The Paladin

Chapter Sixteen

The stars were dimming, the sky eastward appearing to darken over the low hills when they reached the ford at the Tei—"Damnable thing about roads and rivers," Shoka muttered to Taizu as they rode, "roads go to fords and fords are where your enemies can find you. I don't look for that kind of luck twice."

"It'll work again," Taizu said, "no reason it shouldn't."

He hoped so. Privately he placed much of his hope in the handful of young riders that had gone out from their company west to Jendei in Hainan, to Maijun in Feiyan, and east to the lords of Sengu and Mendang and Taiyi, at Mandi on the Chaighin, along the river road. There were three of them, going fast in that direction, one more speeding back to Keido to put Reidi's lady Aio current of the situation, for her to send messages with her birds, one more on to certain friends in Mura and Hua and one straight north to Kiang, to the farthest reaches of the Empire. Multiple of everything, an agreement to duplicate all messages, because there was no guarantee of any single message getting through, whether it came on horseback or by air.

But if they did nothing else—the lads with their fast riding and their dodging through the back roads might convince an enemy that two fugitives on horseback had gone any of a half dozen directions; while a large, noisy band of motley-clad riders going right down the roads might, the gods willing, be mistaken for one of the mercenaries' own companies.

Keep moving, move fast, keep the enemy thinking while their situation changed by the hour.

Run the horses to the safe limit, change the remounts through the company, change the light and the heavy riders, walk and cool down, gather breath and go again. . . . He and Taizu traded oftenest, for Jiro's sake, the old fellow loping along with no more burden than his tack for most of this night, but he had come the farthest and he was the oldest.

Damn sure he was not riding the old lad when they hit the ford, a belly-deep wade and a muddy climb to the shore, up among the trees.

"What company?" a voice shouted out of the dark above them.

"Aghi," Taizu hissed to him; and: "Aghi!" he shouted out, with no idea in the gods' creation whether that was a valid name. "New hire, up from Hoisan! What's your company?"

In case anyone wanted answers they might not know.

A long pause. Then: "One of you come up," the watcher shouted down. "Afoot!"

"What's your company?"

"Don't!" Taizu hissed at him, "don't go up there."

As the answer came down: "Sachi's!"

"Is that valid?" he asked Taizu.

"Don't go up there!"

"Shut up. If you come up anywhere near the head of the column I'll loosen your teeth for you. —All right. I'm coming." He climbed down from the saddle, handed his reins to Reidi's captain and said, "When you hear me shout, come up that slope like thunder."

He left the captain with the horse's reins as if the captain were his servant: but it gave him the chance for a word.

"What's the delay down there?" the watcher shouted.

"I'm coming up."

Now he felt his heart beating faster. Not fear yet, just that things sharpened their outlines around him, memories of this road ten years ago, how it turned, if he had not confused it with others like it, if floods and time had not changed it: bend to the right and the left and the trees up there.

He walked it, finding the turns what he remembered, a winding climb among trees. Archers, he thought, and hoped Taizu believed him.

He saw the shadow of men ahead of him, subtle sheen of ambient light on metal.

"What captain, before Aghi?"

"I'm captain of this company. And damned if I stand here playing riddle-games in the dark. I'm on orders, I've got my pass, and you'd damn well better have yours handy, son, and mind your mouth with me, I'm short of sleep and too damn long in the saddle to put up with some ass no-rank who wants to play games with me!"

He heard the company start up the slope. He saw the confusion in the figures in front of him, heard the guard-chief shouting, "Dammit!" and backing off a step—

He was already moving, a rolling tumble on the leafy ground as arrows hissed; hands on his sword hilt and out with it into a smooth swing as he came up on his feet and launched himself for the only place the archers would not aim—face up against their officers, one, two, and three, a head flying, a man crippled, and the third giving him two, three passes before he made a mistake backing up and stumbled on a tree root.

Shoka wanted a prisoner. No time for this one, with arrows flying and the company coming up under fire. He whipped the sword across an opening in the man's defense and took the man across the arm, across the neck: he was dead before the pieces hit the ground.

Horses broke through, crashing up the trail, through the brush, going every which way, bowstrings thumping, swords meeting steel and men screaming—men and one shrill yell he well knew.

He dived into the brush and laid low, figuring his main danger at the moment was his own side.

