He didn't want it, but I thought he was just being ... is stiff-necked the word? If I had known how upset he was, well --" "He practically fell apart out there in front of everybody. If I understand how things work, that would have been his disgrace, right?" "... Yes. Exchanging honor for loyalty in front of peers, it's an important thing. At least the way I run things; I'm sure Pilgrim or Dataset can say a dozen other ways to lead. Look Johanna, I needed that Exchange, and I needed you and Scrupilo to be there." "Yeah, I know. 'We two saved the day.'" "Silence!" Her voice was suddenly edged, and Johanna remembered that this was a medieval queen. "We are two hundred miles north of my borders, almost to the heart of the Flenser Domain. In a few days we will meet the enemy, and more of us will die for we-know-not-quite-what." The bottom dropped out of Johanna's stomach. If she couldn't get back to the ship, couldn't finish what Mom and Dad had started... "Please, Woodcarver! It is worth it!" "I know that. Pilgrim knows it. The majority of my council agrees, though grudgingly. But we of the council have talked with Dataset. We've seen your worlds and what your science can do. On the other hand, most of my people here," she waved a head at the camp beyond the tent,
复件 (36) air max2, "are here on faith, and out of loyalty to me. For them, the situation is deadly and the goal is vague." She paused, though her two pups continued gesturing forcefully for a second. "Now I don't know how you would persuade your kind to take such risks. Dataset talks of military conscription." "That was Nyjora,
Dre Beats Monster Diamond (Red) High Definion Powered Isolation Headphones, long ago." "Never mind. The point is, my troops are here out of loyalty, mostly to me personally. For six hundred years, I have protected my people well; their memories and legends are clear on it. More than once, I was the only one who saw a peril, and it was my advice that saved all those who heeded it. That is what keeps most of the soldiers,
复件 (76) air max2, most of the cannoneers going. Each of them is free to turn back. So. What should they think when our first 'combat' is to fall like ignorant ... tourists ... onto a nest of wolves? Without the great good luck of you and part of Scrupilo being at the right place and alert, I would have been killed. Pilgrim would have been killed. Perhaps a third of the soldiers would have died." "If not us, perhaps someone else,
复件 (3) 复件 air max1," Johanna said in a small voice. "Perhaps. I don't think anyone else came close to firing on the nest. You see the effect on my people? 'If bad luck in the forest can kill our Queen and destroy our marvelous weapons, what will it be like when we face a thinking enemy?' That was the question in many minds. Unless I could answer it,
复件 (22) air max, we'd never make it out of this valley -- at least not going northward." "So you gave the medals. Loyalty for honor." "Yes. You missed the sense of it, not understanding Tinish. I made a big thing of how well they had done. I gave silverwood accolades to packs who showed any competence during the ambush. That helped some. I repeated my reasons for this expedition -- the wonders that Dataset describes and how much we lose if Steel gets his way. But they've heard all that before, and it points to far away things they can scarcely imagine. The new thing I showed them today was you and Scrupilo." "Us?" "I praised you beyond the skies. Singletons often do brave things. Sometimes they are halfway clever,
复件 (6) air max, or talk as though they are. But alone, Scrupilo's fragment wouldn't be much more than a good knife fighter. He knew about using the cannon, but he didn't have the paws or mouths to do anything with it. And by himself, he would never have figured out where to shoot it.