The Chaos Balance

LXXXI

Hanging just above the western horizon, the sun beat against the right side of Nylan’s face in the stillness that came with late afternoon or early evening-not that there was any real difference between the two in southern Lornth. Both were hot.

Beneath him, the mare half-panted, half-whuffed.

Swaying with the motion of the dark mare, the engineer rubbed his nose gently, trying to take away the itching from the gritty yellow dust-without rubbing it raw and bloody. Finally, nose still itching, he forced his fingers away and looked eastward to rest his eyes and face from the glare of the sun, rather than in hopes of seeing anything.

“Grass and more grass.”

“Real grass is green, not faded brown,” suggested Ayrlyn as she rode to his right.

On his left, Tonsar grunted or mumbled, but the engineer made no attempt to decipher the sound.

A dozen of the more able levies rode behind the three, the last two leading the pair of packhorses bearing the catapult and the clay fire grenades. All rode quietly enough that the loudest sound was that of hoofs on the hard surface of the trail, a surface so dry and hard that not even the dust muffled the hoof impacts.

Ayrlyn’s eyes glazed over, as they did periodically when she resorted to using the infrequent breezes and the upper winds to scout the land ahead.

“That way,” she said abruptly, pointing to the right and toward a hill slightly higher than those around it.

“The mines are ahead,” said Tonsar.

“So is a Cyadoran patrol,” answered Ayrlyn.

Nylan turned in the saddle. “Toward the hill there. Follow us.”

A chorus of “yes, ser” followed the order. Nylan ignored Tonsar’s frown, even as he squinted into the almost-setting sun. At times, he didn’t feel like explaining, and Tonsar needed to realize that.

The hill was farther than Nylan realized, and he began to look over his shoulder, but he saw neither dust nor riders. His eyes watered with the shift in vision from the glaring orange sun and the long shadows.

As the levies reached the depression between the hills that led to the western side of the designated hill, a cloud of dust appeared on the southern horizon where the trail disappeared over a ridge.

“A great many horses,” murmured Tonsar, “a great many.”

“Discretion is the better part of valor,” said Ayrlyn, with a half-laugh.

Nylan blotted his forehead, perpetually burned and raw, it seemed. At least the Grass Hills harbored few flying insects. Dust and grit and heat, but not much in the way of flies, mosquitoes, or the like.

After having the levies dismount behind the hill, the three left their mounts and walked up the slope, a slope offering uncertain footing with dry slick grass and crumbling soil. From just behind the crest of the hill, the angels and Tonsar lay in the grass and watched as the dust rose out of the south along the trail they had been taking. The cloud of dust was a detachment of Cyadoran lancers-if as many as threescore riders could be called a detachment.

Yet, even before the white forces reached the flat expanse where Ayrlyn had waved the squad off the road, the Cyadorans reined up, remaining stationary for some time, their white banners hanging limply in the windless afternoon heat.

“What do they do?” whispered Tonsar. “If they rode a half kay farther, our tracks-”

“Patrolling a perimeter of sorts-just to check things out,” Ayrlyn said. “They really don’t want to find anything-at least the officers leading this group don’t.”

Nylan smiled faintly, wondering in how many times and places patrols and scouts had avoided discovering the unpleasant. He bet that the entire group had remained within a few kays of the mines-a perimeter patrol.

“I wouldn’t want them after us,” Tonsar muttered. “With not even two squads here.”

“Numbers won’t help us,” Nylan pointed out. “Not with something like score-fifteen or twenty mounted armsmen inside those walls. And all of them bunked behind earthen walls.”

Tonsar looked back toward the pack animals and frowned.

After a time, almost as abruptly as they had appeared, the white troopers turned and rode back southward.

“It is strange,” observed Tonsar. “Even Lewa would not be such a fool.” He looked at Nylan guiltily.

“I won’t say anything, Tonsar, but I’d be careful around ser Fornal.”

“Yes, ser.”

“We’re less than four kays from the mines.” Ayrlyn stood and stretched after the last of the Cyadorans had vanished to the south. “We can move in slowly to the last line of hills before the mines, so long as we stay out of sight. Then we’ll set up, and after dark, the catapult team will ride down into that gully to the south of the walls. They won’t be looking at the south, not so much anyway. Tonsar, you’ll keep the rest of the squad ready to ride out at a moment’s notice.”

