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\epigraph{``I'll be honest, Chancellor -- revenge is the motivation for over
half the decrees I've made.''}{Dread Empress Sanguinia II, best known for outlawing cats and being
taller than her}



Nauk was napping when we got back to camp, resting lazily under a tree.
One of his legionaries kicked him in the ribs when the war party passed
by the sentries. Awaking with a growl, the orc swiped at the laughing
dark-haired girl but she danced away. I raised an eyebrow at the
exchange but passed no comment as I eased my armour's straps and propped
up my shield against a stone.

``Humans,'' the wounded lieutenant rumbled. ``You always think you're
funnier than you are.''

I felt I'd gotten enough of a handle on orc humour to know that was a
joke. Still, it was always hard to tell with orcs.

``Still funnier than you,'' Robber sniped as he set down his leather
satchel.

Nauk eyed Robber balefully.

``You're still conscious? Only half a victory, then,'' the orc replied.

I didn't know why those two had been at each other's throat since last
night, but frankly I was far past caring.

``If the two of you have that much fight left in you, I have a fort that
needs taking,'' I told them flatly. ``Any volunteers?''

Robber rolled his eyes and wandered away without a word, leaving me to
deal with Nauk -- the orc scoffed but refused to meet my gaze.
\emph{Yeah, I'm definitely asking Hakram what's up with these two.} Our
situation was bad enough already without two of my few remaining
officers taking verbal swings at each other in front of the troops.

``We cleared the watchtower and dragged back their sergeant,'' I
informed Nauk. ``I'm guessing you'll want to be there for the
interrogation?''

The orc grimaced.

``You'll need to help me up,'' he admitted. ``My leg hasn't gotten any
better.''

I crouched next to him and slung his arm over my shoulder, knees almost
buckling under the weight of him as I bore the other lieutenant's mass.

``Heavens, what did you eat to get this big?'' I wheezed, forcing myself
upright.

Nauk grinned toothily.

``Whatever was lying around at the time,'' he replied, ``we're not as
picky about food as you lot.''

``You should consider trying salad,'' I said, only half-joking. ``I hear
it's very slimming.''

``Do I look like a bloody elf to you?'' the orc grumbled as we
crab-marched to the rocky outcropping I'd seen my men dragging the
sergeant behind. ``I might as well lick bark and frolic in meadows while
I'm at it.''

``Elves eat meat too,'' I informed him, tone thick with amusement.

``Give it a few years and Lord Black will have us eating the elves,''
Nauk replied conversationally. ``My grandmother got a bite during the
Conquest, said it was more tender than lamb.''

\emph{Does it still count as cannibalism if it's another species?} I'd
have to ask Scribe, she probably knew. That aside, this was far from the
first time I'd heard an orc artlessly profess trust in Black. It was
proving to be a recurring pattern.

``Hakram said something along the same lines,'' I replied. ``He was keen
on the Black Knight too. Is it an orc thing?''

I almost stumbled when Nauk stopped moving, turning to face me with an
unusual serious expression.

``I like you, Callow,'' he rumbled, ``So I'll give you a piece of
advice. You look like Wallerspawn and talk like a Callowan, so your
folks were probably on the other side during the Conquest. You might
have an axe to grind and that's your own business, but don't ever talk
bad the Black Knight in front of a greenskin.''

The orc's dark eyes burned with an intensity I'd only glimpsed last
night when I'd seen him trashing a pair of legionaries with his bare
hands, roaring challenges as he knocked their helmets together.

``He raised us up, Callow,'' Nauk said fervently. ``He ended the wars
between the Clans and told us that we could be \emph{more}. That even if
we were born in a hut, we could still become generals and lords instead
of being meat in the grinder. If those fucking prissy nobles in the
Tower were still in charge, I wouldn't even know how to read.''

``I was just asking,'' I replied quickly, awkwardly warding him off with
a raised while still balancing his weight on my shoulder. ``I've got
nothing against him!''

Nauk eyed me sceptically.

``Even met him once,'' I continued, ``I was around when he had Governor
Mazus hung.''

