The Chaos Balance

XIII

The mare’s hoofs squushed as she carried Nylan down the muddy road toward the brickworks-and the millpond. Beside him, Ayrlyn rode a chestnut mare. As usual, her jacket was fastened-all but the very top-and Nylan’s was only loosely closed.

Less than a hundred cubits to their right-west-the rock rose in a sheer cliff nearly a kay up to the high meadow plateau that held Westwind. The two had started their ride after breakfast, and it was approaching mid-morning, although they had not pushed their mounts. Riding in the mud took longer, especially crossing the occasional snowdrifts, some of which remained nearly waist high, and the route was anything but direct. The direct route would have been over the cliff. Instead, they had to ride along the road from the tower up the ridge and down the ridge. From the fork below the ridge, they headed south and then west along the circular trail that eventually led downhill through the true upper forests of the Westhorns to border the cliff face. Nylan supposed the road eventually led somewhere in Lornth, but it wasn’t the main road, and neither he nor Ayrlyn had taken it much beyond the brickworks. Neither had had much time for idle travel, and on Ayrlyn’s trading runs the previous year, she’d followed the best roads, which were certainly slow enough.

Nylan’s eyes flitted from the road to the trees, and his ears and order senses scanned the forest beyond the road, though he could sense nothing except rodents, tree rats, and some birds.

Piles of dirty snow lay under the spreading branches of the evergreens, where the trees had shed their winter coats that had not yet completely melted. For the first time since last fall, Nylan could hear bird calls, even the raucous comments of the loud-mouthed traitor bird.

Both the smith and the healer wore the twin black steel alloyed blades, and in the combined quiver/case behind Nylan’s saddle was one of the composite bows he had created with the last energy from the laser, and more than a dozen shafts sporting the black iron arrowheads he had forged. The smith hoped that he wouldn’t have to use the weapons.

“It’s muddier this year,” observed Ayrlyn as a glob of mud flicked by Nylan’s mount struck her trousers just above her riding boots.

“We had more snow, and it melted later. The snow lilies are just poking through the crust now.”

“I wondered about that.”

“So did I. I suppose our plantings will be later, too.”

“The big red deer have only started into the higher forests. Which winter is more typical?”

“This one.” Nylan laughed. “It’s a good thing the first winter was mild.”

“I’d never call that mild. With ice coating all the inside walls of the tower? Mild?”

“We didn’t have enough firewood. Or windows. The shutters just couldn’t keep out the wind.”

“Or blankets. Or food.” Ayrlyn shifted her weight in the saddle. “Look! Tracks.” She pointed to the sets of prints in the shaded expanse of snow under the firs to the right of the trail.

“A big snow cat, but they’re melted out a bit. Yesterday or the day before, I’d guess. Istril keeps hoping that I’ll be able to kill another one, or two so that Weryl can have a parka.” The smith laughed. “The first one almost got me, and the second wasn’t much better.”

“Their coats are warm-and soft.”

“They also have claws as long as a dagger and sharper.”

“Like Ryba,” offered Ayrlyn.

“I’d bet on her against the cat, bare-handed, even.”

“And take odds,” added the healer.

They both laughed, and the sound echoed briefly, then vanished into the tall firs and pines that lined the rough road.

After they eased the mares through yet another deeper and slushy snowdrift, a narrow canyon appeared to the left, like a gash in the cliff that supported the Roof of the World. The two eased their mounts up the narrow road, widened the year before to allow a cart passage, until they reached a natural clearing where the brook curved around the exposed clay bank. Behind that was a low building.

“There you are-the fabled brickworks.” Ayrlyn leaned over from the saddle and studied the road and the interspersed patches of snow. “I don’t see anything but animal tracks. Hares, deer, and an old snow cat print, I think.”

“Be surprised if the locals were this high this early, but you never know.” Nylan urged the mare over the rushing rivulet toward the small shuttered brick building and the two loaf-shaped outdoor ovens that comprised the brickworks. The clay pit to the right and downslope of the ovens was filled with water and chunks of ice.

The smith reined up by the pit and studied the slumping sides. Then he shook his head. “Now we need a pump. Every time I think I’ve gotten caught up, there’s something else I need to make.”

“That’s true everywhere.” Ayrlyn stopped her chestnut and turned her face into the sun. “Without the breeze, it feels almost warm.”

“It is warm,” Nylan protested, loosening his jacket, almost theatrically.

“For those of you raised in the Sybran freezer, maybe. For normal souls, it’s still cold as mid-winter on decent worlds.”

“Decent is a matter of opinion, my beloved healer.”

“You never called me your beloved healer before, even joking.”

“I should have. I thought it.”

“I need to hear things like that. I may feel your pain, dear engineer, but my ability to sense order flows in bodies doesn’t translate thoughts, no matter what people say.”

“You never called me ‘dear’ before, either,” Nylan said.