"M'lord?" he heard then, plaintively, as the noise died down, a feminine voice; so he gave a whistle back, gathered himself up, and heard a sound by him, someone breaking away to run through the brush.

"Get that one!" he yelled, and heard a rider take out in pursuit, dark body racing right past him in the thicket, to fetch up short. But whoever it was left the saddle and raced after the noise.

"Taizu!" he yelled; and got, "I'm here!" from the vicinity of the horses. Then he remembered she had a horse in lead from her saddle—thank the gods it was not Taizu crashing off through the brush. He came back to the clearing, hearing the sound of someone crashing about out there, but no sound else.

The white-legged mare showed even in that dark. He found Taizu, and Jiro, in her charge. "Are you all right?" Taizu said.

"No problem," he said, taking Jiro's reins from her hand. But he heard a sudden stillness in the brush, where a man of theirs had been, and knew their man had gotten smarter and gotten down and still to listen or they had just lost a man, one or the other.

In either case they had let a man escape them, to run for his superiors and spread alarm.

He whistled, the signal he had instructed Reidi's men to obey for recall—too much risk and too much delay in hunting through the brush for an enemy better than his fellows; and everything to gain by putting distance between themselves and the mercenary camp, wherever it was.

A horse whinnied out of the dark, off beyond the woods. "There they are," someone said.

Hare off into the dark into what could be ambush, where there was already a man loose and unaccounted for.

Hell.

"We've got some kind of courier here," a man said, displaying an ivory chit from the purse on one of the bodies.

"That's one message not going through," Shoka said, and swung up to Jiro's saddle. "But there's one loose that is. Come on. We haven't got time to go through things. Let's get out of here!"

"Pei's not back, m'lord!"

"Pei may not be coming back! It's Pei's problem! We don't know what the hell that man can raise. Let's move! Now!"

"M'lord," Reidi's voice protested sternly.

"This is war, m'lord! —Come on, Taizu!"

"Don't be so sudden!" Reidi said, as horses milled and backed and his men who had dismounted to search the dead scrambled to mount without his orders. "A man of mine is—"

"Dead, m'lord Reidi, or he'll catch us up on his own! Are you with me? Do you take my advice? Or not?"

"Dammit—"

"Are you coming, m'lord?"

"All right," the old man growled. "All right—"

Shoka clapped his heels to Jiro's sides and Jiro surged into motion, full-out down the road; Taizu on the white-legged mare was right with him and the whole company sorted itself out behind.

"Keep low!" he yelled at Taizu as they broke through the screen of trees and out into the open.

But there was nothing in front of them but open land, and the first red seam of dawn on the right.

The man they had left did not overtake them. "Assume the worst," he said to lord Reidi, riding close to the old man when they settled to a saner pace. "My condolences and my apologies, m'lord, for your man back there, but he didn't answer my signal and we're on the gods' thin tolerance as it is—and I'd rather trust something more substantial."

"The gods favor us," Reidi declared thinly.

Ruffled religiosity. He was back in Chiyaden. He swallowed an acid witticism and said: "I trust so, m'lord, but I don't test their good will by haring off sidelong when they give us the road we need, m'lord. . . . They take their sacrifices, and they ask us to go on—"

Pious asininity, old man, you lose men, that's all, and you give an order and you hope to hell the one who goes knows what he's doing, my lord, or you lose him—

No damn time left. No time.

As the sun came up in a cloudy east and the horses labored under the going.

And a band of riders appeared on the hill.

He saw it in the same instant that outcries of alarm broke out from the company, as men reined back and threw the column into confusion. "Come on," he said; and it was Taizu by him before it was anyone.

"You get back," he said. "Take to the bow, rear rank. You haven't the weight."

"That's banners, husband! That's banners up ahead, it's a lord's ensign!"

He saw that, too. He heard what she had said to him. His heart was beating with a heavy rhythm, in time to Jiro's footfalls. Red banners, white device; blue with gold.

Red of Feiyan. Blue of Hainan.

"Up with the banners!" Reidi ordered, and Shoka did not gainsay that. The black and white of Hoishi came up on its pole, unfiirled and snapped in the wind.

"My lord Saukendar," said Maijun of Feiyan as they met afoot, their riders around them, banners fluttering and cracking. "My lord Reidi," with bows and like courtesies from stout Lintai of Hainan, the son of old Jendei. "My father would be here," Lintai said, "if he could ride at all. There are—" Diffidently. "—four hundred men behind us, afoot. Light-armed, traveling at their own speed. We met your messengers on the road. We'd already set out. They're on to Yiungei."

