The Chaos Balance

XX

The stream gurgled and splashed, not quite overflowing its banks, if well below the clay track that was something more than a trail and less than a road.

The gray leaves on the willowlike trees had spread but not turned to the fuller green of summer, and the new leaves were but half-open. A few starflowers bloomed in patches on the far side of the water, nestled in sun-warmed patches of green between the piles of weathered rock that had peeled off the canyon walls over the years. A steel-blue bird chittered from the top of a scrawny pine as the two horses carried their riders downhill and generally westward.

Nylan patted Weryl gently, trying to encourage the boy to keep sleeping. For whatever reason, carrying his son seemed to make him saddlesore more quickly, yet a year-old child didn’t weigh that much. Or was it the weight of two blades-or all of it together? He lifted his weight off the saddle a moment, and his knees protested.

“Do we have any ideas where we ought to be going-besides west?” Ayrlyn asked.

“No. I wish I did, but…” Nylan turned in the saddle and looked back over his shoulder toward the ice needle that was Freyja-now barely visible above the gray rock walls of the canyon that the road followed, downward and usually westward. He took a deep breath. “In a way, I feel lost. I always let someone else decide. The service needed engineers, and so I became one. Ryba and the marines needed a safe haven, and I built it. Now…” He shrugged as he looked toward Ayrlyn. “Now, I have to figure out where we’re going and what I want from life, and I can’t-or I haven’t so far.”

Ayrlyn nodded. “You’re getting more honest with yourself, and that’s a start.”

“Great. I now know that everyone else has been determining my destiny. It doesn’t make finding it any easier-on me or you.”

“We share that, Nylan.” She offered a soft smile. “We’ll work it out.”

“Even with Weryl?”

“In some ways, it’s easier. He’s so young.”

The smith moistened his lips, then asked, “How long will it take to get out of the Westhorns? You’ve traveled these roads more than I have.”

“Four or five trips don’t make me an expert. We didn’t exactly have a lot of time to learn about this place, and I was more worried about trading for the things we needed and avoiding the local armsmen.”

“This isn’t the most popular route.” So far as Nylan could tell, the only tracks on the narrow winding road were those of Skiodra’s traders, and those had been nearly weathered away. In places, the tracks of deer, and in one section, a bear, were superimposed over the traces of the traders’ carts. Clearly, not too many locals traveled the Westhorns-not in spring, anyway.

“It will get more popular. Ryba has made sure most of the brigands are dead, or they’ve gone elsewhere.”

“We hope. I’m not exactly convinced they’re all gone.” Nylan glanced ahead, at the narrow valley sloping away, and at the thick green canopy on the left side of the road, probably growing out of marshy ground beside the stream. The greenery was enough to hide anything, including bandits.

“Ryba will take care of any that are left,” Ayrlyn offered.

“In the same way she takes care of everything else,” Nylan added sardonically. “With a sharper blade applied more quickly.” He squinted at the road ahead. The mention of brigands bothered him, though he couldn’t say why.

“You’re bothered.”

The engineer nodded.

“We’ll just have to be careful.”

“I hope that will help.” After a moment, he added, “It would help if Ryba improved some of the stream fords, put in bridges.” Nylan wiped his forehead.

“Still the engineer, I see.” Ayrlyn laughed.

“I probably always will be.” He tried to loosen his jacket all the way, but stopped as Weryl, who had been sleeping, gave a lurch. Ayrlyn still wore her jacket mostly closed. He hoped the lowlands wouldn’t be too hot-there was a difference between being able to survive and surviving in something other than total misery.

“Waaa…” Weryl squirmed in the carrypak, and Nylan could sense his son’s discomfort-again! The odor confirmed Nylan’s senses.

“We need to stop again.” The smith wanted to laugh at the look on Ayrlyn’s face. “You were the one who said he traveled well.”

“I shouldn’t have spoken so soon.”

They had to travel almost a kay before they descended enough into the canyon valley and reached a spot where the approach to the stream was both gentle enough and open enough through the tangled willows-with a shelf of coarse sand-for easy access to the water.

Nylan extracted Weryl from the carrypak again, hanging it over a low willow branch, followed by Weryl’s loose trousers. The pants were dry, thank darkness, but the cloth beneath was anything but.

Nylan took a deep breath and stepped toward the stream.

At the first touch of the cold water, Weryl began to howl.

“I’m sorry, little fellow,” Nylan said, “but you don’t like being a mess, and I don’t like smelling it.”

The cries were interspersed with sobs, which drifted into sobs alone by the time Nylan had his son back in dry clothes.

“Can you hold him while I wash out what he was wearing?” Nylan asked Ayrlyn.

“I would have helped, but you seemed to have everything under control. You will attack changing him like an engineering problem, though.”

“I suppose so. It is a waste disposal problem.”

“He’s your son, not a waste disposal problem.”

“He may be my son, but being my son isn’t going to make him less smelly or more comfortable.” Nylan handed Weryl to Ayrlyn, who lifted him to her shoulder and patted his back, rocking as she did so.

Nylan’s hands were red from the cold water of the stream by the time he had the cloth squares clean. “I’ll have to fasten them over the bags or something so that they’ll dry.”

“He’s hungry, I think,” suggested Ayrlyn.

“We’ll try the biscuit things, with water.” After draping the cloth squares over the saddlebags, the engineer opened Weryl’s food pack.

There had been no such things as baby bottles on Westwind, not when all the milk was breast milk, but in the food pack was a crude wooden cup with a carved cover that had a small spout. Nylan had breathed one sigh of relief when he had seen that.

“Let me sense the water,” Ayrlyn offered. After a moment, she added, “It’s safe enough. They don’t have river rodents here-not that we’ve seen. Sometimes, they foul the water.”

Nylan filled the cup and capped it. He still worried about getting the boy to eat enough of whatever was necessary for a proper dietary balance, but Weryl happily gummed his way through a biscuit and half-sucked, half-drank some of the stream water.

After that, the engineer eased him into the carrypak again and remounted. “How long before we have to stop again?”

“We don’t have a timetable, you know,” Ayrlyn pointed out.

“I know. But I feel as though there’s something we’ll have to do and that time’s running out.”

“You always feel that way.”

“Maybe.” But Nylan didn’t think so. His eyes took a last look at Freyja as the track carried them around a wide curve formed by the stream, and the ice needle vanished behind a wall of gray rock covered with scattered evergreens.