Recluce 07 - Chaos Balance (36 page)

   Nylan forced his own blade against a lancer whose lance tangled in the stirrup of the flanking lancer. The man dropped the long shaft and grabbed for his sabre, but the angel's sword was quicker.

   Nylan willed himself to hold on to his blade as the inevitable wave of whiteness and pain swept across him, trying to keep his guard up even as he shivered in the saddle from the impacts of the currents of chaos and death.

   From the corner of his eyes, while fending off a lance that seemed a kay long, the smith could sense one... two... three . . . purple-clad figures tumbling. It was time to cut their losses.

   “Back! Now!” His voice seemed lost in the grunts and swirling dust, but Tonsar repeated the command, and slowly the Lornian armsmen disengaged, straggling away in groups.

   Only the tops of the grayish olive trees were visible clearly, with all the dust that swirled across and around the road.

   “Back to Lornth!” Nylan ordered again, lifting his blade and blocking the thrust of another long lance, before driving the shortsword across and severing the wood. The lancer urged his mount away from the angel; Nylan let him go and, after scanning the intermixed purple and white figures, pulled the mare back from the fray.

   A gleam of red caught his eyes, as Ayrlyn's blade came around in a short arc. Another lancer swayed in his saddle, and both Ayrlyn and Nylan shuddered.

   “Back . . .” he half-yelled, half-gasped.

   “You . . . first. . .” She followed the retort with a savage grin.

   “. . . fine . . .” He half-guided, half-willed his mount back to the road, gesturing to the others with the shortsword as he did. “Break it off... now! Now, frig it!”

   A handful, including Wuerek, turned toward him, followed by another group.

   As he led the retreat, Nylan kept looking over his shoulder as yet another three armsmen pushed their mounts to rejoin the retreating Lornians he and Ayrlyn led back toward Syskar. His head throbbed; his fingers ached; and both forearms were a welter of cuts and scrapes, none deep, but all blood-streaked.

   “We could have made another pass,” said Drossa from behind Tonsar, his raspy voice carrying above the clop of hoofs. “We had 'em.”

   “How many of us would a last pass have killed?” asked Ayrlyn, rubbing her forehead. “We lost too many anyway.”

   Nylan stood in the saddle and looked back toward Jirec, where the dust still swirled as the Cyadoran force rode toward the still-burning cookfires. He made a count of their force, but it took several attempts because his vision flickered with the headache. Nineteen, besides the two of them and Tonsar. He'd only seen six to eight Lornians fall. Maybe a few of the missing armsmen would find their way back to Syskar. Maybe not.

   “We lost eight-maybe as many as twelve,” Nylan said as he returned his concentration to the road ahead, inadvertently massaging his forehead. “How many did they lose?”

   “Forty-twoscore, I'd guess,” Ayrlyn said. “Could be more.”

   “Twoscore,” said Tonsar with a laugh. “Not even ser Fornal has taken that many with all his men.”

   Nylan almost winced. That wouldn't set all that well with the touchy regent, although he was sure Fornal would dismiss the results because they arose from dishonesty and deceit.

   His head ached, and his vision strobed, as if flicked with the reflections from the damned Cyadoran shields, but he managed to keep riding. In most ways, they'd barely started their campaign against the Cyadorans, and he was wondering how much longer he could keep it up.

   “As long as we have to,” said Ayrlyn quietly.

   Nylan still wondered.

IN THE HOT night that baked Syskar, Nylan lay back on the lumpy straw-filled mattress, rubbing his temples, and trying to massage away the headache that still hammered through his skull.

   “Ooooo . . .” Weryl turned on his own small pallet, and Nylan could sense his discomfort with the heat-or was Weryl picking up what they felt?

   “We can't do that again,” Nylan repeated to himself in a low voice. He almost grinned as he looked at Sylenia's empty pallet, but he also hoped that she wouldn't regret giving herself to Tonsar-or get left with a child.

   “You've said that three times,” Ayrlyn whispered. “We did what we could. We lost nine out of thirty-five. We destroyed four, five times that number.”

   “They have a lot more troops. Overall, I figure that we've lost a score and a half in less than four eight-days. The Cyadorans have lost at least score seven, could be score nine, but they started out with something like score twenty, and they can probably get reinforcements more easily.”

   “I wonder. Fornal brought back almost a score of raw trainees for us.”

   “Great. Back to the basic drills.”

   “Tonsar can do some of that.”

   Nylan shrugged, then asked, “Now what? What other trick can we pull out of subspace or the low-tech equivalent?” He shook his head. “Not gunpowder ... we don't have the industry ... or the chemistry to refine the raw materials. At least, I don't.”