"Gods' speed," Reidi said piously. "Brave lads."

Trust the birds' speed, Shoka thought: it was good news, that the birds had been sufficient to rouse two provinces, as much as anything. That the riders were already headed north was a second bit of hope. But not enough. Five hundred heavy cavalry with Maijun, four with Lintai, maybe three, four hundred peasants back there somewhere, and, Shoka thought, amid the general elation of the three lords and the troops: Not enough to beat the Guard, too many for mobility.

Enough to keep the south off our backs, and stir up the east, if they'll take orders.

Reason had never been Maijun's strong point: Maijun of Feiyan was of that generation he knew, a man who made up his mind and spent all his subsequent thought justifying his opinions.

But it was the moment, emotion was high, he had Maijun's attention, and Shoka said: "My lords, you couldn't have come at a better time. I don't know what's coming at our heels, but we've stirred things up behind us. I'm going with a small force—speed, m'lords, and surprise, to get us across the Hisei before they know where we are—look like one of the mercenary squads and cut right through their defenses, ourselves the edge of the axe and your forces behind us—as if we were one of their own bands falling back from your advance, dust and noise and all."

"Dangerous, m'lord Saukendar!" Maijun of Feiyan said. "Danger from our own partisans as well as the Guard—"

"No time to wait. We hope those partisans are there, m'lords."

"There will be, m'lord Saukendar. Messages are out. They'll answer."

Hope to the gods they answer. I don't like this. I've never trusted another man's estimations. I've never gone blind into a thing. Damn, it has a queasy feeling. But stopping's worse. "Then expect we'll have the way open. Whatever's with you can follow us."

"If the people can see you, m'lord, if you're more than a rumor to them—the people need to see you—"

"Tell them you've seen me. Tell them I'm going straight up the road—" He lifted a hand toward Choedri. "—and they'll find proof enough where I've been. If they're fast enough, they'll take advantage of it. If we're fast enough, my lords, we can keep them revising their plans till we're up their throats, at which point your light-armed folk and your heavy cavalry need to be there. We're already inside their perimeter. If we slow now, Ghita's hired soldiers can come at our backs and hit us from all sides. If we get as far north as the Hisei there's my own province to draw on, and the lords northward and the troops off in Kiang; if we have them, then we've got the Regent front and back. He'll pull back behind the Chaighin if we don't give him time to organize at the Hisei. Speed, my lords, and flexibility. Right now we're mobile enough to get in there and get out again if he gets his defenses up too fast: that's all we can count on. But we have to have you up there at a pace that won't exhaust your infantry. If you'll do us a service, trade us for some of our weaker horses."

Everything trembled on a knife's edge, yea and nay with these lords. Maijun's eyes shifted from him to Reidi, to all the company about, and lingered on Taizu with a peculiar expression, before they shifted back to him.

"Pigeons," Maijun said. "The Emperor's own birds. Faster than any horse, m'lord Saukendar. If the Emperor's men have any afield—"

"I'm betting they do. But it's still less risk than getting us bogged down in an engagement too far south for the northern lords to feel the urgency of it. Every league we gain toward their territory is that much closer to their hearts, gentlemen, and if they don't know we're more than a rumor of an insurrection, they're not going to commit to it. Let the people see me, that they'd better, they'd better see us, my lords, they'd better see the Regent back away, they'd better see us driving toward the capital, that's what has to happen, or we'll be damn lonely in a circle of Ghita's hired troops, and our heads will be on the block, gentlemen, yours and mine alike. —Lord Reidi, it's a hard ride we've had this far; now we've got relief, I'd not think less of you if you'd leave the hard riding to younger men and join these gentlemen—it's no less danger, but it's a damn sight less hard on the gut."

The old man set his jaw. "There's nothing wrong with my gut, m'lord Saukendar."

Shoka nodded, in one part relieved, in one part thinking, I've tried. Poor brave fool. "Then we'd better move." Before someone could open his mouth and start discussing, gods help them; and the lords start objecting and thinking, gods doubly help them. No knowing if there were messenger-birds flying north and east; and what murders might be happening and who might be arrested by now in the north and what traps laid at the Hisei, if Ghita had his hand on things as closely as he might.

