Cyador’s Heirs (73 page)

“Then that is settled,” says Ruethana, nodding to Donnael.

“Lord Lerial,” offers Donnael, “I will be frank. We appreciated the gesture of your sire in sending his youngest son. We thought that his dispatching you was merely a commitment to good faith. We did not anticipate that you would actually command a company in battle. Nor did we think that the Duke would have sent someone so young…”

Barely more than a boy,
is what Donnael means, Lerial suspects.

“… who turned out to be so powerful.” Donnael coughs several times, then wheezes.

Lerial cannot help but sense the faint red of sickness chaos in Donnael’s chest, but manages a polite smile, rather than the concerned frown that is more like what he feels.

“… we would like to convey our appreciation, both personally and as representatives of the High Council, for your efforts, one of which brought you as close to death as is possible without dying…”

Even with the chaos radiating from Khalya, Lerial can sense some disruption of the flow.
Surprise? Consternation? Anger?
He cannot tell, only that something affected her.

“… likewise, Majer Altyrn, without your expertise, experience, and capabilities in training and employing the Verdyn Lancers, all would have been lost from the beginning. For those reasons, we would like to present you each with a small token of appreciation.” Donnael nods to Klerryt.

Klerryt swallows before he speaks. “The past few eightdays have been difficult … for me. You all know why. I asked to go to Escadya. It was not only to relieve Donnael. It was to find an answer. I did not find the answer I sought, but another. That is why I have asked Donnael to allow me to present these to you.” Klerryt leans forward and hands Altyrn two objects wrapped in soft brown cloth. “The top one is yours, Majer.”

Altyrn takes the top bundle and hands the other to Lerial.

Lerial discovers that the soft cloth is a winter scarf, but it is wrapped around something else—a belt knife in a tooled leather scabbard. The tooling on the front of the scabbard displays an ornate “L” flanked on each side by a cloud, with three stars in an arc above the “L.” The hilt is of black lorken, textured with a diamond pattern. He eases the knife from the scabbard, and he can feel the order within the iron. The blade is simple, with a full lower cutting edge, and a double-edged point. The knife itself is older than the scabbard, but certainly not ancient. He looks up. “Thank you. It’s beautiful and most effective, I suspect. I hope I will do justice to it and to whoever last carried it.”

Klerryt nods. “You already have.”

There is little Lerial can say to that except nod.

“We will not keep you,” Ruethana says, not quite curtly. “We know Lord Lerial has to prepare for a long ride back to Cigoerne.” She rises, as do the other elders, although Donnael is slightly slower.

“Thank you,” offers Altyrn as he stands.

After rising, Lerial walks over to Donnael, where he sets the envelope holding the agreement on the table, along with the scarf and knife, then takes Donnael’s hand with his own, placing his other hand on the older man’s forearm and letting a flow of order go from him to Donnael, directing some of it into the other’s chest and lungs. “I do appreciate your understanding, Elder Donnael. I will take the agreement you are requesting and present it to my father with my support for what it contains.”

Donnael looks surprised, and murmurs, “You do not have to do that.”

Lerial knows he is not referring to the agreement on the table. “I do, as my father’s son, for good and trustworthy allies are not often found.” He releases the elder’s hand and arm, then retrieves the knife, scarf, and envelope, steps back and smiles.

Klerryt escorts the two out of the council building, then stops at the bottom of the low black stone steps and turns to Lerial. “You healed him, didn’t you?”

“I hope so. I tried.”

The elder smiles. “You did enough that he will recover.”

This time.
“Thank you for presenting the knife to me. I appreciate that … after…”

“She would have wanted me to.”

Lerial nods. He understands that, recalling again what Alaynara had said to him. He reaches out and grasps Klerryt’s hand for a moment. “Take care.”

“You as well, Lord Lerial.”

“As I can.” Lerial offers a last smile, then turns and walks to where one of the Lancers holds the gelding’s reins. Before mounting he slips the knife, scarf, and agreement into the top of his saddlebags.

They have ridden for several hundred yards before Altyrn speaks. “You know, don’t you, that you’re committed to support them?”

