Scion of Cyador (24 page)

The scrub oaks are thinning, and the road is in sight-no more than half a kay away across the browning grass-but not the raiders. Despite a trip that has seemed interminably long to Lorn, Fifth Company appears to have reached the end of the valley before the raiders.

Lorn holds up his arm and reins up where they remain slightly higher than the narrow trail that is perhaps a half a kay downhill. The lancers are shielded by the scrub oaks, so much so that only the portion of the road leading south and to Lorn’s left is visible. Slowly, the lancers halt.

The sub-majer turns to Quytyl. “Have them re-form two-abreast. We’ll wait until the barbarians have ridden just past us.” He pauses, then adds, “And tell the men to be quiet.”

Quytyl eases his mount back and offers orders in a low voice. Shortly, he returns, reining up beside Lorn. Slowly, the murmurs die away, and the only sounds are those of the breeze ruffling drying leaves on the oaks and whispering through the knee-high grass around the low trees. An occasional whuffing comes from one mount or another.

The breeze picks up, and then dies away, and still the lancers wait.

Then there is the faintest of sounds, and Lorn watches as two scouts- or what pass for such-ride past the scrub oaks, continuing southwest without looking back, and starting up the slope toward the low pass beyond which are stationed Emsahl and his Third Company.

The lancers wait once more, until the muffled sound of hoofs and voices rises over the sounds of the light wind, and the few insect and bird calls.

As Lorn’s scout had said, the barbarians ride two-abreast, and their voices are loud in the midday air.

Quytyl touches Lorn’s arm.

Lorn shakes his head and murmurs, “Not quite yet.” He wants the barbarians far enough ahead so that his lancers can rake the column with firelances, but not so far that they run the risk of being cut off. Then he raises his arm, and drops it, hissing, “Now!”

As he has instructed, and not totally expected, the lancers begin to ride past the scrub oaks, and down the slope, picking up speed. He hears a horse scream, and fears he has already lost a man, but even so, the barbarians do not turn, not until Lorn is within two hundred cubits, and the surprise stretched across their bearded faces holds for yet another fifty cubits.

Lorn aims the firelance, not with sight, but with chaos.

Hssst.‘ Hst! Hsst! Two of the three bursts strike raiders, and one rumbles from his saddle immediately.

Lorn tries again. Hsst! Hst!

Because he has to turn the gelding to stay on the road, and to avoid the rougher ground on the far side, he is not certain about the results, as his mount carries him past the head of the column. Behind him, he can hear other firelance bursts, and he risks a quick glance over his shoulder once he has the gelding running on the road.

So far as he can see, most all his men are still riding, and the barbarians are riding after them, if not so quickly as Lorn would like.

“Keep them moving!” he snaps at Quytyl.

“Keep moving!”

With the dust rising everywhere and the hissing snaps of firelances dying away, Lorn has no idea how successful his hit-and-run attack has been, beyond the three or four raiders he knows he personally wounded or killed. He glances back over his shoulder once more, then slows the gelding as it is clear, despite the settling dust, that there is a growing separation between the barbarians and the lancers.

Rather than stop just beyond the rise in the road, as he had planned, Lorn does not rein up until he is several hundred cubits beyond, nearly a third of a kay.

“Re-form on me! Re-form-five-abreast.”

“Re-form on the majer!” Quytyl’s voice joins Lorn’s.

With the jostling and confusion, Lorn fears that the five-abreast rank will not be in place when the barbarians arrive. Again, Lorn’s worries are unfounded, for the lancers are formed, and even the mounts’ breathing has settled down before he sees even the dust on the road from the approaching riders.

The barbarians do reach the crest of the hill.

“Discharge at will!” commands Emsahl, his voice drifting to Lorn on the light breeze. “Discharge at will.”

Firelance bolts hsst from the right, down into the blade-wielding warriors, but the raiders have re-formed into a wall across and beside the road more like eight-abreast-and that will clearly reduce the impact of the Third Company’s firelance crossfire.

“Charge!” Lorn raises his firelance, then lowers it, urging the big white gelding forward. He forces himself to wait on discharging his own firelance until he is within fifty cubits of the raiders, some of whom have turned eastward and are starting to charge uphill.

Hsst.‘ Hssst.’

