without faceblack.
I turned to Saavedra, our point man since a stray artillery shell had taken off the top of poor Donnely’s skull. His dark eyes and the stern set of his face betrayed his Asher ancestry, though why he had signed up as a member of our mixed unit instead of with the regiments of his own people none of us could say. Saavedra refused to discuss it, or much else for that matter, and the men of the First Capital Infantry were not the sort to look closely at a man’s papers, as long as he took his turn over the top. Despite his exile among us heathens, Saavedra hewed close to the standards of his race, taciturn and unreadable, the best card player in the regiment and a terror with a short sword besides. He’d have enough faceblack stashed somewhere to darkenhis own features, but sure as the single god of his people was a grim one, he wouldn’t have enough for two.
“Get the rest of them ready. I’m to see the major.” Saavedra nodded, silent as usual. I headed back toward the center of camp.
Our major, Cirellus Grenwald, was a fool and a coward but not an outright lunatic, and that alone placed him distinctly in the top half of the officer corps. If his primary talent consisted of being born at the top of a ladder, it was something at least that he’d yet to fall from it. He was talking to a man in a leather coat with silver trim, whom I took for a civilian at first glance.
The major offered me an ingenuous smile that, more than any actual competence, had hastened his ascent through the ranks. “Lieutenant, I was just telling Third Sorcerer Adelweid here about you. Head of the fiercest platoon in the division. He’ll provide an impregnable defense for your … undertaking.”
Sorcerer Adelweid was pale faced, thin but with a wormy film of excess flesh. He had found the time to slip his raven black, shoulder-length hair into a jeweled clasp, an adornment which, along with his gilded belt buckle and silver cuff links, seemed singularly inappropriate to the situation at hand. I didn’t like him, and I liked less the discovery that my mission involved his protection. The Crane aside, I hated sorcerers—everyone in the force did and not just because they were showy and whiny and got their requisitions for arcane items filled in a hot minute while we scavenged for boot leather and millet. No, every grunt in the force hated sorcerers because, to a man and with vituperate language, each could tell of losing comrades when some spell-slinger got careless directing battle hexes and annihilated half a unit in a spray of blood and bone. The brass thought them great fun, of course, certain that each new scheme they proposed would be the secret weapon that would win us the war.
But it wouldn’t do to let this animus play across my face. I salutedthe man crisply, an obeisance he returned apathetically and without comment. Major Grenwald continued, “Welcome to Operation Ingress, Lieutenant. Your orders are as follows. You and your men are to take Sorcerer Adelweid four hundred yards into no-man’s-land, halting at a place of his choosing, at which point the sorcerer will perform a working. You are to detail one man to protect him, then you and the remainder are to travel another two hundred yards toward Dren lines, where you will place this talisman”—he handed me a small black jewel—“on an overlook within sight of the enemy defenses. You are to hold that position until Sorcerer Adelweid has completed his part of the mission.”
Adding up the distances I came to the unfortunate sum of six hundred yards, closer to the Dren’s territory than to ours and well within the range of even short-distance patrols. Nor did it escape my notice that Grenwald had offered no estimate as to how long Adelweid would need to complete his task. Was it ten minutes? Twenty? An hour? For that matter, why did we all assume this slippery piece of black glass would even work? From what I had seen of the Art, it was just as
I turned to Saavedra, our point man since a stray artillery shell had taken off the top of poor Donnely’s skull. His dark eyes and the stern set of his face betrayed his Asher ancestry, though why he had signed up as a member of our mixed unit instead of with the regiments of his own people none of us could say. Saavedra refused to discuss it, or much else for that matter, and the men of the First Capital Infantry were not the sort to look closely at a man’s papers, as long as he took his turn over the top. Despite his exile among us heathens, Saavedra hewed close to the standards of his race, taciturn and unreadable, the best card player in the regiment and a terror with a short sword besides. He’d have enough faceblack stashed somewhere to darkenhis own features, but sure as the single god of his people was a grim one, he wouldn’t have enough for two.
“Get the rest of them ready. I’m to see the major.” Saavedra nodded, silent as usual. I headed back toward the center of camp.
Our major, Cirellus Grenwald, was a fool and a coward but not an outright lunatic, and that alone placed him distinctly in the top half of the officer corps. If his primary talent consisted of being born at the top of a ladder, it was something at least that he’d yet to fall from it. He was talking to a man in a leather coat with silver trim, whom I took for a civilian at first glance.
The major offered me an ingenuous smile that, more than any actual competence, had hastened his ascent through the ranks. “Lieutenant, I was just telling Third Sorcerer Adelweid here about you. Head of the fiercest platoon in the division. He’ll provide an impregnable defense for your … undertaking.”
Sorcerer Adelweid was pale faced, thin but with a wormy film of excess flesh. He had found the time to slip his raven black, shoulder-length hair into a jeweled clasp, an adornment which, along with his gilded belt buckle and silver cuff links, seemed singularly inappropriate to the situation at hand. I didn’t like him, and I liked less the discovery that my mission involved his protection. The Crane aside, I hated sorcerers—everyone in the force did and not just because they were showy and whiny and got their requisitions for arcane items filled in a hot minute while we scavenged for boot leather and millet. No, every grunt in the force hated sorcerers because, to a man and with vituperate language, each could tell of losing comrades when some spell-slinger got careless directing battle hexes and annihilated half a unit in a spray of blood and bone. The brass thought them great fun, of course, certain that each new scheme they proposed would be the secret weapon that would win us the war.
But it wouldn’t do to let this animus play across my face. I salutedthe man crisply, an obeisance he returned apathetically and without comment. Major Grenwald continued, “Welcome to Operation Ingress, Lieutenant. Your orders are as follows. You and your men are to take Sorcerer Adelweid four hundred yards into no-man’s-land, halting at a place of his choosing, at which point the sorcerer will perform a working. You are to detail one man to protect him, then you and the remainder are to travel another two hundred yards toward Dren lines, where you will place this talisman”—he handed me a small black jewel—“on an overlook within sight of the enemy defenses. You are to hold that position until Sorcerer Adelweid has completed his part of the mission.”
Adding up the distances I came to the unfortunate sum of six hundred yards, closer to the Dren’s territory than to ours and well within the range of even short-distance patrols. Nor did it escape my notice that Grenwald had offered no estimate as to how long Adelweid would need to complete his task. Was it ten minutes? Twenty? An hour? For that matter, why did we all assume this slippery piece of black glass would even work? From what I had seen of the Art, it was just as
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