Part 13 (1/2)
22.
THE COMMANDER AND his three companions kept moving steadily all that day, trying to regain some of the time they had lost. They were silent for the most part, each busy with his own thoughts, and little was said even when they finally made camp for the night.
Eveleen held the second watch, that following her husband's. She was in no good humor and was glad none of the others was present to see the frown marring her features.
She was furious with Allran. Her fellow Lieutenant was a professional soldier and had honestly acknowledged his fault in addressing his superior as he had, but none of the anger against Murdock which had fired his outburst had faded. He reined it tightly now, but she knew him well enough after their months of service together to be aware of it, and she was certain Ross sensed it as well.
Her expression darkened still further. This was not the first time she had observed discontent or anger on him, either. What was the matter with the man? Ross did not need this with everything else he had to bear besides.
When she was finally relieved, the woman went to where Murdock was lying. Each of the partisans slept apart from his companions, visually separated from them so that some, at least, might escape if their camp were discovered and overrun. She was glad of that now, for it would give them the opportunity for private conversation if her chief were still awake.
Eveleen found Ross lying on his back, his arms pillowing his head. He appeared to be staring into the branches forming the dark roof above him but sat up as soon as she approached.
The Lieutenant gave the signal that all was well and seated herself beside him. ”My watch is over,” she chided gently. ”You should've been asleep ages ago.”
”I wanted to do some thinking.” He smiled. ”You wouldn't have come to me if you didn't expect to find me awake.”
”I was afraid you would be,” the weapons expert admitted.
”You've got to be played out, too. What's your excuse for staying up?”
Her head lowered and raised again. ”The same as yours. I was thinking about what happened today, what Allran said to you.”
”He was mad, and he knew I was right.”
”Angry words can still wound. He used some pretty strong terms.” Her eyes caught his. ”Ross, no one, including Allran A Aldar, thinks of you like that.”
”Not these people, no. Not now,” he said dully, ”but all Dominion will soon. You said they s.h.i.+fted into pacifism pretty early. People in our supposed profession wouldn't stay popular in that atmosphere.” His eyes fixed on his hands. ”I was a misfit in our own time until the Project found me, and I was a misfit in Hawaika's past. Now it's happening again...”
”Hardly,” she informed him. ”The conversion did not happen overnight. Besides, the locals didn't become idiots because they turned away from warfare on a yearly basis. They fought the Baldies, remember, and they did a proper job on them. Their history didn't condemn that stand, or try to drop it into the back of some file and forget it.”
A slow smile just touched his lips before fading again. ”I suppose I am getting myself worked up over nothing.”
His expression darkened again. ”I'd have to be stone blind not to see that Allran resents me, though. If he weren't such a professional, there would be serious friction between us even now.”
His companion nodded. ”It's gotten worse recently. I can't understand what's the matter with him.”
”I imagine it's a problem mercenary commanders must occasionally encounter on long-term commissions,” Ross said thoughtfully. ”Most of these domain leaders are sound warriors and good officers, but their skills are usually confined to training and parading their troops, relieved, perhaps, by bandit control now and then in wilder areas or, in extremely rare instances, by a show of force against some troublesome neighbor.
”When real danger develops, mercenary companies are almost inevitably hired, always with the stipulation that their own officers will have precedence in all war-related activities, save only with respect to the Ton himself.”
He sighed. ”It's only natural, I suppose, that some of the local men should resent being thus superseded, particularly where rank and birth are interconnected. Such officers simply don't want to yield place to hired swords. I can't say that I blame them.”
Ross looked into the distance. ”Allran's fathers have commanded Sapphirehold's garrison for five generations. How pleased can I expect him to be to see a mercenary raised over him? Luroc's naming me his son can't have helped, either. It's got to have raised the nasty suspicion that I might stay here and make the current situation permanent. That would be a disaster as far as he was concerned.”
The Terran man fell silent a moment, then recalled himself again. ”I'll have to do what I can to make peace between us.”