Then Lorn is far too close to use the lance, and he struggles with the sabre even as he uses the lance more like a shield-a most unwieldy one.

In time, he finds that he has surged through the barbarians, somehow, and he wheels the gelding, then stops. Several raiders, their backs to him, are surging toward a lone lancer, whose lance has been wrenched free.

Lorn lifts his own firelance. Hsst! Hsst! Hsst!

Barely has he released the third bolt when a pair of raiders with their barlike blades are riding down on him.

Hhstt! Without thinking, Lorn throws a Magi’i firebolt at the first, and swings up his Brystan sabre to parry/slide the big blade of the other away.

Dust, blades on blades, and scattered firelance bolts fill the afternoon, and Lorn circles the field, picking off raider after raider, trying to avoid getting involved in direct group melees.

At some point, there are no more raiders-except for a score or more who have scattered and ride downhill and northward, back toward Jerans.

Lorn sits on the gelding. He has been cut somewhere on his scalp- blood runs down his cheek. His arms ache, and there is blood splattered everywhere on his uniform. He looks dumbly around.

“Fifth Company, first squad! Re-form on me!” Yusaet’s voice rings through the slowly settling dust, as, following his example, do the voices of other squad leaders.

Lorn’s head throbs, and the knives that have become too familiar stab through his eyes, so that they water and burn. He stiffens in the saddle as he makes out the blurry figure of a bearded officer riding slowly toward him.

“You all right, Majer?” asks Emsahl.

“Right as anyone after… something like this.”

Another officer rides slowly toward them. Quytyl has his left arm strapped to him, and his face is white.

“How are you?” Lorn asks.

“Arm’s broken… I’d guess. Fine… other than that.” The undercaptain forces a smile. “Bastard broke my lance and arm. He forgot I had a sabre.”

“How did we do?” Lorn asks Emsahl.

“We didn’t lose many-maybe not even a halfscore. Fifth Company lost more.”

Lorn looks to Quytyl. “Three-quarter score, last count, ser. Another halfscore wounded, but most’ll ride again.”

“Need to see to things.” Emsahl nods to Lorn and turns his mount.

So does Quytyl.

Lorn rides slowly to the crest of the hill, looking northward, but the barbarians are halfway through the valley, well past the scrub oaks from which Lorn had attacked.

By late afternoon, the column rides slowly southeast, back toward Inividra. Lorn hears a few voices, but they pass over and around him.

“…mean bastard… the majer… saw him kill halfscore anyway- behind, front…”

“…didn’t even stop when they came different…”

“…never seen an officer… killer like that…”

Lorn holds in a sigh. The killer, the butcher… is that all he is good for?

“Ser?” asks Emsahl, riding to his left.

“Yes.” Lorn’s voice is hoarse and tired.

“They didn’t come like you thought.”

“No. Things never work quite the way you think. Someone has been thinking about firelances,” Lorn admits. “That’s why we had to come back and charge. I’d thought we could hold a line, but it wouldn’t have worked.”

“You did it so fast.”

“We had to,” Lorn points out.

“Most wouldn’t have acted so quick.” Emsahl pauses. “That why the commander wants you on the patrols?”

“It’s one reason, I’d like to think, but he didn’t tell me.”

“We killed almost eightscore, ser, and I had the company gather the blades they could. Some Brystan sabres there, and a bunch of the big ones from Hamor, like you said.”

“I was afraid of that,” Lorn replies.

“Put them on the captured mounts,” Emsahl continues. “We got another twoscore of those.” He laughs. “Peasants are going to find some plow and cart horses.”

“They’ll never know how costly those beasts are. They probably won’t care, either.” Lorn laughs, once.

Emsahl is silent as they ride southward, back toward Inividra.

Lorn still wonders. A score of the barbarians did escape, despite his efforts, and his forces still lost almost a score themselves-one a casualty of a rodent hole on the first charge from behind the scrub oaks. His comparative success may mean larger and larger forces on both sides. The glass will tell-the glass he cannot reveal-but he can only hope that it will take time before the barbarians react that way.

He will also need to figure a counter to their new use of the broad front-one that will cost him even fewer lancers.

The weary sub-majer takes a deep breath.

XLIX

Lorn sits at the head of the single table in the officers’ dining area. Emsahl is on his right, Cheryk on his left, then Esfayl beside Emsahl, and the two undercaptains at the end across from each other. Quytyl’s arm remains in a splint, but he can move his hand, if gingerly.

