Arms-Commander

XXIX

Saryn rose early on sixday and sought out Llyselle because she wanted a full briefing on what had happened in her absence. The guard captain was leaving the kitchen, where she’d obviously grabbed something to eat before starting her day.

“I thought I’d see you early, ser,” mumbled Llyselle, after swallowing the last of a biscuit.

“It might be a good idea if you briefed me.” Saryn gestured toward the archway that led into the carpentry shop since she could tell that the shop was empty at the moment, although she had the feeling someone had been there not too long before.

Llyselle followed her, and once they were out of easy earshot, stopped and began to report. “The Gallosians have been sending scouts toward the three approaches to Westwind. I won’t say that we’ve gotten all of them, but we’ve added almost another thirty of those crowbar blades to the trading/iron stockpile. I sent Siret and a squad down lower. The Gallosians are gathering wagons and setting up a staging base not that far below the entrance to the north pass. All the refugees have been avoiding the usual passes and coming up over the southern hills, the way that leads from Analeria, even those that aren’t from there…”

Saryn listened for a time before asking, “How long do you think before they’ll set out?”

“They’re planning a major campaign. At least two eightdays, maybe three or four.”

Saryn thought about sending a squad to harass the staging camp with arrows, but that was likely just to waste shafts. Better to save those for when they could make every one count. “How is the training coming for the new guards?”

“Slow. Too many of them are here because they have no place else to go, not because they want to be here.”

“They can’t be encouraged to head to Lornth?”

“They’re mostly Analerians. They think Lornth’s as bad as Gallos.”

Saryn sighed. She should have realized that after what Istril had said the night before. “That’s going to be a problem.”

“We’re overcrowded. Most of them are in the stables for now, and that’s fine for the moment, but when the weather turns in the fall…”

“Can we turn them to doing something on the new barracks and keep?”

“Siret has a bunch of them hauling stones…and there’s one who actually knows something about masonry. But the rest…” Llyselle shook her head. “They’re farmers, and half of what they know won’t work on the Roof of the World.”

Saryn wondered if what Dealdron knew about masonry was enough to be helpful. She’d have to ask him. “They’ll have to learn or freeze.” Then she shook her head. “No one has the time to teach them more than the minimum now, not until we deal with the Gallosians. Have your guards continue to keep a close eye on the Gallosians. For the moment, that’s all we can do. I should know more in a day or so.” Saryn hoped that was so.

“Yes, ser.”

Saryn followed Llyselle’s example of grabbing several biscuits from the kitchen before checking the armory, as well as running a quick inspection of the tower. Before all that long, she was out on the arms field limbering up with all the other guards. After Istril’s comments of the night before, Saryn positioned herself so that she could watch Dealdron. No sooner was she in place than Ryba joined her.

The Marshal said nothing, and Saryn could still watch Dealdron. The young Gallosian now wore a bulky brace and splint on his leg and was able to do a much wider range of exercises. He did each precisely, yet with a certain awkwardness that suggested that they were not yet habit.

The sparring sessions followed, and Saryn squared off against the Marshal. She was on the defensive, possibly because she kept trying to watch Dealdron. She was startled, but not exactly surprised to find that the trio of silver-haired girls had taken on the duty of instructing Dealdron. As she continued to catch glimpses, one after another of the three worked with Dealdron, and not a one showed him favors or mercy. If anything, they pressed him more than would have been usual for an inexperienced guard. The only mercy they showed was not striking his injured leg.

At the end of the sparring, Ryba inclined her head to Saryn. “You could concentrate more, Saryn.”

“I have a few things on my mind.”

“The trio can take care of themselves. I’ll see you this afternoon.” With that, Ryba turned and strode uphill toward the stables.

Once the rest of the guards broke from their sparring sessions and split up for their daily duties, Saryn motioned to Istril and Siret. Under a sky that held scattered clouds, the three gathered at the west end of the causeway, where it joined the road to the smithy and the stables.

“Now…” began Saryn, looking at Istril, “last night you said you had something to say about Dealdron, except that it wasn’t that he was a problem. Just how is he doing?”

“You saw him during the exercises and the sessions…” began Siret.

“Did you see him working with the trio this morning?” asked Istril.

“I saw them working him over pretty unmercifully. If they’ve been doing that very long, he’s got to have bruises over most of his body.”

“He asked for someone to press him as hard as possible. We thought they’d be ideal, because, even with the leg, he’s strong, and they need to learn to deal with strength and discover that technique has its limits. He needs to learn technique, and besides…” Istril broke off.

“No one else besides you two and Llyselle will press them?” asked Saryn.

