Fall of Angels

XXI

NYLAN SPLASHED HIS face again, trying to wash away the stone dust, then took a long swallow of the cold stream water. The water carried away some of the acridness and dustiness that seeped endlessly into his nostrils and dried his throat. After another swallow, he walked back toward the tower. In the foot-packed clay area beyond the rough stacked stones and the space where Cessya and Huldran alternated splitting the slates for roofing tiles, Istril and Ryba were working at blade practice, using the wooden wands that were far safer for beginners.

Nylan shivered. His turn would be coming up. He set down his cup on the nearest pile of black stone and watched as Saryn and Ryba began to spar. Despite the partial splint that remained on Saryn’s leg, their wands flickered, faster, and then even faster, until Nylan’s own heart and lungs seemed to be racing. Even Istril and Siret had stopped, both silver-haired marines following the action. As Saryn limpedbackward and lowered her wand, the engineer finally caught his breath.

“Ah, yes,” came a voice from the sunny side of a pile of cut stones meant for the sixth level of the tower.

Nylan leaned over to see Narliat drinking in the reflected heat from the stone. “Yes?”

“The she-angels, those two, and I see why Lord Nessil is dead.”

“You liked Lord Nessil?” Nylan tried to keep his voice neutral.

“He was more honest than most, but he was terrible when he was angered, and he was angered a lot. That is not what I meant, Mage. I am a man, too, and I was an armsman.” Narliat shrugged. “I would not lift a sword against your she-angels. They would kill me in three strokes, even the one who is crippled, and I have killed a few men. They were poor farmers, but they were strong, and I did not want to die.” Narliat looked back to the practice space where Ryba had followed Saryn’s lead and set aside her weapon. “I see the she-angels, and I see the whole world change.”

Nylan could feel the sweat oozing from his forehead as he stood in the sun. He looked down at the local, wearing a jacket and huddled against the black stone, almost for warmth. “You’re cold?”

“Not if I stay here.” Narliat smiled. “You will make your tower warm, will you not?”

Nylan looked toward the stones, looking more like dark gray in the sunlight than the black they had seemed when Nylan had cut them from the mountain. “Not that warm-”

“A tower-on the Roof of the World. Only the angels would dare-”

“Nylan! Since you’re not cutting or setting stone, let’s get your practice done now.” Ryba motioned.

Narliat grinned as the engineer trudged toward the practice area.

“Here you go.” Ryba handed Nylan one of the handcarved wands. “It’s not balanced the way I’d like-”

“I know. We’ve been through this before.” Nylan lifted the wand. The last few times he’d actually managed to keep Ryba from tapping him at will, but he had no illusions about his ability to hold off a master swordsman or armsman or whatever they were called.

“Set your feet.”

Nylan shuffled into position.

“Not like an old man, Nylan.”

Behind them Nylan could see Saryn motioning to one of the marines.

“Pay attention,” snapped Ryba.

He took a deep breath and tried to focus on the wand, on Ryba’s face, framed in jet-black hair, and upon her wand.

“That’s better. Ready?” Her wand thrust toward him, and he parried, clumsily, barely deflecting it.

“You can do better than that.” This time her wand was quicker, and Nylan tried to counter, but the edge of the wood thwacked his shoulder.

“Ooo …” He wanted to rub it, but had to dance aside as another slash whistled toward him, and another … and another.

Somehow, he managed to slip, block, deflect, and dance away from most of the captain’s thrusts and slashes.

“All right.” Ryba stepped back. “That’s what you should be facing, but most of the locals aren’t that good. Most don’t use the points of their blades, but the edges, and that’s different.”

Nylan shook his head and blinked, then blotted the sweat from his eyes.

“They use heavier blades and try to beat you to a pulp.” Ryba picked up the wider wooden weapon, the one with a wooden blade that looked more like a narrow plank than a practice weapon. “You need to work on deflecting a heavier blade. You can’t meet it directly, not without losing your own blade or risking having it broken.” She took the bigger wooden slab in two hands. “Ready?”

“Yes,” said the engineer, even as he thought, No.

The first time his light wand met Ryba’s heavy one, theimpact shivered all the way up his arm, and he staggered back, dancing aside to avoid another counterstroke before the third one slammed into his thigh.

“You’d be crippled for life if that had been a real blade, and if I hadn’t pulled it at the end. Demon-damn, Nylan, this is serious, and these things can kill you-and they will.”

“Fine for you to say …” he gasped. “You grew up with them.”

“Get your blade up. Get it up.”

