Five or six of the closest bluecoats were down within the first two volleys.

"Second squad! Fire!"

Bluecoats began to scramble toward the sheds, toward any form of shelter.

Abruptly, two older-looking bluecoats appeared, and one took dead aim at the Cadmian captain. The other turned as well.

Mykel had one shot left. With all his thought, desire, everything, he willed the bullet home.

The first bluecoat dropped, but the second brought his rifle to bear, taking his time, as if to indicate that he might die, but that Mykel would as well.

All Mykel could do was duck, urge the chestnut forward, and will that the bullets not strike him. Time around him seemed to slow, and he couldsense the bullets moving to-rard him. Somehow, some way, he twisted his body out of lie line of fire as the chestnut carried him forward.

Still in that slow movement, he watched the bluecoat's nouth open. For a moment, the man froze, and then Mykel ind the chestnut were upon him. Mykel knew that he could lot have covered that distance so quickly, but he had. With-)ut cartridges in the magazine, he did the only thing that he ;ould, reversing the rifle and slamming the butt across the jluecoat's temple. The man dropped. Mykel felt a sudden smptiness, a feeling that he had come to recognize as death.

He wheeled the chestnut back to the firing line, but the return seemed far slower. The area closest to him was empty of able rebels. He reloaded quickly, then slipped the rifle into its saddle case. "First squad! Sabres! On me!" He stood in the stirrups. "Second squad! Hold!"

Very few of the rebels had lifted rifles in the face of the attack. Even so, Mykel thought he had lost some of his men, or that some had been wounded. He urged the chestnut toward the handful of fleeing men. "First squad, forward!"

The next glass was a confused mixture of pursuit, slashing sabres, moments of silence, intermittent rifle shots... and slaughter.

Mykel finally led first squad back to the villa, where they re-formed.

Led by Bhoral, the other squads rejoined them.

"Fifteenth Company stands ready, sir."

"Thank you. What were our casualties?" Mykel asked the senior squad leader.

"One dead, three wounded, not badly."

It could have been much worse, Mykel thought, glancing back toward the ruined tents, then toward the apparently silent villa.

"What now, sir?" asked Bhoral.

"We'll take a half score of the best mounts, and whatever good supplies will fit in the wagons." Mykel gestured to-ward the villa. "Burn it. Not theoutbuildings or the stables. Just the villa."

"Sending a message to the seltyrs, sir?"

"And to their retainers and the others. I hope they'll get it." Mykel had his doubts, but it was worth a try.

As Bhoral conveyed his orders to four rankers in first squad, Mykel surveyed the devastation around the villa. It had been a slaughter. Over a hundred bluecoats lay dead, left where they had fallen, in the fields, in ditches, beside the stables, on the dirt lanes of the estate.

Slowly, he took a rag from his saddlebags and cleaned his sabre and sheathed it. Then he checked his rifle, making sure that the magazine was full.

They hadn't taken prisoners. That bothered him, because the rebel troopers weren't really to blame, but he didn't have any choices. If he let the troopers escape, he'd have to fight them again later. Every prisoner taken meant Cadmi-ans who had to guard them, and Fifteenth Company was already understrength and needed every man. Finally, there was no reciprocity-the seltyrs didn't take prisoners... and wouldn't, and they seemed to regard such mercy as weakness.

He took a deep breath. There were other bluecoats left to find-and deal with as best he could.

88.

Despite his tiredness and the effects of flying two long days, Dainyl did not sleep well. Images swirled through his dreaming thoughts, images of pteridons and their fliers vanishing into dark tubes, of hundreds of landers and indigens cutting each other down with bright "1.

shimmering rifles, of an ancient soarer in midair above a peak pointing a tiny finger at him and telling him, "Change or perish."

He woke covered in sweat on Octdi morning, for all that the officer's chamber was more than pleasantly cool. It was a relief to get up. He washed and dressed, and made his way to the mess, where he atehurriedly, washing the rations down with ale, as a single sleepy-eyed Cadmian watched.

Then he began a thorough walking inspection of the compound, starting at the east gate, and going through each building. Several were locked. Most of the locks he could open with his Talent. One, which had a heavy hasp lock, he severe&with the light-cutter sidearm. He could find nothing amiss, nothing that should not have been there.

In the armory, he noted-through his Talent-that there were traces of where barrels of ancient gunpowder had been recently removed, but he did not mention that to the senior squad leader who was bemoaning just how much ammunition had been used in the past weeks. When he finished, it was past the morning muster, and he made his way to the headquarters building.

