L. Modesitt - Mage-Guard of Hamor

As the two rode down the slope, followed by the two escort squads, an aisle opened in the Imperial troopers, an aisle a good fifty cubits wide, as if none of the troopers or their officers wanted to get all that close. Rahl could sense a combination of fear, anger, and sadness-but mostly fear, leavened by sadness, with only a few hints of anger.

"How do you feel, Rahl?"

"Cold… cold all over… angry… I guess, too. So many dead, but if we hadn't done it, then… there would be almost as many dead, and a lot would have been ours."

"That's the tragedy of war. No matter who wins, thousands die. The only question is whose thousands."

"Better theirs than ours," Rahl suggested.

"All victors say that, and the cause of the victor is always just."

The iron-cold bitterness of Taryl's soft words cut through Rahl. He had no answer.

"We won't be doing much for a while," Taryl said quietly. "We won't have to for a few days, I hope."

Farther down the slope, Rahl could see Marshal Byrna standing on a platform some six cubits high, set in the middle of the flat area below the slope. He stood in the long shadow cast by the setting sun's drop behind the more western hill ridge. The timbers of the structure were mixed, a mark that it had been constructed hastily to offer the marshal a position from which he could watch the battle.

The two mage-guards rode directly to the raised and railed platform. After tying his mount to the railing next to the wooden ladder, Taryl climbed up first. Rahl followed.

Bryna was alone on the platform, and anger radiated from him. Taryl had barely gotten within several cubits before the marshal began. "Over-commander, could you enlighten me as to why you and your

… assistant did not offer the rebels the chance to surrender?"

Taryl stopped and waited, saying nothing.

"Did you have a reason, Overcommander?"

"Yes." Taryl's voice was even. "First, they would not have surrendered. Second, the Emperor should not be faced with the decision of what to do with those traitors, even had they done so."

There was another unspoken reason, too, Rahl knew. He and Taryl could not have gotten close enough to create an order circle just around the fort itself, not without losing hundreds of Imperial troopers.

"… They were all officers who had a choice, unlike junior officers and troopers. If he orders their deaths, he's heartless. If he spares them, he's an idiot. He can't afford to be either. I can afford to be merciless. He can't."

For a moment, Rahl just stood there, sensing the marshal's still-growing outrage.

"You'd take that upon yourself. You're not even in charge-"

"That's right, Marshal. That way you can tell everyone that the Mage-Guard Overcommander acted before you could countermand him." Taryl's voice was simultaneously tired and cold. "That also saves you."

Byrna flushed, and tension radiated from his entire body.

Rahl could sense that the rage seething in the marshal was well beyond mere anger.

Byrna's voice was hard, but edged with that barely controlled fury, as he replied. "Some of those men were good officers who did what they thought best."

"Exactly," replied Taryl. "They were good officers. They ceased to be good officers when they violated the Emperor's trust, and any officer who would excuse or condone such behavior also risks violating the Emperor's trust. The one thing that the mage-guards can never allow, either among our own or among the High Command, is violation of that trust. Or an acceptance of those who violate that trust. Do I make myself clear, Marshal?"

"Perfectly clear, Overcommander."

Taryl looked to Rahl. "You may go, Majer."

"Yes, ser. If you need me…"

"I know where to find you. Thank you." Taryl's voice lost a hint of the black iron behind it on his last two words.

After he climbed down from the platform and remounted the gelding, Rahl slowly rode through the growing twilight that he had barely noticed, back in the direction of the boardinghouse, where he assumed that Third Company would be standing down. Thoughts swirled through his mind.

How could the marshal be so stupid? This was far from the first time that Rahl had doubted the intelligence of High Command senior officers. Was it that stupid officers were needed? Had Byrna been picked by Triad Dhoryk to fail? Or to allow the rebellion to drag out, as Taryl had intimated might well be part of a plan to weaken the Emperor? But whom would they select to replace the Emperor? Rahl couldn't help but wonder if Fieryn and Dhoryk were planning some kind of coup. That would certainly explain Taryl's need to rely on solid older commanders such as Muyr and Shuchyl-and his forcing Rahl to develop skills not needed that much in normal mage-guard duties. It also would account for his insistence on Rahl's maintaining his shields.

What would the conflict between Taryl and Byrna mean for the rest of the campaign?

Would there be a campaign after Selyma?

Rahl kept riding.

Rahl and Drakeyt sat at a small table along the wall in the public room of the Tankard, one of the less prepossessing of the handful of inns in Selyma. Even though the night was barely chill, the acrid odor of smoke straying from the smoldering hearth added to the already pronounced perfume of cooking fat and overbaked bread.

Rahl took a small swallow of a bitter brew that passed for lager.

"What do you think the subcommander will do next?" asked Drakeyt.

"The marshal's the one in command," Rahl pointed out.

"The word is that the overcommander's the one making the decisions." Drakeyt sipped from his beaker.

Rahl shrugged. "I don't know what either plans, and the overcommander hasn't told me. He did say that nothing would happen for a day or two."

"Good. Our troopers need rest. Some of the troopers in the other companies are in worse shape." Drakeyt shook his head. "Ours had seen magery before. Most of them haven't."

"It's likely to get worse," Rahl said slowly.

"Did the overcommander tell you that?"

"No. Not in so many words. He's been warning me for eightdays about how I'll need to hold stronger shields once we get close to Nubyat and Sastak." That wasn't quite what Taryl had said, but Rahl thought it meant close to the same thing. Why else would Taryl have been pressing him on the personal shields so much?

"It's fiveday night. You think we'll be moving out by sevenday?"

"I don't know. I'd judge sevenday or eightday, but that's just a guess. It all might change, too, depending on what Golyat does."

"If I were the prince, I'd find a ship and go somewhere else."

"He can't," Rahl replied. "He's not worth the trouble to any land powerful enough to stand up to Hamor and too dangerous for those less powerful."

Drakeyt took another swallow from his beaker. "Means we'll lose more troopers for no good reason. Suppose that's always been the case when there's a war."

"Besides," Rahl went on, "I get the feeling that he really believes he should be emperor. People who feel like that don't usually just turn away." Not to mention the fact that Golyat was probably surrounded by people who wanted him to be emperor so that they could also have more power.

"You think you'll be a mage-guard commander or overcommander some day?"

Rahl almost choked on the bitter lager. He managed to swallow, then cleared his throat. "Me? I'm lucky to be a senior mage-guard. I think I'd be fortunate to be a city captain or something like that." Rahl would have liked to think he could be more, but his experiences to date suggested that he was exceedingly fortunate to have gotten as far as he had, and that had only happened because of Taryl.

Drakeyt shook his head. "You get out of this mess alive, and the over-commander has something in mind for you."