The Chaos Balance

XCI

A light breeze whispered across the sun-browned and dusty grass. The two angels remained mounted at the head of their three squads on the back side of a low hill. On the west side of the hill, one indistinguishable from the other Grass Hills, ran the rutted road between the mines and Syadtar, although the mines-and the bulk of the Cyadoran troops-were a good fifteen kays north of where the Lornian force waited.

A single man rode from the north, puffs of dust and bits of brown grass tossed up by his mount’s hoofs.

The angels waited until the rider reined up. Both man and mount were breathing hard.

“The wagons are coming!” exclaimed Wuerek, his eyes going to Ayrlyn. “They’ve got less than a squad guarding them. And slow…I could hear the groaning from up in the grass.”

As her eyes unglazed, Ayrlyn smiled to herself.

“Those wagons, they’re not rolling faster than a walk, with mayhap fifteen lancers,” Wuerek repeated.

Nylan and Ayrlyn exchanged glances. It made a sort of sense. No military commander wanted to denude himself of resources-wagons, horses, or whatever-merely to supply goods to civilians. So the wagons carrying the copper ingots back to Cyador were heavy laden and-this first time-lightly guarded.

“We’ll set up below the next hill, as we planned,” Ayrlyn said. “At the turn before the climb.” She turned in the saddle and glanced at Tonsar, who nodded slowly.

The setup was straightforward. Accompanied by one squad, the two archers-Buretek and Ailsor-would wait until the supply convoy reached the turn where the road rose. Then they would begin shooting, and keep shooting their shafts until they ran out-or until the lancers reacted.

At that point, Nylan would bring the squad with the archers down, while Ayrlyn and Tonsar would strike from behind.

It was, Nylan reflected, simple enough, if it worked. Simple enough to get a few more armsmen killed, but he needed the wagons close enough to a side road or trail that would allow him to circle back to Syskar far east of the mines-and that meant a locale where digging up more boulders wasn’t feasible.

If things went the way they usually did, he’d probably pay for not doing the hard work with something else-like lives. As he flicked the mare’s reins and began to lead his squad to the southwest side of the hill, just out of sight of the road and the oncoming wagons, he hoped one of those lives didn’t happen to be his-or Ayrlyn’s.

Fuera eased his mount up beside Nylan’s. “You still want me to take the second group, ser?”

“Yes,” answered the angel. “Why wouldn’t you?”

The blond shrugged.

“You’re impatient,” Nylan added, shifting his weight as the mare continued onward, “but I need someone who will lead, not talk. Just wait until I give the order. That’s all.”

“What if-”

“Fuera, you wait until I give the order. The only reason you shouldn’t wait is if lightning or something knocks me dead. Then you’re in charge. If that happens, I wouldn’t charge. I’d turn those left alive and ride out of here as fast as you can.”

Fuera’s heavy blond eyebrows furrowed.

“Look,” Nylan explained slowly. “Anything that can take out a force’s commander even before the fight starts can probably do worse to all of you. If that happens, look to Ayrlyn or Tonsar. Follow their orders. If they’re out,” he shrugged, “you can do as you think best.”

The blond nodded. “You think we can take out these lancers?”

“We should be able to-if we follow the plan. Let the archers get rid of some of them first.”

“It doesn’t seem…exactly…fair…”

“War isn’t fair. It wasn’t fair of the whites to slaughter the children in Kula or Syskar, or in those Jeranyi hamlets, either. We’re not in this to be fair. We’re in it to win.” Inside, Nylan winced. How much had he come to take on the characteristics he’d deplored in Ryba? Did war do that to everyone who wanted to survive?

As his squad rounded the side of the hill, he looked northward to where the road ran downhill and to the south. A low rise still blocked the more northern section of the road from view. “All right. Rein up. We’ll wait here.”

Ayrlyn and Tonsar would be farther north, waiting behind the hill crest until the wagons passed, until the archers began to shoot.

Leather creaked; harnesses jingled; horses whuffed gently. The brown grass hung limply in the hot midday sun. A low drone seemed to come from the north-the conversations of bored lancers?

Nylan turned in the saddle and motioned to the archers. “Buretek…Ailsor.”

The two eased their mounts around Fuera’s gray and reined up.

“They’re on the way. Get your bows ready.”