“They may not even want to chase us, but we can’t count on that,” Nylan added. After dropping incendiary canisters where you intend to drop them? Are you deluding yourself? Even Fornal will be furious…but there isn’t any choice.

Ayrlyn only raised her eyebrows, and Tonsar actually nodded.

The three eased their way over the dry and slick grass and back to the rear of the hill and the waiting levies.

“The whites turned back to the mines. It was just a patrol,” Nylan said.

“We’ll head for where we’ll leave most of the armsmen,” Ayrlyn explained as she mounted. “It’s no more than four kays, if that.”

A low groan, almost inaudible, greeted her announcement, but both angels ignored the sound, watching as the levies who were becoming armsmen mounted.

Before they reached the base of the hills flanking the mines, the sun touched the horizon. As it dropped behind the western hills, a reddish orange glow spread across the brown of the grass hills, creating the impression that the hills were smoldering, like the banked coals of a forge.

“Some day, this will be that hot,” predicted Ayrlyn, “like a forge or a furnace.”

“It is already,” protested Nylan, half-standing in the stirrups and stretching his legs. His knees creaked. At least, that was the way they felt.

“The ecology’s fading, and it’ll get worse.”

Was she seeing visions, too, like Ryba? Nylan moistened his lips.

“Not visions. Common sense.”

“Sorry.”

“It is hot,” Ayrlyn said. “Makes us jumpy.”

After riding into a lower spot, sheltered from both the mines and the road, Ayrlyn reined up. “This is as good a spot as any.” Her voice was flat.

“Stand down,” ordered Tonsar, his voice low, but firm. “And keep it quiet. The noise-it carries across the grass.”

Reins still in one hand-there was nothing to tether the mare to-Nylan stretched out on the hard and dusty ground, ground that the dried grass did little to soften.

Ayrlyn sat beside him. “You’re worried.”

“Wouldn’t you be? We can’t reach most of their troops, not behind earth walls. What I’m planning won’t set well with anyone.” He sat up and shook his head. “But not doing it will ensure we lose, and before long. Damn honor, anyway.”

“Do you ever think we’ll get away from this?” she asked.

“I hope so, but I have my doubts. I’ve been thinking. It takes strength and power to manage a comfortable living away from society.”

“But people make it harder,” she observed.

“Do they? That assumes people are different from nature in a fundamental way, and I’m not so sure we are. Trees-”

“Trees again?”

“Trees want to grow and survive-or they act that way,” the smith continued. “So do animals. And when resources are limited, and they always are, those who have greater control of their environment survive. That’s usually power of some sort. I don’t know that you can escape it.”

“So you want to be world ruler?” she asked dryly.

“Hardly. Civilization has a tendency to smooth things out, where power isn’t so direct for people-but sometimes it’s even harder on the rest of the ecology. I wonder if there’s a way to get that smoothness, that balance, across the ecology without reducing people back to animals-”

“It’s an interesting thought,” Ayrlyn said.

“I know. But for now, we’ve got to reduce the power of a self-centered xenophobic culture that believes all other humans are barbarians and animals, and we’ll do it by becoming even more savage in warfare.” He sat up and shook his head. “Is it time to do the nasty deed?”

“Almost.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “I do love you, you know. Part of that is because you are an engineer. You do try to find answers, even when it seems impossible. And you still care.” She gave his fingers a last squeeze and stood.

He squeezed her hand back, then rolled over and up, brushing the dust off his trousers and shirt, far more stained than when Zeldyan had presented them.

“Borsa, Vula? Do you have the pack animals ready?” Ayrlyn glanced at Nylan, who nodded in the dimness that was not quite full night.

“Yes, ser.”

“The canisters are ready, and so are the fuses and the striker,” added Nylan.

“Let’s mount up, then,” ordered the redhead.

“Tonsar,” Nylan said. “Stand by. When we head back here, we’ll need to be moving-immediately.”

“Yes, ser.”

Nylan swung into the saddle and glanced toward Ayrlyn.

“You ready?” she asked in a lower voice. “I can see a bit, but-”

“Ready.” Nylan’s night vision-another result of the Winterlance’s involuntary subspace transition from one universe to another-gave him a small advantage as he led the other three riders and the pack animals downhill toward the swale between the two hills. Beyond the swale was a narrow depression that might have been a stream or runoff channel in wetter years, and that channel led in a circling way around the west side of the semiplateau on which the mine complex stood, getting closer to the walls as it meandered south.

