Magi'i of Cyador

LXXII

THE RAINS OF the previous day have passed, but the air is warm, humid, and heavy, even in the early morning, as Second Company leaves the first waystation southeast of Jakaafra. The deadland is still muddy, with pools of shallow standing water, and with early mosquitoes humming everywhere. Mist hangs over and around the Accursed Forest to Lorn’s right, and above the ward-wall. The sun is barely above the fields to the east, a fuzzy orange-white ball in a sky more a mist-shrouded green than blue.

“Be a hot day, specially afternoon, ser,” says Kusyl from where he rides to Lorn’s left.

“Very hot.” Lorn glances toward the ward-wall nearly a kay away and at the mist that shrouds the massive trunks beyond the wall. Something does not feel right. He glances toward Kusyl. On the morning of the second day of the patrol, the second squad is deploying inward from the outer perimeter road, while Olisenn’s first squad will deploy in a line outward from the ward-wall road. “Kusyl-this morning, I’ll be riding with the first squad. I’ll ride with second squad this afternoon.”

“Yes, ser.” The squad leader’s cheerful voice indicates nothing.

Spreading the lancers into a line abreast and slogging through the mud will make for a long day, but keeping them on the roads will mean that too much of the Forest’s activity could go undetected, particularly roots or new shoots carried above or beyond the ward-wall during the storm of the night before. Lorn turns the gelding southward and urges him to catch up with Olisenn and his overlarge beast. Absently, he brushes away an inquiring mosquito.

Zzzzzzpp!

Lorn does not wince at the sound of a flowerfly being destroyed by the chaos-net cast upwards by the wards, but the sound does remind him that the peaceful scene is not what it seems.

At the sound of another mount nearing, Olisenn turns in the saddle and offers a puzzled glance as Lorn rides toward him. “Ser?”

“I’ll be riding with first squad this morning.”

“As you command, ser.”

The two ride silently and slowly as the line abreast forms and begins to ride parallel to and out from the ward-wall.

“Even it up, there!” Olisenn calls-more than once.

Lorn does not offer suggestions, or orders, but watches. Once the line is formed, and he and Olisenn ride on the opposite sides of the wall road, Lorn turns his attention to the ward-wall itself.

Although the wall looks the same as it always does, it is not. The relatively even pulses of chaos-if one can call any chaos energy regular-that are carried within the cupridium conduits and cast upwards in the net that restrains the Accursed Forest are different. While the chaos pulses are always different, always changing, usually each pulse does not differ greatly in power or duration. Lorn is not certain those are the right terms, but are closest to what he feels. This morning, there are larger pulses, much larger ones that feel shallower and some that feel like they are scarcely there at all.

After a time, he studies the road and the deadland pastOlisenn to his left, but there are no signs of shoots or seedling-or roots. Nor fallen trunks.

As the lancers ride, more slowly than ever, through the mud of the deadland, and as the morning passes, Lorn continues to watch, trying not to overstrain his eyes and senses, but knowing that all is not well somewhere along the wall. He also knows that to reveal that will leave him all too vulnerable in the seasons ahead. So he rides and watches. And the spring heat and hot dampness builds. While the discomfort rises, at least the deadland’s mud has become less viscous, and progress somewhat less laborious.

Sometime after midmorning, Lorn nods, finally seeing a line of darkness on the horizon, a line that should not be there.

“Have them watch more closely,” he finally tells Olisenn.

“Eyes sharp now, the captain says!” orders the senior squad leader. “Eyes sharp!”

“Ser! Trunk down! Trunk down!”

The line of blackness has become clear to all the lancers-a huge trunk jutting more than a hundred cubits out from the ward-wall-a trunk thicker at its uprooted base than the portion of the wall itself that is visible above ground.

Lorn glances at the nearest ward marker, then shakes his head. The closest engineer company is beyond the breach in the ward-wall, and to send a messenger past that without an escort would be foolhardy, considering the possible wildlife that the forest has had time to send forth. “Olisenn. Form up by duads on the road!”

