Colors of Chaos

CXXIII

THE SHADOWS OF the trees to the west fell across the river road, covering the low brush and open ground between the road and the woods. In places, green sprouted through the few patches of dirty snow remaining from the long winter.

For nearly two kays the road curved back toward the river and the higher wooded hills that separated the packed clay from the water. Cerryl studied the hills alongside the river, frowning. His head throbbed from a day in which he had struggled to extend eyes and senses out around the patrol, not always successfully. Something about the hills bothered him and had from the moment his patrol had followed the road away from the river. Yet some of the Gallosian levies had been following the river road, since not all the levies could be transported on the barges and flatboats Jeslek had commandeered.

Cerryl glanced back over his shoulder. He hoped the forward pickets-half his force-didn’t have too much trouble during the night, but what use was clearing a road if you let the enemy return to it? Even so, the blues might circle the road. Cerryl shook his head. The ground was too soggy and the undergrowth too thick for much of that.

His eyes dropped to the young lancer riding beside Hiser, who struggled to remain in the saddle, blood oozing through the shoulder dressing, his head lolling, then jerking into awareness-and pain. Hiser tried to wave away the circling flies.

“…wish Leyladin or camp or something were closer…” Cerryl’s eyes studied the empty road. Still no sign of the camp.

“He’s still with us, ser,” Hiser said. “Not too much farther…”

Cerryl didn’t look back at the other saddle, the one onto which a body was strapped.

The river ran to Cerryl’s left-eastward as his patrols retraced their steps back south toward where he hoped to find the day’s encampment. The advance had slowed. After making nearly fifty kays in the first eight-day, they had covered less than fifteen kays over the past three days. And lost four men already.

Several thin lines of smoke appeared above the trees to the left, around another curve and apparently beside the river.

“Can see the camp…not too much farther,” Hiser repeated.

Cerryl turned to the lancer beside him. “Dyent, ride ahead and see if you can find the healer. Tell her that we have a lancer with a deep shoulder and chest wound.”

“Yes, ser.” Dyent urged his mount away from the main body.

Hope she’s not too exhausted…Is it fair to ask?

Cerryl stood in the stirrups momentarily, trying to stretch his legs, to shift the soreness. He hadn’t ridden so much in seasons. One season, but it had been a long winter.

Leyladin was waiting as Cerryl’s lancers rode in toward the fires. “Here! Bring him here.”

The raggedness in her voice tore at him. “Can you help him?” he whispered as he swung out of the saddle, stumbling when his boots hit the not-quite-even ground. Please don’t do too much…

“I won’t.” Her eyes and senses went to the dark-haired and pale young lancer that Hiser lifted out of the saddle and onto the pallet Leyladin had waiting-on the edge of an area holding more than a score of other pallets.

What happened?

“Too much.” She touched his hand and then stepped over and knelt beside the lancer.

Hiser hovered over the pallet.

Cerryl straightened. He couldn’t help either Leyladin or the lancer. Neither could Hiser. “Hiser, the healer will do her best for him. We need to get the men set up and the mounts watered and fed-and rubbed down.”

“Ah…yes, ser.”

“We need to make sure they get fed.” Cerryl took a deep breath and a last look at Leyladin. The healer in green looked frail, somehow. Cerryl swallowed, then forced himself away.

Once the men were settled, the mounts on a tie-line, and Cerryl had set his lancers up to be fed at the end cook fire, he walked toward the more central fire where he saw Faltar and Buar standing.

“What happened today?” Cerryl glanced up the gentle slope to where the wounded had been gathered. He could see a flash of green, but little more. “All those wounded…”

“We lost almost a whole boat of levies and some archers today,” Faltar said tiredly, turning and pointing down at the river.

“Said it was bad,” murmured the dark-haired Buar.

Cerryl looked at the boats. The forward craft bore scars, as though it had been slashed with a blade, and most of the stain and varnish had been ripped off the upper deck. The right side of the upper deck railing and the pilothouse were both gone.

“How?”

“You know those slicer things they use on the trails…” Faltar glanced at Cerryl. “Stupid of me. I’m tired. Of course, you do…”

Cerryl nodded.

“The black iron ones that smith made…”

“Dorrin,” Cerryl said, lowering his voice. “I told Fydel and Jeslek that he was making more black iron devices.”

“Well…he did. They put something like those horse slicers along the river. Fydel and Jeslek are down there now-looking at it.”

“So where were you?” snapped Anya, marching from the silk tent on the flat ground above the river. “They were set up on your side of the river, great Cerryl, and you were nowhere around.”

“We were on the road,” Cerryl answered. “Taking arrows.”

“They slipped up along the river, and you didn’t even see them?” Scorn dripped from the redhead’s voice.

Cerryl sighed. “I have only so many lancers. The road splits from the river. I told you that this morning. Jeslek told me to follow the road because Eliasar has to send most of the Gallosians that way. I did.”

“You were wrong. Eliasar was wrong. Follow the river.”

