Across the bridge, he rode southwest, skirting the thick of Downwind. When he
sighted the Stepsons’ barracks, he still didn’t know if he could succeed in
leading Stepsons. He rehearsed it wryly in his mind: ‘Life to all. Most of you
don’t know me but by reputation, but I’m here to ask you to bet your lives on
me, not once, but as a matter of course over the next months …’
Still, someone had to do it. And he’d have no trouble with the Sacred Band
teams, who knew him in the old days, when he’d had a right-side partner, before
that vulnerability was made painfully clear, and he gave up loving the death
seekers – or anything else which could disappoint him.
It mattered not a whit, he decided, if he won or if he lost, if they let him
advise them or deserted post and duty to follow Tempus north, as he would have
done if the sly old soldier hadn’t bound him here with promise and
responsibility.
He’d brought Niko’s bow. The first thing he did – after leaving the stables,
where he saw to his horse and checked on Niko’s pregnant mare – was seek the
wounded fighter.
The young officer peered at him through swollen, blackened eyes, saw the bow and
nodded, unlaced its case and stroked the wood recurve when Critias laid it on
the bed. Haifa dozen men were there when he’d knocked and entered – three teams
who’d come with Niko and his partner down to Ranke on Sacred Band business. They
left, warning softly that Crit mustn’t tire him – they’d just got him back.
‘He’s left me the command,’ Crit said, though he’d thought to talk ofhawkmasks