The Chaos Balance

CI

Nylan sat on the end of the bench in the shade, finishing the last of the hard bread and cheese. Then he swallowed the last drops of water in his mug and looked toward the well. His forehead was already oozing sweat, although the sun had barely cleared the eastern hills.

He glanced at the smithy area, and at the rough shed farther away from both barracks and smithy, where were racked all too many of the makeshift grenades-with the emulsified mixture that seemed all too close to jellied naphtha-at least in effect. He frowned.

“You wince every time you look there,” Ayrlyn said quietly.

“So do you. Our success…another triumph in bringing total warfare to Candor.” He turned his eyes from the shed and its ceramic grenades to the well, where Sylenia and Weryl drew water. Beyond the two was the corral, with what appeared to be additional mounts milling in the group.

“Our choices are limited,” she pointed out.

“Looks like Fornal got some reinforcements.” His fingers touched the hilt of the blade at his waist, not that he really wanted to use it if Fornal got nasty. But Fornal had been on edge ever since they had returned, ever since the scroll from Lornth, watching as Nylan and Ayrlyn had struggled with mixtures and compounds. That wouldn’t have bothered Nylan, except that when Fornal was uneasy, he seemed to want to rely on personal combat to settle everything. Then, was Nylan overreacting?

Probably, but you’ve been feeling the need for the blade lately. Why?

“Not that many reinforcements.” Sitting beside him on the bench, Ayrlyn sipped the bitter root tea that Nylan had given up on a good season earlier.

“And the holders are putting pressure on the regents for some sort of results. Win, lose, or surrender, but get our levies out and back in time for the harvest.”

She glanced toward the half-ajar door into the main room of the quarters, then added in a lower voice, “That’s why he’s more receptive to our doing more of the dirty work.”

The door opened, and the black-bearded regent stepped out onto the stoop and into the full sunlight. “Ah…”

Nylan watched impassively. How anyone needed that extra warmth when it was already sweltering…Except that it wasn’t that hot for the Lornians.

“You have been saying you would tell me how you will destroy all the Cyadorans in Lornth.” Fornal smiled pleasantly as he turned to the two angels.

“That means killing or removing them.” Ayrlyn’s voice was matter-of-fact, and she continued to cup the chipped brown earthenware mug in her hands. “You’ve seen us working on that.”

Nylan sat up straighter on the bench and waited.

“You have not found that a problem before,” the black-bearded regent said.

“You have had some…reservations,” Nylan pointed out.

“I had hoped to make their defeat, and our victory, honorable.” The younger man shrugged. “Now I am left in a difficult situation. I still have not the forces to defeat the white demons in a massed battle by means the holders would find honorable, nor the time to defeat them in a series of smaller engagements, even if they would oblige me.” His face hardened. “I am no fool, angels, much as some may claim that I overvalue honor. Any loss the holders will find dishonorable, and any delay in returning their levies distasteful.” Fornal offered a bitter smile.

“Even if we destroy all the Cyadoran forces at the mines, this war is not over,” Nylan said slowly.

“No,” admitted Fornal. “I know that if you defeat or destroy this force, all of Cyador will march into Lornth. If you do not, the lord of the white demons will reinforce those who remain, and march them northward, most dishonorably laying waste to all that oppose him.”

“Do you want us to try to destroy the white forces at the mines?” asked Ayrlyn.

Fornal laughed, not quite harshly. “Have I any choice, angels? I do not find your way of warfare the most honorable, and I fear what you bring to Candar. Yet to reject your skills will mean the White Lord will dishonor Lornth.” He shook his head. “Do what you must.” The smile that followed encompassed only his eyes as he stepped off the stoop, pausing before he inclined his head. “I trust your own squads will suffice for whatever you plan?”

“One way or another,” Nylan said.

“Good.”

The stoop was silent for a moment, except for the crunch of the regent’s boots on the sandy and dusty path leading to the corral. Fornal stepped around the nursemaid and Weryl without looking at either or back in the direction of the two angels.

Had Fornal been talking to his sire or sister? Nylan pursed his lips and turned to Ayrlyn. “That was pretty straightforward.”

“Nothing of honor has been left to me; so you might as well do your worst to the Cyadorans?” Ayrlyn took another sip of the bitter tea. “He’s a man in a difficult situation.”