“By accepting the knife and scarf?” Lerial shakes his head. “I was committed before that.”

“After the stream battle?”

Lerial nods.

“Loyalties outside family are dangerous,” Altyrn says quietly.

“Having none is even more dangerous, I think.”

Abruptly, the majer laughs. “Let’s get back to the hostel and make certain everything’s ready for you to leave in the morning.”

To Cigoerne

LXXXI

Six days later, Lerial glances up at the sky and then back at the two packhorses and the last of the Verdyn Lancers in his comparatively small party—just nine Lancers, Bhurl, and himself—the smallest group of Lancers he has led in more than a season. There are no clouds, but a faint haze imparts a silvery sheen to the green-blue sky, and the air is warm for a spring day. But then, Lerial realizes, while he has been thinking of the season as spring, two days earlier, spring had given way to summer.

Now, kays east of the Verd, he cannot help but keep going over the thoughts that circle in his mind.
What did all of this accomplish? Casseon never really held the Verd, and he still doesn’t. He lost more than four thousand men and something like six white wizards trying to get something he never really held. The people of the Verd lost thousands, young and old alike, and one of their most talented elders, and it will be years before Verdheln recovers … and it’s likely never to be the way it was.

How did it all come about? We were supposed to train Lancers.
Lerial shakes his head. Somehow, after training the Verdyn Lancers, he and Altyrn and the squad leaders and rankers ended up leading them.
It seemed so logical.

His fingers drop to the hilt of the knife from the elders, and, again, he can feel that there is something slightly different about the order contained in the blade and tang, although he cannot explain what that might be, but it is somehow almost reassuring, like the lodestone from Rojana that has provided him with so much understanding and inspiration.

In time, he thinks about Alaynara … and then Essiana, not that he knew the elder at all, except through one brief meeting, and about her successor … and the fact that, for all that Khalya radiates chaos, that chaos is not a part of her, and yet he could detect no pattern, no mechanism that attracted or diverted chaos … as if that ability were indeed a part of her.

His mouth opens, and he shakes his head.

“Ser?” asks Bhurl.

“Nothing. I just realized something.”
That is why you can’t create defenses that are always there. They’re not a part of you … and they have to be.

He is still thinking about that when Bhurl gestures and says, “Believe that’s Tirminya over that rise ahead.”

Lerial knows they have made better time on the return, largely because they have not had to worry about wagons, just the supplies on the two packhorses, but he still wonders if they are really that close to the post, although they have passed groupings of growers’ steads over the past day, and he does not recall that many steads that close together, except near Tirminya.

He extends his order-senses … and discovers that Bhurl is indeed right. The post lies less than two kays ahead over the low rise ahead and to the south of the dirt road that they have followed for days, seeing only occasional herds of sheep and one small herd of cattle. “You’re right. There’s no one on the road over the crest, either.”

“You could worry a man, ser, seeing where eyes aren’t.”

Lerial grins. “As I recall, that came in useful more than once.”

“Still worrisome.” But Bhurl grins in return.

What’s worrisome to Lerial is that, for all his quiet attempts over the journey, he is not that much closer to having figured out how to create continuous shields, or what he thinks of as permanent defenses. He has been able to create what amounts to a continuing “chaos-diversion” shield, in a way, by linking the pattern to his sabre or his belt knife, but if he doesn’t renew the pattern every few glasses, and sometimes more often, it slowly disintegrates. On the one hand, he worries that he is overlooking something simple that he should know … and on the other he wonders if making such shields a part of himself are just beyond his abilities.

The post gate guards scarcely blink when Lerial, Bhurl, and the assorted Lancers ride up to and through the gates. Lerial has barely reined up outside the stables when Seivyr, wearing captain’s insignia on his collars, hurries up.

“Welcome back, ser.”

“Thank you. It’s been a long ride. I see you’re a captain,” observes Lerial before dismounting. He really wants to stretch his legs.

“Better late than never.” Seivyr’s smile vanishes. “Before I forget, I wanted to tell the majer that I did appreciate the caution about the post gates. You’ll let him know, won’t you, if you see him before I do?”

