Fall of Angels

XXX

STANDING OUTSIDE THE lander, with the light wind that promised fall ruffling his hair, Nylan slowly finished the gruel that passed as morning porridge, along with cold bread, his thoughts on the tower once more.

Huldran and the others had been less than pleased when Nylan had insisted on putting a drain in the bottom of the tower, nor had Ryba been happy when he had used the laser to drill through some of the rock.

“A waste of power …”

Nylan disagreed-the lowest level of the tower needed to be dry. Dampness destroyed too many things. He swallowed the last bite of the lumpy gruel with a shudder and glanced toward the tower. At least the roof and doors were in place, and he could concentrate on making the place livable. Outsidethe front door, Cessya and Weblya had already begun to haul stones in to fill the space between the walls of the causeway.

The engineer walked over to the wash kettle and rinsed the wooden platter before racking it. He hoped that they could finish the tower kitchen before long-but he needed to work out the problems with making the water pipes. If the climate were warmer he could have just built a covered aqueduct, but that would freeze solid for half the year.

He walked back toward Ryba, his eyes rising back toward the dark stones of the tower that was somehow tall, squat, and massive all at the same time.

“What are you thinking?” asked Ryba. “You’re not really even here.”

“About water pipes, kitchens, laundry.” He paused. “About building a bathhouse or whatever.”

“I suppose you want to start a soap factory, too.”

“Someone else can worry about that. I’m an engineer, not a chemist.”

“Good.” She laughed harshly. “The bandits are whittling away at our ammunition. We need more blades. Can you coax out another two dozen?”

“Another two dozen? Don’t most of the marines have one?”

“They’ll need two.”

Nylan pursed his lips. “I can do some. I don’t know how many. I thought the cells would be the problem, but there’s a raggedness in the powerheads.”

“And you had to drill a drain?”

“Yes … if you didn’t want all the supplies to mold and mildew.”

She shook her head. “You’re stubborn.”

“Not so stubborn as you are.” Nylan wondered how long before everyone would think he was obsessed with building, if they didn’t already. Why didn’t they see that they had one chance-just one?

A single clang on the triangle echoed through the morning. Ryba and Nylan looked up to see Llyselle ride acrossthe meadow. Llyselle bounced slightly in the saddle, but Nylan knew that he bounced even more when he rode. He didn’t have Sybran nomad blood-or training. The tall, silver-haired marine reined up outside the cooking area, but before she could dismount, Ryba stood there, Nylan not far behind her.

“There’s a herder down there, waving a white flag,” Llyselle announced. “He’s got some sheep or goats, and something in cages.”

“Let’s hope he wants to sell something.” Ryba pointed at the nearest marine-Siret. “Go find Narliat, and Ayrlyn, and ask them to join us.”

“Yes, ser.” Siret glanced at Nylan with a strange look in her deep green eyes, then turned away, but Nylan could tell she was definitely thicker in the midsection, unlike Selitra. Yet Selitra had been sleeping with Gerlich, and she didn’t seem pregnant. But Siret, the silent silver-haired guard?

Before long, Narliat limped up, using a cane, but without the makeshift leg cast he had worn for so long.

Ryba repeated Llyselle’s explanation.

“Most herders would not come this high with you angels here. Once this was good summer pasture, but now …” The former armsman shrugged. “Times have been hard, and your coins are good. He would not have to drive animals all the way to Lornth or to Gallos. The cages-they might be chickens.”

“What does the white banner mean?” asked Ryba.

“Ser Marshal, it means he wants to get your attention. Beyond that? I do not know.”

“Hmmmm … we need all the supplies we can buy or grow, and they probably won’t be enough.” Ryba glanced up at the tower and then back to Ayrlyn and Narliat. “How do we approach this herder?”

“You walk down with a handful of people, I suppose,” began Ayrlyn.

“Just one or two-not the marshal or the mage,” added Narliat. “Powerful angels should not start negotiations with herders.”