   “How about incendiary grenades or something like that?” asked Ayrlyn. “Couldn't we figure a way to lob or fire them into their bases?”

   “That might work, but what burns in this society?” mused Nylan. “Oils, pitch, but I haven't seen any around here . . . grease, tallow, I suppose.”

   “Coal gases?” asked the redhead.

   “How do you get them? If I could figure out a way to heat coal in an airtight oven-that's destructive distillation, but that takes too much technology. I might be able to make the gas, but how could I store it or transport it? That leaves natural stuff-like pitch or asphalt, but you asked Fornal and Huruc about that, didn't you?”

   “There's an asphalt lake somewhere in Cyador, according to rumor, and some in eastern Candar,” Ayrlyn said. “None around here.”

   “That leaves me where I started, with a crude distillery. I asked Sias about what people fermented around here. He stammered for a while, but it's the same as anywhere-stuff with high sugar content-fruits, berries, grapes, and, around here, there's a tuber-they call it fat grass-”

   “Oh... was that what they were digging up?” Ayrlyn made a face. “Tonsar insisted I chew a little of it. It tastes like glue laced with solvents.”

   “You got it-it's more starch than sugar, but there's a lot of it.” Nylan sighed. “Ferment and distill it. Maybe mix a little wax with it... I don't know. And we still have the delivery problem. They used to shoot flaming arrows at things, I read somewhere, but that wouldn't work against someone as disciplined as the Cyadorans. They'd have a fire brigade out before the second arrow hit.”

   “Incendiary grenades,” Ayrlyn repeated, a touch of asperity in her voice. “Alcohol in glass bottles. I could build a catapult.”

   “Could you get it to throw something far enough? I thought catapults were big heavy things that it took teams of horses to drag into place.”

   She smiled. “What about one portable enough to break down and reassemble in moments? We could sneak up at night and drop in a dozen incendiary packages and scoot off.”

   “Ooooo . ..” Weryl turned on his pallet.

   Nylan reached out and patted his back gently, then looked through the darkness at Ayrlyn. “Can you?”

   “I can try.”

   The smith tried to repress a frown.

   “I can,” snapped Ayrlyn.

   “Sorry ... I was thinking about something else. This honor bit. We're better off avoiding combat, stretching them out, destroying equipment and supplies. Half the armsmen-not to mention Fornal-think that's cowardly. So we'll probably have to keep raiding some, and try to avoid big detachments of Cyadorans.” The smith snorted. “Of course, they'll be trying to avoid sending out small groups. Before long, if Fornal's right, about half the holders in Lornth will want to chop us into little pieces for being cowardly.”

   “The faster we start destroying Cyadoran material and supplies, the more time we get.”

   “Oh, because they aren't as likely to come running after us if they're on the defensive?”

   “Right. Also, the locals will understand that we're doing something. ” Ayrlyn was the one who frowned. “What if the Cyadorans start really reinforcing the mines?”

   “That won't happen right away. First, no commander who supposedly has superior forces wants to go running home to Daddy immediately. At least, I've never met one-here or in the U.F.F. And second-”

   “No one who's not there is going to believe him immediately?”

   “Exactly.”

   “But when they do ... what do we do?”

   “We dig up something else cowardly,” Nylan said. “Assuming Fornal doesn't insist on waging war in the traditional-and sure to lose-manner.”

   “Each time we bring in something new, he'll have more difficulty accepting it,” predicted Ayrlyn.

   “You have that right... and how.” Nylan shifted his weight on the lumpy mattress again, rolling into Ayrlyn.

   “Careful there.”

   “Sorry.”

   “Pleasant dreams.”

   In the darkness, the smith shrugged. “I don't know. I keep dreaming about trees.”

   “You, too? Still?”

   “I take it that trees also infest your dreams?”

   “They aren't dreams, exactly,” Ayrlyn said slowly. “They don't feel like dreams. It's more like I'm seeing something in a new way.”

   “A new way? That has to mean something.”

   “It has already,” she pointed out, half-yawning. “It's helped with Nesslek and the healing. Maybe there's something else about the trees that will help.”

   “Trees are going to solve our problem?” The smith shook his head. “Hardly. I just wish I knew what it meant.” He shifted his weight, more gently, and squeezed her shoulder.

   Her lips brushed his neck. “Good night.”

NYLAN PUSHED BACK the floppy hat he'd taken to wearing when working in the sun-except for drilling or riding on patrol with the squads. Already, it was sweat-soaked, and mid-morning had yet to arrive.

