Trindai dismounted. He gave the reins to a groom and walked the last part to Harbend's private wagon where Nakora was already waiting.

"Captain Weinak, I want a word with you," Trindai said after they had exchanged greetings. Behind him Gring's looming shadow neared and he could feel the buzz around his ears announcing that the khraga was already employing her powers. With matters delicate as these he didn't dare relying on neither his own imperfect skills at Khi nor Nakora's mastery at De Vhatic. He was about to possibly insult one of his sub commanders and couldn't afford misunderstandings to worsen it further.

Nakora averted her eyes rather than obliging him. A bad sign. With a sign he forced her to walk with him out of earshot of the driver.

"I need to know about the payment of your troops," Trindai said when he was satisfied that they were out of range of any prying ears.

"Late, but under control, Colonel," she answered, still hiding her eyes behind strands of black hair that she usually kept tied to her back.

"They are mercenaries, Captain." Trindai shot her a dark glance, forcing her to meet his eyes. "As much as I dislike soldiers drinking I dislike a sudden change in habits even more. My men report that they no longer visit Madame Termend," he lied. If any of his soldiers had stayed often enough with the moving tavern to notice the continued absence of Nakora's men they'd be severely disciplined, but he had no reason to betray Gring's trust.

"They prefer cider to ale," Nakora tried haltingly.

"I said they were mercenaries. They'll drink any swill money can buy, and you know that."

"Payment is a little late, that is all. You handle your troops and I mine."

"Captain, you listen very carefully to what I say. Until we reach the Roadhouse I am in absolute command of the escort. I decide who does what, and that includes your troops as well as the contingent from Braka, and I decide when the men are paid. Is that understood?"

"Yes, but..."

"Is that understood?" Trindai repeated, deliberately adding a steely tone to his voice he knew the female captain didn't deserve.

"Yes, Colonel." Nakora came to rapt attention.

Trindai stretched his fingers with a sharp crack. "Then I suggest you pay them what they're due immediately."

Nakora fidgeted for a moment, but in the end she broke as he knew she would. "There is a small problem," she admitted when Trindai refused to leave her without an answer.

"A problem?"

"The merchants Master de Garak left in command in his absence are withholding the payment."

"For what reason?" Trindai asked. He more than guessed the answer. Ri Khi's insane attitude towards women left them with only half a population. One major reason they would never rise to become anything but an insignificant nation in the vicinity of Keen.

"They demand that I release command of the troops to an alternative commander first," Nakora whispered.

"A male alternative?" Trindai suggested.

"Yes." By now the voice was less than a whisper.

"And your men have agreed to this?"

Nakora hesitated. "Some have," she answered.

The irritation Trindai had felt at first slowly gave way to cold rage. "So be it," he said.

"What?"

"Effective immediately," he cut her short, "you're relieved of you command. Major Kalvar Terwin will command your troops in your place." Trindai received a look more filled with defeat than outrage. "However, I can't afford to lose one of my officers without some kind of compensation," he continued before he broke Nakora's spirit. "I order you to take command of my second squadron, and that order is not optional. You will also command the cavalry unit under Karia Graig. My overall command is too complex as it is anyway."

Nakora looked at him with an expression shifting from gratefulness to anger and back again. "I am not familiar with imperial troops," she said.

"You have a season to learn. Make the most of it," Trindai suggested gently. She was a good officer with the bad luck to be trained among idiots. Of course you never doubted your ability to command riders from Braka.

He smiled at that thought. Just because they looked very much like her own sad excuse for a military unit she assumed they behaved the same. He corrected that thought. Just because they looked like the unit she should have been given command of to begin with.

Trindai coughed and continued: "Major Terwin will see to it his men are paid. I can fund them for a full six eightdays, including any back pay due, and darkness, I'll personally make certain the greedy whore sons of merchants make good on their obligations before this kind of problem returns."

Captain Weinak met his look. There was one more question there.

"Karia Graig has his own agreement with his men," Trindai said. "You need to talk with him about it."

Trindai glared along the line of wagons before he turned. He slowly marched back to his horse, Nakora silent at his side and Gring plodding on behind them trying to be as unobtrusive as a towering, furry giant could possibly be.

