“I have it,” Abel said.
“All right,” replied Joab. “I’ll get Courtemanche to round up the staff. I’m over there-”
Joab pointed toward a tent that had been set up on the edge of the field. A fire burned in front of it and a kettle of water was boiling, no doubt for his father’s favored field drink, spiced tea.
They assembled in the tent around a map table. Abel explained the order of battle he foresaw. For once, Courtemanche scribbled orders and made no sarcastic comment about the commander’s son. They were, Abel realized, depending on him now. Maybe they had come to trust him too much rather than not enough. Of course, not all of them shared in the general accord. Fleming Hornburg was heading the Militia, and was none too pleased when informed his men would be used as road bait.
Abel left unsaid that serving such a purpose was the most effective duty they could hope for. Anything else invited disaster for themselves and their commanders.
“But we’ll be running!” Hornburg fumed.
“You’ll be leading them straight to the Regulars,” Abel patiently explained. “And then you will turn and fight like any other man.”
“Unless I’m shot in the back in the process.”
“No one will think the worse of such a death in this situation,” put in Joab. “The point of an army is to work together to achieve a goal, in this case victory over the Blaskoye, and not to achieve individual glory. Glory is for
“I won’t die a coward’s death,” Hornburg continued stubbornly.
“Would you rather die a fool’s death, then?” Joab replied evenly. “Now take these orders and carry them out, Captain. Do you hear me?”
After a moment of seething silence, Hornburg forced out a “Yes, sir.”
Then the officers received their orders and departed, all except Courtemanche and Joab. It was time to speak.
“Father, I have one other matter to discuss with you,” said Abel.
“That sounds ominous.”
“No, but this is going to require…diplomacy. The weapons I’ve been preparing-”
“The new rifles from the gunsmith priests? And those powder tubes. Yes, how are those coming?”
“They’re ready,” said Abel. “I’ll have four hundred Scouts armed with the rifles.”
“That’s wonderful news.”
“Father, they are very good weapons. Very, very good weapons. I would like have latitude to use them as I see fit. A standing order.”
“Scouts are important, but serve a secondary purpose in battle, Abel,” said Joab. “You know that. That is part of my objection to your continuing as a Scout. You’ll be relegated to guarding the flanks in most situations.”
“Father, after battle is joined, I would like permission to dismount my Scouts and lead an assault,” Abel said.
“What? Give up your chief advantage?” He laughed. “And I can only wonder what the Scouts will think. They will hate you forever for the disgrace they’ll feel.”
“No,” Abel said. “They’ll understand. It won’t be an advantage if what we are trying to do succeeds.”
“Maybe not,” Joab said. “But it is not traditional. Or, under most circumstances, wise.”
“Also: the women, sir.”
Joab frowned, stamped a foot. “I told you to give up that foolishness. I don’t appreciate this jest.”
“It isn’t foolishness,” Abel said. “They have practiced with the powder tubes. I have shown their captain how to deploy the weapons. I think this is something the women can accomplish better than even the Regulars.”
“Why?”
“Speed, lightness, and less tendency to want to join in the fighting directly.”
“And they’ll be led by the Jacobson woman, I suppose?”
“She is their captain,” Abel said.
“Captain my ass,” hissed Joab to himself, almost spitting out the word.
“Leader, then,” replied Abel coolly. “She’s fully recovered.”
“And useless otherwise, I hear. She’d get no whelps for Edgar Jacobson.”
“True enough, Father.”
“But the others in her merry band are not similarly blessed,” Joab replied. “And when they die, the children they might have had to replenish the Land die with them.”
“They are going to march,” Abel said. “She’s mustered them in Lilleheim, and they’re already on the road.”
“Already on the-” Joab’s face went red, and he looked like a clay pot about to split apart in an over-hot oven.
“Let them serve, Father.”
“Damn it,” said Joab. “Thrice-damn you and that woman and-the whole sorry situation! I will have the inquisitors in from Lindron for certain on this, and it might be that not even Zilkovsky can save my sorry ass. Do you know what they do with heretics? Do you?”
“Burn them,” Abel said. “I’m well aware.”
“It isn’t traditional! It isn’t Stasis!”
Abel smiled.
“But it isn’t precisely against the Law, is it, Father?”
Joab cut himself off in midsentence like a blanket on a drying line the wind has lofted and then abruptly allowed to settle back down to its previous hanging.
“No,” he said with a growl. “I suppose not.” He looked hard at Abel. “They’re Militia. Hornburg’s in charge of them.”
“He won’t fight them,” Abel said. “Make them temporary Regulars.”
“I’ll issue direct orders that he shall.”
“And you think he’ll obey?”
“He’d better or he’ll find himself rotting in a stockade pit, son of First Family or son of Delta trash.”
“Make them Regulars.”
Joab stared incredulously at Abel. To any other, it might appear a white rage. But Abel knew that look.
“Thrice-damn it, all right,” said Joab. “And now, since you’ve gotten what you want, might I bother you to take care of a little item for me?” said Joab.
“Yes, sir.”
“The sluice headgates must be opened by priests. They have the turning keys and know the proper prayers of blessing. Zilkovsky is putting together a contingent, but they’ll need mounts and an escort guard. I want Scouts. Arrange it.”
“Yes, Commander.”
2
Three days and nights of patrol in the fields south of the Road and nothing.
Abel was tired of the endless stretches of farmland, treeless, with few rocks or distinguishing features for leagues on end. Only unending rows of harvest fields, some lying fallow, some being made ready for the next planting-a planting that had occurred twice a year in this place for three thousand years.
The only exception: the years of nomad slaughter.
If Zentrum and the Blaskoye had their way, this would be one of those years.