"Do we have the horses?" Shoka asked.

"Yes, m'lord," Maijun said.

"My gratitude." He bowed to the lords and walked among the men, singling out the worst of their mounts. "This one," he said, of a horse that had been coughing; "the sorrel, there," of one he knew was always hindmost. He did not presume on the lords' generosity by giving them too many culls, but he picked out eighteen that were in difficulty, traded them out to lord Maijun's men with profound thanks.

But Jiro he kept; and as well, he thought, to keep Taizu's mare: she was sound, and hell with the loud markings, she had battle-sense, the old judge had told the truth—no shying and no bolting, and that was more than he could swear to in the remounts.

He took Jiro's reins from Taizu then, and got up to Jiro's back while the rest of the men mounted up. But when the lords met him, their men mustering behind them with banners and all, he saw anxiousness in the look they gave him, that set his teeth on edge.

Then as they met face to face, the two columns, Reidi and his men, and him, he saw it was not himself they were looking at, but to the companion on his right.

A woman in armor. Of course it troubled them. Of course they took second looks and wondered was it a woman or a too-feminine boy. ... Or they had heard that too. Reidi's lads, Shoka thought, and said, doggedly polite, "Taizu, my lords. My wife."

Anxious looks none the less, glancing from her to him. And respectful bows from the lords and whispers among the men.

"We've heard," Lintai said, too quick for thought; and Maijun kept his jaw clamped, more discreet, and bowed.

"My lady."

Shoka winced, uneasy at that My lady to Taizu's face; and felt more uneasy at the signs the troops made as they rode past, the touches at amulets, and the close and furtive looks they gave her.

"Don't scowl like that," he hissed at her, once the lords were out of earshot. "Smile, dammit."

She smiled. She turned her head and smiled deliberately, showing her teeth, and nodded at the passing riders as both columns got into motion. And, looking back, scowled at him.

"They've heard all the way from Mon!"

"They heard from Reidi's men! Don't scowl!"

"Tell them I'm from Hua!"

"I told Reidi! I could have, then. Would it change anything? Has it made any difference? —Lord Reidi says you're Kaijeng's daughter. . . . That you came to trick me into fighting—"

"That's a lie!" The whisper almost got beyond a whisper. She looked fit to strangle. And that indignation of hers cut through a last few threads that, he realized only that moment, had been bothering him. "Do you think that?"

"I don't. I've even stopped checking your thumbs when we sleep together."

"It's not funny, dammit!"

It was not. It was far from harmless, to either of them. He was quiet for a long moment as they rode, while Reidi's man furled the banners and they became mercenaries again. "You're my wife. There's a price for that. You say, wait til we get to Cheng'di and I may change my mind. I say . . . you're my wife, and I wish to the gods I could unravel everything back to the start, I wish I'd not thought—"

"—what?" she asked after a moment of silence.

"—not thought I could use the rumor. Spread a bit of confusion, make it so fantastical people wouldn't believe, the court wouldn't take it seriously—or enemies might not follow us home, if they did believe it—Damn them."

"Well, tell them the truth!"

"I have, I'm telling you. You can tell them the truth, and it won't help you. Nothing will stop what people want to believe." He looked at her indignant face, at truth and honesty brimming over, and felt a pain around his heart. "I'm a fool. I thought you knew that. You tell me often enough."

"It's not funny, master Shoka!"

"I'm not joking. I know what it costs. Damn, I know what it costs." He saw her going away from him—saw her, even if they lived, deserting him ... to save herself; and even that would generate rumors; and leave him—wishing himself dead . . . pining away, like the damn fools in the ballads he tried to evade. But even a real heart could break, after so much and so long. He clamped his jaw and stared at the rolling hills in front of them, that led down and down to Choedri—that they were going past, soon, quickly: Saukendar's thoughts, going on in coldest good sense, telling Shoka-the-man that what he wanted and what he hoped had no place in the world and there was certainly no leisure for his worries now. The rumors were a weapon, he used even Taizu, he generated fear about him, he bullied the lords because they were wrong and he was right, and there was no other course but the one he took, Saukendar had no doubt at all, nor fear, nor pain for the things he did.

Except when he heard the girl by him say, meekly, "Master Shoka?"

He did not look at her. It hurt too much.

"M'lord? —What am I supposed to call you? Nothing feels right."

