[puffyn]

---- Arcoscephale, Turn 6 ----

Star gazers. I confess I was, well, pleased that one of their inscrutable ilk cared enough to avenge the honor of a hired sword, even if it was only some fool girl who had barely gotten her mystical robes and just wanted to impress her siblings with her courage. When I heard that she had led the troops to victory I was even a little impressed. But all it took was a word with my hoplites to realize that there was another reason why she wanted to come, and it didn't concern me in the slightest.

She was after gems. This is, my hoplites inform me, the reason we were sent to this dreadful little province in the first place: there has long been a legend in our village that this province is the site of some mystical wonder, which, I have learned, really means that it has good gem deposits. And I would be surprised -- nay, shocked -- to learn that the practitioners of the local religious and philosophic arts are really in it for the money if I had not passed nearly a dozen years with their sort. (Apologies, Thymbre, I do not mean you.) I think I prefer my religion the way it is: far, far away. The term "godforsaken lands" has altogether too undeserved an ill reputation...

I had been in town for a few days when Amshula came down out of the mountains, wandering into the village as if she had had every right to abandon my troops in a town that had been liberated mere hours earlier. We exchanged words.

"Out for a bit of a stroll?" I said in greeting.

"There was hardly anything for me to do when I got here," she retorted. "The rabble were unworthy of my attentions. Certainly nothing to fall off my horse about."

Unfortunately she has Balachandra's way with words. I had heard that she tried to cast a few ineffectual sparks toward the enemy, with roughly zero impact on the battle, but I wasn't about to argue over who had contributed more to the campaign. "Perhaps you didn't stop to consider that the villagers were as likely to slit my hoplites' throats in the night as provide them with food and shelter."

"As it turns out, Pandokos, they have been given the finest fruits of the harvest, and I hear they do not want for young maidens," she responded, unperturbed. "And besides, would you have rather that I had my throat slit too?"

"Of course you had more important concerns than the safety of the men who fight your wars," I said. "At least you shall get some shiny stones for your trouble."

At this she frowned, and turned away. Aha, I thought. She didn't find anything. The thought cheered me.

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