The Chaos Balance

XXX

By mid-afternoon of the next day, the two angels had ridden far enough north and west that hills had flattened more, and there were cots and even farms scattered here and there on both sides of the road.

Nylan absently wiggled his fingers in front of Weryl, and the boy grabbed his index finger. The smith tugged, just hard enough that Weryl could hang on for a time.

Nylan rubbed his chin, glad that he’d spent the time to shave away the stubble that had been approaching a beard and getting hot and sweaty in the afternoons. Ahead, the engineer could see a wagon drawn by a pair of horses headed in their direction.

“The road’s getting busier,” he said with a laugh, turning his head toward Ayrlyn, again wiggling his fingers for Weryl to wrestle with.

“It’s about time.”

As the wagon neared, Nylan and Ayrlyn eased their mounts, and the trailing gray, to the right side of the road, onto the shoulder where shorter stalks of green grass sprouted up underneath the dead grass of the previous year. The creaking of the battered wagon grew loud enough to silence the scattered calls of the ground birds in the meadow to the right of the road.

“Greetings,” Nylan offered pleasantly as the wagon drew abreast of the two angels.

The gray-haired driver glanced at the two without speaking, then looked away quickly, his eyes on the road before him.

“Pleasant sort,” Nylan said conversationally.

“You’ll find more than a few like that. They think we’re evil spirits or something.” Ayrlyn gestured ahead. “We should be coming to a town before long. It could be right past that hill. I remember there was a hill where the road curved just before we got there. It’s called Ginpa, or Hinpa, or something like that. After the town, the road follows the river almost straight north to Lornth. We didn’t go nearly that far when we were trading last year, because the towns get a lot closer together now.”

As they rode down the gentle grade toward the curve in the road, a gray stone no more than knee-high and partly obscured by grass appeared on the right side of the road. The kaystone read “HENSPA-3K.”

“I knew it was something like that,” said Ayrlyn.

“What’s it like?”

“They’re all alike. If they’re really small, you have one muddy street, or dusty if it’s been dry, and there are a few stores, usually a chandlery-that’s where you can find travel goods, leather, candles, sometimes cheese-a cooper’s, maybe a cabinetmaker. They’ll have a smithy farther out, and some have a mill by the water. The bigger towns sometimes have a square with an inn, and a public room. The food’s not too bad, but the rooms are pretty awful-bugs and worse. The smell gets worse in the bigger towns.”

“You make it sound so attractive.” Nylan looked down. Weryl had dozed off.

“They don’t have your fetish for proper sanitation-or building.”

“I wouldn’t quite call it a fetish.”

“Most of the guards would-except Huldran. She’s as bad as you.” Ayrlyn grinned. “I liked the semiwarm water, too.”

“Thanks.”

At the base of the hill were clustered several houses around a large barn and some outbuildings. One man guided a horse-drawn plow, turning back the dark soil in an even row. Two others seemed to be shearing black-faced sheep.

“I’ve never seen black-faced sheep before,” Nylan said.

“The Rats have them-even sheep that are totally black.”

“That seems odd, when they revere white and mirror reflections.” The engineer glanced down again, but Weryl continued to sleep.

“People aren’t nearly so logical as they’d like to believe.” Ayrlyn’s tone was dry. “Even the cold and logical Ryba can be illogical. Forcing you out of Westwind wasn’t the most logical thing to do.”

“That depends on what’s important, I suppose.”

A boy near the road, holding a scythe, looked at the two riders, dropped the scythe and ran down the lane toward the two who were shearing.

“I don’t like that,” said Nylan.

“Neither do I, but you’ll find it happens. Some of the older children have been fed tales about everything from our eating babies to causing ewes to abort their lambs-or worse. It was probably easier for Gerlich because he didn’t have flame hair or silver hair.”

“That’s not any more reassuring.”

As the road straightened on the other side of the hill, Nylan studied the town that lay ahead. Just a brown clay road leading to what appeared to be a small square. The houses were not stone, but some form of stucco, whitewashed, probably over mud bricks or something akin. The roofs were made of a dull clay tile, and many of the tiles appeared cracked or askew.

A short-haired, golden-brown dog appeared on the edge of the road, its tail stiff, almost pointing at the riders, but as they passed, Nylan detected the faintest wag.

