Fall of Angels

XCV

THIN HAZY CLOUDS covered the blue-green sky, not totally blocking the sky, but reducing the sun’s glare and direct heat. The usual breeze was absent, and the meadow grasses hung limp and still. The lack of wind left the early afternoon almost hotter than if there had been a breeze and no clouds.

Nylan was crossing the causeway, on the way back to the smithy, when the outer triangle, located in the small brick tower recently completed on the top of the ridge, rang three times. He had scarcely taken two steps when the triplet clanged again.

Across the fields, guards dropped warrens and hoes and scrambled toward the tower, fastening blades in place. As Nylan watched, two duty guards-Cessya and Nistayna, one of the older new guards-rode up toward the ridge. Before he could reach the smithy, Istril had ridden down past Nylan, leading three saddled mounts, taken immediately by Weindre, Kyseen, and Kadran, who all rode toward the watch tower.

Istril frowned, but did not ride out with the three, instead spurring her mount back toward the stables, as Ydrall rode down leading three more mounts.

Nylan nodded. Fierral, or someone, had figured out how to get the kitchen and the field details into the saddle quickly. They were still fortunate that the timber detail was involved in expanding the stables, rather than working down in the woods.

Ydrall’s mounts included Ryba’s roan, Fierral’s mount, and a horse taken by Berlis.

The engineer had just reached the front of the smithy when Istril rode back down with another set of three mounts. Behind her and the riderless three mounts rode Llyselle,Jaseen, and Murkassa. Murkassa’s face was pale.

At the tower, three more guards were waiting-Saryn, Selitra, and Hryessa.

“Move it!” Saryn’s voice carried as she vaulted into the saddle, leading the six riders up toward the watch tower.

Nylan paused as Istril turned and headed her mount back uphill. He waited outside the smithy for the silent silver-haired guard.

She reined up and looked down. “With Ellysia dead, until the little ones are old enough to eat solid food, I’m ordered away from battle, unless attackers reach the tower itself.” Istril glanced toward the tower. “Siret has them now.”

“You don’t have to explain to me, Istril. You’ve put your life on the line plenty.” Nylan gave the silver-haired guard a ragged smile. “You don’t see me charging out there, either.”

“That’s different. If anything happens to you …” She turned her mount uphill. “I’ve got to get more mounts ready.”

Nylan watched her for a moment before entering the smithy. Huldran was forging arrowheads, letting Desain, one of the newer guards, hold the tongs.

“Over now. Easy.”

When the triangle rang a third time, Nylan looked at Huldran. “We’d better get moving, too.”

“The forge?”

“Let it burn.” Nylan turned to Desain. “Find your blade, and then go down to the tower. Listen to Istril or the guards there.”

At her puzzled look, Nylan repeated himself in Old Anglorat to her before turning to Huldran. “We’ll head up to the stables.”

They didn’t have to go that far. Istril met them with two more mounts at the opening to the small canyon where Nylan climbed onto a brown mare he’d never ridden before. She seemed responsive enough and not ready to throw him every which way.

“Take care, ser,” Istril said. “Don’t lead the charge.”

“I won’t.”

“That one cares for you, ser,” Huldran said quietly.

“I know. She’s good, and she works hard.” He glanced toward the tower, where Fierral and Ryba, already mounted, waited for them just beyond the end of the causeway. “I worry about her.”

“You worry about a lot of people.”

“One of my undoings,” quipped Nylan.

“Come on!” Ryba waved a blade, and Nylan urged the mare into a trot, wincing at the jolting, and then feeling guilty as he thought about how much harder that kind of jolting had to be on Ryba or Istril.

As the four rode two by two across the narrow bridge over the tower outfall drainageway, Ryba said, “The bridge is solid, and the paved part feels that way, too.”

“I wish we had time to pave more.”

“Once we get the new ones more settled, maybe we can have a stone-paving crew. It’s good exercise.”

“That’s true,” agreed Fierral, “but let’s worry about what’s over the hill right now. There’s another group of mounted brigands coming up the ridge. They’re wearing purple, but it’s not that light purple of Lornth. It’s darker.”

“Darker purple? Who could that be?” asked Nylan.

“Does it matter?” retorted Ryba. “How many?”

