Surrender to the Will of the Night - By Glen Cook Page 0,206

way to protect their hearing. I like to went deaf and I wasn’t on top of a falcon.”

Both men eyed him like they were having trouble believing what he had said. “Boss, we’ve been doing that for two years.”

“Oh. So. Maybe I ought to pay closer attention …”

Shouts from several directions declaimed, “Here they come again!”

In an instant Hecht was alone. Men scurried in every direction. Then he was not alone. A funny-looking little man in brown was there beside him.

“What do you think of that, Piper?”

“Looks like a false alarm.”

“Not that.”

“Then what do I think of what?”

“You were having big-ass problems with enemy soldiers who didn’t see any reason not to trudge on into the teeth of your marvelous killing machines. Right? Out there? Five deep. They just kept coming, right?”

“Yes. But then they all ran away.”

“So say thank you, honored ancestor.”

“For?”

“I cribbed an idea from your sister. I took a keg of firepowder and planted it where it was likely to do some good when it went boom.”

“Say what?”

“Took me two tries but I got the Collegium asshole responsible for the sorcery. Name was Portanté. Principaté Catio Portanté.”

“I don’t know the name. Looks like it wasn’t a false alarm.” Enemy troops were on the move, though not many. “A probe.”

“I never paid attention to him before, either. He was lowlife and low-key. From one of the cities up north, related to the Benedocto by marriage. So related to Bronte Doneto, obscurely.”

“My guess is, Serenity has a lot of friends we don’t know.”

“Muno knows them. You should let me take you down to see him.”

Hecht shuddered. “Of course.” A falcon bellowed greetings to Patriarchals who had come too close. “I’ll just pop out during a battle. No one will miss me.”

“See, this is why I never let myself get roped into big responsibilities. They eat you up. They keep you from doing what you want. Like this right here. Here come some of them dicks that need you to think for them. And I can’t disappear because they’ve already seen me.”

Rhuk and Prosek had returned. The enemy probe was not developing a threat. Hecht said, “Do keep your opinions to yourself while we talk.”

Februaren snorted. Shooting your mouth off was another thing you could not do when you had responsibilities.

Prosek seemed interested only in the man in brown. He stared, let Rhuk do the talking. Rhuk said, “Boss, we might consider pulling out after this stops.”

“Why?”

“We’re worn out and beat up and the weapons are getting fatigued.”

“Kait, I’m going to take a second to make sure I have my temper under control. All right. Go. We’ve had six weapons explode. I know that. I know why.”

“True. But our casualty estimates before were way off.”

“All right. Tell me.”

Rhuk went pale. “Sorry. Sir. We have twenty-three dead or wounded on my side.”

“Forty-two for me,” Prosek said. “Those people got into several of my positions before they high-watered.”

“To which we have to add casualties suffered by Vircondelet, Consent, and Sedlakova,” Hecht grumbled. “Unless you counted them already.”

Both men shook their heads.

Prosek, still staring at Cloven Februaren like he suspected the man of being the Adversary incarnate, said, “Manpower isn’t the problem. We’re running low on munitions. Charges, especially.”

A falcon roared. Hecht looked toward the meadow. The probe was fading. The live people out there, now, were looking for wounded to take to the healing brothers. “Are our men more worn out than those people?”

Prosek shrugged. “I doubt it.”

“Position your weapons. Load them. Lay them. Vircondelet and Consent will be back soon. Draft their men as replacements. One inexperienced man to a crew. Get me a census on our munitions. We can’t possibly have used all that firepowder. It took seven ships to haul it.”

“Oh, no sir. There’s still tons of firepowder. Just not up here. We didn’t have the drayage to bring even a fraction of it. Nor would we have brought it all if we could have. Too much risk of losing it.”

Rhuk said, “We’re low on firepowder, boss, but even lower on charges. We started out with twenty to twenty-five for every weapon.” An almost unimaginably immense number, Hecht understood. Tons upon tons. Wagon after wagon. “But the stuff goes fast. None of the crews have used up all they started with but some are down to their last two or three. There isn’t anything around here that we can substitute. We’re having what’s left redistributed. It won’t last long if there’s another big attack. Oh. Each team had one