Octobers Baby by Glen Cook

casualties.
    “Damn!” Elana said suddenly. “How’s Rolf?”
    “Rolf who?”
    “Rolf Preshka. Didn’t you see him? They were chasing him. He was bad hurt.”
    “No. Preshka? What the hell? Where’d he come from? Bevold! Take over here. I’ll be back in a little while.” To Elana, “Let’s catch a couple horses.”
    Of those there was no shortage. The raiders had left most of theirs behind. The animals, once safe from the fighting, had begun cropping wheat sprouts. They would have to be rounded up or the damage they would do would cut into the plunder-profit from their capture. Good desert horses sold high.
    “Which way was he headed?”
    “Toward the house.”
    “He didn’t make it.”
    “You think they caught him?”
    “Didn’t see any of them on the way down. No telling what happened.”
    They had ridden a mile when Elana said, “Over there.” A riderless horse grazed beside the millstream.
    They found Preshka not far away. He was alive, but barely. The arrow had penetrated a lung. It would take a miracle to save him. Or perhaps Nepanthe, if they could get her down from Mocker’s. She had studied medicine during her lonely youth, with the wizard Varthlokkur as tutor, and she had the magic of her family.
    “Here,” Ragnarson said, “we’d better make a litter,” He drew his sword and set to work on some sapplings left to shade the creak. “Might be good fishing this summer,” he observed, spotting a lazy carp. “Maybe we can put some up for winter.”
    Elana, slitting Preshka’s jerkin so she could look at his wound, frowned. “Why not just catch them when you get the taste? The rest will be there when you want them.”
    “Uhn. You’re right.” He had two long poles cut, was lopping branches. “Thing like today put me in mind of times when there wasn’t no coming back. Talking about fish, what do you think of us putting a dam across the creek up where those high banks are?”
    “Why?” She was too worried about Rolf to care.
    “Well, like I told Bevold the other day, so we’d have water in a dry spell.”
    “There was water last summer. The springs kept running.”
    “Yeah, well.” He dragged the poles over. “What I was thinking about was stocking some fish. How the hell are we going to finish this thing?”
    “Go catch his horse, stupid!” His poking about was frustrating. “He must’ve had blankets. And hurry.”
    He ran off. And she was immediately sorry she had snapped at him. It was obvious his leg was giving him a lot of pain. He had claimed the wound was just a scratch. He didn’t like to cause concern.
    “I’ve decided,” he said when he returned.
    “What? Decided what?”
    “I’m going to raise some hell about this. I mean, when we took the grant we said we’d do some fighting. In defense of law and order.” He sneered his opinion of the phrase. “But not to fight wars on our own. We kept up our end. I didn’t even cry about not getting any help the last time raiders came over from Prost Kamenets, even if the army should’ve been here. But by damn, having to fight El Murid’s regulars in my wheat field, a hundred miles north of Itaskia, is too much. I got to go down about the timber contract anyway, and pick up some things, so I’ll just go early and burn some ears. If them asses at the War Ministry can’t keep this from happening, they’re going to tell me why. In fact, I’m going to the Minister himself. He owes me. Maybe he can shake some people awake.”
    “Now, dear, don’t do something you’ll be sorry for.” His friendship with the War Minister was pretty insubstantial, based as it was on a few secret, illegal favors done the man years ago. Men in such positions were notoriously short of memory.
    “I don’t care. If a citizen can’t be safe at home, then why the hell pay taxes?”
    “If you don’t, you’ll get troops up here quick, all right,” she replied. They rigged the litter between their horses, hoisted Preshka in.
    “Well,