A young woman, with a toddler tied to a rope wound around her waist, struggled to fold laundry on a crude outdoor trestle table on the sunny south side of a small hut. Chickens pecked nearly around her bare feet. The woman scarcely looked up at the two.

A black dog chained to a small hut yapped, and kept yapping.

Farther toward the center of the town, a partly bald white-haired man openly stared as they passed.

“Greetings,” offered Ayrlyn. She got no response, and no lessening of the stare.

“This place has a square, anyway.” Nylan eased the mare to a slow walk as they approached the center of the town.

The square was barely that, with a pedestal and a battered statue in the middle of the road, surrounded by a knee-high brick wall.

On one side of the road was a cooper’s. Nylan could tell that from the barrel hung over the open doorway. Beside the cooper’s was another shop, or something, which had no sign. Across from the unnamed shop was a larger building, bearing a sign that showed two crudely drawn crossed yellow candles. Beside the candle-signed building was a stable and beyond that an inn-or the equivalent-with a sign showing a black bull on a weathered grayish background.

“The crossed candles mean a chandlery.” Ayrlyn continued to survey the town, but the cooper kept pounding on the rim of a barrel outside his shop, while a heavyset gray-haired woman sat on a stool outside the adjoining building. She nodded at Ayrlyn, who smiled and returned the nod.

“We could use more cheese,” Nylan said. “I worry about Weryl.”

“He’s fine, but we could use the cheese-and you might think about cloth-if it’s not too expensive. Cloth’s never cheap in low-tech cultures.”

He turned the mare toward the chandlery. Although there was a stone hitching post with a brass ring outside, no mounts were tied there.

“Should we stay in the inn? Or have a hot meal? It’s getting toward sunset,” Nylan said almost absently as he dismounted and tied the mare to the bronze ring in the stone post outside the chandlery.

“See what sort of reception you get.” Ayrlyn slipped off the chestnut and tied her beside Nylan’s mount. Then she urged the gray forward and tethered him as well. “I’ll carry Weryl.”

“I can carry him.”

“I just have this feeling…” insisted Ayrlyn. “How is your shoulder?”

“Fine-as long as no one puts a blade through it.” Nylan grinned and eased Weryl from the carrypak and to Ayrlyn. The boy squirmed for a moment, flailing arms and elbows, then quieted.

The comparative silence of the late afternoon was broken by the sound of hoofs-cantering or galloping into the town.

“Told you so!” yelled a voice.

“Angels!” said another.

Nylan turned to his left, where two men vaulted from mounts across the street, tied them quickly outside the cooper’s, and ran toward the chandlery. Two others remained mounted by the tied horses.

“Careful,” murmured Ayrlyn.

The smith wasn’t exactly certain how he could be careful with two armed men heading toward him, but this time he wasn’t about to let anyone get in the first slash.

“You killed my brother!” A bearded blond man dragged the huge blade from the shoulder harness and lumbered toward Nylan. Lagging behind was a smaller black-bearded figure.

The smith stepped off the wooden plank walk, turning to face the local, wondering what to do, even as his tongue and mind triggered the combat step-up reflexes and his hands drew the blade from his waist scabbard.

The huge crowbarlike blade seemed both to fly at Nylan and to move in slow motion. He whipped the Westwind blade into a parry-one of those designed by Ryba to slide the big blades. Nylan did not strike, although the blond was totally exposed for a time, and instead stepped back, holding his blade ready.

“Murdering bitches!” The blond levered the crowbar around for another massive slash.

Behind the blond, the black-haired man waited, licking his lips.

Absently, Nylan wondered why having no beard made everyone assume he was a woman. Or was it his wiry build as well? He eased away another massive slash, almost effortlessly, and said, slowly, so slowly, it seemed, in old Anglorat, “We’re just travelers, I only wanted to buy some cheese.” As he spoke, he decided he sounded idiotic, but he slipped to one side and avoided another grunt-driven, wild slash.

The black-haired man suddenly raised his blade and darted forward.

Nylan threw the blade and ducked, half-rolling and coming up with the second blade, even as his mind automatically performed the ordered flux-smoothing that targeted the first blade.

The smaller man pitched backward, the black blade buried nearly to its hilt in his chest.

Nylan staggered, blinded with the white fire that slashed at him from the death of the smaller man. He backed up, knowing the mounts weren’t that far behind him, and feeling the renewed throbbing from his left shoulder.

The blond man charged again, grunting and bringing the huge two-handed blade around like a crowbar.

