Ordermaster

VII

Sixday morning found Kharl wearing the yellow-and-black uniform of Ghrant’s personal guard as he rode northwest beside Charsal along a rutted clay road barely wider than a lane. Kharl was doing his best not to bounce in the saddle, but his riding experience had been most limited. Instead of a sabre, there was a cudgel in the lance holder, since Kharl had never learned either lances or blades. Behind him rode ten other lancers, a half squad.

A fine cold spring mist drifted down from low-lying clouds, leaving a thin sheen of water on the lower and more level sections of the road. The flat light gave the water-covered parts of the road a silver cast. The air was still cold and damp enough that at times the breath of the horses steamed.

What was he doing riding out again to do something that could easily get himself killed if anything at all went wrong? Kharl wondered. He’d had to risk his life just to stay alive when he had been running from Egen. Then he’d risked his life in saving Lord Ghrant to repay Hagen. Now he was risking his life, in a sense, to keep what he’d earned so that he didn’t end up back in poverty and on the run. Was life just a continuing series of situations where he had to wager himself for higher and higher stakes-just toavoid losing what he had? Was that why rulers in difficulties ended up making bad decisions?

After a time, Kharl began to notice an acrid odor in the air. Something was burning, and it didn’t smell like a hearth fire or a forge. He turned to Charsal. “How much farther do we need to ride along this road?”

“A good two kays more, maybe three. Then we’ll be taking a lane to the back side of the orchards. The scouts reported that Malcor and Kenslan have got their forces north of there. The trees have started to leaf out, but they’re mostly still winter-gray.”

“That will provide some cover?”

“Enough so they won’t see us from afar, anyway. They don’t have pickets out more than half a kay. Leastwise, they didn’t yesterday. Wouldn’t count on that, though. Kenslan’ll begin whipping’em into better discipline.”

“Vatoran didn’t do that?”

“Vatoran came up through the ranks. Learned that you got further if you didn’t piss off the officers who came from lordly families and if you always said yes to lords. Gets you promoted. Doesn’t make for good discipline.” Charsal laughed. “That’s what Commander Norgen says, anyway. But … back then, who was worrying about discipline? Hadn’t been anyone to fight in years.”

“It’s late to instill discipline after the fighting starts,” Kharl said dryly.

“Yes, ser. Commander Norgen said that Lord Estloch should have kept Lord Hagen as arms-commander, but too many of the younger sons of lords complained that he was too strict.”

So Hagen had once been arms-commander of Austra? Hagen had alluded to his past, but that was something he hadn’t mentioned.

“That’s when he went to sea, they say.” Charsal frowned, then held up a hand. “Halt.”

Kharl managed to rein up his mount, far less smoothly than did the riders behind him. He glanced northward. The narrow road sloped upward to a crest a good ten rods ahead. He thought he could make out the beginning of a hedgerow beyond on the left side of the road.

In the silence, the undercaptain listened for several moments before speaking. “Riders … headed this way.”

Kharl could not only hear the drumbeat of hoofs, but also, for the first time, could clearly sense something like a faint white fog-a white wizard.Had they been detected by sorcery? How many wizards were there supporting the rebel lords? He could hope that there was only one remaining.

“They’re still almost a kay away, from the sound. We’ll head up just short of where the road crests, so we can look over and see how many and how far away they are.”

Kharl had hoped they would have been able to get closer to the rebel forces. From what Charsal said, he was almost three kays away. Still, he’d walked three kays many a time, and more than once just to save a few coppers.

When they reined up short of the road crest, Kharl tried to make out the riders who headed down the long and gentle incline that was opposite the low hillcrest from where he watched. Against the low clouds, he found it hard to take an accurate count, but there were clearly far more armsmen headed toward them than in the small force behind him.

