The Chaos Balance

XXVI

Nylan turned in the mare’s saddle and glanced back to the east at the tree-covered hills that concealed most of the rocky and ice-covered peaks of the Westhorns. He almost shook his head. Eight days, or was it nine? But three had been spent recovering from the bandit attack.

“Darkness…” he murmured, shifting Weryl in the carrypak. His son seemed to grow heavier with each kay they rode, and he hadn’t been really carrying Weryl much until the last day or so. With his bad shoulder, Ayrlyn had done most of that.

“Do you want me to take him? You shouldn’t overdo it.” Ayrlyn turned her eyes from the tether to the gray that followed with the extra packs on it. The other bandit horse that hadn’t fled had been so lame that they had left the beast free.

“Overdo it? I haven’t done much of anything-except ride.”

“You did enough in the last two years for three people. Why are you so hard on yourself?”

“We’ve actually ridden six days,” Nylan said, to change the subject. “Did it take you this long on your trading runs?”

“Five to this point, I think. But we also didn’t run into bandits, and we didn’t have to stop so often.”

“I can’t ride if he’s uncomfortable,” Nylan admitted. “Not hard-hearted enough, I guess.”

“It’s been hard for me, too,” Ayrlyn admitted. “I sense when he doesn’t feel good. Or when you don’t.”

“My sensitive healer.” In medically primitive Candar, Nylan had again become very glad she had that talent. At times his shoulder didn’t even hurt.

“Just remember that. You’re also my sensitive engineer, mage, and smith.”

“I still don’t know about the mage part.”

“You’re a mage. Don’t fight it.” The healer studied the forest to the left, the south side of the road. “More broad-leafed trees there. You can tell we’re lower.”

After Nylan blotted his forehead in the still air, his eyes went to the clear blue-green sky. “It’s hotter.”

“It’s getting comfortable.”

“By the time you’re comfortable, I’ll be roasted or broiled…or something.” He cleared his throat. “We still haven’t seen anyone.”

“There were sheep in the meadows between the woods up ahead, last fall. It might be early for that, yet. I don’t know.” The redhead stood in the stirrups for a moment.

“Stiff?” the engineer asked.

“A little.”

“You weren’t last night.”

Ayrlyn flushed. “You are impossible. After a wound like that…I wouldn’t have believed-”

“You’re a good healer.”

“Too good…”

Nylan’s mare whuffed as the road curved to the north around a hill crowded with evergreens bearing grayish green needles. Nylan patted her shoulder, then Weryl’s back. The boy squirmed, and jabbed a heel into Nylan’s diaphragm.

“I felt that. Kick him again, Weryl. He deserves it.”

Instead, Weryl looked up at his father and said, “Daaa-waa!”

“If that means something, I haven’t decoded it yet.” Nylan glanced at Ayrlyn. “Aren’t there any people here?”

“Not many. Lornth isn’t that heavily populated around here. There’s a town, or a hamlet, or a village, whatever you want to call a collection of huts about a half-day on.”

“That’s something.”

“Not much more than something,” replied the healer. “It’s pretty bleak.”

“Isn’t there some civilization…somewhere?”

“Well…Lornth must have some. They have good metal-work, wines, and traders.”

“Lornth-isn’t that the name of the country?”

“Nylan,” said Ayrlyn slowly. “Lornth is a city-state. The capital is a city called Lornth. The locals say this road goes to the city of Lornth. The lord of Lornth holds these lands, except he has other lesser lords that-”

“Please…not an elementary civics lesson. I asked a dumb question. Next time, just tell me it was a stupid question.”

“You don’t like women who tell you that.”

Feeling like he had been gut-punched in a different way, the smith took a deep breath, then glanced beyond Ayrlyn to his right. “The trees are different.” Nylan wiped his forehead, although he wore no jacket, just a shirt and tunic.

“I hadn’t noticed,” Ayrlyn said.

“They are different,” Nylan repeated.

“How?”

“Their tops barely move in the wind, and…look at the roots. They’re gnarled and huge and above the ground.”

“What wind?” Even Ayrlyn had blotted her forehead.

“Higher on the hills-see the tops of the broadleaves. They’re bending. We must be down in a protected area.”

Ayrlyn eased the chestnut closer to the side of the road, extended a hand, then drew it back quickly. “They’ve got thorns, like spikes. They’re like the ironwoods we were going to make charcoal out of, except bigger and thornier.”

“You get spiked?”

“No. Almost. That was a dumb idea.” She took out her own water bottle and drank.

“Waaa-daaa,” demanded Weryl.

“That’s water, in Weryl’s terms,” noted Ayrlyn.

Nylan got out the water bottle, and ended up getting more water on the carrypak and his own trousers, but Weryl kept gulping for a time. Nylan tried to keep the bottle from bouncing into his son’s face, and ended up getting his fingers half-gouged by the few teeth Weryl had. Finally, he put the bottle back in the holder.

Ahead the road ran straight for a time toward a dip between two hills. The one on the right was covered with the gray-green ironwoods; the one on the left with high grass. Nylan squinted. Was there a hut in the middle of the meadow?

“So…the trees are different. What does that mean?” asked Ayrlyn.

“Nothing, I suppose. Except ironwoods aren’t something that you can cut. The branches don’t bend.”

“Ironwoods…” mused Ayrlyn. “That’s it!”

“What’s it?” Nylan sniffed, suspecting an all too familiar odor creeping upward from the carrypak.

“Da…wa-wa!” Weryl grinned.

“These are the ironwoods. You can’t cut them. You can’t ride through them without getting slashed to bits.”

“So…” Nylan wrinkled his nose and looked down at his grinning son.

“Relyn…he attacked Westwind to get lands and a title. Lord of the Ironwoods, I think was what he told me.” Ayrlyn laughed. “And the lands are almost worthless to this culture. They can’t have the kind of tools you need to use the wood. How can you clear something that tears you to shreds?”

“You can’t. You mean that Sillek, or someone, was offering mostly worthless lands to encourage attacks on Westwind?”

“That’s what it feels like.” Ayrlyn shook her head. “Darkness…the politicians never change. He sounds as bad as half the U.F.A.”

“I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about the United Faith Alliance ever again. The descendants of some Rationalists, but not the U.F.A.”

Ayrlyn eased the chestnut closer to Nylan. “Oh…I can smell him from here.”

“The stream gets closer to the road ahead, there.” Nylan’s shoulder had begun to throb more strongly, again, and he probably needed to let Ayrlyn carry Weryl, much as it bothered him to ask her-even if he had been the one to insist on his turns once he had felt the shoulder would take the strain. He just hoped they wouldn’t run into any more bandits-not any time soon.

“We can’t get there too soon.” Ayrlyn eased her mount slightly away from Nylan-and Weryl.

Nylan tried not to breathe deeply and looked ahead to the stream.