David Weber - Empire from the Ashes

He flicked his mind back over the latest reports from their stealthed remotes. Ortak was receiving fresh weapons, but any additional reinforcements were still at least twelve days away. Even allowing for his column's slower than estimated progress, Sean should be back north of the Mortan within another four days, but he was grimly aware of the risk he was running. The valley's peasants had been moved out by the Holy Host on its way in, and the Temple's troops had already accounted for everything that could be foraged from the abandoned farms. Pack nioharqs had accompanied them this far, but they'd have to be sent home once the column reached the swamp. From there, Sean's infantry would have to pack all of their supplies—including ammunition—on their backs, and that gave them no more than a week's food. Which meant that if his plan to surprise Ortak didn't work, he was going to find himself with twenty-five thousand starving men trapped between Erastor and the Guard reinforcements.

At least Ortak was cooperating so far. The high-captain "knew" the terrain south of the river was impassable, and he was too short of armed men to spare many from his prepared positions. He had pickets east of the Erastor, but they were fairly close to the bridges. It was still a bit hard to adjust to a pre-technic society's limitations, and despite everything, Sean felt vaguely exposed. His column was barely fifty air kilometers from Ortak's position, and it was hard to believe Ortak had no suspicion of what he was up to, yet the high-captain's deployments and the reports of Sandy's eavesdropping remotes all confirmed that he didn't.

The thought drew a wet chuckle from Sean. Miserable as he and his troops might be, they had the most deadly weapon known to man: surprise. And at least if he screwed up, it wouldn't be because the Guard had surprised him .

He gave his branahlk another scratch, then swung back into the saddle and trotted forward along the column.

Father Stomald stepped into the command tent and paused. The Angel Harry stood alone, staring down at the map and unaware of his presence, and her shoulders were tight.

The young priest hesitated. Part of him was loath to disturb her, but another part urged him to step closer. An angel needed no mortal's comfort, yet Stomald was guiltily aware that he was coming less and less to think of her as he ought.

The angels had fallen into a division of their duties which was too natural to have been planned, and the Angel Harry's share of those duties had brought her into almost constant contact with Stomald. The fighting of the war in which they were all trapped was the task of Lord Sean and Lord Tamman, but ministering to its consequences was Stomald's task. It was he who had begun it, whatever his intent, and it was he who must bear the weight of caring for its victims. He accepted that, for it was but an extension of his priestly duties, and his own faith would have driven him to shoulder that weight even if he could somehow have avoided it. But he was not alone before the harsh demands of his responsibilities, for as Lord Sean and Lord Tamman had Tibold and the Angel Sandy, Stomald had the Angel Harry. However grim the burden he faced, however terrible the cost war and its horrors exacted, she was always there, always willing to give him of her own strength and catch him when he stumbled. And that, he thought, was why he had come to feel these things he should not— must not—feel.

Yet knowing what he should not do and stopping himself from doing it were two very different things. She seemed so young, and she was different from the Angel Sandy. She was... softer, somehow. Gentler. The Angel Sandy cared deeply—no one who'd seen her face the night after Yortown could doubt that—yet she had a talmahk's fierceness the Angel Harry lacked. No one could ever call either angel weak, but the Angel Sandy and Lord Sean were kindred souls who threw off uncertainty like a too-small garment whenever it touched them. Their eyes were always on the next battle, the next challenge, yet it was the Angel Harry to whom those in trouble instinctively turned, as if they, as Stomald, sensed the compassion at her heart. Any angel must, of course, be special, but Stomald had seen how even the most hardened trooper's eyes followed the Angel Harry. The army would have followed Lord Sean or the Angel Sandy or Lord Tamman against Hell itself, but the Angel Harry owned their hearts.

As she did Stomald's, and yet...

The priest sighed, and his eyes darkened as he admitted the truth. His love for the Angel Harry was wrong, for it was not what a man should dare to feel for one of God's holy messengers.

She heard his soft exhalation and turned, and he was shocked by the tears in her one good eye. She wiped them as quickly as she'd turned, but he'd seen them, and before he remembered what she was, he reached out to her.

He froze, hand extended, shocked by his own temerity. What was he thinking ? She was an angel , not simply the beautiful young woman she appeared. Had he not learned to rely upon her strength? To turn to her for comfort when his own weariness and the sorrow of so much death pressed upon him? How dared he reach out to comfort her ?

But he saw no anger in her eye, and his heart soared with curiously aching joy as she took his hand. She squeezed it and turned her head to look back down at the map table, and Stomald stood there, holding her hand, and confused emotions washed through him. It felt so right, so natural, to stand with her, as if this were the place he was meant to be, yet guilt flawed his contentment. He was aware of her beauty, of her wonderful blend of strength and gentleness, and he longed, more than he'd ever longed for anything other than to serve God Himself, for this moment to last forever.

"What is it?" he asked finally, and the depth of concern in his voice surprised even him.

"I'm just—" She paused, then gave her head a little shake. "I'm just worried about Sean," she said softly. "The way the river's rising, how far they still have to go, the odds when they get there..." She drew a deep breath and looked at him with a wan smile. "Silly of me, isn't it?"

"Not silly," Stomald disagreed. "You worry because you care."

"Maybe." She still held his hand, but her other hand ran a finger down the line of Lord Sean's march, and her voice was low. "I feel so guilty sometimes, Stomald. Guilty for worrying so much more about Sean than anyone else, and for having caused all this. It's my fault, you know."

Stomald flinched, and self-loathing filled him as he recognized his own jealousy. He was jealous of her concern for Lord Sean! The sheer impiety of his emotions frightened him, but then the rest of what she'd said penetrated, and he shook off his preoccupation with his own feelings.

"You didn't cause this. It was our fault for laying impious hands upon you." He hung his head. "It was my fault, not yours, My Lady."

"No it wasn't!" she said so sharply he looked up, dismayed by her anger. Her single eye bored into him, and she shook her head fiercely. "Don't ever think that, Stomald! You did what your Church had taught you to do, and—" She paused again, biting her lip, then nodded to herself. "And there's more happening here than you know even yet," she added with quiet bitterness.

Stomald blinked at her, touched to the heart once more by her readiness to forgive the man who'd almost burned her alive, yet confused by her words. She was an angel, with an angel's ability to know things no mortal could, yet her voice suggested she'd meant more than that. Perplexity filled him, and he reached for the first thing that crossed his mind.

"You care deeply for Lord Sean, don't you, My Lady?" he asked, and could have bitten off his tongue in the instant. The question cut too close to his own forbidden longings, and he waited for her anger, but she only nodded.