Magi'i of Cyador

XXX

LORN STANDS IN his stirrups, trying to stretch his legs while the mare travels a section of road that is damp but appears firm. The early spring or late winter wind carries alternating gusts of chill and warmth past the undercaptain, but everything is brown-the grass, the road itself, the hills to the south and north. The puddles in the road are muddy brown.

The mare’s forelegs are coated with brown from the mud of the road, and even the lower parts of Lorn’s once-creamcolored trousers are splattered with the mud that remains cold and greasy despite the clear and bright mid-morning sun.

“One time when riding the fields be faster …” The words drift forward from one of the lancers in Shofirg’s company, carrying on a light gust of wind to Nytral and Lorn.

Nytral shakes his head. “The fields be like the great swamps below the Accursed Forest. You take a mount there, and he’d be in over his fetlocks, then hock deep afore you know it. The barbarians know it, and we’ll not be seeing them for another eightday.”

“So we’re the mud patrol? To see when the ground firms up and when they’re likely to begin their attacks?” Lorn’s eyebrows arch as he asks the question.

“Aye. That be why the Fifth Company rides now.”

“To save the others for the first attacks … that makes a sense of sorts.” After all, Brevyl had told Lorn that he’d be handed nasty jobs, but not more than he could handle, and a mud patrol certainly fits the description of nasty and within his capabilities.

At Lorn’s open and humorous laugh, Nytral looks quizzically at his superior.

“It’s about what Sub-Majer Brevyl promised,” Lorn says. “He does keep his word. You have to admit that.”

“Be times we all wish he’d not, ser.”

“Probably.”

Lorn’s eyes drop to a single sprig of green in a muddy patch a half-dozen cubits off the shoulder on the north side of the road. There is but the faintest hint of red within the center of the tight-curled wild-flower.

“Blood-drop,” he murmurs to himself, looking to the northern hills that conceal the barbarians beyond.