   He stirred the mess in the second crock, quickly replacing the earthenware top, and moved to the third crock, where dampness around the base told him that yet another example of his copper work was failing. He forced himself to take a long, slow, deep breath. Why did he always have to learn through his mistakes?

   Because you don't learn any other way, stupid. He took another long breath, trying to relax tight muscles that seemed to grip him from neck to toe.

   Sylenia, holding Weryl's hand, slowly walked with the boy along the line of clay crocks toward the well beyond. The yellow-gray dust puffed around her sandaled feet, and her nose wrinkled as she glanced at Nylan. “It smells terrible. Worse than the beer vats in Niset.” .

   “Smee ... tah ...” Weryl affirmed, abruptly sitting down in the dust.

   “It won't get better soon.” Nylan eased the crock's cover back in place. At least, in the summer heat of southern Lornth, things fermented quickly.

   Sylenia bent and took Weryl's hand, half-urging, half-dragging him to his feet. “Come on. We need to get the water.”

   “Wadah.”

   “Yes, water,” Sylenia agreed.

   Nylan moved to the next crock. He had two bronze-brass distilling containers ready. One needed repairs-a pinhole leak he hadn't seen or sensed-and the second had no cover. He'd put off finishing that until he saw whether he could even form enough of the tubing he needed.

   The hot wind swept across the yellowed ground, picking up and carrying grit that, day after day, ground itself into all of their skins. Nylan blinked away more grit as the gust of wind died.

   Lewa wrinkled his nose as he approached. “You cook up a demon's brew, ser Nylan.”

   “It's just the beginning, Lewa.” Nylan readjusted the soggy hat. “We'll need a lot more crocks. Or brass containers. I'm really just testing the fermentation with these.”

   “Begging your pardon, ser... for what reason do you stew the fat grass?”

   “Let's just say that we're working on another way to get rid of more Cyadorans, a way that doesn't involve killing as many of our people.”

   “Ah . . . hmmmm.”

   Nylan answered the expression, and the question that Lewa had not asked, with a friendly smile. “Don't you think most of the men would rather face fewer of the Cyadorans and have a better chance to prevail?”

   “Ah . . . yes, ser.” Lewa nodded.

   As Lewa left, Nylan could sense the purposeful steps were headed straight for the regent, with yet another tale of the strangeness of the angels. He took a deep breath and turned from the crocks. Before long, Fornal would be at his elbow, but Nylan hated explaining anything to Lewa, because the armsman invariably got the explanation scrambled.

   As he crossed the dusty ground toward the former chicken coop where Sias shoveled more coal into the crude forge, Nylan looked back at the line of crocks that Sylenia and Ayrlyn and a half squad of levies had gathered from around Syskar.

   He still needed to create tops with tubes in them and tubing and collection systems-if he could.

   “The white blades, ser?” asked Sias when he saw the smith nearing.

   “Unless someone's broken a blade. Those come first.”

   “No, ser.”

   Grateful for the shade offered even by the rough and split planks of the former chicken coop roof, Nylan set aside the soggy hat and blotted his forehead. Syskar was so hot that there weren't even any stray chickens--just sand rats and snakes and scattered goats.

   Nylan wondered about the goats. They weren't supposed to be good for dry grasslands, from what he recalled. He studied the anvil for a moment, then eased the broken Cyadoran blade onto the coals. The hardened bronze had proven easier to work than iron, but also easier to damage and rip.

   “A little more with the bellows,” he called to Sias.

   The armsman began to pump as Nylan extended his senses to the heating blade. After a time, the angel smith extracted the blade section and began to hammer the softer metal around the thin iron rod he had forged from leftover scraps of metal gathered from both Jirec and Kula. He continued to extend his order senses to ensure there were no holes in the metal as a short length of tubing began to emerge.

   There was probably a better way to form copper, bronze, whatever the copper alloy was. The problem was that he didn't know what it was. His attempts with molds had been a disaster, and he'd tried cold hammering, and hammering out the metal when it was hot, but not hot enough to be easily malleable-and ended up with an uneven sheet, with things like pinhole leaks.

   He had finished not quite a cubit of bronze tubing when the dark figure of Fornal emerged from the squat dwelling that served as lodging for the command staff-such as it was- and strategy center for the Lornian force.

   “Sias, take a break.”

   “Yes, ser.” Sias glanced toward the oncoming regent and circled away from Fornal in making his way to the well.

   Nylan blotted his forehead and waited.

   “What is that for?” asked Fornal, even before he stopped and looked at the tubing.