"Anything you like," he said, too harshly. His hoarseness tried to come back. He wondered, cooly, distantly, if he wept in front of Reidi and his men, if that would shake their confidence. But that coldness took hold, and would not let him go. Not now, it told him, not with lives at stake.

(Die in this, dammit, and they'll say how a demon led us—)

Taizu said nothing for a long, long time. Men came around them. There was no privacy for talking.

But when they changed horses again she came up beside him and touched his arm. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Sorry?" He was bewildered. "For what, for the gods' sake?"

He confused her too. He saw that.

We may be dead in the next hour. She's a kid. A girl. What in hell is she doing in this? Why didn't I stop her?

"Have I done anything you said not?" Men were mounting up all around them. "Have I?"

Straight to the heart. "You ought to be out of here," he said. And remembered that there was no safety for Saukendar's wife. Anywhere. Ever. "Damn."

"What did I do wrong?"

"It's my fault."

"It's not your fault." She was trying to whisper and her voice kept cracking up a notch. "Dammit, I'm not your fault, I'm nobody's fault but mine, don't you tell me anything different! What did I do?"

He looked at her, sorting through that step by step. They might have been back on their own front porch. The cabin. A year ago. For some reason he felt his balance settle, dead center.

"Nothing," he said, taking Jiro's reins from her. "Not a damn thing. I've seen far worse." Damn, why can't I say it straight? "Few better. I just like your neck that length. Take care of it for me. Listen. If this goes wrong—if I'm killed—"

"Don't say—"

"Go to the country. Get Gitu. Pay the bastards for this. Does that appeal to you?"

A dark fire came into Taizu's eyes. Her head came up a bit. She nodded, very faintly, very surely.

Not crazy. No. It was as if a wall had come down that had been there for days, and they were looking each other in the eye again, without needing to dissemble or look away.

A horse snorted. Men were waiting all around them. They were standing there like fools.

"We've got to move," he said gruffly, and turned and climbed up to Jiro's back, while Taizu swung up onto the mare.

Saukendar and his demon wife, they would say. She has him enspelled. She came to him on the mountain, she bewitched him, she agreed to help him against his enemies, so long as he would keep her for his wife and make her a lady of Chiyaden; and she would never, ever take her real shape, except, perhaps, if he was unfaithful, if something broke the spell—

He saw how the men looked at her. He saw how they cleared Taizu's path, and some of them stared at her behind her back. Taizu had that to bear with—not malice, gods knew. No one had had experience dealing with a demon, but then—if a foxwife or a demon favored them, and was clearly bespelled to Saukendar and on her good behavior—then . . . there were good demons as well as bad, and a well-disposed one was an ally as valuable as Saukendar. She might take her demon-shape toward their enemies, gnash her teeth, turn their knees to water with the glance of her eyes, strike with twin swords of lightning and twin spears of fire, calling up wind and storm—

They expected things like that, the way they expected unicorns and gods in little-trafficked places; and burned their incense-sticks for the happiness of their dead; and wore their charms for luck and to keep their souls safe in crises. So why would their demon turn on them, how could things go amiss if there was Saukendar to wear like a talisman, no different than the luck-charms about their necks and ankles.

Damn them for too much faith, and for putting it on him.

And most of all for putting it on Taizu.

The fields around Choedri were tilled: the land showed order, the work of farmer folk not one of whom was in view. There was not an ox or a cow in sight—everything away from the highroad, Shoka figured, everything back in the hills, in the folds of the land, or shut away inside the walls of Choedri castle.

"Pray the message got through," Reidi said when he remarked on that eerie vacancy. "Lord Kegi is one we can rely on, if they haven't come down on him—"

"I'd think he'd have sent south," Shoka muttered, more and more uneasy. "Feiyan had time to get to us, for the gods' sake."

They had a couple of men riding point, about half an hour ahead, in the guise of ordinary travelers, unarmored and with nothing martial about themselves or their horses. Be respectful to whoever you meet, Shoka had advised them, mercenaries or Kegi's men. You're townsmen from Ygotai. You're on your way to ask help from the regional authorities.

He hoped the men could carry it off. He hoped the men were still alive up there, concealed in the folds of the land, the small woods. Now and again they would find a blot of flour in the road, which was the scouts' way of telling them it was clear as far as they could see.

But there were too damn many little hedges and hills.