”You're not the one at fault!”
”All the same, it's my business to banish this tension before it grows still worse, which it's bound to do if I try to ignore it. We can't afford quarreling in our ranks. That would serve Zanthor so well that it might significantly delay his defeat.”
”What more can you do?” Eveleen asked him. ”Another man would've decked Allran or worse for what he said to you today.”
”I wasn't far from it,” her husband confessed.
He shrugged. ”All I can do is talk to him. I don't want the place he desires. I should be able to convince him that mercenaries don't stick around once their work's done and life goes back to normal again.”
”Will he believe that?”
”He should if I don't hold off so long before speaking to him that his feelings grow permanently irrational. That would be an enormous disservice to an extremely fine officer, and I've delayed nearly too long already.”
Ross smiled at her. ”That must wait until we're back in base. For now, Lieutenant, I suggest that we both get some sleep. As it is, we won't be happy when it's time to hit the saddle again.”
23.
THE FOLLOWING DAY dawned pleasantly enough, but the weather turned early in the morning, and soon a sharp, damp wind snapped at them.
Rain joined with it just before noon, a nasty, steady drizzle that kept all four morosely hunched in their cloaks. They were tired in spirit and body after their long mission, they were cold, and even the fact that they were well into the mountains and should reach their base the next day did little to cheer them. None of them felt inclined for speech, although the need for caution was long since past.
All knew camp would be a most unpleasant affair that night, and Murdock weighed continuing on until they reached home.
In the end he decided to break their journey. There was still a goodly distance to go, and he disliked pressing a needless forced march on his companions. He tried never to overtax any of his soldiers without strong cause. They endured quite enough hards.h.i.+p in the normal course of their lives without his adding to their burdens.
The partisans stopped where they were when darkness began to fall despite the fact that the site offered little in the way of comfort. They knew the region in which they traveled and realized they would find nothing better anywhere close by.
At least, they were s.h.i.+elded in great part from the wind. They were in the lee of a high, very sheer cliff that broke the worst of its force. So effective was its screening, in fact, that a considerable amount of soil and softer matter clung to it, bound by the roots of the small, tough plants that had somehow found purchase there despite its almost perpendicular grade.
None of this vegetation was high or very dense, and the rocks and great boulders marbling the cliffside were clearly visible, as were the scars left to show where some of them had torn free.
Ross set their camp a fair distance from the cliff. Falls might not occur frequently, but the stones, some of them large, littering the ground near its base were proof enough that heavy material did occasionally break loose and come down. He was particularly inclined to show caution now. After a day's constant rain, that soil up there was likely to be wet through and maybe somewhat less stable, less able to bear weight against the draw of gravity, than would normally be the case.
A Aldar scowled when he saw where they were to settle. ”We would have better shelter closer to the cliff,” he protested, ”and those two hollows there would let the ones not on watch sleep dry and out of the wind. The bigger of them would hold two of us.”
”Some of that rock could too easily fall.”
”The ground might tremble and open beneath us, too! If fate wants to take us that way, she will do so, Firehand's precautions be d.a.m.ned!”
The gray eyes turned cold. ”Sleep where you will! I've issued no commands on the subject,” he snapped, then pointedly turned his attention away from the other.
The Dominionite went to the larger of the two indentations to which he had referred as soon as the usual work of the camp had been completed. His watch did not come until Eveleen's was done, and he could hope for several hours of solid sleep before he was summoned, a considerably better sleep than any of his comrades would enjoy, however weariness might blunt the discomforts of their beds.
Ross could scarcely grip his temper even after he had left the others to take up his turn at guard, and he gave thanks that none of their foes strayed here. With this dark, violent pa.s.sion so strongly in possession of him, he would have been hard pressed to detect any sort of even minimally subtle approach.
He strove to quell the emotion sending the blood surging through his veins, knowing it to be sharp beyond the affront calling it forth.