“They are looked on as the heirs to the Marshal.”

“Only one is,” Saryn pointed out.

“She doesn’t treat them that way,” replied Siret. “It’s as if they’re all hers, at least when it suits her.”

“They are sisters, and it would be worse if she openly favored any one of them,” Saryn pointed out. “What else can she do? It seems to me that she and you are all doing the best you can.” She paused. “But what does this have to do with Dealdron?”

“He’s still looking for your approval,” Istril said.

“I haven’t even been here.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

Saryn would just have to deal with it. “I’m going to talk to Dealdron. I’ll also see what he knows about stonework. If he knows something, can you use his help?” Saryn looked to Siret.

“We can use any help we can get. While the weather’s good, he’ll be more use there than in the carpentry shop. We need to finish the walls on the new barracks.”

“If he could be a help, when should he start…I mean, with his leg?”

“I’d give him another eightday at carpentry,” suggested Istril. “That way, he’ll be stronger, and he can finish those foot chests that Vierna never had time to do.”

“Why not?”

“Because things like bunks and replacement shutters and trying to teach new guards some basics so that she doesn’t have to do everything take up most of her time.”

Saryn nodded tiredly. It’s always been like that. For ten years, never enough of anything.

“You’re right,” said Siret, looking from Saryn to Istril. “There’s something there…”

“Something what?” asked Saryn.

“About you, ser.”

“Could you two just say what you mean?”

“We can’t, ser,” replied Istril. “Not the way you mean.”

“Tell me what you can, then.”

The two exchanged glances. Finally, Istril said, “We see or feel, but it’s like half feeling, half seeing mixed together, a blackness or a reddish white when people like the engineer-”

“I know that. The blackness is more like order, and you can move things and build and heal with it, and the reddish white is chaos, and it tears things apart. Those mages that were with Lord Sillek used the whitish red chaos to throw their thunderbolts or what ever they were.”

“You, ser…you sort of had them all mixed together, except now there’s more of both the black and the white, and they’re all separate.”

“Why would that be?” asked Saryn. “I haven’t done that much that’s different. Maybe not anything.”

“With us,” added Siret, “it was healing. The more we did, the blacker things got. Have you tried anything like that?”

“Just once…just a little bit.”

“That could do it.”

“Just once?”

“Sometimes, it only takes once,” Istril said dryly.

Saryn found herself both flushing and trying to stop the urge to laugh. “You two can be impossible.”

“Yes, ser,” agreed Istril. “You will talk to Dealdron?”

“Later. Is there anything else I should know?”

“No, ser. Not right now.”

“Good.” Saryn turned and began to walk up the road toward the smithy, thinking over what the two healers had said. Why would her trying to heal Jennyleu incline her more toward separating order and chaos? Would that hurt her ability in battle? How much?

Huldran was checking the forge fire when Saryn entered the smithy, but immediately turned and walked to meet the arms-commander. “Ser?”

“How are the bows coming?”

“Good as we can do, ser,” replied Huldran. “We’ll have near-on thirty frames laid down by the middle of summer. That’s all we’ve got enough horn and glue for right now.”

“Arrowheads?”

“Daryn and Ydrall have been working on them steadily…”

Saryn listened as Huldran provided a rundown on everything in the smithy.

“…and the Marshal ordered seven of these, ser.” Huldran pointed to a series of objects on the workbench against the smithy wall. Each resembled a funnel a half yard across at the larger end, but the end of the funnel was capped with a heavy wedge. Beside each was a circular iron plate, designed to plug the larger end. “She didn’t say why, but she gave me a drawing with the specs.”

Saryn nodded. The design suggested clearly what Ryba had in mind for the Gallosians. “They’re designed to…” She paused. “They’ll have a special use against the Gallosians.”

“Be helpful to know what that is,” replied Huldran.

“They’re designed to focus a blast,” Saryn hedged. “Where, I don’t know.”

“Fill them with old-time powder?”

“Something like that, but I’d have to ask her.”

“Wicked-looking devices.”

With that and suspecting their use, if not in exact detail, Saryn could agree.

From the smithy, Saryn walked up the road to the stables, where she found Duessya instructing a group of young guards on which stalls to clean. She stayed in the shadows until the head ostler finished, and the guards fanned out to their assigned chores.

“Commander. The mounts you brought back were fine, and the spares you picked up along the way are all in good shape. A couple of really good mares, and the one stallion has promise. The drays…though…they’re a sorry bunch. Old and overworked.”

“Can you get them in better shape?”

“One for sure. Another one…maybe. The third…” Duessya shook her head.

“Do what you can.” Saryn sensed no one near. “Do you know where the Marshal went?”

