Magi'i of Cyador

CVII

TO LORN’S RIGHT the ward-wall glimmers white in the steam of the morning of Second Company’s second day of patrol-outbound from Jakaafra compound on the second full patrol since Lorn has returned from his furlough and seen Ryalth off on her way back to Cyad. While it is too early to have heard from her, he worries.

He also worries about the weather and the Accursed Forest. The cold rain has been followed with still air and a sun that seems as hot as early summer. The air is damp and warm, and steam rises from the road and even from the deadland,so much so that Lorn can barely make out the second squad’s lancers in the line abreast stretching in from the perimeter road.

Lorn blots his forehead with the back of his hand, even though his jacket is fastened behind the saddle. His eyes and chaos senses focus on the ward-wall ahead, for the chaos field set up by the wards is truly chaotic and seems almost to fade away at times. He turns his head left and calls to Shynt, “Tell them to watch things closely.”

“Aye, ser.” In turn, the junior squad leader calls out. “Watch close now! Could be aught all in this mist! Watch close.”

As the gelding carries him along the wall road, headed almost directly into the sun, Lorn struggles against the glare of sun and reflected light to make out the midpoint chaos tower that the company must be approaching-that and the fallen trunk he knows must lie ahead. Still, Second Company rides another three kays before Lorn sees the line of darkness crossing the ward-wall ahead-and behind it, the white granite of the midpoint chaos-tower building rising above the ground mist, less than half a kay behind the fallen tree. For a long moment, he studies the point nearly a kay away where the tree has struck the granite of the ward-wall, noting that white oblongs are strewn across the wall road-the first time he has seen such.

He turns in the saddle and calls to Shynt, “Form up into five abreast. We’ll head out to join the second squad.” His fingers touch the single chaos lance in his holder-fully charged and then some.

“There’s a fallen tree ahead. Form up five abreast, staggered! Pass it out!” orders the junior squad leader. “Five abreast!”

After guiding the gelding away from the ward-wall, Lorn urges his mount up alongside Shynt’s. The lancers fall into their five-abreast ranks as Lorn and Shynt pass, until they have gathered the understrength squad together. Shynt barely has the first squad formed up a quarter kay from the wall and riding outward toward Kusyl and his second squad-already formed up on the perimeter road-when a messenger rides toward Lorn, reining up and then turning his mount to ride beside the lancer captain.

“Ser,” the messenger blurts. “Squad leader Kusyl, ser, he wants you to know that there’s another trunk down on the far side of the chaos tower.”

“Another?” murmurs Shynt to himself.

“Thank you,” Lorn replies. “Tell him we’ll join him on the perimeter road off the crown of this trunk. And tell him to stay well back until we get there.”

“Yes, ser.”

The lancer rides back toward Kusyl, and Lorn and the first squad continue riding in formation, outward through the ground mist that has begun to dissipate, out toward the perimeter road and the second squad.

Lorn keeps studying the dark trunk whose length they parallel, but he sees nothing overt, no giant cats on the trunk, no night leopards-just a huge trunk-wall that seems blacker than most of the fallen forest giants he has encountered on previous patrols.

As Lorn nears the second squad, formed up on the perimeter road, Kusyl rides forward to meet his captain. “Two of’em down, ser,” reports the senior squad leader. “You can see the second, on the other side of the tower building.” He points. “Looks big as this one. Could be bigger. Hard to tell from here.”

Following the gesture, Lorn nods. “Two or not, we’ll have to check this one first. We’ll follow the road and then head straight at the crown.”

“Yes, ser.”

Lorn continues to watch the two fallen forest giants, separated by almost a kay, with the bulk of the midpoint chaos tower and its connecting wall between them, yet he can see nothing moving except dark birds that are clearly vulcrows.

When they are opposite the first tree, Lorn reins up, then turns. “Form up on me for the approach to the crown.” The captain looks from Kusyl to Shynt.

“Yes, ser.”

“Yes, ser.”

Lorn eases the gelding forward, then slips the white firelance from the holder. He also checks the sabre. Once the squads flank him, with seventy-five cubits separating him from the forward lancer on each side, and he rides alone once more, he urges the gelding toward the mass of twisted and splintered branches and greenery that lie six hundred cubits before him.

A vulcrow flutters to land on a branch protruding higher than the others, its black feathers glistening under the hot spring-like sun, something dangling from its mouth before the morsel disappears when the scavenger swallows. Lorn rides closer to the forest canopy. He can see long strands of moss-like vegetation.

The air smells of splintered and resined wood, of acrid crushed leaves, and slightly of the acrid and musky scent that tells of stun lizards. The branches rustle, then crack ominously, and the crackling is followed by a greater odor of musk and an intensified acridity.

“Prepare to discharge firelances!” Lorn orders without turning his head, his eyes sweeping the twisted greenery.

“Firelances to the ready.”

