"A likely tale-like all your others." Vaclyn's smile widened. "Captain, you have been most insubordinate. You even tried to go around the chain of command. Now, you seem to be trying to escape. We can't have that."

Mykel waited until the last moment, then tried to jump to one side, but Vaclyn had anticipated that, and the throwing dagger knifed into his left shoulder.

Mykel tried to regain his balance.

"You're quick, Captain, but not quick enough."

"No!" snapped a deep voice, seemingly out of nowhere.

Colonel Dainyl appeared between Mykel and the majer, but the dagger was already in the air. With the pain stabbing through his shoulder, Mykel watched the silvery weapon bounce off the alector's tunic. The colonel's hand blurred to his belt, and a pistol-like sidearm appeared.

"He was trying to escape, Colonel!" The majer's voice rose. "He was."A flare of blinding blue light enveloped Vaclyn. The captain blinked.

When he could see again, a charred figure lay on the stones of the courtyard.

"Captain..."

Mykel leaned against the wall, trying to clamp the flow of blood from his shoulder with his good hand.

"Captain... you'll need some attention." The colonel stood empty-handed. "Can you walk to the infirmary?"

"If I don't wait too long," Mykel managed.

He took one step and then another. A strong arm steadied him. Now...

if he didn't bleed to death on the way to the infirmary. Mykel kept walking, past the smoldering remains of the majer.

He supposed he should have felt some regret, but all he felt was relief-and another kind of apprehension. Why hadn't he seen the colonel?

What did the Myrmidon have in mind?

He kept walking.

53.

After Dainyl settled Captain Mykel in the infirmary, making sure that the wound was clean and well bound, the colonel hastened back toward headquarters. Whether he liked it or not, whether he had any effective strategies, with Majer Vaclyn dead, he had no choices. Majer Herryf had no idea how to command his own two companies, much less an entire battalion.

The sun was almost touching the top of the western wall of the compound when Dainyl walked into Majer Herryf's study in the headquarters building.

Herryf bolted upright. "Oh, Colonel... I hadn't realized you were here."

Dainyl closed the door. "Sit down."

Herryf sat."Majer Vaclyn just attempted to kill one of his captains, then me,"

Dainyl said coldly. "Did you have anything to do with it?'

The color drained out of Herryf's face. "No, sir. No, sir."

About that, the majer was telling the truth.

"I'm very glad to hear that. Majer Vaclyn is dead. I'm using my authority as acting submarshal to take over command of all Cadmian activities and forces in Dramur."

"Yes, sir." Herryf was so shocked that he lacked, momentarily, his natural arrogance.

"Majer Vaclyn's body is rather badly charred. It's in the courtyard at the east end of the senior officers' quarters."

"I had a report about a body, but no one knew-"

"It's the majer. You will dispose of the carcass." Dainyl looked sternly at the majer. "You will remain at the compound until I have had a chance to talk to all officers. Find me the majer's senior squad leader. Jiosyr, I think, is his name. I want to speak to him first."

"Yes, sir."

"Since I have to take command, I'll be needing this study. Until I leave, I imagine you can make do with the one Majer Vaclyn was using."

Herryf nodded.

"Now... find me that senior squad leader."

"Yes, sir." The Cadmian majer rose and hurried out.

As he waited for Herryf either to find the man or to report that he had fled, Dainyl considered what he knew in light of Vaclyn's attempted murder of Captain Mykel.

Dainyl had already noted that Vaclyn had been exposed to Talent-manipulation, but he had not had the ability to determine what had been done. In retrospect, there was no question that the marshal hadused Talent to force a compulsion on the majer. Such compulsions were almost always worse than useless for anything but the simplest prohibitions, because they restricted both thought patterns and actions, and left the one who had been Talent-compelled in situations where he inevitably acted unwisely. The marshal knew that. Why had he wanted a comparatively low-ranking Cadmian officer to behave unwisely? It made no sense, but the marshal was anything besides stupid. He had wanted Vaclyn to act unwisely.

After hearing what the captain had said when he had come to Dainyl, Dainyl had used Talent to follow the captain unseen. The one surprise had been seeing Vaclyn's squad leader go to the quarters and lure Mykel from his room, but that suggested that the majer had feared what would come out in a court-martial.

"Sir?" ' j Dainyl looked up. Herryf stood in the doorway with a short senior squad leader.

"This is Jiosyr. The one you wanted to see."

"Come in, Jiosyr. Sit down." Dainyl pointed to one of the armless wooden chairs. He did not take a seat. Even without using Talent, he could sense the fear in the squad leader, who barely looked even in the general direction of the colonel, especially after Herryf had closed the door on the two.

"You must know that Majer Vaclyn tried to kill both Captain Mykel and me-and that he is dead. I've taken over command of Third Battalion."

"Yes, sir." Jiosyr looked at the stone tiles of the floor.

"Why was the majer so angry at the captain?"

"Sir?"

"I heard the majer's last words to the captain. He was angry. Why?"

Jiosyr was silent, and Dainyl contemplated using Talent to persuade him to speak. He decided to wait, his eyes on the slumped figure of the squad leader."He thought that the captain-Captain Mykel-was always trying to get around his orders. He said that he needed to be taught a lesson. Then... he told me we'd need to set up a court-martial, that the captain had gone too far."

"How had the captain gone too far?"

"He didn't say, sir. He just said that."

"What did you say to Captain Mykel to get him to leave his quarters?"

Jiosyr turned paler than milk and swayed in the chair. "Sir?"

"You're not going to be stupid enough to deny it, are you?"