“He wants to be straightforward and honorable in battle, but he knows that, first, it won’t work, and second, what we do will change his entire world. But if we don’t, he won’t have a world.”

“If we do, and we succeed, Nylan,” added Ayrlyn softly, “he won’t either.”

“That still leaves us on the point,” Nylan said, “not quite sacrificial goats, since we volunteered.” He stood and surveyed the yard, watching as Weryl trudged behind Sylenia, his small sandaled feet raising puffs of yellow dust.

“After the time in the grove, do you think it’s wrong?” asked the redhead. “It could be futile.”

“It could be, but what are the alternatives? After what Ryba and we have done, we wouldn’t last a moment anywhere else. We have to see this through, and I have the feeling that things will just keep getting harder.” He forced a smile. “Why do I think that?”

“Because they always do.”

He took a deep breath. “Time to check the makeshift distillery, and the makeshift forge, and the makeshift grenade fabrication facilities, and the makeshift whatever’s next to be makeshifted…” Then he looked down at the blade. He really didn’t need that-or did he?

“No! Leave me alone!”

Not two dozen cubits from where Nylan stood, a squat armsman had accosted Sylenia, grasping her free arm. He laughed, once, twice.

The nursemaid threw the bucket-water and all-at the armsman. Even before the bucket slammed into the man’s face, Sylenia had scooped up Weryl and begun to run toward the dwelling.

Nylan jumped off the stoop and headed toward the armsman.

From the area by the shed barracks, another figure sprinted toward Sylenia, drawing a blade as he ran. A handful of levies turned, as if in slow motion.

With water and blood streaming across his tunic, Tregvo-it had to be Tregvo-pulled out his crowbar blade and lumbered after Sylenia-and Weryl.

Weryl! Almost without thinking, Nylan yanked his shortsword from the scabbard. As Sylenia darted toward him, he stepped to one side and threw the blade, automatically smoothing the flows around the dark iron.

The heavy blade slammed through Tregvo’s chest and drove him over backwards, to the clay, pinning him there. The squat armsman’s mouth opened, closed, then opened, and hung there, under sightless eyes.

“…glare of the demons…”

“…see why you don’t threaten an angel…”

“…glad he’s on our side…”

Sylenia stood shivering on the stoop, shuddering despite the early morning heat. “…told me awful things…what he…would…”

“Enyah…” Weryl said plaintively. “Enyah.”

Ayrlyn touched the black-haired woman’s shoulder. “It’s all right. It’s over.”

But it wasn’t, Nylan knew as he walked toward the dead man, absently noting that puffs of dust rose with each step he took.

Tonsar reached the corpse first and tugged at the blade. Neither corpse nor blade moved. He yanked again, then pulled aside Tregvo’s shirt. Metal glinted. The subofficer’s mouth was the next one to open.

Nylan stopped beside the burly Tonsar, trying to conceal the headache that throbbed through his skull. The last thing he needed was to have to kill in camp. He bent and retrieved the blade, wiping it on the dead man’s tunic, then sheathed it, squinting against both the glare of the low sun and his headache.

“I am glad you were near, ser angel,” Tonsar said. “Though I would have liked to have struck him down.”

“I wish you could have,” Nylan said, meaning every word. His head kept throbbing, and his eyes watered from the pain behind them. For the hundredth time or so he wondered why. What was it? Why did it strike him and Ayrlyn? Did the sensitivity go with the ability to use the planet’s order fields?

And why had he even been carrying a blade? He never did around the camp.

Had it been subconscious aggression against Fornal? Would Tregvo be dead if Nylan hadn’t reacted to Fornal’s baiting of the night before?

“I would have used mine on him, sooner or later,” Ayrlyn said quietly, beside his shoulder, having arrived so silently he had not even noticed. “But I wonder about the mail vest.”

So did Nylan. Another of Fornal’s intrigues, designed to show the capriciousness of the angels, and how they interfered with the rights of “real” men? Or just coincidence? Or just an indication of the cultural conflict that he and Ayrlyn were generating, just by example?

Somehow, Nylan doubted that he’d ever find a clear answer. Nothing was ever clear. Of that he was certain, quite certain.

“Iyltar, Borsa-strip and bury this vermin,” Tonsar ordered, sheathing his blade, his eyes turning to the quarters’ stoop, where Sylenia sat on the bench, still holding Weryl, as though the child were a talisman.