The Chaos Balance

XXXVI

High hazy clouds swirled slowly across the sky as the three horses plodded along the rutted clay road and northward toward Lornth. Nylan glanced to the east, but the trees on the hills above the scrubby meadow were deciduous, or what passed for it on this world, and they had, he suspected, finally left the thorny ironwoods behind.

“The herder’s cheese wasn’t bad,” the smith said.

“For three coppers, it shouldn’t be. The loaf of bread was better, and cheaper.”

“We’ve got plenty of the cheese left.”

In the swale to the left of the road, on a bluff overlooking the river were a deserted dwelling and a shed with a half-collapsed roof. Beyond the bluff and river to the west were neatly fenced and tilled plots of ground, regular in outline.

“Definitely on the wrong side of the sky,” mused Nylan.

“This side of the river might be better. We haven’t gotten the best reception in prosperous areas, and the west side is more prosperous. Even that rider this morning circled around us. He wore purple.”

“Purple-that means he’s something in Lornth. Some sort of lord or functionary or messenger. He had a sour look in his face. Are they all like that because those that have more dislike change? And we’ve brought change?”

“It could be, but I really don’t know.” Ayrlyn stood in her stirrups and peeled her damp trousers away from her body. “Don’t laugh.”

“I wasn’t even thinking of it.” Nylan made a show of studying the road, then frowned and glanced down it. “It looks like it barely rained here. The top of the ground is damp, but it’s merely wetted the dust, and the hillside ahead looks dry.”

“It doesn’t rain everywhere.”

“Only where we are. It’s not as though we have that much in the way of clothing. Those leathers were like iron this morning.”

“You didn’t have to wear that pair.”

“If I didn’t, I’d never get into them again.”

“Complain, complain,” Ayrlyn chided him.

“You were the one just peeling your trousers away from your skin.”

“They never dried, and my saddlebags leaked. The other set got even wetter.”

“Someone’s riding fast.” Nylan pointed toward the line of dust leading from the valley into which the road carried them. Above the crest of the second and lower hill to the right, he could see what appeared to be a stone tower, and the top of several white-faced buildings. “You think that’s Lornth?”

“I don’t know what else it could be, but I’ve never been there.”

Halfway down the hill, the dust-creating riders appeared over the crest of the next rise, trotting quickly toward the travelers.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say that they were after us.”

“That rider in purple this morning?” suggested Ayrlyn.

“A Lornian messenger, you think?” Nylan laughed wryly. “He must have been, and he’s reported that two fearsome angels are on their way to assault mighty Lornth.”

“You could.”

“Not without the laser, and there’s nothing left of it.”

“I still wonder about how much was the laser, and how much was you.”

So did Nylan, but it wasn’t exactly the time to get into theoretical order engineering.

Out of the dust came a full squad of armsmen in the dark purple of Lornth, darker than that of Gallos.

“They don’t look exactly friendly,” Nylan observed, his hands going to one blade and then the other to check their readiness. The bow he left alone, wrapped and tied behind his saddle, because at longer ranges his aim was less than accurate.

“Keep riding,” suggested Ayrlyn.

Nylan kept riding, but his eyes measured the armsmen, what looked to be a full squad led by a brown-haired and brown-bearded man with broad shoulders that seemed to burst out of his tunic. He wore no breastplate, and a small round shield remained fastened to his saddle, shielding his right knee.

The Lornians formed a wall across the road, dust settling around the legs of their mounts.

“Halt, angels!”

The angels reined up to avoid riding into the Lornian armsmen.

“With the hair of the sky demons, you must be the dark ones.” The armsman’s hand lifted as though to draw the huge blade in his shoulder harness. His eyes centered on Nylan.

“We’re travelers.” Nylan’s hand rested on the black blade he had forged so far behind them, but he did not show steel.

“Da!” offered Weryl. “Da!”

Great help, reflected the smith.

“We come to Lornth in peace.” On the mare beside Nylan, Ayrlyn’s fingers touched the hilt of her blade as well.

The armsman’s face relaxed slightly as he surveyed them. “A man and a woman…and an infant.” He shook his head. “Never let it be said that Tonsar destroyed a family, even one from the heavens.”

“Besides,” Ayrlyn said quietly, “we are at peace, and both the people of Lornth and those of Westwind have paid dearly for that peace.”

“Peace, it may be, but few love the angels,” reflected Tonsar. “I am ordered to bring you to Lornth to meet the regents.”

“Did the regents offer any message?” asked Nylan.

The burly armsman rolled his eyes. “Come.” He turned his horse, and the armsmen of the squad split, as if to let Nylan and Ayrlyn join Tonsar.

Ayrlyn looked at Nylan and rolled her eyes.

“I was just asking,” said the smith in a low voice to Ayrlyn, as he urged the mare forward and alongside the squad leader. Ayrlyn rode on Tonsar’s other side, the gray trailing. The remaining armsmen eased their mounts behind the three.

They rode nearly a kay before Tonsar spoke. “Many from Lornth died on the Roof of the World.”

“That’s true,” Nylan admitted, spreading his fingers for Weryl to grab, then trying not too hard to jerk away the index finger Weryl had seized. “But we never attacked first, and we had nowhere else to go.”

“You could not return to Heaven?”

“No,” answered Ayrlyn. “Our ship failed.”

“You are angels. Angels,” repeated Tonsar, as if that answered everything.

“Our ship was destroyed in crossing the stars, and we were lucky to land on the Roof of the World,” Nylan explained. “Few of the angels can live for long where it is lower and hotter. Our worlds are colder.”

“Hmmmm…” reflected Tonsar. “That be what Kurpat and Jegel said, ’fore they left for the last battle. Jegel-he was wearing heavy leathers and he near froze, and he said the angels were in thin clothes, and they all were sweating like it was high summer in the Grass Hills.”

For a time, only the sound of hoofs was heard.

“Be true that most angels cannot live where it is hot, then why are you here?” asked the squad leader.

“I can live where it is warmer,” Nylan admitted, “but it is not comfortable. The trader here is the only angel from a warmer place, and the Roof of the World is too chill for her. All the others would suffer greatly if they tried to live in Lornth.” Nylan wondered whether he was right in concealing that Ayrlyn was a healer…but he hadn’t lied.

“Yet many of our women fled to that cold. That I do not understand.” Tonsar turned to Ayrlyn. “Can you tell me?”

Nylan was glad Ayrlyn had to explain.

“All who fled to Westwind-the Roof of the World-had been mistreated, often hurt badly, and they had no place else to go.”

“A place for women and angels who have no other place-that be odd.”

“…odd indeed…for many fled to Lornth from Cyador years past…” came a murmur from an armsman who rode behind the three.

Nylan frowned. He didn’t like the way Cyador kept coming up, or the business about Cyadoran women fleeing to Lornth. He wasn’t getting the most favorable impression of Cyador. Now, the regents of Lornth wanted to meet them. Again, that might be good, and it might be the worst possible situation.

Weryl grabbed the front of the saddle and tugged again. Nylan disengaged his son’s fingers and looked ahead toward Lornth, no more than a fair-sized town from what he could see, then to Ayrlyn.

She smiled enigmatically, and shrugged.

Great insight, thought Nylan. Great help.

“Waa-daaa?” asked Weryl.

Nylan eased out the water bottle. Water he could provide.