Arms-Commander

XLIV

Two glasses after sunrise on sixday, Saryn’s detachment was headed due west, ten kays out of Henspa, under a high haze that turned the morning sky a silvery greenish blue. Early in the morning as it was, the day promised to be the hottest that Saryn had yet experienced in Candar…or anywhere else, for that matter, and it wasn’t even near the height of summer. She hadn’t even bothered with her riding jacket and certainly wasn’t looking forward to the heat of the days to come, not at all.

Inside her tunic was a letter introducing Saryn to Jennyleu’s niece Haelora, which Essin had handed her just before she had mounted to leave the inn. That introduction Saryn intended to pursue. An innkeeper in Lornth had to know things that the regents would not, and even from what little Saryn had heard about the land of Lornth, it was clear she’d need every bit of information she could find or dig up.

She shifted her weight in the saddle and looked along the road before the column of guards, riding two abreast. The lands to the west of Henspa-and the river-consisted of low, rolling hills that looked to get flatter the farther they were from the river. While some of the land was pasture, and there were a few orchards and woodlots, most was cultivated. For what ever reason, the road on the west of the river did not follow the watercourse at all but headed away from it for almost fifteen kays, then turned north at the town of Ornath and continued onward for another twenty kays before rejoining the river some fifteen kays to the northwest of Duevek.

Saryn squinted to make out what was causing the dust in the road a good two kays west of the outriders. As she watched, she could see, headed toward the Westwind riders, a large high-sided and roofed wagon, the kind merchants and traders often used, its wheels churning up dust. Less than half a kay from the outriders, the driver turned his team and wagon onto a side road southward and whipped the pair of drays into something like a fast trot.

“Poor fool,” observed Hryessa from where she rode beside Saryn. “He’s only hurting his drays. If we wanted to catch him, there’d be nothing he could do.”

“Are we that fearsome? Forty-odd women, two wagons, and ten spare mounts?”

“Forty-odd armed women, ser, from a place that has slaughtered thousands of their men.”

“We may have to trade on that fear,” prophesied Saryn.

“What does the Lady Zeldyan want from us? Beyond your counsel?” An amused and knowing smile crossed the captain’s lips.

“You know as well as I. She wants us to preserve Lornth for her son to rule, though she has not said that in so many words.” In any words, in fact, but what else could she desire?

Hryessa turned her head toward Saryn. “Is that possible?”

“We’ll find out, and before too long.”

“What if it is not possible?”

“Then we will do what we can to protect Westwind.” What exactly that might be, Saryn had no idea, except that, given the holders of Lornth, it would be neither easy nor bloodless.

Saryn and her detachment passed few carts and wagons on the ride through Ornath and back to the river, making camp on sixday night at what passed for a way station near the ruins of what might once have been a town. After an early start on sevenday, two glasses’ ride brought them to a flat stretch between two hills and a kaystone proclaiming that Haselbridge lay but three kays ahead.

Saryn could sense riders nearby and was not surprised to see a group appear on the low rise perhaps half a kay ahead, just off the left shoulder of the packed-clay road where it crested the next hill. She could sense no others, but all that meant was that there were none within a kay. “Riders ahead,” she said quietly but firmly to Hryessa.

“Ready arms,” said Hryessa, turning in the saddle. “Pass it back on the quiet.”

“Ready arms…Ready arms…” the murmured command whispered back through the guards.

As the Westwind detachment neared the crest of the road, Saryn could see that the waiting riders were drawn up almost in formation. On the right side of the road was a scrubby section of pasture that sloped steeply down to the river, still running almost to the top of its banks with the late runoff from the Westhorns.

“Hail, Angels!” The call was loud, cheerful, and sardonic, and came from an angular man attired in a rich maroon waistcoat over a thin but fine linen shirt. He was mounted on a gray stallion, slightly forward of the other eight riders.

“Hail!” returned Saryn, studying the caller. He looked to be a young lord or heir, whose wavy brown hair was longer than that of most armsmen, crafters, or tradesmen, and his entire being radiated arrogance.

“Where might you be headed?”

“To Lornth.” Saryn reined up short of a position that would have brought her opposite the lord-holder or lordling. Behind her, Hryessa brought the guards to a halt. “And you?”

“We were out for a ride.” He bowed in the saddle. “Keistyn, of Hasel. Welcome to my lands.” The cheerful words still carried a sardonic and demeaning overtone.

Saryn inclined her head, if but slightly. “I have not had the honor of meeting you before, but please understand that we are only passing through with no ill intended to anyone in Lornth.”

“That is most reassuring,” replied the lead rider, “for many have feared the blades of the angels of the heights.” He paused. “I do not believe you introduced yourself, Angel.”

