The Reformer

really doesn't understand the new weapons. He's a fair to good commander with what he does understand.

Adrian looked around the small rooftop platform; he and Esmond, and their seconds-in-command, plus a scattering of Striker officers. . Nobody was looking too cheerful. Frankly, I doubt anyone here is in the mood to be particularly fair, he thought.

'We're the only ones who kick Confed ass, and we're in line to be buggered by the Oakman,' Donnuld Grayn said. 'Ain't no justice in this world, not if you're a hired soldier. Fuck all Islanders, anyway. If Lord Gellert'd been in command today, we'd be drinking Jeschonyk's wine.' He grinned with a friendly malice. 'And Lord Adrian here would be back diddling Demansk's daughter.'

Adrian flushed. How that news had gotten out, the Gray-Eyed alone knew. Although letting it do so was more in Gellerix's line, if you listened to the old stories.

'Esmond would have done better,' he agreed neutrally.

Because he'd listen to you, Raj said. I think that left to himself, he'd make a battle plan and then use the new weapons in it, not build the plan around their capacities. Of course, he doesn't have Center to lean on. He's a better than middling commander, with the weapons mix you have here-very good indeed.

There were times when the sheer objectivity of his invisible companions could get a little wearing, even to a Scholar of the Grove who'd striven for detachment all his days. All things in moderation, even moderation.

And we want the new weapons to make a difference, he observed.

correct, Center said. to break this planet from its stasis, the innovations must be shown to be decisively superior. it must be shown that the future is qualitatively different from, and superior to, the past-an essential shift in overall paradigm.

'The question before us now,' Adrian said aloud, reverting automatically to the elenchos of the Grove, 'is what course of action can save us from being. . ah, buggered by the Oakman.'

'Well, we could bring the whole Confed fleet back for the King to roast prawns over,' Esmond said morosely. 'And all the captured ships, and all their cannon and hellpowder.'

'Gunpowder,' Adrian corrected automatically, and then froze. He was conscious of the others looking at him, but within his skull there was a blinding light; it was not unlike the near-orgasmic ecstasy of having an insight, but multiplied by three and with the resonances of three separate personalities added in.

'Wait, wait!' he said, holding up a hand. 'Look, it's a longshot, but it beats being impaled. Here's what we'll do-'

When the words stopped tumbling forth, the other four men were staring at him with the stars reflecting in their wide eyes.

'Suicide,' Esmond whispered.

'Oh, no,' Adrian said. The thought of what he proposed to do stopped him for a moment, and his smile was a trifle ghastly. All men are initiates of the mysteries of death, he reminded himself sternly. 'Waiting here for the King to decide we're to blame for his son getting killed, that's suicidal. This is just risky.'

Grayn rubbed his chin. 'Couldn't we just run off and take up piracy?' he said.

'That's slow suicide, with all the people we'd have pissed off at us,' Adrian snapped back. 'Confeds and the King of the Isles after our asses? I don't think so.'

The mercenary nodded. Adrian looked at Simun. The grizzled little man shrugged. 'Well, you're the lord, sir, so whatever you order's fine with us.' He sighed and heaved himself erect. 'Better go get the men ready, before they're too deep in the jug or dipping their wicks-makes a man grumpy if you interrupt him, and sleepy if you don't. Been a long day. .'

His voice trailed off as he trotted down the stairs. Grayn was staring at the stars. 'Getting out of the harbor, that might be a bitch,' he said thoughtfully. 'Got the chain boom up.'

It was Esmond's turn to smile. 'And we've got squads with the militia in the towers either side of the harbor mouth,' he said. 'Prince Tenny, bless him, didn't rearrange that-and I suppose the King hasn't had time to look into details.'

'So, all we've got to worry about is the Confeds,' Grayn said, rising and gathering up sword and helmet, and fastening the clasps of his armor. 'All twenty-fucking-thousand of them, and a couple of hundred of us. Wodep, I should have stayed home and farmed olives with my brothers.'

* * *

'Wish I was going with you,' Esmond whispered as Adrian put his foot on the rope ladder over the side of the Revenge.

Whispering was unnecessary; they were well beyond hearing distance from the Confed harbor, far enough away that its watchfires were simply a dim glow in the distance, a glimmer that might have been phantom lights chasing each other across a man's closed eyelids.

'I'm glad you're not,' Adrian said. 'There has to be somebody out there to haul my ass out of the crack, big brother.' Seriously: 'May the Gray-Eyed Lady of Wisdom hold Her shield above you tonight, brother.'

'And over you-you're her favorite.' Then he snorted laughter.

'What's funny?'

'King Casull. He'll just be getting the news we've deserted!'

Adrian grinned back at him and dropped the last foot into the launch. There was a glimmer of white, a slow chopping shssshhhh as the trireme and its companions pulled away northward and west, looping out from the coast.

'Let's get going, then,' Adrian said, when the ships had vanished in the moonless dark. He turned his head, and a glowing arrow painted itself across his vision.

'Yessor,' Simun agreed; he and a nephew were acting as Adrian's loaders and rowers tonight, at his gentle insistence-he was a fisherman's son, as he pointed out, and as at home in small boats as any.

'All right,' the older man went on to his relative. 'Now lay out-row dry, ye dickhead, and row soft, or this oar'll cob you. Show no white on yor blade when it cuts the water, now. Row soft.'

The soft glow grew ahead of them as they angled in to the northeast. A half-hour, and Simun and his nephew were breathing soft and deep; he could smell their sweat in the warm summer night. A touch of mist lay on the water, low curls of it; that was helpful. It was quiet enough that the occasional plop of a jumping fish was distinct and sharp through the darkness. Now square shapes cut the night, blotted outlines against the frosting of stars on the eastern horizon.

Adrian's vision brightened with Center's passionless certainty. Now he could see the fire-baskets out on poles from the wooden forts at each end of the artificial harbor, and diffuse fire glow from the vast Confed camp beyond. And smell it, the rank odor of so many men crammed together. The fires above the water had died down to dull glows.

Careless, he thought. They should be kept bright with pine knots the night through.

They've had a hard day too, lad, Raj said. It's hard keeping men up to the mark when they're that exhausted. Although you're right; I'd have the rank-tabs off any officer I caught letting this happen.

'We're coming up on the boom,' Adrian said softly from where he knelt in the bows of the small boat. 'About a thousand yards. It's just barely awash. Big logs.'

'Eyes like a cat, sor,' Simun grunted, looking over his shoulder as he rowed. 'Suppose it comes of bein' favored of the gods, like.'

'Rest easy,' Adrian said, clambering between them into the stern of the boat and carrying the big net of clay jars with him; that tilted its prow up, nearly out of the water. 'All right-fast as you can!'

'Row!' Simun called softly to his nephew. 'Fast now, boy, stretch out-rapppiipai! Rapppippipai! '