Two-Edged Blade

Sure enough, the tent was empty, and Shallan threw herself at her lover’s belongings with grim determination. Kero took herself off before she could be coerced into helping. Relli was something of a clotheshorse, and Kero did not want to take responsibility for the least little crease that “ruined” a tunic.

Her own tent was the same size as Shallan’s but seemed larger, since she had to it herself. Technically these were four-man tents, but only if you stacked everyone together like logs, and no one had more than a single backpack of possessions. Two fit fine; one was perfect, so far as Kero was concerned. Lerryn didn’t care about sleeping arrangements so long as everyone was under canvas and someone took responsibility for the tent itself. If they took on anyone without his own shelter and they ran out of Company tents, Kero might be ordered to share, but until then, she had her privacy.

She was glad of it, as she packed her belongings down with practiced ease, and began rolling her bedding. The trapped bandits were going to be massacred. She knew how completely logical that was. And she didn’t like it. If she’d had a tentmate, she’d have had to talk about it, and she didn’t want to. The sooner I can shake the dust of this place from Hellsbane’s hooves, the better I’m—

Suddenly she heard something on the edge of the camp. Confused shouting, too far away to make out words, but there was no mistaking the tone. There was something wrong, desperately wrong.

For only the second time since she’d joined the Skybolts, she dropped her mental shields and searched for a coherent picture among the jangle of thoughts—looking for the person who knew what was going on.

Lerryn.

She found him, on the picket line, directing incoming scouts who were galloping up to the line in panic, while the Company hedge-wizard sent up the emergency “come in” signal beside him.

The thoughts in his mind were clear and organized, as cool and unpanicked as her own would be if she were in his place. Though what she read there would have sent anyone else into the kind of panic the rest of the camps were showing.

For all the guesses had been right—these were no “bandits” the Companies had pinned, these were Karsite regulars. But somehow, some way, they had gotten word of their position across the Border, and Karse had sent out a real army to close in behind and catch the Companies in a pincer maneuver. The odds, depending on who Lerryn talked to, were either two or three to one, in the Karsite favor.

Kero pulled out of Lerryn’s mind as invisibly as she had insinuated herself in, glad now that she had not given in to temptation and had brought only what Hellsbane could comfortably carry. The tent would have to be abandoned, of course. There was no percentage in standing and fighting, and there was only one way of dealing with this trap before they were all caught in it.

Run.

Each Captain cared only for his own at this point—which was the biggest weakness of a force comprised of mercs. Kero could not help but pity the heavy infantry, the Wolflings—they had no one to cover for them and harry their pursuers. She had no idea how they would get away.

On the other hand, she thought, with a twinge of guilt at her selfishness, I don’t want to be the one covering their rear, either.

She flung herself out of her tent with all of those things of her worldly goods that she needed to survive on her back and in her two hands; no more, with the addition of a ration pack for herself and her horse, than Hellsbane could carry and still run. Everything else she left without a second thought.

Not everyone was so pragmatic; she and Shallan had to physically tear Relli away from her wardrobe and drag her toward the picket lines. The Wolflings, in the next camp over, were already on their way out, pouring over the “back way,” as fast as their feet could march. The Skybolts of all the Companies were the likeliest to survive intact; with each of them mounted on light, agile horses, and with so much broken ground available to hide them. That is, the Company would survive; as always, the survival of an individual was problematical.

Shallan and Relli were nearly the last to arrive; Relli took one look at Lerryn’s grim expression, and shut her mouth on the last of her laments. Without another word, the trio accepted their ration sacks from the quartermaster, tied their packs behind their saddles, and mounted up.

Lerryn waited until the last straggler joined them, before mounting his own beast—a rawboned roan a full hand taller than anyone else’s beast—that was renowned for being able to lose any rider but Lerryn within ten heartbeats of mounting.

“We’re in trouble, people,” he said without preamble. “The Karsites have the main road blocked, the back way is full of foot troops, and the other four tracks in have watchers on them. We stayed till last to give the foot a head start and let our own scouts get in. Now it looks like we’re stuck. Suggestions?”

“East, for Karse,” Gies said. “They won’t be expecting that. And we found a game trail over the top of the cliff at the northeast end of the valley. We never bothered using it, ‘cause it’s a bitch to get up.”

“We’ll take it,” Lerryn said instantly. “Gies.”