Overcaptain Dohark had taken over the smaller study, the one to which Majer Herryf had retreated after Dainyl had assumed command in Dramuria. He looked up as Dainyl appeared, then stood, quickly but smoothly. "Sir?"

"I was just checking."

"Battalion rosters, sir. It's really the first time I've had a chance to go over them in detail to assess what we have. We've got a little less than half a battalion left. Fifteenth Company is closest to full strength, with eighty-four men, but that includes nine from Seventeenth Company."

"Have you heard anything from Captain Mykel?"

"No, sir. I doubt that I will until he returns."

"If he returns."

The overcaptain gave a harsh short laugh, more of a bark. "He'll return, Submarshal, sir. Worst he'd do would be if he only brought back half his men. If he did that, there wouldn't be a seltyr left alive in a hundred vingts."

"You have a high opinion of the captain." Dainyl pressed a hint of Talent toward the overcaptain, a suggestion that Dohark needed to say more.The overcaptain frowned, then nodded, as if to himself, before speaking. "Fifteenth Company has accounted for something like nine out of ten rebel casualties. He seems to sense where the enemy will be. He gets people to talk to him, too. He's found out more from that seltyr's daughter than I'd ever thought possible. The local captains, they didn't want to talk to us much. They were polite, but not much more. Mykel-I don't know how he did it-got them to talk. On top of that, he's the best marksman in any of the battalions. Anything he can see, he can bring down, and some that he can't." Dohark stopped abruptly.

With each revelation by Dohark, Dainyl became more concerned. All of the skills that the overcaptain mentioned were potentially Talent-driven or Talent-enhanced. "Majer Vaclyn didn't know this?"

"He didn't want to know it, sir. He was the kind who was afraid that good captains would show that he wasn't a good commander."

"And the Cadmian colonel, what did he think about Captain Mykel?"

"He didn't know that much, except that Fifteenth Company stopped taking heavy losses once Mykel became captain."

"You praise the captain, yet you sound concerned," Dainyl pressed.

"Yes, sir. Mykel's realized that there's only one way to win here in Dramur, and that's to kill off most of the sel-tyrs' bluecoats and greencoats quick-like, before they can replace them, and take as many of the seltyrs as possible. He's getting real good at using Fifteenth Company to wipe out scores-more like hundreds-of rebels. I'm not sure that's a good attitude for the rankers to develop. Leaves some of 'em real cold, killers."

"Isn't that what they have to do?"

"It is here, sir, and that's the problem. Other places in Corns, we killed rebels and folk, but the idea was to show force and control. Folks understood. Here, they don't. Mykel sees that, and he'll do what he has to bring his company through with the fewest casualties. Ambush, shooting down men as they rest or eat, night attacks, if he thinks they can work..."

In short, thought Dainyl, Captain Mykel is becoming as ruthless as any alector, and far more efficient than his peers-and it is clearly disturbing the overcaptain."... thing is, sir, Captain Mykel's not like that, not inside, and someday, he's going to have to live with what he's done here."

"Don't we all, Overcaptain?"

"Yes, sir." Dohark's voice turned flat and polite.

Dainyl regretted his choice of words, but he'd never had to deal that much with Cadmian officers, and he'd forgotten the emotional overtones and issues differed. The Views of the Highest had a section on that, but it had been some time since he'd reviewed that wisdom. He wished he had, or that he could have talked to Lystrana. After a moment, he offered a rueful smile. "I think that sounded harsh. What I meant was that all officers end up having to do unpleasant duties. It's the nature of what we do, and Captain Mykel has had the misfortune to be in a position where, to get the job done, he must undertake particularly distasteful acts. I'm sure that he will regret the necessity, as I am sure you have at times, Overcaptain. Regret... and a wish that matters could have been otherwise... those we all face."

Dohark seemed to relent, at least slightly. "That'd be true for most of us. I worry more about Mykel because tr seemed to care more, and worried about the folks here-c when we dealt with the Reillies. I think it tears at him, where he won't even let himself see it, when other folks'

cruelty requires the same, or worse, from him."

Dainyl nodded. "There are some who simply don't care about the impact of their acts. If all people did, then we wouldn't need as many Cadmians and Myrmidons as we do."

"I suppose not, sir, but it's a sad world at times."

"That it is." Dainyl offered a smile he hoped was understanding. "I'll be in the study if you need me."

