Colors of Chaos

XCIII

WHILE THE MORNING cook fires were building, Cerryl took the screeing glass from its case and set it on the trestle table-the beginning of his daily pattern. The already-warm wind gusted through the open door, swirling Cerryl’s white trousers around his legs and boots and carrying the odor of green wood into the cot.

He rubbed his nose, then pulled the bench out so that he could sit as he called up the images he needed-and as he added to the rough maps he continued to draw. He had sketched in most of the side roads and trails that fed into the main road between Axalt and Elparta, and there were far more of them than he ever would have guessed before he’d begun his informal project.

He frowned as he looked at the blank glass, deciding against seeking Leyladin until he was finished with a drafting session and with scanning the nearby hamlets. That way, at least, he could end with a pleasant visage.

He found one more trail, winding through the rolling hills and leading almost to the main road where Jeslek and his forces massed a good forty kays to the southeast of Elparta along the hills that separated Gallos and Spidlar. After Cerryl added that to the map, he began to look for the latest supply wagons from Certis. Those were encamped somewhere in the Easthorns short of ruined Axalt. Finally, he began to scree the nearby hamlets.

The first two attempts showed still-empty hamlets. Even before the silver mists cleared on his third effort, a good four-, perhaps fivescore mounted armsmen wearing blue tunics or vests appeared in the glass, saddling their mounts and preparing to ride.

Cerryl couldn’t tell exactly where they were, but they looked to be on the road leading to the crossroads just beyond the hamlet where he’d made his headquarters-less than a half-day’s ride on what passed for one of the better roads in the area.

The brown-haired mage forced himself to finish checking the other locales before he returned to the image of the mounted armsmen. After studying the image again, he slowly stood and wiped his suddenly damp forehead. From what he could tell, no inordinate order or chaos accompanied the armsmen, and the glass wasn’t wrong. At least, it usually wasn’t.

You hope it’s not. He swallowed and walked out of the cot, glancing around the hamlet, the few buildings swathed in the orange of postdawn, lancers gathering beyond the cook fires for their rations.

“Ser?” asked the young lancer serving as a messenger.

“Oh…I need Hiser and Ferek. Right now.”

“Yes, ser.”

As the lancer scurried off, Cerryl massaged his clean-shaven chin. Even in the field, he hated the itchiness of a beard, although sometimes he skipped shaving a day or two with the white-bronze razor that Leyladin had given him years before.

Has it been that long?

Hiser was the first to arrive, his lank blonde hair flopping across his forehead. The older Ferek followed, brushing back thinning red hair streaked liberally with white.

“We’ve finally got visitors,” Cerryl said. “Probably fivescore Spidlarian lancers. They look like they’re on the road to the fork, maybe a half-day’s hard ride.”

“That’s more than we have.” Ferek looked speculatively at Cerryl.

Hiser nodded.

“I’m not really an armsman,” Cerryl ventured, “but it seems to me that we want to meet them somewhere that favors us, where they can’t easily ride around us and where they have to ride uphill to reach us.” He paused. “And where I can throw firebolts at them.”

“There’s that bunch of hills about two kays beyond where the road forks,” suggested Hiser.

Cerryl nodded. It might work. “Ferek…you get the men ready, and Hiser and I and a few lancers will ride out there now to see how we can best set up.”

“Set up…what’s to set up?” Ferek mumbled to Hiser as the two walked back in the direction of the corral and the lancers, some of whom were still eating.

Hiser murmured something, but Cerryl didn’t catch his words. The mage turned back to the cot, where he again called up the image of the Spidlarian lancers, now clearly riding southward. He let the image go, slipped the glass into its case, then stepped out of the cot. He walked down to the pole and post corral, stopping by the cook fire to grab a biscuit and some hard yellow cheese, which he wolfed down and chased with water. When he reached the corral, the gelding was already saddled and tied, waiting.

Hiser was mounted, as were five lancers.

“We’re ready, ser.”

Cerryl strapped the glass into a saddlebag and then mounted. The sun had climbed clear of the low hills to the east and blazed out of the clear green-blue morning sky, indicating a day that would be long and hot.

“Do you know how hard they’re riding?” Hiser asked.

“They’re walking their mounts.”

As they rode westward past the untended fields and meadows, Cerryl could hear Ferek’s voice behind them as he addressed the majority of the lancers.

“No more raids. These be armsmen, and lots of ’em. A good wizard helps, but he’ll not do everything.”

Not do everything? Let’s hope I don’t have to. Cerryl still recalled the battles in Gallos, when he’d been an apprentice. It had taken three wizards and three apprentices to defeat the Gallosian lancers. There were a few more Gallosian lancers there than here. But that battle still pointed out the limits of using chaos fire. The bigger the battle, the less use it was, because drawing chaos from the land and air exhausted the White wizard before all the armsmen on the other side were turned to ash.

