The Price Of Command

But she had the only force that could get in, get the job done, and get out.

It’s a suicide mission! half of her cried in agony. It’s necessary, said the other half, coldly, logically. She took a deep breath, lowered her eyes, and looked straight back into Daren’s. And saw that he didn’t like the odds any better than she did. He hated the cost of this as much as she. She saw the same pain she felt in the back of his eyes, and it steadied her.

“All right,” she said. “Give me time to set this up, right to requisition what I might need from your quartermaster, then get us an escort in and out. Leave the rest to us. Geyr, on me.”

She turned on her heel, and walked off without another word. How can I even up the odds? There has to be a way. The black man whistled to his dog and followed after her, as she strode down toward the picket line, and the rows of horses drowsing in the sun, oblivious to the battle beyond.

“Get me Quenten,” she called as she reached the lines and lounging fighters jumped to their feet. She scanned them, looking for the bright white of Lieutenants’ badges. She spotted one, and providentially, it was exactly the person she needed most. “Losh,” she ordered, not slacking her pace in the least, as she kept straight on through the lines. “Get the horse-archers to the Healers’ tent. The rest of you, at ease.”

A third of the Skybolts went back to their scraps of shade, veterans enough to know and follow the maxim that a fighter rests whenever he can. The rest left their beasts in the care of friends and followed after her to the Healers’ tent.

Quenten turned up just as she got there, popping out of the Healers’ tent so suddenly he seemed to appear out of the air, like one of his illusions. And seeing that started an idea in the back of her mind.

She left it there to simmer a while, as she gathered her troops around her, and explained the mission. The horse-archers sat or stood, each according to his nature, but all with one thing in common; absolute attention and complete silence.

As Kero drew a rough map in the dust and laid out the plan, she couldn’t help but notice how appallingly young the gathered faces were. One and all, they were veterans, yes, without a doubt—but none was over the age of twenty-five. Most were under twenty. Young enough to believe in their own immortality and invulnerability. Too young to really understand what bad odds mean, or really care if they do know. Each and every one of them thinks he can beat the odds and the omens, however unfavorable. She felt sickened; as if she was somehow betraying them.

As she completed her explanation, the glimmering of an idea burst into full flower, and she turned to Quenten. “You’re in on this because I want you to do something to make them harder to hit—maybe make them harder to see,” she told him. “They’re already going to be moving targets; I want you to make it so hard for the enemy to look at them that he has nothing to aim at.”

He scratched his peeling nose thoughtfully; like most redheads, he sunburned at the mercst hint of summer. That was probably why he had been in the Healers’ tent; either sensibly avoiding injury or getting his burns seen to. “I can’t make weapons bounce off ’em, Captain,” he replied uneasily. “I think I know what you’re thinking of, and I’m not as good as your grandmother was, I haven’t got the power to pull that spell that makes ’em look like they’re a little off where they really are. And I sure’s hell can’t make ’em invisible.”

“That wasn’t what I had in mind,” she said, impatient with herself for not knowing how to explain clearly what she did want. “You’re damned good at illusion. There’s a lot of sun out there today—hellfires, the way it comes off that shrine roof, you get spots in front of your eyes trying to look at it. What about if I get real shiny armor issued for everybody—can you do something to make it brighter?”

Quenten brightened immediately. “Now that I can do!” he enthused. “I can double the light reflecting off of it, at least—maybe triple it.”

“Good man.” She slapped him lightly on the back, and he grinned like a boy. “You work on that while I see what I can do about armor.”

In the end, she scrounged shiny breastplates and helmets from Daren’s stores for all of her horse-archers, and Geyr had the clever notion of fixing mirrors to the top of every nose-guard and the nose-band of every bridle. Quenten worked a miracle in the short time she gave him; not only did he concoct the spell, creating it literally from nothing but the light-gathering cantrip mages used when working in a dimly-lit area, but he managed to cast it so that the Skybolts themselves were immune to its effects.

“That’s the best I can do,” he said, finally. Kero watched the effect on some of Daren’s troopers; they winced, and squinted, and eventually had to look away. She nodded; it wasn’t full protection, but it would tilt the odds farther in their favor.

Now all they have to worry about are the arrows shot at them unaimed. And hope none of the Prophets’ officers get the bright idea of just letting fly en masse.

“Quenten, you’ve outstripped what your training says you should be able to do,” she told him honestly, and gratefully, mopping her neck with her rag. “You’ve managed a brand new spell in less than a candlemark. I think my uncle would salute you himself.”

Quenten glowed, and not just from his sunburn. Kero turned to one of the junior mages, a grave, colorless girl whose name she could never remember.