“We did with Skiodra,” pointed out Ryba.

“That, it was different, because it was under a trade flag and Skiodra was himself there, and he is a powerful trader.”

“If you say so.” Ryba glanced around. “All right. Everyone! Get your weapons. Let’s hope we won’t need them. Meet by the triangle at the watch station on the right … by the road to the tower.” She turned to Fierral. “Where’s Gerlich?”

“Where he is every morning. Out hunting.” The head marine’s voice bore overtones of disgust.

“If he shows up … tell him, too.”

Nylan hurried to the lander where he reclaimed his sidearm and the blade he had forged, which was too small for the overlarge scabbard. He tried not to fall over the damned thing every time he wore it. Ryba might never be without her weapons, but he couldn’t work with a pistol at his side and a blade banging his leg.

Ryba had the big roan saddled when he reached the watch station.

The herder waited below at the foot of the ridge. Occasionally, the man looked up the slope, then back at the milling sheep, or shifted his weight as he leaned against the side of the cart.

Finally, after talking to Fierral and Istril, Ryba nodded.

Carrying the small circular shields they had reclaimed from the last brigands, with Narliat between them, Berlis and Rienadre walked down the ridge toward the herder, who had a white banner leaned against his cart. Beyond the herder were perhaps five ewes with their lambs.

Nylan and Ryba watched from the rocks at the top of the ridge as the three neared the herder. The herder and the three talked, with Narliat doing most of the speaking. Finally, Berlis turned uphill and gestured.

Neither Nylan nor Ryba could make out the words.

“Do you think it’s all right?” asked the captain.

“I don’t know, but nothing’s going to happen if someone doesn’t head down there. From what Berlis is trying to tellus, the trader won’t trade unless a more important person appears.”

“I don’t like this,” muttered Ryba.

“All right, ride down. That gives you more mobility-and have Istril and some of the others ready to charge like those old Sybran cavalry.”

“Very funny.”

“We need the sheep, and maybe those chickens, and you know it. So does the herder. He’s gambling that you just won’t steal them. You’re gambling that it’s not some kind of setup.”

“Wish I could see … everything …”

Below them, Berlis gestured again.

“You can’t?”

“It comes and goes, and some of it … makes no sense. Some is too clear.” Ryba vaulted into the saddle. “Fierral! Istril! Stand by. Llyselle, you ride with me-on the right.”

Nylan noted that the trees at the base of the ridge were on the right, but before he could speak the two started down the ridge, riding slowly. He kept watching, but nothing changed. The herder watched as the two riders neared, and so did Berlis and Rienadre.

Abruptly, Llyselle’s horse reared, sending the silver-haired marine flying. Ryba bent low in the saddle, turned her roan toward the trees, and charged.

“Let’s go!” Fierral and the others galloped down the ridge.

Feeling as if he were making a big mistake, Nylan followed on foot. He was halfway down the ridge, his worn boots skidding on the rocky ground before he realized he was alone.

Ahead, the mounted marines charged into the trees. Nylan heard the reports of the sidearms and saw the sun flash off Ryba’s blade. He kept moving, but, by the time he neared the herder’s cart, the action was over.

Llyselle was limping toward the cart, looking uphill past Nylan, and the engineer turned and saw Ayrlyn riding down, carrying two large plastic sacks with green crosses on them-medical supplies or dressings. Nylan wished he’dbeen smart enough to think of a horse or medical supplies, or something. Instead, he’d just run into the middle of what could have been trouble, too late to help and without any support.

He pursed his lips as Ayrlyn rode past. There was still trouble. Llyselle was holding her right arm, cradling it, as though it were broken or injured, and Narliat and the herder were still under the cart. Fierral and Istril had charged off downhill through the trees.

Nylan kept walking, his eyes checking on all sides. As he neared the cart and the beginning of the forest on his right, he saw several bodies near the trees, and one on the open ridge ground, with two marines beside her.

