The Price Of Command

“What?” she asked, impatiently. “What is it? If there’s something around that’s costing me the use of my mages, I want to know about it.”

Quenten ground his teeth in frustration. “I don’t know,” he said, around a clenched jaw. “I really don’t know! It was like there was somebody watching us, all the time. At first, it was just an annoyance; we figured there was just some Talented youngling out there, thinking he could spy on us. But we never caught anybody, and after a while, it started getting on our nerves. It was like having somebody staring, staring right at you, all the time. It goes on day and night, waking and sleeping, and it’s like nothing any of us have ever seen or heard of before. We couldn’t get rid of it, we couldn’t shield against it, and its been getting worse every day. I can’t even sleep anymore. Please, Captain, give us permission to go back. We’ll wait for you at winter quarters.”

Now if it had been one of the others who asked that of her, with a nebulous story like that, she’d have suspected fakery, slacking, or at least exaggeration. But it was Quenten, as trustworthy as they came, and not prone to exaggerate anything. And he did look awful.

And if all this was true, even if she kept them, they wouldn’t do her any good. You can’t take time to aim when you have to keep ducking, and that’s obviously the way they feel right now.

“Are the Healers being affected?” she asked anxiously. “Or is it only you?”

“The Healers are fine, Captain,” Quenten reported, with a certain hangdog expression, as if he felt he was somehow responsible for the mages being singled out.

Then with luck, Need will still be able to Heal me. And with none, she’s still a good sword. Besides, a sword probably wouldn’t care about being stared at. “All right,” she said unhappily. “You can go. You go back on noncombatant status, though, and we can’t spare anyone to get you back home.”

“That’s all right,” Quenten replied, nearly faint with relief. “Once we’re across the border we’ll be fine. Thank you, Captain. I think if I’d had to go two more days, I’d have killed someone. We’ve already had to restrain Arnod twice; he tried to run off into the snow last night with nothing on but a shirt.”

“Oh,” Kero replied, wishing that they’d told her about this earlier. Then, it might have been possible to get Quenten to fiddle with Need again, to extend the protections over the mages....

Then again, maybe not. Need never had protected mages from magic. They were all probably better off this way. And besides, Need was silent. Who knew if she was actually working or not?

She told her orderly to go with Quenten and see that the quartermaster gave them what supplies he could.

Something watching you all the time, she thought, bemused, as she settled down to the remains of her dinner. Now that I think of it, that is something that would drive you crazy. Especially if you were already unbalanced. Which mages are, a lot of times, and with good reason.

No wonder there are no mages in Valdemar. They’re either mad, or fled. Clever defense. End of puzzle.

Except I hope my blade is still working. Things could get sticky if it isn’t.

Halfway to the Valdemar capital of Haven, it seemed that their purpose and reputation had preceded them. People came out of the towns along the way to watch them pass; reservedly friendly, but cautious, as if they didn’t quite know what to expect of a mercenary Company. Kero ordered her troopers to respond to positive overtures, but ignore negative ones. And there were negative responses; old men and women who remembered the Tedrel Wars, and had decided that all mercs were like the Tedrels had been. At least once every time they halted, someone would shout an insult (which more than half the troopers couldn’t understand anyway), someone else would half-apologize for “granther,” and Kero or one of her Lieutenants would carefully explain the difference between Guild and non-Guild mercs. It got to be so much of a commonplace, that the troops began laying bets on who the troublemaker would be the moment they entered a town. Privately, Kero was relieved that the Tedrel Wars had been so very long ago—years tended to bring forgetfulness, especially in the light of this new enemy. It didn’t matter so much anymore that the Karsites had hired fighters calling themselves mercenaries—those hired fighters had been just like the Karsites who hired them; they fought with steel like anyone else, and could be killed with that same steel. Ancar had hired mages, about which there were only tales, and every childhood bogeyman came leaping out of the closet to become the adult’s worst nightmare.

So, for the most part, the people of Valdemar came out to see these hired fighters—hired to fight on their side—and came away comforted. These were tough, seasoned veterans, on fast, slim horses like these farmers had never seen before—but they smiled at children, offered bits of candy, and let toddlers ride on a led horse. They had faced mages and won. When someone managed to find a Skybolt who knew either trade-tongue or had a sketchy grasp of Valdemaran, and managed to ask through the medium of painfully slow pantomime about fighting against mages, the answer always surprised the the questioner, for it was invariably a shrug, and a reply of, “they die.”

Kero finally reduced it to a few simple sentences she had the officers teach the troops. “Tell them ‘mages are human. They bleed if you cut them, die if you strike them right. They need to eat, and they get tired if they work magic for too long. And there are things to stop them and things their magic can’t work on—’” And then would follow the list of all the little tricks every Guild merc knew; salt and herbs, holy talismans, disrupting the mage’s concentration, spellbreaking by interfering with the components, sneaking up and taking the mage from behind, even overwhelming the mage with a rush of arrows or bodies so that he couldn’t counter every one before he was taken down.