He looked ahead to his left, where the hedgerow began, bordering the road on the west. Behind the hedgerow was a meadow, one not terribly tidy, with winter-browned grass. Farther to the west, at the end of the meadow, was a grove of trees-or an ill-tended orchard whose leaves had yet to turn from winter-gray to green. Apples, he thought. Beyond the trees were several buildings, barely visible. Kharl looked more to the north. After a moment, he realized that what he’d first thought had been fog was smoke from the buildings that had already been burned.

“They’ve burned that place.”

“Lord Lahoryn’s country house,” said Charsal. “We’ve got other problems. Two whole squads riding toward us, and they look to be fresh.”

Kharl asked quickly, “What would happen if they rode into a wall that they couldn’t see?”

“They’d still outnumber us.”

“But that would stop them for a bit, get them confused, even if the wall vanished, wouldn’t it?”

Charsal nodded.

“Then, let’s try this. I’ll get off by that hedgerow there. You take my mount and ride just a little farther, then turn around and ride back. Not too fast at first, as if your horses are more tired than they are.”

“What if they see you, ser?”

“They won’t.” Kharl paused, trying to work out his strategy. “If they turn back, you can come and get me. If they don’t … just head back towardthe Great House. You remember that corner where the meeting house of the one-god believers is?”

“You want us to meet you there?”

“Not until close to sundown, anyway, and it might be later. That’s if they try to follow you.”

“You don’t need to do the wall-like thing, ser. We can just ride.”

“It’s better if I do. It should make them cautious in following you. That will be easier on your mounts. Also, I’m hoping that I can create the impression that I’m still with you, and that they’ll not think I’m where I am.”

“If you say so, ser.” Charsal turned in his saddle. “We’re riding forward about twenty rods. Then we’ll turn and head back … slow trot. The mage is going to work a diversion. Forward!”

Not a word or a murmur came from the lancers.

Kharl half turned in the saddle, almost falling off as he struggled to extract some of the cheese, biscuits, and dried apples from the saddlebag. Then he thrust those and the water bottle inside the yellow-trimmed black riding jacket. He had to steady himself by grabbing the gray’s mane. A rider he was not.

When Kharl and Charsal had almost reached the hedgerow, the mage eased his mount toward the undercaptain. “Slow down for a moment.”

“Ah … yes, sir.”

Kharl leaned right in the saddle and handed the gray’s reins to Charsal. “Don’t be surprised.” With that, he slipped the sight shield around himself, and, once more, was in the dark and sightless, relying on his order-senses to get him off his mount, off the road, and behind the hedgerow.

“ … gone …”

“ … course … he’s a mage … do our part …”

Once he was in place behind the hedgerow, mostly hidden, Kharl released the sight shield. If he couldn’t see the road, whoever was on the road was unlikely to see him, and it was unlikely the holders or tenants in the buildings beyond the trees would see him against the back of the hedgerow.

Kharl knelt behind the twisted mass of branches and vines that had barely begun to show green, using his order-senses to watch what happened on the road. Within moments, Charsal and his squad trotted back southward past the spot where Kharl waited behind the hedgerow. Fromthe north came the growing sound of hoofs, and a stronger sense of the chaos whiteness.

As he stood next to the foliage that separated him from the road, Kharl concentrated on creating not so much an image, but a projection of order, set close to the now-riderless mount that Charsal led, hoping that the white wizard who rode with the rebels would focus on that order.

The pursuing lancers did not slow as they neared Kharl’s hiding place-a good sign. He waited until the lancers were within five rods of him before he struggled to create a solid barrier of air, based on linking the air together with twists of order. The barrier ran from the road surface to more than head height of a mounted man.

“We’re gaining …”

A series of dull thuds, followed by screaming from downed horses and yells as riders tried to rein up and avoid becoming entangled in the mass of fallen mounts and unhorsed men. At least two of the rebel armsmen were dead. Kharl had felt the emptiness, the wash of red-tinged death. Several others were injured, perhaps severely.

