Advent (Advent Mage Cycle) by Honor Raconteur Page B

shrieking like children to be somewhat entertaining. Snickers kept escaping from his serious expression.
    “Garth!”
    I knew that voice. Spinning about, I looked for a familiar head of untidy blond hair. In the sea of black and red uniforms, it took a second for me to spot him. “Eagle!”
    The tall, blond soldier strode forward until he could clasp hands with me, a delighted smile on his sun-darkened face. “You look good, Garth. The Captain said you’d probably arrive soon, so we’ve been keeping an eye out. How was your winter vacation?”
    “It wasn’t much of a vacation,” I groaned. “I’ll tell you about it later. Is everyone ready to go?”
    “Pretty much, yeah. The Captain is having an in-depth argument right now with the Powers-That-Be.” He shook his head, half-resigned, half-amused.
    I wasn’t sure how to take that statement.
    “Is there a problem?” I asked cautiously.
    “Well, you know how Shad came up here to train recruits, right?”
    I didn’t like this beginning. Shad was good, very good, at what he did—but he also had the same sense of mischief and curiosity as a Meuritta. I gave a ginger nod. “Right. And?”
    “He’s really good at teaching.” Eagle looked a little dumbfounded at this. “Hard to believe, I know, but he just knows how to break it down so even the greenest recruit can understand. When the Core Commanders did their end of term review, they discovered that Shad’s students were far more advanced than everyone else’s.”
    “And now they want to keep him?” I guessed.
    “Bingo. The Captain is having a devil of a time convincing them that he really needs Shad to go into Chahir with him—I think he’s half regretting bringing Shad up here in the first place.”
    I could see how that would happen. I was kind of glad for Shad’s sake that he had obviously found a place that wanted him. If nothing else, after Chahir was settled once more, maybe the rascal could settle permanently here.
    While I was glad for this development for my friend’s sake, it did leave us with the immediate problem of prying him out of Ascalon’s clutches.
    “Would it help any if I stepped in and said a word? Or do you think Xiaolang has it in hand?”
    “I’m not sure, really.” Eagle shrugged.
    “ But is it really necessary to argue about this? ” Night cocked his head at both of us, looking a little puzzled. “ Shad didn’t sign up to be part of the Ascalon military, did he? If he’s still a civilian, he can leave whenever he wishes. No one has the power to stop him .”
    Eagle looked pole-axed, eyes nearly crossing, jaw in danger of becoming unhinged. “Night…you’re right! Great guardians, why didn’t we think of that?”
    “Because you’re used to thinking of him as part of the military command structure, ” Night said sarcastically. .
    He had a valid point. It was so engrained for these men to just obey their superiors they probably never thought to question whether Shad had to obey or not. It was sheer force of habit.
    “Well, in that case, we’ll be able to leave very soon.” Eagle obviously felt cheered by this new development. “Are either of you hungry?”
    It had taken a large part of the morning to get up here. My stomach was letting me know it too. “Getting that way, yeah.”
    “Let me show you to a good restaurant. The team will meet you there for lunch, okay?”
    That sounded like a good plan to me, but anything that involved food was always a good plan.
    I took a good look around me as I followed Eagle through the city gates and down the street. Most of the Empire of Sol had military city-states, and the architecture certainly reflected that. All of the buildings were very functional in style and rather uniform in color. They all had a very utilitarian architecture to them, with no frills of any sort. It almost looked like a gigantic cookie cutter had been used to stamp out rows of identical square buildings, all of the same shad of unrelenting grey.