Between Halla and myself, I was considered the diplomatic one. Even I sometimes found that idea terrifying.
Leddie chuckled. “Oh, you are exactly what I’ve been looking for. Don’t tell me your names. I want to think of you as Creaky, Frumpy, and three sacks of meat riding on horses.” She glanced back and forth between Halla and me, at last settling on me. “I’m joking! By Lutigan’s swinging phallus, do you even have a sense of humor?” She pointed at Halla. “Act more like her. She’s hilarious.”
I smiled and shifted in the saddle so I could draw my sword faster, should it be required. “We may not be going the same direction as you, Captain.”
Leddie sat up in the saddle and scanned the horizon. “Which way are you going?”
“We were just debating that when we met you. We might decide to go in just about any direction.”
Leddie gave me a careless wave. “Come north to the garrison with us while you work that out. You’ll protect us, I’ll feed you, and you can meet my commander. He’ll just love you. I bet he’ll throw a party. He can throw a party that will make your tits pop off.”
I heard hoofbeats from someplace, but I didn’t see any horses for a moment. Then three dozen mounted soldiers rode over the hill to our left and halted so that we were surrounded.
I surveyed the horsemen. They appeared dirty, hard, surly, and well-armed, like soldiers on patrol. I raised my right hand and smiled at Leddie. “Captain, consider yourself under our protection. If my tits don’t pop off, I hope your commander won’t see it as a sign of discourtesy.”
TEN
I detest military ventures. That might surprise some people, since war is known to involve a lot of killing. But I prefer to kill people I think should be dead, not the people some old fart with a fancy hat tells me to kill. Also, orders and battlefields lead to indiscriminate killing where personal fighting prowess may not mean shit.
Wars are ridiculous for other reasons. The people in charge hate it when soldiers run away, even though running is often a successful tactic. They like to capture useless places just so they can brag that they captured one. Often, the useless place is where the biggest bunch of enemy soldiers is waiting, wondering why the hell they’re defending a spot no sane person would take on a bet.
Too often, the whole business is men with shiny buttons and clean hands telling other men to go get killed.
Leddie commanded her troop of horsemen less expertly than I would have expected of an imperial officer. She ordered them to form a northbound column, but that produced a pot of confusion that boiled for five minutes. Men shouted contradictory orders while a couple hundred hooves stamped, and one man fell onto a nearby horse’s rump before getting kicked. Leddie sat her stallion on the hillside and watched it all happen, and she never gave anybody a hard look.
The mass of men and horseflesh finally got moving, all fifty-two soldiers and her. She used her horsemen to surround us, placing Halla, Pil, and me in the center of the column, while Bea and Whistler rode behind us.
Leddie grinned as she paced me. “This is the perfect post for you! From here you can kill our enemies no matter where they attack from.”
“Hell, shut off this crap about us protecting you.” I scowled at her. “We’re so blocked in we’d have to cut through five of your men just to shake hands with somebody who wants to kill you.”
“Where do you plan to take us?” Halla put her hand on her spear, which pointed backward and upward from a sheath fixed onto her saddle.
“I told you!” Leddie leaned over and slapped Halla on the shoulder. “To the garrison to meet my commander! If I have to keep repeating myself, this is going to be a long ride.”
“We heard you.” I shook my head. “We just have doubts.”
“Because you are a liar and a coward.” Halla stared at the woman.
“You are the most ungrateful people whose lives I have ever saved from bandits.” Leddie rubbed the back of her neck as she stared at Halla.
“We’d be more grateful if you’d just let us go on our way,” I said, wondering whether I could stab the woman in the back and then get away without her troops killing us all. I decided it was unlikely.
Leddie turned to me and jumped to a new topic as if we were already in the middle of discussing it. “When you duel, is that the sword you like to use? It looks a little effeminate. Do a lot of people make fun of you for that?”
“No, and not a single complaint from the dead, either.” I winked at her. On the other side of Leddie, Halla had produced a knife from someplace. She hid the blade against her forearm and started edging her horse closer to Leddie. I tried not to glance straight at Halla while she did all this.
Leddie spun her head back to Halla, who relaxed. “You probably don’t duel. You’re too tall. Tall people are hopeless at dueling. I’m almost too tall myself.”
I couldn’t see Halla’s knife anymore. Trying to kill Leddie was a desperate move anyway, one we didn’t need to make yet, and I gave Halla a tiny headshake.
“Why do you want to duel, anyway, Captain?” I said it to get Leddie’s eyes off Halla.
Leddie chuckled. “To see who’s best, of course.”
I regarded her. “What if you already know you’re the best?”
Her eyes widened for an instant before she laughed. “Nobody can know that sort of thing. It’s always changing. Maybe the best fighter today will be hungover tomorrow and not be the best anymore. No woman can be the best every day. Or man.”
I waited, but she didn’t laugh like it was a joke. “Do you write all this down on a big
