Arms-Commander

LXXIV

South of Lornth, in the late afternoon of fourday, the road was dusty but largely empty, for which Saryn was grateful. She had noted almost no one traveling northward toward Lornth, but she and her force had passed carts and small wagons heading away from the town.

Why are they going southward? Was it just because they had friends or family with whom they could stay? Certainly, heading toward the lands of the lords most likely to create trouble didn’t make much sense to Saryn. Except most of the townspeople probably don’t know that. They only know that the Lady Regent is in trouble, and they’re afraid to be in Lornth because they know there may be fighting there.

Saryn glanced at the road ahead, a packed-dirt way holding generally to the crest of a low rise that ran north and south. A kay or so ahead of her it dipped slightly, before climbing to the crest of yet another gentle rise. She squared herself slightly in the saddle, knowing that she couldn’t put off the task at hand, not if she and her force wanted to survive the eightdays ahead, because, sooner or later, another chaos-mage would show up to support the rebel lords, and the next one was likely to be far more accomplished than the Suthyan hedge mage she’d barely managed to handle.

How could she create a shield against the chaos-fire-bolts?

Slowly, she reached out with her senses and touched one of the nearest unseen nodes of order in the air. That was easy enough. Then she reached to another, and another…and another…Abruptly, the sunlight dimmed.

“Ser?” asked Klarisa, riding beside her, “What’s happening?”

Between Klarisa’s worried question and Saryn’s own unsteady control of the nodes, the order-linkage collapsed, and hot sunlight flooded back over Saryn and the squad leader…and the first riders in fourth squad.

“Ser?” repeated the squad leader nervously.

“I’m trying to work on how to deal with white mages,” Saryn said. “You might notice some strange things.”

“Yes, ser. I’m sorry, ser.”

“That’s all right. I should have warned you.”

“Do you mind if I pass it back, ser?”

“Just tell them that I’m working on a better defense against mages.”

Klarisa turned in the saddle. “Don’t worry if you see strange things around the arms-commander. She’s practicing defenses against the white mages. Pass it back.”

Saryn wasn’t about to correct the idea that she knew the defenses and was merely practicing them. She just hoped that she could come up with something that worked.

Once she was sure that all the guards had had time to get the message, she concentrated on rebuilding the order-lattice that connected the tiny unseen nodes in the air around her. Once again, the light around her dimmed, but she had the feeling that the lattice she had created was more like a net than a shield. And nets didn’t stop targeted energy. That she’d learned in the darkness between stars.

She released her hold on the net/lattice, and full sunlight flooded back over the squad. She took a deep breath.

What else can you do? What had she done-exactly-in dealing with the Suthyan hedge mage?

For a moment, she let her thoughts drift back to the fight with the raiders who had attacked Lord Spalkyn’s crofters and how she’d dealt with the small fire-bolts. She’d slid them, using a combined flow of order and chaos. Flow? Is that the key?

After extending her senses, as she continued to ride southward, for a time she just watched/sensed the flows in the air between the order nodes and those between the chaos nodes, noting that the changes between order nodes were patterned and infrequent, while those between chaos nodes were much faster and unpredictably irregular. Chaotic. She smiled at that thought.

Now…could she meld the flows so that they would block a chaos-bolt and slide it away? Could she extend those flows so that they covered both squads?

She began by smoothing the chaos flows between two nodes that seemed to jump from place to place-as did all of the chaos nodes. Then she extended the smoothing to a third node…and a fourth. She could feel a certain pressure, and she tried to link in the nearest order node. A tiny star flared in the air.

That doesn’t work. What about the idea of flow circuits…or something?

She began to connect order nodes, then tried to tie the linked chaos nodes to the linked order nodes…smoothing the “space” between them. Her “smoothing” tinged the white of the chaos with gray, and the black of order faded toward gray…but the flow seemed stronger, like a curtain of unseen gray light.

At the same time, the white sunlight falling around her out of the hot and hazy green-blue sky seemed to shift toward the red, toward a faint amber. Cutting off the blue end of the spectrum?

She linked in more of the order nodes to the order “circuit,” but, then, the curtain seemed to stiffen, as if it might crack or buckle-if something she could not see or feel could do either. So she extended her links to more of the dancing chaos nodes, and noticed that with each added chaos node, those nodes danced around less, although it felt to Saryn as though they were oscillating, or vibrating, within themselves.

Balance…the flows have to balance.

The sunlight darkened into a deeper red, and she glanced around, seeing that the reddish light shadow covered all of fourth squad, but only Yulia and the first rank of second squad.

Saryn concentrated on extending the area of the parallel melded flows, weaving her order-chaos flow curtain farther behind her, trying at the same time to strengthen it, to thread in more order and chaos nodes.

The sunlight darkened yet more, giving a slight cooling to the air around her, yet sweat poured off her forehead and into her eyes, and tiny flashes of light flared across her vision. She felt herself swaying in the saddle.

Finally, she had to release her hold on the gray light-curtain. White sunlight flowed back over the squad. She inhaled deeply, then exhaled, then did so again, even though she hadn’t been holding her breath.

Murmurs drifted forward from behind her.

“…scary…”

“…most stuff she does that saves your rear is scary…better get used to it…”

Am I really that frightening? Saryn was afraid she knew the answer to the question, much as she pushed it away, but her answer raised a second question, one to which she had no answer. Why does it have to be that way?

She eased her water bottle out of its holder and took a long swallow. She’d have to rest before she tried to gain better control of the shield flows. But she couldn’t stop working, not until she had them under control. She’d just have to pace herself…for as long as it took.

She took another swallow and corked and stowed the bottle.

According to the maps, the border to Tryenda lay another fifteen kays ahead. She could rest and eat some biscuits and try again.