Mercedes Lackey - The Price Of Command

That matched with what Kero had been told by the Guild. They didn’t have a representative there, but it wasn’t because they’d been barred from the place. It was because every time they’d sent someone in, he’d nearly died of boredom. Iftel had no bandits. Iftel had its own standing militia, organized at the county level. Iftel hired no mercenaries—because Iftel needed no mercenaries. Occasionally young folk got restless enough to leave, but that was the only time the Guild ever got members from Iftel, and they never went back home.

Iftel took care of itself, thank you.

Well, that made it a good place to take a stand; Ancar’s forces would be squeezed against the Iftel border to the north, Valdemar’s forces would be to the west, and Rethwellan’s—hopefully—would be coming up from the south.

Kero wiped rain out of her eyes, without doing much good. She still couldn’t see past the bottom of the hill. But somewhere out beyond in the fog, the specialists had been at work, and if the ForeSeers were right, in the next candlemark or so, Ancar’s forward troops would run right into something nasty that wasn’t supposed to be there.

The skirmishers stirred restlessly below her, waiting for their chance. Today was likely to be the only easy day of the campaign, which was why Kero had wanted only her Company in on it. They knew that a war is neither lost nor won in the first battle, and they knew very well that one easy day is the exception, not the rule. But if Selenay’s greener forces were in on this, when the going got rougher and rougher, they might see every day after the easy one as a constant series of defeats, and lose heart. In fact, Kero hoped she wouldn’t lose a single fighter this first day, but she knew as well as anyone on the field that engagements like that came once in a career and never again.

So we’re due one.

The sound of muffled hoofbeats came through the fog; years of practice had enabled Kero to pinpoint where sound was really coming from on days of rotten visibility.

It’s from the ambush site. I think we’re about to get some action. One of the scouts materialized out of the drizzle and pelted up the hillside, his horse mired to the belly. “They’re coming on, Captain, straight for the trap.”

Her heartbeat quickened, in spite of years of experience. “Good,” she replied, and the Herald beside her silently relayed that on to the rest of his kind—which included Selenay and Elspeth. “Tell the rest that if it looks like he’s straying, tease him into it.”

“Sir.” The scout saluted, and pelted off again, vanishing back into the mist like a ghost.

The “trap” was a swamp—a swamp that hadn’t been there a week ago. But last month Kero’s experts had diverted a small river from its bed, several leagues away, and had confined its waters behind an earthen dam just above the flat, grassy meadow the ForeSeers said Ancar was aiming for. Then, two nights ago, they had broken the dam.

Now the place was two and three feet deep in water and mud, all covered by the long grass growing there and the luxuriant, green, mosslike scum floating on the top. One of Kero’s Healers had a remarkable ability with plants ... and, much to everyone’s surprise and delight, the Heralds were able to feed him energy. Between the scum they’d cultured with tender care on the temporary lake for the past month, and the accelerated growth of the past two nights, they now had the kind of cover that normally took half the summer to grow. It looked just like solid land—until you tried to walk on it.

Now was when Kero missed her mages the most. They would have been able to create illusions of solid land—and phantoms of Valdemar forces along with those illusions. That would have lured Ancar’s people into a charge right into the worst of the muck. And once the charge had started, the momentum of the troops behind the front line would have driven the rest even deeper. Whole wars had been won with blunders like that.

Instead, she could only wait for his front line to wander into the swamp, and bring her skirmishers around to harry him deeper into the mire. Supposedly there was a Herald out there also diverting water from a nearby spring to come up behind him, so that he’d have muck on three sides, but she wasn’t counting on that.

Hoofbeats again in the mist, but this time the scout didn’t bother to gallop up the hillside; he just waved, and turned back. That was the signal Kero had been waiting for. She vaulted into her saddle, and whistled.

Below her, the skirmishers moved out at a careful walk, so that every part of the line stayed in contact with the part next to it. Fighting in conditions like these was hellish—and it was appallingly easy to fire on some vague shape out there, only to discover that it was one of your own.

“Friendly fire isn’t.” That was one of Tarma’s Shin’a’in sayings, succinct, and to the point. We haven’t lost a Skybolt to friendly fire yet, she thought, as she sent her horse carefully picking her way down the slick, grassy slope. I don’t want to start now.

The Herald and his Companion followed her, silent as a pair of ghosts, and hardly more substantial in the mist. For once that white uniform was an advantage. She urged Hellsbane into a brief trot at the bottom of the hill, then reined the warsteed in once they caught up with the skirmishers. She was anchoring the westernmost portion of the line, the place where Ancar’s men might get around them if they weren’t vigilant.

They sure as hell can’t go south.

Another reason not to have Valdemar regulars on this action: most of the ground to the south was booby-trapped, and Kero didn’t want the green troops to wander into it. Any place horses or foot could get through was thick with trip-wires, pit-traps—and gopher-holes. One of the Heralds, it seemed, had a Gift of “speaking” to animals, and he must have called in every mole and gopher for leagues around to undermine those fields. No horse could ever get safely across those fields, and it was even risking a broken ankle to try if you were afoot. Regulars might forget that. The Skybolts would sooner forget their pay.

So the south was booby-trapped, then came the swamp on the west. The only “safe” ground was to the north, which was exactly where they wanted Ancar to go. That was the side they’d contest, and they were going to have to make it look as if they’d come upon Ancar by accident.

If he thought they were a small force of Selenay’s Guard—

Which we are, small that is—

—backed by nobody—

Which we aren’t—

—depending mostly on the treacherous terrain to protect this section of the Border, he’d be on them like a hound on a hare. Meanwhile, they’d try and stay just out of his range (“If the enemy is within firing range, so are you,” Tarma’s voice croaked in her mind), and pick as many of his men off as they could before he extracted them from the mire. That was the heart and soul of Kero’s strategy in this first engagement.

Up ahead in the mist, and far to her right, Kero heard a wild horn call; it sounded exactly like a young bugler in a panic, and she mentally congratulated Geyr on his imitation fear. That was the signal that the right flank was up even with the edge of the swamp, and the enemy was in sight. She took Hellsbane up to a fast walk, and the rest followed her lead.

Then the mare planted all four feet and snorted; she whistled, and the line stopped moving. They’d planted the edge of the bad ground with wild onions, and the moment Hellsbane had smelled one, she’d known to stop. Right at this point, it wasn’t marsh, but it was waterlogged and soft, and not what any of them wanted to take a horse through.

Besides, in a few moments, the enemy would come to them.