"Another mark," Shoka said, more and more anxious; and almost wished, at the start of a wooded stretch, that the white blotch had not turned up in the road. If you hit a bad stretch, one of you lay back for safety and wait till your partner has it clear. Don't make a mark you're not sure of.

Damn, I don't like it.

"Split the column," he said to Reidi. "Lay back. We'll go through. Damn, doesn't Kegi believe in clearing back his right-of-ways?"

"We planned these overgrowths," Reidi said. "To use."

"So can the enemy," he said curtly; and waved Reidi back. He thought about sending Taizu back, and reckoned, if something went wrong, she was better with him than with a confused and desperate remnant.

The column split, half hanging back.

He put Jiro to a quicker pace. His half of the company kept moving, a brisk pace under the forest shadow, a clean, well-kept road. Another flour splotch.

Then a bending of the road, and a hedge of sharpened stakes dead in their path.

Horses shied up, steel came out. "Dismount!" Shoka yelled, pulling Jiro close against the trees beside the road. He was out of his saddle when a handful of men in Taiyi colors appeared at the barricade.

"Stop!" lord Reidi's lieutenant yelled, still on his horse in the middle of the road. "Stop! This is lord Saukendar—"

It was about time, Shoka thought, to disentangle himself from the thicket and hope Reidi's man was not about to get an arrow through the gut. "Careful!" Taizu said, her voice shaking. She had slid off and ducked down beside him, bow strung and arrow ready. But Saukendar could hardly look the fool, hiding against a bush, so he acted one, and gave her Jiro's reins—no sense getting the old lad shot—and walked out to the middle of the road with the other fool.

They were lord Kegi's men. They had the scouts, credit to them and none to the embarrassed scouts, who, ungagged and set at their liberty, went back with lord Reidi's lieutenant to explain matters; and Kegi's men were duty-bound to run ahead to the castle and advise lord Kegi it was all true, the lord Saukendar had come back, the provinces of Hainan and Feiyan and Hoishi had risen, their lords were out with their personal guards and their people were on the march. . . .

That was when Shoka heard about the dragon which had heralded his return, a huge beast which had appeared near Ygotai and left its tracks along the dikes, great scars of claws and its immense body dragged in a winding course across the paddies, marks anyone could see.

Shoka looked at Taizu and saw her standing there with her mouth open as if the next moment she was going to deny everything. But she just stood there, with Jiro's reins and the white-legged mare's, at the edge of the road; and he said:

"Taizu."

She brought him Jiro. He took the reins and she stood by him without a word.

There were mercenaries in Tengu, northward. Most were on the Hisei, at Lungan.

So lord Kegi's men warned them. Bad news, Shoka thought. He wanted to be pushing ahead. He wanted to make as much ground as he could, make it sound like a larger advance than it was—bluff and commotion being the best allies they had at the moment.

But fatigue had his vision blurring, and sense said stop, now: that there might be no more chance to stop past Choedri.

"Come to Choedri keep, lord," Kegi's guard urged him. "Our lord will be anxious to see you."

Shoka considered it, longed for a real bed and a hot meal; but prickles went up and down his back at the thought of entering into anyone's walls. Reidi had sworn to Kegi's good will. But Reidi had sworn to the scouts too.

"No," he said. "My apologies to your Idrd, but I've taken an oath—" Gods, what a pretentious lie! "—not to take any shelter before the Hisei. Ask your lord meet us by his gates this evening, if he'll be so kind. Myself—lord Reidi—we'll rest on his side of this woods till dark. We've had a damned long ride to get here."

"My lord," they said, "yes, my lord." And the captain in charge ordered the barricade moved, dispatched a messenger to his lord, and once Reidi and his men had caught up and come current of things, saw them to the far edge of the woods, a slope that overlooked the broad plain where Choedri sat.

More, he offered them what little food and water his company had, and half his men for a guard while they rested, seeing the road behind seemed secure enough.

"Can we trust it?" Taizu asked, quietly, aside, when it came to taking food of them. She was hoarse. He felt the same, as if, the imminent danger past, his wits wanted to scatter and raw suspicion wanted to take over, like something cornered.

He was being irrational, he told himself. It was the surest indication that he was not thinking clearly, when he began to doubt everything, every sound around him, and the pure water they were handed; and a sensible, well-prepared ally whose captain seemed more than competent.

"Hell if we've got a choice," he said.