The wizard stepped towards him. 'Enough of that, Stormy! You and your damned stone sword!' He waved wildly at the city of Y'Ghatan. 'Does this smell sweet to you?'
'What would smell even sweeter is the Adjunct's High Mage all chopped up and served in a stew to Hood himself.' He reached for the Imass sword, his grin broadening. 'And I'm just the man to do-'
'Settle down, you two,' Kalam said. 'All right, Apsalar, we're all here and that's passing strange but not as strange maybe as it should be. Doesn't matter.' He made a gesture that encompassed himself, Quick Ben and Stormy. 'We're returning to the Fourteenth Army. Or, we will be, once we've circled the city and Quick's satisfied it's as dead as it looks-'
'Oh,' the wizard cut in, 'it's dead all right. Still, we're circling the ruin.' He pointed a finger at Apsalar. 'As for you, woman, you're not travelling alone, are you? Where are they hiding? And what are they? Familiars?'
'You could call them that,' she replied.
'Where are they hiding?' Quick Ben demanded again.
'Not sure. Close by, I suspect. They're… shy.' And she added nothing more, for now, satisfied as she was by the wizard's answering scowl.
'Where,' Kalam asked, 'are you going, Apsalar?'
Her brows rose. 'Why, with you, of course.'
She could see that this did not please them much, yet they voiced no further objections. As far as she was concerned, this was a perfect conclusion to this part of her journey. For it coincided with her most pressing task – the final target for assassination. The only one that could not be ignored.
She'd always known Cotillion for a most subtle bastard.
'All right, then,' Sergeant Hellian said, 'which one of you wants to be my new corporal?'
Touchy and Brethless exchanged glances.
'What?' Touchy asked. 'Us? But you got Balgrid and Tavos Pond, now. Or even-'
'It's my new squad and I decide these things.' She squinted over at the other soldiers. 'Balgrid's a mage. So's Tavos Pond.' She scowled at the two men. 'I don't like mages, they're always disappearing, right when you want to ask them something.' Her gaze slid across to the last two soldiers. 'Maybe's a sapper and enough said about that, and Lutes is our healer. That leaves…' Hellian returned her attention to the twins, 'you two.'
'Fine,' said Touchy. 'I'll be corporal.'
'Hold on,' Brethless said. 'I want to be corporal! I ain't taking no orders from him, Sergeant. Not a chance. I got the brains, you know-'
Touchy snorted. 'Then, since you didn't know what to do with them, you threw them away.'
'You're a big fat liar, Touchy-'
'Quiet!' Hellian reached for her sword. But then remembered and drew a knife instead. 'Another word either of you and I'll cut myself.'
The squad stared at her.
'I'm a woman, see, and with women, it's how we deal with men. You're all men. Give me trouble and I'll stick this knife in my arm. Or leg.
Or maybe I'll slice a nipple off. And you bastards will have to live with that. For the rest of your days, you'll have to live with the fact that you were being such assholes that Hellian went and disfigured herself.'
No-one spoke.
Smiling, Hellian resheathed the knife. 'Good. Now, Touchy and Brethless, I've decided. You're both corporals. There.'
'But what if I want to order Brethless-'
'Well you can't.'
Brethless raised a finger. 'Wait, what if we give different orders to the others?'
'Don't worry 'bout that,' Maybe said, 'we ain't gonna listen to you anyways. You're both idiots, but if the sergeant wants to make you corporals, that's fine. We don't care. Idiots make good corporals.'
'All right,' Hellian said, rising, 'it's settled. Now, nobody wander off, since the captain wants us ready to march.' She walked away, up towards the ridge. Thinking.
The captain had dragged off Urb and made him a sergeant. Madness. That old rule about idiots making good corporals obviously extended to sergeants, but there wasn't anything she could do about it. Besides, she might go and kill him and then there'd be trouble. Urb was big, after all, and there wasn't much in the way of places to hide his body. Not around here, anyway, she concluded, scanning the broken rocks, bricks and potsherds strewn on the slope.
They needed to find a village. She could trade her knife – no, that wouldn't work, since it would mess up her threat and the squad might mutiny. Unless, next time, she added nails to the possible weapons – scratch her own eyes out, something like that. She glanced down at her nails – oh, mostly gone. What a mess…
