Colors of Chaos

LXXXIX

CERRYL WALKED SLOWLY toward the cook fire behind the squarish house, looking toward the south. Although the fields and meadows were green, the color that faded with the sun as he studied the land had been the lighter green of early spring, and the evening was getting chill, like every evening since they had left Jellico.

Cerryl eased up closer to the cook fire, stopping to the right of Fydel and Anya. He sniffed the scent of a mutton stew of some sort.

“How did it go today?” asked Anya, tendering a mug of something to the square-bearded mage.

“The same as yesterday, and the day before.” Fydel shook his head, his eyes going to the west, where the purple of the sky deepened. “I wish the darkness-damned Certans would get here. If they don’t…”

“If they don’t…what?” asked Jeslek as he strode up to the fire. “Do you want to go back and fetch them?”

“It might be better than trying to fend off the raids from that Black renegade,” suggested Fydel dourly.

“We won’t have to wait that long. The first detachment has reached the ruins of Axalt.” Jeslek glanced at the lancer cook. “How long?”

“A bit longer for the stew, ser.” The cook looked down at the boot-packed ground around the stones of the cook-fire ring. “I’m sorry.”

Everything took longer, reflected Cerryl silently. Everywhere.

“Did you lose anyone today?” asked Anya, glancing back to the square-bearded mage.

“Not today. One lancer took an arrow in the thigh, but it wasn’t deep. We never saw the archer.”

Cerryl frowned but said nothing. How could Fydel not see an archer?

“You think it’s easy?” snapped Fydel as he turned to the younger mage. “You try one of the road patrols. The blue bastards don’t stay in one place. You go down one road, and some archers are firing at your squad from the woods to your rear. If you try to clear out the woods, you lose more men because they can’t make any speed on horseback there. If you avoid the woods, you can’t get anywhere. The fields are still muddy.” Fydel looked at Cerryl. “Tomorrow…you should come with us. You’ll see. Darkness, you’ll see.”

“Perhaps you should, Cerryl,” Jeslek said. “It will give you an idea of just how you will handle peacekeeping once we take Elparta. There’s not much else you can do until the levies get here.”

“Yes, ser.” The last thing Cerryl wanted to do was ride along roads that weren’t even lanes trying to keep raiding parties away from the camp.

“And you can flame any archer you see,” Jeslek said with a smile, “since you seem to find it so easy.”

Fydel laughed. Even Anya smiled.

Cerryl took a long, slow breath, then looked toward the cauldron, hoping it wouldn’t be that long before the mutton stew was ready. He had to wonder how he could get in trouble without even speaking. Were his expressions that obvious, or were Fydel and Jeslek once more out to put him in situations where he was more likely to fail? As he waited for the stew to finish, he forced a pleasant smile onto his face.