The orc grinned, doubts apparently cast aside for the moment. I
reflected ruefully that with every passing day I was getting better at
lying while saying the truth -- no doubt Black would be proud. Or at
least quietly approving, which was the closest I'd ever seen him to
expressing that actual emotion.

``Heard about that,'' Nauk admitted. ``The old families in Ater threw a
fit over it.''

From the looks of it, the prospect rather delighted the lieutenant. I
frowned as we crossed the last few yards separating us from our
destination. That was another pattern I'd noticed: most of the cadets
hated the nobility in Ater with a vengeance. I could understand the
resentment, having had a lean table at the orphanage more than once
because of Mazus and his cronies, but it seemed to run deeper than that.
Now that I thought about it, the Legion garrison in Laure had always
been a little too eager to put the city guards in their place whenever
they could. I'd first stopped being scared of the large orcs in armour
after seeing one run off guards harassing an old shopkeeper, back when I
was seven. The legionary had even helped the old man back to his stall
before leaving, I remembered. \emph{So the Legions of Terror and the
nobles hate each other's guts. Then why did Black have Mazus executed?
Wouldn't that make things worse between them?} My wayward teacher must
have had a plan in mind, I guessed. \emph{Or}, I thought with a sudden
chill, \emph{he's decided it's not worth trying to keep them happy
anymore.}

That was the stuff civil wars were made of, I knew, and the prospect of
a Dread Empire at war with itself was horrifying. Wars were brutal
enough between Good and Evil, but between Evil and Evil? There might not
be an Empire left by the time the dust settled. Putting the line of
thought aside for the moment, I focused on the matters at hand: I helped
Nauk sit against a rock facing the still-unconscious sergeant from the
First Company and let out a sigh of relief when I dropped off the
weight. The sergeant's hands and feet were bound with thick rope I'd
seen the sappers carrying around and Hakram was looming over her body
with a patient look on his face. Robber was sitting cross-legged on a
flat rock, flipping a brightstick in the air lazily and catching it at
the very last possible moment. Hakram turned to face me, rolling his
shoulders in an unconscious gesture: I could sympathize, after a night
and half a day running around in legionary armour.

``Nilin's setting up the watches,'' me sergeant informed me. ``Says
he'll be along as soon as he's done.''

I nodded absently, taking a closer look at our captive. The girl was on
the short side, skin the same bronze colour as Captain's and hair
cropped close in the haircut most female legionaries seemed to favour.
Her armour was dented noticeably around the ribs: it must have been a
nasty hit that had put her down.

``Do we know anything about her?'' I asked.

``Name's Juwan,'' Robber said, stopping to play with his stick. ``She's
from Thalassina, I think.''

Thalassina was one of the three great cities of the Empire, I knew,
along with Ater and Foramen down in the deep south. It was the largest
port in the Empire and the main hub of trade with the Free Cities.

``Let's wake her up,'' I said. ``We might have to move camp and I'd
rather do it before nightfall.''

Hakram knelt by the prone sergeant and slapped her none too gently. I
winced: not the way I would have done it, but then I'd never
interrogated anyone before. After a moment Sergeant Juwan blearily
opened her eyes, squinting to get used to light before she took a look
around her.

``Well, this is unexpected,'' she croaked out. ``I don't suppose any of
you asshats could give me a little water?''

Hakram snorted and uncorked his canteen, carefully pouring into the
captive's open mouth -- he lost patience after a moment, pulling it away
and closing it with a small pop.

``I'm Lieutenant Callow,'' I said. ``I have a few questions to ask
you.''

``Lieutenant what?'' Juwan replied incredulously. ``Who in the Seventy
Thousand Hells are you? I've never heard of you before.''

\emph{Seventy Thousand Hells?} I blinked in surprise, sneaking a look at
Robber to make sure I hadn't misheard that last part. The goblin
shrugged.

``They believe in all sorts of weird stuff in Thalassina,'' the sapper
told me. ``It's all that salt in the air.''

``That's rich coming from someone whose patron deity is called \emph{the
Gobbler},'' our apparently unimpressed prisoner retorted.

