The Chaos Balance

CII

In the darkness past midnight, the air was almost cool enough to be comfortable as Nylan stood and stretched, and stretched again.

“Ready?” asked Ayrlyn.

“Ready as I’m likely to ever be for this sort of thing.” He turned and embraced the redhead, and they held each other for a long moment in the silence broken only by the faint chirping of some insect.

“Well…” she finally said.

Nylan let go. As she headed toward Borsa’s inert form, he turned and walked over to the sleeping Tonsar, curled on his right side. “Time to rise and shine.” The angel tapped the other’s boot with his own, not quite certain how the burly armsman would react.

“What…?…dark…” mumbled Tonsar.

“That’s the idea, remember?” Nylan forced cheerfulness into his voice.

“Now?” Borsa asked. “It’s still dark.”

“Now,” insisted Ayrlyn, moving toward Vula.

Slowly, the squad awakened, and began to check mounts and arms.

“No one will expect an attack at this demon-awful hour,” grumbled Tonsar, adjusting his saddle, his fingers fumbling slightly in the darkness. “Truly, they are the dark angels. We stumble and trip, and they move as if it were daylight.”

Nylan’s night vision wasn’t that good-the depth of night was more like twilight to him-but it probably seemed that way to the struggling armsmen.

The breeze was strong, almost a real wind, reflected Nylan, and he could understand why some animals in the Grass Hills might well prefer the night to the day. He would, if he weren’t hardwired to be such a day person.

After checking his mare, he turned to Ayrlyn, who had stretched out on the ground again, presumably sending her perceptions out on the wind once more to check the Cyadoran camp. Nylan waited, while the rest of the squad packed bedrolls and formed up behind Tonsar.

“Anything?” he asked when Ayrlyn finally shifted her weight, indicating her perceptions had returned to her body.

“Nothing. I think half the sentries must be asleep.”

Nylan could sense the sadness behind her words, and he half-nodded. He was beginning to understand Fornal’s feelings. What they were doing was nothing short of despicable-but it was necessary to stop people who were despicable all the time, rather than just in war. The problem with honor was that history had demonstrated all too clearly on all too many planets that it wasn’t terribly effective against an enemy unless you had superior forces, and that was what they didn’t have. All they had was a better catapult that could heft larger incendiary grenades with a much nastier and longer-and-hotter-burning fluid and an even larger supply of the ceramic grenades. All in all, he hoped-mostly-that their “improvements” would penetrate the thick-walled barracks. He had no doubts about the deadlier impact on exposed men and horses.

Ayrlyn had insisted the changes would be enough to devastate the Cyadoran barracks. Nylan swallowed and forced himself to recall all the bloated bodies of innocent peasants in all the hamlets.

“There isn’t much choice,” Ayrlyn responded to his unspoken feelings. “We both know that Cyador is going to try to take over Lornth. They’ve got another army on the way, or they will. We have to reduce the odds while we can.” She snorted. “Now, I’m the one who sounds like Ryba. Creating better weapons and promptly using them.”

“The difference is that she liked it,” Nylan said. His head twinged ever so slightly. Darkness! He couldn’t even deceive himself about Ryba.

“I don’t like her for a lot of reasons, but she doesn’t enjoy killing either. She likes flaunting power, but not killing.” Ayrlyn paused. “She uses people, and you’ve got reason to be bitter, but don’t make her worse than she is.” A soft laugh followed. “What she is…that’s bad enough.”

“Just as I thought you were getting soft on her.”

“Not soft. Isn’t it harder for you to distort things, even to yourself?”

He nodded, knowing she had felt his discomfort and his assent.

“Unless I’ve missed something, we’re clear.” She half-turned and motioned, adding, “Let’s go.”

The two mounted, the last to do so.

With the muffled impact of slow hoofs on grass and dirt, the squad eased their mounts and the pack animals through the lower swale between the two hills and out onto the flat below the mining camp walls, moving quietly and steadily toward the northwest corner. A single torch flickered from the northeast watchtower, but its light barely illuminated the walls within three cubits.

Ayrlyn swayed in the saddle, trying to split her senses, to judge where the best position for the catapult would be. Nylan tried to follow her perceptions with his, but, as had happened the last time, he was more aware of the strange wrongness of the ground beneath, far more aware, as though great violence had been done to the land, and then that violence had been sealed beneath the drying grass and soil. He tried not to shudder, even as the faint images of the grove and the distant forest slipped into his thoughts with the contrast between the balanced forces of the forest, always changing, but always balanced, and the great frozen imbalance beneath him, indeed beneath much of the southern part of the Grass Hills.

“This is fine. No sentries awake here.” Ayrlyn reined up.

Nylan jerked slightly in his own saddle at the redhead’s words, then eased back on the mare’s reins and raised his hand to Tonsar.

“It’s fine.” Her voice was low. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Just momentarily…disoriented.” He shook himself. “We’d better get moving.” He turned in the saddle. “We’ll set up here,” he whispered.

“I suggested that.” There was a faint hint of gentle laughter in Ayrlyn’s voice.

The smith followed her lead and dismounted.

Sias took the reins of Nylan’s and Ayrlyn’s mounts, leading them slowly back from the space where the redhead, Borsa, and Vula quickly assembled the catapult.