An acrid odor drifted over the riders, and Nylan wrinkled his nose. The Cyadorans were clearly doing something with the mines. He glanced upward at the still unfamiliar pattern of stars-cold and clear even in the summer night’s heat.

Once clear of the hills’ cover, the smith could see the yellow flickers of some type of watch lanterns on the walls, but their light only illuminated a few cubits of ground beyond the outer walls, and dimly at that.

Slowly, slowly, the six horses walked through the darkness, carrying their four riders along the gully that circled south of the mine’s walls. Nylan could sense an occasional trembling of the ground. Were the Cyadorans working the mine shafts at night as well?

He studied the ground. They were almost due south of the walls, walls still but barely lighted in places, and seemed to be opposite the corrals and stock area, from what Nylan could tell. He glanced at Ayrlyn.

“Looks good here,” Ayrlyn murmured, and, with a gesture to the two other members of the catapult team, she dismounted.

So did Nylan.

In the comparative silence of the gully, Borsa and Vula began to assemble the catapult with quick, practiced motions, slipping the pegs into place, while Nylan took the first canister from those strapped to the second packhorse. The animal stepped sideways, and the engineer patted her shoulder, trying to project some reassurance, and saying, “Easy there, easy.”

An occasional horse noise might not alert the sentries, but the more time before they were discovered the better. The engineer kept glancing at the mine walls, but the lanterns did not move.

Nylan laid out several rows of the alcohol-filled canisters. He wrinkled his nose again. The semidistilled liquid still smelled like places he’d rather never visit, but he doubted the odor would carry, or prevail above the stench of the mineworks.

“It’s ready, sers.”

Ayrlyn glanced through the darkness at the silver-haired smith.

“Can you sense where the few tents are? We’ll start there.”

“There are only a few.”

Nylan sighed softly. “We’ll hit the tents first, then the corrals. I don’t like it, but…a lancer on foot…”

The healer nodded in agreement, but Nylan could sense the sadness. He just couldn’t do that much about it, not the way matters were playing out. If the choice were between Lornth’s survival and Cyador’s horses, the horses had to lose. He didn’t like it, but war wasn’t exactly a matter of what one liked.

“What about the wagons?” he asked.

“They’re more scattered.”

“Is there any place where there are a couple together? And hay or fodder. That should burn easily and make life harder for them,” Nylan added.

Silence followed while Ayrlyn sent her senses out on the light breeze that had risen with the night.

Nylan tried to follow her perceptions with his, but he was far more aware of the strange wrongness of the ground beneath, and the time-smoothed boulders that lay not that far beneath the drying grass and soil.

“Wind it up,” ordered Ayrlyn, her voice low.

“Ser,” agreed Borsa. The faintest creaks followed his efforts. “Set, ser.”

The angel engineer eased the fuse into place in the canister tube, then placed the canister in the catapult cradle. He took the striker. “You ready?”

“Ready, ser.”

Whhsst-click. The fuse caught, and Nylan let his senses check to make sure the flame was solid.

Ayrlyn did something to the frame angle, then tripped the catch.

Thunk! The release of the catapult echoed dully along the shallow gully.

Nylan could feel Ayrlyn’s order senses doing…something…although what he couldn’t tell.

A flash of light flared from behind the stone and earthen walls that loomed uphill from them.

“Wind it up!” hissed Ayrlyn to Borsa. “Don’t wait for me to tell you.”

Nylan slipped another grenade from the pack and roughened the fuse, holding the striker ready. When the arm was back and the catch clicked, he flicked the striker again, using his own senses to strengthen the flame as he placed the next canister in the fitted cradle.

“Now!” Ayrlyn ordered.

Thunk!

Borsa began to wind the wheel as soon as the throwing arm stopped vibrating, and Nylan had another grenade ready, feeling that the catapult was slow, too slow. Ayrlyn made another adjustment.

Thunk!

Yet…five grenades went over the wall before a series of ragged horn calls echoed into the hot night.

Thunk!

Was that smoke oozing downhill from the Cyadoran walls? Nylan readied another canister and fuse, trying to be precise, despite the increasing pain and pressure in his skull.

Thunk!

The screams of horses began to fill the hot darkness, competing with intermittent trumpet blasts and shouts, and the white chaos of death flowed down into the gully with the smoke from burning hay, and the stench of charred meat.

