Recluce 07 - Chaos Balance (27 page)

IN THE MIGHTY city of Cyad dwelt the mages of the white rainbow, whose ships fueled on fire and spanned the seas, whose white marble palaces glittered in the sun of contentment, and who pursued the knowledge of the distant stars.

   Horseless wagons, harnessing the power of chaos to the will of man and mage, traversed the polished stone roadways smoother than glass. Those great firewagons sped more swiftly than the wind, bringing crops and goods and wealth to all of Cyador.

   All were content in the order kept by the white mages, and seldom were necessary the shimmering shields and burnished blades of the mighty Mirror Lancers, for there was peace.

   In those days had Cyador allowed Lornth privileges in the Grass Hills, among them the privilege to remove metals from the earth. Seeing this privilege, the smith Nylan, in his guile, asked of the regents of Lornth why they existed upon the suffrage of Cyad, when for generations they had slaved and the mages of Cyad had done nothing with the bright copper buried in the Grass Hills.

   Those of Lornth pondered his words long into the deeps of the night and recalled that the Grass Hills were yet those of the Lord of Cyad.

   As they pondered, then sang Ayrlyn the soul-singer of that darkness of despair that would follow when Cyad asked back what was its due, and when Lornth could no longer mine the bright copper of the Grass Hills.

   What can be done, asked the leader of the Lornians, for she was a woman and trusting. How shall we hold to the delvings of our fathers and forefathers that have sustained us through the years?

   In response to such questions, the dark angel Nylan offered a great wizardry against which the might of Cyador and her mages would not prevail, and, persuaded by the wily Nylan, the council of Lornth said, it shall be so, and they turned their eyes from the evil that Nylan proposed.

 
       Colors of White

         (Manual of the Guild at Fairhaven)

         Preface

THE ROAD DUST raised by the column of armsmen riding ahead was everywhere, rising shoulder high, sometimes higher, coating Nylan's and Ayrlyn's new grays with fine red powder. Tonsar rode to Nylan's left, Ayrlyn to his right.

   In the hot afternoon sun, every time Nylan blotted away sweat, his forearm came away coated with a thin later of reddish mud. If it rained, it would settle the dust, but with much rain, then they'd have to slop through mud. Nylan took a deep breath. His mount looked like a roan, and his nose itched. He rubbed it, but it did no good. He sneezed-once, twice.

   Then the engineer glanced back toward Sylenia, since Weryl's seat was mounted behind her saddle, and had been from the morning after Fornal had put all the troublemakers and trainees under Nylan's and Ayrlyn's command. Nylan wasn't quite sure what to expect, except trouble sooner or later. Happily, he did not see the squat armsman who had leered at the nursemaid earlier.

   The current trouble was that their “command” got to eat Fornal's armsmen's dust. Only the supply wagons were farther to the rear. The last one had a small anvil, probably what passed for a weapons anvil, and an antique bellows, hammers and tongs, even ten stone worth of coal in bags. Where Fornal had gotten them Nylan hadn't asked, though he hoped the coregent had paid for it, rather than seized it. Somehow, though, he wasn't that hopeful, and it bothered him, not that he could afford to do much about it, not at the moment.

   Weryl seemed to be dozing, with muddy streaks running from the corners of his mouth where drool and dust had combined. Nylan smiled faintly, then looked through the dust at the line of trees a half kay to the right that bordered the river. Was the entire east bank nothing but marsh, swamp, and thicket? While the road on the west bank was level and faster traveling than the section from Lornth to Rohrn, the way was dry and hot, although the rolling fields to the left of the road beyond the fences showed healthy green shoots.

   “Dust and more dust.” Ayrlyn coughed, then glanced over her shoulder. “If they fight the way they ride, we're in trouble. They'll need a lot of training.”

   “What do you think, Tonsar?” asked Nylan.

   The subofficer shrugged.

   “You'll have to lead some of them,” Ayrlyn prompted.

   Nylan could see her smile, but the brown-bearded armsman looked stolidly ahead, as if he were riding to his doom.

   After they had covered perhaps a hundred cubits, the armsman sighed, loudly. “I have been faithful and I have worked hard. And begging your pardons, angels, I do not see why the regent insisted I must be your subofficer. I will do what I can, and that be little enough with these.”

   Nylan understood. Tonsar had brought them to Lornth, and Fornal was the type to blame the messenger.

   “Begging your pardons, again, sers,” the subofficer continued, “but, if I lead them, they will not follow, and one cannot lead from the rear.” He pursed his lips. “I would march all of them against the white demons at the first chance and be rid of them.”

   “We don't have that choice,” pointed out Nylan. “There is no one to replace them.”

   “Would you send them against the white demons?” Tonsar looked hopefully to Ayrlyn. “Could we not find others . . . somewhere?”

   “Where?” Ayrlyn raised her eyebrows. “Fornal had to beat the bushes to get this crop-or so we were told.”