``Hit her, Hakram,'' Nauk opined over the goblin's retort. ``They always
get mouthy unless you hit them.''

My sergeant shot me a questioning look but I shook my head. In all
fairness, Robber had been asking for it.

``I'm new,'' I addressed Juwan. ``But that's irrelevant --''

``Oh gods,'' the prisoner muttered, ``I was ambushed by a greenie. I'm
never going to hear the end of this.''

``Are you quite done?'' I said, a tad more sharply than before.

The sergeant shot me a condescending look.

``Look, `Lieutenant','' she replied. ``You're new, so it's
understandable you might not get how fucked you are. Juniper's out there
looking for you guys right now and you've got what\ldots{} maybe a line
and handful of sappers? You can't win this.''

My face turned blank as the sergeant continued.

``Look, you managed to ambush my tenth so you did well on your first
game,'' Juwan told me. ``You might even get transferred to a company
that actually wins once in a while. We've got Ratface and all your
mages, just surrender the standard and we can all go home tonight.''

I could feel the anger coming from the other three officers at our
prisoner's casual dismissal and I felt the stirrings of it too, deep in
my gut. I passed a hand through my hair and forced myself to calm down.
\emph{Don't make decisions angry. Angry means stupid, and if you get
stupid you've already lost.}

``Sergeant Hakram,'' I said. ``Hit her.''

Sergeant Hakram did.

``Now, as I was saying,'' I continued icily. ``I'm Lieutenant Callow. I
have a few questions for you.''

---

I really wished we'd managed to keep at least one of the maps, because
the vague outline Robber had traced in the dirt looked more like a
Helike mural than the rendition of Spite Valley it was meant to be.

``So that rock is our position?'' Nilin asked in a politely sceptical
tone.

Robber rolled his eyes.

``That's the fort,'' he replied. ``We're the smaller rock.''

We let out a small noise of understanding in unison. Our captive had
been blindfolded and stashed in a corner with a legionary standing guard
over her, now that the questioning was over. I'd assembled the officers
to hold an unofficial war council immediately after. Juwan's
interrogation had yielded enough information to make the skirmish at the
watchtower more than worthwhile: the sergeant's knowledge of troop
disposition was a day old, but it allowed us to place our own position
into a broader context. All of Rat Company except our motley band of
survivors had been taken prisoner, we now knew, but there hadn't been
enough room in the fort to keep seventy-odd legionaries. There was a
secondary prisoner camp, and that meant we'd just stumbled on a way to
bring up our numbers before hitting the harder target. There was no way
taking a shot at the fort with our current line and a half would be
anything but suicide, but if we managed to free another tenth -- or even
better, a few mages -- then it would be a whole other story.

``We should move to attack the prison camp as soon as possible,'' Hakram
said, breaking the thoughtful silence. ``Juniper might post more
soldiers there when she learns we already took out a tenth.''

``The men marched all night and fought not even a bell ago,'' Nilin
retorted, tone flat and disapproving. ``There are limits to what we can
ask from them.''

``The men will have to tighten their belt if they want to win this,
Sergeant,'' Nauk growled. ``Nobody said it was going to be a walk in the
park.''

``Says the guy who was napping when we came back,'' Robber scoffed.

``Enough,'' I intervened. ``Sergeant Nilin has a point. I'd rather not
attack a second time in daylight anyway, we might get followed back to
camp.''

That gave everyone pause, as I'd intended it to: if even a single tenth
found our camp, then that was it for the wounded and the handful of
rations we'd managed to salvage. An empty stomach wasn't the kind of
enemy you could put down with a sword.

``There'll be a least a line waiting for us there,'' Hakram rumbled.
``And they'll be dug in behind fortifications, you can be sure of it.

``Juniper's sappers are the second best in the College for building
defensive positions,'' Robber admitted, though it ran against his pride
to do so. ``They go by the book, though. If I get a look at it from a
distance I could tell you what plan they're using.''

I closed my eyes and silently weighed the risks against the benefits.
Night attacks were a messy enough business without going in blind, I
decided. The sapper had already proved he could get around quietly, and
with the watchtower out of the equation this might very well be the best
chance we'd get.

