Brightly Burning

gathered from around the campsite. He built a long fire, rather than a typical pyramid; after all, he could keep anything he chose burning, and this way everyone would have a place right at the fireside to keep warm. With a careless flick of his mind, he set it burning.

Green wood or windfall, dry or wet, it all burned at his touch, and burned totally, leaving behind only ashes and producing very little smoke. He went out into the scrubby forest time and time again, returning to the campsite with loads of wood or great enormous logs. Kalira helped there, dragging the logs in tied to her girth. He laid or rolled the logs down on his fire with Tuck's help; an advantage of having a long fire, since it meant that no one had to chop the logs up to fit. Calum had charge of the primitive cooking by common consent, since he never, ever burned anything. Tonight's catch was hare and squirrel, and very tasty it smelled, too, at the point when Lan was ready to stop hauling in wood.

He accepted his rabbit hindquarter, with a mug of strong tea, and sat down beside Tuck to eat it. Stars bloomed overhead, and it seemed an impossible thing that this place could have been scarred by war only a few candlemarks ago.

Tuck poked him in the side as he sucked meditatively on a rabbit bone. 'What're you thinking?' he asked. 'I can almost hear your thoughts jabbering to each other.'

'Nothing much,' Lan demurred. 'Just that I don't know what they'll do with me when the war is over.'

Tuck snorted, and punched Lan lightly on the upper arm. 'No fear of that any time soon. Did you hear the scout reports? This Karsite lot doesn't know when to give over!'

'And we do?' he countered with a dim smile. 'But it's our land we're fighting on, so I suppose we can't give up.'

'Suppose! You know we can't!' Tuck exclaimed, giving him a peculiar look, as if he suspected his friend had gone mad.

Lan didn't respond; he just dropped back into his link with Kalira, who came to stand behind him.

:When is this going to end? And when it does, what will they do with me?: he asked her plaintively.

:I don't know for certain, but you mustn't fret about it, love,: she replied, :you will always be needed—:

Something interrupted her. Her head went up and her eyes unfocused for just a moment. Across the fire, the same was happening with Fedor's Companion, and Tuck's Dacerie as well—and that could only mean one thing. The situation had just changed again, and they were getting new orders.

Kalira snapped out of her trance first. :No rest for the weary, love,: she said apologetically. :Get the tack; we have to ride.:

Lan had not been aware that the rest of the scouts were watching him, Tuck, and Fedor, but the moment he got up and reached for Kalira's saddle-blanket, the scouts started moving.

'Load and ride,' Fedor said shortly, as he and his Companion came back to themselves. 'The Karsites are moving faster than we thought they would. Our job is to get Lan here to a point where he can hold them back until the rest of the army conies up.'

Me? They're depending on me?

Although he had been told that something of the sort might happen, the words still put a chill down his back and a lump of cold fear in his stomach. They are all expecting me to do what no one else can. He froze for a moment, but no one else even paused in what they were doing.

In fact, if anything, they put a bit more speed on.

His fingers fumbled with the buckle on Kalira's girth until she enclosed him in a cocoon of calm. He couldn't help but feel comforted and steadied; his hands stopped shaking, and he finished his jobs just as quickly as the rest of the scouts.

They all mounted within moments of each other. 'Kill the fire,' Calum ordered, and Lan, who had discovered that he could extinguish fires as easily as he started them, obeyed. The flames shrank down to nothing in a heartbeat, the coals lingered a moment, then with a metallic clinking, went black. You could put your hand right into the middle of the ashen remains now, and feel nothing more than a bit of residual warmth.

'Right,' was all Calum said; he turned his horse's head up the trail, and motioned to Fedor to take the lead. Companions had infinitely better night vision than horses; Fedor and his Companion would find the trail and set the pace.

The pace—in a moment, as Lan and Kalira swung into place behind Diera and in front of Ben—was going to be grueling, at least as far as the horses were concerned. It was a good thing that there was a full moon, and that the snow reflected back so much moonlight. They alternated between a fast walk and a canter, holding the latter as long as the horses could bear up. Only when the first began to flag did they slow; interestingly, the horse that failed first was generally Calum's mount, not the shaggy little pony that Wulaf rode.

: Where are we going?: Lan asked, keeping himself low over Kalira's neck.

:A bit farther in than we'd planned to—you're going to be blocking a pass at the southern tip of that pine forest,: she replied. :On the way there is one more possible Karsite stronghold, but it's another wooden fortress; you can probably bum it out as we go by.:

True, but he wouldn't be able to do so in a way that would ensure the Karsites got out before he sent it up. That's just too bad, he told himself—or tried to. They're the enemy, after all. They've killed plenty of our people without caring what happened.

But had they? He couldn't say for certain if this particular batch of Karsites had been cold-blooded killers like those priests, or the assassin that had attacked Pol. They might just be ordinary folks, as troubled in their minds about dealing death as he was....

But if he left them in place, they would kill Valdemarans, whether or not they were troubled afterward, so he had no choice.

Far sooner than he would have liked, the time to act came upon him.

Fedor brought them all to a halt with an upraised arm, and motioned to Lan to come up beside him. 'See that