“Why not?” he demanded, his Companion Ratha matching Hellsbane’s every step. The mare flattened her ears and snapped; the Companion ignored her. “Weren’t we friends, at least? I thought we were. Oh, I admit it, that was a dirty trick I played on you with the ransom, but I had no idea how desperate your situation was, I thought your Company and Captain were pretty much intact. If I’d known, I’d have had Selenay send you double, with no strings attached, and not because I felt sorry for you, no, but because we were—are—friends, and friends help each other. But after that—the dreams—I thought I’d made amends. I needed to talk with you, needed to be with you. I couldn’t let you just walk out of my life like that. Kero—I—I love you. I’ll take anything I can get with you.”
She forced herself to think rationally—after all, this wasn’t much different from the way he was Mindspeaking her now—and slowly relaxed. “I got you back with the ransom,” she reminded him, as she loosed her hands on the reins, and Hellsbane stopped backing.
He grinned at that, and nodded. :You certainly did, and cleverly, too. And I wish you’d been there to see the old goat they sent as the Guild proxy. He just gave me one look, and made me feel like a small boy who’s been caught trying to look up little girls’ dresses.:
She chuckled at the image he sent her; it was a Guild representative she barely recognized, but knew by reputation, which was formidable.
:But that’s not the point,: he continued. :The reason I kept coming to you is that I’m your friend before I’m anything else, Kero. Friends help each other; friends bring their troubles to each other, especially if they can’t take them anywhere else. And I confided a good share in you, didn’t I?:
She nodded reluctantly, once he’d called up the memory. “Did you really want to strangle that idiot that much?”
“Yes,” Eldan replied. “He made me angry, then made me look like a fool in front of a lot of people because I acted out of anger before I thought. I wanted to strangle him. You managed to persuade me that the best way to deal with him was to ignore him. But you know—I still want to strangle him.”
She laughed, silently, and shook her head. All she’d done with him was talk mind-to-mind—which was probably why she was no longer so awkward at it—and take and give advice. The same kind she’d have taken and given if they’d been talking face-to-face. That wasn’t so bad....
In fact, she’d enjoyed it.
I probably should be angry at him, but I can’t be. “Are you sure you’re up to this job?” she asked, after a long pause. “You don’t have to be my liaison. I’m not the easiest person in the world to get along with. And I wasn’t joking about calling me ‘Captain,’ at least in public.”
:I have my share of warts. I’ll call you anything you want. And you could do without me, you know. You’re just as good at Mindspeech as I am.:
“Not a chance,” she snorted. “Come on, tagalong. I’ve got a war to run.”
Then, shyly—
:I love you, too. But you knew that, didn’t you. I told you before. In dreams.:
:You did,: he replied promptly. :I can’t promise it won’t color things. But I can and do promise if it starts causing problems for either of us, I’ll get Selenay to assign you someone else. She—she knows about us. This was her idea.:
That put a whole new complexion on things.
:I’m a Captain first, and a lover second. But—there just might be room for the lover, now.:
:Only if it doesn’t interfere.: He was adamant.
So was she. :Only if it doesn’t interfere. So far it hasn’t. Let’s ride this out :
He smiled. :Captain, you’ve got yourself a bargain. And a recruit.:
* * *
Today the plan called for her Company and Selenay’s cavalry to combine, and give Ancar just enough of a taste of combat to make him think that they really were trying to keep him out of Valdemar. Then they were to pretend panic, and run for the next set of Guards, posted farther north.
The trouble was, that little taste turned into a rather large and painful bite.
They spent most of the day leading the enemy overland, keeping just out of range, exhausting his horses while they changed off on their remounts at noon, and had fresh beasts to his tired ones. Then, just before sunset, they pretended to make a stand, teased Ancar’s men into a charge, and retreated, under covering fire.
The spot for their stand had been carefully chosen; a rocky hillside with plenty of cover, and too many boulders for Ancar’s cavalry to charge. Kero watched with a critical eye, carefully gauging the weariness of Ancar’s fighters. She let three successive waves approach her position, and be driven back—waiting for Ancar’s officers to call in the tired men for the night.
Instead, they kept coming; a fourth wave, and as the sun set, a fifth.
And under torchlight, a sixth.
They were running out of ammunition, energy—and still the enemy kept coming, though he left his dead and wounded in heaps at the foot of their stony shelter.
After the eighth wave had retreated, Kero put down her bow and sagged against her boulder with exhaustion. Her arms were like a pair of lead bars; her legs shook with weariness. And she was in relatively good shape. Selenay’s people, far more inclined than hers to risk themselves for a good shot, had managed to populate the rude shelter the Healers had assembled with their wounded. Not too many Skybolts wore bandages yet, but if this kept up....
She watched the torches bobbing and dancing out beyond firing range and longed fiercely for her mages. It looked—dear gods!—like they were massing for attack-wave number nine.
“I don’t believe this,” she muttered, staring at Ancar’s lines.
“I don’t either,” said Shallan from the other side of the boulder, in a voice fogged with fatigue. “They’re not human.”
“Or they’re driven by something that isn’t human,” Eldan said grimly. “The bastard has some kind of hold over them. They’d rather face our arrows than what he’s got over there.”
Kero turned around and looked over her shoulder. “Is that a guess, or information?”
Eldan looked like the rest of them; his white uniform was smudged and filthy, there was dirt in his hair, and sweat-streaked dust on his face. “A guess,” he said, staring past her at the enemy. “I’m not an Empath, like Talia. And they have some kind of shield over them that prevents me from reading their thoughts. But I think it’s a pretty good guess.”
“Seeing as they had one mage with them that was willing to charge right in after us, you’re probably right,” Kero said, turning back to look at the enemy herself.
“If they have mages, why haven’t they used magic on us?” Eldan wondered aloud. Kero gave him a sharp look out of the corner of her eye, but it didn’t look as if he was being sarcastic or asking a pointed question; merely as if he really was puzzled.
She shrugged. “Maybe because we’re inside Valdemar,” she said. “Maybe he only had the one mage. Maybe because he’s saving the mages for when he has a target worth their while.” She watched the milling of the enemy troops for a moment more, then made her decision.