``Take half a tenth and be back before sundown,'' I told the goblin.
``Don't take stupid risks, we'll need you for the assault.''

Robber's answering grin was malicious as ever and he saluted before
pushing himself up. I turned my attention back to the ``map'' as he
left, wondering if I was making a mistake. The prisoner camp was my best
shot at getting enough soldiers to assault the fort, I knew, but that
meant Juniper knew it too. Were we headed right into a trap? \emph{It
doesn't matter}, I finally decided. \emph{I} \emph{can't win this
without taking risks, and this is the most reasonable one.}

``Put the troops on half-watch,'' I said, raising my head to look at the
other officers. ``Everybody should try to get some sleep, we've got a
busy night ahead of us.''

Nauk grunted his assent and Nilin helped him up. Hakram was about to
follow suit but I discreetly shook my head: I still had a few questions
to ask me sergeant. The orc shot me puzzled look but remained seated at
my side while the other two officers crab-walked away.

``Lieutenant?'' Hakram prompted, raising a hairless brow.

``Robber and Nauk,'' I said, going straight to the point. ``What's their
problem?''

The tall orc grinned.

``You didn't hear this from me,'' Hakram replied, leaning closer, ``but
it so happens they're both more than a little fond of Lieutenant
Pickler.''

``The lieutenant for the sappers?'' I asked, surprised.

``That's the one,'' the orc agreed. ``They're not usually that blatant
about it, but without her around to keep the peace I guess the knives
are coming out.''

I frowned.

``And what does she have to say about this?''

Hakram's grin widened, showing razor-sharp white fangs.

``She might have mentioned something about how if they kept waving their
genitalia around, something was bound to get stuck in a door hinge.''

I bit my lip not to burst out laughing, sneaking a look at the
retreating Nauk's back.

``I didn't know orcs could be attracted to goblins that way,'' I
admitted.

``It's not common,'' Hakram replied. ``But Nauk's an odd one, and even I
have to admit Pickler has a nice set of teeth.''

``Teeth,'' I replied, tone flat. ``You're having me on.''

The sergeant looked somewhat offended.

``Teeth are very important,'' he defended himself. ``Why do you think no
one's interested in humans? You've all got cow teeth.''

If someone had told me a year ago I'd be sitting in the grass with an
orc discussing the importance of molars in the mating habits of his
species, I thought, I would have been rather dubious. Even now it felt
more than a little surreal. Hakram apparently took my silence as a sign
of displeasure, because he hurried on.

``No offense meant, Callow,'' he assured me. ``I'm sure you'll find a
nice human to eat berries and nuts with.''

``You know we eat meat too, right?'' I replied, rather bemused.

He snorted.

``It doesn't count if you roast it first,'' he told me with a friendly
pat on the shoulder. ``You might as well be chewing bread.''

I didn't have the heart to tell him that that was rather the point. We
walked back to camp in a comfortable silence and I found my bedroll,
barely closing my eyes for a moment before sinking into sleep.

---

``Only four and no patrols,'' Robber said.

I clenched my fingers and unclenched them, taking a closer look at the
fortifications. The outer wall was made of stacked stones and about the
height of a half a man, with torches every few feet and four legionaries
patrolling the perimeter at regular intervals. Behind it the First
Company had built a palisade of stakes, too high for my soldiers to
climb over. It hid the inside of the camp. There was only one way into
the camp itself, an opening in the palisade swerving to the right and
wide enough to be held by half a dozen legionaries. It was open field
all the way to the first wall, I saw, and I knew my soldiers would have
to take out the guards if we wanted to avoid the attack turning into a
disaster. \emph{If we don't, they'll sound the alarm and the rest of the
line will hold us off in the opening until reinforcements can arrive.}
Eyeing the wooden palisade speculatively, I gestured for Hakram to come
closer.

``Could you break through that if we needed to?'' I whispered.

Her sergeant grimaced.

``Not without a battering ram,'' the orc replied. ``They'll have put up
buttresses on the other side to hold it up, it's in the manual.''

