Chapter Twenty-Five

Father Stomald sat down to the supper on the camp table with a groan. He hadn't expected to be alive to eat it, and he was tired enough to wonder if it was worth the bother. Just organizing the unexpected booty abandoned by the Guard had been exhausting, yet Tibold was right. The dispersal of one army was no guarantee of victory, and those weapons were priceless. Besides, the Guard might regain enough courage to reclaim them if they weren't collected.

But at least deciding what to do with pikes and muskets was fairly simple. Other problems were less so—like the more than four thousand Guardsmen who'd trickled back and begged to join "the Angels' Army" as wonder overcame terror. Stomald had welcomed them, but Tibold insisted no newcomer, however welcome, be accepted unquestioningly. It was only a matter of time before the Church attempted to infiltrate spies in the guise of converts, and he preferred to establish the rules now.

Stomald saw his point, but discussing what to do had taken hours. For now, Tibold had four thousand new laborers; as they proved their sincerity, they would be integrated into his units—with, Tibold had observed dryly, non-Guardsmen on either side to help suppress any temptation to treason.

Yet all such questions, while important and real, had been secondary to most of Stomald's people. God's own messengers had intervened for them, and if Malagorans were too pragmatic to let joy interfere with tasks they knew must be performed, they went about those tasks with spontaneous hymns. And Stomald, as shepherd of a vaster flock than he'd ever anticipated, had been deeply involved in planning and leading the solemn services of thanksgiving which had both begun and closed this long, exhausting day.

All of which meant he'd had little enough time to breathe, much less eat.

Now he mopped up the last of the shemaq stew and slumped on his camp stool with a sigh. He could hear the noises of the camp, but his tent stood on a small rise, isolated from the others by the traditional privacy of the clergy. That isolation bothered him, yet the ability to think and pray uninterrupted was a priceless treasure whose value to a leader he was coming to appreciate.

He raised his head, gazing past the tied-back flap at the staff-hung lantern just outside. More lanterns and torches twinkled in the narrow valley below him, and he heard the lowing of the hundreds of nioharqs the Guard had abandoned. There were fewer branahlks—the speedy saddle beasts had been in high demand as the Church's warriors fled—but the nioharqs, more than man-high at the shoulder, would be invaluable when it came to moving their camp. And—

His thoughts chopped off, and he lunged to his feet as the air before him suddenly wavered like heat above a flame. Then it solidified, and he gazed upon the angel who had saved his people.

Sean and Tamman waited outside the tent inside their portable stealth fields. The trip across the camp had been... interesting, since people don't avoid things they can't see. Sandy had almost been squashed by a freight wagon, and her expression as she nipped aside had been priceless.

Sean had planned to get this over with last night, but the totality of the Guard's rout—and the treasure-trove of its abandoned camp—had changed his schedule. One thing Stomald hadn't needed while he organized that windfall was the intrusion of still more miracles. Besides, the delay had given Sean time to watch the "heretics" work, and he'd been deeply impressed by Stomald's military commander. That man was a professional to his toenails, and a soldier of his caliber was going to be invaluable.

But that was for the future, and right now he tried not to laugh at the priest's expression when Sandy suddenly materialized in front of him.

Stomald's jaw dropped, and then he fell to his knees before the angel. He signed God's starburst while his own inadequacy suffused him, coupled with a soaring joy that, inadequate as he was, God had seen fit to touch him with His Finger, and held his breath as he awaited some sign of her will.

"Stand up, Stomald," a soft voice said in the Holy Tongue. He stared at the floor of his tent, then rose tremblingly. "Look at me," the angel said, and he raised his eyes to her face. "That's better."

The angel crossed his tent and sat in one of his camp chairs, and he watched her in silence. She moved with easy grace, and she was even smaller than he'd thought on that terrible night. Her head was little higher than his shoulder when she stood, but there was nothing fragile about her tiny form.

Brown hair gleamed under the lantern light, cut short as a man's but in an indefinably feminine style. Her clean-cut mouth was firm, yet he felt oddly certain those lips were meant to smile. Her triangular face was built of huge eyes, high cheekbones, and a determined chin that lacked the beauty of the angel Tibold's huntsmen had wounded yet radiated strength and purpose.

She returned his gaze calmly, and he cleared his throat and fiddled with his starburst, trying to think. But what did a man say to God's messenger? Good evening? How are you? Do you think it will rain?

He had no idea, and the angel's eyes twinkled. Yet it was a kindly twinkle, and she took pity on his tongue-tied silence.

"I said I would visit you." Her voice was deep for a woman's, but without the thunder of her wrath it was sweet and soft, and his pulse slowed.

"You honor us, Holiness," he managed, and the angel shook her head.

" 'Holiness' is a priestly title, and I am but a visitor from a distant land."

"Then... then by what title shall I address you?"

"None," she said simply, "but my name is Sandy."

Stomald's heart leapt as she bestowed her name upon him, for it was a new name, unlike any he'd ever heard.

"As you command," he murmured with a bow, and she frowned.

"I'm not here to command you, Stomald." He flinched, afraid he'd angered her, and she shook her head as she saw his fear.

"Things have gone awry," she told him. "It was no part of our purpose to embroil your people in holy war against the Church. It was ill-done of us to endanger your land and lives."

Stomald bit down on a need to reject her self-accusation. She was God's envoy; she could not do ill. Yet, he reminded himself, angels were but God's servants, not gods themselves, and so, perhaps, they could err. The novel thought was disturbing, but her tone told him it was true.

"We did more ill than you," he said humbly. "We wounded your fellow angel and laid impious, violent hands upon her. That God should send you to us once more to save us from His own Church when we have done such wrong is a greater mercy than any mortals can deserve, O Sandy."

Sandy grimaced. She'd intended to leave angels entirely out of this if she could, but Pardalians, like Terrans, had more than one word for "angel." Sha'hia, the most common, was derived from the Imperial Universal for "messenger," just as the English word descended from the Greek for the same thing. Unfortunately, there was another, derived from the word for "visitor"—from, in fact, erathiu, the very word she'd just let herself use—and her slip hadn't escaped Stomald. He had been using sha'hia; now he was using erathu, and if she corrected him, he would only assume he'd mispronounced it. Explaining what she meant by "visitor" would get into areas so far beyond his worldview that any attempt to discuss them was guaranteed to produce a crisis of conscience, and she bit her lip, then shrugged. Harry was right about the care they had to take, but Harry was just going to have to accept the best she could do.

"You did only what you thought was required," she said carefully, "and neither I nor Harry herself hold it against you."