The downed marine was Stentana-an arrow through her eye. An arrow, for darkness’ sake.

Nylan counted eight brigand bodies and, his eyes elsewhere, almost tripped over his scabbard. He caught himself and turned at the sound of hooves, reaching for the blade, but the riders were Istril and Fierral, and they led two more horses, each with a body slung across it.

Nylan turned toward the cart. There Ayrlyn was treating a wound caused where an arrow seemed to have ripped into Berlis’s thigh. Llyselle stood beside Berlis, waiting.

“Strip the bodies and make a cairn down there, over by the rocks,” commanded Ryba. “No sense in dragging them up the mountainside. Take all their clothes. We need rags as well as anything-but the clothes all need washing, and then some.”

Since he didn’t seem to have been much use, Nylan plodded toward the woods, and grabbed one of the bodies by the boots and dragged the corpse toward the rocks where Ryba had pointed, but toward an area where small boulders seemed more plentiful. Damned if he were going to make burial hard on himself, not for men killed as a result of their own failed ambush.

Nylan forced himself to strip the bandit, barely more than a youth despite the straggly beard and the scar across one cheek. The bandit’s purse held only two silvers and a worncopper, but both silvers were shiny. The man wore a quiver, but had dropped his bow somewhere. He had no blade, just a knife that was badly nicked. As for clothing, he had worn a tattered and faded half cloak that had once been green of some shade, a ragged shirt, once brown, trousers, also once brown, but of a differing shade, and two mismatched boots, both with holes in the soles. No undergarments, and no jewelry.

After looking at the threadbare garments and cloak, Nylan agreed with Ryba’s assessment of their use as rags. He also wondered how many vermin the clothes harbored. At the same time, in a way, he felt sorry for the dead man. Life couldn’t have been that easy for him.

“Another attack?” Gerlich had ridden in from the trail to the west, the one that looped north from the ridge before descending and turning west, unlike the other two-one of which descended around the lower east side of the ridge and eventually led to Nylan’s brickworks. Across his saddle lay three large and brown-furred rodentlike creatures, already gutted.

“This one was a little different,” Nylan explained as Siret dragged another body across the ground and let it fall next to the one Nylan had stripped. “They used that herder there as bait.”

“Dump the clothes there in that pile,” ordered Fierral, still mounted, and pointed to the stack Nylan had made.

“What about the coins and other stuff?” asked Siret.

“You can keep a knife-if you don’t have a belt knife,” answered Ryba. “If you do, pass it to someone who doesn’t. You can keep the local coppers, too. Share them if you think you can. Give any silvers or golds to the comm officer-Ayrlyn. We’ll need those to buy food and supplies-from the next honest trader.”

“They seem to have things well in hand,” observed Gerlich.

The herder and Narliat had crawled out from beneath the cart. Berlis and Rienadre stalked toward them. So did Huldran and another seven marines. The herder looked up at thecircle of marines. Then he slumped into a heap.

“He’s just fainted,” said Ayrlyn softly.

“Never saw angry women with blades,” snorted Ryba. “What about the others?”

“I did nothing,” pleaded Narliat. “Nothing, I swear it.”

“Just stuff it,” growled Berlis as Ayrlyn sprayed a disinfectant into the guard’s wound. “Don’t tell me how you didn’t see it coming.”

Llyselle leaned against the side of the cart, her face paler than her silver hair.

Bra w w w w kkk … a w w w kkkk … From the handful of cages behind the injured marine came the sound of chickens.

“Are there any other bandits around?” Ryba asked Fierral.

“Istril and I chased down the two who ran. Istril was complaining that she had to shoot them. She didn’t want to waste the ammunition.”

“We need to think about bows,” snapped Gerlich as he eased his horse next to Ryba’s. “We need some sort of long-range weapon.”

“There are four or five here. Two got broken,” announced Siret.

“We’d better start learning to use them,” suggested Gerlich.

Nylan frowned. Gerlich was right. But could he build a better bow? One with a longer range? Out of some of the composites in the lander?

