Arms-Commander

LXXVI

Saryn awoke in the darkness, jerking awake from a dream in which chaos-bolts had rained down upon her and the guards from all directions, and no matter what direction she lifted her shield, chaos flew in from another angle and turned guard after guard into flaming charcoal, then ashes.

She sat up on her thin bedroll and blotted her steaming forehead with the sleeve of her undertunic. Let’s hope that’s not prophetic. After reaching for her water bottle and uncorking it, she took a long swallow. Then she corked it and looked eastward at the starry sky. Above the hills she caught sight of a fast-moving star-except stars didn’t move that fast. Had that been the Winterlance? Or just a slow meteor? Did she want to lie on the hard ground and try to rest for the little time left before she’d need to prepare? She shook her head. All that would do would be to make her more uncomfortable. She pulled on her boots, then her tunic, and stood, thinking.

There might be as many as three companies in different positions, poised to close in and surround whoever took the road that led into the town of Tryenda. Saryn pushed that thought away. One objective at a time, and the first one is to crush and scatter the company guarding the road before they know they’re under attack.

During the last battle, using the chaos-knife wedge had prostrated her after a single effort. Even if all three companies were in one giant formation, there was no way she could create a chaos-knife big enough to encompass all of them…not and stay conscious.

Does the energy required for using order-chaos flows increase arithmetically or geometrically with the size of the application? She couldn’t help but smile at the pedantry in her mental question. But still…could she just use a smaller chaos-order-knife at a key point? Or several of them? Without totally exhausting herself?

She’d have to see.

Saddling the mare in the darkness was little different from doing so in the day, except that Saryn relied more on senses than sight. Once all her gear was ready, and the mare tethered to a tree, she donned her battle harness and went to find Klarisa and Yulia.

They were awake, fully dressed, and talking quietly. Saryn paused and listened for a moment.

“…don’t know what she’ll do…”

“…what ever…Lornians won’t like it…”

“…can be ruthless…”

“Does she have any choice…how they are?”

Saryn cleared her throat and stepped forward.

“Ser,” offered Klarisa.

“We’ll need to get everyone up in a moment, but I want to go over what I expect from each of you. Klarisa, you and fourth squad will be with me. We’ll come up the back side of the woods and get as close as we can. Then we’ll ride into and through their camp. Slash and disrupt. Keep your guards mounted and moving. Tell them not to stop. Once they stop they become much easier targets. The Lornians will either scatter, or they’ll regroup. If they scatter, make sure no one’s left in the campsite, then form up at the front of the woods. If they regroup, we withdraw. I’ll give the order. If something happens to me, it’s your task to get everyone clear.”

“Yes, ser.”

Saryn turned to the other squad leader. “Yulia…you and second squad will ride along the top of the cleared area that’s below the forest and above the cots. You’re to wait in position beside the first barn…when the sky begins to lighten, move farther around the hill until you’re within a hundred yards of the area just below where the Lornians were hidden in the trees. Hold there until you hear yells from the Lornians or something else that makes it clear that fourth squad has attacked. When that happens, be ready to sweep across the cleared area and cut down anyone you can. Don’t chase stragglers, and keep the squad together as a unit. It’s better to let some escape than to scatter the squad.”

“Yes, ser. We’re to sweep and reform, then sweep back and forth across until they stop coming and you join us.”

“That’s right.” Saryn straightened. “Get your squads ready to ride.”

Less than a half glass later, both squads were mounted and formed up. Saryn rode toward the two squad leaders and reined up.

“Squad four, ready to ride,” reported Klarisa.

“Squad two, ready to ride,” added Yulia.

“Quiet riding,” returned Saryn, easing the mare around. “Forward.”

“Forward…”

Close to half a glass passed before the two squads split, and Saryn led fourth squad up the long, gentle slope on the back of the rise. By the time they rode into the trees, the eastern sky was beginning to lighten. After several hundred yards, Saryn could clearly discern with her senses three figures standing in the trees some yards out from the three small clearings where most of the armsmen still lay sleeping. She’d hoped to get closer than the thirty or forty yards between her and the nearest sentry, but, quietly as she was trying to ride, and as widely spaced as the trees were, almost every hoof that touched the detritus of moss, twigs, and old leaves created a crackling sound. There was just no way to approach silently.

