Recluce 07 - Chaos Balance (24 page)

WE MEET AGAIN.“ Fornal glanced around the tower room, pacing from the table to the open window and back again. ”Have we new information? I need to be on the road if we are to gather forces and stop the white ones."

   “There is a good chance that the Cyadorans will seize the mines before you reach there,” Gethen said deliberately, fingering the goblet on the table before him.

   “Yet you did not bid me hasten? Might I inquire of you your thoughts on this?” Fornal's words were almost languid under his cold eyes.

   Zeldyan glanced down at Nesslek and shifted him in her arms, cradling him a shade more possessively.

   “Zeldyan had some other pressing concerns,” Gethen offered mildly. “Besides, were you at the mines, you would be dead, and for no purpose.”

   “You feel that the white demons' forces will be overwhelming?” asked Fornal.

   “Were you at the mines before the Cyadorans, as regent, you would be bound to defend Lornth, even to the last man, and neither the holders nor your honor would let you act otherwise. We do not have the forces to withstand the massed forces of the white ones.” Gethen smiled ironically. “In attempting to reclaim the mines, however, you may use any stratagem you wish, so long as it kills whites and proceeds toward reclaiming our lands.”

   “Do you think the holders will see my delay as self-preservation or as wisdom?” Fornal pursed his lips.

   “No one would expect you to depart without the most armsmen you could raise.” Gethen extended an arm toward the window. “Even the most honor-bound of holders. And you, certainly, are considered honorable and direct.”

   Fornal laughed. “You find my methods too direct, my sire?”

   “Often directness is laudable. Sometimes it leads equally directly to disaster. Wisdom is knowing when to be direct and when not to be.” Gethen gave a twisted smile. “And sometimes, events do not allow wisdom. At the moment, we have the time to exercise wisdom.”

   “You suggest that we may not always have that luxury.” Fornal paced back to the window. “Sillek did not,” said Zeldyan bluntly. “Before long, we may not either, sister.” Fornal paused and looked at Gethen. “How do you recommend I use this ...  luxury?”

   “I would suggest that you set up a garrison in Kula. The white demons will not risk their entire force once they hold the mines, but will try to raid and level the countryside. You could deploy your men to reduce their numbers with each raid. You can continue until you can retake the mines.” Gethen held up a hand. “I have talked with the angels. They will accompany you. Use the angels as much as you can. They boast of their training-give them the least trained and see what they can do-always in situations where their failure cannot affect you.”

   “I am a plain man, and I cannot use fancy words to explain. I cannot make people believe white is black or black white. I mistrust the angels-or what they portend-and I cannot explain why. I know what I feel.” Fornal turned to the tower window. “Yet their blades are sharp, and they can kill white demons.” He touched his beard. “All the same, I fear mixing angels with armsmen will bring no good.”

   “You avoid mixing them,” Gethen pointed out. “Give them the riskier tasks.”

   “What of their child?” asked Zeldyan.

   “They will have the child with them,” Gethen answered.

   “I would have offered to take care of him,” the blond regent said.

   “Ser Nylan asked for the loan of a forge to make a seat for the boy-one that would fit behind a saddle.”

   “And?” said Fornal, an amused smile on his lips.

   “I asked Husta to accommodate him, and to learn how good a smith he is, and anything else he could.”

   “At times, my father, you are as cunning as a serpent, and at others ... I do not understand. How can the angels be other than useless with their child riding with them?”

   “I thought they should be able to bring their blades in support of you. As you say, those blades are sharp and deadly. Secora's daughter Sylenia will ride with them as a wet nurse. She also has some experience in dressing battle wounds.”

   “That would help.” Zeldyan smiled.

   “I suppose the armsmen would welcome more healers, especially far from Lornth.” Fornal nodded. “But what of the safety of the wet nurse? We have few enough armsmen.”

   “You have cooks and wagoners-and do you really think that your armsmen will touch the nursemaid of an angel-or live if they did?” asked Gethen. “And the angels will fight more fiercely if their child is with your force. What happens to him if you are overrun? Do you see how fierce your sister becomes in defense of Nesslek?”

