by Murray, Dean
"Sir, I'm a coward, and as such my presence is risking the mission."
When Va'del didn't respond, Se'ath finally elaborated. "When the bag'ligs attacked, I froze up. All around me people were clearing their weapons and running back down the column. When it finally registered that we were under attack, I turned and drew my weapons, but I didn't move. My fear was so strong that I just sat there while those animals nearly swarmed you over."
For a moment, Va'del's mind was still unable to fully process what he was hearing, the defeated demeanor of the young man before him was so completely at odds with the egotistical boy who'd thought Be'ter could do no wrong. Luckily, Se'ath wasn't finished.
"I tried to tell myself that I was just surprised, that things happened too quickly for me to respond. After the ambush I couldn't keep lying. We were all sitting there, and I was so scared that Va'ma would command us to attack, and that we would all be killed. I was shaking."
Va'del took a deep breath and mentally reached out, hoping to find more wisdom, and instead thinking of the legends that he'd heard from the time he was small, the ones that made Guadel sound like heroes, not the ones that made them sound like monsters.
"Feeling fear doesn't make you a coward. I rather expect that even Tor'h must have occasionally felt some fear when he thought about the forces arrayed against him. The real question is whether you're able to master your fear, or whether you allow it to master you. Are you more afraid of dying, or are you more afraid of failing those who depend upon you, of committing treason?"
Se'ath started slightly, going pale at the end and then looking slightly confused, as if he hadn't ever thought of things in that way before, but was unwilling to withdraw his assertion that he was a coward. Va'del gave the candidate another few seconds to respond and then shook his head.
"Denied. You'll continue on with us because we'll need every able fighter we can get if we're to succeed. You have a duty to master that fear and serve the People."
Peters reappeared at Va'del's side as Se'ath walked away in a daze. "Begging your pardon, sir, but I happened to overhear the candidate's concerns. Now that he's heard the standard reassurances do you want me to have one of the old hands keep an eye on him?"
Va'del paused between mouthfuls of stew. "There's a standard answer? I didn't even know it was a common problem. I suppose it would be best to have someone watch over him."
It seemed for a moment that Peters was weighing Va'del with his eyes. "If you didn't know that was the answer that's been handed to scared soldiers since the Powers first armed mankind to fight their battles in proxy, why did you tell him what you did, sir?"
Va'del finished up his food as a delaying tactic, never truly comfortable analyzing his own motivations. "I suppose I told him that because it is what he needed to hear, that and I expect that is how normal people work."
"You weren't scared then when you faced off against those bandits?" Peters asked as he accepted Va'del's empty bowl.
"I think I was a little frightened when we first tracked them, but any fear for myself was outweighed by the fear that Jain would die. I was really more scared of that than I was of dying myself."
"What about after that?"
"By the time I actually faced off with them all, I knew she was alive, so mostly I was just furious that they'd come and endangered the only person to love me since my parents had died. When you are that angry, there isn't room for any other emotions."
Va'del couldn't read the meaning in Peters' gaze as the other man nodded and walked away, couldn't tell if he'd passed some test, or failed to measure up against the exacting tradition of the Guadel.
More likely the latter. The obvious concern no doubt being what happens when it is just me and my fear with no anger to buffer me. In my own way I'm just as untried as Se'ath.
Lost in thought as he was, Va'del didn't notice when Vi'en arrived to check his wound. Fortunately he lapsed into sleep both before she could launch into the tongue-lashing she'd no doubt been saving up, and before his thoughts could darken any further.
##
Va'del gingerly crawled up to the top of the hill and pulled out the looking-glass that Si'mon had pressed into his hands before he'd left the castle.
Shading the metal with his hand to avoid having the sun reflect off of it, the sub-Guadel carefully scanned the camp and then handed the glass over to Peters.
"Now that we're here, what do we do?"
