“I’ve got the legendary good news and bad news.” They slogged through mud up to their ankles, and Kero blessed Lerryn’s insistence on camp hygiene. In a morass like this, fevers and dysentery were deadly serious prospects unless a camp was kept under strict sanitary conditions. The blonde looked up as the gray sky began dripping again, scowling in distaste. “So what do you want first?”
“The bad, and make it the casualties.” Kero sighed and braced herself to hear how many friends were dead or hurt beyond mending; this was the last thing she wanted to hear, but the very first she needed to to know.
Who am I going to be mourning tonight? she asked herself, the thought weighing down her heart the way the sticky clay weighed down her steps.
“Right.” Shallan grimaced. “That’s the worst of the bad, because number one was Lerryn and number two was his second, Icolan. In fact, most of the officers didn’t make it out. It’s like every one of them had a great big target painted on his back; I’ve never seen anything like it.” She glanced over to see how Kero was taking the news—and Kero didn’t know quite what to say or do. It was just too much to take all at once.
She felt stunned, as if someone had just hit her in the stomach and it hadn’t begun to hurt quite yet. Lerryn? Dear Agnetha—it didn’t seem possible; Lerryn was everything a good Captain had to be. There was no way he should be dead.... “He? His?” she said sharply, as the sense of what she’d just heard penetrated. Shallan never worded anything by accident. “Does that mean—”
Shallan’s head bobbed, her short hair plastered to her scalp by the rain. “Both the women made it. The only problem is that the higher-ranked one is—”
“Ardana Flinteyes.” Kero took in a deep breath and held it. That was bad news for the Company, or so Kero judged, and she was fairly certain Shallan felt the same way. Ardana should by rights never have risen above the rank she’d held before the rout. She’s a good fighter, but she’s got no head for strategy, she blows up over the least little thing and stays hot for months, and—I don’t like her ethics. No, that’s not true. I don’t like the fact that she doesn’t seem to have many. “So Ardana’s a top-ranker? Not over—”
“Worse,” Shallan said grimly, then looked significantly at the Captain’s tent, with its tattered standard flying overhead. It wasn’t the crossed swords anymore. It was flint and steel striking and casting a lightning bolt.
“She’s the Captain?” Kero whispered, appalled by the prospect.
Shallan nodded, once.
Kero took a deep breath. The Company had to go to someone. At least Ardana had experience, and with this Company. It was better than disbanding. Well, it was probably better than disbanding. She stopped where she was and stared at the new standard, oblivious to the rain pouring down on her. After all, she was already soaked.
“The good news is that all the scouts made it,” Shallan said hurriedly, as if to get her mind off the uneasy prospect of Ardana as Captain. “And I’ve got a tent, a whole one; it fits four and there’s only me and Relli. You can come on in with us, we don’t mind.”
Kero sighed; she’d rather not have shared with anyone, but she doubted there was a choice. It was shelter, and the company was good. She’d rather have her own—but maybe she could manage that in the next couple of days. Obviously the Company had lost all of the equipment left behind during the rout.
“I’ll take you up on that,” she said, surprised at the gratitude she heard in her voice beneath the weariness. She straightened her back and squared her shoulders. “Might as well get this over with while I can still stand.”
She smoothed back her soaked hair with both hands, and smiled slightly at the younger woman. Shallan patted her shoulder encouragingly, and led the way.
Kero stared up at the stained and mildew-spotted canvas overhead. It wasn’t her tent, but it was waterproof, and Shallan and Relli had gotten the mildew stink out of it somehow. She was happy just to be lying down, and dry, and warm. Granted that the bedroll was looted from who knew where, smelled of horse, and had seen better days; that didn’t matter. Dry and warm counted for a lot right now.
The interview with Ardana had not proved the ordeal Kero feared it might be. Except that she ignored half of what I said about the Karsites, where Lerryn would have had me in there till I fell over, taking notes. That was disturbing; more disturbing was that Ardana really didn’t seem interested in the things she had asked about. It was as if she was going through the motions, as if she had some other opponent in mind than the Karsites.
But just about everyone had deduced from Hellsbane’s condition what Kero’s must be like; when Ardana let her go, they’d sent Shallan over to bring her to the mess tent—but then they sat her down and got her fed, and didn’t ask too many questions. Then someone had brought in a spare shirt, and someone else produced breeches and socks, and a third party a heavy woolen sweater—
They’d stripped her to the skin right there in the mess tent, amid a lot of laughter and rude jokes about how it would be more fun to bed her sword than her, right now.
“So change that!” she’d retorted. “You can all start buying me steaks!” Meanwhile she had been pulling on the first warm, dry clothing she’d had in a week.
Then they ran her over to Shallan’s tent under a pilfered tarp, so she wouldn’t get wet again. It had all been a demonstration of caring that had left her a little breathless.
Maybe that was why she was having trouble falling asleep.
I was right, she thought, staring at the mottled ceiling, listening to the rain drum on it. I was right to come back. This is where I belong. I could never fit in with Eldan, with his friends, no more than I could have with Daren and the Court. I’d have only made both of us miserable trying.
Her eyes burned; she sniffed, and rubbed them with her sleeve, glad that Shallan and Relli were off somewhere else. Probably in the mess tent; they were both passable fletchers, and the Skybolts had lost a lot of arrows....
A lot of other things, too. Kero thankfully shifted her thoughts to the general troubles. The Company was in trouble. Equipment lost, officers decimated, about a third of the roster gone and another third on the wounded list—and Menmellith had declined to pay them more than half their fee, on the grounds that they hadn’t stopped the “bandits,” and they hadn’t come up with real proof that they were operating with more than the Karsite blessing. The Guild, when appealed to, had reluctantly ruled in Menmellith’s favor.
It could always be worse. The Wolflings are going to have to find another Company to combine with. There’s hardly enough of them left to fill out one rank.
Dearest goddess, I’m going to miss Lerryn.
There were a lot of people she was going to miss. And right on the top of the list was Eldan.
Her throat closed again, and she choked down a sob. I love him, and it would never have worked. I love him, and I’m never going to see him again. He probably thinks I deserted him under fire or something.
She’d been hoping for some kind of message from him when she reached the camp; he knew what her Company was, and messages moved swiftly through the aegis of the Guild. But there had been nothing.