Oathbreaker

don't want any more gut-wounds, either.'

* * *

It was dawn, or nearly, and the rain had slackened some. There was still lightning and growling thunder, but at least you could see through the murk, and it was finally possible to keep the shielded torches at the entrance to the guarded camp alight. Tarma saw her scouts assembled beneath one of those torches as she rode up to the sentry. She felt like yawning, but wouldn't; she wouldn't be a bad example. Cold, ye gods, I'm half-frozen and we haven't even gotten out of the camp yet, she thought with resignation. I haven't been warm since summer.

:And then you were complaining about heat,: Warrl replied sardonically.

'I was not. That was Keth,' she retorted. 'I like the heat.'

Warrl did not deign to reply.

Tarma was already feeling grateful for Kethry's parting gift, the water-repelling cape Keth had insisted on throwing over her coat. It's not magic, Keth had said, I don't want a mage smelling you out. Just tight-woven, oiled silk, and bloody damned expensive. I swapped a jesto-vath on his tent to Gerroldfor it, for as long as the rains last. I hope you don't mind the fact that it's looted goods --

Not likely, she'd replied.

So today it was Keth looking out for and worrying about her. They seemed to take it turn and turn about these days, being mother-hen. Well, that was what being partners was all about.

:Took you long enough to come to that conclusion,:

Warrl laughed. :Now if you'd just start mother-henning me-:

'You'd bite me, you fur-covered fiend.'

:0h, probably.:

'Ah -- you're hopeless,' Tarma chided him. smothering a grin. 'Let's look serious here; this is business.'

:Yes, oh mistress.:

Tarma bit back another retort. She never won in a contest of sharp tongues with the kyree. Instead of answering him, she pondered her choice of scouts again, and was satisfied, all things considered, that she'd picked the best ones for the job.

First, Garth: a tiny man, and dark, he looked like a dwarfish shadow on his tall Shin'a'in gelding. He was one of Tarma's first choices for close-in night work, since his dusky skin made it unnecessary for him to smear ash on himself, but his most outstanding talents were that he could ride like a Shin'a'in and track like a hound. His one fault was that he couldn't hit a haystack with more than two arrows out of ten. He was walking his bay gelding back and forth between the two sentries at the sally-point, since his beast was the most nervous of the five that would be going out, and the thunder was making it lay its ears back and show the whites of its eyes.

Beaker; average was the word for Beaker; size, coloring, habits -- average in everything except his nose -- that raptor's bill rivaled Tarma's. His chest-nut mare was as placid of disposition as Garth's beast was nervous, and Beaker's temperament matched his mare's. As Tarma rode up, they both appeared to be dozing, despite the cold rain coming down on their heads. Fastened to the cantle of Beaker's saddle were two cages, each the size of two fists put together, each holding a black bird with a green head. Beaker was a good tracker, almost as good as Garth, but this was his specialty; the training and deployment of his messenger birds.

Jodi: sleepy-eyed and deceptively quiet, this pale, ice-blonde child with evident aristocratic blood in her veins was their mapmaker. Besides that skill, she was a vicious knife fighter and as good with a bow as Garth was poor with one. She rode a gray mare with battlesteed blood in her; a beast impossi-ble for anyone but her or Tarma to ride, who would only allow a select few to handle her. Jodi sat her as casually as some gentle palfrey -- and with Jodi in her saddle, the mare acted like one. Her only fault was that she avoided situations where she would have to command the way she would have avoided fouled water.

And Kyra: peasant blood and peasant stock, she'd trained herself in tracking, bow and knife, and hard riding, intending to be something other than some stodgy fanner's stolid wife. When the war came grinding over her parents' fields and her family had fled for their lives, she'd stayed. She'd coolly sized up both sides and chosen Sursha's -- then sized up the mercenary Companies attached to Sursha's army and decided which ones she wanted to approach.

She'd started first with the Hawks, though she hadn't really thought she'd get in -- or so she had confessed to Tarma after being signed on. Little had she guessed that Scout Pawell had coughed out his life pinned to a tree three days earlier -- and that the Hawks had been down by two scouts before that had happened. Tarma had interviewed her and sent her to Sewen, who'd sent her to Idra -- who'd sent her back to Tarma with the curt order --

'Try her. If she survives, hire her.' Tarma had sent her on the same errand that had killed Pawell. Kyra had returned. Since Pawell had had no relatives, no leman and no shieldmate to claim his belongings, Tarma gave her Pawell's dun horse, Pawell's gear, and Pawell's tentmate. Kyra had quickly acquired something Pawell hadn't --