Kharl was trembling when he released the barrier. He took a deep breath and began to move northward at a quick walk. He did not let go of the order projection moving with Charsal until he was a good thirty rods north of the milling confusion. As he moved away from the pileup of men and mounts, he kept checking with both eyes and senses to see if anyone had chanced to look behind the hedgerow, but no one did.

“After them …!”

The riders who had not suffered-or perhaps the second squad-resumed the pursuit of Charsal.

Kharl kept walking, hurriedly, through the damp grass of the meadow. Already, the lower parts of his trousers were wet. The ill-tended meadow extended down a slight slope for almost a kay, until it reached a small stream, so small that it was a mere rivulet running across a muddy depression. Just short of the stream, which Kharl could sense, but not see, the hedgerow stopped, or rather turned westward at a right angle. So thick was the vegetation that the mage had to walk almost ten rods westward before he came to a gate in the hedgerow.

The iron latch was broken, and the gate had been secured with a length of twine. Kharl used his belt knife to cut it, but quickly retied the twine once he was through.

His legs were wobbly.

He glanced around, then leaned against the stone pillar that held the gate hinges and took the water bottle out from inside his jacket. After a long swallow, he munched on some dried apple slices and took a bite of the hard yellow cheese. He finished with a biscuit that was mostly fragments and crumbs, and another swallow of water.

Ahead, near the hilltop almost a kay away, he could make out a large orchard with trees set precisely in rows-the orchard on the southern border of Lord Lahoryn’s lands, he thought. If so, the rebel forces were less than a kay north from where he stood.

Before setting out northward, Kharl scanned the area nearby once more, taking in the path that led through the muddy depression holding the tiny stream, the stone-walled meadow on the far side, one wall of which bordered the road-without a hedgerow. The hedgerow through which he had just passed continued westward, then turned north once more on the far side of the meadow. In order not stand out to any observer, Kharl would have to walk westward, then follow the hedgerow uphill and north toward the orchard-and the rebel forces beyond. He took another swallow of water, corked the water bottle, and slipped it back inside the riding jacket. He turned westward, following the hedgerow.

When he reached the spot where the hedgerow started northward once more, he crossed the middle strip that held the stream. He had only covered ten or fifteen rods, walking beside the twisted and intertwined branches and through the damp grass, before his trousers below the knee were thoroughly soaked, and water oozed down into his boots. He was also sweating under the riding jacket from his exertions and the damp spring air.

He kept close to the hedgerow as he moved uphill. He was still a quarter of a kay from the stone wall between the meadow and the orchard when he began to sense that there were sentries set at intervals along the wall. Once more he drew upon his skills and let the light flow around him so that the sentries could not see him. He had to move more slowly because he was relying on his order-senses, rather than his sight.

Kharl moved even more carefully when he neared the wall. While the sentry a hundred cubits to the east could not see him, the man could certainly hear if the mage knocked off a stone or made any other significant noise. Kharl still felt strange climbing over the low stone wall so close to a sentry.

Once over the wall he made his way from tree to tree, always headednorthward. Outside of the sentries, no other armsmen were in the orchard. At the north end of the orchard, on the west end, there was a small section of a hedgerow. There, Kharl found a spot that was sheltered from casual view and released the sight shield. While he did not feel as weak as he had after the encounter with the rebel lancers and the white wizard, he could sense that he needed to rest. He drank some more from the water bottle and finished the cheese and dried apples-and another biscuit that was also mostly pieces and crumbs.

After he had refreshed himself, he peered northward through the screen of branches and winter-gray leaves. A handful of tents rose from the highest point in the meadow to the northwest of the hedgerow, and around them were mounts on tie-lines and armsmen in groups, seemingly waiting. Beyond the meadow were the smoldering ruins of what had been Lord Lahoryn’s large country house.

Kharl had to wonder why they had burned it, rather than just taking it. Or was the rebels’ plan to make an example of Lord Ghrant’s supporters? It didn’t make much sense to him.