He raised his wand, ignoring the pun, and waited, then half ducked, half slid the heavier wand.

“Better. Get it back up.” Ryba sent another slash at his open side.

Nylan jumped and slid his wand over hers, then drove the heavier blade almost into the dirt.

“Good. Use their momentum against them. Those crowbars are heavy.”

But it didn’t seem that heavy for Ryba because she whipped it back up and around, and Nylan was backpedaling again, and again.

Still, in between all her hits, he did manage to drop the heavy wand into the dirt once more and actually strike Ryba on the shoulder, lightly.

Finally, she stepped back. “Not bad. You’ve got a feel for it. Right now, you could probably hold off the weaker locals. You just need more practice.” Ryba smiled. “I can see that you’ll be good-very good-with the blade.” Her smile vanished, replaced momeritarily with a look Nylan could only term somber. “It won’t be easy.” She looked toward the tower and shook her head.

Nylan lowered the wand, his entire body dripping sweat. Practicing against Ryba was worse than carting heavy stones up the seemingly endless tower steps, and probably a lot more futile. He handed the wand back to her. “Sometimes,” he said, “it feels futile. I’ll never be as good as you are.”

She took the wand from him, lowering her voice. “You don’t have to be. You’re an engineer, and you’re going to be a wizard or a mage or whatever they call them.” Rybapaused. “Narliat already thinks you are.” Then she added, “But you still need good basic defense skills, and that means more practice.”

Nylan wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm. “Mage?”

“It has to do with the way you use the laser. You ought to be able to use this local net or whatever it is for more than that.” Ryba offered a forced smile. “I know you can.”

“Thanks. You’re so encouraging.”

“I know what I know.” She shrugged. “Only sometimes … unfortunately.” Then she looked toward the two marines standing back beyond the stacked slate, and pointed at the silver-haired one. “Llyselle, we don’t have forever.”

Nylan trudged back to the stream to wash his face again before he returned to the business of setting stone in the walls of the tower. Even the cold water didn’t cool him much. The yellow sunflowers had begun to wilt, and were being replaced by small white flowers that hugged the ground between clumps of grass. Nylan felt like one of the wilted yellow flowers.

As he passed the practice area, he glanced at Narliat, sitting in the sun and fingering the splint on his leg. Nylan laughed to himself as he realized that the armsman was in no hurry to remove the splint, no hurry at all.

“She’s tough,” observed Huldran as Nylan lifted another stone and began to lug it up the stairs.

“Very,” grunted the engineer.

“So are you.”

“Not like she is.”

“You’re just as tough, ser … in a different way. She couldn’t build the tower, and we’ll need it, and you aren’t a fighter. You’re a defender.”

“Suppose so …” Nylan continued up toward the top of the fifth level where he set the stone on the rough planking. Then he turned and headed back for another stone. Above him Cessya and Weblya wrestled another of the big timbers into the stone slots.

He was carrying up the fifth stone, and almost wishinghe were back practicing when Huldran asked, “Are you about ready for more mortar?”

“Start mixing it. One more stone, and we’ll be ready.”

“You’ve almost got the north side filled in between the supports.”

“With luck, we’ll get the west done, too.” He continued up the stone stairs, almost tripping on the top step. By the time he returned with the next stone, Huldran was stirring the mortar components together.

“This tower will last forever,” she said.

“Maybe.”

“The captain says it will, longer than any of our descendants will live here, and that’s a long time.”

“She said that?”

“Yes, ser.”

Nylan paused before lifting the stone into place, then said, “Can you bring that tub up when you’re done?”

“Not a problem.”

After reaching the fifth level and setting down the oblong stone, Nylan took a deep breath, then measured the six heavy stones, and rearranged them in the order he wanted. What had Ryba meant by saying that the tower would last forever?

While he waited for Huldran, he glanced out toward the southwest, taking in the ice-needle of Freyja, the peak that glittered in the midday light like a de-energizer beam sensed through the Winterlance’s net. He swallowed. That was past, and no reminiscing would bring back that time or universe.

This was indeed a different place, not that different on the surface, but more different than most of the angels realized. Still … Ryba’s comments-both the ones he had heard and those reported by Huldran-bothered him. Was she getting delusions of grandeur, of some sort of omnipotence? How could she say she knew what was going to happen? Was she getting delusions because she had trouble accepting that she could no longer wield the Winterlance like a mighty blade to smite the demons?

“Here’s the mortar, ser.” Huldran eased the trough onto the planks.

With the trowel-another laser-cut adaptation-he began to smooth the next line of the reddish-gray mortar across the top of the stones already set.

