Cyador’s Heirs

XLIII

For the next two days, while Lerial, Altyrn and the two squads pass through small hamlets, and see isolated steads and occasional flocks of sheep, and in one case, goats, neither Lerial, the majer, nor the scouts see any other signs of armsmen, poachers, or raiders.

There are scattered clouds, but no rain, and that is anything but good, Lerial knows, for the coming crop year, and especially for the herders. He does do his best to study the clouds with his order senses, and try to determine the patterns within each. After a time, he begins to get a feeling of which clouds might produce rain … or snow, if the weather continues to chill, since he is now wearing his jacket closed and more than glad for the heavy gray riding gloves that the majer had given him.

As the afternoon draws out on fiveday afternoon, Lerial can see that the low rolling hills behind them are giving way to lower and lower rises until the ground before them is almost flat, although the Wooded Ridges to the south appear to be higher above the plain, and he can see wooded hills in the distance to the west and west-northwest. The grass before them is all tannish brown and no more than calf-high.

Altyrn calls a halt for the evening at an abandoned stead that consists of little more than collapsing sod walls that had once been several barns and a grassed-over hummock that might have been a house. There is a well, however, with a wooden cover, and a recently used firepit, as well as signs that others have used the ruins as a way station, although not within the last few eightdays.

As he is tethering the gelding to a tieline anchored in one of the sod walls, he asks the majer, “If there’s a well here, and grass, why was the stead abandoned?”

“It’s a shallow well,” says Altyrn. “It’s likely there’s no water in summer and harvest … The lands here are dry, and there aren’t any streams until we get much closer to Apfhel.”

“When will that be?”

“If we don’t run into rain or raiders, we should reach the beginning of the forest road late tomorrow morning.” Altyrn glances toward the scattered clouds and then toward Lerial.

“They don’t feel like rain clouds. If they get lower, there might be a quick shower, but I don’t think so.”

Lerial looks toward the firepit where two Lancers are struggling with a striker and kindling to start a fire with a few scraps of wood and some brush. “They’ll need more wood.”

“Juist has already sent men to that grove over there.”

Lerial follows the majer’s gaze and sees a line of trees, most likely the remnants of a windbreak.

“Most of the wood will be green. It’s too bad there aren’t any camma trees around.”

“Camma trees?” Lerial has never heard of them.

“Cammabark is an excellent firestarter. You have to get it just right, though. Too dry and it explodes. It only grows in certain places. The people of the Verd limit where it can grow, obviously.”

Cammabark? Lerial is still pondering over that when he realizes the majer has left to talk to Kusyl.

The evening meal is mainly bread and cheese, with baked roots of some sort that Altyrn has directed several rankers to dig up on one side of where the stead house had stood. The roots are chopped up and added to dried mutton that has been soaked in boiling water and then fried over the cookfire. Lerial eats the roots and mutton, not exactly with enthusiasm, but at least he isn’t hungry when he finishes.

Later, after dark, he slips away from the fire and back behind one of the sod walls where he creates a concealment, then eases back toward the gathered Lancers, moving slowly and cautiously, since he cannot see from within the concealment, but only sense the other Lancers through his sensing of the flow of order and chaos around them. He gradually makes his way to where Kusyl and Juist are seated on a low hummock that might have once been a sod wall, then halts and listens.

For a time, the two squad leaders talk about the day’s ride, and the weather, and about various individual Lancers. Lerial takes in that information, hoping the more he learns about the men and the way the squad leaders talk and handle them, the better he will be if he has to lead real patrols.

After a moment of silence, Kusyl clears his throat and lowers his voice. “What do you think of the undercaptain?”

“What should I think?” replies Juist, his voice carrying a trace of amusement.

“He’s not what I thought he’d be.”

“That’s bad? He asks good questions, mostly, anyway.”

Lerial winces at the “mostly,” but continues to listen.

“You heard what happened in Tirminya?”

“The business about him cutting an arrow in half with his sabre?”

“Don’t laugh. Two of my boys saw it. He cut one shaft in half and knocked another out of the air. And … like for a couple of moments … he moved so fast they didn’t even see him.”

“That’s a problem?” asks Juist ironically. “He’s spent most of the last year training with a sabre. Two seasons with the majer. That’s more blade training than most officers get in ten years.”

Lerial can sense that there is something about what Juist is saying. He isn’t lying, but … there’s a mixture of order and chaos around his words. Withholding information perhaps?

“There’s more there,” says Kusyl flatly.

“He’s from the Magi’i. Be surprised if there isn’t.”

“If he’s a magus … why is he an undercaptain?”

“Word is,” says Juist, “that he’s a decent field healer.”

“Oh … sowshit.”

“Hasn’t stopped him from slicing a raider’s throat from ear to ear.”

“Still strange…”

“He’s the Duke’s son. How is he going to learn anything if he doesn’t see what we do? Anything happens to the Duke or his older brother, and he’s the Duke. Even if it doesn’t, he’s likely to be leading in the field. Be thankful the Duke has enough sense to send him out before he’s in charge of anything.”

“That’s why … the majer?”

“Take you this long to figure that out?”

“Sort of thought so all along.”

“If the undercaptain needs to know something, tell him. He’s still young enough to listen. Won’t always be that way, from what I’ve seen.”

Those words bother Lerial. Is Juist talking about Lephi … or his father … or just officers in general after they become captains or overcaptains?

“He doesn’t say much. Just asks questions.”

“How else is he going to learn?”

“Still … something about him…”

“You don’t like it when you can’t figure out an officer, do you?” asks Juist.

“Nope. You’re no different.” Kusyl chuckles.

“Not much. Except there are times you don’t need to know and, if you’re smart, you don’t try to learn.”

“Oh?”

“Like the majer. Looks like a white-haired old officer. He’s done things I’d never want to do. Why do you think the Duke sent his son to train under him? You notice that the undercaptain always says ‘ser.’ He’s a lord, and he’s real polite to the majer. Not just words, either.”

“Never thought of it like that.”

“Best you do.” Another silence falls between the two before Juist says, “What ever happened to that girl you met in Barteld?”

Lerial slips away and makes his way back toward the wall where there are no horses tied before he releases the concealment and heads back toward the fire.

He is a good fifteen yards away when Altyrn appears. “Where have you been?”

“Walking around. Trying to do it as quietly as possible … just for practice.”

“I see.” Altyrn pauses. “I’ve got fairly good eyes at night. I didn’t see you.”

Lerial shrugs. “I don’t know what to say, ser. I wasn’t about to wander off.”

There is the slightest pause. Then the majer says, “All the best leaders and rulers have special talents. The very best, though, know when to use them, and when not to.”

“I’m learning that, ser, but sometimes you have to practice for a long time before you know enough to understand when to use something and when not to. I can sense where most blades will be just before they get there, but it took more than two seasons of practicing with you and the Lancers at Teilyn post before I had enough skill to use that sense.”

“I thought that might be the case. Some healers can sense where people will move before they do.”

“I’ve tried that … but I can’t do that.” Not yet.

“You never know what you can do unless you work at it.”

Lerial grins. “I didn’t say I wasn’t working at it, ser.” And a few other order skills.

“Good.” Altyrn clears his throat. “None of that will help much, though, if you don’t get enough sleep.”

“I was about to turn in.”

“Good night, Lerial.”

“Good night, ser.”