Lerial nods. “Of course.”

“He was right about that for sure. After I took over as acting post commander, I watched especially close. Sure enough, one night, I found a ranker slipping the bar. We tied him up and waited. A squad of Afritan armsmen was sneaking around, and they tried the gates. We killed about half of them. The others got away. I gave the men some of their arrows as souvenirs.” Seivyr looks blandly at Lerial, almost as if he knows something. “They weren’t even broken.”

At that moment, Lerial recalls that Altyrn had never mentioned the assassin who had tried to kill the majer the first time they had passed through Tirminya, except as an idiot with a bow. That is, he’d never mentioned it to Dechund, but Seivyr’s words suggest that the majer had told the then undercaptain. “Do Afritan arrows have something that identifies them?” Lerial asks guilelessly. “As Afritan, I mean?”

“There’s a mark on the arrowhead,” replies Seivyr, “and a red band painted around the shaft above the fletching.”

“I wonder if Captain Dechund knew that,” muses Lerial.

Seivyr shakes his head. “He never mentioned anything about it.” After a slight hesitation, he adds, “Whalyn didn’t know, either, not until after the raid.”

There is something … but Lerial needs to think about it, especially before saying anything, and he asks, “Is Whalyn the only undercaptain here now?”

“He’ll be going soon as we get two fresh undercaptains. Be a captain before the turn of harvest, I’d wager. Stands a bit higher in Majer Phortyn’s eyes than some.”

“That can happen.”

“We can talk about it over supper. Whalyn and his two squads won’t be back till late. You and the majer ever get into it with the Meroweyans?”

“That will take dinner and more to tell,” replies Lerial with a laugh.

“Then I won’t keep you.” With a smile, Seivyr turns and leaves Lerial and Bhurl to deal with the Lancers and the packhorses.

A good glass later, Lerial and Seivyr are seated in the post’s small officers’ mess.

“I’m afraid that supper is plain mutton,” says Seivyr apologetically.

Lerial looks at the platter before him—just cheesed and sliced potatoes and mutton with gravy, with pickled beets—and he smiles broadly. “After ghano-acorn hash and a few other Verdyn staples, this looks wonderful.” He stabs a slice of the mutton and cuts it. “You just don’t know…”

“The way you’re eating, I don’t know as I’d want to,” returns the captain.

Even the lager, which Lerial once would have called bitter, but passable, tastes so much better than the watered greenberry with which Lerial has had to content himself for so many days. Finally, after enjoying the plain food, he looks up, almost embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I should tell you about Verdheln.”

“It’s clear that the fare wasn’t to remember.” Seivyr laughs. “The majer said something about that once. How is he?”

“He’s well. He’s training more companies of Verdyn Lancers. We had six companies partly trained when the Meroweyans attacked. The majer taught us to use their skills with bows to whittle away their numbers. We lost every skirmish and every battle until the last two, and when it was all over, there were only a hundred or so of their wounded left.”

“Begging your pardon, ser, but I think you left a bit of that tale on the table.”

“I suppose I did.” Lerial takes another swallow of the lager, then clears his throat. “Well … first he sent out Juist and his company to shoot arrows into their column, the one riding toward Verdheln, from the west. Then he sent me and second company to attack from the east. When they finally got to the ridge just south of the Verd they set up a long line. We did several night attacks with fire arrows and whittled away some more of their forces. Then they moved up and started attacking the Verd with their chaos wizards. We’d slip out from other places and attack companies on the fringe. That went on for an eightday or so before they burned through the tree-wall and started marching up the main road toward Verdell…” Lerial continues in a similar vein for a time. “… and then the elders set a fire that trapped the western army between a river and the fire, and that burned up the town, the Meroweyans, and the chaos wizards with them. That left the bigger army, except it wasn’t so big by then—”

“You never did say how many men Casseon sent.”

“The majer thought it was eight battalions, around forty companies.”

“And he managed to defeat them with six green companies?”

“That was with the help of the Verdyn elders, the people, and the ordermages that were in the Verd. One of the elders—the one who called the fire at Faerwest—was killed by bringing up that much chaos.”