The Chaos Balance

LXXXIX

Nylan set the hammer on the crude bench closest to the anvil, squinting as he walked out of the shade and into full morning sun to meet Tonsar. The brown-bearded armsman remained mounted and looked down at the smith.

“We are ready to leave, ser Nylan.” Tonsar gestured vaguely southward.

“Just keep an eye on the mines. If there’s any sign the Cyadorans are getting anything ready that deals with wagons, I want to know-immediately!” Nylan cleared his throat. “Avoid any fighting. Right now we’ve lost enough men. If they happen to see you-and try not to be seen-but if you are, seeing you will upset them enough.”

Tonsar frowned.

“Believe me…it will.” Besides, we’ll need every man we’ve got for the next trick.

“You follow the wagons again?” asked Tonsar after another awkward silence. “It will be eight-days or longer before more come from Cyador.”

“There’s another way to make them pay.” Nylan offered a crooked smile. “A quicker one, I suspect.”

The armsman scratched the back of his head.

“Take their copper when they try to send it home.”

“They will not like that. No, they will not. But will they risk sending wagons back to Cyad after…?” The armsman paused, and his mount whuffed and took a step sideways.

“Now, you see why I didn’t want anyone to escape? The whites don’t know that we took out their supply wagons. They might guess, but they don’t know.” But you do. And you know that most of the men you had killed were innocents. Nylan rubbed his forehead.

“I would not wish to be your enemy.” Tonsar grinned. “But I am not, and we are ready.”

“Go…” Nylan forced a smile and watched for a time as the small squad trotted southward out of Syskar, raising a low cloud of yellow-gray dust that settled quickly in the still hot air.

He walked along the sunny side of the shed barracks, trying not to choke at the smells rising from his crude distilling apparatus. Two more of the tubes had sprung leaks. He wrapped each leak with a rag and then plastered it with the moistened clay from within the broken pot set aside for the purpose.

Then he walked to the well and washed his hands-twice-and then his face, not that the effect would last.

The smith’s forehead was dripping again by the time he stepped back into the comparatively more shaded space under the chicken coop roof and blotted away the sweat.

Sias glanced up from the bellows and looked at the half-barrel serving as a quench tank. “You need more water, ser?”

“Just a bucket, Sias.” Nylan reached for the tongs to slip the metal on the anvil back on the coals. He’d never promised he wouldn’t forge black iron arrowheads for himself or Ayrlyn. Still, even looking at the metal almost turned his stomach.

He grimaced as he waited for the iron to heat to the necessary cherry red. The longer the war or conflict or whatever it was went on, the more squeamish he felt. What a great warrior and commander that made for!

How could he deny what he felt? Those in power made decisions, generally to preserve their power, and those who carried out the decisions suffered-or died. Yet he felt that the growth of Cyador was wrong, but so was Fornal’s view of the world. Both imposed order of sorts through absolute force-just different kinds of order.

Was that why he dreamed about the damned trees-and their chaos and order flows? Did they represent an answer his subconscious was trying to formulate? Or were they something real his unconscious was trying to reach?

Do you want to know? Really know?

Despite the heat in the chicken coop smithy, he shivered. Engineering background or not, he lacked the cold rationality of a Ryba-or a Zeldyan-and even the callousness of a Fornal.

“You all right, ser?” asked Sias, returning with the bucket. “I thought this was too hot for you.”

“It is.” Nylan didn’t bother to explain as he took the heated iron and slipped it onto the anvil. “Can you add some more coal to the fire?”

“Yes, ser.” Sias added the brackish water to the quench barrel and then used a wooden scoop to add the brownish black coal to the forge coals.

The engineer raised the hammer, and then struck.

Cluunnggg…clunggg…

A half-dozen deadly arrowheads later, Nylan set aside the hammer, let Sias bank the forge coals, and walked to the shaded stoop of the dwelling, from where Ayrlyn had waved-presumably to indicate she had something resembling a midday meal. The Lornian cooks only prepared breakfast and the evening meal.

“Daaa! Daa!” Weryl tottered down the dusty path toward Nylan.

Sylenia followed, more slowly, a shy smile on her face, her eyes on the toddler.

“It’s good to see you, too.” Nylan grinned as he hoisted Weryl to his shoulder and walked toward the dwelling and Ayrlyn. “And thank you, too, Sylenia. I probably don’t tell you that enough, but we’re glad you’re here.”

“So am I, ser. It has been good to get away from Lornth, from the sadness.” She brushed back a strand of black hair, and, it seemed to Nylan, something dark within, before giving him another shy smile.

Nylan patted Weryl on the back. “Stronger and faster, every day.”

“Faster,” agreed Sylenia.

Nylan bent and set Weryl on the stoop, then took the two stairs onto the stoop itself. But he hadn’t even stepped into the shade before Weryl threw both arms around his left leg.

