Prazek resumed. ‘Are these soldiers ready, you ask, sir?’ He scratched at his beard and pondered for a moment, and then said, ‘Readiness is a curious notion. Ready for what, precisely? An argument? Assuredly. Betrayal? Possibly. Courage? Of a sort. A battle? Oh, I should think so.’
She studied him for a moment. ‘Less disingenuous, you said.’
‘I was being—’
‘I gathered that,’ she snapped. ‘Your opinion, Dathenar?’
‘Dilemmas regard us upon all sides, commander. Officers culled from the least objectionable among them still reveal a host of flaws. Surviving soldiers of the old legion vacillate between horror and shame. Swords defy their wielders in refusing to duel, leaving them fisticuffs and mundane knives. Armour howls in the night at the scamper of a mouse. These recruits step in time, however, and wheel in a fashion, and close shields, and when we speak of the coming clash, why, something dances in their eyes.’
‘Discipline?’
‘Poor.’
‘Loyalty to the soldier to either side?’
‘Unlikely.’
‘That said,’ Prazek opined, ‘they are likely to strike fear in the heart of their enemies.’
‘Hust iron will do that.’
‘Indeed, sir. But more so the evident inability of their officers to control their soldiers.’
‘Then you two have failed.’
‘So it seems, sir. Will you now cast us out? Demote us? Send us into the ranks, cowed as curs under boot?’
‘Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
Prazek smiled.
Toras Redone paused and then said, ‘Join me, all of you, and let us walk this gauntlet. We will speak more in the command tent, where I can have a drink, and you two can tell me, in your scattered manner, how you plan to fix this.’
‘Sir?’ Dathenar asked. ‘Command of the Hust Legion is now yours, surely. Level your orders upon us, and we will do all that you ask.’
‘Level of head, smoothly planed, as it were,’ Prazek added.
Toras Redone snorted. ‘I command soldiers, not savages. Galar Baras, I should have heeded your warnings. They would have us march in aid of Kharkanas and Mother Dark? Abyss below, I see a weasel in a rabbit’s den.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Dathenar, ‘in a supporting role …’
She looked at him, but his expression remained unchanged, stolid and serious.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Try as you might, you’ll not make me laugh.’
‘Yes sir.’
Prazek gestured. ‘Commander, would you be so kind as to begin the inspection?’
* * *
Wareth stood in front of his company. He had watched, from the corner of his eye, the extended conversation between the three captains and their commander. If meant to test the fortitude of this newfound discipline, it would have little effect either way – this was not an instance of soldiery quavering beneath the stentorian, icy regard of superior officers. Rather, it was the gimlet regard of criminals, murderers one and all, fixed brazen and defiant upon those who presumed to command them.
At last, however, Toras Redone set out to walk the arrayed ranks, and where she passed, the Hust iron lifted a high keening, rippling with her passage. Some among the front lines flinched at the sound. Others grinned, and then studied the commander with renewed attention.
She suffered their insolence, each step measured in the manner of someone who knew how to control their inebriation.
Her pace did not change until she came opposite Wareth, where she halted and faced him. ‘Ah, my mercy.’