The two stun lizards that crash from the fallen tree are five cubits high at their front shoulders, and stretch more than twenty-five cubits. The heavy tails do not lash. The nearer and fractionally larger lizard halts, then watches Lorn through black eyes that do not blink. Soundlessly, a black tongue flicks out like a lash, pulling a gray sparrow Lorn had not even seen from the air.

After taking the bird, the first lizard remains perfectly still. So does the second.

A gap of a hundred cubits separates Lorn and the two squads of Second Company from the pair of lizards.

The first lizard lumbers forward a good twenty cubits, then halts. The tongue flicks the air once more.

Lorn waits.

The trailing lizard angles to Lorn’s right and continuesforward slowly until it comes to a halt ten cubits forward of the first.

The first lizard takes another dozen ground-covering strides, then lifts its head.

MMMMnnnnnnnn...

At the mental scream of the lizard, several lancers sway in their saddles. One drops a firelance and clasps his hands to his forehead, as if to try to keep his skull from exploding.

“Discharge at will!” snaps Lorn.

“Fire at will!” echoes Kusyl.

MMMMnnn … The second lizard charges for Shynt.

Hssst! Hsstt! Hssst! Firelances flare everywhere, but most concentrate on the second lizard, the one that has almost reached the five-abreast formation before slowing under the flash of lances.

MMMnnnnnn! Lorn feels rocked in his saddle by the mental blast, even though he knows the sensation is but within his mind.

The giant lizard half-turns and the tail swings. A lancer tries to duck, but is swept from the saddle, and the return swing, lower, sweeps his mount from its hoofs.

Lorn digs his heels into the gelding’s flanks and urges him forward. Recalling his previous encounters with the lizards, he directs his lance blasts at the first lizard’s left eye.

Hssstt!

MMMMMmmmm … The stun blast contains a sense of pain and rage. MMMnnnnn … The big tail thumps the deadland, then lashes toward the second squad.

Mmmnnnn … Lorn fires again, glancing toward the first squad momentarily. Two mounts are down, but the second lizard’s head is a charred mass. He concentrates on the lizard that continues to lumber away from him and toward Kusyl and the second squad.

The first lizard flees Lorn, its tail sweeping through the legs of another lancer mount, and sending mount and lancer down. Lorn urges the gelding more to his left, trying to circle past the flailing tail to get another blast at the lizard’s eye.

Abruptly, the big creature slows and its tongue flashes towarda lancer, but the lancer has the presence of mind to slash with his sabre.

MMMMnnnn!

The lancer shakes his head, managing to hold his blade against the lash-like tongue.

HHHssssTTT! Lorn focuses a long bolt, one that curves under his control, into the lizard’s left eye.

A deep roaring groan fills the air, and the tail slams the ground, once, twice. Lorn senses that the beast is dying, and lets loose another fireblast before he turns the gelding. His eyes travel toward the ward-wall, where, even as the two lizards are still twitching, another set of four large dark forms come streaking, not from the foliage, but down the massive tree trunk from the forest.

“Giant cats! Reform!”

“Lances ready!”

Before the second squad can turn toward the south and the ward-wall, one of the giant cats has struck a lancer.

Hhhsttt! Hssst!

The bursts from the lances are shorter, weaker, and many lancers have dropped exhausted lances and are using their sabres.

Lorn finds the Brystan sabre in one hand, and the firelance in the other. His eyes are watering, and his head is splitting, but he lets loose with another chaos blast, this time at a giant cat that has started to spring toward Kusyl from the side, while the senior squad leader is using his sabre on a third cat that has slashed the shoulder of a lancer in the first rank.

The cat squalls, then crumples, and Lorn tries to scan the area between the lancers and the crushed canopy.

A round tannish object rolls out of the canopy, surrounded almost by a dark fog, that starts to swirl away from a rough sphere.

Paper wasps! Lorn turns his lance in the general direction of the nest and lets loose a chaos bolt. Hssst!

Knives slash his vision, and he understands he is drawing chaos from around him, that the charge in his weapon is long since depleted. He drops the lance. This is one time that heisn’t worrying about the weapons, not with all the wild creatures swirling around and attacking Second Company.

He glances back at the tan sphere, but the wasp nest flares yellowish, as do some of the finger-long wasps. A handful escapes the chaos flash, and the insects whine toward the nearest lancers-those on the left end of Shynt’s company.

Lorn jerks his attention back to the crushed green leaves of the canopy, and the rustling that foretells night leopards. “Night leopards!”

“Frig!”

“Dark angels …”

Lorn manages to drag out the other sabre and wonders just how effective he will be guiding the gelding with his knees. He swallows and blinks as the smaller cats continue to bound from the greenery-far more than a score.

Hssst! Hssst! Hssst! The handful of firelances left from those lancers who had been in the third rank flare, and lines of chaos crisscross the dark feline forms, those that have not already reached lancers and their mounts.

“Short bursts! Short bursts!” Shynt bellows.

