Magi'i of Cyador

LXXIII

LORN DOES NOT sleep well, or long, and is up even before dawn, as worried by the comparative silence as by the bulk of the trunk and the section of ward-wall that does not function. He ignores the griminess he feels because the little water they have has to be carried from three kays to the north and does not even try to shave or wash, but merely takes a long swallow from his water bottle.

In the gray that will precede a clear dawn, with only a hint of mist rising from the Accursed Forest, he walks past the duty sentry toward the granite of the ward-wall. While he carries both a sabre that had belonged to one of the deadlancers, and his firelance, he knows he will need neither, and doubts that knowledge as well.

As he faces the wall, dry and smooth in the dawn despite the dew that coats the wall road and the ground, he can sense where the chaos flows end, perhaps a hundred and fifty cubits to his left, at the last functioning ward. Without the flaring webs of the chaos net, Lorn can sense the order-chaos depth of the Accursed Forest, and the solid granite wall by itself seems a frail barrier to the height and power of that intertwined order and chaos.

Lorn cocks his head, trying to recall words from his days as a student magus. “Always called the Forest order-death … never mentioned twined order and chaos,” he murmurs to himself. He looks up again, both with chaos-order senses and eyes, but he is not mistaken. The Forest has a depth of order wrapped in chaos, or chaos wrapped in order.

Despite the breach in the chaos net, as he continues to study the Accursed Forest, Lorn senses no probes of either order or chaos, and no creatures massing beyond the granite. He studies the Forest for a time longer, until the sun begins to rise above the deadland and fields to his left, but the silent presence and lack of overt threat does not change. When the sun falls on his shoulder and side, he turns and walks silently back toward the bivouac area.

By the time he reaches the tielines where the mounts are tethered, Olisenn is waiting, looking as bedraggled as Lorn feels. “You were at the wall, and it is not warded there. Was that wise, captain?”

“Probably not.” Lorn laughs. “I’ll learn, I’m sure.” He pauses as Kusyl walks toward them. “Good morning, Kusyl.”

“Good morning, ser.”

“I checked with all the sentries before I left.” Lorn’s eyes fall on Kusyl. “I was inspecting the ward-wall this morning. It’s been quiet all night.”

“Might be more creatures this morning,” hazards the junior squad leader.

“There might be,” Lorn agrees, looking at Olisenn. “How long before the Engineers arrive?”

“They have firewagons that can make good speed on the perimeter roads, and I would judge that they might arrive by midday-if they left last evening or early this morning.”

Lorn nods. “Both of you set some pickets, say, four from each squad. Just use the firelances to keep anything away. We’re not going to try to destroy anything else right now.” His smile is wry. “We don’t have the charges for that.”

“No, ser, we don’t,” Kusyl says strongly.

Olisenn frowns, but nods.

“I’m going to take a few men and ride back around the crown.” Lorn unties the gelding from the tieline. “Does it matter who I ask?”

“No, ser.”

After picking four men, nearly at random, Lorn checks the girths and the bridle and mounts the gelding. He and the four lancers slowly ride around the mass of tangled branches and crushed and uncrushed leaves that had formed the crown of the enormous tree. They circle the tangled mound at a distance of well over two hundred cubits from the nearest greenery. While there are occasional rustlings, and more than a few birds, including two enormous vulcrows that burst from the branches, they see no other creatures.

On the northwest side, a dozen vulcrows are tearing at the carcass of the stun lizard, but the birds scarcely raise their sharp hooked beaks. Two night leopards slink back to the branches as the riders near the dead creature.

After studying the area of the struggle with the lizard, and determining, again, that there is no sign of his lancer sabre, and no other creatures visible, at least, Lorn turns the gelding. “We’ll ride back now.”

As the five riders return to the main body of Second Company, Lorn watches the deadland and the battered crown, but while the rustlings continue, nothing emerges except occasional birds that he does not recognize, not that he has ever spent much effort in studying avians.

Olisenn and Kusyl are waiting, eyes expectant, as Lorn and his lancers reins up.

“Nothing. Vulcrows, two leopards that scurried back to thetree, some birds.” Lorn shrugs and dismounts. He pulls out a water bottle that will need to be refilled before long and takes a swallow, then blots his forehead. “We watch and wait for the Mirror Engineers.”

He is blotting his forehead again, in the midday heat, when a voice rides through the silence.