It remained unsaid that we wouldn't have enough room to use a battering
ram without tearing down a chunk of the first wall first, and that even
then we'd have to make the damned thing first. No, this was going to
have to be about getting my men in through the front door. Sergeant
Nilin gingerly made his way through the underbrush to me, looking as
uncomfortable in the woods as I felt -- he was as much a city boy as I
was a city girl, I'd gathered.

``Lieutenant, Sergeants,'' he greeted us in a murmur, snapping a
parade-ground salute. ``All of our soldiers are in position.''

I'd told the sergeants to put all almost-thirty of my men in half circle
around the camp's only way in, the three incomplete tenths waiting in
silence for the signal to assault the enemy. Only Robber's sappers had
remained marauding about in the woods, but I could see them trickling
back into the ranks one after the other from the corner of my eye.

``Hakram,'' I said, ``I'll need volunteers to take care of the guards.''

The tall orc grunted his assent and made back towards his men.

``My sappers could handle that,'' Robber countered in a low voice.
``Less of chance we'll caught, too.''

``Your sappers are going to be with the rest of Hakram's tenth and my
own,'' I replied.

The goblin's yellow eyes shone with malevolent light in the dark of the
woods.

``We finally get to play with the fireworks then, Lieutenant?'' the
sergeant asked eagerly.

``Hit them with all you've got, Sergeant,'' I told him.

We'd been hoarding the sappers' munitions so far, but now was the time
to use them up. I'd thought about keeping them for the assault on the
fort itself, but been forced to conceded that if tonight's rescue failed
there would be no assault worth the name. Better to use the brightsticks
to ensure that the enemy line was too stunned and deafened to form up
properly.

``Back to your tenths, gentlemen,'' I murmured. ``Let's get this wheel
turning.''

They replied with a handful of salutes and I ducked around a tree as
silently as I could, electing to stay ahead of my legionaries so I'd be
in a better position to watch events unfold. Hakram's volunteers were
already moving, I saw, the closest one crawling through the grass as he
made his way across the open field. The next few moments would define if
my offensive failed or not, I knew, so I held my breath as I watched the
volunteer slowly make his way towards the unsuspecting guard. The
legionary pressed himself against the outer wall as the guard passed him
by, silently pushing himself up and climbing over the fortification. For
an instant it looked like the sentry might hear him, but then the
volunteer unsheathed his sword and hit the guard in the back of the head
with the pommel. The First Company's sentry crumpled to the ground
without a dull thump, and with a peremptory hand gesture I got my
soldiers moving. Not a moment too soon, as it turned out, for a cry of
alarm came from the other side of the outer wall. One of Hakram's
volunteers had failed. I cursed under my breath.

``Double time,'' I called out to my legionaries, running across the
empty field as quickly as I could manage in armour.

A dark shape passed me by, then a second, and with my jaw gaping I saw
Robber and his sappers scuttling across the grass with the unnatural
grace of a pack of spiders. The goblins pushed ahead of my men
effortlessly, their thin green limbs moving fluidly as they tore through
the distance separating them from the opening. Raising my shield up, I
forced myself to catch up with them, my soldiers following suit behind
me. By the time my line got to the opening Robber's sappers had already
spread out in a line and were watching a half-dressed tenth from the
First Company form up.

``\emph{Abacinate},'' Robber called out, his grin sharp and vicious.

All four goblins pulled out thin, elongated sticks and lit them up with
the pinewood matches they carried around everywhere. They threw as one
and I barely had the time to close my eyes before the brightsticks
exploded, the deafening bang and bright light searing my eyelids
anyways. Unlike a real brightstick those wouldn't blind permanently, but
they still stung like a bitch. I opened my eyes, already moving forward,
only to see the sappers had little spheres in hand, already lit.

``\emph{Spargere},'' the goblin sergeant ordered, and the sappers rolled
the balls under the enemy's shields with unerring aim.