She turned in the saddle. “Forward…fast walk…no talking…pass it back.” Then she guided the mare directly toward where she sensed the nearest sentry to be, drawing the first of her blades. She rode to within fifteen yards of the man before he jerked into full awareness.

“Who goes there! Who is it?”

Saryn kept riding toward him and threw the blade, guiding it with order-chaos flows.

The sentry’s next query ended in a gurgling sound.

At that, Saryn drew another blade and urged the mare forward into almost a trot, as fast as she dared in the gloom amid the trees. As she burst into the small clearing where close to forty armsmen were sleeping, she angled toward the fire, where a handful of troopers had gathered, her blade out and ready.

“Attackers!”

Two of the armsmen dived to the side, but a third wasn’t nearly that fortunate. Saryn cut him down, then the man next to him.

“Someone’s out there!”

“To the horses!”

After that, Saryn just concentrated on keeping clear of other guards and cutting down or wounding any armsman she could. Her senses definitely gave her an advantage in the gloom. In time, as the eastern sky changed from gray to deep green-blue, Saryn and fourth squad found only themselves and severely wounded or dead Lornians in or around the camp clearings in the woods.

“Reform on the open slope!” Saryn used a touch of order to boost her voice, then turned her mount toward the open space she could make out through the trees, winding her way through scattered bodies. The only organized group she could sense was fourth squad, waiting on the slope.

As she emerged into the early-morning light, Saryn saw three guards with cuts or slashes being dressed and one empty saddle. Below her on the slope were bodies in olive green uniforms strewn everywhere. Saryn swallowed, then rode toward Yulia.

“They never really saw us, ser. Then they panicked. We just did what you ordered.”

“You were very effective. Second squad casualties?”

“One dead, three wounded.”

“Keep several guards in the saddle and on alert. Have the others recover weapons, but have them hurry. I’ll need another blade, too, if they can find one. Then they can stand down for a bit. Oh…send a pair to check on the teamsters. For the moment, they can stay where they and the wagon are. And post someone at the back of the woods so that the locals can’t do what we did.”

“Yes, ser.” Yulia nodded and turned her mount.

Saryn watched as the guards of fourth squad emerged from the trees and formed up. She waited until Klarisa had taken muster before she rode across the sparse grass and churned ground and reined up beside the squad leader.

“Fourth-squad casualties?”

“Two dead, five wounded, none seriously.”

“Thank you, squad leader. Good work.” What else can you say to her? That we have to lose guards fighting in Lornth so we don’t fight under worse conditions in the Westhorns? “Send out a pair of outriders to watch the road from the town. Have the others recover what they can, then stand down. We’ll likely have a glass or two before anyone decides to attack.”

“If they don’t…?”

“We won’t go looking for more trouble, but I don’t want to be chased back to Lornth, either.”

Klarisa nodded.

Saryn could sense a mixture of emotions within the squad leader, and added, “We can’t ever be perceived as running away. That would undo everything we’ve accomplished, and we’d have to fight even more for years and years.” Especially after destroying a company in a predawn attack.

“Why?”

Saryn laughed, not hiding the bitterness. “They think we’re invading their land and corrupting their ruler and their ways. So they feel they have no choice but to attack us. We’re here because, if the regency is overthrown, we’ll have to fight Lornth again and again because their ways don’t allow for women to be anything but subservient, and sometimes less than slaves. So we don’t have a choice, either.”

“I meant…why does it have to be that way?”

“I don’t think it does, but so long as men in power think that way and refuse to see women as anything but lesser, we have one of two choices, and that’s fight or submit.”

“That’s somehow sad…that all the ones in power want either men or women in charge.”

“The Marshal thinks that it won’t ever change unless women are in charge for a time.”