“Look out,” whispered Istril. “The engineer’s got that look again.”

“What about these damned sheep?” asked Gerlich, gesturing around at the near dozen ewes and lambs.

“They’re all ours,” snapped Ryba. “We’ll let the herder go.”

“Don’t forget the chickens,” Nylan said. “Good source of protein.”

“Pay him one copper. I only suggest,” Narliat added hastily as Berlis glared at him while Ayrlyn continued wrappinga tape dressing around the wounded marine’s thigh.

“Local custom?” asked Nylan.

“It is traditional for treachery. He cannot claim he was not paid.”

“Fine. Nylan-you and Ayrlyn take care of it,” said Ryba. “Just make sure he understands.”

“He already understands,” said Ayrlyn. “That’s why he passed out.”

Ryba pointed toward Denalle and Rienadre. “You two, and anyone else you can round up, figure out how to get these animals up over the ridge and into the grass on the west end. We can use the manure to fertilize the crops-or maybe compost it some way for next year. I’m no herder, but they’ll provide meat at the least and maybe wool, if we can figure out what to do with it.” She gestured up the ridge.

“Yes, ser.” The two nodded and looked at the sheep, then slowly circled downhill of the milling animals.

The herder moaned, and Berlis levered her blade out, wincing, but the point was firm as it rested against the herder’s neck. The man’s eyes bulged.

“Go ahead. Explain it to him, Narliat,” Ayrlyn suggested. She rummaged through the prepackaged medical gear.

“I have no copper.”

Nylan fished out the purse he had taken from the dead bandit, extracted the single copper, and handed the worn coin to Narliat. “There.”

Narliat looked at Nylan, turned to the herder, then to Berlis. Berlis retracted the sword. The herder swallowed, but did not move.

“Sit up,” Nylan commanded in his poor Anglorat-good enough because the herder sat up slowly. “Go ahead,” the engineer told Narliat.

“This is your payment. It is full payment for your treachery. There is no other payment, save death, should you reject this coin.”

The herdsman gulped, looking toward Ryba. “Kind lady … they made me. They would have killed me. My ewes, they are half my flock … my children will suffer … Takethe fowl … take them as my gift, but … the flock …?”

Ryba’s eyes were as hard as emerald. “Your treachery has killed a dozen men, not that they were worth much, and one of my marines, who was worth much. Another has lost the use of her arm, and a third took an arrow in the thigh. Don’t talk of suffering.”

Narliat looked at Nylan, and the engineer realized that the herder had not understood a word. “Our people have suffered from your treachery,” Nylan explained in Old Anglorat. “You helped make that treachery. The marshal has been generous. Will you take payment or death?”

Narliat’s slight nod confirmed that Nylan’s words met the formula.

“And,” Nylan added, though he could not have said why, “do not think to take the coin and reject the offer. Do not take the coin and curse us. For then you will live all your days as though you had died, and you will be tortured endlessly.” He could feel something flash before-or from-his eyes.

The herder fell forward in another dead faint.

“Friggin’ torps,” said Berlis. “Man has no guts. Faints twice, and nothing touched him.”

“The … mage … did,” stuttered Narliat. “He-the herder-will never think a dangerous thought again.”

“Impressive,” said Ayrlyn.

The herder groaned and slowly picked himself up. “The coin … the copper … please … please …”

Narliat handed him the copper.

“Please … can I take my cart? Please let me depart.”

“Go on,” said Ryba.

The herder looked at Nylan.

“Go. Never forget.”

“No, great one. No. No.” The herder shivered as he slowly unstacked the four crates, each with a pair of chickens with reddish-brown feathers. Then he took the pony’s reins and untied them from the stake in the ground. Leaving the white banner on the ground, he led the cart away, looking back over his shoulder every few paces.

“We need a cart,” Nylan said, looking at the departing herder.

“A cart?” asked Ayrlyn.