Nylan’s muscles followed the well-drilled patterns, and, as suddenly as it had begun, the blond lay on the street, dead from the slash that had nearly severed shoulder and arm from trunk.

“Stand still…” came Ayrlyn’s voice out of the white fog that battered at him.

Nylan stood very still for a moment, almost blind, before, squinting through the flashes of white that intermittently blinded him, he bent and withdrew the black blade, cleaning it on the dead man’s tunic. His guts churned, but he wondered if that feeling came from Ayrlyn, relayed through the order fields he had tapped, or came from the strain of reflex step-up. His shoulder had begun to burn and throb again as well.

“His purse,” whispered Ayrlyn.

Mechanically, Nylan bent and used the shortsword’s edge to cut loose the dead blond’s wallet. Then he slowly walked toward the smaller man and repeated the process. He struggled to reclaim the thrown blade, his hands clumsy, but finally pulled it clear. Dumbly, he stood there with a blade in each hand, one clean, one still streaked with blood.

The two others started to ride across the clay of the street toward Nylan. He squinted, backed up, and fumbled the clean blade into the waist scabbard as the two riders slowly spread, as if to flank him.

Behind the smith, Ayrlyn set Weryl by her feet and drew the blade from her right scabbard, stepping into the street past the boy.

“Stop!” screamed the gray-haired woman who dashed into the street in front of the two Lornians. “You’ll get killed, just like Gustor and Buil did. They’re the black angels! Don’t you see?”

Nylan waited, blinking through intermittent vision, trying to see better, breathing heavily, but not daring to drop out of reflex boost.

“The angel didn’t attack him,” insisted the gray-haired woman. “He pushed aside Gustor’s blade, two or three times. He said he was a traveler. They got a child, and Gustor went for a blade.”

The brown-haired man reined up, nearly on top of the woman. “Jenny-leu…you’re Gustor’s cousin, and you stick up for those…always knew you were a woman-lover.”

“Wister, I be forgiving that this time. I never want to hear it again. Understand?”

Surprisingly, the rider lowered his head.

“I be no idiot, either. I know one thing. They never attack first. You attack, and they be killing you. You see, Wister, how fast he moved.”

Nylan hoped that belief in angels never attacking first, but being deadly, spread far and wide. He still gripped the blade-ready to throw it, if necessary, although he doubted that he’d be able to function, let alone move, if he had to kill another Lornian.

Jennyleu and Wister stared at Nylan, but his eyes went to the second horseman. The other had reined up also.

“See,” Jennyleu finally said. “A man and a woman and their child, and Gustor’s dead. If someone went for you and your kid, wouldn’t you stop ’em?”

Wister lowered the blade, smaller than Gustor’s but still nearly twice the length of the shortswords Nylan had used, and looked toward the smith. “You done, angel?”

“I never wanted to fight. All I wanted was to buy some cheese for my son.” He swallowed. “I could have held off the first man, without hurting him, for a while, but not two at once.”

“Idiots!” snorted Jennyleu. “Hotheads! A man wants to buy cheese, and you four darkness-near go off getting yourselves killed.”

Wister kept looking at his mount’s mane, and the fourth rider eased his mount back toward the cooper’s. The cooper stood by the barrel, eyes wide, wooden mallet in hand.

After glancing at Ayrlyn and Weryl, Nylan fumbled out the rag and cleaned the blade before sheathing it. Wister and the other rider sheathed theirs slowly. Ayrlyn did not, but no one said anything. Then Nylan bent and slowly lifted the blond man and carried the body across the street, draping it over the man’s saddle. Then he did the same for the smaller man. His eyes burned, and so did his shoulder. He hadn’t wanted to kill anyone.

“See that. He picked up Gustor like he was a baby,” murmured Jennyleu to Wister. She turned to Nylan. “All you angels that strong?”

“He’s a smith,” answered Ayrlyn. Her eyes flicked to Nylan’s left shoulder.

The smith shook his head.

“Glare!” snapped the woman. “Not only…never you mind. Wister, take ’em home to Furste, and tell him that I don’t want to see any of his kin in town for a while. Not until he’s done some thinking.”

“Tomorrow’s market day.”

“We won’t sell to any of you-not tomorrow.”

After the four horses-two bearing riders and two bearing bodies-trudged east out of Henspa, Nylan crossed the street again, Ayrlyn at his side.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Jennyleu. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I’m glad you were here.”