“I’d not be the one to ask her, ser, but she was headed toward the ice fields to the northwest. She’s ridden there several times this season.”

Ice fields? Why does she need to go there? “I wonder why.”

“She brings back ice, but I’d guess that’s not why she goes. She doesn’t say, and she always goes alone.”

“Is there anything else I should know?”

“Well…ser…not about the horses…”

“Is that a polite way of suggesting that we’ll lose horses to the weather, come fall, if you don’t get the stable space back from all the newcomers?”

“Winters are real chill up here, ser.”

“I know. The Marshal and I are working on it.”

“Thank you, ser.”

After she left the stables and headed back down to Tower Black, Saryn couldn’t help but wonder how long they could juggle the problems of too many people and too little space, not to mention those of food and fodder for the next winter. And those problems didn’t even include the difficulties with Lornth, Suthya, and Gallos. Once she reached Tower Black, she hurried down to the carpentry shop.

There, Dealdron was working on planing sections for foot chests for the newer guards. At the other end of the shop, Vierna was instructing two new guards on what looked to be the proper way to sharpen a saw. Dealdron stopped and set the plane on the workbench. “Commander, ser.” He looked Saryn directly in the eyes.

Since she’d been gone, he’d had his hair trimmed short and shaved off the short beard. Without it, he looked older, surprisingly, and passingly good-looking. She pushed that thought away, even as she sensed that the directness of his gaze was anything but a challenge. She realized that he was making a determined effort only to look into her eyes. “You seem to be doing better with the exercises and the sparring.”

“I could not have done worse than when I started.” A faint smile followed his words. “I wake up sore every morning from the bruises that the girls have given me the day before.”

“How did you end up sparring with them?”

Dealdron shrugged apologetically. “There was no one else. The older guards are beyond me. The newer guards are not so strong as me and could not teach me what I need to know.”

“What do you need to know?” pressed Saryn.

“Enough to defend myself when attacked. More would be better.”

“You think we will be attacked here?”

“You will be attacked. That is certain. I thought Lord Arthanos would have no trouble reaching Westwind. Now…I am less sure.”

“Why?”

“Your Marshal, she is…” Dealdron paused. “She is the spirit of the mountains. There is no other way to say it. She is like the winter storms. No one ever defeats winter.”

Saryn hadn’t thought of Ryba that way, but the image fit. She didn’t see how Dealdron could have formed such an impression, so seldom did the young man even see Ryba, except from a distance. “How did you decide that?”

“I can see what I see, Commander.”

That was all he was going to say, Saryn realized. “Where are you sleeping now?”

“I have a corner here in the shop. That seemed better.”

“It probably is.” After the briefest pause, she asked, “Dealdron…what do you know about masonry…stonework?”

“A little, ser. Sometimes, my da…my father, he had to redo some of the stonework when he was replastering older places. He spent a little time as a stonemason’s apprentice. He didn’t like it. So he became a plasterer’s apprentice. He taught me some stoneworking because my brother had trouble handling the heavier stones. Getting the stones cut right is hard, and when they’re not finished proper-like, over time they can settle and crack any plaster laid over them…”

As she listened, it appeared to Saryn that plastering in Candar included what she would have called outside stucco as well as interior wall finishing. “It sounds like you know more than a little about stonework.”

“I know some things.”

“In another eightday, or so, once you finish more of the foot chests, and your leg is stronger, you’ll start working with Siret on stonecutting.”

Dealdron frowned, and Saryn could sense his concern.

“No…you haven’t done anything wrong,” she replied to his unspoken question. “We need to finish at least part of the barracks before winter. If we don’t, we’ll lose horses to the cold because we’re using parts of the stables to shelter refugees-”

“Refugees?”

Saryn realized that the Rationalist word for “refugee” wasn’t in the local vocabulary. “The women and children who fled Analeria because Arthanos tried to kill them.”

“What is the word the angels use?”

Saryn told him the word in Temple, then asked, “Are you trying to learn Temple?”

“As I can, Angel,” he replied in Temple.

“Keep at it. Istril or Siret will tell you when you’re to start at stonecutting.”

“Yes, ser. What ever you think best, ser.”

As she turned and headed out through the archway from the carpentry shop, Saryn was struck by what lay behind his words-or what did not. There was no feeling of resentment or anger, just a calm acceptance of her decision. She also realized how wasteful traditional low-tech cultures could be. Dealdron was intelligent and talented-and he’d accomplish far more in Westwind than he ever would have been allowed to do in Gallos…even with Ryba’s concerns.

And Istril was right. For all his background, Dealdron was a good man.