“What do you think, ser?”

“I think she’s right, but I don’t have to like it.” Or the costs involved.

The squad leader nodded.

After Klarisa had returned to her squad, Saryn couldn’t help but think over the questions the squad leader had raised-not that she hadn’t thought them over countless times before. The bottom line, so far as she could determine, was that many men feared women who were powerful far more than they feared other powerful men. Why? Was it as simple as the fact that they couldn’t dominate powerful women sexually? Or was it that when powerful women could determine their own consorts-or at least refuse to consort with men they did not like-some male reproductive instinct was threatened?

In the end, she just shook her head. She doubted she’d ever know, and, so far as Lornth and Westwind were concerned, the reasons why mattered less than the reality that the most powerful lord-holders of Lornth still wanted to destroy Westwind and effectively enslave women…for what ever reason…even if they wanted to call that enforced subservience “a return to traditional ways.”

That left the question of whether she and the guards should have ridden back to Lornth from the lands of Tryenda immediately after the morning battle. Logically, that made sense. They were outnumbered, and there was no telling whether, even with her emerging order-chaos-abilities, she could defeat the armsmen who were likely to stage a retaliatory attack. Yet…something within told her that wasn’t the right thing to do.

So she stood and studied the slope below the woods and how the road turned coming from the town, and made her plans. Before long, one of the guards brought her a replacement blade. Saryn didn’t ask if it had belonged to one of the dead guards.

Almost a glass passed before Klarisa rode over to where Saryn sat under one of the trees at the front of the woods. “They’ve got scouts on the rise across the way, but they didn’t stay long.” The squad leader looked at Saryn. “You want them to attack us?”

“It works better that way,” Saryn replied. “They’ll have to ride uphill, and after the way we prevailed in the woods, I think they’ll want to attack in the open.” She walked to the mare, untied her, and swung up into the saddle. She rode forward and to the south along the high ground just forward of the forest, with Klarisa and Yulia following her, until she had a clear view. Then she reined up and studied the attackers.

Coming around the curve in the road from the town were close to three hundred riders, with two distinct sets of uniforms among them-those in the olive green of the armsmen she had scattered and killed earlier in the morning and a smaller number in a brighter burgundy and white.

“Our tactics are very simple,” Saryn said. “Fourth squad will be on my right, second squad on my left. Whoever has the regency banner will be slightly behind me. On my command, we charge downhill. If what I plan works, you two will only have stragglers to deal with. If it doesn’t, break off and swing back uphill and make your way through the trees and back to Lornth. After this morning, they won’t follow into the trees immediately. They’ll likely think it’s another trap. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ser.”

While both squad leaders spoke nearly at once, because Saryn could sense the unvoiced questions from Klarisa, she added, “I’m going to try a version of order-and-chaos-blades. What version that will be depends on the way in which they attack.” And if they attack. After another long look at the riders, still a kay away, she turned the mare and rode back to the position she had picked out.

The squad leaders followed, issuing orders.

“Fourth squad! Form up!”

“Second squad…”

The Westwind forces were in position in less than a tenth of a glass, but the Lornian forces had barely moved. That was fine with Saryn, because with each passing moment the sun was higher in the sky over the mostly east-facing slope.

The Lornian forces-presumably those of Lord Mortryd and Lord Rherhn-continued northeast on the road for another third of a glass until they were less than two hundred yards below the Westwind squads. Then, they formed up…and waited.

“They want us to attack,” observed Klarisa.

“Then we should.” Saryn smiled. “Have your archers start picking off men in their front ranks, but have them ready to stow their bows immediately.” Let’s see how patient they can be as they lose men one at a time.

“Archers! Ready bows!”

“Fire!”

Saryn watched as the first shafts arched down the hill and into the front ranks. Two armsmen sagged in their saddles immediately. A second volley followed, then a third, and a fourth. Gaps began to appear in the front ranks of the mounted armsmen.

Because she doubted it would be long before the Lornians lost all patience with Westwind sniping, Saryn began to create what she visualized as a much smaller chaos-order-knife than the one she had employed against Lord Orsynn’s forces.

