"He should, sir. He has all the files."

That didn't mean he'd read them, or that he cared. Winter mulled that over.

"I meant to thank you, sir," Bobby said.

"For that?" Winter said. "It was just a trick."

"A clever trick, though. The men will be grateful."

"Just wait until d'Vries screams his head off tomorrow. That grat.i.tude may be short-lived." Winter sighed. "Sorry. I'm not in the best of moods. Did you need to see me for some reason?"

"Just to say that, sir. And to ask if you wanted your dinner brought in."

"I suppose." Winter looked at the little tent, with the desk full of daily reports and the bed haunted by unpleasant memories. Bobby seemed to read her mind.

"You're welcome to eat with us, sir."

Winter made a face. "I wouldn't want to put anybody off."

"You wouldn't-"

"Oh, come on. You must know how it is. You can't have the same kind of talk when the sergeant is listening in." That was how it had always been in Davis' company, anyway, although Winter had rarely been a part of the conversation.

"Come and join us," Bobby said. "I think you'll feel better for a little talk, sir."

Winter chuckled. "Only if you promise to stop calling me *sir,' Bobby."

"Yessir!" Bobby snapped to attention, eyes shining, and Winter couldn't help but laugh.

a a a Dinner was cooking when they emerged. In theory, the company was subdivided into six sections of twenty men, each led by a corporal. These units were more commonly called "pots," since the main feature of each one was the iron cookpot in which the communal meals were brewed. In the Seventh, the boundaries between the pots were apparently pretty fluid, and all six vessels were gathered around a common fire. The men ate from whichever they liked and sat where they wanted, on the ground, on rocks, or on empty boxes of supplies. Mostly they gathered in circles, talking, laughing, and playing at dice or cards.

Bobby led Winter to one such circle, where she recognized Corporal Folsom among seven or eight other men. They opened up obligingly to make a s.p.a.ce on a makeshift bench of hardtack crates, and someone handed Winter a bowl full of the steaming broth that was the standard evening meal when time and supplies allowed. Chunks of mutton floated in it, and the surface was slick and shiny with grease. Winter accepted a cracker of hardtack from another man and let it absorb the juice until it was soft and sodden, then gobbled it down. She hadn't realized she was so hungry.

At first Winter's fears seemed to be justified. The men had been talking and laughing until she arrived, but under the eyes of their sergeant they ate in awkward silence. Bobby called for a round of introductions, which produced a half dozen names that Winter promptly forgot. Then another silence fell, more uncomfortable than the first.

It was Corporal Folsom, oddly, who provided the first crack in the wall. He broke his usual quiet to comment, apropos of nothing, "Didn't realize there'd be so many streams here. They always told me Khandar was a desert."

Bobby seized eagerly on this sc.r.a.p of conversation. "I heard the same thing. When you read about it, it's always sand dunes and camels. I haven't even seen a camel yet."

"This is the wet part," Winter offered. "We're only a dozen miles from the coast, so it gets a little rain now and then. And we're coming up on the Tsel valley. If you walked twenty or thirty miles south, you'd be in the Lesser Desol, and there'd be no water for days in any direction."

"What about camels?" said one of the soldiers, whose name was either George or Gerry.

"No camels," Winter said. "Not here. Camels aren't native to Khandar, actually. The Desoltai use them, but they live out in the Great Desol, to the east of the Tsel."

"Are they the ones who wear steel masks all the time?" said another man.

Winter laughed. "Not all of them, just their leader. He calls himself Malik-dan-Belial, which means *Steel Ghost.' n.o.body knows what he really looks like."

"Seems like a pretty cowardly way to go about to me," another soldier said. "What about this city we're marching toward, Ashe-Katarion? Is it as big as Vordan?"

"Not even close. Barely a town, really."

"Any chance of getting a decent drink?" someone said, and there was a round of laughter.

Winter smiled. "There was the last time I was there, but that was before the Redeemers turned up. A bunch of crazy priests. Apparently they don't like drinking, or good food, or anything that's any fun."

There was a sn.i.g.g.e.r. "Sounds just like our lot, then."

"Maybe in a Sworn Church," someone else offered. "In depot the Free Chaplain could drink half a squad under the table."