The squad leader shuddered. "No, sir. Majer Vaclyn... he told me to tell the captain that his squad leader Alendyr had been knifed by a ranker and was in the infirmary."

Dainyl nodded. The captain had worried more about his men than orders or himself. He'd scarcely talked to the captain, but the more he heard and saw, the more he approved of the man-and the less sense Vaclyn's acts made. A good commander praised effective subordinates, both to their faces and in reports to superiors-then took a small share of the credit for their initiative and accomplishments. "Why did you do that?"

"The majer said he needed to get the captain to disobey orders one more time, that Captain Mykel was always so careful not to disobey when anyone was watching."

"Did you think this was the right thing to do?"

"No, sir... but what was I to do? I only need another two years for a stipend. The majer could have dismissed me without anyone stopping him. Eighteen years... gone for nothing."

"Your stipend was worth the lives of two men?"

Jiosyr stiffened. "Sir. I've killed Reillies and bandits and brigands. I did it because I was a Cadmian. I did it to protect people. There wasn't anyone protecting me. I'd let it be known, as I could, that the majer shouldn't bein the field. I even made copies of reports Colonel Herolt never would have seen, and I got them on the colonel's desk. No one did anything."

The sudden stiffening and the aura of truth were both almost overpowering, even to Dainyl.

"No one did anything," Jiosyr repeated. "That's the truth, sir."

Dainyl paused. "That will be all for now, Jiosyr. I'd appreciate it if you'd remain within the compound."

"Yes, sir." The squad leader paused. "What will you... do with me?"

"That depends on what else I discover."

After Jiosyr left, Dainyl considered what else was necessary. He needed to question Captain Mykel-in far greater depth-once the captain was feeling better. He still had to talk to all of the other officers. None of them would know anything about why Majer Vaclyn had acted as he had. Of that, Dainyl was most certain, but he had to go through the motions.

He stepped out of the study, looking for Herryf.

Nearly three glasses later, after Captain Rhystan of Sixteenth Company had left the study that had been Herryf's, Dainyl knew little more than when he started-except that Majer Vaclyn had barely been marginally competent before the Third Battalion had been deployed to Dramur. Even more puzzling was that all of the battalion's surviving captains would have done better if they had been in command.

Was the marshal out to discredit the Cadmians? Why? What purpose would that serve?

In the dimness of the study, Dainyl looked at the stone outer wall and then at the darkness beyond the single window. He still had no more answers-only more questions.

54.

For Mykel, Octdi night was long-and restless. It was well past dark when the local healer finally allowed Alendyr and two troopers to escort him back to the officers' quarters. He slept, but not for very long at a time,and pain ran down his entire arm most of the time.

When he was awake, trying to lie still so that he didn't turn and send more jolts of pain up and down his arm and shoulder, his thoughts alternated mostly between the soarer and the alector. Majer Vaclyn's knife had gone through Mykel's tunic and undertunic like a hot blade through butter, yet his second knife had bounced off the Myrmidon's tunic. After having seen that once before when the crossbow bolt had struck the alector in Faitel, Mykel shouldn't have been surprised. In both cases, there had been a reaction-guards in Faitel, and the colonel's light-cutting sidearm. That argued that the alectors weren't invulnerable, but that there was something about the shimmering cloth that they all wore, an armor that didn't look like armor.

The soarer had been different, totally unafraid of the rifle he had held, yet she had known exactly what it was. She'd also told him not to use it on the other creature, and that suggested that, while she might not be vulnerable, the creatures were. A faint smile creased his lips in the darkness of the quarters. Just how likely was it that he would ever see either again?

For a few moments, he thought about Kuertyl. Had he caused the younger captain's death by following Vaclyn's orders? Was there any way he could have avoided it? His lips tightened. He could have stopped it only by massacring the entire town of Jyoha-^r all the men and most of the women. Once you started killing people who weren't troopers or didn't think of themselves as such, where did it stop? By following the majer's orders, he'd turned an entire town into deadly enemies-and that had led to the death of Kuertyl and half of Thirteenth Company. How could a captain deal with stupid orders without getting killed, one way or the other, either by carrying them out or through discipline for insubordination?

In time, he did drift back into sleep.

The next morning, with his arm bound, Mykel took his time pulling himself together and washing up before making his way to the officers'

mess. Minding what the healer had said, he was using the harness sling to reduce the weight on his shoulder.

Heransyr, Dohark, and Rhystan were seated around a square table in one corner of the mess. Dohark stood and waved. "Over here!"Mykel gave an off-center smile and walked carefully toward the table.

Dohark had pulled out a chair, and Mykel took it.

"You look like shit," said Dohark. "Bat shit." He grinned sympathetically. "You know, Mykel, you don't get wounded like anyone else. Shot in the ass by Reillies and knifed by your own commander."

"The Myrmidon colonel really burned old Vaclyn to a cinder?" asked Rhystan, pushing back a lock of lank brown hair off his narrow forehead.

Mykel nodded. "Used that light-cutter thing. Blue light- majer went up in flames."

A server looked at the latest arrival at the table.

"Ale, if you don't have cider," Mykel said.

"No cider, sir. Ale, water, or wine."

"Ale... and whatever you have for breakfast."

The server slipped away.

"Why did the colonel do that?" Heransyr frowned.

"The majer had already put one knife in me," Mykel explained. "Then the colonel appeared and told him to stop. Majer threw the knife at him instead of me. That probably saved my neck."

"Or your ass," added Dohark.

Rhystan shook his head. "Stupid. Don't attack Myrmidons. Everyone knows that."

"He was stupid, and about more than that," countered Dohark.

"Remember when he wanted you to take a squad through that flooded field."