Colors of Chaos

XCVII

IN THE GRAY light of another cloudy morning just past dawn, Cerryl stood and packed the screeing glass back into its case, his eyes going to the two subofficers. “They’re still on the road. Both groups have joined, and I make out a good ten score, perhaps twelve score.”

“Another score in scouts and a score more in their van,” suggested Ferek.

Cerryl offered a casual shrug he didn’t entirely feel. “It won’t matter if they come up the meadow.” What if they don’t? How do you assure that they climb the meadow? He took a deep breath, conscious that even the air smelled and felt dampish, moldy, despite the warmth already apparent.

Ferek and Hiser exchanged wary glances.

“Can you think of any way to ensure that they climb the meadow?” Cerryl glanced toward the trees to the south of the camp, then toward the thin clouds of the eastern sky and the light that seeped up behind them. The air remained hot and still, almost as though it had cooled little over night, and the odor of overcooked biscuits seeped around him.

“If’n their captain thought we were a-waiting…” mused Ferek. “Along the end of the narrow road, that be.”

Cerryl massaged his forehead. All the order-chaos manipulations and screeing were extracting their price. His tunic and trousers were looser, and his eyes burned almost all the time, not to mention the headaches and the flashes of light that sparked before his eyes. Using the glass before eating doesn’t help…. you know? “I need to eat.”

“Not much but dried mutton, hard cheese, and harder biscuits,” offered Hiser. “Cooked them too long, someway.”

“That’s fine.” Cerryl set the glass case beside his bedroll, then straightened, turned, and walked a dozen paces toward the rough-hewn serving plank, where he took two biscuits. The brownish oval of the first was so hard that when he tried to gnaw off a corner, his upper teeth slid off the biscuit and he nearly bit his lip.

“I said they were hard, ser,” offered Hiser, who had followed him.

Cerryl unsheathed his knife and hacked off a tan chunk that seemed closer to wood than food, then put it in his mouth and took a swallow of water to moisten the rock-hard biscuit. One taste of the dried mutton jerky was enough to persuade him to try another biscuit and more of the hard and musty cheese.

The light flashes before his eyes stopped after the second biscuit, and the headache diminished but did not disappear. His stomach did stop growling. After he finished the third hard biscuit, Cerryl turned to Ferek, who had waited for the mage to finish eating. “What if you took twoscore lancers and rode them down that narrow road and then back…and left a couple of scouts on fast mounts where the road curves back to the west?”

Hiser grinned. “You mean where the blues could see them?”

Cerryl nodded. “That might give them the idea to climb the field, especially if we’re not in sight on the road above the fields.”

“Have to pull back pretty far so as their scout not be seeing us,” offered Ferek.

“You can put most of the lancers a kay or so back, even farther,” suggested Cerryl. “We’ll need some trees or a small woods for a screen. Otherwise, their scouts will see us.”

“What if they overrun you? You can’t throw firebolts at all of them,” Hiser pointed out.

“If they don’t try the meadow…there’s no way we have enough lancers to stop them. I can use the glass to scout them.” And get more headaches. “We might as well take another look right now.”

Cerryl walked back to where he had left his bedroll and the leather-cased glass, picking both up. The bedroll needed a real washing-not just a brushing with chaos to remove the worst of odors and dirt-but Cerryl doubted he’d have a chance for that anytime soon. He’d already spent more than a season in Spidlar, and all of it had been spent patrolling one section of road in support of Jeslek’s advance on Elparta. Is Fydel having the same problems? Does it matter?

One way or another, it was clear that Jeslek was having great difficulty, though Cerryl had no idea precisely why. Dorrin, the redheaded Black smith, had remained far to the north in Diev, and Cerryl had found no hint of any other order concentrations in Spidlar. Was the Black arms commander that good? Good enough to slow or stop the High Wizard and all the chaos at Jeslek’s command?

The two subofficers followed the mage.

