She watched the torches bobbing and dancing out beyond firing range and longed fiercely for her mages. It looked—dear gods!—like they were massing for attack-wave number nine.
“I don’t believe this,” she muttered, staring at Ancar’s lines.
“I don’t either,” said Shallan from the other side of the boulder, in a voice fogged with fatigue. “They’re not human.”
“Or they’re driven by something that isn’t human,” Eldan said grimly. “The bastard has some kind of hold over them. They’d rather face our arrows than what he’s got over there.”
Kero turned around and looked over her shoulder. “Is that a guess, or information?”
Eldan looked like the rest of them; his white uniform was smudged and filthy, there was dirt in his hair, and sweat-streaked dust on his face. “A guess,” he said, staring past her at the enemy. “I’m not an Empath, like Talia. And they have some kind of shield over them that prevents me from reading their thoughts. But I think it’s a pretty good guess.”
“Seeing as they had one mage with them that was willing to charge right in after us, you’re probably right,” Kero said, turning back to look at the enemy herself.
“If they have mages, why haven’t they used magic on us?” Eldan wondered aloud. Kero gave him a sharp look out of the corner of her eye, but it didn’t look as if he was being sarcastic or asking a pointed question; merely as if he really was puzzled.
She shrugged. “Maybe because we’re inside Valdemar,” she said. “Maybe he only had the one mage. Maybe because he’s saving the mages for when he has a target worth their while.” She watched the milling of the enemy troops for a moment more, then made her decision.
“Tell Selenay and the rest that I’ve just changed the plan,” she told Eldan. “Get the foot troops out first, then Selenay’s horse, then we’ll play rearguard. We’ve got the advantage of knowing this country in the dark; they don’t. I don’t think they plan on stopping until every last one of us is dead, and I think we’d better get our rumps out of here while we have the cover of darkness.”
“Yes, Captain,” Eldan said—he didn’t wander off in a trance when he Mindspoke with someone like his fellow Herald had, he simply frowned a little, as if he was concentrating. “Selenay and the Lord Marshal agree,” he said after a moment. “The foot is already moving out.”
“Fine,” She turned to Shallan. “Pass the order. The retreat is for real.”
And dear gods of my childhood, help us. Because we’re in dire need of it.
It was a retreat, not a rout—but only because no one panicked. That retreat didn’t end with morning, either.
When dawn broke, Kero sent scouts back, more because she believed in being too cautious than because she really expected anything.
She knew there was trouble when they returned too quickly.
The first one in saluted her, his face gray with exhaustion. “They’re right behind us, Captain,” he croaked, as she handed him her own water skin. He gulped down a mouthful and poured the rest on his head. “I swear by Apponel, there’s no way they can be behind us, and they are anyway. Some of ’em are dropping like whipped dogs, but the rest are still on their feet and it don’t look like they plan on giving up any time soon.”
She swore and gathered the officers; hers, and Selen-ay’s and together they goaded their weary troopers into another push.
That set the pattern for succeeding days—and sometimes nights—as they retreated farther north, and deeper into Valdemar itself. Every step westward galled Kero like spurs in her side. Never before had she hated to give up land so much. Always before it had been a matter of indifference; what mattered was the final outcome, not whether a few fanners were overrun and burned out. But this time was different. The farmers pressed everything Selenay’s forces needed on them as they passed, then abandoned their farms with unshed tears making their eyes bright. She knew these farmers as people, however briefly they’d met, and it made her seethe with rage to see smoke rising in their rear and know what Ancar’s troops were doing to the abandoned properties.
Every time she took provisioning from another farmer, and watched him drive off into the west with family and whatever he could transport piled up onto pitiful little wagons with his stock herded behind him, the rage grew.
And she had never hated any foe other than the Karsites with the fierce hatred she developed for Ancar.
The fool drove his men as if they were mindless machines. She couldn’t imagine why they weren’t deserting
