Magi'i of Cyador

XXVIII

LORN SITS AT the corner desk in the officers’ study, the one in the northwest corner-where the chill and the wind seep in around the high window overhead and plummet down to make it the coldest spot in the room. Even the low fire, fed by both dried dung and the peat dug by the lancers on disciplinary duty, fails to lift all the chill out of the study.

The undercaptain reads over the words of his last report, ignoring the drafty chill at his back and upon his neck, wanting to ensure that Overcaptain Chyorst and Sub-Majer Brevyl will have little to criticize-or at least as little as Lorn can manage.

… The valleys to the west of Ram’s End showed no sign of raiders, and the people there had not reported seeing any barbarians in the past four eightdays …

… Two mounts were lamed from being riddenand slipping on the icy surface of the road beyond Eryutn …

Lorn looks down at the words again and frowns, then glances at the notes he had jotted down at the end of each day of patroling. There should be more to report, but he can think of nothing, nothing to convey the chill and the empty kays that had followed one after another as the Fifth Company has ridden patrol after patrol for the past four eightdays. One raid more than five eightdays before, and empty roads and empty hills ever since.

As the chill of a screeing glass sweeps over him, Lorn freezes momentarily, then looks at the report he holds once more, studying it until the unseen inner chill passes. That chill is clearly not felt by any but him, and certainly not by the three captains clustered around the next desk, sharing several bottles of wine that one has brought back from his midwinter furlough-a luxury Lorn will not see until after his first complete year at Isahl.

Lorn half-hears their words as he looks up from the last words of the report that will go to Sub-Majer Brevyl in the morning.

“ … that double patrol put a stop to their raids …”

“ … can’t do double patrols all the time … too many areas don’t get covered, and they’ll know it ….” The squat and swarthy captain who replies to Zandrey’s observation is Jostyn, an officer Lorn knows only from the officers’ dining hall.

“Barbarians know too much,” suggests Eghyr, a blond and rail-thin captain who always has a smile on his lips, but seldom in his eyes.

“They just watch, and when we go one way, they go the other.” Zandrey takes a small sip from the goblet, still nearly half full for all that the three have been drinking ever since dinner.

“Lorn!” calls Jostyn, lifting a hand and beckoning to the undercaptain. “You can’t write reports all night. Have a glass with us ….”

“We’d like you to share some of this Alafraan,” adds Zandrey more temperately. “We don’t get it that often, and it’ll spoil by the time I get back from patrol.”

“You could leave it for us,” counters Jostyn. “Warm us up with the coldest part of the winter yet to come.”

“Not the coldest,” corrects Eghyr. “The longest, but not the coldest.”

Lorn sets the report face down on his desk and pulls his chair over to the corner of the desk where the three are seated.

“Lorn will enjoy his first glass more than you’ll enjoy your fifth,” says Zandrey with a laugh, pouring a goblet he has produced from somewhere half-full and handing it to the undercaptain.

“Thank you.” Lorn takes the goblet with a smile, lifts it in salute to the three and takes a very small swallow. The amber wine tastes warmer than it is, with a hint of both pearapples and trilia … and something else that he cannot identify. “It’s good.”

“Far better than what we usually get,” comments Eghyr, “thanks to Zandrey.”

“My uncle’s a vintner in Escadr.”

“If this is his wine, he is very good.” Lorn has never heard of Escadr, and he had thought he knew nearly every town in Cyador.

“He is good, even if no one’s heard of Escadr. It’s a tiny little town south and east of Biehl-not all that far from the rugged part of the Grass Hills way to the northwest,” explains Zandrey. “And I tell everyone that because no one’s ever heard of it.”

“He said the same thing when he offered the first bottle,” interjects Eghyr.

Lorn nods and takes a second, smaller sip. The Alafraan is indeed excellent, far too good for a Lancer outpost at the base of the Grass Hills.

“City lancers never appreciate a bottle of Alafraan,” mumbles Jostyn, cradling his goblet. “Don’t know what it is to ride a Patrol through the Grass Hills-or watch the whitewalls of the Accursed Forest for some giant stun lizard or cat big enough to cross the wards and take cattle or sheep.”

“You haven’t patrolled the Accursed Forest.” Eghyr laughs gently, but coldly.

“Sasym did. Saw both.”

“He probably did, but he wasn’t much good with a lance, and that’s …” Zandrey breaks off his comment with a shrug.

“You stay here for even a year, and you’ll never be a city lancer again,” says Jostyn, nodding toward Lorn. “All of’em in Cyad … just city lancers.”

“Not all,” observes Eghyr. “Captain-Commander Luss’alt and Majer-Commander Rynst’alt served in every Grass Hills and Accursed Forest post.”

Lorn does not ask how Eghyr knows, but resolves to be most careful around the blond captain.

“Maybe that’s why they’re where they are,” suggests Zandrey.

Eghyr casts a quick glance at the stocky Zandrey.

Zandrey’s brown eyes reveal nothing as he lifts his goblet for another sip of the Alafraan, a swallow that seems far larger than it is.

“That’s the big secret, you know,” adds Jostyn, his words even more slurred. “Most lancer officers are city lancers … never spent any real time on the borders, never seen a barbarian across the shimmer of a blade ….”

Lorn nods, but his eyes and attention are on Eghyr and Zandrey.