“Ferek, I’d like you to come with us, but have your men wait here at the camp. We don’t need them riding back and forth and tiring their mounts.” Cerryl strapped his bedroll in place behind the gelding’s saddle, then put the glass and its case into the one saddlebag. The other carried one set of riding whites and some smallclothes, both more soiled than what he wore. Chaos-cleaning, after a while, just didn’t remove everything.

“I’ll get the company ready,” said Hiser.

“Dierso can get mine ready while I ride with you,” added Ferek.

As both subofficers left Cerryl to his own preparations, the White mage studied the encampment, with the mounts on tie-lines run from the trees behind the clearing and the half-dozen fire rings for cooking. The lancers doubling as cooks had already begun to bank the fires and douse them with water from the small stream.

Cerryl remembered to check the gelding’s bridle and girths before he mounted and surveyed the area again, this time from the saddle, as he waited for Ferek and Hiser and his company of lancers to join him.

The day had brightened and warmed even more when Cerryl reined up on the main road, well back from the sloping meadow that lay between the two roads. He nodded to himself as he did, then turned to the two subofficers. “We’ll pull back to the south-to the thicker trees there.” He pointed to a dense grove several hundred cubits to his right. “Just your companies, Hiser. And we’ll circle them in from the east, so that there are no tracks across the grass between the road and the trees.” He turned to the older subcaptain. “You take your company from where we camped back to where the roads join and bring them along the lower road-but just to the edge of the woods there, where the lower road curves-then pull back and form up to defend the draw where the two roads join. That way, maybe the Spidlarians will get the impression that the rest of us are lurking farther back-or in the lower woods.”

Ferek nodded. “Be me, I’d worry about that.”

“I don’t think they’ll reach us until early this afternoon, but I’ll send a messenger if it’s going to be earlier.” Cerryl paused. “If you find out anything you think I should know…”

“Don’t worry, ser. I’ll send you a messenger.”

As Ferek turned his mount back to the west, accompanied by two lancers, Cerryl and Hiser continued eastward along the main road for almost a kay, until they reached another series of fields, each with cots by the road-almost, but not quite, a hamlet of sorts.

Cerryl saw no one, and the shutters of the nearest cot remained closed, as they had the day before when Cerryl’s forces had first passed and the fields were empty.

“If we go along that track there,” Cerryl pointed, “it won’t be as noticed, and at the end of the fields we can turn back west.”

“Singles now,” Hiser ordered, letting Cerryl lead the way.

The White mage could sense no one in the cot, but he kept looking as he rode past along the clay trace beside the field. The only thing that moved was an orangish cat that jumped off a woodpile and into the green stalks of maize nearest the shuttered cot.

“…ride and hide…ride and sneak.”

“Shut up, Birnil…Most of us are still here…not like when Eliasar wanted to teach the Sligans a lesson.”

“No lessons here.”

Cerryl turned in the saddle and called, loudly enough for his voice to carry, “The tutoring’s not over yet!”

Hiser grinned, and the muttering died away. The lancers followed Cerryl more quietly as he turned the gelding back westward. The riding was slower through the loosely wooded and overgrown regrowth area and toward the thicker section of woods opposite the chaos-trapped meadow that Cerryl hoped the Spidlarians would take to reach the main Axalt-Elparta road.

Once the company reached the denser and mainly oak woods, Cerryl turned in the saddle, inclining his head toward the blonde subofficer. “They can stand down for a while.”

“I’ll tell them.”

When the young subofficer returned from arranging his men, he watched as Cerryl took out the screeing glass and set it in a darker space between two oak roots.

Cerryl scanned the silver-framed image in the glass, but where the lower road bordered the steeply sloping meadow remained empty, with no sign of riders-or anything else.

Hiser glanced at Cerryl.

“Not yet.”

Cerryl checked the glass periodically until, sometime slightly after midday, a single rider in blue trotted down the lower road, his head turning from side to side as he studied the meadow without halting. The scout passed on and disappeared around the curve where the lower road entered the woods to the west.

Before long a second scout followed.

Cerryl let the image lapse and straightened from studying the glass, half-leaning against the rough bark of the old tree.

“It can’t be long,” suggested Hiser in a low voice.