Buretek gave a single sharp nod, Ailsor a sad and faint smile. Both unwrapped the longbows and took the covers off their quivers.

The low droning continued, accompanied by an intermittent series of creaks and sharper voices.

Nylan wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm, and bits of dried and sunburned skin stuck to the silver hair on the uncovered part of his arm. Sunburn-another occupational hazard.

The sound of the wagons increased, and Nylan stood in his stirrups, then motioned the archers forward, up beside him. “Won’t be long now.”

“Ser,” said Ailsor quietly.

The sun continued to burn into Nylan’s neck as they waited, as the white lancers neared the turn in the road.

He eased his mount forward to where Ailsor and Buretek would have a clear shot, wondering how long before they were seen. The two reined up and looked at him. Still, the lancers did not look uphill.

“Fire!” commanded Nylan.

Buretek and Ailsor began to loose their shafts. Several passed by the lancers unnoticed-until the first buried itself in a stained and soiled cream tunic. Even the civilized white lancers were having trouble with laundry, Nylan noted absently, wondering as he did why he’d noticed that.

“Barbarians!”

“Where?”

A Cyadoran stood up on one of the wagons and pointed toward the three Lornians. “There! After them!”

Nylan watched as the squad of lancers milled, then slowly formed, and began to ride toward the hilly rise.

“Just keep firing,” the silver-haired angel said. “Hold your mounts!” he ordered as he turned and looked back at Fuera, and those behind the young hothead, still half-concealed from the oncoming lancers. Couldn’t the idiot see that every shaft that struck left one less lancer able to fight-or fight well?

Dust rose from the north as Ayrlyn led the other two squads down on the three wagons from behind. Four of the remaining lancers turned toward the new threat, almost in slow motion, it seemed to Nylan. The fifth lancer reined up and studied the attack, and then spurred his mount out across the flat to the southeast-the only area where there were no Lornians.

“I’ll get him! I can get him,” said Fuera.

“Hold it!” Nylan snapped at the blond armsman. “The whites right in front of us.”

Fuera bared his teeth, but held his mount.

Nylan waited. Let the whites do some of the riding-uphill.

White lances out, the Cyadorans continued to canter toward the Lornian group, although three lancers had gone down, and another clutched his arm and trailed his squad, as if uncertain what to do.

A fifth looked stupidly down as an arrow slammed through his chest.

“Bows away!” Nylan told the two archers. “Fuera, you take the left; I’ll lead the right. Remember, angle from the sides. From the sides. They can’t move those lances like a blade.” He shut his mouth, realizing he was talking too much. If the training hadn’t taught them, talking right now wouldn’t do anything.

As soon as the silver-haired angel saw the two archers had sheathed their bows, he took the blade from his waist scabbard and lifted it. “Now!”

The mare jumped forward, and he lurched in the saddle before catching himself. A wry smile crossed his face-he still wasn’t totally used to leading charges while bouncing around in a saddle with a heavy iron blade in his hand.

Reflections and shimmers of light-always reflections-wavered off the small polished shields of the white lancers as they rode forward.

Nylan swung his group to the left so that they remained well uphill of the white lancers. He wanted to force the Cyadorans to look into the sun as well as climb to meet the Lornians. He hoped that would further tire the white mounts-but that meant that the glare from the damned shields would be even greater.

The smith glanced to his right and downhill where Fuera was almost level with the road and heading into the flat to the east.

With another gesture of the blade, Nylan turned downhill, and his half-squad followed.

Onward, on to another round of death…

The whites slowed, as if puzzled by attacks from two sides, and half the lances swung slowly uphill.

Before he really knew it, Nylan could see a long white lance seemingly moving toward him. He slipped aside the white lance with his short heavy blade, his eyes watering from the blast of reflected light from the shield-his success due to the “feel” that had come from Ryba’s intensive training-then struck laterally underneath the shaft. The blade sheared through the lancer’s torso and stuck, nearly wrenching the angel from the saddle before coming free.

Whhsttt…

The next lancer had dropped his lance, and Nylan had to flatten himself to avoid the sabre that threatened to take his arm. Before he could get his own blade up, he was through the column.

His head had begun to ache, his eyes to burn, and he had to guide the mare into a turn and back toward the fighting.

Another white shoved a jagged-tipped and shattered lance toward the angel, but Fuera’s blade knocked it down as the blond galloped past.