The grizzled guardsman paused for a second to send Va'del a look that seemed to say the commander of a force was the last one who was supposed to admit to uncertainty, and then resumed his slow scan of the enemy camp.
Va'del took the hint, closing his mouth and letting the part of his mind that wasn't overcome by worry for Jain, or exhaustion from his wounds, sort through options. The sentries around the perimeter would have to be killed or bypassed, but there were a couple who were more widely spaced than they ought to have been.
If those two were taken out, there'd be a hole big enough to move however many people they needed to without detection. That only left the problem of getting all of the Daughters and then making sure there was a way to stop the Baron's army from following all the way back to the castle.
For a little while, the pain and worry faded to the background, and Va'del felt a plan begin to form as he cataloged the strengths and weaknesses of the encampment. Peters handed the spyglass back and listened intently as Va'del explained what he wanted done. The guardsmen suggested a couple of subtle changes, and one particularly nasty trick that Va'del very much liked, and then they were done.
Briefing the rest of the group took less than a cycle, and if the plan strained their available manpower to the absolute limit, it also provided the best chance of survival for not only them, but also the people they'd left back at the castle.
As darkness lengthened and settled in on the camp, Va'del found the anticipation made it hard to want to sleep, but he carefully lowered himself down onto his bedroll, both because he wanted to set a good example for his men, and because he knew how profoundly he was going to need the sleep once they started moving.
It seemed that he'd only been sleeping for a few moments when one of the men he'd detailed for the second watch shook him awake. Va'del nodded his thanks, barely visible as it was in the starlight, and carefully rolled out of his blankets. He was sore still, but the pain wasn't as bad as before. Fighting was still going to be tricky, but it was now doable, and the ride back to the castle might even be survivable.
Peters came by to tell him that he'd checked with each of the men to ensure that they understood their roles, and then it was time to start.
A quick look back at the camp as he left allowed him a glimpse of Vi'en standing with her arms crossed disapprovingly.
Va'del and Peters crept towards the two sentries they'd decided on removing, doing their best to move silently in the unfamiliar terrain. Every twig that creaked in protest of their steps seemed as loud as an avalanche, but neither of the sentries moved, so they continued on, hoping the entire time that they hadn't been heard.
They were only about twenty feet from the first enemy now, and Va'del was starting to worry when it finally happened. Vi'en crashed into his mind with all of the subtlety of a blacksmith's hammer, almost driving him to the ground with the force of the mental impact. The experience was even worse than before, it was as if Vi'en had become even less understanding, shredding through his very being as though intent on destroying everything she found lacking.
Va'del wanted to fight her off, but he forced down his defenses with an effort that nearly brought a groan to his lips. Vi'en seemed to bustle from one place to another, her mental fingers rifling through his being without exercising any care to make sure that nothing of herself was left behind. Va'del tried to tell himself it was his imagination, but he couldn't escape feeling that her presence remained in his mind as she moved on to different parts, an oily residue that coated every surface.
Only the fact
that he was only moments away from rescuing Jain gave Va'del enough strength to refrain from throwing the self-satisfied creature out of his mind.
The link finally clicked, and Va'del felt power and grace fill his body. Suddenly, crawling towards the first sentry was an effortless task, and he covered the remaining distance silently, popping up at the last second to cover the man's mouth with his hand as his captured dagger found its target and ended the threat of the man crying out.
The second sentry was more alert, and started turning when Va'del was still ten feet away. In a single lunge, the sub-Guadel covered the distance between them and killed the man before he could do more than gasp.
Adrenaline flowed through his body like a drug, tempered only by the bitter taste of killing, but Va'del ignored both feelings, forcing himself to sit motionless while first Peters and then the rest of the advance group arrived.
Va'del waved the majority of his men into the camp, and then pushed Vi'en nearly out of his mind and made himself wait for five minutes as they entered the camp in ones and twos.
