Scion of Cyador

XXIX

The hot late-summer sun beats down on Lorn, and the sweat oozes from every pore, soaking the brown tunic he wears for training. Even after eightdays of training that he has made ever more rigorous, he still pours forth sweat. Now he can handle the big blade as easily as a sabre, though he prefers the smaller one for use while mounted.

“Break off!” he orders, glancing sideways at the two-on-three exercise on the flat sandy expanse of the beach to his left. He reins up the chestnut and lets the breeze off the Northern Ocean cool his fevered brow.

The squad leader-Tashqyt-reforms his squad before letting his lancers rest. Lorn nods.

Helkyt eases his mount up beside Lorn. “They are much improved, even the new lads from Vyun and those from Ehyla.”

“They’re getting there,” Lorn says. “They’re still not ready to face the best of the barbarians, but most aren’t that good.”

“Ah…ser…no one’s attacked a port detachment here in two-odd generations.”

“That may be.” Lorn’s eyes fix on the squad leader. “And how many lancers end up back in the Grass Hills?”

“Less ’n a third, ser.”

“Can you tell me which third?” Lorn feels another chill-the kind that provides no real cooling, but the mental coldness of a chaos-glass trained upon him. He ignores it.

“Ah…no ser.”

“Do you want to condemn those men to die in the first skirmish they have with barbarian raiders?”

“No, ser.” Helkyt’s tone is resigned. “Just being that it is so hot…”

“The barbarians don’t fight much when it’s cool and comfortable, as I recall.” Lorn pauses and blots his steaming forehead. “There’s something else. Have you noticed the way the lancers act when they accompany Neabyl and Comyr and the new enumerator…Gyhl, that’s it…on board vessels?”

Helkyt frowns.

“They’re acting like lancers again. They’re trained, and ready, and their carriage shows it. That makes the enumerators’ tasks easier. It also tells the Hamorians and the other barbarians that Cyador is not to be a target.”

“That be true, ser,” the senior squad leader admits. “Neabyl be far cheerier these days, and even his consort came to see him.”

Lorn suspects that has more to do with Flutak’s disappearance than with the greater professionalism of the port-detachment lancers. “There are other reasons, as well.”

Helkyt’s eyebrows lift.

“The barbarian attacks have continued to increase, and we may be called upon. Or,” Lorn smiles wryly, “I may find that my next duty will be there with some of these very same lancers.”

Helkyt winces.

“You do your duty here, Helkyt, and after such a record of faithful service and a long career, I would doubt you will be transferred before you can claim your pension.” Lorn blots his forehead again, aware that whoever used the chaos-glass has let the image lapse. Who could it be? It does not feel like Tyrsal, or his father, but Lorn has no sense of who the unknown magus might be.

“No offense, ser, but I’d be hoping your words be true.” The senior squad leader laughs uneasily.

“They are not certain, but I’d wager that way.” Lorn eases the chestnut toward Tashqyt’s squad, lifting the huge padded hand-and-a-half blade that he will once again use one-on-one against the younger lancers to accustom them to fighting the long swords of the barbarians. “The one-on-one drills!”

Ignoring the sigh from Helkyt, Lorn hopes he can turn each of the recruits into at least a semblance of a lancer before too long. He has already sent a messenger to Commander Repyl, moving up the inspection date for the District Guards by two eightdays, and that means he and most of the Mirror Lancers will be leaving Biehl within three days.

From what he sees and has seen in his chaos-glass, he has less time than anyone else in Biehl knows, and his fate rests in large part on his judgments of what he has observed in his chaos-glass. Yet for all that his fate and the fates of many others rest on his calculations and observations, what he sees cannot be reported to anyone.