Then a single trumpet note blared forth-off-key.

The Lornians re-dressed their lines, and at the sound of repeated trumpet triplets, urged their mounts forward.

“Bows away!” ordered Saryn.

“Bows away!” echoed Klarisa.

Saryn studied the oncoming armsmen, all seemingly bearing overlarge blades, but did not wait long before she drew one of her blades from her battle harness and ordered, “Westwind! Forward!”

As she rode downhill, her eyes took in the Lornians, noting that the center of the attackers was yards ahead of either flank and composed of armsmen in the olive uniforms. With slightly more than a hundred yards between the two forces, Saryn released her first blade, aimed and boosted by order-chaos flows toward the center of the attackers…but the linked chaos-order-knife extended less than ten yards to each side of the gray-black blade.

The moment the chaos-knife sliced through the center of the attackers, Saryn began creating a second chaos-order-blade, even smaller and more concentrated, which followed her second short sword-directed to the section of the attackers ahead and to her right.

She could see the attackers’ faces, then the terror on them as a red mist sprayed through the center of those riders. Forcing that moment of horror away, knowing that she was less than twenty yards from the remaining attackers, she cobbled together a third chaos-order-blade, even as she drew the third blade from the sheath before her left knee and hurriedly and desperately flung that blade back to her left.

Lightknives stabbed into her eyes, and dark voids of white death pounded at her skull as she struggled to draw her last blade-merely for self-defense. Except she and the standard-bearer rode alone through fallen men and mounts, and the mare somehow, surefootedly, avoided falling, if occasionally moving so abruptly that Saryn barely remained in the saddle as she slowly reined up.

Through eyes that were intermittently light-blinded by the miniature knife-flares that stabbed them, Saryn could make out riders in olive and burgundy scattering downhill and southwest. Despite the unseen hammerblows to her skull and the lightknives, she turned the mare, trying to make certain that no one attacked her from behind.

That was about all she could do as the guards wheeled through the small groups of armsmen foolish enough-or stunned enough-to offer resistance.

In time, although Saryn couldn’t have said exactly how long, the battle-or semislaughter-was over, and Klarisa had ridden over and reined up beside her.

“Ser? Are you all right?”

“Better than the last time, but I hope I don’t have to do anything else for a bit.”

“It doesn’t look that way,” replied Klarisa. “The ones who rode off aren’t looking back.”

“There are more survivors than they think,” Saryn said. “We managed to defeat them without killing so many.”

“You did, ser.”

“If your archers hadn’t goaded them into attacking, it could have been worse,” Saryn pointed out.

“They don’t have archers. Why not?”

That was a good question. “I don’t know. Maybe because they feel that fighting should be hand-to-hand. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense. Even the Gallosians have archers. They’re not that good, but they have them.” Or could it be that the Lornian lord-holders don’t want to give their people a weapon that could kill lord-holders and their armsmen from a distance? “If you can find an officer or a squad leader among the captives or the wounded, I want to talk to him.”

“Yes, ser. I’ll see if there’s one among the captives.” Klarisa turned her mount toward a small group of Lornians in the olive green who, surrounded, had lowered their heavy hand-and-a-half blades.

Saryn just sat on the mare and waited until Klarisa rode back, holding the reins of a horse bearing a young officer who cradled a crooked left arm in his right. She reined up, and the Lornian’s mount slowed as well.

“The commander has some questions for you,” Klarisa announced.

The undercaptain looked blankly at Saryn.

“Who ordered you to set an ambush for the regency forces?”

The young undercaptain did not speak.

“Answer the commander,” snapped Klarisa.

The officer looked to the squad leader, then to Saryn. Despite her headache and her intermittent vision, Saryn “squeezed” him with order-chaos flows, and she could sense the instant fear. “I asked you a question, Undercaptain.”

“Lord Rherhn…it was Lord Rherhn.” His mouth opened wider, but no words emerged for a moment. “You attacked in the dark.”

