least a few concessions to the town’s sensibilities where things like attire were concerned.
The war maids had taken the lesson to heart, however, and no one was ready to assume Shigu and the other Dark Gods had simply given up on the project, either. That was the reason the Kalatha City Guard was half again the size it had been and why the tradition of requiring war maids between the ages of eighteen and thirty-eight to contribute one year in four to militia service had been revived. There’d been a few changes to the militia requirements, too. One new profession-that of glassblower-had been added to the exempted trades list, and the town charter had been amended to allow people to discharge their entire Guard obligation in a single five-year stint, if that was their preference, rather than breaking it up into five separate terms of service. Garlahna was seriously considering combining at least two years of her own service into a single term, but she hadn’t made up her mind yet. There were arguments in favor of either decision, but the biggest one against it was Barlahn.
He didn’t have any objection to her discharging her militia responsibility; it only made the logistics complicated because she had to be on-post every night, except when she could get leave. It wasn’t too bad during the winter months, when he was able to share her assigned quarters in town at least three or four nights a week, but that wasn’t very practical once he could get his crops into the ground again. She’d grown up around farmers, and she knew all about the hours they worked. It would have been silly for him to be hiking the six miles in and out of town every morning and every evening, especially when he was already worn out from his labors, and she knew it. None of which made her any happier about the currently empty state of her bed. It would be nice to get her present year of service out of the way and get settled back in with him, but then again if she discharged two of her remaining three years of obligation back to back, she’d have six years, not just three, in which to do that settling. That would be nice. Time enough for a couple of children, perhaps, and to help get them past the toddler stage before Mommy had to report for duty again…
One of the wagon drivers swore wearily, and Garlahna turned in the saddle to look back over her shoulder as the front wheels of the woman’s wagon splashed down into a puddle which was obviously even deeper and muckier than usual. Garlahna’s gelding had automatically made his way around the pothole’s lip on one side while Erlis circled it on the other, but the wagons didn’t have that option, and the hole was the next best thing to wheel hub- deep. The lead wagon came to an abrupt halt, the mules whuffing against their collars in surprise, and Erlis shook her head as she drew rein.
“Mother, this one’s deeper than the last one!” the three hundred said sourly.
“Looks like it,” Garlahna agreed even more sourly. “I hate paying Trisu the road toll, but I have to admit he keeps the main roads in a lot better shape than this! Maybe we should start charging tolls?”
“Who’d pay them?” Erlis snorted. “We’re the only ones who use this miserable excuse for a road. And in case you’ve forgotten, we only use it because the shortcut lets us stay off his stupid toll road. Not that our ‘shortcut’ seems to be saving us all that much time today, does it?”
“Not so you’d notice. But it’s the principle that counts, isn’t it? Well, that and the kormaks, I suppose. And at least this damned swamp isn’t as wide as the last one. It’s only big enough to eat one wagon at a time.”
“And this is supposed to make me feel better because-?” Erlis inquired, turning her mount and trotting back towards the mired wagon.
“Give me a few minutes and I’ll think of a reason,” Garlahna promised from behind her, and Erlis chuckled. But then she shook her head and swung down from the saddle in a creak of stirrup leather.
“Best be getting on with it, I guess,” she sighed.
Garlahna nodded and touched the gelding’s sides with her heels, heading back towards the wagons in Erlis’ wake as the three hundred looped her reins around the stump of her left arm, pressing them in against her side, and walked up to the edge of the pothole to survey the problem. The rest of the escort had already dismounted, as well, and the six of them were uncoiling their saddle ropes as they prepared to add their own horses’ efforts to disinterring the wagon. Garlahna knew all about leading by example, but she’d already done that three times today, and her boots and trousers were caked with dried mud to the knee to prove it. “Follow me!” was all very well when it came time to lead her people into actual combat, but this time, she decided, she was perfectly prepared to let the members of her detachment wade out into the mud while she confined herself to a proper supervisory role. She knew she was going to have to climb down out of the saddle and help out eventually-the hole was so deep it was undoubtedly going to take all of them to wrestle the wagons across it-but there was no point doing it until somebody else had gotten thoroughly muddy this time around, and she drew up beside Erlis on the lip of the swamp.