Beyond the hedgerow was more of the damp meadow grass, and he would have to cross a good half kay of open ground. He just hoped there were no dogs around because they would sniff him out, even if they couldn’t see him.

He took a long and deep breath, then drew the sight shield around himself and stepped away from the hedgerow.

Step by step, he made his slow way toward the tents. After less than ten rods he had to circle more to the east to avoid a line of mounts and the lancers tending them. He listened as well as he could as he slipped past.

“ … not that hard …”

“ … just an old man and his people …”

“ … would have liked to have gotten that girl before …”

“ … she’s spoils for the lords …”

By the time Kharl had circled around more lancers and mounts, reoriented himself, and headed back toward the low crest in the middle of the meadow, he felt soaked inside and out, from the high damp grass, from the damp mist that was becoming more like a fine rain, and from his own sweat. With each step, his feet sank into the soft ground, and he could feel the chill dampness inside his boots.

From what his order-senses told him, there were but five tents, the two in the center being the largest. He eased between two of the smaller tents,both empty, and toward the nearer of the larger pair. There, he paused near the rear canvas wall. There was no need for him to enter the tents, but the first larger tent was vacant as well.

At the sound and sense of someone coming, Kharl edged closer to the canvas, standing beside a guy rope. An armsman strode past. The man paused, looked around, shook his head, then continued toward the next large tent.

Kharl waited, then followed. While the armsman circled to the front of the tent and the two guards stationed there, Kharl made his way close to the rear canvas, where he listened.

“Lord Kenslan, Undercaptain Giron, ser.”

“Yes, undercaptain?” The voice was simultaneously surprisingly high and yet hard.

“You had asked for a report. Lord Ghrant’s black mage came up the orchard road. He set some sort of trap that killed a handful of our lancers. The mage Alborak and the lancers chased him back south. We don’t have a report on what happened yet.”

″Thank you, undercaptain. Let us know what occurred as soon as you hear.”

“Yes, ser.”

There was silence within the tent until the undercaptain was well away.

“Where is Yarak? Alborak is barely a wizard. That mage of Ghrant’s could be more than he can handle.”

“Yarak had another task. He went to make sure that our plans are not revealed. What Ghrant’s mage can do is limited. He is black, not white.” There was a laugh. “Kenslan, you worry too much.”

“Malcor, you worry too little. I have good reports on what that mage did. That’s why I suggested to Fostak that a stronger wizard would be necessary if we were to be successful. And you sent him off on this … fool’s errand.”

“Vatoran was the fool.”

Kharl nodded. There were only two men in the tent, and they were Malcor and Kenslan. He took a slow deep breath and concentrated, forming an impermeable barrier of hard air around each lord.

All sound from within the tent stopped.

Kharl felt light-headed, but continued to hold the hardened air barrier around the two lords.

At last came one red-tinged void of death, then another.

Kharl immediately released the barrier. From inside the tent came two dull thuds, followed by a muffled crash.

The mage found himself trembling once more. The effort to remove the two rebel leaders, combined with the requirement to keep himself shielded, had once more left his legs feeling like jelly. That wouldn’t do, not when he had a good five kays to walk back to the crossroads-avoiding armsmen the entire way and going much of the distance without being able to see and having to rely on his order-senses to navigate.

Besides, it would only be moments before the guards raised an alarm.

Kharl forced himself to move quickly back the way he had come, but he had covered less than a handful of rods before he heard the yelling, although he could not make out the words.

He kept walking, as fast as he could, knowing that he could not cover as much ground as he needed at any faster pace. He’d known that using magery would take strength, but what choice had he had? He’d have to practice more in the future. He couldn’t afford to be tired so quickly, not when he had to deal with Lord Ghrant’s enemies one at a time.

By the time he reached the southeast edge of the meadow and the hedgerow where he’d stopped before, he was staggering, and he was so light-headed he wasn’t certain how much longer he could even hold his sight shield.