Nylan took a slow breath, aware that the insect chirps had died away with their presence. Would anyone in the camp notice? The night-shrouded walls remained silent; the only sounds those of the Lornians breathing, an occasional whuff from the mounts, those held, and those of the squad waiting, in readiness, if necessary, to defend the catapult team long enough for them to mount. He began to set out the thin clay-walled canisters on the flat beside the catapult, even before the other three had finished assembling the device.

Then he began slipping the fuses into the canisters, but had only reached the fourth canister when Ayrlyn straightened up.

“Let’s wind up the catapult,” she said.

A series of faint creaks followed her order as Borsa began to turn the wheel.

“Ser, ser.”

Ayrlyn nodded in the darkness, but Nylan saw the gesture well enough, and eased the first fused canister tube into the catapult cradle. He took the striker. “You ready?”

“Yes, ser.”

Whhsst-click. Whhsst-click. The fuse caught on the second attempt, and Nylan checked to make sure the flame was solid.

Ayrlyn adjusted the frame angle, then tripped the catch.

Thunk! The catapult’s release sounded like thunder to Nylan in the stillness of the night, and the handful of scattered sparks that followed the canister seemed like warning flares.

The blackness that welled from Ayrlyn told the engineer that she was guiding, adjusting…something.

“It hit,” she said flatly, even though Nylan could see nothing beyond the walls above and to the south of them.

“It’s set,” reminded Borsa.

Nylan belatedly slipped another fused canister into the cradle and squeezed the striker. Once was enough to light the fuse.

Snick! Ayrlyn released the catch, and another fire grenade arced into the darkness above the walls.

The engineer had the next canister ready when Vula-he and Borsa were taking turns-rewound the catapult. Ayrlyn readjusted the frame, and he squeezed the striker.

Thunk!

Borsa rewound the wheel even before the throwing arm stopped vibrating, and Nylan slipped another grenade into the cradle, trying to speed up the process, trying to ignore the headache that was so far just a twinge-but one that, were they successful, would be painful.

Thunk!

Another three grenades flew into the darkness before flickers of light-tongues of flames-darted above the walls, followed by calls of “Fire! Fire!”

Thunk!

With the growing light from the mining camp came the horn calls, haunting, demanding.

Thunk!

The four kept launching fire grenades into the dark sky, and still the walls remained black, except for the northeast watchtower.

Thunk!

Nylan sniffed. Smoke had begun to flow downhill from the Cyadoran walls. In spite of the growing pressure in his skull, he readied another canister and fuse. Beside him, Ayrlyn stumbled, and, after he placed the canister in the cradle, he slipped his arm around her. “Easy.”

“So…hard,” she murmured. “Already…some dying.”

“I know.” He put another grenade in the cradle and lit the fuse.

Thunk!

Along with the smoke came the white mist of death, and the small sharp knives that dug at their skulls. Then came a cooler wind from behind them, not quite enough to balance the heat that had begun to radiate from the mining camp-heat from their makeshift jellied demon fluids.

More intermittent trumpet blasts echoed into the night, as did the screams of horses, and the ever-louder crackling of burning timbers.

The smith dropped another canister into the catapult cradle, forcing back the bile in his throat, as he knew Ayrlyn did nearly simultaneously, bile created by the chaos of death and the rising odor of charred meat.

Ayrlyn’s fingers trembled, but she flipped the catch on the catapult.

Thunk!

Vula bent over, double, while Borsa rewound the catapult.

“Best we leave,” hissed Tonsar, touching Nylan’s shoulder. “Someone’s yelling to form up in there.”

The smith nodded and dumped another canister and fuse in place, then squeezed the striker again.

Thunk!

How many grenades left? Surely, there couldn’t be that many? Nylan half-sensed, half-groped along the lines he had laid out until he came up with another.

“Ser, we should mount up,” Tonsar insisted.

Additional watch lanterns flared up, but not along the wall, and the four kept aiming, loading, and firing the clay fire-grenades over the wall a hundred cubits away.

Thunk!

Yellow-blue flames and greasy black smoke twisted into the night sky.

Thunk!

Thunk!

Nylan looked stupidly down. There weren’t any more grenades.

“Need to get packed up.” He wiped his forehead, damp from fear, tension, and the wall of flames they had created.

“That is what I have been saying, ser angel,” said Tonsar. “I hear mounts and angry lancers.”

Half-blind, using perceptions more than a night vision that strobed and burned, he tried to fold and fumble the empty quilted canister carrier back into a roll on the pack mare.

“I can do that, ser,” offered Vula.

“Thanks.” Was his unsteadiness so obvious even in the darkness? He tottered toward his own mare, stumbling.

No…so much death…so much heat and fire…

He struggled to turn toward Ayrlyn.

“Oooo…” With that soft sound, the redhead’s knees buckled, and she crumpled to the ground.

Nylan, and Tonsar, lifted her onto Nylan’s mare. The engineer hoped they didn’t have to ride too far, but he led the redhead’s mount toward the hills.

Behind him, Vula and Borsa hurriedly threw the catapult sections into their packs and scrambled after the squad.

“Let’s go!” ordered Nylan, his voice raspy and unsteady.

“We go,” echoed Tonsar.

As they trotted through the swale and the light of the burning camp vanished behind the hill, Nylan concentrated solely on holding on to Ayrlyn and staying in the saddle.

Anything more would have been too much.