“I can’t say as I be so glad you are here, angel, but fair is fair. I saw you trying not to fight, and I saw Gustor not listening, and then that sneak brother of his. Weren’t they cousins I’d sent ’em to darkness long ago.”

“Who are you?” asked Ayrlyn. “Why…?”

“Me? Why’d they listen to an old lady? Oh…I figured out a way to card wool faster, long time back, me and Vernt did, but Vernt died, and I had to do it by myself-three younguns, you know. One thing led to another. Own half the Black Bull now. My boy Essin owns the other half.”

“We were looking for a good meal,” Nylan said. “We have some coins.”

“Bull’s better’n most, do say so myself. I’ll go over with you.”

“There won’t be any trouble?” Ayrlyn glanced after the vanished riders.

“Furste’s Vernt’s little brother. He’ll fume, and he’ll call me names, but Essin’d take him apart if I couldn’t. Don’t you worry.”

“Daaaa!” exclaimed Weryl, extending a chubby fist.

“Fine boy.” Jennyleu nodded. “Be bigger than you, I’d wager.”

“I think so.” Nylan grinned sheepishly. “He already kicks hard.”

“Tell you what. You eat at the Bull. You stay there tonight, and go to the chandler’s tomorrow.”

Ayrlyn gave the slightest of nods to Nylan, and he answered. “We’d be happy to. Sleeping on a bedroll gets tiring.”

“No pests in the rooms, either,” Jennyleu added. “Bring your mounts.”

The two angels untied their mounts and the gray and followed the matriarch, first to the inn stable, and then, packs over their arms, to the Black Bull.

A tall mahogany-haired man with a matching beard met them at the recently painted white door. Nylan noted that the polished plank floors had been recently swept, perhaps even mopped.

“Essin, these are travelers, like any others. Treat ’em right,” Jennyleu announced.

Nylan glanced up at Essin. The young giant would have overtopped Gerlich by a head. No wonder Jennyleu said Essin had no troubles with people.

“Pleased to meet you, angels.” The innkeeper grinned. “Saw the last of that fight.” He shook his head at Nylan. “Any fool could tell you were trying not to hurt him. Then that little sneak Buil messed it all up. He ever did. I always said he’d get Gustor in big trouble.” A rumbling cough followed. “You can have the big room for the regular.”

“How much is regular?” asked Ayrlyn.

“Four coppers for the two.”

The flame-haired angel extracted the coppers. “What about the stable?”

“Comes with the room, ’less you want grain instead of hay. A copper more for each mount-that’s all the grain they can eat.”

Ayrlyn handed over three more coppers. “They’ve carried us a long ways.”

“Good to see folks who understand.” Essin palmed the coins. “Stew comes with the room. Brew or jack’s extra. Be serving pretty near after you get your gear stowed. You can carry your blades in the public room, but no bare steel, ’cepting an eating dagger.” The big young man gestured, and a small girl scurried over. “Lessa, these are angels. They get the big front corner room.”

“Sers-you are warriors?” asked the girl, who barely reached Nylan’s chest.

“Yes,” Ayrlyn answered.

“Good. I want to bear a blade when I’m bigger.” She headed up the wooden stairs as if she expected them to follow.

Ayrlyn smiled and headed up the steps. After a moment, Nylan shifted his grip on Weryl, who grabbed for the brass lamp in a wall sconce, and followed.

After going down a short wide hall, Lessa opened a solid wooden door, oiled, rather than painted.

Nylan was impressed-the room had two windows and a wide bed with a coverlet, plus a table with a pitcher and wash basin, and a chamber pot in the corner. The windows were not glazed, but bore both solid outer shutters and louvered inner shutters. There was a small lamp on the wash table. “This is nice.”

“My favorite,” said Lessa. “You can bolt the door, but you don’t need to. No one ever does anything bad here.”

Nylan kept from grinning at the serious tone. “Thank you.”

“Someday, I want to use a blade like yours.” Lessa bowed slightly, then slipped out.

“We were lucky,” Ayrlyn said quietly. “I was lucky here before, and I’m beginning to understand why.”

“Because Jennyleu runs this town?”

“It looks that way, doesn’t it?”

“I told you that not all women in Candar were oppressed,” Nylan said.

“Not all-but too many. Places like this are rare.”

