The Anvil

The Anvil is a lance of the Order of the Gauntlet placed at Xanphina's disposal on her elevation to Hammer of Light. They hold ground she cannot stay to hold.

They are four sworn soldiers under a knight-sergeant. They do not travel with the company and they do not fight its battles.

The writ

Five riders came up the road to Nuts Deep on the fifth day of the fortnight's downtime and waited at the gate rather than presenting themselves. Knight-Sergeant Bertrand Kell handed Xanphina the writ before he dismounted, along with the roster and a list of what the lance had eaten on the way, itemised.

Xanphina,

They made you Hammer of Light nine days ago and I have been trying to write this ever since. I keep getting interrupted. If this comes out badly organised, that is the reason.

The practical part first. There are five people at your gate. Kell has the writ, the roster, and an account of what they spent getting to you, which he will hand over whether or not you want it. The other four answer to him.

They are not yours the way you are probably thinking. Command of troops comes at Knight Commander and not before, and when it comes it is a great deal more administration than anybody warns you about. What you have is a lance lent to a Hammer, held on the Order's discipline, for as long as you use them sensibly. That is not just wording. It means if something goes wrong with them it comes back to me, and I would rather hear about it from you first.

Now, what they are for.

A Hammer goes where we cannot send a company, kills what we cannot kill by committee, and moves on. That is the whole of the rank and you have earned it. The difficulty with it — and I have watched a dozen good ones walk straight into this — is that a place you have cleared does not stay cleared. You take it, you leave because you are needed somewhere else, and in two months it is exactly as it was and you have to do the whole thing again. Your company in particular has a habit of paying for ground and then walking off it. The lance is the answer. They stay, so that you can go.

There are three things you may ask of them.

Hold. Put them on a place and it stays held. A ruin you have cleared, a road, a gate you want shut to the wrong people. This is the one I fought to get you and I would like to see it used.

Escort. Prisoners, wounded, supplies, people who cannot move themselves. What they escort arrives. You will find this saves you a great deal of work you are overqualified for.

Lend. Send them, or some of them, to an ally who needs holding up for a while. The Order counts that as your company's work, and so does everyone else who is watching, and you will feel the difference in how the coalition talks to you.

On moving them. Hours to cross a town, three to five days to cross a region, ten days or more to cross the coast, and longer in bad weather. While they are travelling they are holding nothing and guarding nobody. So decide where they ought to be, put them there, and leave them.

You will look at these four and wonder why I did not send better swords. There are better swords in the Order. I did not send them because in my experience the best fighters we have are also the ones most likely to leave a post because something more interesting is happening two fields over. These four will not. Kell has held gates for twenty years and finds it satisfying, which I do not entirely understand but have stopped arguing with. Storr moves to the front without being asked and never mentions it afterward. Ackley guarded caravans for twenty years before he swore and knows every way a road can go wrong. Sunwell prays over the wounded and the dead in the same flat voice, which unsettles people right up until the night they need her. I picked for reliability, not for skill. You have skill. What you lacked was people who would still be standing where you left them.

They do not go into holes with you. I want that written down plainly so there is no confusion later. They are a lance, not an adventuring company, and if you take them into the sort of place you spend your time in they will follow you and they will die there. Ravengard had it right when he gave you that fort — your company is a strike force and should stay one. The lance is what makes that possible.

The last part I would rather not write.

They will do what you tell them. That is the difficulty, not the benefit. If you send them somewhere they cannot hold, they will go, and they will try, and they will not send word that it is going badly, because they will still be trying. You will learn about it when a report does not arrive.

So send to me before it gets that far. I would much rather pull a lance out early and look like a fool than write to four families in the same week. I have done that. I am not doing it again if I can help it.

Come and drink with me when the Varram business is over. Bring the dwarf, I have heard things.

Giddy up, I am told.

— Ontharr Frume

The lance

Knight-Sergeant Bertrand Kell — the anchor, and counted apart from the four. A career man of the Order, unhurried and unimaginative, and right often enough to irritate people with more imagination than him. He addresses Xanphina as "Hammer" and has never been talked out of an order.

Four sworn stand under him. The Order adds a fifth as her name carries further, and a sixth after that.

Sworn	Bears	Currently posted
Ithra Sunwell	Acolyte and field medic. Prays over the wounded and the dead in the same flat voice.	Nuts Deep — the gate watch
Dorn Ackley	Man-at-arms. Twenty years a caravan guard before he swore; knows every way a road goes wrong.	Escorting supply caravans on the eastern road
Yavena Storr	Man-at-arms and shield. Says little, and moves to the front without being told.	Nuts Deep — the gate watch
Peth	Banner-bearer, and the youngest by a decade. Has not been told she is the one they would carry out first.	Elturel — liaison to the city's paladin corps

See also

• Order of the Gauntlet — the Order; standings are tracked on the Renown Tracker
• Nuts Deep — where the lance keeps its watch
• The Nightingales · Talonfall · The Broken Latch · The Hearthwardens — the other companies' cells
• Xanphina · Ontharr Frume