   “Tubing for a still.”

   The armsleader and regent waited, as if it were Nylan's patent duty to explain everything.

   “A still. It should turn that glop in a covered copper kettle into something sort of like wine, except we'll start heating it after that and trying to get it pure enough to burn.”

   “Burn?” Fornal's eyebrows lifted. “Why would one burn even bad wine?”

   “Incendiary devices. Do you know if any of our levies know anything about glass-blowing? Ayrlyn's been working on that, but the containers are crude and heavy. It's a good thing we've got most of the materials here ,.. sand, lime ...” Nylan stopped as he caught the glazed look in Fornal's eyes. Too bad everything new gives him that expression.

   “Ser angel . . . would you explain?”

   “Oh ... we're going to make it hot for the Cyadorans. Very hot. Especially at night.”

   “Ser Nylan,” Fornal said slowly, “I am most glad we are not near the old holders of Lornth. Some were not pleased when Sillek attacked the Jeranyi at night, but burning... they would find that.. . less than honorable.”

   “I'm not terribly honorable, Fornal,” Nylan said quietly. “I'm interested in doing what I promised, and that means destroying the Cyadoran troops by whatever means I can with as few casualties as possible for us.”

   “You sound like Lord Sillek.” Fornal's fingers touched his beard.

   Nylan understood. Sillek had lost the conflict with the holders over honor. “I only saw Lord Sillek once, across a battlefield. Perhaps we had some similarities, but I don't know. I think I might have liked him, but that's not something I'm likely to find out.”

   A ghost of a frown crossed Fornal's face, then vanished. “As long as you kill the white demons-that is what we must do to reclaim all of Lornth.”

   “We're working on it.” But not precisely in a way to make you happy. Not in a way to make us happy, either.

   After Fornal had crossed the yard and reentered the dwelling, Nylan lifted the hammer again. Sias resumed pumping the bellows without a word or a question, for which Nylan was glad.

   They managed to extend the tubing to two cubits before the next interruption.

   “Ser?” asked a heavyset armsman whom Nylan did not know. “Ser Ayrlyn asked if you could spare a moment to watch her device.”

   “Tell her I'll be there in a moment.” Nylan continued to hammer the hot copper around the iron rod.

   “Yes, ser.” The armsman left, but Nylan did not look up, concentrating on the metal before him on the anvil.

   When he finished and racked his hammer in the crude holder, he nodded to Sias. “Add some coal, but don't use the bellows, and then take a break. Don't go too far, and watch for me to return.”

   The lanky blond nodded. “Ser.”

   The angel smith turned, grabbed the floppy hat, no longer soggy, not after the time spent in the dry furnace that was Syskar, pulled it on, and walked quickly past the shed barracks.

   In the flat expanse to the north of the corral, well away from where the nearest group of horses-joined on a communal tieline-grazed the sparse and browning grass, Ayrlyn waited beside a spindly contrivance that looked like the wooden framework for a cube with two long poles that joined in a half-basket sticking out behind. In the half-basket rested a roughly cylindrical container that shimmered in the pitiless summer sun.

   “Sorry,” Nylan apologized as he hurried up. “You caught me in the middle of a section of tubing.”

   “I figured that.” Ayrlyn offered a smile. “So I sent off Jinwer before we were quite ready. We just got the stones set on the frame base.”

   “What's in the ... the . . .”

   “Grenade case? Just brackish water. It's heavier than the alcohol would be, but not that much for something this size. Juusa's father was a potter. We gave up on glass-blowing. I think it's probably too thick-walled, but it's easier to let him see that.” The flame-haired angel gave Nylan a twisted smile.

   The smith understood all too well. “Experts” always knew better-even when they weren't the ones who flew the ships or rode the power fluxes-or built the stills and catapults.

   Ayrlyn turned. “Ready?”

   “Yes, ser,” answered the two armsmen by the base of the catapult.

   “Fire it.”

   Sprung! The catapult arm straightened, and the clay container flew perhaps eighty cubits, barely getting as high as Nylan's head. It dropped onto the dusty ground, then bounced along another twenty cubits before coming to rest against a clump of already-browning grass.

   “It's back to the drawing board,” Ayrlyn said dryly.

   Nylan turned. The catapult had flung itself forward.

   “I need a better way to anchor the back legs. We can't carry heavy stones around.”

   “The container didn't break, either, and it has to. Fornal thought I was crazy when I asked about glassblower. Maybe we are.” The smith shrugged.

   So did Ayrlyn.

   Then, they both grinned at each other.