“A little less than twoscore.”

“Any archers or bows?”

“No. But this group carries round shields that look pretty thick.”

“Arrows are faster than shields,” Ryba pointed out.

“We don’t even have a score of guards up there.”

“Use the arrows first,” said Ryba.

“I’d planned to.” Fierral glanced at Nylan. “Now that we have some, I told Saryn to make them count, but not to worry if a few shafts fall by the way so long as most of them hit something.”

When Nylan looked back toward the tower, he saw one more rider, Ayrlyn, following, with several large saddlebags. Medical supplies, such as they had remaining, he guessed.

More than a dozen guards, all mounted and bearing bows and blades, forged by Nylan, waited at the ridge top, facing downhill and to the west.

“They seem to be waiting for us,” Saryn announced. “But they can wait a long time. I’d rather hold the heights.”

“Idiots,” murmured Ryba as she saw the darker purple banners drawn up on the flat below the ridge. “They should have just attacked.” Beyond the banners, almost out of sight, were tethered what appeared to be packhorses.

“Don’t put down male chivalry too much,” cautioned Nylan. “If they hadn’t waited to set up a formal battle, it would have been a mess.”

Both Fierral and Ryba looked sideways at the engineer.

“You keep up the direct and brutal business,” added Nylan, “and they’ll do the same. At least, after word gets around, they will.”

Huldran nodded minutely, although the gesture was lost on the other two women.

The ridge top darkened as a larger and more substantial cloud buried in the high haze drifted across the sun.

“They’re out of bow shot.”

“We need to make them come to us,” Ryba said.

“Do they want to fight at all?” asked Nylan.

“They won’t admit that. First, they’ll make some statement about how they come in peace to reclaim whatever they think is theirs. Then will come threats, and then they’ll ride downhill and charge back up.”

Nylan said nothing, instead trying to send his perceptions out to see if the apparent attackers were more deceptive than they appeared. As he swayed in the saddle, straining at the limits of his abilities, he could sense that matters were not quite as they seemed.

“Hold it,” he gasped, raising a hand.

“What?” said Ryba almost impatiently.

“This one’s a setup, I think,” Nylan explained. “See the trees to the right, where they bulge out on the lower side?”

“Someone there?” asked Fierral.

“Archers, it feels like. I’ll bet their mounts are in with thepackhorses down there. The woods are too steep there for horses.”

“That means ten to fifteen archers.” Ryba nodded. “So they’ll come a quarter of the way up the hill under a white banner, make an impossible demand, and as they turn, we’ll get sleeted with a cross fire?”

The engineer shrugged. “I don’t know tactics, but I’d guess something like that.”

Ryba studied the ground, then looked downhill and out at the flat where a rider was lifting up a white banner. “They don’t want to give us much time, either.”

“Can’t imagine why …” muttered Nylan under his breath, wondering if the guards’ reputation for instant and unforgiving action had already crossed most of Candar by rumor.

“How far will their arrows go-uphill?” asked Ryba.

“We could only descend another four hundred cubits or so before we’d be at the outer range, probably,” hazarded Fierral.

“Fine. We’ll go down to the edge of that range and wait.”

“And?” asked Fierral.

“We’ll insult their manhood. That might get them mad enough to charge after us,” said Ryba.

“They can’t be that stupid,” pointed out Fierral.

“Probably not. But there’s nothing that says we have to fight. We ride away. If they want to fight, they’ll either have to bring up their archers out of the woods-or leave them behind.” The marshal smiled coldly.

“They won’t leave them, not after bringing them all the way up here.”

“No, they won’t. But our bows have a longer effective range than theirs, because they’re your specials, and because the height should give us a little more impact, and they won’t expect that power from mounted archers.” Ryba laughed. “If they’re better, we retreat to the rocks by the watchtower. That covers the road, and they’ll have trouble.”

“What if they retreat?” asked Nylan.

“They won’t.”

As the rider bearing the limp white banner rode uphill, followedby three riders, Ryba, Fierral, and Berlis rode down the ridge more slowly, drawing up well short of the midpoint between the two forces.

The leaders of the purple forces stopped exactly where predicted and waited.

Ryba, Fierral, and Cessya waited.

Nearly half a kay separated the two groups.