“Ser!” calls the duty sentry, pointing to the north.

Lorn unties the gelding and mounts, as do the four lancers he had selected earlier. From the saddle he can see three firewagons approach, crossing the deadland from the outer perimeter road, and angling toward the point where the trunk and the ward-wall intersect.

“Mount up! Engineers are here.”

“Mount up!” Kusyl and Olisenn echo Lorn’s orders.

Lorn fingers his grimy and stubbly chin, then eases the gelding toward where the three firewagons are slowing along the inner road that flanks the ward-wall. The third firewagon is armored in cupridium plate and tows an armored two-wheeled device with a tubular projection that can only be one of the special firecannons that Commander Meylyd had mentioned.

A thin-lipped engineer majer steps out of the first firewagon. He glances around, then spots Lorn, and marches toward the mounted lancer captain.

“Majer Weylt, Captain. I’m in charge of the engineer detachment at Eastend.” The thin lips twitch into a smile. “When we received your message, I had some questions about the size of the trunk. But your lancer messenger was insistent, and I decided to come with the large firecannon. I’m glad we brought it.”

“Captain Lorn, Majer. We’re glad to see you.” Lorn smiles. “The tree seemed large, but I’m new to this. I just followed the procedures.” He calls up what he has read. “You’ll cut away the trunk from the ward-wall ….”

“Exactly.” Weylt bobs his narrow face up and down. “We make sure that the road is clear first, and then destroy the crown to make sure it harbors no creatures, and that there’s no residual order poison.”

“What do you need from us?”

“Just a loose guard while we set up. That’s so we’re not surprised. Then you pull back and let us get on with it.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Good.” The majer almost spins on one boot and heads back to his firewagon.

Lorn remains mounted, with Kusyl to his left, as the halfscore of Mirror Engineers unhitch the armored firecannon on the wall road, and wrestle it into a position roughly three hundred cubits from where the trunk rests on the ward-wall. One turns a crank-like handle, and a hatch opens on one side of the cannon. The engineer vanishes into the hatch.

Another rolls a long cable from the firewagon that has towed the cannon to an assembly on the rear of the cannon and inserts it into a square bracket. Lorn senses that the cable is cupridium sheathed in something, almost a shimmercloth substance of many layers, clearly designed to keep the chaos flows within the cable.

Seemingly from nowhere, Majer Weylt appears, again marching briskly toward Lorn. “Pull your lancers back behind the cannon, Captain-and out from the ward-wall,” orders the thin-lipped Mirror Engineer. “At least a third of a kay back. Have them ready for more creatures.”

Lorn wonders about how many more cats and stun lizards will rush from the crown and the upper trunk, but only nods. “Yes, ser.” He turns and stands in the saddle. “Second Company! Pull back to seven hundred cubits!”

Half-wondering just how accurate any of them will be judging seven hundred cubits, Lorn guides Second Company to a position perpendicular to the trunk, closer to a half kay, he suspects, back from the crown itself. He turns his mount and reins up, watching Olisenn from the corner of his eye, and observing the engineers as well.

Two of the three firewagons roll back down the ward-wall road, almost a kay, leaving only the firecannon and the firewagon to which it is connected. All the Mirror Engineers have vanished, except for one, who then climbs inside thehatch door on the right side of the cannon and closes it behind him.

Of the score of Engineers, none remain in the open, Lorn notes.

HHHSSSTTT! With a whining, whooshing hiss, a single jet of flame slices through the dark order of the trunk. The heat radiates even to where the lancers are reined up.

Clunnnnnk! The ground shakes, a half kay away, as the trunk outside the ward-wall drops onto the road and the deadland.

A second jet of flame-somehow both blue and black-flares skyward from where the trunk has contacted the ward-wall. Smaller explosions follow, and sections of wood, shredded and twisted, begin to fall.

A dull clunking announces the impact of a ten-cubit length of branch on the armored shell of the firecannon.

Lorn turns in his saddle and studies Olisenn. Is the heavy-set squad leader pale? Lorn’s eyes go to Kusyl, who is definitely pallid and tense. Then his eyes go to the tree’s fallen crest, where the branches keep twisting.

In an instant, a half-score of the night leopards appear at the edge of the crown. Abruptly, all charge the Second Company, clearly without any hesitation, as if they had known all along where the lancers were.

“Discharge lances at will! Short bursts! Short bursts!”

