Arms-Commander

LXIX

In the deep darkness before the sun would rise over the hills west of Suedara on sevenday, Saryn had a far better idea why no one really wanted to deal with the Jeranyi. Four days of following tracks, sleeping in dusty barns and sheds, and sensing the riders who could only be Jeranyi scattering away through the bush-covered hills had left her feeling more than a little frustrated and very much more understanding of why Lord Sillek had just had his mages drop fire-bolts on what ever Jeranyi he’d been able to find.

Saensyr had just said, “One wastes shafts trying to use bows, and horses chasing them.”

Was that another reason why the Lornians didn’t use archers in battle? It couldn’t be the only reason, could it?

At the same time, she’d also come to realize that her ability to use the flow of order and chaos in the areas around her had extended. She could now reliably sense riders and large animals at close to two kays. Part of that had to have been because of the more open terrain, but some also had come from having to use her senses so much-because there didn’t seen to be any other way to discover the raiders.

She’d also discovered that the Jeranyi liked to move into position well before dawn, then strike when there was just enough light to see. That was how two more small hamlets had suffered. It was also why she was leading the three squads through the darkness along a trail well away from and west of the main narrow road. If they’d used the main road, the Jeranyi certainly would have noticed all the hoofprints. Suedara wasn’t a hamlet, but a small town, with not only cots and crofters, but even a few houses of more than one room-and it was the only town with easy access from the trails leading from the West Pass that had not suffered from the raiders, and that was doubtless also why many had fled there from devastated hamlets.

While it looked to Saryn as though the Jeranyi were trying to scare everyone into Suedara for more concentrated pickings, she certainly couldn’t prove that, nor could she explain why she thought the Jeranyi would make their raid into Suedara on sevenday. She’d just told the squad leaders that attempts to find the Jeranyi later in the day had failed and that Suedara offered the raiders better pickings.

“How much farther, ser?” asked Shalya through the darkness.

“About a kay before Caeris takes position. About a half kay after that, you’ll take first squad up onto the rise on the right and set up with the archers out of sight from the main road…the way we talked about last night. Once you’re in position, I’ll move back with the Lornians.”

Based on their early ride through the town on the way to Westara, Saryn had picked a spot more than a kay southwest of the town itself…for several reasons. First, she didn’t want a pitched fight in the town. Second, she wanted to surprise the Jeranyi away from the town, and third, there wasn’t any terrain she liked better anywhere else along the route that she thought the Jeranyi would take.

A low rise topped out some hundred and fifty yards west of the road leading out of Suedara to Westara, a road that eventually swung due west until it reached the West Pass. On the east side, opposite the ridge, lay soft and marshy ground, but that did not begin until close to a hundred yards off the road. The marshy sections bordered a small swamp that fed, if intermittently, the stream that supplied Suedara. The area Saryn had picked did not appear as confined as it was in fact.

“Do you think the Jeranyi know we’re after them?” asked Shalya.

“They must know someone is after them, but I’d be very surprised if they knew there were Westwind guards among their pursuers.”

They rode in silence for more than a quarter glass before Saryn eased the gelding back along the shoulder of the narrow trail until she reached the Lornian squad. “Squad leader?”

“Yes, Commander?” replied Caeris through the darkness that might have been lightening ever so slightly. Saensyr rode beside him.

“Just ahead is where I want you to take your position, in the low area behind the last slope down to the main road. You’re not to move to where you can be seen…unless, of course, you come under attack, but I doubt that will happen. Remember…you’re not to close off the road until the Jeranyi are under attack from first squad.”

“Yes, ser.”

“You understand your task?”

“Yes, ser.”

Saryn rode with Caeris for another hundred yards and made certain that the Lornians were in position before riding back up the slope to the trail and joining Yulia and second squad.

“Commander,” offered the squad leader.

“Squad leader. Your task is simple, but it won’t be easy. You’re just to block the road so that the Jeranyi can’t reach the town and hold as long as you can. First squad will be attacking from the Jeranyi rear. Keep the squad together as much as possible. The Jeranyi like to pick off riders who get separated.”

“Yes, ser.”

Saryn did not accompany second squad all the way to their position, concealed behind the north end of the same ridge behind which Shalya and first squad were readying themselves, if almost half a kay farther from the town. But Saryn did not rejoin first squad until she could sense that Yulia had her recruits in place.

Then, while the sky slowly lightened, and the night sounds of various insects began to be replaced by another set of sounds, and the night breezes died away into an uneasy stillness, it was a matter of waiting. Before all that long, Saryn began to sense riders-far more than she had expected, more than her three squads, and possibly close to a group the size of an entire company. She checked the position of first squad again-just below the top of the ridge where they could not be seen from the road.

“Bows ready,” she ordered.

“Bows ready,” echoed Shalya, quietly. “Pass it on.”

Saryn waited until the Jeranyi were less than two hundred yards south of the point on the road just opposite the guards. “Forward and into position.”

“Forward…”

The twenty guards rode forward, not quite to the top of the ridge, but far enough that they could see the road before and below them.