   Fornal's smile broadened momentarily, then vanished.

   “They will meet you in Rohrn in less than an eight-day. Their efforts in saving Nesslek have exhausted them, and the smith has not been able to forge yet.”

   “Do you believe that such healing was necessary? I would not wish any ill for Nesslek, but how do we know-”

   “Fornal,” interrupted Zeldyan, “have you known any child to survive chaos fever?”

   “Then it may not have been that.” The black-bearded man's tone was casually careful. “As I said, I wish the best for Nesslek, but after all the destruction the angels have created, you must pardon me if I am not fully trusting of their aims.”

   “It was chaos fever.” Zeldyan's eyes flashed.

   “Then we are blessed, and can thank darkness for his deliverance,” Fornal added smoothly. “Yet, I still caution against trusting completely those of whom we know so little.”

   “We will see.”

   “That we will, sister, and I hope most deeply that your insights are correct, as so often they have been. Please pardon my caution, but one cannot undo a blade in the back, and the angels have shown no great affection for Lornth in the past.”

   “Then keep them before you,” said Gethen.

   “I will, my father. That I will.” Fornal shrugged. “And I pray that their blades will bring down many of the white demons.”

   “I will send the angels with the force from the keep here,” suggested Gethen. “As we know, they are warriors. Let us see what they can do in training the worst of your force.” Gethen smiled. “You lose nothing.”

   “Except time and men.”

   “Even then, you win.” Gethen shakes his head. “If they are successful, then you take the credit for giving them the opportunity and testing untried techniques on a small group.” He paused. “If they, fail, you point out that you were giving them every opportunity in a way that jeopardized the fewest armsmen.”

   A smile cracked Fornal's face. “That would work. I can appear generous no matter what. I can even say that the failures got two chances, and that will blunt some of the levies' mutters.” The smile vanished. “Yet what we have learned so far troubles me.” Fornal looked toward the two others, then lifted his hands. “They are warriors and healers and scholars ... and a singer and a smith. Does it not seem strange that two so skilled arrived when we need so much?”

   A faint frown crossed Gethen's brow. “I have thought on that. They healed Nesslek, and they healed the roan's foot. The flame-hair said it would be a day or two before he stopped limping, but Guisanek came over to tell me that he seems totally healed.” Gethen paused. “Still, they are healers, and that will help you.”

   “Wizardry ... how do we know it will last?” mused Fornal.

   “Everything they have done so far has lasted,” said Zeldyan. “Everything.” She shivered, and her green eyes were deep as they fixed Fornal's.

   Slowly, slowly ... he looked away.

   Gethen nodded to himself, almost imperceptibly.

AFTER LEAVING AYRLYN with Weryl, Nylan slipped out of their chamber, glad that the coolness of the night before remained into the morning, and down the stone steps and out into the courtyard.

   He followed the sound of the hammer to the southwest corner of the keep, where, against the outer walls, rested a small square building beside a small open gate. Although the gate would be necessary for deliveries of charcoal and iron stock, he reflected, there was no guard at the smithy gate. Was the lack of guards a reflection of the high esteem in which the regents were held or a reflection of the sad state of the armsmen and the treasury of Lornth-or both?

   The angel smith turned from the gate toward the sounds of the hammer and anvil. A battered and unpainted sliding door was pulled open, revealing the smithy inside, where the smith and his striker already worked. For a time, Nylan watched the burly smith. With shoulders as broad as a wine barrel and arms like tree limbs, the smith's hammer seemed more like a toy in his huge fist as he forge-welded a ring together on the anvil horn.

   The odor of hot metal, quench oils, and forge coals drifted around Nylan, and he rubbed his nose gently as he watched.

   Abruptly, the dark-bearded smith set the hammer aside, used the tongs to place what looked like a harness hame ring on the forge bricks, and nodded to the striker at the bellows. Then he stepped away from the anvil and toward Nylan.

   “You be the angel?” His voice was high-pitched, surprisingly for such a big man.

   “That seems to be what everyone calls me,” Nylan admitted. “I'm Nylan.”