Clang! Clang! The off-key sounds from the crude triangle gong resounded across the Roof of the World.

“Bandits!”

Nylan eased the fifth heavy stone into place on the mortar, trying to ignore the whinnying of horses and the shouted commands.

“Istril! Take the lower trail! Try to cut them off. Use the rifle.”

“Fierral! Run the second group … with Gerlich …”

“Form up! Form up …”

By the time Nylan finally could let go of the stone and hasten up the steps to look over the top edges of the outer wall, he only saw the dust of departing marines, riding off behind Ryba and the redheaded force leader-and a dozen marines remaining with blades and sidearms stationed in the rocks on each side of the top of the rise.

From the far side of the rise was what was becoming a packed road down the ridge, Nylan could hear hooves. In time, he reflected, they should consider putting in marker cairns or something for winter travel. Or, considering the mud, a real paved road.

A horse-carrying double-trotted back over the rise and downhill. Blood streamed down the face of the marine riding in front.

“Medic! Medic!” shouted the other rider.

“That’s Denalle!” said Weblya, balancing on the last of the big beams she and Cessya were setting in the slots, the beams that would form the floor for the sixth level of the tower and the roof of the fifth.

“She’s bleeding and got an arrow through her arm,” added Cessya.

Nylan watched for a moment before going back to the stones. The mortar would set before he got the last stone in place if he didn’t hurry, and there wasn’t anything he coulddo that Ayrlyn or one of the combat medics couldn’t do better.

He laid out another line of mortar, then lifted another stone into place, trying to ignore the conversation between the two marines above.

“ … think he feels he can’t waste an instant …”

“You look at that ice up there. You want to be in one of those thin-shelled landers when the snows are up over our heads?”

“But … Denalle’s hurt …”

“What can the engineer do that the medics can’t?”

“Glad I’m not an officer … or the captain.”

“No … I wouldn’t want to be in her boots. Or the engineer’s.”

A whispered remark came next, followed in turn by a laugh.

“You’d better not. You’d really be in trouble.”

Nylan blushed, but laid another line of mortar. After he set the sixth stone, he carried the nearly empty tub of mortar down to the yard space where Huldran was using the sledge and a wedge Nylan had made to split slate.

Clunk!

“Damned stone … doesn’t always split right,” grunted the stocky marine.

“I know. Nothing works quite the way we want.”

“You didn’t use all of it?” asked Huldran.

“No … can you powder it or something?”

“Do that all the time. Just spread it out on the clean section of stone there-the one with the dents in it. When it dries, we turn it into powder and add it back in.”

A cooler breeze whipped across the meadow and the tower work area, along with the shadow from a puffy and fast-moving cloud.

“Wind feels good,” commented Huldran.

“It’ll make it easier to finish the sides before the day’s over.”

“You think you can?” asked the stocky blond.

“There’s enough stone cut, and I’m trying to let the generatorrecharge some more firin cells before I have to cut more. The captain wants me to forge more blades, and …” Nylan shrugged.

“You’re trying to have enough power to finish the tower and do that?”

The engineer nodded before returning to carting stone. He had almost finished getting what he would need before several horses appeared at the top of the rise and headed down toward the landers. Over one horse was another body, one clad in olive-black.

Nylan shook his head. Did every bandit attack mean another death?

He watched as the mounted marines rode straight for the smoldering fire where Kyseen, hampered in combat by her broken leg, struggled with cooking.

Nylan still hadn’t done much on that front, besides designing the kitchen layout and the stoves for the tower. He hoped that the bandits who had attacked Denalle and the others hadn’t done too much damage to the brick-making operation, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud.

The engineer recognized the slim, silver-haired figure of Istril, and he waved. “Istril!”

The marine turned her mount toward the tower, after saying something to the two others and letting them continue toward the landers.

Nylan and Huldran waited, then the engineer gestured. “Who?”

“Desinada.” Istril reined up.

Nylan vaguely remembered the woman; she’d been among the group that he’d brought down on his lander. “Sorry.”

“That sort of thing happens here. A lot, it seems.”

“Anything good?” asked Huldran.

“One of them had a purse.” As she turned the horse toward the landers, Istril lifted the leather pouch and shook it, letting Nylan and the three marines hear the clank and jingle of mixed coins. “Not that I wouldn’t have Desinada back for a dozen of these and then some.”

“Was anyone else hurt?” Nylan asked.