Nylan’s heavy short blade cut deeply into the white lancer’s shoulder near the neck. Blood seemed to fountain everywhere, momentarily, followed by the unseen rush of whiteness and pain that accompanied every death Nylan created.

The smith, half-blind and fighting the knives in his eyes and the pounding in his skull, kept his own blade in a semiguard position, and let the mare carry him back through the scramble to the uphill side of the road, where he reined up, temporarily alone.

Two deaths is enough…more than you can keep taking…But he felt guilty, even as he forced his eyes open, burning from both deaths and pitiless sunlight.

Most of the white lancers were down, and the white haze that only he and Ayrlyn seemed to see flooded the low area around the wagons and the remaining mounts of the Cyadorans.

A second white lancer galloped south as if his life depended on headlong flight, which it did, Nylan thought.

He turned and studied the area around the wagons, taking a deep breath of relief to see that Ayrlyn had reined up beside one of the stopped wagons.

After all the waiting and planning…and the skirmish seemed almost over before it had begun. He turned his mount downhill and northward, toward the three big wagons and their six horse teams.

“Ser?” The words were croaked, rather than spoken.

Nylan turned in the saddle.

Ailsor rode slowly toward Nylan, weaponless, blood streaking the right arm that held his left. “Ser…?”

Nylan reined up.

The archer’s face paled, and blanked, and he slumped across the neck of his mount.

Awkwardly, the angel sheathed his own blade, not bothering to clean it, and eased his mount beside Ailsor’s-too late. The archer was dead, his tunic soaked with blood. Nylan took a deep breath, knowing that he couldn’t have healed the other, not even had he reacted more quickly.

How many other Lornians had died? He surveyed the road and the grass flats. Only one other Lornian mount seemed riderless. Fuera and the others were stripping the bodies of weapons and anything else of value.

“Ser?” asked Wuerek, riding up and slowing, but not stopping. “Do we need to do graves?”

“No. At least two escaped, and we need to get out of here. Take all the spare mounts.”

“Good.”

“We need to bring back the bodies of our dead.” Nylan gestured toward the dead Ailsor.

“Yes, ser.” Wuerek’s voice was decidedly less enthusiastic, but Nylan didn’t care.

“Tell Fuera.” Nylan chucked the reins and eased the mare toward where Ayrlyn had reined up beside the first wagon. He massaged his neck, hoping that would relieve the pressure in his skull. It didn’t.

Should he think of trees? Who had time? He snorted.

Tonsar arrived beside Ayrlyn at the same time Nylan did, reining up with a flourish. “These fellows”-the burly armsman jerked his head toward the bodies sprawled in the wagon seat-“they weren’t very good. Some of ours were better after the first eight-day you had them.”

Ayrlyn and Nylan exchanged glances.

Had it been a ruse? Nylan wondered. “What’s in the wagons?”

“Oh, it is copper, many ingots of copper.” Tonsar smiled broadly. “Big ingots.”

The smith eased the mare over beside the wagon, then dismounted. He pulled back the dusty canvas, ignoring the few dark splotches of blood on the heavy fabric, realizing that his own shirt was equally splotched. As the dust rose around him, he tried to rub his nose one-handed, but failed to stop the sneezes. Aaaa…chew…cheww!

Finally, he rubbed his nose again and surveyed the wagon bed-filled with bronzish ingots, some already bearing a faint greenish sheen.

Ayrlyn sat on her mount, motionless, eyes glazed over.

Nylan re-covered the ingots, sneezing again and again. “Demon-damned dust.” He rubbed his nose once more, then remounted, waiting until Ayrlyn’s eyes refocused.

“You think it was a little too easy?” asked Ayrlyn, squinting as if the sunlight had suddenly brightened.

“I had that thought.” Nylan nodded. “Let’s get the Cyadoran gear rounded up and get out of here.”

“I’ve already checked on the breezes-such as they are. There aren’t any Cyadorans around. There might be a scout.” Ayrlyn closed her eyes and massaged her neck and forehead with her right hand.

“I think one got away. Two actually, but one didn’t even try to fight,” said Nylan. “That seemed strange.” He looked at Tonsar. “We can talk about that later. Let’s get some drivers up here, and get these wagons moving. The sooner we’re north of the mines and back in Syskar, the happier I’ll be.”

Ayrlyn nodded in agreement.