Arms-Commander

LXVII

By oneday morning, Saryn and her detachment had ridden for two days over low, gently rolling rises that held more meadows than tilled fields, and more than a few cattle and sheep. They passed orchards, but the trees were generally low, either olives or apricots, according to Saensyr, the older armsman who was acting as their guide.

“They look to be even poorer than those in the flats of Gallos,” observed Shalya, the first squad leader, riding for the moment beside Saryn. “They’re overgrazing the meadows.”

“You’re from Analeria, aren’t you? Did you have raiders like the Jeranyi?”

Shalya laughed. “Our ancestors were the raiders. They settled down to become herders.”

“So how do you deal with raiders?”

Shalya shrugged. “You can only kill them. They won’t stay bought or bribed.”

“Do you think the Jeranyi are like that?”

“Worse, from what we’ve heard. Even Lorn the Mighty couldn’t do anything but slaughter them. That was almost a thousand years ago, and they haven’t changed much.”

A bit past noon, she rode back to talk with Caeris, the squad leader of the palace armsmen.

“Have you ever fought the Jeranyi, squad leader?”

“Not since I was first in service, ser. We didn’t so much fight them as guard Lord Sillek’s mages while they picked off the Jeranyi one at a time. Except once when they charged, and they didn’t fare so well.”

“We should be able to hit them with arrows from a distance…” mused Saryn.

“The way you hit the Suthyan raiders up north?” asked the squad leader. “You’d have to be out of sight. They don’t even come close to formations. One of their tricks was to string out a company, then swarm in from all sides. Leastwise, that was what the locals told us.”

“I’ll have to keep that in mind. Do they use spears or bows?”

“They had short bows, but they didn’t carry as far as yours.”

While she talked with Caeris for a time, she didn’t learn all that much more.

Then she joined up with Yulia.

“What do you think about the squad?”

“They want to be guards. They work hard. Hryessa weeded out those who didn’t.” Yulia laughed.

“You meant that, didn’t you? She had them dig or pull out all the grass in the courtyard?”

“The captain wouldn’t let anyone eat until they finished a section each day. She didn’t eat, either. She told them that what she was making them do was but a fraction of what the guards on the Roof of the World endured. Only four or five quit.”

That just confirmed what Saryn thought about how women-or many women-were treated in Lornth and how desperate some were to escape.

“How are they with blades on horse back?”

“They’ll be all right in making or taking a charge. I wouldn’t like to have them in an all-out melee, though, not yet. We’ve practiced breaking in unison on command. They should be able to execute it well enough not to get spitted, if the locals have pikes.”

Should is one of those words commanders hate, and this just reminds me why. But Saryn just nodded and kept questioning Yulia…and making a suggestion or two.

Clouds began to appear in the sky to the south by midmorning. By noon, a mass of darkness loomed across the southern sky. The land the three squads were traveling was less cultivated, with more open pastures, if with scattered stands of trees, although she didn’t think that the woods were anything close to original growth. They just didn’t feel that old.

She turned in the saddle toward Saensyr. “I take it that there’s no town nearby?”

The older armsman shook his head. “Just herders for another ten kays, as I recall.”

Saryn gestured to Shalya. “Squad leader…send out a pair of scouts to see if there’s anywhere ahead that might offer shelter.”

“Yes, ser.” Shalya glanced toward the darkening sky. “Looks like we’ve got a solid storm moving in.”

In moments, on Shalya’s orders, two guards urged their mounts away from the main body, then, after another half kay, past the outriders. A half glass later, a misty drizzle began to fall, but there was nowhere in sight that would have offered any real respite from the heavier rain to follow-just open fields with grain and maize looking close to harvest, and pasture, although Saryn could see woods to the west, ahead along the right side of the road.

If there’s nothing ahead, we could see about the woods up there. Except, in the end, all that trees did was delay the rainfall.

Another quarter glass passed before the scouts returned. Their report was simple.

“Another two kays along, past the beginning of the woods up ahead, there’s a herder who’s got an empty barn and an old house with a sound roof that’s only got some timbers in it.”

“Nothing else?” asked Saryn.

“No, ser. He says that he’s the only one for another three kays.”

The mist drizzling down around Saryn wasn’t that bothersome, but the sky was continuing to darken, and she had the feeling it wouldn’t be that long before a hard rain fell. “If that’s what there is, that’s what there is.” She hoped that the herder’s shelter wasn’t too filthy.

