Sword Brother

Where had he lost that certainty, he wondered. Had it died in the same Ford Explorer as Gwynn? Been crushed with her and their unborn son on an icy mountain road by a pulpwood truck with a blown tire? Or had he lost it later, when he no longer had her to talk to, to confess to, to share the pain with. A tough-as-nails gunnery sergeant wasn't supposed to need to do those things. Which was stupid, of course. Gunnery sergeants were human beings, too, whatever the unwritten rule book required them to pretend. But Gwynn had always known better than that, always been there for him, always made him share the dark things with her, as well as the bright.

She'd been his moral compass, he realized. Not the only one he'd had . . . just the most important of them all. He'd survived without her, relied upon all those other compasses, but it hadn't been the same. Not as he'd confronted a world in which human beings turned themselves and even their own children into living bombs in the twisted name of God. One in which the enemy murdered captives in front of cameras and broadcast the images over the Internet and snipers routinely opened fire on religious processions while bombers deliberately targeted mosques, synagogues and churches. One in which the people fighting those murderous fanatics altogether too often inflicted horrific 'collateral damage' of their own and even some of the good guys-even some of Houghton's fellow Marines-found themselves infected with the same soul-deep sickness and committed acts every bit as brutal as any of the 'enemy's.' It had all hammered down on his own sense of loss, his own grief, and he'd lost his certitude. What had once been clear-cut and unambiguous had become something else, and he'd feared that he was becoming something else, as well. Something . . . tainted, which Gwynn would not have recognized.

That's really what it is, isn't it? he reflected. It's that simple. However you got here, wherever you are, it's that simple. Wencit's offered to give you back that certainty, at least for a while. You're free to choose between good and evil, between those who preserve and those who destroy, in a universe that isn't even yours. One where you can know you chose.

One where you can be the man Gwynn loved again.

* * *

'How much farther?' Houghton asked an hour or so later.

He turned his head to look at the man standing next to him in the right-hand hatch. The Montana-born and bred Mashita had almost literally stood there drooling when he finally got a good look at Wencit's horse. The wizard had explained that it was something called a 'Sothoii warhorse,' yet magnificent as it obviously was, it wouldn't have been able to match the LAV's speed and, especially, endurance. Houghton had been uncertain what to do about that, but Wencit had simply spoken calmly into the saddled horse's ear for a moment, then pointed in a northerly direction. The horse had responded by lipping the wizard's hair with obvious affection, then trotted cheerfully off in the indicated direction. Somehow, Houghton was certain Wencit and the stallion wouldn't have any trouble finding one another again later.

Since the wizard was now a passenger (and totally untrained in any of the vehicle crew's duties), Houghton had put him at the commander's station so that he himself could take over the gunner's duties if it proved necessary. Technically, the vehicle commander was supposed to ride standing in his hatch on the right side of the turret at 'name tape defilade,' with just his head and shoulders clear of the vehicle. The gunner, on the other hand, was supposed to ride in his seat, inside the turret, watching through his optical and thermal sights. The vehicle commander could do some of the gunner's job for him-the hand station joystick at the CO's position allowed him to control turret traverse and fire the twenty-five-millimeter cannon and coaxial machine gun-but that was really the gunner's responsibility. He was also the crewmember specifically located and assigned to deal with any misfires, feed jams, or other problems with the armament. Given the fact that Wencit didn't have a clue how Tough Mama's weapons-or sights-worked, Houghton had decided he had no choice other than to take the gunner's station for himself, but he was still the vehicle commander, as well.

Wencit had been parked in the seat which was normally Houghton's, adjusted to let him sit as comfortably as possible in the cramped, flat-topped turret. Fortunately, Diego Santander had left his helmet aboard, which did two useful things. First, it let Wencit tie into the LAV's commo net. Secondly, it protected his skull from all of the many objects waiting to come into painful contact with it as Tough Mama bounced and swayed unpredictably across the grasslands.

Houghton wondered how much time Wencit had spent admiring the bevy of unclad and semi-clad young ladies whose pinups adorned the overhead, but he understood why the wizard had decided to stand back up, despite the outstanding attractions of the art gallery.

Long marches standing upright in the hatch could be both exhausting and painful, and it wasn't at all unheard-of for an LAV to roll. When that happened, a man had to be able to drop quickly down into the turret if he didn't want to get squashed like a bug, which made adjusting his seat so that he could sit looking out . . . unwise. The driver, on the other hand, should be protected in a rollover, since the turret ought to hold the vehicle hull off the ground. That was why Wencit's seat was adjusted to let him sit with his head safely inside. But the wizard was just as tall as Houghton was, and the LAV had clearly been designed for people Mashita's size. Claustrophobia would have been bad enough, even without all of the interesting protrusions eager to leave their mark upon Tough Mama's passengers, but Houghton was positiveWencit needed to stretch some of that length out.

'It's hard to say how much further,' Wencit replied now, in answer to his question. 'I still can't get a clear look through their glamour.'

'Sounds like a lot of so-called 'intel' I've gotten handed over the years,' Houghton snorted.

'I did tell you there were going to be problems,' Wencit pointed out mildly, and Houghton surprised himself with a chuckle.

'Yeah, you did,' he agreed, almost as if all of this made some sort of coherent sense after all.

Darkness had finished falling a good two hours ago. Mashita was steering by the aid of his night-vision gear, and Houghton had his own goggles down. Although NVG wasn't as big as an advantage as it once had been back home, since the other side had started acquiring the same sort of technology, the Corps had managed, by and large, to stay ahead of the curve. Here, though, no one had ever even heard of electronics, he thought, watching the gray-green universe moving steadily past as Tough Mama's wheels churned through the tall grass.

Of course, he thought sardonically, some people seem to be able to see just a little bit better than others.

'Tell me, Wencit,' he said, 'have you always been particularly fond of carrots?'

'What?' The bright spots of the wizard's peculiar eyes vanished for an instant as he blinked in obvious perplexity, and Houghton grinned. It was the first time he'd managed to throw the other man completely off balance with a simple question.

Then the brightness of Wencit's eyes reappeared, and Houghton's grin faded. His question might have gone right by the wizard, but it was obvious to him that Wencit, without any artificial aids at all, could see in the dark at least as well as he could.

And why shouldn't he? Nothing else that's happened so far makes any sense, does it?

'Never mind.' He shook his head. 'I know you said something about 'glamours' and 'scrying spells.' I even understand that glamours are like . . . camouflage, or maybe what we might call stealth back home. And that scrying spells are the way you wizards get around the glamours. But I'm a simple jarhead from someplace where no one ever heard of magic that really works. I don't have a clue what you're talking about when you wander off into those detailed explanations of yours. So could you try and put it into very, very simple terms