The Chaos Balance

CIV

Nylan rolled up the bedroll in quick motions. Next came the few clothes that went into the saddlebags. He paused to wipe his forehead-the room that had been too small for the four of them was hot, but it had always been too hot. He lifted the shoulder harness from the pallet bed and strapped it on, though he increasingly hoped he did not have to use the heavy blade.

“Fornal’s out scouting.”

“Of course,” snapped the smith. “He doesn’t believe that the Cyadorans could have left.”

“Would you?” asked Ayrlyn, tying up her own bedroll.

“They’ll be back, and we’d better have found something with this enchanted forest, or-”

“Or what? We’ll be fugitives again, which is better than staying here and being killed because we’ll be too blind to lift a blade after either one of us kills one more Cyadoran. We just can’t stay here and hope.”

“So we’re looking for a way out of this mess, another way to develop and use power. Through an enchanted forest?” The silver-haired smith shook his head. “Why does it always come back to power?”

“It always does,” she answered. “Ryba was right.”

No matter how often he was reminded by events, the idea that the Marshal of Westwind was right about the use of power still bothered the smith.

…bothers me, too…

Nylan reached out and touched her cheek. “I love you.”

“You don’t say that often. Why now?” Her sunburned nose crinkled.

Because…just because…and because you understand…The engineer cleared his throat and looked down at the plank floor for a moment. “We’ll have to sneak through the western part of Cyador, if the maps are right.”

“Changing the subject, again.”

Nylan grinned sheepishly.

“It’s all right. I know it’s hard for you.” And you’re trying.

“In more ways than one,” he admitted.

After a long moment, Ayrlyn offered a gentle laugh. “Back to hard reality in southern Lornth. I can scout out things, enough to avoid any large Cyadoran patrols. It may be slow, but I can’t imagine the Cyadorans being concerned about three riders and a child, especially if we avoid the main roads.” Ayrlyn lifted her saddlebags and surveyed the room. “I don’t see anything we’ve left.”

“We’ve never had that much. Weryl has more than both of us,” he pointed out, hoisting his own gear, and the larger bags that carried Weryl’s things. “Do you think I’m right to bring him?”

“Who else would defend him? Tonsar would, but you can’t count on his always being here. Besides, you’d worry so much you couldn’t even think about why we’re going.”

“There is that.” And your promise to Istril to take care of him, and that didn’t mean for someone else to. After a quick look around the room, Nylan stepped out into the empty main room, almost as hot as their quarters, then crossed the dusty plank floors to the half-open front door where he stopped for a moment and watched.

Sylenia sat on the bench on the shaded side of the stoop, holding Weryl. “We will take a long, long ride, Weryl, longer than the ride here…”

“…wide orsee, Enyah?”

“You have your seat…”

The smith stepped onto the stoop, with Ayrlyn squeezing out after him.

The nursemaid looked up. “We be ready. I have changed him, and given him a biscuit.”

“You don’t have to come, Sylenia. This could be a long ride.” Nylan laughed gently and added, “As you told Weryl.”

The black-haired woman glanced toward the near-empty barracks, then toward the still-blood-darkened dust beside the path to the well. “Better I go. Tonsar must not worry about my safety.”

“Are you certain?” asked Nylan.

Sylenia nodded, shifting the squirming Weryl from one knee to the other. “I will be safer with you.”

Nylan wasn’t so sure about that. Safer crossing the Grass Hills and trying to sneak through some part of Cyador to something resembling an enchanted forest or the local equivalent? Based on a disruption in planetary order fields that only he and Ayrlyn and a handful of other interplanetary refugees or local mages could sense?

“Da?” pleaded Weryl.

Nylan bent over and kissed him on the cheek. “Hang on. We have to get the mounts and load them.”

As he and Ayrlyn walked toward the corral, Nylan spoke softly. “She worries about him worrying about her. Does he worry about her worrying about him?”

“In this case…yes. Our boastful subofficer has a softer side.”

“Unlike Fornal.”

“He hasn’t found the right woman.”

“It takes that?”

“It helps to find the right woman. Or man,” she added with a grin.

Nylan shook his head. “Fornal never will.”

“You may be right.”

