Scion of Cyador

LXIII

From the low hillside to the east of the second river town, Lorn studies the approach, from the saddle of the white gelding, his eyes flicking from the map to the town and back. He is flanked by Emsahl, Cheryk, and Esfayl, whose eyes follow Lorn’s in the early-morning light. Mounted behind them are the other company officers.

Unlike the first town, the second town is more regular. Some of the dwellings are white-plastered, and some have tile roofs. Lorn can see a small square and what appears to be an inn, and beyond the town, fields with evenly lines of recently-turned dark soil.

“What do you think?” Lorn finally asks Emsahl.

“Sweep through…slay those we can get. Fire the warehouses and the barns. Don’t go house to house.”

“And get the supplies and mounts we can,” Cheryk suggests.

“And the blades.” Lorn rolls the map and nods slowly. “Third and Fifth Companies come down the main road.” He glances to his left. “Esfayl, can you circle ahead and block the road to the west?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Go ahead and get your company moving. We’ll give you some time to circle out to the west.”

Esfayl nods as he guides his mount away from the others.

“Cheryk and Gyraet-you’ll take the river wharfs and warehouses. You head around the front of the hill, and then take the old road by the river.” Lorn looks over his shoulder. “Rhalyt…your company will follow me, and we’ll go where we’re needed. We’ll start with Third Company.”

“Yes, ser.”

Lorn and the officers turn and ride back down the narrow trail past the herder’s cottage where five lancers watch over the herder and his family to ensure that none escape to warn the town. The bearded man looks impassively at Lorn and the officers, then drops his eyes abruptly. The boy, whose head does not quite reach his father’s shoulders, stares at Lorn. The graying woman watches her son. All three project an air of disbelief, as if Mirror Lancers could not possibly be attacking so far inside Jerans.

Lorn looks toward the road below, almost wishing he had not undertaken the whole campaign, yet he knows of no other way open to him to stop the increasing attacks of the Jeranyi. His lips twist. Then, he knows of no one else in Cyador who wishes the attacks to stop, or who wishes such enough to do something. If there were no attacks, many in the Mirror Lancers would feel that they had no purpose. And the traders who supply the blades do not wish the attacks to cease, for they would lose golds. It seems that the only ones who wish the attacks to stop are the lancers who die and the poor folk of northern Cyador who are the victims.

Esfayl already has Second Company moving along the trail that circles the northern backside of the ridgelike hill by the time Lorn reins up at the head of the column of waiting Mirror Lancers.

Rhalyt reins in behind Lorn, then turns in his saddle and addresses the two waiting squad leaders. “We’re to follow the majer. Our task is to deal with any problems. Keep your lances ready and use short bursts.”

Once Rhalyt finishes, Lorn nods and says, “We need to wait for a bit to let the others pass the orders and get ready. Cheryk and Gyraet will be turning south once their companies clear the hill.” He cocks his head, listening for the orders from the other officers.

“…taking the river wharfs and warehouses…turn left at the first crossroads…”

“…short bursts! Really short bursts.”

The sub-majer and Rhalyt wait for Emsahl and Quytyl to join their forces.

“Ser…do you think they’ll have a force waiting somewhere?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t see anyone, and the town is open enough, without much in the way of trees. So it will be hard to hide a large group of armsmen.”

“Ser!” Emsahl calls forward. “Third and Fifth Companies are ready!”

“Fourth and Sixth stand ready!”

“Column forward!” Lorn raises his arm, then lowers it, and urges the white gelding forward.

Again, the road eastward between the narrow river and the hill is empty, and the dampish clay shows but a few wagon tracks and scattered and older hoofprints. A low fence of rails set between piles of stone flanks the road on the right and uphill side, then ends a hundred cubits short of the first crossroads, distinguished mainly by the lack of bushes or trees, merely a flat area, with a lane winding around the west side of the hill on the right side of the road, and a rutted way on the left.

As he and First Company near the crossroads, Lorn looks over his shoulder and can see Cheryk and Gyraet lead their companies southward, splitting the Cyadoran forces. He turns to Rhalyt, “Have them go to four-abreast. The road is wide enough now.”

“Four-abreast. Four-abreast!”

Just past the crossroads, a kaystone on the right shoulder notes: Disfek, 2k. A single thatched dwelling is nestled in a hollow to the right of the road a half-kay or so beyond the road marker. Behind it is a long and low building around which are gathered a handful of chickens that begin to scatter as the column of riders approaches. Someone slams the gap-planked front door of the thatched house, and then the shutters are closed from inside, long before Lorn and Rhalyt reach the eastern end of the stone and rail fence that separates the unkempt brown grass from the damp clay of the road.

