Magi'i of Cyador

LXIX

TO LORN’S RIGHT, a good dozen kays northeast, high and white puffy clouds scud along, swiftly, in the direction of the Westhorns. Between the clouds, sunlight falls in shafts that angle toward that distant ground. Directly overhead, the early afternoon’s green-blue sky is mostly clear. At times, the slightest hint of a breeze wafts by Lorn, but the air has been largely still, despite the fast-moving clouds above.

Beyond the deadland and the outer perimeter road, the grass, and even farther away, the fields and woodlots are slowly greening, with the winter-gray leaves returning to their spring colors and the new leaves and shoots showing a lighter and brighter shade of green.

Lorn looks to his left, along the line of the second squad lancers riding the deadland inside the perimeter road. Beyond them are the riders of the first squad. Lorn can even make out the rounded bulk of Olisenn near the ward-wall.

After nearly seven days on patrol, with a day’s respite at Eastend-a virtual duplicate of Westend-Lom will be happy when they reach the compound at Northend, althoughit is always called the compound or Jakaafra, just as the compound at Geliendra is always called by the name of the nearby town as well, rather than the official name of Southend.

“Ser! Shoots ahead!”

“Shoots ahead! … ahead!” The report is echoed by the other lancers in the patrol line and relayed toward Lorn and Kusyl.

Lorn shakes his head as he uses his heels to nudge the gelding into a trot toward the lancer with the upheld firelance.

“Line halt! Line halt!” After barking the order, Kusyl turns his mount to follow the company commander.

Both the squad leader and Lorn rein up a good thirty cubits short of the shoots sighted by the lancer. At less than two cubits high, the twin green fronds are far shorter than the one Lorn had seen and has destroyed on his ride/patrol to Jakaafra, and they seem far more slender. He can sense only a hint of the black order that looms behind the ward-wall, but he studies the greenery for a long moment.

“Ser?”

“Have them flame by duads,” Lorn orders Kusyl.

“Yes, ser. Form up!” Kusyl orders. “Prepare to flame by duads!”

After the lancers of the second squad reform from their line into the standard column of twos, Kusyl looks to Lorn.

The company captain nods.

“Advance, and discharge lances!”

Under the warm afternoon sun, Lorn watches, but the shoots wither under the chaos flames of the firelances, leaving nothing but a black ash that disintegrates into a power, and then disperses under a light breeze that fades into stillness.

Lorn watches the ashes disperse, letting his chaos-order sense probe the ground, but there is no sense of any underlying well of dark order. Then he pulls out a message blank and turns his mount toward the ward-wall to note the ward location before dispatching a messenger to the Engineers atEastend. He knows that the Engineers will find nothing, but he will not suggest that, not at all. He also adds the location in his own small notebook.

He erases the momentary frown from his face as he rides toward the ward-wall-and Olisenn. The frailty of the shoots bothers him, especially after he has sensed the incredible dark order that lurks behind the whitened granite stones of the ward-wall.