They went on in that vein, and bit by bit the tension melted away. Most of the men were taller than Winter, so as often as not she was looking up into their broad, well-scrubbed faces, but for all that she suddenly felt how much older she actually was. There wasn't a man in the circle older than eighteen. They were all boys, barely off their farms or away from the Vordan City tenements, and underneath their smiles and bravado there was a nervous core that Winter recognized.

And she was the one they looked to for rea.s.surance. She was the one who knew how things worked, here in Khandar and in the army. It was simultaneously touching and terrifying, bringing with it the full realization of what they expected of her. When they got to the subject of how she'd extracted them from drill that morning, none of them thanked her, as Bobby had. They seemed to consider it a matter of course, part of the duties of a sergeant, to stand between the rankers and the insanities of the higher echelons. There were quite a few j.a.pes at the expense of d'Vries. The first was offered hesitantly, but when Winter laughed as loud as the rest of them, that hurdle fell away as well.

"So what about this Colonel Vhalnich?" said the one Winter was almost certain now was George. He was a large young man with mousy hair and freckles. "The talk says he's mad."

"He must have done something horrible, to get this command," said Nathan. He was short and bespectacled, and considered himself something of an expert on matters military.

"I heard he volunteered," said one of the others, whose name Winter still hadn't caught.

"Then he must be mad," George said.

"What do you think, Sergeant?" Nathan said.

Winter shrugged uncomfortably. "I've never met the colonel, but Captain d'Ivoire is an Old Colonial. He won't let this Vhalnich do anything too crazy."

"So where the h.e.l.l are we marching, then?" George said.

Opinions differed on that point. Nathan was certain that the Redeemers would flee for the hills as soon as it became clear that the Vordanai were in earnest. George continued to insist that Colonel Vhalnich was going to get them all killed, although he seemed curiously unconcerned by the prospect. Bobby said that they were merely providing an escort for the prince, who would negotiate with the rebels until they reached a settlement. But it was Folsom who provided the most thoughtful answer. When the big corporal cleared his throat, the circle fell silent.

"I figure," he said, "Colonel Vhalnich's got to show that he tried, doesn't he? He can't just take us all back home to Vordan. He's got to fight at least once, or else the ministers will have a fit. That's where we're going." He shrugged. "That's what I figure, anyway."

After that, they got back on the subject of Lieutenant d'Vries, and Winter took the opportunity to excuse herself. She tapped Bobby on the shoulder as she stood, and the boy looked up at her.

"Can I have a word?" Winter said.

They walked away from the little circle. The sun had gone down and the sky was darkening fast, already purple-gray. Winter stared upward pensively, where the stars were beginning to glitter. To someone raised in the smoky, torch-lit warrens of Vordan City, the nights of Khandar had been a revelation. Instead of the occasional twinkle, the stars marched across the sky in their uncounted thousands, and when the moon rose it seemed clear enough that she could reach out and touch it.

It had been a long time since she'd noticed the night sky like that. But it occurred to her that Bobby and the other recruits would only just have seen it for the first time. She wondered if any of them had spent a night staring up slack-jawed in wonder, as she had.

She wanted to thank the corporal for dragging her out of her tent, but she couldn't think of a way to begin. When she glanced at Bobby's face, shadowed as it was in the fading light, it was clear that the boy understood. Winter gave a grateful sigh.

"I had an idea," she said, "while we were talking. It might get us into trouble, though."

"Let's hear it," Bobby said cheerfully.

"The key is going to be timing." Winter chewed her lip thoughtfully. "We'll need to spread the word tonight, so we can get everyone rounded up quick once the march ends tomorrow . . ."

a a a "Load!"

Winter had dispensed with the drumbeat that the regulations prescribed. It was essential for drillbook perfection that every soldier perform the twenty-six numbered movements from the Manual of Arms in unison, synchronized to the beat of the drum, but in practice she found that it only confused the men. Instead she walked up and down in front of the triple line, letting her footsteps serve as cadence.