“Tit for tat.” Ayrlyn grinned, then gestured. “This project looks all right.”

“I worry more about the mill. We just had to leave it, you know.”

“Your heroics on the battlefield didn’t leave you in any shape to do much until well after the snows came, you might recall.”

“They weren’t heroics,” Nylan said dryly. “And you weren’t in much better shape, I believe.” The engineer patted the mare’s shoulder, then urged her uphill past the ovens toward the uncompleted sawmill-mostly a flat expanse that comprised the foundation for the mill, and the stone and brick wall next to the end of the snow-filled millrace. The troubles he’d had trying to create even the center of the mill wheel the fall before!

The smith flicked the reins and eased the mare uphill again through the knee-deep slush and toward the dark wall of the mill pond that extended from the canyon rock face on his right to the hillside slope a hundred cubits or more to his left.

He reined up short of the water that poured downhill like ice-blue crystal. Shards of ice still littered the frozen sand and rocky edges of the narrow creek. A gaping hole had been ripped in the millpond wall between the two drainage gates.

“Who did that?” asked Ayrlyn, halting her mount farther downstream.

“Ice, probably.” The smith shook his head. “I’d guess it will be two eight-days before the ground’s melted and firm enough to start repairs. Next year, we ought to drain it in the fall, leave both gates open.”

The mare whuffed, and Nylan turned her downhill, letting her walk until she was out of the snow and on the narrow road by the brickworks. While he waited for Ayrlyn, he studied the area again. The mill was going to be as much of a pain as he’d remembered. Maybe that was why the oldtime millers were always wealthy. Somehow, he didn’t feel so enthusiastic about building the mill.

“You know,” said Ayrlyn as she stopped her mount beside his and fastened her jacket up as the breeze stiffened. “You talk as if there will be a next year.”

“No one’s going to challenge Westwind this year, are they? Karthanos spent a lot of golds, too much if he intended another battle. He’s lost two armies in less than a year. And Lornth-who do they have left to send against us? This Cyador’s farther south, and from what I can determine, they’d have to march over Lornth to get to us.”

Ayrlyn brushed back the flame-red hair off her forehead, but the breeze whipped the fine short stands right back across her eyes. “I wasn’t thinking about Westwind. I was thinking about you.”

“Me?”

“What happened to Gerlich?”

“I’m not like him.”

“I know that, but does Ryba? More to the point, does it matter?” Ayrlyn brushed back her hair again in exasperation. “Almost every guard in Westwind would throw herself in front of an arrow or a blade for you. How long will Ryba stand that? You’ve already told her you won’t stand for stud on her terms. That makes you a social gelding.”

Nylan winced. Ryba had slaughtered the geldings for food the first winter, and he could remember asking himself if that would be his eventual fate. Ayrlyn was suggesting his time might be coming sooner than he’d thought.

“I can see that the thought isn’t totally unforeseen.”

“I was thinking about geldings in Westwind,” Nylan admitted.

“That…you’re not. I mean, that’s not what I meant.” The healer and singer flushed almost as brightly as her hair.

“It isn’t?”

Ayrlyn eased the chestnut closer to the mare. “You know, Nylan,” she began with a grin, “sometimes you are such a noble and honorable pain in the ass, such an agonizingly long-suffering and noble pain. Nylan will take it on; Nylan will make it right.” The grin grew wider. “And then you do.”

“I’m not that bad,” he protested. “I’m not.”

“Ryba thinks so.” The grin vanished. “I’m serious. Why does she have you working so hard, making weapons that the guards won’t need for years? Why is she suggesting that you train more smiths?”

“I’d wondered about that, but she thinks so far in advance.”

“It’s about time we did.”

“We?” Nylan forced a grin.

“We. Istril got the last favor. The very last favor of that nature.”

“I was thinking that Siret…”

Ayrlyn put her free left hand on the hilt of the shortsword and drew it enough to show black steel. “You do, and I won’t wait for Ryba for this gelding business.”

“I get the point, woman.”

“If you don’t, you will.” Ayrlyn resheathed her blade with a wicked grin. “And no more of this sleeping alone.”

Nylan groaned, loudly. Then he grinned.

After a moment, so did Ayrlyn.

The wind whistled, more loudly, and they both looked up to see the leading edge of a cloud bank appearing over the cliff edge above.

Ayrlyn shivered. “I’m cold. Can we start back?”

Nylan nodded, and flicked the mare’s reins. Ayrlyn eased the chestnut up beside him as they began the long and muddy ride back up to Westwind.

Geldings? Was that what he had to look forward to? Why didn’t he want to face the fact that Ryba had killed or driven out every man who’d opposed her will?

Because you share a child? Because you fear an unknown world? Because your feeling of responsibility for children you didn’t intend to sire is at war with your common sense?

He tried not to sigh, tried to focus on the healer-the woman by whom he had no children, and yet who cared more for him than Ryba ever had.