   “That be true.” Tonsar sighed again.

   Over dull murmurs of conversation and the dust-muffled steps of the horses, two voices rose.

   “. . . worthless hunk of dog meat...”

   “You should talk . . .”

   At the yelling, Nylan turned in the saddle and looked back to where two riders had pulled off to the side of the road.

   “Now what?” asked the flame-haired angel.

   “Two of them are arguing about something.” He shook his head and looked at Tonsar. “Any suggestions?”

   “Most are hopeless. Some are troublemakers. The others are mad.” Tonsar frowned. “You could kill one. Fornal would.”

   “Remember Ryba,” said Ayrlyn. “This isn't the time for kindness.”

   “You think . . . ?” Nylan's guts tightened.

   “Yes.”

   Nylan wheeled the mare and urged her toward the two troublemakers, where three other riders lagged, clearly trying to hear what was going on with the arguing pair. Refraining from shaking his head, the engineer urged the mare toward the five.

   “. . . wouldn't know a bow from a hoe . ..”

   “... never worked an honest day ... or a dishonest one ...”

   The engineer wondered if both he and Ayrlyn should have intervened together. No, he decided. Each had to handle things alone, or there would be even more trouble.

   “Owara is so small that a hare would miss it, except it smells so bad that even a hare wouldn't hop through it.” The man with the braided black hair laughed cruelly.

   “You must be the only man in Runnel,” called the thin-faced blond, “and the last, for your mother would have expired immediately on seeing you, and no woman could-”

   “Knock it off!”

   Both men looked up, but just waited as Nylan rode up. Both sneered, the black-haired man openly, the blond with his eyes.

   “For the moment, I don't care how you two insult each other, so long as you keep in formation. You're slowing things down. Now, get moving.”

   “And if I don't want to?” asked the black-haired man.

   “Well . . .” mused Nylan. “I suppose the generous thing would be to wound you, but that would either get you out of the fighting or a pension. I could beat the manure out of you, but I might end up just disabling you for life, and that would create the same sort of problems.” He shrugged and offered a smile. “So . . . take your choice. Leading the first charge against the Cyadorans, or getting a blade through your chest right now.”

   “You talk big, but you're just another little lord,” snapped the black-haired man. “I'll do as I please.”

   “You'll get back in formation,” Nylan said coldly, triggering his step-up as he spoke, knowing what he would have to do.

   “Make me.”

   In a single flowing motion, Nylan drew the shortsword from the shoulder harness and released it.

   The blade went into the other's chest hilt-deep. The man tried to reach for the big blade, but after an initial twitch, slumped over the mount's neck.

   Ignoring the white wave of death and agony that washed over him, and the daggers that knifed through his eyes, Nylan had the second blade in his hand even before the other four looked to him. All four mouths were open. “The regent wouldn't take that, and we don't either.”

   The engineer rode up next to the sagging body, and yanked out the blade, then turned to the blond man. “You! Your name?”

   “Wuerek, ser.”

   “You strap his body to the mount, and when we get to Clynya tonight, you bury it. We don't have time right now. You understand?”

   “Yes, ser.” Wuerek looked down.

   “I'll do my best to get you all through this, but your part is to do your best, and that means following orders.” He eased the mare back through the dust raised by Fornal's armsmen. “Ride in pairs!” snapped Nylan. “This isn't a jaunt to the tavern.”

   As he rode, the levies looked away.

   “. .. black angel. . . mean bastard ...”

   “. . . gave Gisyl a chance . . . idiot . . . don't mess with pros...”

   The smith wanted to shake his head. It didn't seem to matter where he was. There was always some idiot who would respond only to force. To such, forbearance, reason, or common sense meant nothing. He took a deep breath. How many more such would there be?

   He rode along the shoulder of the road, passing their command-four squads roughly, except that it was hard to tell because, even when the men did attempt to approximate a column, about half couldn't figure out how to get their mounts to match pace with their partner.

   He wanted to rub his throbbing forehead, but didn't dare, not immediately, since that would send the wrong signal.

   “What happened?” asked Ayrlyn. “I could feel-”

   “Idiot dared me to make him follow orders.” Nylan shook his head. “Makes me think of Mran-and Ryba. I guess I'm no different. I thought I was, but-” He shrugged.

   “They'd have torn you apart if you hadn't,” Ayrlyn said.

   “Sad, isn't it?” Nylan rubbed his forehead, trying to ease the throbbing there.

   “It's life.”

 
  “Begging your pardon, ser?” asked Tonsar.

   “Some troublemaker, big black-haired fellow, Gisyl, I think, wanted to stage a mutiny. He dared me to make him obey. I told him he could obey or die. He didn't believe me.”

   “And what happened?” asked the armsman.

   “He's dead.”

   Tonsar's mouth opened, then shut. “So ... so quickly?”

   “If you're going to kill someone, it's better to make it quick. Then they can't hurt you threshing around.”