Finally, the man bearing the banner-alone-rode up the hill.

Drawing on his senses, Nylan strained to hear, but could only catch the general sense of the conversation, and the scathing scorn in Ryba’s voice.

The central rider of the attackers’ leaders raised a gloved fist. Ryba’s laugh echoed down the hill. Then the three Westwind riders turned their backs on the others, and rode back up the hill.

Several arrows arched out of the lower forest, but fell short. Neither Ryba nor Fierral even looked back.

After a time, the armsman with the banner rode back down to the three others.

“They’ve got a problem.” Ryba’s voice contained a hint of laughter as she reined up before the Westwind guards. “They were sent to rout us out. If they go back, they won’t be in good standing. If they’ve got any brains, the last thing they’re going to want to do is ride up the ridge … but in this kind of culture, if you don’t take the fight to the enemy you’re a coward, and that’s either a death sentence or an endless round of duels and hassles.”

“Are you sure?”

“What did they say?” asked Cessya.

“Just about what you’d expect. They claimed that we had insulted the sovereignty of Gallos by enticing various inhabitants to join us. He couldn’t even bring himself to say ‘women.’”

“What now?” asked Fierral.

“We wait.”

Finally, a trumpet sounded.

“They’ll take the horses up to the archers, and have themride to about where we waited for them,” said Ryba. “That would give them enough bow range to drop arrows on the ridge top here, and that’s supposedly beyond the range of horse-carried bows. Don’t do anything-just watch-until all the archers are well within range. Then hit them with everything we can fire.

“The horse will charge at that point, and we’ll start potting horsemen then. Some will get through, but try to make it as few as possible.”

Nylan looked over at Ayrlyn, who had just reined up beside him, and they exchanged glances. The healer nodded sadly.

As Ryba had predicted, several armsmen led the dozen mounts to the once-hidden archers. The archers mounted and began to ride farther uphill. At the same time, the main mounted force began to walk up the center of the ridge, slowly.

As the archers dismounted, Ryba said quietly, “Fire. Try to make each shaft count.”

Since he had no bow, Nylan watched. So did Ayrlyn.

Within moments, half the Gallosian archers were down or wounded.

The horn sounded, and the nearly twoscore mounted armsmen urged their mounts uphill.

“You three at the end, keep working on the archers. The rest of you take the mounted!” snapped Ryba.

Nylan touched his blade, then drew it, waiting as the Gallosians rumbled up the gentle, but barren, slope.

Despite the shields, the purple-clad armsmen began to fall more than two hundred cubits from the Westwind forces.

Nylan couldn’t see how many made it to the ridge top, because two of them were headed toward the left end of the Westwind line, where he and Ayrlyn had reined up.

The engineer swallowed, then urged the mare forward, hoping he could stay in the saddle, but knowing that he would be dead meat if he sat rock-still.

The oncoming rider carried a long blade, not so long as the monster Gerlich used, but long enough that Nylan felthis black blade was less than a toothpick in comparison.

All the engineer could do was to slide the other’s blade past him, then tighten his knees and try to turn the mare.

His senses, rather than his eyes, warned him of the next Gallosian, and Nylan just slashed, nearly wildly, but successfully enough, his arm propelled by something akin to pure terror, to drive the other’s blade down almost into the Gallosian’s mount.

Struggling to recover control of both mount and blade, Nylan plunged after the two as they bore down on Ayrlyn. She had the first, on her left, held off, but the second raised his blade on her unprotected side.

Nylan, with few options, hurled the black blade, again reaching for the air, the sense of smooth flow.

The Gallosian crumpled across his mount, Nylan’s blade through his body.

Nylan winced, his head splitting as though his blade had cloven his own skull, and he clutched the mare’s mane with his now-free sword hand, eyes filled with blinding white and unable to see.

He blinked, slowly able to catch glimpses of the ground ahead and the horse bearing the dead Gallosian. As the engineer trotted after the dead Gallosian, and his blade, his vision slowly returned, but his head continued to feel as though someone had driven an arrow or a blade through his skull. Each time he opened his eyes, knives stabbed through them. A quick look back reassured him that the guards had matters in hand, and he could see that Saryn had come to Ayrlyn’s aid, and dispatched the other attacker.

