Arms-Commander

XXXVIII

All in all, it took nearly two full days for Saryn and the remaining healthy Westwind guards to reorganize and to move the ten supply wagons less than three kays through the woods, as well as collect anything useful that could be reclaimed from the avalanche and from what the surviving Gallosians had discarded in their flight. Personally, Saryn suspected that the fifty-odd Gallosian mounts they had captured might well prove to be of the greatest value, those and the supply wagons themselves, since they would allow Westwind to send its own traders out with enough cartage capacity to bring back meaningful quantities of goods.

Finally, at first light on oneday morning, they set out on the return journey to Westwind. Saryn rode just behind Hryessa’s first squad, which provided the outriders and scouts and served as vanguard. Beside her rode Istril, since Hryessa was leading the vanguard.

Saryn said little for the first several glasses after they left the valley, lost as she was in her thoughts about the battle. She really hadn’t had time to think about it since she’d rejoined the main force, not with all that she had been required to organize and supervise, not to mention that she had worried that some of the Gallosians might turn into marauders, whom she wouldn’t have been able to discover. Her ability to sense anything without blinding herself or risking unconsciousness had only begun to return late on eightday, and she hadn’t pressed herself. She still had spells during which she could not see.

On one level, she understood why Arthanos had tried to destroy Westwind, but she had trouble understanding emotionally. Even if he had succeeded, he would have lost hundreds of men, if not thousands…and for what? To destroy only a few hundred women in the middle of mountains that no one really wanted? Was it an attempt at revenge for the fact that Balyea-his former mistress-had left him for Westwind? Saryn almost couldn’t believe he had mounted such a massive campaign because he opposed a tiny land where women ruled…and yet she could.

“You’re deep in thought, ser,” Istril finally said.

“I’m still having trouble with the idea that a ruler’s son would sacrifice thousands because he couldn’t stand a few women who didn’t have to bow and bend to men.”

“There are men like that everywhere. Some places have more, some less, but all have some. It’s not just men, either. Some women would like it the other way.”

“It’s a sad comment on people.”

“Everyone wants to be in charge.”

Saryn wondered about that. Did everyone want to be in charge, or did most people just want control over their own lives?

When she did not say anything, and the silence dragged out, punctuated only by the sound of hoofs on the road, Istril spoke again. “It’s a good thing you were the one on the mesa to loose the rocks. You had to use order and chaos in addition to the explosives, didn’t you?”

Saryn glanced around. No one else was riding that close to them. She nodded. “Some.”

“More than some. I could sense it down in the valley. So could Siret.”

“I’m not like the engineer,” Saryn protested. “It was nothing compared to what he did.”

“No, you’re not. What you did was different. But it wasn’t nothing. The entire side of the mesa exploded. It was loud enough to stop everyone for several moments.”

And then the killing resumed. Saryn’s smile was bitter. Who was she to talk about other people’s killing? “I couldn’t hear for a while.”

“I can imagine. It was worse than that, wasn’t it? You’re still pale…order-frayed, and it’s almost three days later. You lose your sight at times, don’t you?”

“I can’t complain. I survived in one piece, and thousands didn’t.”

“That’s true, but you paid in a different way. People who use a lot of order or chaos do. But you’re not quite like either the engineer or Siret or me, or even the white mages. You’re not black, and you’re not white. There’s a grayness around you, and it’s getting stronger, and your eyes, they’re sort of silvery instead of straight gray. What does it feel like?”

Grayness? “I hadn’t even noticed it,” Saryn admitted.

“I’d suggest you do.” Istril’s words were gentle. “How do you see order and chaos?”

“Order…chaos-they’re more like flows…like winds through the air or water through the ground…or even unseen electrical fields or currents…”

Istril frowned. “I don’t sense it that way. Siret doesn’t, either, and neither did Nylan or Ayrlyn. Flows?”

Saryn nodded. “The order or chaos in or around things…they just look like they’re stationary, but they’re really not. Everything is moving, all the time. That’s the way it seems, anyway. That could just be me, though.”

“How could everything be moving? There’s order and chaos: But cold iron, it has order in it, and it doesn’t move.”

Saryn shrugged. “I can’t explain it. That’s just the way it seems to me.” She wasn’t about to try to explain how to integrate magic and higher-level physics on a world that half the time she wasn’t sure even ought to exist-except that she’d seen and felt…and caused…enough death to know that it was a very real world.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to argue with what you did, ser. Or how you did it. They’re just glad you did.”

“No. The Marshal just wants results.” And she’s never much cared how she gets them.

“That’s true of most people who run things,” Istril pointed out.

Am I like that? Saryn smiled sardonically. She hadn’t cared all that much about all the deaths she’d caused with her use of order and chaos flows-just that she wiped out Arthanos’s army. But still…She shook her head. She had more than a little thinking left to do, but that could wait…for a while.

“Do you think most of the wounded will recover?” she asked.

“Most, but some won’t ever use an arm or a leg right again, and some probably won’t think very well…”