Mercedes Lackey - The Price Of Command

That word again. That stupid, suicidal word. It made her cheeks flame, this time with unmingled anger. “Honor won’t put food on my troopers’ table, or pay in their pockets, “ she snapped. “Honor won’t pay for much of anything. It’s all very well to prate about honor, when you’re on a first-name basis with a Queen, but my people rely on me to see that they get the means to live!”

“But —” he began.

“More stupid wars have been fought over honor than I care to think about,” she continued inexorably, raising her eyes just enough to stare angrily at the middle of his chest. “Seems to me that honor is a word that gets used to cover a lot of other things. Things like greed and ambition, hatred, and bigotry. It’s honorable to attack someone who doesn’t believe in the same things you do. It’s honorable to fight someone over a strip of land you covet. It’s honorable—”

She looked up at his uncomprehending face, and threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t know why I bother! At least I’m honest about my killing. I do it for money. I try to pick the side that was attacked, not the attackers. Most of the rest of the world wages war to support one lie or another —”

“Not here, “ he said, softly. “Not us. “

She would have rather he argued with her. She would much rather he’d shouted. Instead, this hurt expression—the look in his eyes, pleading with her to believe him.

“I only know what I’ve seen,” she said gruffly. “And what I’ve seen says that most of what people call ‘honor’ is no more than self-deception. Maybe you people in Valdemar are different.”

“We are, “he said. “Please, Kero, you know me—you know what I’m like. You’ve been inside my mind —”

“Right,” she interrupted hastily. “All right, you are different. Maybe all you Heralds are. That doesn’t make what I do any less valid. The rest of the world isn’t like you. And if there are going to be people out there making war on other people, don’t you think it’s a good idea for some of those people to at least follow a code of ethics? Not ‘honor,’ but something you can pin down and be sure of, something with the same rules for everybody. That’s what we’re doing. And if we do it for money, so be it. At least someone is doing it at all.”

She looked back up, to see he was smiling, ruefully. “You have a point,” he said, with a sigh. “Kero, that wasn’t why I came here —”

Before she knew what she was doing, she had responded to that smile, to the invitation in his eyes, and was locked in a mutual embrace with him.

Part of her was in terror. This was real—too real. Eldan’s arms felt too solid; his body too warm against hers. I’m going crazy, I must be! Being alone—

But the rest of her welcomed his embrace, the warmth of his lips on her forehead. The only intimate human touch she had—Even if it wasn’t real.

“I didn’t want to argue with you, “ he said in her ear. “I am worried about you. You’re trying to do too much. You take to much on yourself. And you bottle up your own feelings, never let anything out. You’re going to destroy yourself this way—you can’t be everything to everyone. “

“I thought you said you didn’t come here to argue with me,” she heard herself saying. “Keep that up and you’ll start another one.”

“Oh, Kero,” he shook his head, and she looked up into his eyes. “Kero, what am I going to do with you?”

“You might try —”

He stopped the words with a kiss, a kiss that led to more kisses, and then to something more intimate than mere kisses —

Hands warm on skin, illusory clothing vanishing as they touched each other in wonder and pleasure and joy—

“Blessed Agnira!”

Kero woke up with a start, and the moment she was actually awake, she began to shake with terror.

The wine hadn’t worked. The dreams were back, more vivid than ever, and the wine hadn’t helped. This one-it had been real. Too real, too close to home. Part of her had wanted it, that was the worst thing; part of her had welcomed not only the dream, but the fantasy lovemaking.

She flung off the light blanket, and sat up on the edge of the cot, shaking. I’m going mad. I’m truly going mad. It’s all been too much for me.

Easy to believe she was going mad, Easier than to believe that she had created the dream because she missed Eldan, and wanted him so much....

Before she realized it, tears began to burn her eyes, and her throat closed. She buried her face in her hands.

It wasn’t a mistake. It never could have worked. We —

Oh, gods. Oh, Eldan—

Seizing the flask of water that stood beside her bed, she drank it dry, hoping to drown the tears. Instead, they only fell faster, and she was helpless to stop them.

As helpless as she was to stop the loneliness that was the price of command....

She seized her tunic, groped for her cloak, and went out into the cool night, hoping to pace away the doubts, the fears, and most of all, the memories.

This place had been pretty, before warfare had scarred the land; low, rolling hills covered in grass, tree lines that marked streambeds and river bottoms. Now the grass was trampled, and dust rose above the scuffling armies like smoke. Sun burned down onto the battlefield like Vkandis’ own curse. Kero stood beside her old friend, magnificent in his scarlet cloak of the Lord Martial, and squinted into the distance. Beside her, Geyr stood as impassively as a black stone statue. She could not imagine how he was able to stand there and look so cool and unmoved.

Maybe he doesn’t feel the heat. Maybe this isn’t that bad to him. If that’s so, I don’t think I ever want to visit his homeland.

Up until now, the Prophet had held several groups of infantry in reserve. It looked as if those last groups on the Prophet’s side had finally joined the battle. “This is it,” Daren said quietly, confirming her observation. “The Prophet just committed herself entirely. And so have I. If we don’t win this one—”

“You’ll lose the war, the province, and a hell of a lot of face,” Kero finished for him, wiping her sweaty face with a rag she kept tucked into her belt. “But that won’t be the worst of it. If you lose, she’ll have a power base, and you’ll have to fight her every time you turn around, or you’ll lose the country to her a furlong at a time.” She scowled, though not at him, but rather at the thought.

Beside them, a handsome—and very young—noble assigned as Daren’s aide looked puzzled. “Why is that, m’lord?” he asked. “Won’t she be content with what she’s won?”

Daren snorted, and wiped his own face with a rag no cleaner or fancier than Kero’s. “Not too damned likely. If we don’t eliminate her now, it’ll prove that her god really is on her side, and we’ll be fighting religious fanatics all over Rethwellan. This kind of ‘holy war’ is like gangrene—if you don’t get rid of it, it poisons the whole body. If we can’t burn it out, it’ll kill us all.”

The young aide gave Kero a sideways glance, as if asking her to confirm what Daren had said. She’d already discovered that she had a formidable reputation among Daren’s highborn young fire-eaters; she was using that reputation to reinforce his authority. There could only be one Commander of all the forces, just as there could only be one Captain of a Company.