“For firewood, bricks, you name it …”

“Fine,” laughed Ayrlyn. “Saryn and I will work on it.”

“You?”

“Why not? If you can build towers and forge swords, surely two of us can find a way to build a simple cart.”

“Now that you’ve disposed of those logistics, how did you manage that last bit of terror, Nylan?” asked Ryba.

Ayrlyn frowned, but stepped back from the marshal as Ryba edged the roan closer to the engineer.

“What?”

“Terrifying that poor sot.”

“He’s not a sot, ser,” said Berlis. “He’s a worthless hunk of meat.” Then she paused. “I have to admit that the engineer scared me for an instant, and I didn’t even know what he was saying.”

“I’m waiting, Nylan,” said Ryba lightly.

The engineer finally shrugged. “A little applied psychology and a menacing tone in a foreign accent.” His head throbbed slightly as he said the words, and he frowned.

“Psychology, my left toe,” muttered Ayrlyn under her breath. “Wizardry, plain and simple.”

Nylan flushed, but Ryba had eased her mount back slightly and missed the byplay. The engineer said more loudly, to catch Ryba’s ear, “I still need to go down and check the brickworks. There’s nothing I can do here right now, and I want to get the tower ready to live in.”

Ryba opened her mouth, closed it, then said, “All right. I trust you’ll use your senses to scout the way.”

The slight emphasis on “senses” was not lost on the engineer, and he nodded. “I will, Marshal.”

“Thank you, Honored Mage.” She flushed at the title. “And Istril and Siret can ride with you.” She laughed. “The silver angels.”

Nylan frowned before he realized that the three of them all had the bright silver hair created by the underjump thathad brought them to the Roof of the World.

“Siret can take Llyselle’s mount,” continued Ryba. “You can try one of the captured ones. They look spiritless enough even for you.”

Nylan nodded. “That’s fine.”

“ … what was all that about?”

Nylan caught the question Siret whispered to Ayrlyn as he climbed into the saddle of the old bay.

“A little formality, that’s all,” Ayrlyn answered Siret in a dry tone.

After settling himself into the saddle, Nylan gingerly flicked the reins of the bay and followed Berlis and Istril toward the descending ridge road. As he bounced along, he wondered why he’d insisted on going to the brickworks. Was he worried that the brigands had found it and damaged it? Or because he had to do something after looking so stupid?

Belatedly recalling Ryba’s admonition, he tried to sense beyond the trail that was still not a road, for all the travel between the clayworks and the tower. Slowly, he caught up with the marines.

“I’ll go first,” suggested Istril, “then the engineer.”

Nylan started to object, then shut his mouth. If anything went wrong, with only three of them, it didn’t really matter where he rode. Besides, given all the dead brigands, why would any who had survived stick around?

“Hate this frigging place,” said Siret, now riding behind Nylan. “Everyone out to kill us, just because we’re women.”

“They seem to want to kill me and Gerlich as well,” Nylan answered. “And Mertin might have had something to say about it. They don’t seem to like any strangers.”

“You’re different, ser.” Siret’s voice held less anger. “The men here … they’re not human.”

“Even Narliat?”

“He’s the same as the rest. He’s just scared stiff of us, especially the captain, the second, and you, ser. Especially you, ser.”

Why him? Ryba was far deadlier than Nylan. Why, Nylancouldn’t hit someone with a slug-thrower at nearly pointblank range.

The three rode down from the next rise in the rising and falling trail, and when Nylan glanced back, he saw only the sky, the plateau rocks, and the trees. Istril had opened more distance between them, and her head swung from side to side, her head cocked almost as though she were trying to listen for trouble or even sniff it out.

Nylan tried to follow her example, looking, sensing …

They continued down the winding trail, nearly silently, when a vague sense of unease drifted, as if on the wind, toward Nylan. He squinted, and looked toward the tall evergreens to the left, but the silence was absolute. That bothered him. All he could smell was the scent of pine, of fir.