As he neared the end of his count, a questing hand at his side came away wet with blood, but either something Vi'en was doing, or the excitement coursing through his body, was blocking any feeling of pain. Putting the reopened wound out of his mind, Va'del let Vi'en fully back into his mind. Once the link had clicked back into place, Va'del led Peters and another guardsman, whose name he hadn't had time to learn, out into the camp.
The knights Va'del had watched from the hill were a greatly varied group. The only common denominators he'd been able to see among them were their armor, and the ever-present red cloaks that looked almost black once the sun went down. The rest of the men were even more disparate in their appearance, many lacking even a cloak, and Va'del hoped that his men, moving in such small groups, wearing cloaks from the castle's meager stores, would be able to make their way through the camp unchallenged.
Just move like you belong here. Not too quickly, but like you are headed somewhere with a purpose.
Incredibly, the bluff worked, and Va'del suppressed a sigh of relief as they reached the tent that he hoped held Jain and the others. There'd been few women moving about the camp, and none of them had been the Daughters, so it followed that the girls had to be in a tent. The other two tents of sufficient size were much bigger and richer in construction, which logically indicated they belonged to Vladir and Kra'ven.
Again Va'del briefly considered trying to assassinate the Baron, but once more discarded the idea as being too risky. There wasn't any sure way to know which tent belonged to which man, and Kra'ven was all too likely to have a magical means of ensuring he wasn't taken by surprise. If Va'del guessed wrong about which tent contained the Baron, the camp would be alerted and there'd be no chance of freeing the Daughters.
Vi'en had argued for an assassination, saying that doing so would cause the army to fall apart and eliminate the need to fight them later, but she had reluctantly admitted that while she didn't necessarily know how to set the kind of early warning system Va'del was worried about, that didn't mean it wasn't possible.
And if she's wrong and we are caught, our sisters back at the castle die. Having the army fall apart after we've been killed won't save them from a fatal withdrawal process when the drugs run out.
The pair of guards outside the tent looked over at Va'del and his companions as they approached. The more distant guard examined them only casually, but the closer man scanned the approaching group carefully, and then looked back at Peters in surprise.
Moving before the other man could act on the fact that he recognized Peters, Va'del drew his weapons and lunged forward. Dispatching the two men took only a fraction of a second, and then Va'del was inside the tent, weapons still at the ready.
Peters entered a heartbeat later, pulling the dimly-glowing light sphere that Vi'en had provided them from his pocket.
The link was still roaring through Va'del, filling him with strength and making time seem to creep along. The scene that was revealed as the soft, blue light of the sapphire illuminated the tent, seemed to slowly unfold like a vista from the birthplace of the Dark Powers.
All four Daughters were tied and gagged, and if Alis looked the worst, none of them were free of bruises.
White-hot rage flashed through Va'del, and for a second he turned to run out of the tent and kill Vladir, but the matching rage on Peters' face stopped him. Instead he fought down his anger and started cutting the girls' bonds. If he didn't keep his wits about him, there was no chance of the Daughters remaining calm.
Jain looked up at him as he pulled her to her feet, but there was no recognition in her eyes, and Va'del tried not to worry as he slung her over one shoulder and Ka'ti over the other.
Peters and the other guardsman had the remaining two girls, and Va'del nodded to them, and then took a deep breath as he turned and led the way out of the tent.
The trio made it nearly thirty feet before someone challenged them and Peters was forced to cut the man down. Va'del charged forward dodging hostile forms in the near darkness as his companions struggled to keep up.
A knot of resistance was forming as they were nearing the horse pickets, but their various tasks completed, the other guardsmen appeared as if by magic and engaged enough of the other men for Va'del and the rest to reach their destination.
Two of the guardsmen jumped onto horses they'd spent the last few minutes saddling, and then reached down and pulled Jain and Ka'ti up to ride in front of them.