“Midafternoon,” said Cerryl.

After a time, the scouts returned, heading back toward the main Spidlarian force, Cerryl surmised. Before long, another scout appeared, this one studying the meadow and then riding up through the tall grass to the top.

Cerryl held his breath, but the chaos-altered ground supported mount and rider. The scout studied the road, and the hoofprints that led eastward, and rode to the east for close to half a kay before returning and descending the grassy slope to the lower road. He also vanished, headed back toward the main body of Spidlarian lancers.

As Cerryl had predicted, the full column of mounted Spidlarians eventually reached the sloping meadow slightly past midafternoon. The long column halted at the base of the meadow.

Finally, yet another pair of scouts rode up through the grass and up onto the main road. One turned west, the other east. They also returned and rode down the meadow to the main body.

As the glass showed the Spidlarians re-forming to climb the grassy slope, Cerryl could at last hear the sounds of voices, low voices, more like the intermittent and muted hum of insects. When the riders in the column turned, so that they presented a wide front in riding up the sloping meadow, Cerryl released the image in the screeing glass and extended his perceptions, removing the last order props that supported the top layer of grass and soil, beginning near the main road at the top of the slope.

“More than I thought…” murmured Hiser.

More than you thought, either. “That’s why we needed something different,” answered Cerryl, finding sweat dripping from his forehead in the sweltering afternoon, despite his position in the cooler and darker woods. He waited, his head throbbing, deciding not to undermine the lower part of the slope yet. That should wait.

Abruptly he shook his head. He wasn’t thinking. Sitting in the woods wouldn’t help much if some of the Spidlarian lancers did avoid his chaos-ooze trap. And how would he know when to remove the order supports on the lower section?

“We need to mount up…have the lancers ready for any that do manage to get up the slope.”

Hiser nodded. “I thought so, ser. The company is ready.”

Cerryl packed the glass in quick motions and untied the gelding from the sapling beside the oak, mounting hastily and heading toward the road. Now it won’t matter, but you should have thought of that earlier. Why didn’t you? Because you’ve used so much order and chaos that you can’t think?

He snorted as he urged his mount northward.

He could hear the faint first screams of Spidlarian mounts as they plunged through the thin crust of soil and grass, screams that were cut off as horses and riders were swallowed by the chaotic ooze.

Cerryl spurred his mount toward the main road and the top of the rise overlooking the meadow and the lower road, where he reined up and tried to grasp the situation.

Perhaps two-thirds of the blue lancers had pulled up short of the upper ooze-filled part of the sloping meadow. The remainder had apparently vanished into the churning dark ooze in the midpart of the deep meadow grass.

Cerryl took a deep breath and forced himself to concentrate, ignoring his already-pounding head and sliding his order senses to the lower part of the meadow, well behind where the bulk of the remaining blue forces were struggling to quiet scattered and spooked mounts and turn to retreat.

A dozen riders at the eastern side of the Spidlarian line started back toward the road-right over the area where Cerryl had removed the bonds that held both soil and clay together.

All dropped into more of the quicksand bog-like chaotic ooze that replaced the tall grass. One rider climbed to the top of his mount’s saddle and flung himself sideways. He fell flat onto the dark mass and lay there scrambling for an instant before vanishing under the dark brown ooze.

To the west, almost a score of riders rode sideways toward the woods, getting beyond the trapped chaos ground just before Cerryl completed the encirclement.

Whhhssttt! Cerryl arched a firebolt over and downhill from the blue lancers, forcing them to turn away from the chaos fire and smoldering grass and shrubs at the edge of the meadow. “You need to get them,” the mage gasped at Hiser, even as he flung a second firebolt down across the meadow. “Stay close to the trees.”

Whhhsttt! One blue lancer screamed as the flames engulfed him and his mount, but the rest of the score or so struggled uphill and through the woods.

Cerryl struggled to finish undermining the slope, now that the remaining Spidlarian lancers were surrounded by the ooze trap.

Don’t think about it…just do it.

Hiser’s men swept down through the thinner trees on the western side of the meadow.