After carting their saddles out to the corral, Nylan cornered the mounts, one by one, while Ayrlyn saddled them, almost as fast as Nylan could lead them to the shaded roof at the side of the corral.

As they finished strapping gear onto the pack mare, Tonsar crossed the dusty ground from the barracks area, his boots raising puffs of dust. “You are leaving?”

“For a time,” temporized Ayrlyn.

“Tonsar…we need to take another magely journey,” Nylan began. “I hope we’ll be back before too long.” He held up his hand. “You can lead the squads, if you have to. You know enough, and they’ll trust you.”

“It is not the same…” protested the burly armsman.

“It should be now.” Ayrlyn’s eyes fixed the brown-bearded and burly Tonsar.

“Remember,” Nylan added, “there’s no great honor in being killed if you have another choice that doesn’t hurt others.”

“Someday, mage…I will understand.” Tonsar shrugged.

“We’ll be back if we can make it.” He paused. “It may not seem that way, but we wouldn’t be much good in a battle the way we are now. We have to see what we can do about that, and there won’t be any white demons around for a while. You can tell Fornal that. We left a note, too.”

“I saw.” Tonsar glanced back toward the barracks. “I saw again with Tregvo. You feel each death as though your blades struck you. Yet you would strike if it must be.” He frowned. “To have the strength to suffer death and strike again…angels are terrible.” A broad smile followed the frown. “Yet you love, and…you are good to Sylenia.”

“We try.”

“You will take Sylenia.” Tonsar was not asking a question.

“She has asked to come, although she cares for you.” Nylan frowned. “I don’t know that it is fair, but that is her choice. She worries that worrying about her will distract you.”

“She must go. You will protect her.” Again, the armsman glanced toward the shed barracks, as if he feared one of the levies might hear his words.

“We will protect her as best we can,” Ayrlyn affirmed.

A lanky figure stepped from the forge that had been a chicken coop, then dashed toward the group, stopping a pace back of Tonsar, waiting.

Tonsar turned, almost in surprise.

“You’ve got it, Sias. You are now armorer and general repairman.” Nylan inclined his head toward the former apprentice. “And you fix anything that Tonsar needs fixed. Or ser Fornal,” he added as an afterthought.

The lanky blond stepped forward. “You will be back, and I will show you.”

“Good.”

Sias flashed a shy smile. “I could be a smith. In a small hamlet, anyway. Except for the tools.”

“Until we don’t return, the tools are yours. I brought everything except the anvil-so…no matter what happens, you can keep the smaller hammer and the second tongs-they’re yours. You earned them.”

A broad smile crossed the young armsman/smith’s face.

“Be careful with your blade. You want to live to start that smithy,” Nylan advised.

Sias looked down sheepishly and scuffed a battered boot in the yellow dust.

“Best you go.” Tonsar’s eyes flicked toward the eastern hills.

After a moment of silence, Nylan nodded, then turned and walked his mount and the pack mare toward the stoop where Sylenia waited. Ayrlyn led her mount and Sylenia’s after the pair Nylan guided.

The nursemaid walked forward and handed Weryl to Nylan. The smith eased his silver-haired son into the seat behind Sylenia’s saddle, while she lugged her bags-and the two bags of hard biscuits and cheese and other assorted provisions Nylan had commandeered-toward the pack mare.

“Orse. Orse.” Weryl jabbed his hand toward his father.

“Definitely a horse.” Nylan fastened the straps in place, then stepped back and pulled the floppy hat from his belt. No sense in getting further blistered by the sun that remained far too hot for too much of the year.

“Ready?”

“I’ve been ready,” answered Ayrlyn.

“I know. I’ve been talking too much.” He swung up into the saddle. After a last gesture like a salute to Tonsar and Sias, he turned the mare toward the lane and the road southward.

Tonsar raised his bare blade in return, holding it up for a time. Sias just stood silently by the subofficer as the four horses carried their riders out of the encampment and toward the brown slopes of the hills to the south.

“Wadah pease, Enyah?” asked Weryl.

“In a moment…a moment,” choked the woman.

Nylan glanced back at the valley, more yellowed and dusty than ever under the pitiless sun and the green-blue sky, then toward the long and dusty road ahead.