Nylan forced down the bile in his throat, knowing that Ayrlyn had to do the same, as she sensed, watched, and adjusted the catapult.

Thunk!

Additional watch lanterns flared up, and the four continued to aim, load, and fire the canisters over the wall less than a hundred cubits away. The smoke thickened, and the smell of burned flesh enfolded the gully. Borsa retched, but kept rewinding the catapult.

Thunk!

Before long, yellow and red flames licked into the dark sky, well above the walls, and Nylan’s head throbbed from the screaming of the horses and from the handful of armsmen who had perished in the flames.

Thunk!

“Time to go!” ordered Ayrlyn. “Someone’s gathering a force together, and we don’t need to stay and get discovered. Besides, we don’t have that many canisters left.”

Fighting the stabbing pain in his eyes and skull, Nylan slipped the remaining grenade canisters back into the half-quilted pockets on the pack mare, then handed the hammer to Ayrlyn, who knocked out the pegs-the low-tech equivalent of massive cotter pins-while Borsa and Vula tied the framework together and strapped it on the other packhorse in swift movements.

Ayrlyn’s insistence on practicing in the dark in Syskar had clearly paid off, Nylan reflected as they rode back down the gully and up toward the swale where the rest of the squad waited.

As he rode, trying to ignore the pounding in his skull, Nylan remained absently bemused, simultaneously horrified, that in such a short span of time, they had created such a mess, and were leaving before the Cyadorans were even really organized. Then, how could they fight fires in what was nearly a desert?

He jerked in the saddle as he sensed the Lornians ahead, realizing that pain was fogging his senses.

“…that them?”

“…four riders…silver hair…”

“It’s the catapult party,” he announced; not knowing what else to say. “We’re back.”

Tonsar had the ten others mounted and waiting. “The flames, they reach the stars.”

“Hardly,” answered Nylan, “but let’s go. Before they send out lots of riders.”

“You’re leading,” Ayrlyn pointed out. “You’re the one with the night vision.”

Nylan turned his mount, easing her into a fast walk, resisting the temptation to trot or canter.

“Is anyone coming?” he asked Ayrlyn.

“I can’t sense anyone. They’ve sent some patrols out to where we were, but nothing on the road to the north.”

Nylan nodded. Maybe, just maybe, the Cyadorans were afraid of some sort of night ambush. He hoped so.

While he kept looking back, and while Ayrlyn rubbed her forehead and cast her senses on the evening breezes, no one followed. No one at all, and that bothered Nylan…somehow.

The glow on the southern horizon had faded into a blurred smudge of light, and the crunching of hoofs on the dusty trail had taken on a monotonous rhythm before anyone spoke again.

“The white ones-they will be most angry,” ventured Tonsar.

“That’s generally what happens to whoever takes the damage in war,” Nylan said, one hand massaging the back of his neck, hoping that easing the tightness would help his headache. Why did the death of horses create the white-based chaotic pain? It wasn’t so bad as that of the soldiers that had died, but it still hurt. He took a deep breath.

“You angels have won another victory,” said Tonsar. “Yet you are not pleased.”

“We killed soldiers and horses, and killing horses isn’t exactly a glorious victory,” Nylan pointed out tiredly. “Not the way anyone would prefer to fight. We just don’t have many choices.”

“You were not happy about sending your mage-fire at the horses, but you did,” said Tonsar.

“We also fired the hay they had collected,” Ayrlyn said with a sigh. “And a few wagons. It’s all the same thing.” She shifted her weight in the saddle.

Nylan concentrated on the trail, trying to sense if it were as empty as it seemed to his night vision, trying to ignore the white agony that blanketed both of the angels.

“But why?” pressed the burly subofficer.

“Tonsar, we killed close to twoscore soldiers and twice that in mounts, I think,” answered the redhead. Nylan could sense the pain in her voice, and his own head still ached. “Even with the men they lost, the Cyadorans will be short of mounts and fodder for those they have left. Where will they find it now?”

“Our camp, I would say. Or the hamlets. Somewhere.”

“Fornal won’t leave it for them. Besides, how will they get there? And will they want to leave a third of their force behind-without mounts?”

“No,” predicted Nylan. “They’ll take it out on someone else. That’s usually the way it works.”

He turned his eyes to the long road northward, a road that seemed to stretch forever. Even the thought of Ayrlyn beside him and Weryl waiting in Syskar offered little comfort.