L. Modesitt - Arms-Commander

Only a few armsmen on the flanks escaped the deadly wedge, and they turned their mounts almost due south and galloped away.

“Fourth squad! Reform! On me!” Saryn glanced around, but the only riders outside the western gates were those of Westwind. Then she looked to Klarisa. “How bad was it?”

“We lost four, it looks like, in the first and second ranks…because of the bright light. Another four were wounded. They should recover.” The squad leader shook her head. “I was lucky. I was behind you.”

Saryn wouldn’t have called being behind her lucky. Surviving being behind her was.

Hryessa had reformed the remainder of the company, and Saryn led fourth squad toward the company and the guard captain.

“They’re still fighting inside,” Hryessa said.

Saryn glanced toward the walls, trying to extend her senses, but that effort brought lightknives and involuntary tears to her eyes. She stopped trying, although she had a sense that the fighting was largely sporadic. “They’re just mopping up. We’ll stand by and take anyone who tries to escape.”

“Yes, ser.”

Even without trying, Saryn could sense the agreement behind the captain’s words.

Hryessa glanced to the north. Saryn followed the motion and saw one of their wagons rolling toward them, driven by Dealdron.

“I have more blades!” he called as he brought the wagon and the team to a halt some fifty yards away.

He shouldn’t have been out here, not that close to the fighting. After a brief moment, she laughed at her thought. How many men had thought the same about women over the years, whenever a woman left “her place”?

Hryessa smiled, then looked to Saryn.

“See if anyone needs any and send a guard to get them.”

“Yes, ser.”

While Hryessa dealt with the blades, Saryn looked back to the holding walls and the still-open western gates. Someone was riding out…but the armsmen wore green and purple, and at the head was Zeldyan.

Saryn waited, even as four guards moved up to flank her.

Zeldyan, accompanied by what looked to be two squads, rode up and halted. The rear squad rode around the first and formed up parallel to it. After a moment, she spoke to Saryn. “I heard your words to Keistyn. It was Keistyn, wasn’t it?”

Saryn flushed. “I was angry. He and Henstrenn plotted and plotted, and their plots killed so many who didn’t have to die.”

“I think everyone heard them…everywhere. What did you do?”

“I lost my temper,” Saryn equivocated. “Then I killed him. The squad killed most of those with him.”

Zeldyan nodded. “Most of those who heard what you said threw down their arms. Some others refused to surrender. It wasn’t the words, but the power. For a moment, everything stopped. Even those who fought lost heart. Except Henstrenn.”

“What happened to him?”

“Maeldyn went after him. He wounded Henstrenn, but Henstrenn wouldn’t surrender. He ran at Maeldyn with a knife dripping something, maybe poison. Maeldyn cut him down. Henstrenn’s son was killed.” Zeldyan shook her head. “His own father…”

“He killed his own son?”

“He was yelling that better his boy die than bow to some bitches.”

Saryn couldn’t help but wince. With that attitude, she was more than glad Henstrenn was dead…but his own son? And what did that mean for Lornth? “We need to ride into the holding.”

Zeldyan nodded. “It’s over…now.”

Saryn turned the gelding to head back into the captured holding. She stiffened in the saddle as she heard the faintest of murmurs, somewhere from within the Lornian squads.

“…demon-damned bitches…killed too many good men…”

She wanted to turn and demand just where the speaker had been for the past generation with all the infighting and battles that had killed far, far more than what she had accomplished in the last season. It wouldn’t do any good. Men like that already have their minds made up, and facts they won’t believe change nothing.

She kept riding, flanked by her guards, back toward the holding, dreading seeing all the dead and wounded, even as she rode past and around the bodies of mounts and men. Behind her followed the rest of the Lornian and Westwind forces, and behind them Dealdron drove the wagon, doubtless to hold the weapons and goods that would be collected…in time.

For the glass after she rode into the holding of the late Lord Henstrenn, Saryn did very little but observe while the armsmen and guards searched all the buildings and rounded up the few remaining rebel armsmen, most of whom were wounded. Once those tasks had been accomplished, Saryn dismounted in the receiving courtyard and walked toward the white-granite steps leading to the entry foyer of Henstrenn’s villa, an elaborate single-story structure set on a knoll within the walls.

She paused when she saw Dealdron’s wagon just a few yards west of the entrance and Dealdron standing beside it, loading something into the wagon bed. “What are you doing?”

“Lord Maeldyn and his armsmen fought their way inside. Some of the guards were helping bring out bodies and weapons.” He gestured to the cart behind the wagon. “The bodies go there, the weapons and tools here.” He paused. “They say they’re almost done.”

“You’re being very diligent.” Her voice carried a touch of amusement.

“Too many who have skill with arms forget the costs of those arms, unlike you.” He smiled at Saryn. “What is in the wagon will support three companies of yours for over a year. It could be longer.”

“What of the other lords?”

Dealdron shrugged. “I just tell them that I am following orders and that they should ask you.” He grinned for the briefest of moments. “There are also more than a few silvers you will need. No one else knows how many.”

Saryn could not say a word for a moment, not because of what he had said but because of what lay behind the words-a clear devotion to her, at the very least. Finally, she said, “Thank you.”

Dealdron just inclined his head.

As she headed up the steps, she couldn’t help but wonder why she found his devotion to her so unnerving. He was good-looking and took care with his appearance. He was bright, although his formal education was certainly lacking, but he definitely had worked at learning…and kept at it. She really didn’t care that he’d been a plasterer and an ostler… So why does his affection upset you? Because you’re actually attracted to him and yet so far above him in position? How many men have found and expressed an interest in younger women not of their “official” stature? Should it be any different for women? She swallowed as she realized the implications of the question she’d just asked herself. But why? Was it because he’d never intruded in the slightest on her, and always tried to please her, not by flattery or deceit, but by doing to the best of his skills what he thought she needed done?

She shook her head. Thoughts about Dealdron would have to wait. But they can’t wait too long, came a stray thought from somewhere.

She hurried through the villa’s front foyer and down the corridor to the right, where a pair of armsmen in Maeldyn’s tan and black were stationed outside a door. Stepping between them, she joined Maeldyn, Zeldyan, and Spalkyn in a small chamber, most likely the late lord-holder’s private study. That location afforded a view of the town and the river through the study’s wide south windows. The four sat around a square table, one Saryn suspected had been used more for gaming than for writing or meeting. She couldn’t imagine Henstrenn meeting with even three other people at the same time, not unless he planned to cheat them out of something, either by gaming or politicking.