“Saryn, Arms-Commander of Westwind.” Saryn studied the eight armsmen behind Keistyn. All carried in shoulder harnesses the long and massive blades favored by most men-at-arms in Lornth, and all wore red tunics trimmed in black. Three looked young and fresh-faced, and two were clearly hardened veterans of some sort. The remaining three were excessively beefy, with a certain cruelty behind round faces, the kind of cruelty that seemed to come from self-indulgent and overweight males, Saryn reflected.

“And what might a fearsome arms-commander be doing here in the lowlands? I had heard that the angels had asked a favor, and when the regent had granted it, you had returned to your heights, never to trouble Lornth again.”

“We have not come to trouble Lornth,” Saryn replied pleasantly, “but to respond to a request of the regents. Because the regents, unlike the Gallosians, who paid most dearly for their faithlessness, have kept their word and faith, when the regents asked us to return to meet with them, we were pleased to accede to their request.”

“I had not heard of the faithlessness of the Gallosians, but being people of little honor, could you have expected otherwise of them?” A short bark of laughter followed.

“Until someone proves otherwise, we accept their word,” Saryn said. “They proved otherwise, and the Prefect’s son, Arthanos, and his army of nine thousand are no more.” She smiled politely at Keistyn.

“Nine thousand…I beg your pardon, Angel, but that seems…unlikely.” A skeptical smile followed Keistyn’s words.

Saryn shrugged. “Unlikely as it may seem to you, that is what happened. Sooner or later, you will hear, and there will doubtless be those who will not believe.” She paused. “But that is what happened. You should recall that, twice, Lords of Lornth attacked the Roof of the World, and both perished. The second time armsmen from all across Lornth perished as well. You might also recall that a single mage who left Westwind brought down the great empire of Cyador. Doubting is all well and good, Lord Keistyn, but it is also dangerous to doubt what has already occurred, especially when thousands have already died because they, in turn, doubted.”

“Oh…I do doubt. I doubt anything that I have not been able to verify myself, or through those I trust to be most truthful.”

Saryn smiled coolly. “I think you will find that angels do not stoop to lies or duplicity, but that is a matter in which you will find your own way.”

For just a moment, Saryn could sense that her words had chilled the young lord, but that chill was followed immediately by anger so strong that Saryn cast out her senses again to see if other armsmen lurked nearby. To her relief, she could sense none.

“I will indeed find what is true. I always do, Angel.” Keistyn smiled warmly. “Unlike many, I do not hamper myself with outmoded strictures, for a lord must do what he must to preserve his heritage.”

“You are most forthright, Lord Keistyn. I appreciate your directness, and I will convey that to the regents, as well as your courtesy in greeting us.”

“There is always a time for courtesy, but we will not delay you longer, for you have many kays to ride before you reach Lornth.”

Saryn could easily feel the anger and the hostility behind the warmly spoken and cheerful-sounding words, an anger so raw that it burned like chaos within Keistyn. She also saw no purpose in revealing what she sensed. “That we do, Lord Keistyn, and the regents await us.”

“I am most certain that they do and that they will tell you much. The Lady Zeldyan, especially, is a warm and most charming lady.” Keistyn smiled once more. “But I am most certain that you know that, and I digress.” He bowed from the saddle a last time, then turned his mount and rode down the back side of the rise, followed by his armsmen, toward a narrow road that stretched westward to where it passed between two wooded hills, flanked by a smaller stream that meandered out from the hills generally eastward toward a small stone bridge perhaps two kays farther along the road and just outside of Haselbridge.

Saryn nodded to Hryessa.

“Company, forward!”

Saryn urged the gelding onward, her senses still focused on the departing Keistyn and his armsmen, even while she waited to hear what Hryessa might say. They rode down the other side of the rise and past the road that Saryn supposed led to Keistyn’s holding or country lodge.

“Lord Keistyn sounds pleasant and cheerful,” observed Hryessa. “I do not think he is either.”

“Why not?” asked Saryn.

“He smiles, and even his eyes and his voice are warm, but they lie. He is evil behind all his pleasant words and smiles. So were those with him. Did you not see that?”

“I saw we should not trust Lord Keistyn the length of a short sword, perhaps even less.”

“Much less. He is the kind that men so often trust because he seems warm and friendly, until he places knives in their backs.”

“And twists them,” added Saryn.

Hryessa nodded, her eyes straying to the west and the nine riders.

Another thought struck Saryn. There were only two even halfway-direct routes from Westwind to Lornth, and one led through the Lord of Duevek’s domains and the other through Lord Keistyn’s lands. She had chosen their route to avoid Duevek…and had been met and greeted by Keistyn, as if the young lord had been expecting the Westwind contingent. That suggested a number of possibilities, none of them exactly to Saryn’s liking, and that Keistyn and Duevek might well be allied in more than their dislike of the regency.

If even a fraction of the holders in Lornth were like Kelthyn and Keistyn, Saryn could see why Lady Zeldyan and Lord Gethen had their troubles. Still…short of wiping them all out, which hardly seemed possible, she had to wonder exactly what she could do to help Zeldyan.