Less than two hundred cubits beyond the house with the chickens, a thin white-haired man turns toward the sound of hoofs, gawks for a moment, and then runs, spindly-legged, toward a white-plastered dwelling on the north side of the road that leads toward the central square. “White demons! White demons! Run! Hide! White demons!”

“Demons…!”

Shutters and doors close along the wide road, and shouts echo between and beyond the houses, rising well over the sound of hoofs.

Somewhere a bell begins to ring, clanging loudly and discordantly. From where, Lorn cannot say, for he remembers no belltowers or, indeed, any form of tower from viewing the town either from the hillside or earlier in his chaos-glass.

Lorn studies the makeshift lanes between the houses that they pass. Abruptly, he catches sight of barbarian warriors-nearly a score-trotting northward away from the center of the town and away from the Third and Fifth Companies.

“Follow me!” Lorn wheels the gelding down the lane parallel to the road and urges his mount forward into a pace faster than that of the barbarians.

“Follow the majer!” Rhalyt orders.

If Lorn can get enough ahead, then he can slow the barbarians with his firelance, enough for First Company to catch up and attack. He also would far rather deal with armed warriors than unarmed men who might be such.

Lorn can see the Jeranyi riders only intermittently, over gardens and between scattered trees, houses, and outbuildings. The riders appear to be looking backward, but not to the lane a hundred or so cubits east, where Lorn and First Company are paralleling their progress and slowly moving up.

After almost a kay, he turns the gelding westward down another track that slants to the northwest, angling toward the road carrying the barbarians. He is perhaps fifty cubits from the road on which they ride when the first riders appear.

Lorn levels the firelance and triggers it at the barbarian on the side of the column closest to him, a fresh-faced rider barely a man. Hssst!

The young rider’s upper shoulder flares into blackness, and he falls away from Lorn, his mount shying into the rider to the west of him. At the attack from the side, the bearded barbarian beside the man who fell, yanks the huge broadsword from his shoulder harness and turns his mount toward Lorn. So do two other riders.

“Leave them!” bellows a voice.

The Jeranyi riders turn toward Lorn, ignoring the orders. Behind him, Lorn can hear First Company nearing. Lorn triggers the firelance and lets fly with two more short bursts. Hsst! Hsst! One strikes the rider beside the warrior with the enormous broadsword who bears down on Lorn.

Hhssst! A longer burst fells the big rider, and the broadsword tumbles into the clay, but the riders following are so close that he is suddenly using the lance more as a shield, and the sabre to slide away the heavier and longer iron blades, absently wishing he had both sabres out.

Still, he cuts through the Jeranyi force, then sees two men starting to ride northward, away from the battle.

Hssst! The lance blast drops one, but the second man guides his mount to the side of the road, where he is shielded by a spreading, broad-branched tree. Lorn turns the gelding, and drops another rider from behind.

Then he is blade-to-blade with a wiry and bearded man. As a dagger knifes toward him, Lorn desperately throws pure mage-fire at the man, who collapses as his dagger slashes the leather of Lorn’s jacket.

The sub-majer wants to wipe his forehead, but concentrates on the swirling mass of mounts and men, except that the swirls subside, and all the riders who remain are Mirror Lancers. Two or three other Jeranyi riders have slipped away from the melee, but most of the Jeranyi are dead.

Lorn blots his forehead, then looks down at the slash in his jacket, and the red on his tunic. The slash across his ribs has barely broken the skin, but has resulted in enough blood to give the impression of a more severe wound.

“Are you all right, ser?” asks Rhalyt.

“I’m fine. Careless and stupid, but fine.” Lorn pauses. “How many did we lose?”

“Two, ser, looks to be,” the undercaptain says. “Two others wounded.”

“Strap the dead to their mounts for now. We’ll have to bury them tonight. We can’t carry them all the way back to Inividra. Gather the blades, and any other weapons. We don’t want to leave any around.”

Lorn finds a clean rag, gathers a touch of the black order, ignoring the headache it creates, and lets it suffuse his scratchlike wound, then slips the cloth under his tunic to absorb any last drops of blood.

The Jeranyi living farther from the borders do not appear nearly so good with weapons as those who raid Cyador regularly, or they do not do as well when surprised, and if either is so, he indeed has a chance to complete his campaign.