A moment passed and then a series of explosions scattered the first rank
of the enemy, sending shields flying and throwing the legionaries to the
ground. Those cussers packed quite a punch, for a training version. I
grinned at the goblins as I passed them, my soldiers close behind, and
the legionaries threw themselves into the holes the sappers had just
torn with savage enthusiasm. A dark-skinned girl around my age bashed
her shield against mine, but I used the momentum of the charge to push
her down anyway. Knocking out the enemy soldier with the pommel of the
short sword I didn't remember unsheathing, I pressed forward into the
camp as my legionaries broke the enemy formation. The inside was nothing
unusual, four lines of bedrolls where the last handful of legionaries
were hastily putting their armour on. There was a long tent in the back
where the prisoners were no doubt being held. Signalling for another
handful of legionaries who'd broken through to follow me, I set to
pacifying the rest of the camp. It was a grim business, but now was not
the time to be gentle. We overwhelmed the first enemy before he managed
to land anything more than a glancing hit on my shield and pressed on to
charge the next two. One of my legionaries got a nasty hit on the
shoulder, but in a matter of moments it was done. \emph{Four outside}, I
counted mentally. \emph{Twelve at the breach, and three we just
finished. If they were a full line, that still leaves\ldots{}} There was
a flash of flame and the legionary at my side was blown away.

``Guess I still have to work on my aim for that one,'' a lone legionary
in light armour mused as red-orange flames wreathed her hands for a
second time. ``You'd be the Lieutenant in charge of that lot, then?''

``Lieutenant Callow, third line of Rat Company,'' I agreed as she raised
my shield and steadied my footing. ``And you'd be?''

``Lieutenant Assaye, fourth line of First Company,'' the honey-skinned
girl replied with a smirk. ``Should have brought a mage, Callow. This is
going to have to get messy.''

``I seem to have misplaced mine,'' I told her flatly. ``You wouldn't
happen to have some spares in that tent, would you?''

``Well look at the mouth on you,'' Assaye said. ``Here's a tip, though,
rookie -- don't banter with mages when they're buying time to cast.''

The flames wreathing the other lieutenant's hand grew in intensity and
gathered into an orb that the girl sent flying right at me. I smiled.
\emph{Here's a tip for you, Lieutenant}, I thought, \emph{learn to
recognize when you're being baited.} Ignoring the primal part of my
brain that was screaming at me to duck out of the way, I raised my
shield and ran right into the fireball. The impact nearly blew me off my
feet but I grit my teeth and pushed through the flames, closing the
distance separating me from the gaping lieutenant. There was no way I
was taking another one of those, so I struck the girl on the temple with
the flat of my short sword before she could summon up something more
vicious. Before Assaye ever hit the ground, I dropped my shield and
blade with a curse to put out the flames on my shoulder pads, doing my
best to ignore the fact that I was letting out smoke like a small
chimney.

``I'm not sure whether that was very brave or very stupid,'' I heard
Robber mutter from behind me.

``I heard she castrated an ogre in single combat,'' Hakram grunted back
in a low voice. ``Thought that was just Ratface making the best of
things, but I'm starting to believe it.''

I turned around to shoot both sergeants a dirty look but they adopted
the most innocent expressions they could -- which, given that Robber was
a yellow-eyed pyromaniac and Hakram had a set of teeth that would make
most wolves balk, would have gotten them instantly convicted in any
court of law.

``If you two have time to gossip,'' I told them, ``you've got time to go
check up on the prisoners we're rescuing.''

``Aye aye, Lieutenant,'' Robber grinned, following Hakram's example and
saluting before he made a strategic retreat.

---

As it turned out the tent held only a tenth of prisoners, which would
have been disappointing if not for the fact that there were two mages
and a sergeant among them. Both of the mages knew how to heal, which was
even better news: I fully intended put them to work as soon as my troops
got back to camp. Robber had argued we should take a different way back
to our clearing to shake off possible followers, meaning the trip back
was twice as long as the one to the enemy camp: it was the middle of the
night by the time my soldiers were finally able to put down their
shields. The sergeant we'd rescued was a short brown-haired girl by the
name of Kamilah with a nasty scar running across her cheek, and she was
sitting in on the unofficial officer's meeting I'd ordered as soon as
watches were set up. Nauk was getting his leg looked at so he'd be
missing this, but the orc lieutenant had shrugged and told me he didn't
mind being brought up to speed when he was back on his feet. I'd gotten
the impression he was rather eager to start moving on his own again, and
I could hardly blame him for it.