“Ser?”

“On the road! A lancer won’t have much chance against a cat in this muck.”

The senior squad leader nods, then turns. “First squad! Duads on the road! Duads on the road!” Olisenn’s voice carries, and lancers guide their mounts toward the Lancer captain and the first squad leader.

“Send a messenger out to Kusyl,” Lorn adds. “Have him form up by duads on the perimeter road-and have the messenger stay clear of the trunk.” Lorn blots away the sweatthat has been gathering under the brow of his garrison cap.

“Yes, ser.”

Lorn lets the gelding carry him ahead of the reforming squad, his fingers brushing the firelance in its holder, reassuring himself that the weapon is fully charged. His eyes go to the ward-wall, and then his senses. While the chaos-net is still intact, its web is fragile, and, closer to the fallen trunk, that chaos will do little to halt whatever the Accursed Forest intends to cast across the wall that will become little more than mere granite in a kay or so.

“Vyon! Message to squad leader Kusyl. From the captain. They’re to form up by duads on the outer perimeter road and advance. They should be ready to repel creature attacks!”

“Yes, ser.”

As a second thought, Lorn also checks his sabre, then glances at the huge trunk once more. The closer the two squads draw to the massive trunk-a grayish brown wall so dark it is almost black-the more Lorn begins to understand deep within himself the concerns expressed by both Maran and Commander Meylyd about the Accursed Forest. The trunk dwarfs any fireship Lorn had seen and, were it upright, could shade the Palace of Light with fifty cubits to spare.

Small catlike animals are racing down the trunk, jumping clear even before they reach the twisted and crushed branches of the brilliant green crown. Some are already clear of the toppled foliage.

The fallen trunk towers above the ward-wall a good fifteen cubits, a dark wall stretching perpendicular to the ward-wall. Only the lowest course of the ward-wall’s granite is visible. Yet the granite of the wall appears to have held, except that it has cut into the trunk like an axe, and the trunk is firmly wedged in place. Then, Lorn reminds himself, under the fivecubit visible section of the wall is fifty cubits of granite foundation laid on solid rock, and reinforced with chaos bound in order.

“Prepare lances,” Lorn says quietly to Olisenn.

“First squad, lances at the ready. Lances at the ready!”

Two blackish gray shapes seem to elongate from the trunk,then separate. Lorn blinks, to realize that two huge cats sprint toward Lorn, their long bounding strides narrowing the distance, far faster than a galloping horse or a racing firewagon.

“Lances ready. Prepare to discharge!” Olisenn’s orders are flat. “Discharge at will.”

Forcing himself to be calm, Lorn lifts his firelance, and focuses it on the leading giant cat.

Hssstt! A single narrow beam of chaos flies, seemingly curving to strike the cat. The half-charred body tumbles into a heap.

Hhsstt! The second cat begins a spring before Lorn’s followup bolt takes it in the chest.

Lorn pulls the gelding toward the wall, and turns in the saddle, checking to see where Olisenn’s lance might be pointed, but the squad leader’s eyes remain on the trunk that lies less than two hundred cubits away.

“Company halt!” Lorn orders.

“Company halt!” Olisenn echoes.

“We can do five abreast for now,” Lorn suggests.

“Five abreast! Stay on the road.”

Lorn glances to the northeast, but can see little except the formation of the second squad-and a series of flares that are firelances discharging. He turns to study the trunk wall ahead.

A pack of smaller cats-the night leopards? — each perhaps ten stone, charges toward the first squad.

“Discharge at will!” Lorn orders, wheeling his gelding so that he can bring his lance to bear while continuing to watch Olisenn.

“Discharge at will. Short bursts! Short bursts!” Olisenn orders.

Hssst! Hssst!

Three of the cats fall. A fourth comes up under one of the men’s lances, and the lance falls, and before the lancers-or Lorn-can react, the man is down.

Three quick firelance bursts sear across the smaller cat’s back and upper shoulders. The cat spasms, then falls still. The fallen lancer does not move.

