Mercedes Lackey - Two-Edged Blade

The interview with Ardana had not proved the ordeal Kero feared it might be. Except that she ignored half of what I said about the Karsites, where Lerryn would have had me in there till I fell over, taking notes. That was disturbing; more disturbing was that Ardana really didn’t seem interested in the things she had asked about. It was as if she was going through the motions, as if she had some other opponent in mind than the Karsites.

But just about everyone had deduced from Hellsbane’s condition what Kero’s must be like; when Ardana let her go, they’d sent Shallan over to bring her to the mess tent—but then they sat her down and got her fed, and didn’t ask too many questions. Then someone had brought in a spare shirt, and someone else produced breeches and socks, and a third party a heavy woolen sweater—

They’d stripped her to the skin right there in the mess tent, amid a lot of laughter and rude jokes about how it would be more fun to bed her sword than her, right now.

“So change that!” she’d retorted. “You can all start buying me steaks!” Meanwhile she had been pulling on the first warm, dry clothing she’d had in a week.

Then they ran her over to Shallan’s tent under a pilfered tarp, so she wouldn’t get wet again. It had all been a demonstration of caring that had left her a little breathless.

Maybe that was why she was having trouble falling asleep.

I was right, she thought, staring at the mottled ceiling, listening to the rain drum on it. I was right to come back. This is where I belong. I could never fit in with Eldan, with his friends, no more than I could have with Daren and the Court. I’d have only made both of us miserable trying.

Her eyes burned; she sniffed, and rubbed them with her sleeve, glad that Shallan and Relli were off somewhere else. Probably in the mess tent; they were both passable fletchers, and the Skybolts had lost a lot of arrows....

A lot of other things, too. Kero thankfully shifted her thoughts to the general troubles. The Company was in trouble. Equipment lost, officers decimated, about a third of the roster gone and another third on the wounded list—and Menmellith had declined to pay them more than half their fee, on the grounds that they hadn’t stopped the “bandits,” and they hadn’t come up with real proof that they were operating with more than the Karsite blessing. The Guild, when appealed to, had reluctantly ruled in Menmellith’s favor.

It could always be worse. The Wolflings are going to have to find another Company to combine with. There’s hardly enough of them left to fill out one rank.

Dearest goddess, I’m going to miss Lerryn.

There were a lot of people she was going to miss. And right on the top of the list was Eldan.

Her throat closed again, and she choked down a sob. I love him, and it would never have worked. I love him, and I’m never going to see him again. He probably thinks I deserted him under fire or something.

She’d been hoping for some kind of message from him when she reached the camp; he knew what her Company was, and messages moved swiftly through the aegis of the Guild. But there had been nothing.

He probably got back to Valdemar and came to his senses. He’s probably sitting with friends now, with pretty little Court ladies all around him, thinking what a lucky escape he had, that he could have been stuck with this barbarian merc with a figure like a sword and a face like a piece of granite. She blinked, and a couple of hot tears spilled down her temples into her hair. He’s probably so grateful I left that he’s burning incense to the gods. He’s probably even making jokes about me. Like, “how many mercs does it take to change a candle —”

More tears followed the first. It doesn’t matter. I love him anyway. I’ll always love him.

And I’m better off alone. We both are.

She turned over on her side and faced the canvas wall, with one of the blankets pulled up over her head so they’d think she was asleep if anyone came in. She muffled her face in her sleeve, and cried as quietly as she could manage, with hardly even a quiver of her shoulders to betray her; only the occasional sniff and the steady creeping of tears down into her pillow. And somehow she managed to cry herself to sleep.

When she woke, the tent was dark, and there was breathing on the other side of it. The steady breathing of sleep; somehow Shallan and Relli had come in and settled down without her being aware of it.

She didn’t wake very thoroughly; just enough to register that she wasn’t alone, and remember who it was.

I’m not alone. Somehow that was a comforting thought. I have friends. I can live without him. That was another. Holding those thoughts warmed her; and warmed, she fell back asleep.

It was raining again. A half-dozen of them were in the mess tent, attaching heads and feathers to grooved arrow shafts. Kero reckoned up the weeks in her head, and came to a nasty total.

“This is the winter rains, isn’t it?” Kero asked ShalIan, as they reached for feathers at the same moment. “We’ve gone over into winter, haven’t we?”

Shallan’s studious inspection of the arrow fletchings didn’t fool Kero a bit. “Come on,” she said warningly. “I’m going to find out sooner or later. Cough it up.”

“We’ve hit the winter rainy season, yes,” Shallan replied, glancing uneasily over her shoulder at Kero. “It did come awfully early, but—”

“But nothing. If this is winter, why aren’t we in winter quarters?” Kerb lowered her voice, after a warning look from Relli. “What are we doing still out in the field?” she hissed.

“Well,” Shallan said unhappily, taking a great deal of time over setting her feather. “You know we didn’t get paid enough. And we lost a lot of manpower and material—”

“And? So?” Kero had a feeling she knew what was coming up, and she wasn’t going to like it. “That’s what the reserves are for, Right?”

“Well—uh—” Shallan floundered.

Finally Relli came to her partner’s rescue. “We aren’t going to use the reserves,” she said tersely. “Ardana has a line on a job.”

That was what I was afraid of. “In winter.”

Shallan nodded. “In winter. It’s south of here—”

Kero just snorted. “I come from south of here. We’re going to be fighting in cold rain if we’re lucky. If we’re not—snow, up to our asses, for the next three months. And ice. I trained in weather like that, but most of the rest of you didn’t. Think what it’s going to do to the horses, if you won’t think of yourself!”

“It’s not that bad,” Relli said sturdily, though she wouldn’t look Kero in the face. “It’s in Seejay. Flat as your hand, and not more than a couple of inches of snow all winter. And it’s not supposed to be a hard job—it’s a merchant’s guild thing. Economic. One side or the other is going to get tired of paying, and we can go home. Frankly, it’s better to fight there in winter than summer—summer you’re like to cook in your armor.”

So instead we drown—provided we don’t die of exhaustion on a forced march down through Ruvan.

“So is this just a rumor, or have you got something more substantial?” she asked.

“I’m pretty sure it’s going down,” Relli told her. “I got it from Willi.”

Since Willi was the Company accountant, it was a pretty fair bet that the bid was in. Kero sighed.

“I suppose it could always be worse—”

Three months later, she found herself wishing for that hip-deep snow.

She cleaned mud off her equipment and Shallan’s, scouring savagely at the rust underneath on Shallan’s scale-mail. Rain dribbled down on the roof of her tent, and down the inside of the shabby walls. Practically anything would have been better than the bog that was Seejay in winter.