   Tonsar swallowed, then looked over his shoulder. “You didn't leave the body?”

   “No. I made the other troublemaker strap it on the mount. He'll have to bury it when we get to Clynya.”

   Tonsar swallowed again. “No one would have minded-”

   “If they have to clean up afterwards,” said Nylan, “maybe they won't be quite so ready to quarrel.”

   “Yet. . . yet. . .” Tonsar stammered.

   “You think they'll just blame me?” Nylan shrugged. “Troops always do, but that's all right so long as they get in the habit of obeying and not doing stupid things.”

   Tonsar closed his mouth, and beyond him Ayrlyn nodded thoughtfully. Sylenia busied herself with checking the sleeping boy.

   Nylan noticed that the line of trees that had marked the east side of the river had vanished, and only a low line of bushes followed the watercourse. On the west side, between the road and the bluff that ran down to the river, was only grass.

   A shadow slipped across the road, from the thickening clouds blowing out of the Westhorns to the east.

   “Be not too long afore we make Clynya,” observed Tonsar. “And a good thing, with the rain coming in. A good rain will lay the road dust for the journey south.”

   “Too good a rain will turn the road into mud soup,” ventured Ayrlyn.

   “Ah, lady angel, the rain in the south here, it never falls for long.”

   Nylan hoped he was right, but the relief from the direct sun provided by the clouds was welcome, more than welcome. He turned to Ayrlyn. “Your turn.”

   “Right.” With a grim smile, she turned her mount and .began to ride back along the part of the column that contained their two squads plus of trainees and troublemakers.

   The sun hung just above the western hills when they reached a ridge crest. On the other side, the road swung down in an arc into a gentle valley cut by the river. There were no bridges, just what appeared to be a flat sloping ford.

   “Clynya . . . Clynya . . .”

   The mutterings that came back through the road dust confirmed to Nylan that they were nearing their immediate destination.

   “It is not even sunset,” proclaimed Tonsar.

   “Good,” murmured Sylenia.

   Nylan just wiped away more muddy sweat, and glanced up at the still-dark clouds that covered two-thirds of the sky. They felt like rain, but there hadn't been any, not even a hint of moisture on the light breeze out of the east that had done little to cool him on the afternoon's ride.

   He studied the valley as they began to ride down toward the ford. Unlike Rohrn, Clynya was on the eastern side of the river, on a slight hill nearly two kays north of the ford itself. Was that because the greater threat happened to be the Jeranyi? Using the river as a defense made sense to Nylan, but he wondered if towns and cities were located for such sensible reasons. The plateau he had picked out as a possible city site made more sense than Lornth's location, but there wasn't even a town on the plateau.

   Just across the ford, less than a kay from the river, and to the left of the road, were a series of earthworks, and behind them, blackened timbers. The grass reached halfway up the earthen barrier, but had not covered all the blackened ground or ashes.

   “What was that?” asked Ayrlyn.

   “I believe that must be the Jeranyi fort-the one that Lord Sillek destroyed. I have not been this far south, but Huruc was, and he said that Lord Sillek had destroyed the fort and driven the Jeranyi back across the grasslands.” Tonsar shrugged. 'They will try again. They always have."

   “Wasn't there some sort of agreement?” Ayrlyn pursued. Nylan looked toward Sylenia, who was turned in her saddle and trying to give Weryl a drink of water.

   “Ildyrom cannot be trusted. He is a Jeranyi.” Tonsar shrugged. “They will be back.”

   Nylan frowned. For the Jeranyi to have built a fort on the Lornian side of the river . . . Sillek had indeed had his troubles. To have succeeded in pushing the Jeranyi back across the grasslands, and then still having been forced to fight Westwind-the engineer shook his head. The Lornian holders appeared singularly stupid, but, maybe, there was something he and Ayrlyn didn't know. Maybe.

   “There aren't many trees,” said Ayrlyn, breaking into his thoughts, “even near the river.”

   “The sheep like the green shoots, and,” Tonsar shrugged, “there is not that much rain.”

   Nylan glanced up at the clouds. “This doesn't make sense. There's enough rain here for there to be trees.”

   “Unless the summer is very dry and long and hot,” suggested Ayrlyn.

   “Hot... very hot,” agreed Tonsar. “Rain. It rains seldom.” . The engineer did not even want to think about a summer that hot and dry.

   A line of rain gusted over the low thatched roofs of Clynya and swept westward down the road toward the column of armsmen, down toward the ford, the West Fork, the grasslands, and Jerans. Almost as the sprinkling of rain had come, it was gone.

   Yet after the splattering of rain, all that was left were dark spots on the road, and a hint of dampness in the air.

   Nylan stood in the saddle as the column ahead slowed in an open space before several buildings. While the timbered two-storied barracks had a rough plank roof, the stable was roofed with sod, and long streamers of brown grass hung over the thick eaves. Some sections of the roof sported new growth.