"Yes, sir."

Dainyl spent the morning reading through all the reports that the overcaptain had left him. A number appeared to have been written most recently, and he had to wonder if Dohark had composed them hastily after Dainyl's return.From the reports and from what Dohark had told him, Dainyl had to admit that the situation had not only gotten too far out of hand, but that Captain Mykel seemed to be the only one who understood-or the only one willing to face what had to be done.

Dainyl also needed to check on the local Cadmians and how and whether they were getting the mine back into production, but he'd wanted to get a better feel for the military situation before he talked to Benjyr and Meryst.

Just after midday, when he was considering trying to go to the mess to choke down more ale and rations, Dainyl stiffened. From somewhere to the north had come a flash of Talent, not ifrit-Talent, with its pinkish purple feel, but something like that of the soarer, green, but overlaid with black, rather than with the gold he had felt from the ancient.

Without a word, he left the study and walked out into the courtyard, turning to the north.

The greenish black Talent had already begun to fade from his senses.

Yet, in its place, to the northwest, he could sense, if but faintly, that of the ancient-as if whatever he had felt had also summoned her. He didn't need the an-cients around, not when they were apparently the only creatures who could summon forces to bring down a pteridon.

Had that other flash of Talent been Captain Mykel? Had he begun to understand and use his Talent? Or was another Talent-wielder loose on Dramur?

89.

Mykel looked out into the darkness from where he sat on an old bench in front of an outbuilding that had seen better days. After the slaughter southeast of En-styla, Mykel had led Fifteenth Company a good fifteen vingts westward until he had found another grower's place to commandeer for the evening. Fifteenth Company had taken all the buildings, except for the main dwelling. There, behind barred doors, the wife and children of the absent grower huddled, Mykel was certain, dreading what might happen.

So long as no one attacked, he would let the dwelling stand. He realized that he would be seen as arbitrary in what he destroyed, but those whoopenly supported the rebellion would pay. In a way, though, that just encouraged hypocrisy. There were no good answers, not that he saw.

As he considered the day just past, and the day yet to come, Mykel felt both drained and, in a strange way, somewhat more alive. The fighting and the killing discouraged and depressed him, necessary as he felt it was.

Yet in some fashion, he felt more alert than he had in years.

The skies were clear, and Selena had not yet risen. Asterta was but a pinpoint just above the mountains to the west. There were no lamps or light-torches anywhere, yet it did not seem that dark. Mykel could see the sentry on the inner line, standing in front of a fence just in front of a short-needled pine tree, slowly chewing on something, then turning away.

"Banayt!" he called out. "If you're going to eat on watch, at least keep looking!"

The sentry jumped. "Yes, sir."

"Sir?" Alendyr's voice was tentative.

Mykel hadn't realized that the squad leader was so close, but he had not been paying that much attention, lost as he had been in his own thoughts.

"Yes?"

"You can see what Banayt's doing from here?"

"He's only some fifty yards out," Mykel said.

"It's dark as pitch out there, sir. I can barely make out the tree."

Mykel offered a shrug.

"Sir? About today..."

"I wish we didn't have to do things like that, but there's no help for it,"

Mykel said, tiredly. "These people only respect force." He felt like those words were becoming an excuse for everything.

"No, sir. We all know that. This was something different. I was just wondering how you managed to get across that field so fast this afternoon.

Those bluecoats who were aiming at you, you dropped one, and then, all sudden-like, you were almost on top of the other one.""It just seemed that way," Mykel replied. "When you're fighting, strange things seem to happen. Things speed up and slow down. It seems that way to me, at least."

"I don't know, sir. Never seen anything like that... like you were in one place one moment, and another the next."

While that was how it had felt, Mykel was reluctant to admit it.

"Sometimes, it feels that way. You're fighting. Then, suddenly, it's all over.

Haven't you felt that way at times?"

"Yes, sir." The squad leader paused. "You think there are that many other rebel companies out there?"

"I'd guess there are still four or five. We need to take down a couple more, at least, before they'll even think about surrendering." That was being optimistic, but Mykel saw no point in saying so.

"Seems like a shame... they haven't been trained that well... If we had two battalions here, we could just roll them all up and get it over."

"It'd be quicker and easier on everyone, but... we don't. No one calls us in until there's a real mess."

"Myrmidons would help."

"They would, but there are so many rebels that they'd have to burn the whole island. There aren't that many of them, either." Mykel offered a rueful laugh. "That's why we're here."