Saryn could not only sense, but see, the oncoming Jeranyi, riding three abreast on the main road. None of the raiders were talking, and they rode quietly. She also sensed the Lornian squad beginning to move-too soon-despite her orders not to reveal themselves and not to take the road until first squad actually opened fire on the Jeranyi raiders.

So far the Jeranyi had not seen the Lornians.

“Squad leader…have your archers aim at the rear of the Jeranyi for the first volley, then at the leading riders for the second.” Saryn hoped that might confuse the raiders…if they even saw the Lornian squad.

“Archers…first shafts at the rear ranks. Second shafts at the head of the column. Pass it on.”

At the moment when Saryn could actually see the first Lornian armsmen coming down the slope to hold the road behind the Jeranyi, she said, “Loose shafts. Now!”

“First shafts away!”

After a moment, Shalya added, “Second shafts!”

Saryn watched with eyes and senses. For several moments after the first shafts ripped into the rear of the raiders, nothing happened.

Then there was a faint cry of “Archers!”

Almost immediately after the second shafts struck down some of the leading riders, one of the Jeranyi was pointing in the direction of first squad.

“Rake the lead riders again!” Shalya ordered.

Two more volleys followed, then a third, before the Jeranyi started toward the ridge.

“Bows away! Forward!” snapped Saryn. The guards needed to get up the ten yards in front of them to take the higher ground.

Shalya echoed Saryn’s command, and, in moments, first squad was formed up on the ridgecrest, two deep.

Saryn judged that more than three squads’ worth of Jeranyi were urging their mounts up the gentle slope toward her and the guards, and that was with at least ten or more raiders cut down on the road. All had blades out, what looked to be sabres, rather than the longer and more cumbersome blades used by the Lornians.

“Forward!” ordered Shalya.

Against the first rush, the guards had the advantages of coming downhill and the surprise when the Jeranyi realized that they were facing women.

A single rider made toward Saryn, singling her out, possibly because she was on the flank of first squad and slightly back. Saryn turned the gelding into him at the last moment, using her momentum to beat down his blade and cut upward into his neck. She swung away and back uphill, stopping to survey the situation.

After the first flurry of blades, most of the raiders circled away, not without leaving another handful of dead. Saryn saw that the Jeranyi could have taken to the ridge and escaped down the trail, but not a single raider had taken that option.

Four of those who had flanked the guards swung back toward the main body, then saw her and charged. She urged the gelding toward the oncoming riders, releasing her first blade at the lead Jeranyi. Her senses and aim were true, and the raider went down, but the others kept coming. A second blade followed, and another raider fell.

Saryn swung the gelding to the leftmost of the riders, angling so that the other would collide if he followed, then ducked and back-cut as she passed the outermost rider. She could sense the wound, enough to incapacitate the man, but, once clear, she turned back, looking for the fourth rider, but he had ridden back to where the remaining, but still large, group of Jeranyi were forming up again-south of first squad on the ridge slope but at almost the same height.

As she watched, the Jeranyi formed into a tighter formation, a mounted wedge, just far enough down the hill that the Westwind force would have trouble seeing them against the rising sun.

Saryn glanced back. If first squad held, they might prevail, but the Jeranyi also had short blades for infighting, and the casualties on both sides would be high…and she had but a single blade left in her hand. What could she do?

The Jeranyi began to ride toward first squad, picking up speed.

Saryn turned the gelding toward them, and less than fifteen yards from the onrushing force, flung her remaining blade at the center rider-using her skills to accelerate and smooth the flow around the weapon…and to create a wedge of black-edged darkness that trailed from both sides of the blade, a wedge that linked invisible junctures in the air into an unseen black-framed whitish knife blade.

The Jeranyi’s savage grin turned to a rictus of terror in the instant before the heavy blade slammed through the hardened leather mail and into his chest. The two riders flanking him screamed, and all three mounts went down. So did those beyond them, and the entire center of the wedge was flattened into a pile of dead men and mounts.

Saryn found herself gaping…

Then a black void hammered her with emptiness and chill, shaking every sense and sinew in her frame. When that passed, she could barely see through the shimmering knives of light that flashed before her, then turned and stabbed through her eyes. While they left no wounds, the pain felt as intense as if they had, and it took every fragment of strength she had to hold herself in the saddle as she slowed the gelding.

The remaining riders turned their mounts and scattered downhill and both south and north along the road, except for a few who tried the marsh and found their mounts chest high in mud and water. Some rode right into the remaining Lornians. The others fled toward Sudara…and second squad.

As she stopped her mount, barely before running into the carnage she had created, Saryn shuddered in the saddle. After a moment, she turned and rode toward one of the nearest guards. “One of your blades, please?” Her voice cracked, and she hated that.

“Yes, ser.” The guard’s voice was filled with fear, but she immediately extended a blade, hilt first.

“After them!” Saryn forced strength into her voice, and she urged her mount forward and down toward the road into Suedara. The recruits of second squad would need all the help they could get.

“First squad! Forward!” ordered Shalya.

Saryn let the other guards pull slightly ahead of her over the quarter kay or so that it took to come up on the rear of the remaining Jeranyi, by then in a melee with second squad. She needed to be there, but she doubted that she could have lifted the borrowed blade for more than a single parry, if that.