The rankers, already grimed with sweat, struggled with their weapons. Winter sympathized. Loading was a complicated process. First you took your paper cartridge, filled with premeasured powder and the lead musket ball, and tore it in half with your teeth, holding the ball end in your mouth and keeping the end with the powder in your hand. Then you opened the lock, tipped a little powder into the pan, and closed it again. The rest of the powder went down the barrel, which required you to ground the b.u.t.t of the weapon and hold it against your boot. The cartridge sc.r.a.ps went in with it, for good luck. Finally, you spat the musket ball and the rest of the cartridge into the barrel, grabbed the iron ramrod from the rings that held it slung under the weapon, and jammed the whole mess home with two or three good strokes.

There wasn't enough extra powder to practice loading, so the company was going through the steps in mime. Once the ramrods had rattled back into their rings, each man again brought his musket to the ready position, held at his side with the left hand curled around the b.u.t.t. Some took longer than others. Winter, counting heartbeats, estimated it was half a minute or more before the whole company was ready. She clicked her tongue.

"Level!" she shouted, walking aside to clear the theoretical line of fire. Every man raised his musket to his shoulder and pulled back the hammer. Here and there she heard a quiet curse as someone fumbled the maneuver or a musket barrel whacked against the side of a neighbor's head. Only the front two ranks readied their weapons, while the third waited. The barrels protruded like bristles on a porcupine, all along the company line.

Winter waited a few more heartbeats, then raised her voice again. "Fire!"

Eighty fingers tightened on triggers. On each weapon, the lock slid open and the flint snapped down, raising sparks where it sc.r.a.ped against the steel. Without powder, there was no sound but the rapid series of clicks. Winter strode back in front of them.

"Load!" And they began again.

They'd been at it for an hour already. The march had ended at noon, and with Winter's encouragement the Seventh Company had hurried through the business of setting up tents and making camp and then rushed out to the drill field well before Lieutenant d'Vries had arrived. They'd been the first ones there. Winter had gone over what she expected of them, some basics from the Manual of Arms and a few things that weren't in the drillbook at all. If they were going to have to drill, it might as well be useful drill.

Some of the men groaned when she'd explained her approach, but she saw relief on a great many faces. Bobby had said some of them hadn't even made it to the depot before they'd been summoned up, and others had had only a few days or weeks of what was supposed to be a month and half of basic training. Even the grumblers had to admit it made a nice change from endless failures at esoteric skills like double-pace oblique marching.

Midway through the loading, while they were fumbling with their rammers, Winter turned to face them and shouted, "Square!"

This had been new to even those who had had their full time in depot, since the drillbook never mentioned company squares, but she'd coached them through it and they'd gotten the idea after a few repet.i.tions. The whole company immediately broke off loading, and the edges of the line-ten files from either side-about-faced and stepped toward the rear. They filed in behind the first three ranks, so that the line had been halved in length and doubled in width.

Once they were in place, each man drew his bayonet from its leather sheath. These blades, ten inches of wickedly pointed steel, locked onto a lug beside the barrel of the musket with a twist, converting the weapon into something approximating a spear. This done, the first rank knelt, and the second rank leveled their muskets over the heads of the first at an angle. The three files on the edges of the line turned through ninety degrees to face outward instead of forward and back.

It was smartly done, at least this time. The result wasn't a proper square-more of a rectangle, Winter noted pedantically-but it was easy to form, and the hedgehog of gleaming bayonets looked like a formidable obstacle. The third rank kept at their loading, awkwardly now as they tried to avoid cutting themselves on their own bayonets, and when they had finished they leveled their weapons. The hope was that the combination of fire and steel would prove an impregnable barrier to enemy cavalry.

Winter let them hold it for a few moments, then called, "Re-form!" The square melted back into a line, with considerably more confusion and disorder than it had shown going the other way. She made a mental note to work through that a few more times.

By now the drill field was filling up, and Winter's men had gotten a few curious looks from other officers. She'd ignored them, reserving her attention for her men, but she'd positioned them so that she'd have a good view of the path back to camp. When she saw Lieutenant d'Vries approaching, with his powdered hair and his walking stick, she stopped and leaned close to Bobby.

"Take them up to the end of the field and back, would you?" Winter said. "I'll have a word with the lieutenant."

"Right," the corporal said, practically glowing with the joy of responsibility. He stepped out of the ranks and gestured to the drummers, who had been squatting in the dirt, unneeded until now. "Company, guide center, ordinary pace, forward march!"