“How?” asked Cerryl. “If I take a force through that underbrush without a road, the blues will take out most of my lancers before I can even see or sense them.”

“You have an answer for everything.”

You wish you did…at least for her. After a moment of silence, Cerryl said, “I don’t pretend to have answers I don’t know. There weren’t any blues on that part of the river when we passed where the road turns west.”

“Of course not. They waited until you passed.”

“If you know so much, Anya,” said Faltar tiredly, “why weren’t you there? Jeslek said you were in charge of reserves and supposed to take care of things like that.”

Cerryl’s eyes almost popped out with Faltar’s words, words he’d never thought he’d hear. Maybe young Viedra was good for Faltar.

Anya’s pale eyes turned icy gray. “You’d best concentrate on the east river road, Faltar.”

“I will, Anya.” Faltar smiled tiredly. “It’s my task, and I do my best at my tasks. I don’t have time to do others.”

Buar’s eyes had traveled back and forth between Anya and Faltar, getting wider as the conversation went on.

Anya turned full toward Faltar, and Cerryl couldn’t help but smile as he watched Jeslek approach from behind the redheaded mage.

“Both of you will learn-”

“I’m certain we have all learned a great deal, Anya,” said Jeslek smoothly. “Tomorrow, you will patrol the riverbank ahead of the boats in those areas where the road swings away from the water.” The High Wizard paused. “Unless you would rather take over Cerryl’s duties and have him patrol the banks?”

Anya’s face was blank for a moment before the broad and false smile reappeared. “I would be most happy to patrol the banks. Now…if you would excuse me.” She turned and walked uphill, more to the north and away from the horses and the wounded men.

“We should have watched the river area more closely,” Jeslek said mildly. “Try to think of anything else unusual, and let me know, if you would.” The High Wizard turned toward the white silk tent.

That’s as much of an admission that he should have heeded your warnings as you’ll ever get. Cerryl’s mouth slipped into a crooked and cynical smile that immediately faded as Leyladin slipped out of the growing dusk to stand beside Cerryl.

She touched his arm gently, and her eyes were rimmed with blackness. “I did…what I could. He…I think…if he’s still here in the morning.”

The gray-eyed mage put an arm around her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m all right.” She took a slow and deep breath before the deep green eyes fixed on him. “I can’t…heal all of them…just try to keep the chaos out of their wounds.” She sighed.

“All of those I saw?”

A slight sob escaped her. “So many…”

“You need to eat. You need the strength.”

“We’ve got rations over there,” suggested Faltar. “We had some earlier. Mostly bread and cheese, some mutton, could be cold by now.”

“Cold or not…” Cerryl guided Leyladin toward the cook fire and the lancer standing there.

“Lady healer…here.” The lancer extended a slab of mutton on a half-loaf of dark bread. “There’s cheese here, too. Whatever you need.” After a moment, he seemed to see Cerryl. “Ah…you, too, ser.”

“Thank you,” Cerryl said.

The two accepted the fare and stepped away to sit on a fallen log that had been dragged to one side of the cook fire.

“I can see who the lancers value,” Cerryl added with a laugh, brushing away a large mosquito, once, and then again.

“They value you,” Leyladin mumbled, “in a different way.”

Maybe. Cerryl ate slowly, and Leyladin finished her meat and bread before he was half through his fare. He looked up. “Go get some of the cheese. There were some dried apples, I think.”

“I didn’t know I was that hungry.”

“Healing is hard work,” he pointed out. “Any use of order or chaos is.”

Leyladin slowly stood and walked toward the makeshift serving table, a plank between two forked posts, where she sliced off a chunk of white cheese and took a handful of dried apples.

“Anything else you’d like?” asked the lancer cook. “More mutton?”

“No…thank you. I’m feeling better.” She offered a smile. “Thank you.”

Cerryl stood and joined her, cutting himself some cheese. “A little more than an eight-day and still more than thirty kays before we see Kleth.”

“Then another hundred-fifty kays or more to Spidlaria?”

“More or less.” Cerryl brushed away another hungry mosquito, circling through the growing darkness toward him. “You worry about the killing? Going on and on?” How could anyone not worry about it?

“I do.” Leyladin waved at another mosquito. “The old books talk about Black being ordered and healing.” She shook her head. “How is order any different from chaos when it’s used to kill? They killed more of us today than…I don’t know. Does it matter?”

Cerryl finished his chunk of cheese and put his arm around her. “The goals matter. They have to.” Because power can be abused, by either Black or White? How do you ever know that you’re not deceiving yourself and abusing power? Are we doing the right thing?

“We think so. I suppose they do as well.” Leyladin took another deep breath. “I need to lie down. I don’t know if I’ll sleep, but I can’t stand up much longer.”

“I left my bedroll by the mages’ fire.”

“I can offer to share my quilted ground cloth with you, ser.”

Even through the darkness, Cerryl could sense the smile. “Those are the best words I’ve heard today. I would be most grateful to accept.”

They walked slowly uphill.