One of them… one of them woke up."
Oliban looked down at the woman Tirnya had slaughtered. After a moment, he drew his blade, walked to the other woman, and killed her as well. Then they left the shelter and made their way to the next one.
It was slow, grim work. At one point, Tirnya heard shouting and screams from the far end of the sept. She later learned that several Fal'Borna, including at least two shapers, had awakened before any of the Eandi soldiers reached them and had put up quite a fight before being killed by Stelpana's archers. Several more Eandi soldiers had died, most with snapped necks.
But by late in the day, all the adult Fal'Borna had been slain, as had the remaining eagles. Tirnya had rarely seen such carnage. The sept was littered with bodies, the earth stained crimson in many places. Jenoe ordered his men to pile the bodies and burn them, which meant that all of the Fal'Borna children were awake long before the Eandi army left the sept. Most of the younger ones cried piteously, while the oldest among them stared stony-faced at the pyres and the Eandi soldiers.
Tirnya had learned her lesson from her encounter with the boy in the last settlement; this time she made no effort to speak with any of the children. She stood at the edge of the village nearest to the horse paddock, staring off across the plain, hoping that the wind wouldn't shift and send the stench of burning corpses her way.
She hadn't been alone long when she heard a footfall behind her. Knowing that it had to be Enly, she turned, the words on her tongue intended to send him away and let him know in no uncertain terms that she didn't need comforting or sympathy. But it wasn't Enly who stood before her, nor was it Gries, or Stri, or her father, any of whom she also might have expected. Instead, she found herself facing her lead riders, Oliban, Qagan, Dyn, and Crow.
"What's happened?" she asked.
Oliban looked at the other three, but they were all eyeing him. For a long time he had spoken for all of them. It seemed that the others expected him to do so now, too.
"Oliban?" Tirnya said.
"We…" He shook his head. "Th' men are… troubled by wha' happened t'day, Capt'n. They wasn't happy abou' goin' t' war alongside th' Mettai, bu' they knew tha' we'd be better off with a bit o' magic on our side. Bu' this…" He shook his head. "Killin' white-hairs is one thing. Don' ge' me wrong. None of us has any problem with that. Bu' killin' them while they sleep? What are we doin', Capt'n?"
Before she could answer, Crow said, "There's some who are sayin' now tha' they'd rather face th' Fal'Borna with no magic at all than use any more o' this blood magic."
"Is that what you say, Crow?" Tirnya asked.
He hesitated, but only for an instant. "Yes, Capt'n, I guess it is."
Tirnya wasn't sure what to say to them. A part of her felt that she should have been angry. They were questioning her judgment as well as her father's. But she also understood. The first time the Mettai used magic on their behalf, their monstrous wolves nearly killed several soldiers. This time the eagles seemed more intent on each other than on the Fal'Borna, and the sleeping spell, while effective, made what should have been a battle into something more akin to a massacre. She didn't want anything to do with magic anymore, regardless of whether the conjurings were done by Mettai or Fal'Borna. Then again, had it not been for Mettai magic, most of them would be dead. She reminded the men of this.
"Ye're right," Oliban told her. "Tha' spell saved hundr'ds, if no' thousands." He glanced at Crow. "T' be honest, some don' hold with those who'd go on without any Mettai magic at all. I don' much like th' Mettai, bu' I don' think we can win this war without 'em. What we did t'day, though; tha' was… it was wrong, Capt'n. There's no other word for it. It was wrong."
"Do you think we could have won the battle any other way?" she asked, looking at each of the men in turn.
For some time none of them answered.
Finally, Oliban said, "Probably not."
She thought to ask if they were suggesting then that this war wasn't worth fighting, but she wasn't sure she wanted to hear their answer to that.
"I don't think so, either," she said instead. "This is war. You do what you have to in order to win. Today we did something that none of us felt good about. But at the end of the day, we're alive and our army is largely intact. Given what that Fal'Borna fire did to our lines, despite the Mettai spell, I think it's clear that matters could have been far worse."
Crow looked like he might argue the point further, but Oliban cut him off with a sharp look.
"Thank you, Capt'n," Oliban said.
The others muttered thank-yous as well, and they left her there. She watched them walk back into the sept and rejoin the rest of her company. Then she started back herself. She spotted Enly from afar and steered clear of him, but wound up face-to-face with her father.
"I just had a meeting with the captains and Hendrid," he said. "Where were you?"
"I'm sorry, Father. I was… my lead riders needed to speak with me. I was with them."
"Is there a problem?"
She shook her head. "They were asking about rations. That's all."
He eyed her doubtfully.
"What did you tell the other captains?" she asked, hoping to forestall more questions.
"I didn't like the way today's battle went. We were poorly prepared and took too long to develop a strategy for attack. Out here on the plain, an army as large as ours can easily be spotted from a distance. The Fal'Borna will be ready for our attack, and the next sept might ride to meet us. So we're going to alter our marching formations. I want archers and the Mettai at the front of our lines at all times. And I want the archers mustered into companies of one hundred each. These companies will march together, eat together, and make camp together. They should be able to respond to commands instantly. Each of you will have command of one of them. Enly will tell you which is yours."