“We were supposed to ride down the road and present a nice target?”

“Attacking in the dark isn’t honorable,” he protested. “And the arrows-”

“Neither is rebelling against the regency, Undercaptain. Nor is attacking lands that never did you any harm. Nor, for that matter, is there any difference between setting an ambush, as you attempted to do, and attacking in the dark, as we did. If you found it honorable to use the trees for concealment, then it was certainly honorable for us to use darkness.”

“It’s not the same…”

“It’s not the same, ser!” reminded Klarisa coldly.

The officer opened his mouth, then closed it, before adding, “Ser.”

“What were you told about us and the regency forces?” asked Saryn.

After a long moment, the undercaptain replied. “Lord Rherhn said that the regency had been taken over by the Marshal of Westwind or her deputy, and that we needed to take it back, or that every man in Lornth would end up as a slave to the…to Westwind.”

“As a slave to whom?” pressed Saryn, exerting order flows on the undercaptain.

“He said…the tyrants of Westwind.”

Saryn suspected another word had been used, but there was little point in pushing that. “After you vanquished us, then what were you supposed to do?”

“He didn’t say.”

Again Saryn looked hard at the man.

“Not exactly, ser. He just said that all the lord-holders of the south were working together to reclaim Lornth for the traditional ways.”

Unfortunately, Saryn sensed that the undercaptain was indeed telling what he’d been told. “When were you going to leave for Lornth?”

“He didn’t say where, except that it wasn’t Lornth. He said Lornth was only a symbol. He did say we’d be heading north in the next few days.”

“Who were you going to join?”

“He didn’t say that, either, except that we’d be fighting a real battle.”

“And I suppose he’ll rally the armsmen for that once we leave?”

“You killed him with that black sorcerous blade…”

Saryn paused. She shouldn’t have been surprised, since Lornian lord-holders tended to flaunt their bravery…but she was.

After another quarter glass of questions, Saryn was convinced she’d learned what she could, and her head was splitting even more.

“Take him back to the other captives. Splint his arm. Then come back here.”

“Yes, ser.”

Saryn disliked the brusqueness in her tone, but she felt as though it had taken every bit of energy she had just to question the undercaptain. As Klarisa led the undercaptain’s mount away, Saryn fumbled for one of the hard biscuits she’d set aside, then her water bottle.

She had to moisten her mouth before she could chew, but two biscuits and half a water bottle later, she felt slightly better. She also realized how fortunate she’d been not to have had to use the order-chaos-shield during any of the attacks. What could she do if she had to attack and defend all at once? She didn’t have the skill or the energy to do both. The unfortunate aspect was that a good third, perhaps close to half the rebels had escaped. She supposed that, technically, she’d won, but it didn’t feel that way.

What was the rebel lords’ strategy? Was it simply to keep the Westwind forces occupied while they did something else? Like attack Gethen and The Groves? Or Lornth, then The Groves?

Or was it two-pronged? To wear down both the Westwind contingent and to eliminate Henstrenn’s rivals at the same time? Or was that the plan that the Suthyans had given the Lord of Duevek…before they moved in? How could she tell?

I’m not a strategist. I’m just a fair to middling tactician…and an effective killer. True as it was, the last thought bothered her.

What ever else might be happening, she and the guards needed to get back to Lornth.

Once Klarisa returned, Saryn forced a smile. “I’m sorry if I’ve been a little short. It takes a lot of effort to handle order and chaos.”

“We all understand that, Commander.”

Saryn could sense that Klarisa did understand, and that the squad leader was concerned, either about Saryn or her squad…if not both. “There’s even more happening than I realized. Have your guards gather up all usable weapons and all the coins and any jewels as fast as possible. And as many horses as possible. Leave the captives and wounded to fend for themselves. Pass that on to Yulia as well, if you would. We need to head back to Lornth.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Thank you.” Saryn flicked the mare’s reins, letting her walk slowly down the slope to the road.

Two guards followed, their blades out.

Already, the vulcrows were circling overhead.