Company; his only concession to rank was a round pin of carved silver Kero had made him, showing two crossed swords bisected by a lightning bolt. Thin and not particularly tall, and just now at rest, he wasn’t very imposing, either. But when he rose to speak, it was immediately apparent that he was whipcord and steel over bone, and moved with a lazy grace that spoke volumes to anyone who had studied hand-to-hand combat. Those limpid brown eyes missed nothing; those foppish curls covered a skull with frightening intelligence inside it. There wasn’t one single horse in the entire camp he couldn’t handle, up to and including Hellsbane, which had surprised the hell out of both Kero and her horse. And all he had to do was say three words, and it was no secret why the Skybolts were fanatically devoted to their Captain.
He scanned the crowd slowly to let the muttering die away. Only when he had relative silence did he speak, in a calm, but carrying voice. “We’ve voted, and we’ve decided to make a push,” he said. “Otherwise we let these whoresons force us to piss away our troops against them, while there may be groups out there we haven’t bottled up taking pieces out of the Border.”
There was the start of a cheer—when he raised his hand for silence. He got it, too—something that never failed to impress Kero.
“The Skybolts won’t be fighting,” he said firmly, “and I’m not taking any volunteers to go on temp to the other Companies. And that’s an order.”
Agnira—there’re going to be some objections to that, and for sure—And there were; a storm of them. People began shouting and waving their hands to get his attention, for all the world like a crowd of unruly children. Lerryn simply let the hotheads have their say, then held up his hand again.
“It’s not our kind of fight,” he told them, his eyes moving from face to face so that in the end, every one of them would have been willing to swear that the Captain talked to him, directly. “We aren’t trained, any of us, in the kind of line fighting there’s going to be. Most of us are runty little bastards,” he continued, with a rueful grin that included himself with them. “We couldn’t take on a big man in a shoulder-to-shoulder situation, not when we’ve built careers and training on speed and agility. We couldn’t use our short-swords or horse-bows, and those little round target shields would be damned useless against maces and axes. We can’t do any damn good with unfamiliar weapons, afoot, against heavy infantry. And if you all really think about that, and are honest, you’ll agree with me.”
There was more muttering, and some vehement head-shaking, but not much. Lerryn’s words made sense even to the most belligerent among them.
The Captain spread his hands in a gesture that said wordlessly, Look, I don’t like this any more than you do, but we all know the facts when we see them. “We’ve done our job,” he said. “No one can fault us—we’re the ones who tracked them, and we’re the ones who harried them and trapped them here in the first place. It’s time for the others to do their job, and now we have to get out of the way so they can do it without interference. Hmm?” He tilted his head slightly to one side; there was more muttering— Shallan, predictably, was one of the mutterers—but it quickly died away.
“Don’t think we’re getting off easy,” he said, “I’m deploying half of you as outriders to make sure nobody gets away. If there’s a breakout, you’ll be fighting—and you outriders are as important as the front liners. More. That’s the place where we’ll have a good shot at taking prisoners. We don’t want anyone to escape to take word back to —wherever.”
Tactfully not saying what everyone is thinking. Kero’s lip twitched. We can say it, but because he’s Captain, he can’t. Not till it’s proved. That “wherever” is Karse, and if they get back with word of this, the Karsites may send a bigger force before we’re ready for it.
Lerryn looked them all over once again, the breeze blowing his long hair back from his face. “The rest of you, get the camp packed up and ready to move on the instant. Pack up your friends, if they’re out on patrol. Once the siege is broken, we’ll be moving as fast as we can, back to a secured zone.”
Again, not saying what he can’t—but he expects there to be prisoners, and I’ll bet my next bonus he’s been toldwe’ll have custody of them. We’re the fastest, and if we can get the prisoners to a secure lockup, we can have them singing like woodlarks before the Karsites even know we have them. I‘d bet on Abevell for that secure lockup. Town’s practically carved into the side of the mountain.
Lerryn waited for any further comment, but the Skybolts knew their leader, and that his decisions were final. Later, when they were all behind friendly walls, they’d find out why those decisions had been made. Until then, they were willing to take it on faith that there were reasons.
“Dismissed,” he said, and singled out a dozen scout-leaders with a pointed finger before they all dispersed. Those chosen followed him back to his tent. The rest milled restlessly for a moment, then drifted back toward the camp in twos and threes to begin the breakdown.
Kero was not among the select, but she hadn’t expected she’d be; after all, her group had already been out this morning, and Lerryn wasn’t the kind of Captain to impose double duty on someone without a compelling reason. She was relieved, both that the Skybolts were not going to be involved in the fight, and that she wasn’t going to be part of the harriers.
It’s too much, she decided, making noncommittal answers to Shallan as they walked through the orderly rows of tents to their own. Running people down on horseback, like I was hunting rabbits—hellfires, I don’t even hunt rabbits on horseback! I’m just glad I don’t have to be part of that. I think maybe the Captain figured that out, too. He gave me that kind of look. I don’t think he likes it either.
Shallan’s tent was the closest, and the blonde dove into it with another moan of complaint. “—and just my luck, Relli’s with Hagen, which means she’ll be in on it and I’ll have to pack her stuff up!”