“No. Rienadre ducked behind your brick oven and winged one of the bastards. I got the other one. We think one got away, maybe more, but Berlis ran down the winged one. He gave her some lip, and she ran him through. She gets mean sometimes.”

“Yeah …” muttered Weblya. “Like always.”

“Thank you.” Nylan inclined his head to Istril.

“No problem, ser.” Istril turned her mount back toward the landers.

More hoofbeats announced the return of Ryba and the rest of the marines, along with two more mounts, each with a bandit’s body slung across the saddle.

Nylan nodded and bent to lift another stone. “Back to work.”

“Don’t you stop for anything, ser?” asked Cessya.

“Winter won’t.” Nylan started up the stairs.

“One more timber,” announced Cessya. “Just one more.”

“Then we got to saw planks,” pointed out Weblya.

“Oh, yeah … it’s my turn on top. You get to be in the pit.”

“Thanks.”

The sun had dropped behind the western peaks before Nylan mortared in the last stone on the fifth level of the eastern wall. Despite his best resolves, he still had the gaps in the southern wall left to do. Another day before Cessya and Weblya could wedge and mortar the big timbers into place and start on placing the planks. He trudged down, carrying the empty mortar trough.

“We’ll take that, ser,” said Weblya.

“You’re going to finish it even before it starts to chill, aren’t you?” asked Cessya.

“The walls and roof. We might even be able to use some of the armaglass for windows in a few places, if the laser holds out.” Nylan coughed, trying to clear the stone and mortar dust from his throat. “I wanted to get the stoves and furnace in, too.”

“A furnace?” The two looked at each other.

“Pretty crude. Wood-fired and wide heat ducts. A big airreturn down the stair pedestal-that’s already in place.”

“You think big, don’t you?”

“I suppose so, but you need space when there’s snow outside over your head.” Nylan smiled wryly. “The snow nomads didn’t do all that winter hunting just for food. If they’d all stayed around the fires, they’d have killed each other.” He frowned. “We probably need some timbers inside so that people can work on skis after it gets cold.”

The two marines shook their heads as the engineer checked the laser, still stored in the space under the lower stairs, and then walked up the hill toward the portable generator with a single firin cell.

He checked the readout on the cell being recharged-over eighty-three percent-and disconnected it, replacing it with the discharged cell. Then he walked back down to the tower where the three marines had cleaned the trough and racked their tools.

“I’m going to wash up before dinner,” he said.

“What is dinner?” asked Huldran.

“Gerlich brought in two wild goats, or sheep or something. So we’re going to have a goat stew. Meat’s too tough for anything else,” answered Weblya.

Goat stew, reflected Nylan, probably meant goat meat, wild onions, and a few other unmentionable or unidentifiable plant-root supplements, all thickened with some of the corn flour. “Wonderful.”

He plodded toward the streamlet that seemed to narrow each day. They hadn’t really had much rain in almost two eight-days. That could mean problems for their attempt at crops.

After washing, he walked through the twilight toward the landers and the cook fires, his face cool from the water and the wind off the ice of the higher peaks.

The smell of smoke and bread and wild onions told him that, again, he was among the last to eat.

“Here, ser.” Kyseen handed him one of the rough wooden platters heaped with dark stew, a slab of the flat, fried breadon the side. The edges were only dark, dark brown this time, not black.

“Thank you.” Nylan took it and looked around for one of the sawed-off logs that served as crude stools.

“You can sit here, ser.” Selitra slipped off a log seat. “I’m finished.”

Nylan offered a grateful smile to the lithe marine and sat. “Thank you.” His legs ached; his shoulders ached; his hands were cracked and dry. And he still hadn’t finished the fifth level of the tower.

He tried the bread; it wasn’t soggy, and it even tasted like bread, but heavy, very heavy. He dipped it into the brown mass that was stew and chewed. Either he was starving or the food was improving. Probably both.

“Do you mind if I join you?” asked Ryba. “I ate a little earlier.”

Nylan nodded. “I was trying to finish the outer part of the fifth level. We didn’t quite make it.” He looked north to the dark shape of the tower.

Ryba’s eyes followed his. “It’s impressive.”

Nylan snorted. “I just want it to be warm and strong.”

“Just? I recall words about furnaces, stoves, and water.”

“Those all go with being secure and warm.” He dipped the corner of the bread into the stew and scooped more into his mouth.

“Those weren’t common brigands,” Ryba said quietly. “Their blades and bows were better than those of some of Lord Nessil’s armsmen.”

“Bounty hunters?” Nylan finally asked.