He glanced at Nakora sending a silent greeting of gratefulness to the khraga. I thank you for your brave diplomacy, Mindwalker. I wonder if you can hear my thoughts, but even if you don't I'll make you know I'm in your debt. Then his thoughts wandered to Nakora again. Take care, my girl. Use the coming season well. There's no home in Ri Khi for you, but you don't need to know that yet. I'll see you in the yellow and black when we come home. May the gods bless you with Harbend's love, because I can't teach you how to make a home in Keen. Trindai muttered some well chosen curses under his breath, and when Nakora looked up at him, querying him for the reason, he stared straight ahead pretending to measure the distance they had yet to cover before making camp for the night.

It was late in the afternoon, just before the caravan started making ready for a night's rest, when Trindai's anger finally subsided and he turned to Gring who'd followed beside his horse the entire day, resting only when he remounted. They were closing to the hissing outworlder wagon where the renegade, Christina Ulfsdotir, and her surviving mercenaries lay drugged by means of medications he didn't understand. He needed Gring for one more thing. Major Goldberger had to be told about the change in command. Information was vital, and at Trindai's behest Gring had already sent the golden mindwalker, Neritan Hwain, a message and asked her to tell the Brakish troops, who viewed any mage with an unhealthy respect. Well, anything that made his command easier was a blessing.

"Mindwalker Khat, I want you know I'm in your debt," Trindai said, facing the khraga.

"I know," Gring said, "you sent me earlier."

"So you were eavesdropping after all," Trindai said smiling. He righted himself in the saddle when the horse misstepped on a tuft of grass.

"No. You sent. I don't walk minds uninvited. That is unethical as well as dishonourable"

"I don't understand."

"You have the spark, halfman."

A coldness crawled down Trindai's back. "I'm not!"

"No, and nor will you ever be. You're too old to be trained, but you still have the spark, as do all who can ever be trained. In a different life you would have been a mindwalker or a magehealer. Does that disturb you?"

Trindai heard the barb in her voice, but he was already used to her harsh sense of humour. He smiled and realized he didn't care, not about her jokes and nor about the different life he could have lived. "I'm an imperial colonel. It's been a good life and it's not over yet. Now, if you would use the training you did receive to help me tell Major Goldberger the news."

"As is proper. I will."

Trindai grinned and saw they were within speaking distance of a woman in a body walker. "Soldier, I'll guard the prisoners. I need you to find Major Goldberger and bring him here."

The woman saluted and with heavy thumps she started racing back along the caravan in the direction of the rearguard. Trindai watched her disappear, throwing mud and grass behind her with every step.

"Mindwalker Khat, what will you do after we return?" Trindai asked when the sound of the vanishing trooper was muted by the steady roar of the floating wagon they had promised to guard.

"I don't know, halfman. I'm honour bound to Gaz, but mage Hwain made me see how Truth seer Rhigrat broke that bond when he condemned the taleweaver to death together with my own people in doing so. No matter his attempt at delaying the executions by calling a meeting of minds."

Trindai could see Gring was uncomfortable. There were subtle changes to how she licked her tusks he had come to recognize even if he'd never be able to read her expressions the way he saw his soldiers' needs and wants. "I don't mean to pry," he said.

"I'm not offended. Your question is in order. Gaz is an enemy to Braka, and Keen is allied with Braka. I know as much. You show honour in your precaution."

Trindai shook his head. Honour, always honour "I don't see how one mindwalker could pose a threat with the Inquisition close at all times. That was not my question. You know as well as I do you'll never be allowed to cross our borders."

"I didn't intend to," Gring responded, and Trindai could see her good humour returning again. "Maybe I'll make my living in Ri Kordari. Mage Hwain told me there are humans living there as well."

The khraga referring to her own kind as humans was confusing as always, but Trindai was slowly getting used to the peculiar effects of her magic. Besides, she was right. There was a small khragan tribe living in the mountains controlled by Ri Kordari, and they were held in very high esteem by the followers of Cor, the only people as rigidly honour bound as the khraga themselves, those living in Ri Kordari only a little less so than the High Kordic knights, but then Kordar only had their honour left. Any vestige of power was forever lost in the aftermath of World War, and Trindai wasn't certain if the ancient legends held much truth to them. Neritan had told him, repeatedly, how Kordic knights had broken the empire of Gaz during the early battles on the Sea of Grass. That was the end of an era when Braka was only a fortress Keen desperately clung to with the help of magecrafters, transport mages and endless stream of soldiers and battle mages sent there to bolster the defences of a perpetual siege. Back then Belgera had been their only eye deep inside enemy territory, but that was before World War.