But there was something … somewhere …

“Ser!” cried Siret.

Even before her words, Nylan had seen the flicker of motion to the left of the trail. As he yelled “Istril!” he turned in the saddle and drew and threw his blade toward the man who had stepped clear of the thick underbrush and leveled the bow at the slender marine who led the three angels.

In a fashion similar to working the ship’s power net and the laser, Nylan smoothed the air flow around the spinning blade, extending its range, and somehow ensuring that the point struck first.

“Uhhh!” The brigand crumpled.

Nylan rode toward the forest, sending his senses into the trees, but felt no others nearby. Siret had ridden up beside him, her slug-thrower out in one hand. Istril had wheeled her horse, ducking low against her mount’s back as she rode up.

Before the engineer and Siret reached the bandit, the figure convulsed, and a wave of whiteness flared across Nylan. He shivered and barely hung on to the saddle as the power of the death he had created washed over him.

“Ser? Are you all right?” Istril reined her mount up beside Nylan.

“He’s fine,” affirmed Siret.

“Fine … now,” said Nylan after drawing a deep breath,trying not to shake as he forced himself out of the reflex step-up that he hadn’t even realized that he had triggered. He took another deep breath and glanced down at the dead brigand’s young face-another man barely out of youth, looking for all the world almost like the one he had stripped farther up the mountain. Brothers? Or did a lot of dead bearded young men just look alike? He took another slow deep breath, wishing he had something to eat or drink.

Why all the bandits? Surely, the word was out that it was dangerous to take on the angels up in the mountains?

“You stopped him. He was going to shoot me, wasn’t he?” asked Istril.

“Yes.”

“Frigging right,” added Siret, the deep green eyes cold.

“How did you know he was here?” asked Istril, adding belatedly, “Ser?”

“I just sort of felt that someone was here.” Nylan dismounted and eased his blade from the bandit’s chest, then wiped it clean before replacing it in the scabbard that the blade did not really fit. “And I couldn’t reach him. Gerlich was right. We need longer-range weapons.”

Istril studied him and pointed. “You have your sidearm.”

Nylan swallowed. “I guess I really didn’t think. So I threw the blade. I hoped it would distract him, anyway.”

His head throbbed with the lie. He’d hoped to kill the bandit, plain and simple, and instinctively he’d known that he couldn’t have with the slug-thrower. He’d always been a lousy shot. So he added, “I hoped it would kill him, but I wasn’t sure I could do it. Not with a pistol.” With his uttering of the truth, the sharp throbbing in his skull faded into a dull ache. The engineer rubbed his forehead. What was happening to him? Throwing blades on a low-tech planet, getting headaches from lies, forging blades with magic-or the equivalent, knowing that he could kill with a blade and not a sidearm. Was he dreaming? Was he dead?

He shook his head. The pain, the aches, the constant tension-they all seemed too real for death or dreams.

“Are you certain you’re all right?” Istril’s eyes continuedto survey the forest to their left, then the cliffs to the right.

“Yes. Mostly.” Nylan bent and went through the brigand’s purse. A few coppers, and three shiny silvers. A thin gold ring. A beat-up knife. He checked the clothing and boots. “Boots worn through and stuffed with some old leather.” He stood and sniffed. “He had to have a mount somewhere.”

The engineer cast out his senses again, searching not for more brigands, but the horse. “I’m not sure, but I think his mount is tethered back there.”

“What about more bandits?” asked Istril.

“We thought we had them all,” said Siret, “and this one popped up.”

The engineer shook his head. “There aren’t any. Not alive.”

“Narliat says you’re a wizard, too-a black one. Do you know what that means?” Istril glanced back toward the trail and then focused on Nylan.

“No.” Nylan took the reins and began to lead his mount through the trees toward the horse tethered behind a massive pine just past a large boulder sunk in pine needles. “A black wizard? I’ve got enough trouble just being an engineer.”

Istril ducked and rode after him. After a moment, so did Siret.