Once First Company has gathered the fallen blades and lancers, Lorn rides back toward the center of the town at a fast walk, Rhalyt and his company following, with perhaps fifteen blades strapped to a captured barbarian mount. Lorn glances from dwelling to dwelling, but most are barred and shuttered, as if to resist a siege or the like. Most are single-storied with plastered walls, plaster over withies in many cases, although one or two of the larger structures are of whitewashed bricks.

Emsahl and Quytyl hold the square, with three of the four squads stationed at intervals, firelances out and leveled. Several lancers are carrying out food from the chandlery, and loading it on packs fastened to a halfscore of horses commandeered, Lorn suspects, from the stable adjoining the inn.

“Ser?” Emsahl looks at the sub-majer as he reins up.

“There were some raiders-a squad’s worth or so-trying to escape. We got most of them.”

“Riding away?” asks Emsahl.

Lorn nods.

“Almost a shame you have to run them down,” ventures Quytyl from thirty cubits away.

Lorn laughs bitterly. “Amazing how brave they are when they’re killing people in our lands and when they have more blades and mounts, and how they aren’t interested in fighting when they’re outnumbered.”

“Most people are like that,” Emsahl suggests.

“Is everything going all right here?” asks Lorn.

“Locals cleared out almost before we got here. Might have been that bell.”

“Load up as quickly as you can. I’m going to check the wharf area.”

“Yes, ser.”

The river is less than half a kay from the square, and, once more, Lorn passes shuttered houses, wondering how many men who might bear arms are hidden within. Yet there are too many houses for his men to break into each, not without risking losses he can well do without.

Lorn reins up by the river wharf, where five bodies of men in gray-and-brown tunics lie across the wharf, as if they had died trying to stop the lancers from reaching the single flatboat tied there. As Lorn surveys the wharf, Cheryk rides forward.

“What’s in the flatboat?” Lorn asks.

“Bundles of wool, some tanned hides, two boxes of scented candles, a dozen amphorae with some sort of oil, and a strongbox with a hundred or so golds in it.”

“We’ll need to keep the golds.” Lorn laughs. “We might need them to pay the men.”

“Best we hope not.” Cheryk grimaces.

“Ser!” calls another voice.

Lorn turns in the saddle.

“I think you’ll be interested in this, ser.” Gyraet rides toward Lorn, gesturing toward the leather-wrapped package strapped behind his saddle. “We found fivescore blades in the second warehouse. Fourscore, maybe five-, were from Hamor. A score or so were cupridium sabres. No lancer markings, either, so that I’d say they were forged for trade.”

“Where’s the trader?”

“Ah…he tried to escape. With those. I had to use a firelance.”

“Are those his trading records?”

“Look to be, ser.” Gyraet offers a grim smile. “If I read ’em right, some of the blades being used against us were forged in Summerdock.”

“We need to keep those,” Lorn says. “Very safe.”

“You ought to carry them-once we get the blades loaded and the stuff we want from the warehouses.”

“Which warehouse had the blades?”

“That one there-blades, some of those polished iron shields that’ll block a firelance, and those axes with hooks.” Gyraet gestures to the westernmost structure-smaller and older than the one from which the lancers are loading provisions.

“Make sure it’s burned to the ground,” Lorn says quietly, “both of them.”

“Aye, ser.”

“We shouldn’t be staying here too long.”

“What about the flatboat there?” asks Cheryk who rides out from behind the back of the warehouse.

“Burn it. Use the oils,” Lorn says. “Are you almost through here?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Set everything afire and join the other companies in the square. We’ll form up there, and ride out.” Lorn turns the gelding.

“…you hear that?…friggin’ traders in Summerdock…”

“…do anything for a gold…”

“…our blood…their golds…”

As Lorn rides toward the square, Rhalyt and his First Company following, again past houses with shutters fastened, and some few with doors flapping in the light wind, Lorn can sense a brief chill of a chaos-glass, which fades almost as quickly as it passes over him. The glass reminds him, once more, that his efforts to protect Cyador are going to cause more disruptions he had not foreseen, as if everything in Cyador and Candar is twined together in a web where the slightest tug on one side ripples the entire world.

Still, he wants to get out of Disfek and on the road toward Jera, for that is where he can do the most damage, and perhaps find the greatest support for what he feels, but cannot prove.

As he nears the square, he can hear the crackle of flames and see dark smoke beginning to rise into the sky, and the odor of burning wood and oils fills his nostrils. The Third and Fifth Companies are re-forming into four-abreast columns in a square empty except for bodies and lancers.

Lorn squares his shoulders. They have barely begun to do what must be accomplished, and more than a hundred kays still lie before them.