Colors of Chaos

LXXXVI

CERRYL GUIDED THE gelding around the gray rock on the right side of the road, a pile of squarish irregular stones that was nearly to his mount’s shoulder and left but enough passage for little more than a single rider at a time. As he followed Fydel, he glanced up at the rock face to the north of the road that tracked the winding canyon cut by the river. The darker rock and the line of gray stone indicated that the rockfall was recent, and the second he and Fydel had encountered in the last kay of riding. Each time they had been required to stop while the trailing lancers removed enough rock to allow the supply wagons to pass.

The younger mage cast his chaos senses ahead, but he could find nothing he would not have expected and no sign of other riders, except for Captain Teras and the twenty-odd-score lancers and the wagons. The canyon walls were high enough that shadows cast by the not-quite-midmorning sun still covered the road. Occasionally, in sections of the road where pockets of chill remained, Cerryl’s breath steamed in the shadows.

Once past the rocks, Cerryl drew his mount alongside Fydel’s. “Those rockfalls seem large.”

“You always get rock coming loose in spring,” Fydel answered. “The ice breaks it loose. It’s worse in the Westhorns.”

Cerryl looked back and up at the cliff. He still wasn’t sure that so much rock could have been broken loose by meltwater or ice. His eyes dropped to the cold foaming water to the left of the road-high, but still within its banks and comfortably below the level of the road. Only the brush within three or four cubits of the water had been flattened by an earlier and higher stream flow. That could change with a hot rain or a series of hot days. There was still all too much snow in the higher reaches of the Easthorns that flanked the canyon area they traveled.

Rawwwkk! A black vulcrow flapped off the end of a dead pine trunk that had fallen against an older and healthier fir.

“Scavengers…” muttered Fydel.

Cerryl half-stood in the stirrups, then settled back down and tried to get more comfortable in the saddle.

Neither man spoke for another kay or so-until they reached a third and far larger rockfall in a fractionally wider section of the canyon. The rock slide had ripped trees off the canyon wall and brought down chunks of granite from the left side of the canyon, filling most of the streambed and creating a small lake that stretched upstream. The new lake’s surface had risen almost to the level of the road itself.

“We need to get through here quickly.” Fydel turned and looked at Teras.

“We’re still waiting for the supply wagons,” Teras pointed out. “The water isn’t rising that fast. There’s enough water, and it’s near enough to water the horses. We’ve the space to gather.” He pointed ahead to the right of the road and an open and cleared space that had obviously been used as a staging point or a campsite, with fire rings and clay packed by all too many hoofs. “It might be a good time to stand down.”

A frown crossed Fydel’s face, but he nodded. “So long as we can mount up quickly if needed.”

“That we can do.” Teras nodded to the herald beside him, who took out his horn and bugled a call that Cerryl had come to recognize as the stand-down signal.

After taking advantage of his position at the head of the column and watering his mount, Cerryl rode farther up the road. He was glad to be able to dismount and stretch his legs in a different way and to refill his water bottles. He was also careful to chaos-boil them, even if he had to wait before drinking the water-and it was hot even then.

Fydel joined him, dismounting easily.

“Don’t know why you bother,” said Fydel. “The water isn’t that bad up here.”

“It can’t hurt.” Cerryl shrugged, still holding the chestnut’s reins. “Besides, I don’t feel right about those rock slides. Who knows what else might have fallen into the water?”

“You’ll never be an arms mage if you worry about that sort of thing.” Fydel laughed once.

You’ll never live to be an old arms mage if you don’t. “That could be,” Cerryl said.

After a time, the creaking and groaning of wagons filled the wider space in the canyon that was becoming a lake.

Finally, Fydel drew Teras aside. “As soon as the wagon beasts are watered, we need to move on,” Fydel ordered Teras. “The water is almost up to the road.”

“It will take a little time, but we’ll hurry best we can, Mage Fydel,” Teras answered deliberately.

The sun had risen well above the canyon walls before the wagons and their teams had been watered, fed, and rested, and the water from the new lake was lapping at the side of the road as Fydel and Cerryl rode westward through the stream canyon. The road still rose, if more gently than before, and the murmurings from the lancers were louder as the day progressed.

While they had seen signs of the passage of Jeslek’s force-hoofprints and droppings-no messengers had reached them, and outside of the sound of the stream and the intermittent calls of vulcrows and the infrequent squawk of a traitor bird the only sounds came from the force of lancers that Fydel and Cerryl led deeper and deeper into the Easthorns.

Then, after a narrow defile, the road curved and widened into what appeared to be a small valley. There, under a single crimson and white banner, a squad of White Lancers waited.

Cerryl nodded to himself as he saw the tumbled walls beyond and the trails of smoke that curled into the clear green-blue of the sky above. The rock slides that had obstructed the road had not been caused just by thawing and meltwater, and Axalt had definitely paid Jeslek’s tariffs.

“The High Wizard has made his point,” Fydel observed. “Others will heed what has befallen Axalt.”

“I wonder,” murmured Cerryl. “I wonder.” It had taken the disappearance and death of one duke and the destruction of two Towers before the Dukes of Hydlen had understood the power of Fairhaven, and then only reluctantly. Would the devastation of one small mountain city really change the minds of the Traders’ Council of Spidlar?

“Mages Fydel and Cerryl?” asked the lancer subofficer who rode forward toward the white and crimson banners that followed the two mages.

“The same,” answered Fydel.

“The High Wizard has continued toward Elparta. He would have you meet his forces just beyond the Easthorns. He also requests that you make prudent haste.”

“Prudent haste? That we can do.” Fydel nodded and cleared his throat, turning in the saddle to Teras.

While the two talked, Cerryl’s eyes took in the jumbled heaps of rocks that had once been walls, dwellings, warehouses…who knew what. The stench of death, while faint, was present and would grow, even in the cool under the clear skies. The scattering smoke trails whispered upward.

Cerryl thought he saw a crouched figure scuttle from one pile of rubble to another, but long as he looked again, he could see no other movement. Then, he wouldn’t have moved either, not after what Jeslek had done to Axalt. He turned back toward Fydel.

“There’s no reason to tarry here,” observed the square-bearded mage.

Cerryl glanced over the devastation. “No. I would guess not.”

Somewhat later, as the lancer column wound upward toward the end of the valley, picking its way through and around the rubble, Cerryl could hear the murmurings from the lancers who rode behind them.

“…didn’t leave much for us.”

“…didn’t leave much for anyone.”

Will Jeslek leave much for anyone? Cerryl eased himself into another position in the too-hard saddle and kept riding.