Sylenia scooped up Weryl. “Let your daddy eat. He has been working. Smithing be hard work.” She sat on the edge of the stoop, her legs dangling in the sunlight, one arm loosely around the silver-haired child.

“Daa woo haaah.”

“Yes, I’ve been working hard.” Nylan laughed. “Not that hard. It’s better than riding all over southern Lornth.” Far better than killing…far better. His eyes went to Ayrlyn, sitting in the shade, and he smiled at the sparkle in those brown orbs, and the warmth behind them.

She gestured toward a small block of cheese and a dark loaf resting on a square of waxed cloth beside her on the bench. “Have some. You’re more hungry than you think.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s just bread and cheese, and some cold water,” Ayrlyn explained.

“Daaa!” Weryl twisted out of Sylenia’s grasp and charged across the stones toward Nylan before he could even sit.

“Weryl…” Nylan hoisted his son again. “Determined, aren’t you?”

“And who does he take after?” asked Ayrlyn.

“You would ask.” Nylan sat on the shaded end of the bench, holding Weryl on his right knee, the one away from the bread and cheese, with one arm. With the other he reached for the bread.

“Wedd, daa?” Weryl lurched toward the chunk of bread the smith held.

Nylan frowned. “You’ve eaten. I haven’t.”

“Wedd!”

Sylenia stepped forward. “We’ll take a walk, young man,” the nursemaid insisted, “long enough for your father to eat.”

Nylan slowly ate several mouthfuls of the dark bread, then glanced up, his eyes following Ayrlyn’s.

Sylenia held Weryl in her arms, but a squat armsman-Tregvo-stood opposite her, talking loudly. “…you…up to the subofficer…he be a clown…”

Nylan started to rise, but Ayrlyn touched his arm.

“Do you wish I call the angels, Tregvo? Or Tonsar? Go, and trouble me no more.” Sylenia’s voice was cool, firm.

“Some day…you will be mine…”

Sylenia’s cold eyes just burned, and Tregvo stepped back. After a moment, the armsman walked toward the barracks, looking back over his shoulder once.

Sylenia set Weryl down, and the two ambled toward the well.

“I don’t like that,” Nylan said quietly.

“She handled it all right.”

“What if we’re not around?”

“Even Fornal wouldn’t tolerate his actually forcing himself on her.” Ayrlyn took a swig from the water bottle. “The other thing that bothers me is the masculine assumption that women appreciate force and crudeness-or that they respond to it.”

“Force again…” mused the smith, accepting the water bottle from the healer, then drinking. He ate several more mouthfuls of bread before speaking. “Dear?”

“What, dear scheming consort?” Ayrlyn’s eyes sparkled for a moment.

“Me?”

“You. When you ask like that, it’s trouble.”

Nylan laughed. “Maybe. I have a really strange request. Can you do one of your searches on the winds? I mean, I know you can, but I wanted to know if some night you could try to find a sort of oasis-trees filled with order and chaos that are balanced? Maybe some place not too far away?”

“Those dreams are getting to you.” She smiled. “Yes. I’d already thought about it.”

“They’re getting to you?”

“Something like that.” She paused. “I can’t sing anymore. The notes feel like they’re copper…or lead. Even Weryl winces.”

“All the deaths, you think?”

She nodded.

What was it coming to? If they didn’t stop the relatively small Cyadoran expeditionary force, then Lornth would fall for nothing-and he and Ayrlyn and Weryl would be on the run in even more hostile lands, from what he could figure, and still required to survive by force of arms. Westwind would be surrounded as well. Yet stopping and destroying the Cyadoran force, as he knew from experience, would result in more massive retaliation.

“It’s the proverbial no-win situation,” Ayrlyn confirmed.

More and more, Nylan thought, she knew what he felt even when he did not speak his mind, and that, too, was strange.

“You could, too. You just don’t look.”

Nylan swallowed. Why didn’t he? Because…because he feared what he might see?

“Go ahead…look at me…”

He swallowed again, but he let his eyes and senses rest on the redheaded healer and fighter, singer and lover. Besides the patterns of dark and light, almost like the dreams of his dreams and subconscious, besides the flame of song…there was something else.

“I’m not fragile, not that way,” she said. I love you, smith and engineer…won’t lose me except by turning away…and I love your son…because he’s you…and himself….

The engineer’s eyes burned…hardly good enough for you…fumble through everything…can’t really even protect you half the time…

“I don’t need protecting. I need you.” Her hand grasped his, gently, but firmly…and I need you to see me as I am…fumble, too…get angry…impatient…don’t turn away…it’s hard, but…fear you’ll leave when you know me…really know me…

“That’s what…I worried about all along.” How could anyone love me…if they knew…

Her laugh was gentle, and her other hand touched his cheek. “I’ve known all along.”

“All along…” and he hadn’t seen it, or wanted to. Some mage…

Some healer…

They both laughed, tears in their eyes.