“I think so. The local lord has probably offered some sort of reward to get rid of us. We’ll probably see more bandits or brigands, maybe even a large force by the end of the summer.”

The engineer shook his head.

“Your tower looks better and better.” Ryba’s fingers kneaded the tight muscles in his shoulders.

Nylan swallowed. “I’m not sure I like being right in quite that way.”

“It’s better than being wrong.”

He couldn’t argue with that and looked toward the larger fire, where the marines had gathered around Ayrlyn.

“What about a song?” asked Llyselle.

“A song?” questioned the red-haired comm officer, her voice wry.

“About how you angels routed the bandits,” suggested Narliat.

“I don’t know about routed” muttered Denalle, her eyes dropping to the dressing on her right arm. Her left hand strayed toward the second dressing that covered her forehead, then dropped away. With a wince, she closed her eyes for a moment.

“I don’t make up songs that quickly,” answered Ayrlyn.

“But you are a minstrel, are you not?” asked Narliat.

“This is a verbal culture,” pointed out Saryn.

“Too verbal,” growled Gerlich, glaring at Narliat.

Nylan could feel himself tensing at Gerlich’s response and forced himself to let his breath out slowly.

“And it has too many wizards,” added the hunter. “And I don’t understand why the wizards serve the nobles, the lords, whatever they are. Those wizards have real powers.”

“The wizards, they cannot stand against cold iron,” answered Narliat, “and there are not a great many wizards.”

“Still don’t see …”

“Oh, Gerlich …” murmured Ryba, barely loud enough for Nylan to hear. “Think, for darkness’ sake.”

Nylan thought also, about cold iron, wondering why cold iron would prove a problem for a wizard. He could handle it, and Narliat said he was a wizard.

“Cold iron?” he finally asked.

“Why yes, Mage. The white ones, they cannot handle cold iron. It’s said that it burns them terribly.” Narliat shrugged. “I have not seen this, but I have never seen a white wizard touch iron. Even their daggers are bronze.”

Nylan frowned. Why would that be so? “Thank you.”

“Now that we have that cleared up,” Ryba said too brightly, “how about that song?”

Ayrlyn picked up the small four-stringed lutar she had brought down from the Winterlance, just as Ryba had brought the Sybran blades.

“How about this one?” Ayrlyn strummed the strings, adjusted one peg, then strummed again, and made another adjustment before clearing her throat.

A captain is a funny thing, a spacer with a net,

an angel gambling with her death, who never lost a bet.

The captain, she took us to those demon-towers,

then brought us back right through Heaven’s showers …

Nylan winced, knowing that the second verse would be bawdy, and the third even bawdier, then glanced at Ryba, who was grinning.

“I’ve heard worse versions,” she said. “Much worse.”

Raucous laughter began to rise around the fire even before Ayrlyn finished the last verse.

“ … and she served him up well trussed, well done!”

The laughter died away.

“An old song? A Sybran song?” asked Denalle.

“I don’t know many,” admitted Ayrlyn, “but there is one.” The redhead readjusted the lutar, then began.

When the snow drops on the stone,

When the wind song’s all alone,

When the ice swords form in twain,

Sing of the hearths where we’ve lain.

When the green tips break the snow,

When the cold streams start to flow,

When the snow hares turn to black,

Sing out to call our love back.

When the plains grass whispers gold,

When the red blooms flower bold,

When the year’s foals gallop long,

Hold to the fall and our song …

Nylan glanced around the fires, then to the unlit and dark tower looming against the white-streaked peaks, and back to the marines. More than a handful of faces bore eyes bright with unshed tears. Some marines blotted damp cheeks when Ayrlyn lowered the lutar.

Huldran slowly walked out into the darkness, and Selitra laid her head on Gerlich’s shoulder, sobbing silently at the old Sybran horse nomads’ ballad.

“How about something a bit more cheerful?” suggested Ryba.

“I’ll try.” Ayrlyn readjusted the lutar and began another song.

When I was single, I looked at the skies.

Now I’ve a consort, I listen to lies,

lies about horses that speak in the darks,

lies about cats and theories of quarks …

“Lies about cats and theories of quarks …” mused Nylan. “They’re all lies here, I suppose, at least the quarks.”

“You don’t think quarks are real here?” asked Ryba. Her hand rested lightly on his forearm, warm in the cool of the mountain evening.

“Who knows what’s real, or what reality even is?” he answered.

“Where we are is real.”

And that was a definition as good as any, Nylan thought, his eyes taking in the almost luminous ice of Freyja, the needle peak that would dwarf even the most massive tower he would ever be able to raise.