The misty drizzle had definitely shifted to rain by the time Saryn reined up outside the dilapidated barn that squatted before a stand of old oaks-the first truly old trees Saryn had seen since they had left Lornth.

The herder, wearing oiled leathers, gestured toward the trees. “The old place is back there, to the left and behind the barn.”

“Lead the way.” Saryn turned to Shalya. “I’ll be back shortly and let you know if the old house is suitable.”

Saryn let the chestnut gelding follow the herder along a path through knee-high weeds past the left side of the barn and through a gap in a thicket of wild berries-redberries, Saryn thought-and out into a clearing covered with sparse grass and thick moss. At the back of the clearing was a single-story dwelling that looked smaller than it was, overarched as it was by two towering oaks whose branches intertwined well above the roof whose green tiles almost matched the moss covering most of them. The dark blue glazed bricks forming the walls still retained their sheen, except for those where the finish had been crazed by time or impact. Even so, Saryn felt that, from the outside, the ancient dwelling, were it cleaned and repaired, might well provide more livable shelter than the herder’s crooked timber house. A freestanding wall some six cubits wide and more than head high faced with green and blue tiles blocked direct access to the door. Faded yellow tiles formed an intertwining pattern of squares and triangles on the front of the wall.

Saryn rode up to the low wall, where she discovered an ancient hitching ring made of a bright metal she did not recognize, its shimmer seemingly totally at odds with the age of the structure. After dismounting, Saryn quickly tied the reins to the ring.

She stepped toward the herder, gesturing toward the wall in inquiry.

“All the old Cyadoran houses had them. That was so no one could look inside at the womenfolk. That’s what my grandma said, anyways.”

Saryn followed the herder around the wall. He had to lift the door slightly as he opened it in order to get it over the slightly buckled masonry. Saryn noted a narrow shining metal shutter in the center of the door, set approximately at eye height, and apparently made of the same metal as the hitching ring. Behind the door, inside the dwelling, was another privacy wall, but the floor between the door and the inside wall and to each end of the privacy wall comprised a mosaic. Although a handful of tiles were missing, and dust covered the remaining tiles, Saryn had no trouble making out the image of a mounted figure with a shining lance squaring off against an enormous lizard.

“Stun lizard. From the Accursed Forest,” said the herder laconically, before he stepped into a room that stretched the width of the dwelling. The third of the room to the left was filled with stacks of short timbers. “Good place to dry the oak.”

On the right end in the far corner was what looked like a ceramic stove. That side of the chamber was otherwise vacant, except for a solid ring of the shimmering metal set into the wall. “What’s that for?” Saryn pointed to the metal ring.

“Link-ring. What Ma said, anyway. Cyadoran women who misbehaved or tried to run away had their chains linked there.”

Had their chains linked there? They wore chains all the time? Saryn forced herself not to retort. Finally, she nodded and turned. Two sets of two narrow windows graced the front of the dwelling, and three windows were set into the walls at each end of the room. All the windows had sagging internal shutters that were closed and did not look as though they had been moved in years. The entire floor was of dark gray tiles, many of which were cracked, but still firmly in place. After a moment, she looked to the archway leading toward the rear of the dwelling.

“Most of the back rooms are empty. Don’t do as much wood as my da did. Herding brings more coins.”

“Didn’t anyone want to repair this?” Saryn asked. “It’s not in bad shape.”

“Grandma, Ma…they said it was no place for women, that it still held demons. Neither one’d ever set foot inside.”

With that evil ring, I can see why. “How long has it been here?”

The herder shrugged. “Hard to say. Was here before my great-grandda bought the place. He didn’t even know it was here, what with all the brush grown up around it.”

Saryn nodded. “This will do. Thank you.”

The herder glanced around the chamber, seemingly holding in a shudder, then said, “I need to get back to milking, ser.”

“That’s fine. We’ll manage.”

After he left, Saryn spent a moment studying the dwelling. For all the herder’s talk of demons, she could sense no concentrations of either order or chaos. If the link-ring were removed…it wouldn’t be that bad, but she could understand why any sane woman would be repulsed by that metallic ring. Still…even in its present state of disrepair, the ancient house was far more solid than most of what she’d seen in Lornth. With a modicum of work, it could be made into a comfortable dwelling with cross ventilation and a good stove for heat in the winter. And no one had ever wanted to use it for more than storage? And what was that shining silvery gold metal that age had not dimmed?

She shook her head. At least her squads would have space out of the drizzle and rain for the night. But she did have to hold in a shudder when her eyes took in the shining ring.