Page 62 of Scorched Earth

Setting down the battered volume, he glanced out the open flaps of the tent. “Yeah, at first. Not after Hostus took command. Under his leadership, the Twenty-Ninth made us do everything while they drank, gambled, and whored, so there wasn’t much time left for fun. Andfunwas always on their terms. Here.” He handed her the bottle of rum.

She took a mouthful, watching as the boys, dressed only in mud-splattered undergarments, ran and laughed, the older legionnaires watching with amusement and occasionally kicking the ball back when it went out of play.

Then a ball soared directly at her.

Reflex made her jerk sideways so that the ball flew into the tent rather than hit her in the face. After the ball followed a sprawl of boys, the lot of them landing on top of the ball in front of Quintus. Her friend did not look amused. “You little shits.”

“Hello, Teriana,” Nic said from the bottom of the pile. Crawling out from under his men, he handed off the ball to the other boys, who closed the tent as they departed, leaving their mud-smeared legatus alone with her and Quintus.

“What’s this about?” She exchanged a confused glance with Quintus.

“After Titus’s funeral we had a brief meeting with Marcus in Aracam where he gave all the officers orders not to speak to youabout his plans.” Nic sat cross-legged. “Said anyone who did would have the skin whipped off his back.”

Marcus giving such an order shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. Because apparently he needed her so far removed from his life that he refused to tolerate anyone he knew having anything to do with her.

“Marcus doesn’t make idle threats,” Quintus warned. “You get caught, you’ll not be able to sit a horse for a month,sir.”

Nic shrugged. “I won’t get caught.”

“Just so you know,” Quintus said, “Servius has eyes on the back of his head for misconduct.”

“They’re more interested in the Forty-First. We’re just children.” The irritation in Nic’s voice was palpable despite that being an unarguable fact.

“What did you want to say to me that’s worth the risk of pissing off your boss?” Teriana asked.

“Marcus plans to try to use diplomacy to try to get the Gamdeshians to give him control of Emrant peaceably. He thinks that they know enough about the threat the Empire poses to concede the city rather than risk all-out war.”

Teriana blinked. “There is no chance they’ll agree to that. None. It would be lunacy to give Emrant up without a fight, and Kaira, in particular, doesn’t give upanythingwithout a fight.”

“So you think the strategy is weak?”

“I—” She glanced to Quintus, who shook his head. “I struggle to imagine Kaira agreeing to it. And the Sultan doesn’t counter her military advice.”

“We’d be revealing our target if we pursue diplomacy. How do you think Kaira will react?”

Teriana bit the insides of her cheeks. “I suppose logically it would allow her time to bring in reinforcements to defend the city.”

“Which would make our fight all the more challenging? Higher casualties?”

“I… I suppose, yes.” She was no military strategist, but that seemed logical. “Except Marcus knows all this. It was the first thing he said when I told him the stem was in Emrant. It has to factor into his plan somehow.”

“When I questioned him, he told me ‘diplomacy first,’” Nic said flatly. “There’s chatter around the camp that going through so many xenthier stems damaged his thinking. That he’s not coming up with a better strategy because he can’t. Or worse, that he’s lost his nerve.”

“Careful now, puppy,” Quintus warned. “Those are fighting words, and you and yours can’t back them up.”

“I’m not looking for a fight,” Nic retorted. “But I’m not putting my men at risk for the sake of blindly following a commander who has lost his edge and will give up his greatest advantage in the hopes that posturing will spare him a fight. A commander who refuses to use his best resource”—he pointed at Teriana—“because he was foolish enough to break the rules and get involved with her. Tell me I’m wrong, and I’ll piss off. Except I don’t think I’m wrong. Not when he can’t even walk in a straight line, he’s so addled.”

The world was spinning, and Teriana realized she’d been holding her breath. Sucking in a mouthful of air, she willed her heart to calm and said, “I don’t think Marcus has lost his nerve.”

“Well, there’s always the chance he doesn’t care about not meeting Cassius’s deadline.”

She didn’t believe that. Refused to.

“Unlike Marcus, I was in Celendrial’s prison with you,” Nic said. “I saw what you saw, and your people are still there, still being pissed on, starved, and beaten by Hostus’s twisted legion. Are you sure you’re willing to risk them being stuck there until they are executed because you put blind faith in the ex-lover who might not be capable of strategizing further than a path to the latrines?”

Quintus drew back his arm, obviously intending to punch Nic in the face. She caught hold of her friend’s wrist. “Don’t.”

“You aren’t serious,” Quintus snapped. “Marcus is an asshole, you’ll get no arguments from me on that, but he’s proven himself more times than I can count. The Thirty-Seventh would follow him into fire if he said it was the right path, because he’s never wrong!”