“Stop discharges. Save your lances!” snaps Olisenn.

Two of the cats flash back toward the gray-brown trunk, scramble lithely up it, and then sprint northward along the tops of the trunk away from the ward-wall and toward the crushed vegetation that is the crown.

“Gythet’s dead, ser,” one of the lancers announces to Olisenn.

“Strap him over his mount, quickly,” responds the squad leader.

Lorn turns his mount to the northwest, paralleling the massive trunk, but at a good hundred and fifty cubits. He glances back at Olisenn. “We need to ride around the crown. That’s to make sure we can send a messenger safely to Eastend.”

“Ah … yes, ser. There are many creatures in the tops of the fallen trees. They wait until it falls, and then they hurry down and hide there, lying in wait.”

“I’m sure they do. We’ll try to give it a wide berth.”

“Reform! Lances at the ready. Follow the captain.”

At Olisenn’s orders, Lorn lets the gelding slow, until he is riding to the left and slightly behind Olisenn. The hint of a frown appears on the squad leader’s face, then vanishes, replaced with an expression of professional competence.

Neither Lorn nor Olisenn speak as the column rides out along the trunk to where the smashed limbs of the tree’s crown form a small hill.

The captain wants to shake his head, but refrains. In the scurry and the attacks by the cats, he had forgotten that Olisenn presents as great a danger as do the creatures of the Accursed Forest. Lorn has his own firelance ready, if but with a fraction of its original chaos charge, and from where he rides he can cover both the squad leader and survey the fallen forest monarch.

Kusyl rides to meet them. His left sleeve bears a rent, but shows no blood. “Ser.”

“How many casualties?” Lorn looks from the squad with at least one empty-saddled mount to Kusyl.

“Two dead, ser. Two wounded.”

“One dead, ser. One wounded,” Olisenn adds. “Thus far.”

At the sound of crackling and rustling branches, all three men turn in their saddles toward the middle of the mound of branches and leaves. A single branch, more than two cubits thick, falls outside the crown, snapped by whatever stirs within the vegetation.

The light wind out of the south carries a musky bitter scent to Lorn, that and an acrid odor of crushed leaves.

“Prepare to discharge lances!” Lorn snaps. Anything that moves branches a cubit thick and whose power and mass move the entire fallen crown is something that will require more than a single firelance.

“Prepare to discharge-”

The last words of Olisenn’s orders are lost under the crashing of displaced limbs and vegetation.

MMMMMmmmmmmmmmmnnnnnn …. A soundless, yet paralyzing mental scream slams into Lorn, and his mount. The gelding seems to stagger and steps sideways. Lorn wants to hold his temples, so intense is the pain, and for a moment he cannot see, for what feel like knives ripping at his eyes.

He blinks through the involuntary tears at the monster that emerges from the crushed crown, strewing aside vegetation like wet paper.

A huge gray lizard slithers from the crown, except that it is so large that it appears at first as if the gray trunk were turning and growing-or extending itself toward Kusyl and the second squad. Fully five cubits at the shoulders, and more than twenty cubits in length, the lizard pounds toward the second squad. A black tongue whips out, looking like a lash.

Before the mental order attack, three of the second squad’s mounts have actually gone down, one to its knees. A lancer scrambles for his lance, not realizing the lizard’s speed. The webbed and clawed left foot flashes, and the lancer vanishes under it.

Lorn winces. “Discharge lances! Now! Discharge lances!”

Hssst! A single line of fire flare from one of the second company lancers, but the chaos flame rolls off the gray hide of the monster stun lizard.

Hssst! Hsst!

In response to the lines of chaos fire, the lizard swings its head from side to side, then pauses, as if calculating which lancer will be its next victim.

Almost without thinking, Lorn sheathes the firelance, and pulls out the lancer sabre, willing the chaos that surrounds him and the lizard into the blade. He nudges the gelding. The mount shivers. His heels dig into the gelding’s flanks, and the white starts forward, slowly, then moving into a quick trot.

