L. Modesitt - Mage-Guard of Hamor

Rahl shrugged, hoping he had written the right things but not wanting to say so.

Taryl slipped Rahl's letter into a leather case slung on a strap over his shoulder, then lifted out a cloth pouch and extended it to Rahl. "Before I forget, here's your pay for the time since Kysha. From here on out, as a senior mage-guard, you get five silvers an eightday. I can't promise regular pay after this, but I can promise you'll get it all in time."

"Thank you, ser." A half gold an eightday? Rahl never would have dreamed that he'd make that much. No wonder there was respect for the senior mage-guards. He slipped the pouch into the wallet he carried inside his trousers.

"I can't have a senior mage-guard without coins. There are two extra golds in the pouch. Those are for expenses-special supplies or to help Third Company. It's not much for what you'll be doing, but I will need to know on what they're spent when the campaign's over or when we hold Nubyat."

"Yes, ser." Rahl paused. "Might I ask what we will be doing in the next few days?"

"Submarshal Dettyr intends to ride into Dawhut on oneday. He wants no losses and no surprises," Taryl said evenly. "You and Third Company, as well as scouts from other companies, will spend today and tomorrow making sure there are no surprises. By the time you return to the company, Captain Drakeyt should have those orders."

"After that…"

"He intends to build up supplies and wait for the marshal."

Rahl winced.

"He's the kind that wants others to take the losses."

"Won't waiting just give the rebels more time and cost us more troopers?"

"That's usually what happens," Taryl said mildly. "I'm working to persuade him that losses are inevitable and that early action will reflect favorably upon him, and that he can assign the most perilous duties to those officers he does not care for so that they will incur such losses."

"Meaning Third Company?"

"And others. The officers he does not like are generally those who look to be most effective. He has his own ideas of what makes a good officer." On Taryl's thin face, the smile that followed his words looked close to predatory. "Now… you'd better get back to Third Company. Don't bother sending me any more dispatches. If I want to know something, I'll find you, and if you discover something I should know urgently, it's best if you come to me directly."

"Yes, ser." Rahl offered a smile, a nod of respect, then turned and swung over the porch railing.

On the short ride back to the Dun Cow, Rahl reflected on what Taryl had not said, not directly. One of the principal deficiencies of poor commanders was that they encouraged poor subordinates and discouraged able ones. Was that true in Recluce as well? Certainly, Puvort had that tendency, and Kadara had been the least accomplished of the magisters and magistras with whom he had come in contact-and she'd been the most critical.

Then he checked his pay-almost two golds, in addition to the two golds for expenses. He wouldn't have to worry nearly so much about coins, not for a while.

Over the next two days, neither Third Company nor the scouts of any other company could discern any sign of rebels or traps on the road to Dawhut or in the area around it, and on midafternoon on oneday, the long column of Imperial forces rode into the city. Under a clear and cold green-blue sky, with a blustery westerly wind, Third Company rode directly in front of the submarshal's headquarters company, and behind the array of outriders and scouts. Word had obviously spread among the locals, because the road was empty except for the Imperial forces. Every stead and dwelling was shuttered, and all the chimneys appeared cold and smokeless.

As Third Company came over the last low rise before the road descended to the bridge over the Awhut River, the odor of the distilleries enveloped Rahl. He glanced at the scattered chimneys to the south, and while half appeared to be cold, the odor from those in operation was still most objectionable.

"How do they live with it?" he murmured.

"Some people get used to anything," replied Drakeyt.

Rahl supposed so, but he had his doubts that, if he lived in Dawhut, he would ever be able to ignore the odor. Certainly, he'd never been able to ignore the aspects of Recluce that had bothered him.

Once they reached the city itself, crossing the northernmost of the two bridges over the river, the column turned south on the river boulevard. The dwellings and shops in Dawhut itself were not shuttered, but the sidewalks and side lanes were mostly deserted, and those people who watched the Imperial forces did so from windows, porches, and, occasionally, balconies. As elsewhere in Merowey, the structures were mainly brick, with a few of stucco and timber, and a comparative handful constructed of worked stone. The roofs were all tile, but the colors varied widely.

According to their orders, Third Company was supposed to form up with the others in the River Square that was the center of Dawhut. The square was midway between the two bridges, a half kay south of the north bridge. Rahl did not see or sense any mage-guards anywhere, and that bothered him.

Just before noon, they rode into the square, a paved open space a good two hundred cubits on a side, surrounded by brick-and-stone buildings, with a modest circular monument, with a statue of a man on horseback-doubtless a famous emperor or local hero. Rahl glanced ahead to the south side of the square, dominated by a large three-story redstone building with green trim and shutters. The oversized signboard proclaimed the River Inn.

From there, he surveyed the square, noting the problem almost immediately. While the square might accommodate a regiment of heavy infantry, there was no way that three regiments and a headquarters company would fit there, even with mounts shoulder to shoulder.

"We won't all fit in here," Rahl observed to Drakeyt, "even squashed together."

"We'll have to try. Those are the orders. I hope that all the scouts are right that there aren't any rebels around, because with all of us in one place, we're grounded geese."

The river side of the square ended in a low gray-stone wall. Rahl could sense that the east side of the wall dropped to a walkway, and the side of the walkway next to the river was actually the top of a stone levee that formed a river wall. There were people walking along the river, but the walkway was enough lower that he could not see them from the square.

Third Company formed up facing the river, as ordered. The submarshal and a small group rode toward the inn. Rahl could see that Taryl was with Dettyr, but the companies that followed them into the square restricted the effectiveness of Rahl's order-senses. Rahl could not follow Dettyr's actions, except intermittently, since he was facing away from the inn, and since the growing number of mounts and men blocked his vision when he tried to look back over his shoulder.

"They can't get any more into the square," Rahl said. "Not many, anyway. There's still a little space at the edges."

"That's so the submarshal can ride around to the front and tell us

… whatever he has in mind."

Rahl suspected Drakeyt had almost said something far less complimentary.

Before long, since the square was filled with mounted heavy infantry, the submarshal rode out from somewhere near the inn and along the south side of the square and then along the river wall toward the midpoint of the section of the wall that formed the river side of the square. Taryl rode the mount beside and slightly behind the submarshal.

Just as the submarshal and his escort from the headquarters company almost reached the midpoint of the narrow space between the companies and the square wall above the Awhut River, a man appeared on the wall, less than a score of cubits from the submarshal, carrying a horn bow and a quiver of long arrows. He wore a maroon jacket and khaki trousers-garb similar, if not identical, to the uniforms worn by the rebels who had manned the cannon that had damaged the Fyrador. His first shaft was away before almost anyone noticed-except Taryl, because the arrow skittered sideways just before it would have penetrated the submarshal's shoulder.