Whhssstt! Cerryl launched another firebolt below the escaping Spidlarians-to ensure they kept coming uphill-and then another-at the Spidlarians themselves.

Whhhsttt! He shivered in the gelding’s saddle, casting a last firebolt to aid Hiser’s company before the two groups of lancers met among the thinner trees.

Despite the flashes of light across Cerryl’s eyes and the blurring of his vision, the odor of burning flesh, the cries, and the screams of wounded mounts-those were enough to confirm his accuracy. He sat on the gelding, just holding himself in the saddle as he heard the clash of blades below him.

He began to see again-if intermittently-enough to make out when the last of the blue-clad lancers slumped in his saddle. Enough to see that Hiser’s men led four empty-saddled mounts back up through the trees.

Cerryl forced himself to scan the killing ground.

Three horsemen galloped downhill along the eastern edge of the meadow, close to the trees. Cerryl wasn’t sure where they had come from. Returning scouts perhaps, now trying to flee the carnage?

One scout turned his mount slightly westward, toward the ooze-covered ground, as if to avoid a fallen limb or something else. The horse jerked forward, issuing a scream, and then both mount and rider vanished into the dark brown ooze that extended even closer to the woods.

Neither of the remaining riders even looked back at the scream.

Cerryl forced himself to take a deep breath before casting forth the narrow focused fire lance that he’d hidden for years from Jeslek. The first beam lanced through the trailing rider and caught the leg of the leading horse, who went down in a heap.

The surviving blue lancer vaulted clear of the falling mount, somehow, but Cerryl’s second fire lance caught him before he reached the trees.

Swaying in the saddle, Cerryl rode slowly along the main road, looking down at the dark mass of ooze that had swallowed over a hundred riders and mounts, both looking to see destruction and hoping he needed to raise no more chaos and devastation.

Hiser rode to meet him at the midpoint of the road above what had been a meadow. “Ser? There were but three left.”

“I…just did…what…they did…all last year.” So you want to be like them? Cerryl leaned forward in the saddle, emptying his guts on the grass by the shoulder of the road. Then he straightened, ignoring the churning in his empty stomach. He steeled himself and concentrated, removing the barriers he had built, letting order flood back into the ground. The ooze shivered, once, twice, and slowly seemed to solidify.

On his mount beside Cerryl, Hiser gave a shudder. “Terrible…no one will guess what lies buried there.”

“Terrible…” murmured another lancer.

Cerryl was less sure of that. Armsmen, lancers, even mages died in wars and skirmishes. Was any one death less terrible than another?

Crack! A line of lightning flashed to or from the hillside where he had incinerated the last of the Spidlarian lancers. The ground shivered, and a light and acrid mist drifted from the foglike clouds that had formed over the battle area.

Cerryl’s eyes burned, and stars flashed across whatever he could see. He turned the gelding, hoping he could ride long enough so that they could rejoin Ferek and his company.

“You be looking like darkness, ser.”

“Probably.” Cerryl felt like darkness, if not worse, barely able to stay in his saddle. Yet he had neither lifted a blade nor repulsed one. He wanted to shake his head, wondering what Eliasar and the other arms mages might have thought. But he rejected the gesture, feeling that his head might roll off his shoulders if he moved it suddenly.

He could have used a healer-especially a certain healer.

As he followed the subofficer back toward Ferek’s company, back toward the camp and the bedroll he knew he needed, he could not help but overhear some of the lancer comments.

“…blues were stupid.”

“…see why the High Wizard left him.”

“…patrollers said he was tough.”

Cerryl didn’t feel tough, just exhausted-and stupid and lucky. He’d made too many mistakes in trying to execute his plan and had to use far too much chaos as a result. He wondered when the next attackers would arrive-and from where. And if he would ever learn the best way to handle situations where he was overmatched in forces.

Why don’t they just pay their tariffs? We all lose this way. He shivered as he rode, his vision so blurred he was almost blind. Why? Why can’t they see?

Neither the late-afternoon heat, nor the clouds that had begun to break up, nor the stench of death in his nostrils provided any answer.