The Chaos Balance

CXXXVI

A reddish glow covered the sky above the western hills as Nylan set Weryl on his small bedroll and then sank onto his own, sitting and catching his breath, barely able to move. His back and shoulders were stiff. His thighs and legs burned from the long days in the saddle racing to get ahead of the white horde. And his head ached.

Whuuuu…uuufff…Downhill from where the engineer sat, the chestnut lifted her head, then tossed it, before going back to grazing, trying to seek out the green clumps of grass buried among the brown. Nylan’s mare grazed silently, if more intently.

After a moment, Nylan rose, wearily, and stepped toward the provisions bag he had set by the saddles and blankets. The four mounts grazed on the longer grass in the protected hollow below the scrub oaks, the tieline anchored to sturdy roots.

“Da!” called Weryl, lurching up from his own bedroll, trundling forward and throwing his arms around Nylan’s left leg. “Da!”

His own aches forgotten, the engineer bent and lifted the boy, hugging him tightly for a moment, their heads close together. “Weryl. Sometimes…sometimes…” Sometimes, it’s so hard to appreciate that while you’re little now, before I know it…you’ll be grown…already changing so much…

“Da…wadah?”

Nylan loosened his hug and grinned. “I’ll get you water, you little imp.”

“Wadah?”

“Yes, you can have some, even if you aren’t thirsty.”

“Da!”

“You understand more than you ever say, you sentimental man.” Ayrlyn looked up from the provisions bag Nylan hadn’t managed to reach.

“That’s dangerous.”

Not with me…

Nylan could sense both the thought and the warmth behind it. “Old habits die hard. I’m trying.”

“I know.” I know…

After a silence, he asked, “How are we doing? In getting ahead of the Cyadorans, I mean.”

“Tomorrow we should see Rohrn,” Sylenia interjected, stepping toward the angels. “If it has not been burned already.”

“The Cyadorans are three days behind us, at the rate they’re traveling,” explained the redheaded angel.

“You angels…you know what you should not and cannot see. Me, I trust what you say, but I would see Rohrn first.” Sylenia picked up the two water bottles. “There is a stream, and we need water.” She swept her hair, just loosened from the bands that held it when she rode, over her shoulder and marched downhill through the swaying and dry knee-high grass.

“You think they’re that far behind us?” Nylan shifted Weryl to his other arm. “They’ve only traveled one day in four?”

“They’re really not traveling fast. They seem more interested in destroying everything than in making a quick assault.” The corners of her mouth turned up sardonically. “What else would you expect of the descendants of the Rationalists? Nothing is human except them. No other ways or beliefs can be tolerated.”

“With just a little force to ensure the true and rational way.”

“Cynical, but accurate.”

“Force again.” Nylan sighed. “Will we ever escape it?”

“We can, but not by converting an existing system. We’ll have to begin from scratch. You know that.”

And he did. The forest of Naclos represented a different approach-the approach of balance, where the use of force became a last resort-only to balance order and chaos, rather than the first option or order of business. But even the forest had fallen before the Old Rats.

“There’s one little problem,” he pointed out. “We still have to make our strategy work.”

“It’s not little.” Ayrlyn laughed harshly. “And you were calling me the mistress of understatement?”

“I’m following your example.”

“My example? When it’s a dubious virtue, it’s my example?”

Nylan, still holding Weryl at his shoulder, looked down at the brown grass sheepishly, then back at Ayrlyn.

After a moment, she grinned.

So did he.