By the Sword (56 page)

Beyond the gates, the town of Bolthaven spread out in the sun like a prosperous, basking cat asleep atop the fortress-crowned plateau. Beyond the town, acres of tended fields alternating with fenced pasture stretched eastward, and acres of grassland dotted with white patches of grazing sheep went westward. Here on the southwestern border of Rethwellan, so close to the Pelagir Hills, no farmers settled land without having protection nearby.

The town itself was less than ten years old, and she would never had anticipated its birth or growth when she'd returned to the winter quarters as the Skybolts' new Captain. Besides the ransom, the single thing that had most contributed to the salvation of the Skybolts the first year of her Captaincy had been her own relatives. And not her brother, either—her Shin‘a'in cousins, who'd heard, by some mysterious means, of her need. They had brought their entire herd of sale-horses up through the Pelagiris Forest to the winter quarters that fall, camped at the gate, and informed her that they had told the world that
she
was having a Shin‘a'in horse-fair.

That, in other words, they'd just made her their agent.

They settled back and let
her
do all the bargaining for them. When the dust had settled and the last of the purchases had been escorted off, she found herself in possession of enough coin to bring the Company back up to full strength and equipage, the sum representing half of the difference between what the cousins would have gotten at their regular venue at Kata‘shin'a‘in and what she'd won for them, this far north.

Then,
as if that wasn't enough, they'd brought out the horses they'd saved for her Company, the replacement mounts her people couldn't afford.

By the next year, when they appeared again, a small army of merchants had begun the town of Bolthaven. By the third year it was a
real
town, supporting farmers who sold their produce to the fort, and shepherds providing meat for their tables and wool for a new contingent from the craft guilds. And now the Bolthaven Horse Fair was the talk of Rethwellan, attracting far more than just horse merchants—and more horse-traders than just her cousins.

By the fifth year, Bolthaven was so prosperous that whole families of craftsmen were in residence. That was the sign of a really good bonded Company; that ordinary people were willing to come settle beside their winter quarters. A town like Hawksnest or Bolthaven meant that the troops were reliable, steady, and stable even when idle, the Captain could be relied upon to keep order, and that there was money to be had.

So Kero smiled at the town, and at the brightly-colored tents springing up at the edge of the town like so many odd-colored mushrooms. Her cousins had arrived on schedule, and had been surprised and delighted to see her Company back so soon.

Eldan had commented on it last—

She resolutely shoved the false memory away, along with the memory of his sitting in this very window, with moonlight shining down on him instead of sunlight.

Rest. That's what I need. And distraction. The cousins can take care of that. As soon as they get things settled, we'll have a chance to talk,
she thought.
I need to replace Hellsbane soon.
Kero's current mount was actually the second “Hellsbane” she'd ridden; following Tarma's example, she'd simply kept the same name for the new mount; it was less confusing for her and her horse.
She's too good not to send back to breed, and there should be a mare from Number One's foaling ready for me by now. I'm glad they have the training of her; I don't have time to school my own horses anymore.

That thought sent her to the east window, looking down on the arenas and the stables, where she checked up on the current batch of new recruits.

She was just in time to see a rangy gelding with a lot of Plains' pony in him blunder into a barrel at full gallop. He managed to pull himself up, but the impact sent his rider somersaulting over his left shoulder as he stumbled. Kero caught her breath—even the best rider can take a bad fall—but the recruit kept right on rolling, in a perfectly controlled tumble, and jumped to his feet.

She let out the breath she'd been holding. The gelding didn't bolt; he stayed obediently where he'd stopped; the rider planted hands on hips and read him a description of his parentage that didn't once mention ponies.

Kero chuckled, as the gelding lowered ears, then head, in a gesture of submission and conciliation; horses were generally not the brightest of beasts, but this one was evidently smart enough to figure out he'd done something wrong.

The recruit finished his recitation, limped up to his horse's side, and remounted. He called something to one of the other recruits, backing the gelding up and evidently checking his action for signs of injury, before finishing the rest of the course. The Skybolts simply did not accept recruits that couldn't ride well—which saved them a great deal of trouble when starry-eyed shepherds' daughters and plowboys showed up at the gate. They generally took one look at what the
recruits
were doing, blanched, and went back to their sheep, their plows or to another Company—unless, of course, it so happened that besides tending sheep, they were superb riders.

Most recruits brought at least one mount with them, but their beasts generally weren't up to Skybolt standards. The gelding just completing the course was an exception. He was tough, strong, and smart, and he would probably be accepted, but for those with beasts that weren‘t, there was a simple solution.

Every Skybolt, without exception, received a Shin‘a'inbred saddle-beast, hand-picked by the cousins. That included the recruits. But Shin‘a'in-bred horses were
not
cheap—they amounted to half a year's pay for a recruit. That meant that for the first six months a recruit was in the Skybolts, he only got half shares—and once in the field and getting battle-pay, got only three-fourths of it for the remaining six months. Every would-be recruit knew this before he or she signed on—which tended to weed out the ones who thought being with the Skybolts meant glamour and easy money. Already this year, four would-be fighters had choked on the idea that they weren't going to get full pay and gone to find a Company with less exacting standards.

Kero noted with approval that the fellow who'd been spilled
also
had a Shin‘a'in remount on the side. As soon as his gelding had completed the course, he switched to the other horse, leading the gelding down to the farrier's end of the stables to be checked over. From what she could see of him, she thought he might be from Ruvan—which meant the gelding might be a Shin‘a'in cross with a Plains' pony. That was a good outcrossing, excellent for working the herds of half-wild cattle down there. And from the way the rider held himself, he might be one of those mounted herdsman. Which meant he could use a bow.