She didn’t need to use it. Caught between the two Westwind squads and demoralized, the remaining Jeranyi had little chance for escape, and in less than another half glass, the only mounted riders remaining were those in the now-bloody gray of Westwind.

Saryn sheathed the blade and fumbled out her water bottle, mostly by feel, because she could only see intermittently through the lightknives that penetrated her vision. She drank slowly.

The water helped…if only slightly, enough that she realized she was flanked by Dyala and Kayli, both still holding drawn short swords.

“Are you all right, ser?”

“I will be.” I hope.

Saryn just forced herself to wait until she was certain there were no Jeranyi left in or around Suedara. Then she rode back south and out to where Shalya was supervising the recovery of weapons and mounts.

Once there, Saryn reined up short of the squad leader. “After you’ve taken care of the wounded, make sure that your squad recovers every single shaft and blade possible, including the damaged or broken ones. We’re going to need each one.”

“And the spoils, ser?”

“The standard,” replied Saryn. That meant half of all coins and jewelry to the Marshal-or Saryn, in this case-for supplies and the like and the other half split among the squad, with a double share to the squad leader. She’d varied the spoils occasionally, to compensate for the lack of coins among the guards, but from now on, she needed the standard…if not more. All weapons were for Westwind, to be used as Saryn deemed necessary.

With a nod to Shalya, Saryn eased the gelding toward Caeris and what remained of the Lornian squad, also recovering weapons and spoils. Dyala and Kayli flanked her as she rode.

From what Saryn had been able to sense during the fight, after she had used her white-darkness-expanded blade, less than a handful of riders had managed to ride over the ridge and take the back trail. Their tracks indicated-since Saryn could sense little-that they were not headed westward, though, but almost due south, toward Cardara and the lands of Lord Orsynn. Perhaps thirty or so had escaped her dark blade and fled toward Suedara and attacked third squad. None of those had escaped, although Saryn wasn’t exactly happy about the casualties.

“Commander.” Behind Caeris’s voice was something, not quite fear and not quite respect.

“Most of the Jeranyi are dead. Once you’ve completed matters here, please join up with us for the return to Nuelda.”

“We’re returning?”

“Less than a double handful of Jeranyi escaped. For the moment, I doubt that they will be any threat to Lord Jharyk’s folk.”

“Less than a…out of fivescore?”

“The rest are dead.”

“Yes, ser.”

Saryn wasn’t sure, not with her uncertain eyesight, but she thought the squad leader looked a trace pale. She smiled politely and turned the gelding back in the direction of Suedara.

More than two glasses later, Saryn’s combined force was back in formation and ready to ride. Given the size of the Jeranyi force and their reputation, the casualty numbers for her detachment wouldn’t have seemed that bad to the Lornians-nine dead, five of them Lornians, four of the junior recruit guards, and six wounded, none seriously enough not to ride, of which three were Lornians. The regency force had also ended up with nearly forty captured mounts and, according to the count of the squad leaders, some eighty-three dead Jeranyi. Unhappily, somewhere between ten and fifteen of the dead Jeranyi had merely been wounded in fighting second squad-until the locals got to them near the end of the skirmish.

Saryn’s head was still splitting. Closing her eyes didn’t seem to provide much relief from the shimmering arrows of light that flashed across her field of vision and stabbed through her eyes and into her skull. She also didn’t want to think about what she had done…or how.

After receiving final reports from the three squad leaders, Saryn ordered the Lornians to lead. Then she eased her mount into position beside Caeris, who did not look in her direction for the first kay, not until they were well north of Suedara and riding northeast toward Nuelda.

“Do you think they have more raiders around here, ser?”

“Not all that close, but I’d be surprised if this is the last that we hear of them. But it won’t be for a while, and we can’t stay here and wait.”

The squad leader nodded slowly.

“They probably won’t attack Lord Jharyk’s lands soon. They’ve already plundered most of the towns here.” As she finished, Saryn realized that many of the coppers and silvers taken as plunder had probably come from those hamlets and towns, but she wasn’t about to try to figure out how to return them, not when there were no coins coming from either the regency or Westwind to support her force. But…she still couldn’t help but feel a trace guilty.

Another half kay passed before the Lornian squad leader spoke again. “Ser…how did you know that they’d attack Suedara and take this road?”

“They’ve tried to plunder every other hamlet and town close to the end of the West Pass. This is the one with the most goods and women. They were trying to drive everyone here, then hit here and return to Jerans.”

“But why this road?”

“What other road would they take?” replied Saryn with a smile.

“They could have come in from the north almost as easy, or come across the bridge into Suedara from the east. You just seemed to know.”

“Sometimes, you just have to trust your judgment and act.” Even as she replied, Saryn couldn’t help but wonder. How had she known? It had felt obvious to her, but it had been more than that. She’d known. Saryn swallowed. Does it come from sensing order and chaos flows? A feel for what must be? Or was it just a lucky guess?

Saryn almost would have preferred the last…but she’d felt something beyond certainty.