Like it or not, he had to rest, even on the matted wet grass and dirt in the small niche in the hedgerow. He released the sight shield and sank onto the damp soil behind the twisted branches and winter foliage, which offered but minimal cover.

His fingers trembled as he fumbled out the water bottle. The water helped some. He only had one biscuit left, and half of a dried apple slice. He ate both, then just sat there, breathing hard.

The rain was coming down more heavily, and water drizzled off the branches overhead and down the back of his neck. He could hear and sense more yells, orders being barked. Before long, if someone hadn’t started looking already, they would be looking for traces, and they well might find his boot prints. Or someone might think about a tracking dog. The rain and the imprints of other boots might confuse them, but Kharl couldn’t count on that.

He wasn’t quite so light-headed.

He glanced around, looking to the orchard and toward the sentries and the stone wall. The rain made it harder to see clearly, and no one wasnearby, not that he could see. He decided against raising the sight shield. It was tiring, and he might need it more later.

He stepped around the end of the hedgerow and began to walk quickly toward the stone wall, as if he were headed on an errand or carrying a message. That was safer than skulking from tree to tree and looking guilty. Besides, with the mist and rain, at a distance his riding jacket was not that different from those of the rebels, and the black trousers were the same. The sentries most likely wouldn’t look behind themselves too much, and in the rain, they might even concentrate more on the meadow to the south.

Kharl kept walking through the muddy grass and dirt of the orchard, through a rain that slowly continued to grow in intensity. He tried to ignore the hubbub behind him, a snarling confusion that followed him, growing neither louder nor quieter. Before long, he could see the nearest pair of sentries, one less than a hundred cubits ahead, and slightly to his right, the other barely visible twice that distance away and well to the left.

He watched the nearer sentry closely as he neared the rebel. He was less than thirty cubits away when the man started to turn. Kharl pulled the sight shield around himself and angled his steps more to the right so that he would pass behind the man and reach the wall on the south border of the orchard close to the hedgerow bounding the west end of the meadow.

He was almost abreast of the sentry when he heard the mud-muffled hoofs of a horse behind him.

“Sentries! Eyes sharp! Eyes sharp! Got a scout, maybe a spy. Might be coming this way. See him … raise the alarm.”

Kharl kept moving.

“You, at the point, see anyone?”

“No, ser! Just rain.”

The rider moved eastward away from Kharl. He found himself almost stumbling and forced himself to concentrate on maintaining the sight shield as he eased over the low stone wall and began to make his way down the west side of the meadow. The going was slower, because the winter-dead grass had gotten slicker with the rain, and the dirt in the bare patches had turned to slippery mud.

Still, he made it down the side of the meadow and back through the gate, which he forced himself to secure once more. Once he was out of any possible sight of the sentries to the north, he released the sight shield. He followed the hedgerow eastward, then south.

He made it halfway up the slope, within a few hundred cubits ofwhere he had set the ambush, when he heard hoofs and riders on the road. He sensed a squad of riders. They reined up almost on the other side of the hedgerow from him.

“There’s no one on the road. Not any tracks in the mud.”

“What about the fields, behind the hedgerow there? Someone could walk or ride there and not be seen.”

Kharl looked around. He certainly couldn’t move fast enough to outrun a horse, especially the rain, and he had real doubts about how long he could hold a sight shield.

“Senstyn! Take your four and check out the fields to the west. Derk, you check the east fields there.”

The hedgerow closest to where Kharl was offered no real concealment. He looked back north. That was too open. To the south, perhaps a hundred cubits ahead, the hedgerow widened, just slightly, and it looked like there was an opening of some sort. Maybe.

He picked up his steps and hurried toward what he hoped would provide cover.

On the road, the riders also began to move.

Kharl began to run, if slowly, trying to pick his way over and through the muddy grass and uneven ground toward what looked to be his only chance of hiding without using the magery that he knew he could not hold for long.