The early-morning wind had died, and the morning was still and damp, although there had been no rain in several days. Cerryl shifted his weight in the saddle, his eyes on where the road forked ahead.

Cerryl, Hiser, and the quarter-score lancers took the north fork, the one that wound its way toward Kleth-eventually. After they had ridden up and down three of the long and gentle rises that barely qualified as hills, the day had gotten warm enough that Cerryl was sweating, and what little breeze there had been had long since died away. The road was empty, and the only tracks were those of Cerryl’s patrols.

In time, the seven reined up on the hillside that Hiser had thought might be suitable for what he had envisioned. The young mage glanced at the subofficer.

“See…this is the right place,” Hiser said. “We could form up on the right in that meadow…make them ride up-or charge down.”

Without speaking, Cerryl surveyed the ground to the northwest. Was Hiser right? Could they use the terrain to their advantage? How? Height wasn’t enough by itself. The road went through a narrower space between the two rolling hills. On the north side was an open meadow and on the south a woods or woodlot, thick enough to slow and split riders. Any decent officer would see that and go another way, and Cerryl couldn’t count on stupidity on the part of the Spidlarians.

“Let’s ride along the road to the next rise,” the mage suggested.

A brief frown crossed Hiser’s face.

“You were right about the place,” Cerryl said, “but if we wait here, it will be obvious to them. I’m wondering if the next rise looks like high ground but would show that we could be flanked.”

Hiser nodded. “So we’d form up and then give a little attack and fall back.”

“We might just fall back,” Cerryl said. “I’d rather avoid losing men we don’t have to lose. It would also give them the idea I don’t know what I’m doing.” You don’t, anyway. He concealed the wince at his own self-doubt.

“Make them hasty…you think?”

“Something like that, just so they don’t think too much.”

Cerryl rode down through the long and gentle slope of the meadow for nearly half a kay, noting that despite the lush grass, the ground appeared flat and firm.

“They could ride up this easy,” said Hiser. “Course…we could ride down easier.”

“Let’s hope they think so.” Cerryl turned his mount back uphill.

After dismounting near the single oak near the road-he thought it was an oak-Cerryl took out the glass and laid it on its case in the shadow of the tree, then motioned for Hiser to join him.

As the image swam into the glass, Cerryl could hear the lancer subofficer swallow. The Spidlarian lancers were still on the road headed toward Cerryl. They were not straining their mounts but moving at a good walking pace.

“Watching their mounts, they are,” observed Hiser.

“A cautious leader.” And that’s trouble. Cerryl released the image. “We might as well relax until Ferek and the others get here.”

“Stand down,” Hiser ordered the five lancers.

Cerryl sat down in the shade, leaning against a crooked oak root that had risen aboveground. He had the feeling he’d best rest while he could.

Well before midmorning, Ferek and the balance of Cerryl’s lancers arrived.

“The hill the last back is a better place,” Ferek offered brusquely as he reined up beside the oak, looking down at Cerryl, who had not remounted the gelding.

“You’re right,” Cerryl agreed amiably. “We won’t fight here. I don’t want them to see that, though. If they do, they might try something else.” That I wouldn’t be able to puzzle out quickly enough.

Ferek scratched his beard. “Tire the mounts some to ride back there if they’re chasing us.”

“They’ve ridden farther, much farther,” Cerryl pointed out, “and it will be a time before they arrive-at least midday.” He paused. “If you rest and water the mounts in the stream there, will they be ready?”

Ferek looked toward the stream that crossed the southeastern side of the long meadow. “Easy. Do it in squads, I would.”

“Then why don’t you start now?” Cerryl smiled.

Hiser covered his mouth and coughed to hide a smile.

Ferek swung his bay around and ordered, “Water time. Stand down in squads! Water. Be quick now.”

Cerryl rode the gelding back to the sole oak tree near the road on the crest of the rise and dismounted. He took out the glass and called up the image of the Spidlarians-who appeared nearer. Overhead, the leaves rustled briefly, then stilled again.

It was almost noon before the Spidlarian force appeared on the more distant hill-and reined up as the riders saw the short line of Cerryl’s lancers, all mounted and apparently ready to repulse any attack or to attack themselves.

“Mayhap they won’t come forward,” said Ferek, from Cerryl’s right. “Or they’ll let their mounts get their wind.”

“It could be. We’ll have to see.” Cerryl blotted more of the dampness from his forehead and the back of his neck and stood slightly in the stirrups, trying to loosen trousers that clung too tightly, welded to his body by heat and sweat.

As Ferek’s lancers had done, the Spidlarians cautiously watered their mounts in small groups, clearly not letting any horse drink much, before re-forming on the rise across the meadow from Cerryl’s forces.

Slightly before midafternoon, the larger Spidlarian force slowly began to move, taking the slightly lower sections of the long meadow, then moving up. A group of archers rode halfway up the meadow and started to dismount and string their bows.

