L. Modesitt - Mage-Guard of Hamor

Drakeyt laughed, harshly. His eyes glittered like a mirror before a brilliant lamp for a moment. "He wouldn't have listened. Or he would have blamed me for not instructing you in more detail. Or the overcommander for assigning an inexperienced mage-guard." The older captain looked at Rahl. "Besides, it isn't true."

"I've never done this before," Rahl replied. "I've only been a city mage-guard." He looked up as the servingwoman walked back toward them carrying a glass beaker and a large mug.

"Here you are, sers. Be back with your food in a moment." This time, she did sweep up the pair of coppers before she left.

"Only a city mage-guard?" Drakeyt raised his thin and silvering eyebrows. "I've been around, and I've talked to the other captains, and I talked to the majer for a moment after the marshal dismissed us. The majer doesn't recall any mage-guard assigned to the High Command who could tell where the enemy was from the distance you were doing. The submarshal's looking for people to blame even before the campaign gets going. The majer didn't say that, but he might as well have." Drakeyt took a sip of the Vyrna. "You're not just a plain city mage-guard. The overcommander wouldn't have planted you on me if you were. Do you want to tell me why he did?"

"I can't," Rahl admitted. "I asked him, but all he'd say was that I needed the experience, and that there were good reasons for it."

"How good are you, Rahl? Compared to other mage-guards, that is?"

Rahl took a slow swallow of the lager before answering, trying to compose a truthful answer that didn't reveal too much. "I don't know exactly. I've been tested, and I do better with weapons than all the other mage-guards of my experience. I have more control of some abilities than most of the regular mage-guards, but how that compares to the higher-level mage-guards, I just don't know."

Drakeyt grinned. "I think that says that you've been put on point in a dangerous maneuver. Dettyr doesn't know how good you are, or how capable the overcommander is, and the overcommander doesn't want him or the marshal to know that."

"How can he not know about the overcommander?" Rahl almost burst out that Taryl had been a former Triad, but stopped those words.

"What do you mean?"

"There are only a handful of Mage-Guard Overcommanders, and I'd guess that all of them are capable of becoming a Triad. Any one of them could remove or destroy Dettyr without raising a sweat."

"I doubt that thought has ever crossed the submarshal's mind. Mage-guards are just peacekeepers among civilians to him."

"Do most officers in the High Command feel that way?"

"Too many."

"Why don't you?"

Drakeyt grimaced. "I did, but I've been watching and getting reports on you from the squad leaders. They're impressed. Most officers don't impress them much. The other thing is that you've learned to ride better than most officers."

That had to do with Rahl's sense of what the gelding would do and his ability to project what he wanted to the horse… although he had learned to stay glued in the saddle, painful as it had been. "I had to. It hurt too much not to."

The older captain laughed, then stopped as the server returned with two crockery platters heaped with burhka and noodles. Each had a sliced pearapple on the side.

"Thank you," Rahl said. "It's been a long day."

"I thought it might have been."

Rahl knew she was angling for something extra, but he was happy to give it, and slipped her a copper. So did Drakeyt.

"Much obliged, sers. Much obliged. I'll be seeing if you'd like more to drink in a bit."

Rahl was so hungry that he took several mouthfuls of the burhka and noodles before looking up to see that Drakeyt was also eating heartily. The dish didn't even seem that spicy.

The captain swallowed, then took a sip of the Vyrna, and asked, "What orders did you get from the overcommander?"

"He said my job was to keep Third Company from taking casualties. He wouldn't say more than that."

"I can't disagree with that… much."

"He actually said 'too many casualties,' " Rahl added.

"That's more realistic."

"He's very realistic," Rahl said dryly. "About everything."

"It's good someone is." Drakeyt shook his head. "You know, after all that this afternoon, nothing's changed. The majer said we're to make a thorough sweep of the road to Dawhut in the morning. Then the submarshal will decide."

"Decide what? We have to go through Dawhut to get to Nubyat, don't we? We haven't found any sign of any rebels. Does he think they'll appear overnight?"

"They might be closer to Dawhut," suggested Drakeyt with a smile.

"We haven't found any in over four hundred kays, and there are three companies in Dawhut, and we're going to run into rebels in the ten kays between where we stopped patrolling and the city itself?"

"We just follow orders," Drakeyt replied. "There's no point in questioning stupid orders that are just stupid when no one is going to get killed."

Rahl nodded, although he certainly didn't like the implication. Not at all.

After dinner, Rahl cleaned up and changed his sunburst insignia, finally comparing the old and new sunburst and insignia. Side by side, he could see the difference, but without looking for it, or knowing that there was such a distinction, he never would have seen it-and hadn't. The tips of the two sunburst rays in the middle-the ones that extended directly out from the side of the center-were straight in the junior insignia, but the very tips curved up in the senior insignia. That small difference would not even be visible from more than a few cubits away, even on the larger insignia for his visor cap, let alone on the smaller collar devices. He doubted that Drakeyt would notice, and he wasn't about to tell the captain, because that would only confuse the troopers.

He thought about writing more to Deybri and telling her that he'd been promoted, but that would have been read as boasting-and it would have been. Besides, he could always add it at the appropriate time in the next long letter he wrote, assuming he had time now that Taryl and the submarshal had arrived.

Tired as he was when he collapsed into the narrow bed, he lay awake, his thoughts alternating between Deybri, the campaign ahead, and the insinuations and implications raised by Taryl's words. Why hadn't the overcommander said more? Or was Rahl supposed to figure things out as he went along? Taryl was attempting a deep and dangerous strategy. That was obvious. It was also clear that Rahl had a part to play, but not immediately. Rahl just wished he had some idea of what Taryl had in mind. All he could figure was that Taryl was on the same side as the Emperor and Jubyl, and the other two Triads might not be, and that it was possible that one or both of them might actually want the rebellion to succeed-or at least take a long time to fail.

In time, he did drift into sleep… and nightmares he could not remember when he woke.

Sevenday morning dawned gray and cold, with a bitter wind out of the northeast. The clouds were high and dry, and Rahl doubted they would have rain or snow-not for several days, in any case. When he rode up to the house serving as headquarters right after he and Drakeyt had mustered Third Company, Taryl was again waiting on the side porch, wearing a heavy riding jacket.

Rahl dismounted and vaulted the railing to join the overcommander.

"Here's the letter, ser, and five silvers." Rahl didn't have that much left in the way of coin, but he couldn't think of a better way to spend it than on letting Deybri know how he felt.

Taryl took the letter, smiling and weighing it in his hand. "That's a heavy letter."

"I had a few things to say, ser."

"I hope you said them well. At your age anger is expressed too often, and gentler feelings too seldom."