   “They say you're a smith. I'm Husta. Regents asked if I'd mind lending fire and an anvil.” Husta inclined his head and grinned wryly. “No smith likes to be told. But they been good to me.”

   “I had to learn it alone,” Nylan said. “I'm probably a poor smith, compared to you.”

   “Got any work?”

   Nylan looked around, then eased out the blade. “I had to do weapons, mostly.”

   Husta extended his huge hand, then touched the blade, studied it, and slowly shook his head. “Be not three men in all Candar could match that.” He grinned. “You use the dark forces and the fire, do you not?”

   Nylan nodded.

   “An honest mage. One who doesn't mind using his hands.” Husta laughed. “You be doing blades here?”

   “No. It's an idea I told ser Gethen about, and he said he would talk to you.”

   “Aye. He did.” The burly man shook his head. “Good man, and lucky we are that he be one of the regents. Sure be wishing that poor Lord Sillek had lived-talk was he didn't want to fight the angels, begging' your pardon, ser Nylan. But those stiff-necked holders . .. they worried about a bunch of women on a mountaintop. Ha! My Cethany'll have told 'em not to mess with 'em, she would. Women are tougher than men most ways, even if they can't heft a big blade or a hammer.” Without a pause in his words, Husta nodded at Nylan, motioning him toward the striker who stood by the great bellows. “Corin, this is the angel smith. Work the bellows for him like you would for me, 'less he tells you otherwise.” Husta glanced at Nylan. “That be all right?”

   “That's fine, and I appreciate the help.” Nylan stripped off his shirt.

   Husta gestured to an old leather apron hanging in the corner. “Use that. Old, but it stops sparks.”

   “Thank you.” Nylan hung his shirt on the peg from which the apron had come.

   “If you do not mind, angel, I'd lief watch as you work.”

   “As you please,” Nylan answered pleasantly, knowing that, once again, he faced some skepticism.

   Husta grinned, not unpleasantly.

   Nylan wandered over to the dark inside corner where the rod stock was heaped, then looked at the scrap bin. For a moment, he stood in thought, trying to assemble mentally what he had in mind. Finally, he selected a length of the narrowest stock. “This-and perhaps some cuts from the scrap plate there-they should be enough.”

   “Lord Gethen pays for the stock. So long as you waste none, it's no matter.” Husta laughed, again a high-pitched sound.

   The silver-haired smith nodded and pointed to the hammer. “Might I use that, or would you prefer I use another?”

   “Use it you may, and I thank you for asking.”

   Nylan nodded and hefted the hammer, fractionally heavier than the one he had used on the Roof of the World, though not by too much, then set it down while he set out the rod stock beside the anvil and found a pair of tongs. He looked at Husta.

   The big smith nodded, and Nylan took the tongs, using them to ease the first section of rod stock onto the coals.

   Once laid on the forge coals, the iron heated quickly-at least compared to the finished blades and higher-tech alloys he had been working. With the tongs he slipped the cherry-red rod onto the big anvil and, using firm strokes of the hammer, began to fuller it into the thinner strips he would need, sensing the grain of the metal and the tiny fluxes and the unseen white shimmers that told of impurities and weaknesses. Compared to what Nylan had used on the Roof of the World, the smith's stock was soft iron.

   “See . ..” bellowed Husta to the striker. “He's worked out that bubble there. Have to learn to know the metal, like a lover, know where the hidden rough places are. You can see if you look hard enough.”

   Nylan almost felt guilty, because he couldn't see half of what he sensed, and clearly Husta had learned to use his eyes far better than Nylan. The angel smith held back a shrug. He had to use what senses and skills he had, and. he was glad he had them.

   Still, in three heats, he had the first long strip rough-finished.

   Three more finished the second, and another three the third. “Ah . ..” Husta cleared his throat and glanced at the sky. Nylan blotted his sweating forehead with the back of his forearm and lowered the hammer. His eyes took in the lack of shadows, and he realized it was nearly midday. Had he been working that long?

   “Would you join us for bite?” asked Husta. “Bread and cheese, and some ale-and pale sausage-meat stuff, not that blood crap.”

