In Mysterious Ways

Every ground engagement had something. Teveris had sand bad enough to qualify as an enemy. Halbeck, those lovely worms present in the food which had burrowed into the skin beneath her tongue, and then, two weeks later.... Burrowed their way out again as insects. Xarahl, leeches the size of her cupped hand. Hymnerion, dysentery so bad she'd lost two stone there. Vreeson had the plague. Carnaby, fast feral weasels that attacked in packs, little bundles of fury and needle teeth. Ground combat was not for the faint of heart, and Roan had many campaigns beneath her belt, but this bordered on misery enough to contemplate quitting the field. And, in thirty plus years of this, she had never quit a field she still thought she could win.

This place had bugs. Her mind merely labeled them as mosquitoes; although they had many features that would make a more definitive soul than hers call them something else. They were larger than mosquitoes. And mosquitoes were definitely not metallic in luster and the color of a bleeding, setting sun. These were mosquitoes because they fulfilled a mosquito's role in a battleground. They buzzed incessantly. They bit. They drained blood, and left her patchy and scratching for hours.

They also tried her faith to its limits, and that was not a position that Roan was accustomed to. It seemed like the more she called upon her faith, upon the belief that she rested squarely in God's favor, the more of them there seemed to be. She had prayed last night, centered her soul and brought peace to herself, only to emerge into a veritable sandstorm of glittering coppery hell. The same with her companions, their very presence attracted more like the smell of herds in estrus brought bulls down from the Highlands. But the unbelievers seemed to have little problems with the mosquitoes. What did they have that she and hers lacked?

"Lady Roan?" The watch asked, and she pitied him. He was a young one, new this term to the realities of war, his eyes freshly opened. He had sought refuge in his armor, locked down, his voice artificially amplified through his speakers.

"Anything?" She asked, and there was a long pause. She knew he had shaken his head in a negative, but she remained waiting. He needed to break those kinds of habits, and soon. Nothing screamed green quite as loudly as a troop who still used facial and head movements when none of that could be seen.

"Ah, no, milady. Just the bugs."

She nodded. Just the bugs. As if that wasn't quite enough. "And the unbeliever's camp?" That rested just a few hundred meters side wind of them. She didn't want to smell them, and apparently, they surely didn't want to smell her group. To each their own.

"No change. They watch us. We watch them." He left the resignation in his voice, and Roan smiled. He was wise enough to see the foolishness in that. They were supposed to be on the same side, fighting together, and all they were doing was watching each other over a no man's land of cleared grass. "They think we are primitives."

"And I think they are godless. I'd rather be what they think I am, rather than what I think they are."

"Of course, milady. "

Stephen Lattimer stared in undisguised horror at the Order's encampment. "You've got to be kidding me." He muttered, and his aide chuckled.

"The Order is always good for lightening the mood."

"And my mother is there?" He asked, already knowing the answer. The Order was on the ground, in force, on a world which was not their home world. That meant they had their Lady High Paladin with them, which meant yes, Roan Lattimer was here. And Stephen would gleefully gnaw his own digits off to avoid dealing with her.