Amris’s attention fell on her again, as it had done several times that evening, and he smiled as though he knew exactly what Gerant was saying to her. She grinned back and lifted her empty glass, trying to act as if her whole body hadn’t responded to the brief glance.
She was ridiculous.
Conversation broke out in spots again, the crowd dividing, and Amris rose from its center. He seemed like he was going for more beer, but on the way he diverted to talk with a young blond woman and the stocky man who had his arm around her. Darya watched him nod, watched them both stand a little straighter at whatever he’d said, saw the flash of his smile.
“This sort of thing is his ruin,” she said, mostly to herself.
“Is it so hard on him?” Olvir asked, frowning. “He hides it well, if so.”
“Oh. No, not like that. But”—she sighed—“I’m better in cities that were than cities that are. Climbing buildings, looting, breaking and entering. This”—Darya waved a hand that only wavered a little—“this is to him what that is to me. His…his place. His gift.”
Oh, yes,said Gerant, in a voice that would have gone with a wistful smile, if he’d had a body. But then, if he’d had a body, the smile wouldn’t have had to be wistful.
“Some people wield weapons, and some wield people, but he does both.”
Darya peered at Olvir. “Are you drunk atall?”
“No, not really.”
The beer was gone. In twos and threes, or fives or sixes for those with little carnal luck or inclination, the soldiers had begun drifting away toward the barracks, or the converted houses that served the same function for the new recruits. Darya looked back toward Branwyn and Tebengri and found them both gone.
Amris stepped back from the small group he’d gone on to talk with after the young couple. A few of them bowed. One, barely fifteen at best, wobbled on the way up. His older comrade caught him by the arm. He flushed and darted a glance at Amris, who put on a good show of not seeing a thing.
Maybe we should have had the younger ones swear their age to Tinival,Gerant said.
“Too late now,” said Darya.
“We’ll try to keep the youngest behind the lines,” said Olvir, following Darya’s gaze and making a decent guess. “They can bring fresh supplies or carry the wounded. It won’t keep them completely safe, but it’ll help.”
“If we can keep them out of the front.”
“That’s part of the duties of command,” said Amris, drawing back into speaking range. “And as with Byrnart and his friends, many of the young will likely change their thoughts once the first wave breaks over us. ‘Judge no metal until it sees the forge,’ they said in my land.”
“Can’t argue with that,” said Darya, touching Gerant’s hilt lightly.
Amris laughed. “I hadn’t intended the new meaning, but it applies. And I think, to change the subject, that I should be going. Those who’re left will want to celebrate without too much authority to dampen the mood, and there’s no danger of them needing it.”
“We both should, then,” said Olvir.
“All of us.” Darya stood. If Amris was too much in command and Olvir was too much a servant of the gods, she was too much a… What had Byrnart’s friend called her? Aberration? It had more syllables than the names she usually heard from drunk men, she’d give him that. “Besides, Ithinkmy room is quiet by now.”
Chapter 31
Outside the doors, the air was gentle and just a touch cool: almost high summer. In the forest, the night would smell cool and green. The fort mostly smelled of woodsmoke and horse dung, but that wasn’t unpleasant in its way. Side by side, the three of them—four, really—walked up the road toward the inner gates and the fortress beyond.
All three had been in the field for a while, and none was particularly drunk, so the young man who approached from one of the houses didn’t catch any of them by surprise. Darya noted him as a few essentials: short, square, no unsheathed weapons, not staggering or singing. That was all she needed to know, though she kept a wary eye on him as he approached. Men could always surprise you.
This one bowed to Olvir. “I’m sorry to interrupt, your honor,” he said, “and I hope I’m not inconveniencing you. Only, my friends and I were hoping you had time to say a few words over us tonight. In case we don’t have a chance for it when the moment comes, I mean.”
It was the sort of request that would have made Darya suspect a trap—but she wasn’t the kind of person anyone would ask for spiritual aid to begin with. Olvir, who’d had years of practice with lies and truth, simply smiled. “It would be my honor,” he said, and bowed to Darya and Amris. “Please excuse me.”
“Of course,” said Amris, and Darya nodded right along with him.
No soldier would dare ambush one of Tinival’s servants right before a battle,Gerant said as Olvir walked away with the man.
“Might be leading him off,” Darya muttered, once they were far enough away that her voice wouldn’t carry, “so they can try and ambushus.”
“In which case, good luck to them,” Amris said. They fell into an easy pace with each other, footsteps crunching an unhurried rhythm in the dirt. His voice was a deep, smooth melody to that beat. “I doubt any would really try it in such close quarters, where all would know—but if they did, I have no worries that we’d come out the victors.”