   “I'd be pleased.” After setting the hammer aside, Nylan had to blot his forehead again. In the comparative heat of the low-lands, sweat seemed to flow from every pore of his body- and it was spring, not summer. “Over here.”

   The bigger man hoisted a long bench out of the back of the smithy and set it in the shade outside. “Cooler here. Can see you're used to a colder place.”

   “The Roof of the World is a lot cooler,” Nylan admitted. Husta poured the pale liquid into a tin mug, then into a wooden cup. He handed the cup to Nylan. “Good ale. Got it from Gherac for some piping. Pipes are a friggin' pain.”

   The angel smith nodded. He hadn't even tried something like piping, although he supposed he could. It would involve bending thin sheet around a rod or cylinder, not that difficult compared to ensuring that the welds were tight.

   “You work hard,” the big smith said. “Good rhythm, too. Got to have rhythm in this craft.”

   Nylan took a sip of the ale, which was surprisingly cool and bitter, and sat, straddling the end of the bench clearly reserved for him.

   “He strikes hard,” observed Corin, as if Nylan were not present, as he pulled up a battered stool. “Wouldn't think it, but he never stopped.”

   “Good smiths don't be stopping, Corin, except when they choose. And plenty of smiths I've seen aren't all that big- good ones, too. Mikersa, he wasn't even up to ser Nylan's shoulder-seems strange that a smith be a warrior, too, but like no one's seen an angel smith.” Husta took a long pull from the battered mug, then shoved the platter from his end of the bench toward Nylan.  the silver-haired man broke off a chunk of the dark bread, then used his belt dagger to carve off slices of sausage and cheese, almost creating a sandwich. He wolfed through three bites, then almost laughed. He'd forgotten how much energy smithing took, especially when he'd barely recovered from the costs of healing young Nesslek.

   “He eats like a smith, not like some fancy lord!”

   “They all call him 'ser,' ” pointed out Corin.

   Nylan shook his head. He was really closer to the professional armsmen, those who were officers, than to the lords of Lornth, if he equated his past position in the U.F.A. to the equivalent in Candarian society. . “You look thoughtful, ser Nylan,” observed Husta.

   “I was thinking,” he admitted. “I was more like ... I don't know . . . there's nothing quite like it here . . . but someone who leads a special kind of armsman. I certainly wasn't a lord.”

   “They call him 'ser,'” Husta continued,“ 'cause he's a right good blade and a mage. Huruc told me he pinned Lord Fornal's blade twice so quick that Fornal couldn't believe it.”

   “Is that true?” asked Corin.

   “Unfortunately,” Nylan mumbled. He took another mouthful of cheese, sausage, and bread. The headache he had ignored was beginning to subside.

   Corin glanced to Husta.

   “It's risky showing a lord up. If you don't, you could get hurt, and if you do, they don't forget.”

   Nylan nodded. The big smith had that right.

   After he went back to the forge, Nylan had to hot-cut the strips and then bend and weld the framework together- quenching it in sections. That took most of the afternoon, and Husta watched and puttered, watched and puttered.

   In the end, Nylan still had to make the equivalent of two low-tech cotter pins, and punch four holes in the attachment brackets. The pins took almost as much time as the bracket, and he had to fish one out of the quench tank when it slipped out of the tongs.

   By the time the sun hung just above the walls, what he had was a cantilevered framework that needed to be covered with leather or cloth or both, forge-welded all the way around. Rivets would have been faster, but he saw none, and making them would have taken other stock, and he still wasn't so proficient as he would have liked in making small items.

   “Nice work,” said Husta. “Smooth, but I cannot see its use.”

   “Once it's covered in leather or cloth, I'll fasten it to a saddle-one of those with a high back.” Nylan sketched with his hands. “That way you can carry a child too small to ride, but too big to carry.”

   “Don't know as many would want that-except you and the regent. They say she's loath to leave her son-and she likes to ride. Most folks would use a wagon or a carriage.”

   “Wagons don't go everywhere,” Nylan pointed out.

   “They go everywhere I want to go,” laughed the big man. “People who ride end up in bad places.”

   Nylan hadn't thought of it in such a fashion, but Husta was probably right about where riding often led.