Lorn rides toward the lizard, angling from behind its head on the left side. He hopes the lizard will hold for just an instant.

Abruptly, the giant snout turns, impossibly quickly, toward the lancer captain.

Lorn hurls the sabre with all the force he can muster. The chaos-infused cupridium sabre spins lazily end-over-end as Lorn wills the point to strike the lizard’s head or eye point first. Even as he wills the impact, he is leaning in the saddle, turning the gelding away from the stun lizard’s gaping mouth and hot breath, and angling toward the second squad, pulling his own nearly depleted firelance from its holder.

MMnnnnnnnnnnnn …. The stunning soundless metal scream is followed by an enormous grunt. Then the lizard convulses, thrashing, and a webbed forefoot claws at the sabre that protrudes from the platter-sized eye:

Lorn can sense the raging flames within the lizard’s skull-as order and chaos war.

He reins up the shivering gelding.

Kusyl looks blankly at his captain.

“Discharge firelances! Now!” Lorn snaps at Kusyl.

“All firelances! Now!” echoes the junior squad leader.

“Aim at the head!” Lorn commands.

“The head!” Olisenn’s and Kusyl’s orders merge.

Firelance beams play across the thrashing lizard, winking out of existence as lance after lance is depleted.

The long tail lashes sideways and high.

Lorn cannot even yell before it smashes through a lancer from the first squad who has ridden too close. Then that tail,like a serpent, or an independent being, thumps up and down in slow beats, pounding itself into the ground, and pulping both dead lancer and mount.

Mmmnnnn …. The last mental scream rocks Lorn, both with its dying force, and the sense of despair.

Lorn takes a deep breath.

The lizard twitches … and keeps twitching ….

“Hold your discharges! Hold discharges!” Lorn orders.

The lancers watch the dying lizard.

The squad leaders watch the lizard, the crushed mound of the tree’s crown, and the trunk that leads back to the Accursed Forest.

Lorn watches the lizard, the crown, trunk, and the senior squad leader.

There is a sigh, like a dying wind, and a,last twitch, and the monster lies inert.

Lorn and the two squad leaders still study both the crushed vegetation of the crown and the lizard’s corpse for a time before any speak.

Finally, Lorn clears his throat. He has to do it twice before he can speak. “We need to check the far side as well.”

Both squad leaders nod slowly, reluctantly.

“Form up!”

While Second Company forms up, Lorn rides toward the dead lizard, looking for his sabre, but there is no sign of the weapon. The lancer captain nods and eases the gelding away from the dead beast.

Second Company rides slowly around the crown of the fallen tree. While there are rustles from the crown, and the acrid odor of crushed leaves comes and goes, nothing emerges from the twisted and splintered vegetation.

The company reins up on the southeastern side of the gray-brown trunk.

Lorn beckons to Olisenn, who edges his mount closer to the captain.

“We still need to send a messenger to the Engineers.”

“Ah … yes … ser.” Olisenn blots a face drenched in sweat.

Kusyl does not speak, but nods.

“We’ll have to keep watch here until the Engineers arrive.”

“Yes, ser.” Both squad leaders reply, neither with great enthusiasm.

Lorn takes out the grease stick and begins to jot down the particulars of where the trunk fell, and the ward locations, on the blank message scroll. Finally he hands it to Olisenn. “Warn the messenger to ride well clear of anything else that may have fallen.” Lorn pauses, then adds, “Have a half-score escort him around the trunk.”

“Yes, ser.” Olisenn eases his mount away from Lorn and toward the first squad.

Kusyl’s eyes stray to the enormous bulk of the dead stun lizard. “Never … never seen anything that big ….”

Neither has Lorn, and he nods, slowly. “You wonder how many more there might be waiting on the other side of the wall.”

“Rather not think on that, ser.” Kusyl glances from Lorn to where Olisenn briefs the lancer acting as messenger.

It will be a long afternoon and a longer night, Lorn suspects.