“That really is a deep hole,” she commented, swatting irritably at a horsefly as two of the other war maids kicked off their boots and started wading towards the wagon. Erlis looked up at her, smiling faintly as she found Garlahna still in the saddle, and the younger woman shook her head. “The wagons were even more heavily loaded on the way to Thalar. Thank Lillinara we didn’t put one of them into this mess then!”
“Absolutely,” Erlis agreed fervently. She looked back at the mudhole stretching almost all the way across the road. “That would have been the perfect way to start this little expedition, wouldn’t it?”
Garlahna nodded, but then she frowned as another thought struck her. Why hadn’t they encountered the pothole on the way out? As wide as it was, it should have been impossible to avoid. It was possible one of the spring thunderstorms could have dumped enough rain on this stretch of the road to make the hole worse without having rained on them in Thalar, but it wasn’t all that likely. Besides, enough fresh rain to have created this morass should have generated even more mud along the road’s shoulders, shouldn’t it? But that meant “I think-” she began sharply, but it was already too late.
A chalk-covered beanbag came flying out of the grass on the south side of the lane and smacked Erlis right between the shoulder blades in a puff of colored dust. The three hundred jerked, then whirled around with an oath born of twenty-plus years’ service as a professional soldier…just as three more beanbags thudded into the trio of war maids standing in the mud on the north side of the road. An instant later, more of them smacked into two of the three on the south side of the road, as well, and the single dismounted war maid who hadn’t already been hit ducked under the wagon in a geyser of muddy water, snatching out her short sword with one hand and reaching for her bandolier of throwing stars with the other. Despite her own surprise, Garlahna knew better than to try to stand and fight. Instead, she reined her gelding’s head around and slapped her heels in-hard-trying to break free of the ambush before one of those infernal beanbags found her. If she could circle back around to counterattack It was a good idea, but before the horse had even moved, a very tall, redhaired young woman bounded out of a stretch of grass Garlahna would have sworn couldn’t have hidden a rabbit. The newcomer took three strides, tucked a bare foot into the front of Garlahna’s offside stirrup, pinning her own foot in place, grabbed the saddle horn with her right hand, and pivoted on the stirrup, swinging her left leg over the horse’s croup and dropping to sit neatly behind the saddle. It happened too quickly for Garlahna to react, and the newcomer’s hands settled on her shoulders and gripped tightly.
“You’re turning blue, Garlahna!” the redhaired war maid announced cheerfully. “Too bad, I really liked you.”
“Very funny, Leeana,” Garlahna growled, looking over her shoulder with a disgusted expression as the last war maid of the escort, despite the protection of the wagon, was hit by three different beanbags flying in from three different directions.
“You’re dead, too, Saltha!” another voice crowed from the grass.
“Oh, yeah?” Saltha Mahrlafressa, the war maid under the wagon, sounded as disgusted as Garlahna felt. “Well, I’m mucky enough already, Raythas,” she retorted, raking a glob of mud out of her graying hair and looking at it distastefully. “If you think I’m going to die dramatically and bellyflop into this mudhole, you’ve got another think coming!”
“Spoilsport.”
Raythas Talafressa emerged from the grass with a grin, followed by two more, equally delighted young women in traditional war maid garb. They’d added leather leg guards to protect their otherwise bare legs from the prairie grass, but aside from that they looked revoltingly cool and comfortable, Garlahna thought from inside her sweaty trousers and shirt. They also looked revoltingly pleased with themselves.
“Nicely done,” Erlis acknowledged, shaking her head as she looked at their attackers. “Not that we didn’t help you by acting like drooling idiots who shouldn’t be let out without a keeper.” She grimaced. “What a convenient mudhole you just happened to find to stop us for you.”
“Yes, it was, wasn’t it?” Leeana agreed. She slid down from the back of Garlahna’s horse and grinned impudently up at her friend as her left hand twirled the garrotte she hadn’t wrapped around Garlahna’s neck. “It