He was within cubits of the slight overhang in the hedgerow and a depression that looked to be hidden from view, especially from the south, and he looked toward the end of the hedgerow, hoping that the riders had not started to turn past the hedgerow.

At that moment, with his eyes off the ground, Kharl’s boot caught on something, and he found himself flying forward, helplessly. The ground came up and hit him-hard.

A flash of pain-and then blackness-washed over him.

When he woke, for a moment, he wasn’t certain where he was. But the patter of rain on the hedgerow told him that he was partly under cover. His clothes and jacket were soaked, and he was shivering. Each shudder sent dull spasms through his chest.

He was sprawled in a muddy depression overhung by the hedgerow, and he could taste the mud in his mouth and on his lips.

He started to move, to wipe it away, and dull reddish fire surged overthe left side of his chest, all the way into his shoulder and down almost to his waist. His eyes blurred. Then, slowly, very slowly, he rolled to his right side and gathered his knees under him.

It took him some time to get to his feet.

He glanced around. Up the short slope was a root, thick as a heavy rope, and below it was the heavy gray rock he’d come down on. From what he could tell, someone had tried to dig out the rock, and failed, leaving a hole between the rock and the hedgerow. Over time the hole had softened into a depression and the grass had mostly overgrown the buried boulder-except for the part where he had hit, then slid down out of sight.

He studied the area around him quietly, but he didn’t see or hear or sense anyone nearby, or on the road to the east of the twisted foliage. The cloudy gray afternoon was slightly lighter, and the rain had let up. He guessed it might be midafternoon, but it was hard to tell without seeing the sun.

Slowly, he eased himself out of the depression and back onto the grass beside the hedgerow and south of where he had fallen. He took a step, then a breath. Step and breath … step and breath.

He had covered almost two kays, slowly, when the sky began to darken, not from another storm, but from the sun dropping behind the hills to the west. He’d had to hide, several times, but most of the riders had been solitary, and for the one rebel patrol, he’d managed to hold the sight shield until they had ridden well past to the north. He’d had to sit behind the stone wall for a time after that, regaining his strength.

Now he was almost to the crossroads. Once there, he would have to find somewhere to wait, either until the lancers returned, or to rest. He hoped they would. He couldn’t count on walking all the way back to the Great House, not with his ribs the way they were.

Kharl settled behind the hedge around the meeting house, in a corner invisible from any of the windows, although no one was inside the place. He was soaked, muddy, shivering, and flushed.

Just as full twilight had descended over the crossroads area, and Kharl was gathering himself together to begin walking again, he heard mounts. Cautiously, he peered out. It took him a while to determine that eight riders in yellow and black approached the crossroads, one leading a riderless mount. Charsal was not among the riders.

Kharl rose from behind the low hedge. “Over here.”

“Ser mage?”

“It’s me.” Kharl tried not to wince or limp as he made his way toward the riders.

“Weren’t sure you’d be here.” The speaker was an older guard, one Kharl recognized by his face, but not by his name.

“I managed. Undercaptain Charsal …?”

“Wizard got him and Zolen with a firebolt … Tiersyn got burned, sent him back to Commander Norgen with message.”

Kharl swallowed silently.

“You get done … what you needed, ser mage?” The lancer rode led the mount for Kharl closer.

“It’s done.” Kharl had to lever himself into the saddle with his right arm and hand. Even so, his vision was blurring, and his head was light once more as he tried to steady himself on his mount. He had to grasp twice for the reins extended by the other.

“You wounded, ser mage?”

“Injured,” Kharl replied. “Had some of the rebels chasing me. Stupid. Fell and smashed my side. Ribs.”

“We’d better get moving.” The squad leader shook his head. “That’s war. Gets you in ways you’d never think.”

Kharl had to admit that the squad leader was right. He held on to the reins and tried not to lurch in the saddle. He would ride back, even if every sway of the mount sent another wave of pain through his chest.