A mount screams.

Lorn finds himself swinging the Brystan sabre left-handed to drop a night leopard that has streaked toward him, while holding the second sabre ready in his right.

Hsst! Hsst!

Lorn does not recall well the next moments, only that he employs both blades, and that no leopards turn and flee, but all continue to attack.

Abruptly, impossibly, it seems, there are no creatures attacking.

Lorn glances down. One trouser leg is slashed, and there is blood splattered across his boots and legs. His eyes feel like knives are being driven through and behind them, and his skull feels as if it had been split with a dull wedge. He blinks and tries to assess what remains around him.

Close by, he can see five mounts lying on the deadland. One shudders and tries to rise, shudders and tries again, butthe mare’s right foreleg is crushed and twisted, possibly from the lashing tail of one of the stun lizards.

One lancer lies on his back, his body swollen, and his face covered with red blotches from the attack of those paper wasps that had escaped Lorn’s firelance.

Other unmoving forms-five-lie beside the charred forms of the lizards, the giant cats, and the night leopards.

Kusyl rides slowly toward Lorn. Dark splotches cover his gray’s coat, blood is smeared across the forearms of both sleeves.

Not sure that the attack is over, or that the comparative stillness is lull, Lorn keeps scanning the area, with both chaos senses and sight. The only sounds come from the lancers and their mounts, and the pitiful whimpering of the mount that will have to be destroyed.

A vulcrow flaps overhead, then glides above Lorn and down toward one of the lizard carcasses. Lorn blots his forehead to keep the sweat from eyes that already burn and slash into his skull, but he does not close his eyes, but keeps watching.

“Form up on me!” Kusyl orders.

“Reform!” yells Shynt, his voice cracking slightly.

Lorn watches the greenery as the lancers reform, those that remain and can, then rides to where Kusyl sits on his mount before the remaining eleven members of the second squad.

“Never … ever seen aught like that, ser,” observes the squad leader.

Lorn shakes his head, but only minutely, for each movement sears his vision. “I haven’t either.” He swallows, but that helps little with the dryness in his mouth and throat. “Best we remain formed up and see what happens for a bit. Except … have a couple of men look to the wounded … do we have any?”

“Yes, ser.” Kusyl frowns. “Seven down, I think, both squads. Those that stayed mounted be all right, save slashes … excepting Thylt … lizard tail snapped his arm.”

Shynt eases his mount to join them, as all three continueto survey the twisted branches of the fallen tree. “We have no charged lances remaining.”

“I doubt if anyone does,” Lorn says hoarsely.

The silence continues for some time, yet the only movement is that of the handful of vulcrows that are gathering, flapping down to feed on the dead lizards.

“There is a second tree,” Lorn says. “Have second squad remain here with the wounded. First squad and I will circle the other tree, but we’ll stay well back. Well back,” he adds.

Shynt nods.

“We won’t send a message to the Engineers until we look at the second tree-carefully.” The captain looks at Kusyl. “If you’d have someone collect the lances that were discarded or dropped, and see how many are left with charges ….” He laughs once, harshly. “If there are any at all.”

“Yes, ser.”

Lorn turns in the saddle to Shynt. “First squad ready?”

“Yes, ser.”

Lorn and the first squad slowly ride past the midpoint chaos tower, then continue almost another half kay before turning southward and beginning a circuit around the second fallen trunk, at a distance of a good five hundred cubits. Lorn watches the trunk … and listens. All he hears are the murmurs of lancers.

“ … two stun lizards … never saw so many of those angel-dead leopards …”

“ … captain killed one lizard himself … big cat … lots a’ small ones …”

“ … better … got the worst luck of any officer …”

“ … not worst luck … worst wall … northeast always been bad … say it be the winds …”

“ … heard he got consorted on furlough …”

“ … might as well … lots don’t live to get back to Cyad ….”

Lorn concentrates on the fallen tree, but no branches rustle, and there are no signs of any other wild creatures-besides the vulcrows that perch on the trunk, and then fly back to pick at the carcasses.

“Not a thing on this trunk. Strange it be,” Shynt observes. “They were waiting for us at the first.”

Lorn nods, his eyes going to the ward-wall that lies still ahead, continuing to ride parallel to the second trunk, the firelance held out, even though the chaos charge is gone. He compares the bark to what he has seen earlier, a bark that is darker, smoother-harder perhaps.

As they near the wall that hardness is clear. Once again, the trunk has also destroyed or knocked out of the wall a good three courses of the granite stonework.

“Tough tree, this one,” Shynt says. “Hope we don’t see more like this.”

More like what they have just endured, and there will be no Second Company. Yet not a single wild creature has escaped-unless they had left well before the lancers arrived. Lorn shrugs. If that is the case, he can do nothing, but accept that Maran will blame him for that as well.

No matter how carefully Lorn writes his patrol report, Maran will find a way to blame Lorn.