Trindai shuddered. He was a soldier, and imperial officer serving the most powerful nation north of the southern plains. In his world Keen would continue to train the best armies in the world in an ongoing quest to enforce peace on anyone bent on warfare. Keen ruthlessly quenched any attempt to start a war before it grew out of hand, and with the exception of their insufficient navy they had done a very good job at it. The last mishap was a movement of fanatics that had put large parts of Erkateren and Vimarin to the torch before the Free Inquisition were formed. After that the haphazard armies had been slaughtered in a campaign that lasted less than two years. Cleaning up had been dirty and taken longer.

"Memories?" Gring's voice brought him back from his thoughts.

"Walking my mind?"

"There was no need. Your mind was elsewhere from the look of your eyes," she answered with a deep growl that was her version of a laugh.

Trindai looked at her black fur before responding. "Yes, memories of history lessons, and questions," he admitted.

"Questions?"

"Yes," Trindai answered, squinting at the setting sun, "someone must have sent a message to Chach and the Roadhouse about what happened." Gring gave him a questioning look, and he felt compelled to continue. "I expect us to meet soldiers accompanied by the Holy Inquisition. On this side of the mountain pass or the other I'm not certain, but they'll be there."

"The taleweaver?" Gring asked.

Trindai nodded. "We have to be there before they attack the town we passed on our way here. I believe that the horsemen who attacked us were only young idiots."

"And my dishonourable kinsman, Kharg, paid them with promises of glory and riches. We don't carry money they way you halfmen do. He'd never be able to pay them in coins unless he was bought himself."

Trindai threw her an uncomfortable glance. "We had a hearing after you were rescued. I believe they were bought, but no, you're probably right about the payment. Glory would be appealing to half grown boys. They compare stories told by their grandparents to the sedate lives their parents are building now."

Gring growled again. "You think a lot for a warrior."

"That's because I am no warrior," Trindai smiled without mirth. "I'm a soldier, as are my men, and," he pointed at the driver on the outworlder wagon, "I believe they as well."

Gring was very silent for a long time and the hissing from the wagon silenced as it slowly sank to the ground, the sun behind it painting the plains and the sky in gold, or blood, Trindai thought when they saw Heinrich Goldberger approaching with his men in perfect formation.

Gring followed his look and sighed. "Halfman, you scare me. You are a very dangerous man."

"Yes, yes I'm afraid I am," Trindai agreed unhappily.

***

"If I'm willing to? Of course, but there is a cost," Karia added.

I should have guessed. Not my body! I'll share it with Harbend, no one else. "And that would be?" she asked forcing her lips to a grin she hoped wasn't too predatory.

Karia stared at her. She apparently hadn't been very successful. "Why, to learn all my commanding officer has to teach me."

You're a good man, and you didn't have to be half as charming for me to find few reasons to dislike you. "I wouldn't know what you needed learning."

"Well in bed, nothing. Already fully trained there," he grinned back at her.

Behind her she could hear Gring growl in her unmistakable way of laughing.

You little... No he actually means it. Nakora let out a long breath of relief understanding he wouldn't make any attempts to share her night quarters.

"As for the rest, I have no idea," he said and then his face lit up in a grin that made him look like a boy half his age. Pure mischief shone through his eyes. "I'm a very slow learner sometimes. I'm afraid you'll have to spend quite some times at teaching me."

Maybe not some serious attempts, at least, she changed her mind. Oh well, if he wants company I won't be misery. And he is quite charming, but no Harbend. There is only one Harbend.

Thinking of him and missing him clouded her day, but she suspected she at least was gaining a friend for the long days home in return. Life could be worse.

Nakora thanked Gring for lending the aid of her gift. Without it there would be no talking with Karia. Brakish and Khi was too different. She knew she could have asked Neritan as well, but the thought of disturbing the golden mindwalker was, well, disturbing.