If he can shoot as well as he can ride, and use a sword with the care he takes with his beasts, he'll do.
He obviously had
not
objected to paying what seemed to the untutored to be an outlandish amount for a horse when he already had a good one.

In point of fact, every veteran had two horses, and often took an entire string on campaign. Veterans knew there was never a problem with paying for remounts—not when there were bonuses to be had, like the bonus Daren had paid the horse-archers, and the cash from permissible looting.

There was a lot of looting when the Prophet went down,
she thought suddenly.
Some of it good stuff, from the Prophet and her priests, and from that shrine. I had the stuff I knew about checked, but the troops may have traded with Daren's people, and who knows what they got. Besides, religious magic isn't always like secular magic. I'd better tell everybody to bring their booty in before trading it, and I'll have Quenten and the shaman check trade-goods for curses.

Intensive training and the very best mounts and equipment were what made the Skybolts in demand. Horse-units were expensive to maintain; most standing armies didn't bother. That meant that there was always work for them—and very little competition.

Twoblades had taken the long view, and Kero continued his philosophy; given the access to excellent horses, it was worth the time, mounts, and training it took to keep the Skybolts' comer on their little piece of the war-market. Not everyone could manage that long view—even the Sunhawks had gone back to being a Company of foot after Idra's death, with only the scouts and other specialists going mounted.

That sent Kero back to the north window, and she strained her eyes to estimate the number of horses the cousins had brought up with them this year. They were out in temporary corrals, ten to an enclosure, sorted as to age and sex. She grinned a little; this was going to be a
very
profitable Fair. They'd told her that they had managed to talk Liha‘irden into making Kero
their
outside agent, pointing out their high profits, and the security of trading here in Bolthaven. Here, under Kero's eye, not only would they need only enough Clansmen to see the horses safely to the Fair, if anyone so much as cheated them of a copper, the Skybolts would descend as a group to enforce the fair-trade laws. And Kero always,
always
sent a squad back with them, to see them safely to the Plains with their trade-goods and their profits.

She moved automatically to the west window—that many horses needed a lot of fodder....

But the hay and grain wagons were rolling in, too, right on schedule—not like last year, when they'd been late, and every recruit in the fortress had taken his turn out mowing grass for the hungry horses.

The haywagons stopped at a very special checkpoint before they were ever let inside the grounds of the Fair, an inspection point manned by more recruits. Each wagon was inspected from the ground up—and the recruits themselves had been very carefully instructed and frightened to within an inch of their lives by Geyr.

Quite an impressive little talk he gave them. “If any of you let
anything
past that either harms the horses or breeches our security, I'll hamstring you myself. ” And him standing there slapping a gelding-knife into his glove, over and over....

And this year, Geyr had a new twist on the inspections—a set of enormous mastiffs as tall as a child's first pony. Geyr claimed they had noses “keen enough to track the West Wind.” He'd acquired them on the march home last year, but had been looking for something like them ever since a load of poisoned grain killed two horses on campaign.

He wanted to use them as additional camp-guards and on scouting runs. Kero was a bit doubtful of the latter-she couldn't see how Geyr would keep them from barking, for one thing—but she had agreed to try them out as wagon inspectors. Their sense of smell was certainly as good as Geyr claimed, and they could be trained to recognize any scent and alert their handler to it. And their sheer size had the wagoners as terrified of
them
as the recruits were of Geyr.

I suppose now the other Companies are going to start calling us “the dog-and-pony show, ”
she thought with a sigh.
I could keep those little messengers out of sight, but I'm never going to be able to hide
those
monsters.

On the other hand, Warrl had been damned useful to the Sunhawks. What these mastiffs lacked in intelligence, they might make up for in strength, size and numbers.

I wonder where he got them.
She still suspected they were from the Pelagirs. He had spent quite a bit of time in the company of Kra‘heera, the cousin that just happened to be an apprentice shaman. What the shaman didn't know about the Pelagirs, the Hawkbrothers
did,
and the Hawkbrothers and shaman were probably talking more than most people guessed.

We were coming up through Ruvan, along the Pelagiris Forest; we met up with a couple of the cousins on the way, after I'd left word of our route with one of the
Out
riders. I remember that he and Kra‘heera vanished about the same time, telling me he 'd get back to the fort on his own—then in he comes, just before the first snow, with the bitch and her half-grown litter of fourteen. That kind of fertility all by itself is suspicious, and smacks of the Pelagirs.

The Shin‘a'in didn't use dogs much, except for herding sheep and goats—but the Hawkbrothers might well have been able to produce something like Geyr's dogs on very short notice.

She watched them checking out the wagons, one on each side, and it did not escape her notice that they performed their duty with a brisk efficiency that reminded her of her own veterans. Certainly there was an odd look of intelligence in their eyes-unlike Geyr's little messenger-dogs, who had brains that would shame a bird, or at least acted like it. They knew three things only—eat, run, and be petted.

Damn.
Thinking of the Companion always made her think of Eldan—and she'd had another dream last night. She caught herself caressing the smooth fabric of her sleeve at the mere thought, and clenched her fist.
Damn him. You'd think after ten years I could forget the man.

Maybe Kra‘heera could suggest something to make the dreams stop. Though she'd have to tell him
why
she wanted them to stop. And that could be—embarrassing. Her Shin'a‘in cousins had much the same dry sense of humor as Tarma, but they occasionally got a bit odd even for Kero, and the Shin'a‘in notion of what was funny didn't always match hers.