The sub-majer looks at the large casserole dish, from which emanates the odor of very strong and very heavily seasoned mutton emburhka. He raises his eyebrows and takes a ladleful, easing it onto the battered brown platter before him, then leaves the ladle in the dish for Emsahl, and breaks off a large chunk of warm and crusty bread.

A cold rain outside pelts on the tile roof, and a thin line of water wends its way down one wall near the corner of the room.

Lorn waits for Quytyl to serve himself before starting to eat.

The six officers eat silently for several moments.

“Ser?” asks Cheryk. “Do you have any idea what the patrol schedule will be like next eightday?”

“Not for sure. I’ll have it ready in the next day or so. I was hoping for some dispatches on what’s happened at Pemedra and the other outposts.” Lorn smiles wryly. “If there’s a large raider group there, we’re less likely to get one. They all fit together.”

“Ser… it seems strange, but we haven’t missed a single raider party,” Esfayl says between bites. “Last eightday, we didn’t get to that valley until they were already there… but they didn’t get away, either. And we’re not riding as many patrols.”

Emsahl and Cheryk both nod their agreement.

“I think that’s because the raiders have more weapons, and they’re riding in bigger groups. They have to raid larger hamlets, or there’s not enough loot for them. That makes it easier to figure where they’ll go.” Lorn laughs. “If they go back to smaller groups, then I’m not sure how we’ll do.”

“They’ll have to, won’t they?” asks the curly-haired junior captain. “When we can use two companies, they lose a lot more.”

“I’d think so,” Lorn says, “but I’m not going to tell them that. This way is easier on us.”

“I heard that we might get another company,” ventures Cheryk.

Lorn nods and swallows the tough mutton in the emburhka. “That’s very likely. The Magi’i have some project with the
Accursed
Forest
, and they say that, if it works, they won’t need as many Mirror Lancers.” He frowns. “But we’ll need them, especially if they keep cutting back on firelance recharges.” His eyes go to Emsahl. “How is the training on shorter bursts with the lances going?”

“They’re getting it.” Emsahl offers a slow, sardonic smile. “Some of them finally figured out that if they have more chaos charges left, they don’t have to spend as much time using a sabre against one of those iron bars.”

“Even when they don’t hit square, those big blades hurt,” affirms Quytyl, glancing down at his arm.

“You can’t block them. You have to parry or slide,” points out Esfayl. “The newer blades the raiders are carrying hold an edge longer, too.”

“Why can’t the fireships do something about those traders, ser?” asks Rhalyt. “It doesn’t seem right that we let them sail right past our ports and ship those blades to the Jeranyi.”

“The fireships don’t know which ships are carrying blades, and they can’t stop all the traders,” Lorn says. “So long as the Jeranyi will pay golds for blades, and there’s a place to land them, some trader from somewhere is going to do it. We don’t have enough fireships to cover our own ports, let alone the Eastern and Western Oceans.”

“Still seems wrong…”

Lorn nods, and lets the other officers carry the conversation.

After the meal, Lorn walks back through the rain that is beginning to dwindle into splatters on the stone pavement, and then slowly up the narrow steps from the corridor behind the first level study.

He has been at Inividra five eightdays, and he has made patrols with all the companies. One of the patrols was without incident; the other five encountered barbarians, although one raider group was less than a score-perhaps scouring-and turned back north well before Lorn’s forces could pursue.

Once he is in his small quarters’ study, Lorn extracts the screeing glass, knowing that trying to use it in the rain will tire him more and leave him with a headache, but he wishes to see another scene, one not of valleys, and roads, and rivers, and barbarians, but one of more immediate need.

Looking at the glass, Lorn concentrates, ignoring the immediate headache as the silver mists form and then swirl aside.

Ryalth is propped in a large and ornate bed, an infant at her breast. She glances around, then her eyes narrow. Abruptly, she smiles and briefly lifts the fingers of her left hand to her lips.

Lorn smiles, then, after another long look, releases the image. He frowns, for although Ryalth looks healthy, Lorn recognizes neither the bed nor the room, and yet she has not written him about moving quarters. Then, perhaps because she senses when he can see her and knows that others may well read what she writes, she may have chosen not to convey such information.