The drums took up the funeral thump of the standard walking pace, and the Seventh Company set off in reasonably good order. Winter remained behind, waiting at attention for d'Vries. The young officer watched bemusedly as his soldiers marched away, then gave Winter his full attention.

"What," he said, "is going on here?"

Winter saluted. "Remedial drill, sir!"

D'Vries' lips moved silently as he worked that out. "Remedial drill?"

"Yessir."

"I received a report from Lieutenant Anders," d'Vries said. "He was most displeased-"

"Yessir!" Winter cut him off. "Disgraceful behavior, sir! I take full responsibility, sir!"

"You'd d.a.m.n well better," the lieutenant said, rallying a little. "And now-"

"The men were clearly in need of a little discipline, sir!"

"Yes," d'Vries said suspiciously. "Discipline is important. But my drills-"

"They're not worthy of your attention, sir!" Winter barked. "Bunch of shirkers, sir. But I'll soon have them whipped into shape!"

"Whipped into shape," d'Vries repeated. He obviously liked the sound of that. He glanced up the field, where Bobby had just reversed the line and started marching it back toward them. "They certainly deserve a little whipping."

"As I said, sir, I take full responsibility. Discipline will be restored, sir!"

There was a moment of silence. D'Vries ran his hand along his mustache a few times and decided that, on the balance, he approved.

"Right," he said, his voice regaining confidence. "Remedial drill. Well done, Sergeant. I expect to see good results."

"You'll get them, sir!"

"Keep them at it, keep them at it." He knocked a dirt clod about with his walking stick. "I'll leave you to it, then."

"Sir! You may rely on me, sir!"

"Indeed."

D'Vries turned away, looking a little lost but not altogether unhappy. Bobby arrived beside Winter, signaling the drummers to halt, and Winter favored the corporal with a smile.

"You got rid of him?"

"For the moment," Winter said. "Nothing confuses an officer like violently agreeing with him."

She'd learned that from Davis, whose barked affirmations had brought more than one superior nearly to tears. The big sergeant had nearly always gotten his own way, orders or no orders. It pained Winter to think that she'd actually learned something useful from the man, but she supposed she was in no place to complain.

She sighed. "At some point we're going to have to practice the d.a.m.ned oblique marching. D'Vries will want to see that we can do it properly. We've probably got a few days' grace, though, and I'd rather spend the time on something worthwhile."

Winter said this with more confidence than she actually felt. For all that she'd been with the Colonials for two years, she had never partic.i.p.ated in an actual battle. Her combat experience was limited to marching, parading, and exchanging a few shots with bandits or raiders who invariably fled or surrendered rather than fight it out. For the most part, she was marching blind, but she didn't dare let on to Bobby.

"Yessir," the corporal said. Then, a bit diffidently, "I wasn't aware that forming company square was a standard evolution, sir."

"It's not," Winter said. Normally squares were formed by battalion, a thousand men at a time. "But the old colonel once told me that as long as you've got four men left, you ought to be able to form square. Given what happened the other day, I thought we would practice it a bit."

"Fair enough, sir." Bobby looked at the men behind her, who were taking advantage of the brief respite to drink from their canteens or fan themselves against the heat. "Shall we get them back to it, sir?"

Winter nodded.

a a a That evening, Bobby and Graff taught Winter to play cards. It was a traditional soldier's entertainment, but due to her self-enforced isolation Winter had never learned. When she'd mentioned this, the others had responded with disbelief, and then nothing would do but that they get together a game immediately.

Graff dragged the other two corporals and a couple of soldiers together, while dinner bubbled in the pots, and launched at once into an explanation so complicated that Winter didn't understand more than one word in three. It didn't help that Graff mixed his exposition of the rules with lengthy asides about strategy, or that the game he'd chosen apparently had more exceptions and special cases than army regulations did.

"Right, so say he shows a three," Graff said, oblivious to his audience's puzzlement. "Or two threes, or two fours, but not two fives, because then he might be working on a turtle. Now you've got to either challenge, double, play, or pa.s.s. You're not going to want to challenge, because even if you win all you get is his buy, and with threes against nines you've got no better than sixty-forty. If you double, then you both draw another card, and he's hoping for at least a king so he can threaten an axe, while you want to see more like a six or seven, but not a five, because of the turtle. So say you do. You both throw in another buy-"