Nylan set the saddlebags in the corner, along with the bag containing Weryl’s clothes. “I’m hungry.”

“So am I.” Her face darkened. “Did you have to dive into the dust? Your shoulder isn’t that well.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that. I just didn’t want another blade touching me.”

“Nylan-”

“What else was I supposed to do?”

“Let me check it.”

Nylan set Weryl on the floor and slipped off the carrypak harness, waiting as Ayrlyn lifted his shirt. Her fingers were cool and precise on his skin.

“Everything you’ve done has spread the stitches…but there’s no infection. That’s probably because you can use the order fields now that you’re stronger. You will have a darkness-huge scar there, to match the stitching in the shirt.” She let his shirt fall. “Now, I’d like to get some of the dust off.”

“After you, dear.” The engineer took Weryl, and Ayrlyn poured water into the wash bowl. One-handed, he opened the two wallets. One had two silvers and a handful of coppers, the second a silver and four coppers.

“That’s a lot for here,” observed Ayrlyn.

Did that mean that he’d killed two of the wealthier young men in town? Nylan worried. Or that people carried more of their assets in a low-tech culture? He didn’t know.

When they had both washed, and washed Weryl, they started out the door.

“Do you think things will be safe?” asked Nylan.

“Not everywhere…but here.” Ayrlyn nodded toward the floor below.

At her expression, Nylan grinned. He couldn’t imagine many travelers taking on Essin-in anything.

The smell of cooking, not grease, struck Nylan even before his boots touched the bottom step of the stairs. He followed his eyes and nose to his left and through open double doors into the public room.

There were no more than a half dozen tables, with four simple dowel-backed chairs around each square wooden table. Three tables were taken-one by a single man in dark brown leathers and a beard nearly as dark, one by three older men with only mugs before them, and one by two narrow-faced men.

Ayrlyn and Nylan took the remaining corner table, and were barely seated when a round-faced woman appeared.

“Sers…the stew comes with the room. A copper extra for chops, but forgo them tonight. Greenjuice is one, and brew or jack two.” She raised her eyebrows.

“Stew, and juice,” said Ayrlyn.

“The same,” Nylan added, “but could I have a wedge of cheese, a small one for my son?”

“A small one…that be no problem. Gies would not charge for that, not with the juice. Two coppers, then.”

Nylan fumbled out the coins.

“Be back with the juice.” She scurried past the table with the three older men, and refilled all three mugs from the pitcher she bore, almost without stopping.

Before Nylan had finished looking around the room, the server was back with two large mugs.

“There.” She was off again, after flashing a quick smile at Weryl, whose eyes followed her back toward the kitchen.

Nylan sipped the juice. “Good.”

Two narrow-faced men sat at the other corner table. The dark-haired one nodded toward the angels, and Nylan tried to catch the gist of the conversation.

“…angel travelers, Jennyleu said…heard about Gustor…”

“…good riddance…scattered Lyswer’s flock last summer…for fun…”

“…got a child…silverhair’s a man…picked up Gustor’s body like a dead dog…said he’s a smith…”

“…wonder…those blades…”

“…not touch one myself…”

“…regents made peace…”

“…wouldn’t you…old holders the problem…couldn’t care…”

As the talk drifted toward other matters, Nylan took a sip of the cold greenjuice, happy for anything besides water and bitter tea.

“Here you be!” The round-faced serving girl deposited two large bowls, a loaf of bread, and a long thin wedge of cheese-and no utensils.

“Thank you.”

The woman looked at Weryl. “Boy or girl?”

“Boy,” the two answered together.

“Daaaa…” said Weryl, from Nylan’s lap.

“Good-looking. Wager he be making hearts trip when he be grown.”

“I hope he doesn’t make a habit of it,” said Ayrlyn.

Nylan laughed softly at her tone.

With a smile, the server was gone, and Nylan dug his spoon from his small belt pouch. Ayrlyn retrieved hers as well.

Nylan ate the big bowl of stew slowly, offering small spoonfuls to Weryl, interspersed with small bits of the biscuit and bits of the cheese the serving girl had brought.

“Good,” Ayrlyn affirmed. “Almost as good as Blynnal’s.”

Nylan wondered how the pregnant cook happened to be getting along, even as he spooned more stew into Weryl’s mouth. Then, he concentrated on feeding Weryl. He had to put aside the past and look to the future, even if he didn’t know where it led.