“Short bursts!” Olisenn adds in an even louder bellow.

Nine of the leopards fall before reaching the Second company. The last slams into a lancer’s mount, but the man keeps his head and drives his sabre down and through the beast’s neck, awkward as the blow is.

The mount screams, a long slash across the point of her left shoulder, but the lancer manages to remain mounted, and slowly gentles the mare.

The rest of the lancers reform into their squads, watching the vegetation, but no other creatures emerge.

Discreetly readjusting his garrison cap, and blotting his forehead, Lom glances back-toward the cannon, where theengineers are working to reposition the weapon. “Steady! They’re going at it again!”

Another whining whistling blast follows, and a gap ten cubits wide appears between the ward-wall and the remainder of the trunk.

The second blast dislodges no more creatures, although a number of birds circle the trunk.

There is no sign of the vulcrows-none at all. Once more the engineers reposition the firecannon, and after each searing blast do so again until they have opened a gap between the wall and the remainder of the trunk that is more than fifty cubits wide.

Once the gap has reached that width and the inner road is clear, the Engineers turn the firecannon. The armored firewagon slowly tows it outward until it is roughly a hundred cubits from the crushed crown, between the crown vegetation and Lorn’s company.

The Engineer Majer strides from the cannon toward Lorn, and Lorn rides forward to shorten the senior officer’s walk.

“Thank you, Captain.” Weylt smiles.

Lorn waits.

“Captain Lorn … now we’re going to fire the crown. It’s going to burn hot. I’d leave your men where they are until the worst dies down. You might get another giant cat or two. You might not.”

“We’ll be ready, ser.”

“Fine.” Weylt turns and walks back to the firewagon.

Shortly the cannon screams again, except the fire flares into a broad fan, and immediately flames begin to shoot up from the center of the mangled limbs and leaves. As the fires spread, one section of the branches shudders, and a long gray-black giant cat leaps from the twisted branches and greenery, padding right past the armored firecannon.

The cat pauses two hundred and fifty cubits out from the spreading flames. Its dark eyes study the Second Company, lined five abreast at least a good five hundred cubits away. Then, as suddenly as the others had attacked, the giant catlopes almost due north, well away from the lancers and the engineers and their equipment.

Lorn has no intention of chasing it, not with the state of his company’s firelances.

The flames continue to rise, crackling a fierce orange, and thick and acrid black smoke, twined with plumes of lighter gray smoke, rises into the now-clear green-blue sky, forming a haze that begins to spread.

At the ward-wall, several engineers are working, replacing the smashed crystal wards with others, ignoring the flame that flares three hundred cubits northward.

The flames are subsiding, leaving the trunk seemingly untouched, when the engineer majer returns, striding briskly toward Lorn, who urges the gelding forward again.

The majer begins without greeting, without preamble. “The wards are working, and there’s little enough more we can do.”

“Do you just leave the trunk now?” asks Lorn.

The majer laughs. “We’re through with it. So are you. There’s a timber factor who has a contract on anything like this. There will be a team out here in a couple of days, and within two eightdays, you won’t know that there ever was a fallen trunk here. Good timber, they say. I wouldn’t touch it, not with the residual dark order in it, but they ship it down the Great Canal and then sell it to the coastal traders. Get a good price, I understand. The fees they pay help pay our stipends, Captain, yours and mine.”

Lorn nods. He understands the logic, but he wonders about the merchanters profiting on the deaths of lancers. “This seems like a large trunk,” he observes, watching the Majer. “Is it, ser?”

“Thirty-five cubits at the ward-wall. That’s the biggest I can recall. Be a few loads of solid timbers for the merchanters.” The majer smiles ironically. “More than a few, I’d wager. They can handle it. I wouldn’t. Once this dies down, we’ll be returning to Eastend, and you’ll be free to continue your patrol.”

“We’ll need to recharge or replace our lances at Eastend,”Lorn says quietly. “There probably aren’t a dozen lances left with charges.”

“That we can handle, Captain. I’ll see that a full set-of lances is waiting for you.”

“Thank you.”

“Least we can do.” The majer nods, then turns and leaves Lorn.

Lorn rides back to the Second Company. They will have a long ride to the next waystation, a very long ride, that will last well into the evening. Even when the return patrol is over, he will have no rest, not with the need to request replacements and draft letters to the families of the fallen lancers, and to handle all the other details that must wait until Second Company returns to Jakaafra.