“Don’t like that, ser,” Ferek said.

Cerryl concentrated.

Whhhssttt. A firebolt arched and fell on one side of the archers.

One man flared into flame, and the others fell back a good hundred cubits.

Cerryl frowned. The archers were at the edge of his range, especially for accuracy, but he didn’t want them getting too close.

Still more than a kay away, the blue lancers split into groups of perhaps four riders and spread from one another as they walked their mounts slowly uphill and across the gentle slope of the rise. The hot sun glinted from their bared blades.

“They be not together,” mumbled Ferek.

“I thought that might happen.” Cerryl nodded. The Spidlarians knew or suspected that the Fairhaven forces had a White wizard; so they would not charge in mass where a single firebolt could wreak damage on more than a handful. Still, they would have to mass at some point before they reached Cerryl’s force…but that could be almost at the last moment on the gentle meadow. They wouldn’t be able to keep that spread out once they reached the narrower section of the vale the road traveled between the hills to the southeast.

“There are a lot more of them…” ventured Ferek.

Cerryl smiled faintly. “When they get to those bushes, down by the dead tree, we’ll turn and ride back along the road.”

Ferek frowned. “Why’d we ride up this far?”

“So they wouldn’t see how the road goes through that narrow place behind us.” Cerryl repressed a sigh. He’d already told Ferek once. “All right, have the men follow me back to the second hill-all but the two squads with Hiser.” He paused. “You ready, Hiser?”

“Yes, ser.” The subofficer gave a quick nod, his eyes going to the lancers who flanked him.

Whhssst! Cerryl arched another fireball toward the Spidlarians. It fell well short, as he knew it would, but the lancers slowed as the green grass burned for a time, with a thick grayish smoke that quickly faded and then dissipated. “Let’s fall back.” Cerryl turned the gelding. “Hiser…have your group hold here as long as you can without losing anyone, then ride back to our position.”

That would spend the horses more than Cerryl would have liked, but he didn’t want a fallback to turn into a pell-mell retreat, and having two squads remaining to “hold” the lower rise might ensure a more orderly retreat. If you’re lucky.

“We’ll hold ’em long enough for you to re-form, ser,” Hiser promised.

“Don’t hold too long,” Cerryl answered. “The idea is to avoid losing men.”

Hiser nodded.

Cerryl wanted to wince. “I meant that.”

“Yes, ser.”

With a nod, Cerryl turned the chestnut and rode alongside Ferek, glancing over his shoulder. With the “retreat” of the White Lancers, the Spidlarian forces began to urge their mounts into a quick trot up the hillside.

Cerryl reined up, then cast a last firebolt. Whhsttt!

“Aeiii…”

More by luck than skill, the wobbly sphere of chaos fire enveloped a blue lancer more than twenty cubits in front of the others. Cerryl was gratified to note that the blues’ advance slowed.

Almost with each of the gelding’s hoofbeats on the road through the vale toward the higher hill to the southeast Cerryl looked back over his shoulder, nearly bouncing off the trotting mount. The dust burned his eyes, and his throat felt almost clogged with the reddish stuff.

After what seemed the entire afternoon, Ferek’s lancers turned and re-formed on the higher hillcrest, barely getting into formation before Hiser’s squad galloped back uphill, at least several men short.

“Lost a few, ser,” Hiser said as he wheeled and drew up beside Cerryl. “The blues are a-coming fast.”

“Let’s hope they’re coming fast enough.” Cerryl began to muster chaos around him, so much that he could feel the air tingle.

Although the quick-moving Spidlarians were still more than half a kay away from Cerryl’s position on a still relatively low crest, now more than twenty cubits higher than the road below, the first Spidlarian lancers found themselves riding closer and closer together, forced nearer and nearer to one another by the narrowing of the swale that wasn’t really even a true valley.

Whhsstt! The firebolt arced into the middle of the horsemen, flaring into a mushroom-shaped flame.

The screams were faint and quick, but the riders swerved around the blazing figures and the grass on either side of the road, and the Spidlarian advance slowed just slightly.

“Darkness…he got near on a score…”

More like half that. Cerryl concentrated and loosed a second firebolt. Whhssstt!

Some of the riders saw the chaos fire, and those at the edge of the Spidlarian formation split off and galloped up the lower hill to the south of Cerryl’s force, then turned back to the west.

Abruptly, at the trumpet triplet that rang out across the hill, the remainder of the riders turned away.

“Why they do that? Just because of a few blasts of flame?” Ferek scratched his white-streaked red beard.

“I figure they lost near on a score right there,” suggested Hiser. “They saw the trap and backed off. They’ll look for another way to get at us.”

Cerryl knew the younger subofficer was right. He just had to figure out how and where the Spidlarians would strike again. If you can.