Nylan rode nearly a kay before managing to catch and calm the skittish horse that still bore the dead man. By the time he recovered his blade and rode back, there were no Gallosians left standing. Two of the archers had reclaimed mounts and rode furiously down the lower part of the ridge, followed by a single armsman.

Nearly a dozen horses lay across the battle site.

Fierral looked sourly at Nylan as he rode up. “We’ll need more arrows.” Her eyes took in the dead body. “Yours?”

The engineer nodded.

“You must be surprising with that blade.”

“He threw it through him,” Ayrlyn said tiredly, rubbing her forehead, as she stood by her mount and began to unload medical supplies.

“Through him?”

Fierral rode closer and lifted the corpse half off the saddle, then levered the inert form out of the saddle. The corpse hit the ground with a dull thud. “You’re as bad as the marshal.”

Except she doesn’t get splitting headaches that almost knock her off her horse, thought Nylan.

Murkassa rode up, holding her arm, and slowly dismounted.

Ayrlyn looked at the slash on the newer guard’s arm. “It’s only a little more than skin-deep. Get that grime washed out good, and then see me or the engineer.” She looked toward Nylan.

He nodded. “That I can do.”

Ryba rode over, shaking her head.

“What?” asked Ayrlyn.

“I just told her to stay back. She shouldn’t have been in the front row. Ryllya, she’s dead,” added the marshal. “The newest ones aren’t ready for this.”

Ayrlyn walked across the rocky ground to where Hryessa looked down at a handsome brown-bearded man. Blood welled out from his left shoulder and above the breastplate.

“He’s dying, and I killed him.”

“He would have killed you,” Ayrlyn said gently. “That’s what happens when people fight. They could have left us alone. They didn’t.”

“Lyntar … said … beautiful women … golds … there for the taking …” The brown-bearded man forced a smile, then tried to hold back a cough. His face paled, and the strangled cough brought up only blood-bright blood. “ … wrong … he was … about the taking …” He looked at Hryessa. “So slender … like … dagger …” His lips moved, but no sound issued forth, and his eyes glazed over.

Beyond the dead Gallosian was another … of more than a score strewn across the slope.

“Nistayna!” ordered Ryba. “You and Cessya bring back the carts. We’ve got a lot of hauling to do.”

“I don’t understand it,” Ayrlyn said. “They just kept coming. Half of them were dead before they even reached us. It was as though they couldn’t believe they were being killed.”

“They couldn’t,” snapped Fierral. “In their mind-set, women can’t even try to kill, except maybe to protect their children. These idiots’d rather give up their lives than their beliefs.”

“That just might change after a few battles,” Nylan said heavily from his saddle. “You’ll be devils, and they’ll try to kill you without mercy.”

“There are rumors everywhere,” said Ryba, reining the roan up beside Nylan. “We’re angels; we’re devil women. We’re beautiful; we’re hags. The rumors don’t matter. What matters is that we’ve got to get better. Every guard has to handle a bow and blade as well as Fierral or Istril. It would help if they could also throw a blade like you can because things are just going to get worse.” Ryba surveyed the battlefield, where women in leathers stripped and stacked bodies and loot, where other women collected horses.

The creaking from below the ridge indicated that the carts were on the way to recover the assorted leavings and loot.

“With each success and each new rumor,” said Ryba, “we’ll get more women trying to escape, and more armsmen and brigands looking for easy loot because they can’t believe we’re real. Then, as Nylan says, one day, they’ll believe it, and someone will head up here with a real army, and we’d better be ready. We’ll need more arrowheads.”

“More arrowheads,” groaned Nylan.

“It’s better than having to meet them blade to blade, and, speaking of blades, can you make any more?”

Nylan looked at Ryba. “We’re having enough trouble with arrowheads. I made those blades out of structural braces, and I barely could handle those with a laser. All that charcoal I’ve got up wouldn’t warm one lousy brace.”

“We need something.”

“I’ll see about reworking some of the locals’ blades-the terrible ones,” said the engineer-smith, “if you don’t mind the potential revenue loss.”

“Good.” Ryba paused, then added, “At least all this loot will help us get supplies for winter.”

Nylan and Ayrlyn rubbed their foreheads and exchanged glances.