Other men did the same for the remaining two girls as Va'del turned and threw himself into the fight. Most of the men he was facing had only recently awoken. As a consequence, they were disoriented and poorly equipped. Va'del was easily able to cut his way through to his remaining men, freeing them to get far enough away from the fighting to mount horses of their own.
Va'del killed two more men, and then heard yelling and screaming behind him as the guardsmen scattered the horses.
The sub-Guadel sheathed his blades, turning and running away from the remaining enemies as Peters rode in at an angle, trailing a spirited horse that was so dark as to be nearly invisible.
The strength and grace imparted by the link made it easy to perfectly time his jump. Va'del landed astride the animal, and felt a wave of relief course through him as he leaned down over the horse's neck and urged it on to greater speed.
The link suddenly evaporated, and for a second Va'del felt as if he'd fall from his horse, but the past two days had taught him a little about riding. He just managed to retain his balance as his time sense slowly adjusted back to dealing with the world at a normal speed.
Massive muscles bunched beneath Va'del's knees. His horse seemed determined to pass up the riders before them, but the sub-Guadel reined the beast back slightly. His place was at the back where he'd be the first one run down if the Baron organized enough of a pursuit to follow them.
The group came around a bend and found Vi'en, Se'ath and the last pair of guardsmen waiting for them. Va'del slowed just enough to take a pair of lead ropes for the horses they'd left behind, and then they were all off again.
Peters nodded to two of his men, and then dropped back to ride next to Va'del and Vi'en.
"We cut forty or fifty girth straps, and sprinkled that drug in their water and food stores. Their horses are mostly scattered as well, which will buy us some time."
"Thanks, we'll just have to hope it's all enough for us to stay ahead."
Peters flashed Va'del a smile and then moved back up to the head of the column. Vi'en shot the pair a disapproving look, and then concentrated on staying atop her horse.
In all of the excitement, Va'del had forgotten about his wound, but there wasn't anything else to distract him now, and the pain slowly grew. By the time Peters pulled everyone over to change horses, Va'del was in enough pain that he had a hard time thinking of anything else.
Despite his near incapacitation, the switch went much more smoothly than Va'del had expect
ed. A junior officer saw to Va'del's mount while he tightened up his bandages, and then everyone was back on the road.
The next couple of color cycles were the tensest, and despite the pain involved in the motion, Va'del found himself looking back over his shoulder for pursuit every few minutes.
When Vladir's men failed to appear behind them, the pain in his side pulled his attention inward. The steadily-rising tide of agony seemed at the point of overwhelming him. Then without his noticing the change, his thoughts died away, leaving him alone with the pain. This in turn seemed to fade away as the everyday commotion of thought and worry stopped dominating his mind.
The steady motion of his horse should have proved a distraction, but instead it seemed to coax Va'del's awareness deeper inside him. It wasn't until the horse in front of him stumbled and nearly fell, that the trance was broken and weakness and fatigue once again pulled at him.
The reappearance of his pain brought with it new worries, foremost among them a fear that Mark, the stable master, wouldn't come through on his end of the plan. Just because Va'del's men hadn't been caught yet didn't mean they were safe. If Mark wasn't waiting with the remounts, Va'del's plan was still almost sure to fail. They'd used the horses too cruelly for the poor animals to make it the rest of the way to the castle at any kind of decent pace.
As they got nearer and nearer to the place where Mark had promised to wait for them, Vi'en looked back more and more often, as if to emphasize the fact that Va'del's trust in the old stable master had been misplaced.
The uncertainty wore at Va'del, made worse as first Se'ath and then more and more of the guardsmen looked around nervously, obviously worried they'd been betrayed. As the sun started to rise Va'del switched from worry and started assuming the worst. He alternately scrambled for solutions to the mess they were in and wondered what he'd been thinking to trust the success or failure of their rescue to a stranger.
Riding in the van of the column, Peters suddenly veered to the right, and Va'del felt relief flow through him as they thundered into a clearing full of horses and stable hands in the Baron's colors.