``They moved some of us earlier today,'' Sergeant Kilian said. ``To the
fort, I think -- I don't recall hearing anything about another prisoner
camp. We used to be a full line of prisoners.''

``I was afraid you'd say that,'' I muttered.

If there'd been another camp it might have been possible to assault it
to add a few more legionaries to our forces, though I doubted Juniper
would have made it as easy on us the second time.

``The fort's next, then,'' Hakram rumbled.

``We have healers now,'' Nilin disagreed. ``And enough soldiers to keep
prisoners. We could take out some of Juniper's patrols before risking an
assault.''

``We're dealing with the Hellhound, not a godsdamned first-year,''
Robber chided him. ``The moment we make a patrol disappear she'll be
able to guess what part of the woods we're in, and it's all downhill
from there.''

Nilin shrugged.

``She'll have at least a line getting healed and she'll be forced to
leave a garrison at the fort -- I say we should take our chances,'' he
replied.

``We're not meeting Captain Juniper on an open field,'' I cut in. ``Even
if we win, we won't be in any shape to assault the fort afterwards.''

Sergeant Kilian cleared her throat.

``No disrespect intended, sir,'' she said, meeting my eyes squarely,
``but why are you in command? You've been in the company for barely two
days, if I'm not mistaken.''

My own sergeant growled, but I held up my hand.

``It's a valid question, Hakram,'' I said. ``Lieutenant Nauk ceded
command to me when he was wounded, but now that he's getting healed he
has seniority.''

``Balls to that,'' came the voice from behind me.

I turned: the orc in question was striding towards us, leg finally out
of its cast. I frowned at the other lieutenant.

``Are you sure, Nauk? I like being in charge,'' I freely admitted, ``but
you've been at this a lot longer than I have.''

``I would have been in that prisoner camp if not for you, Callow,'' the
large orc replied. ``You got the standard and you've bloodied First
Company twice. Only idiots change generals halfway through a campaign.''

The short sergeant smiled uncomfortably.

``It wasn't meant as a criticism of your performance, sir,'' Kilian
said. ``I just thought it was a question that needed to be asked.''

I could appreciate that. It would have been awkward for me to bring up
the issue myself, anyway.

``No offence taken, sergeant,'' I replied. ``Take a seat, Nauk. We're
planning our next move.''

The orc plopped himself on the log and everyone politely ignored the
creaking sound that came from the wood -- except for Robber, who
snickered and seemed about to make a comment when Hakram spoke up.

``We should assault the fort in the morning,'' he gravelled. ``No point
in giving them more time to prepare than necessary.''

``My sappers can have ladders done by then,'' Robber offered up, looking
a little irritated he'd been cut off from indulging in his feud with
Nauk.

``How are you doing on munitions?'' Nilin murmured.

The goblin waved his hand vaguely.

``Out of cussers and brightsticks, still got enough smokers to ruin
someone's day,'' he told them. ``I'll manage.''

``We'll have only two lines for the assault,'' Nauk rumbled. ``That'll
be hard fighting.''

The officers looked rather uneasy at the thought, but I shrugged.

``They won't have a full house waiting for us in the fort either,'' I
replied.

``Do or die, then,'' Hakram grinned. ``Worse comes to worse, we go out
with a bang.''

Nauk looked like he rather approved of the thought, slapping the other
orc's shoulder cheerfully. I only barely refrained from rolling my eyes.

``Let's set up a full watch tonight,'' I ordered. ``That makes it twice
we've kicked the hornet's nest -- sooner or later, something is bound to
follow us home. Dismissed.''

After a round of salutes, they rose and returned to their men. I
remained behind, looking up at the night sky and wondering what
tomorrow's battle would have in store for us. \emph{Only one way to find
out, I suppose.}