The White Order

XCV

CERRYL SAT ON the wall and sipped from his water bottle-filled with rainwater that he had chaos-fire boiled, following Myral’s directions, and then let cool overnight. His headache had faded somewhat with sleep. Breakfast, if only of hard cheese and stale road biscuits, had helped-enough to reduce the throbbing but not eliminate it.

The day was cool, the early morning sun filtered by high and hazy clouds drifting out of the south from the heat of Kyphros and the southern ocean.

“We’re going to have to get supplies somewhere,” predicted Lyasa. “The packs on the supply mounts are near empty.”

“No,” said Kochar dryly, “Jeslek will insist that the student mages form chaos into food. That’s something that any good mage should be able to do.”

At the mimicry of Jeslek’s tone, both Lyasa and Cerryl laughed. Then all three glanced down the road where Fydel stood over a screeing glass set on the road wall. Jeslek waited behind Fydel, and Anya watched from the other side. All three faces were grim.

“I don’t like that,” murmured Lyasa.

Cerryl didn’t, either. “Gallosian armsmen, you think?”

“That’s what he’s been tracking with the glass,” pointed out Kochar.

“I can’t wait.” Lyasa snorted.

Cerryl decided he could.

“Klybel!” called Jeslek.

Anya motioned for the student mages to join the group.”

“Told you,” muttered Lyasa as the three walked the thirty cubits or so toward the full mages.

Klybel rode past them and reined up short of Jeslek.

“The Gallosians are riding westward again,” Jeslek announced, even before the younger mages reached the group. “Toward us. They’re still a good five kays east, and perhaps a kay south of the highway on an older track.”

“How many lancers are there?” asked Klybel.

Jeslek glanced to Fydel.

“I would judge twenty score, more or less.”

“Twenty-score Gallosian lancers,” Klybel said mildly. “We have less than four score.”

“Can you deploy your forces so that most of the Gallosians will be in one place? Or close to it?” asked Jeslek, massaging the back of his neck with his left hand.

“All I have to do is to leave us on the Great White Highway over there-where the ridge line from the souto intersects the road. They’ll have to come across the ridge. They won’t take the road because it’s too narrow, and you mages could pick them off a few at a time.”

“Good.”

“If you cannot stop them, of course,” Klybel added, “all of us will die.”

“We will do more than stop them.” Jeslek offered a yellow-toothed smile. “You will need to place your lancers before the road wall on the hill, to ensure we have time to use the chaos-fire against them as they advance.”

“We will do so.” Klybel inclined his head. “With your permission, I will place a company on the road-both to the east and west. They should be sufficient to protect the flanks-at least until your mages can react.”

“As you see fit, Captain. We will make ready.”

Klybel turned his mount and headed eastward to where the main body of white lancers had been breaking camp in the sheltered area beside the Highway and under a low bluff.

“Another day of hard work.” Jeslek stretched and glanced at Anya, then Fydel. “The Gallosians will attack. Stupidity. . but they will attack.”

“You are convinced?” Fydel shook his head, glancing to the hills south of the Great Highway, hills not yet raised into mountains-unlike those to the east and north.

“They wanted only an excuse to attack the day before. Now that they know we have raised mountains, they have such.”

“But. . raising mountains? Will they not think?”

“It has been many years since any have faced the true power of the Guild. A single aging mage in Fenard. . does not show such power.” Jeslek shrugged. “They will demand something impossible-perhaps that we restore the land. Then they will threaten, and then they will attack.”

“But why?”

“Because they have been ordered to. Enough questions.” Jeslek pointed westward to the ridge line that intersected the south side of the Great White Highway. “Let us proceed. Leave your mounts.”

Cerryl took another swallow of water and walked behind Fydel, who carried his screeing glass and case. Lyasa and Kochar flanked Cerryl, and the three students walked quietly.

“Why would they be ordered to attack us?” Fydel asked in a low voice, looking to Anya.

“Jeslek is right.” Anya’s voice was also low, but loud enough for the overmage to hear. “Fairhaven has not shown enough power in recent years, and so the prefect believes such power does not exist.”

Lyasa tapped Cerryl on the shoulder, and as he turned, rolled her eyes. Cerryl smiled ironically in return.

“They’re stupid,” Kochar mumbled. “People are going to get lolled.”

Stupidity usually got people killed, reflected Cerryl, but the ones who got killed weren’t always the stupid ones.

The high and hazy autumn clouds had slowly thinned, and the south wind had risen, bringing a hot dry breeze that combined with the strengthening sun to warm the granite of the road.

Cerryl glanced across the empty ridge line, wondering how soon it would be filled with mounted armsmen. He could feel the sweat collecting under his tunic as the day continued to warm.

Jeslek stopped and gestured. “Klybel says that the Gallosians will ride across the ridge. We will cast firebolts from the higher end here. Fydel-you and the students will be farther eastward, by that clump of brush there, just in case they try to use the road. If they do, use your first firebolts to bring down the lead mounts. That will slow everyone down, and even a student mage should be able to cast chaos-fire at an armsman who cannot get out of the way.” The overmage gestured to Anya, and the two sat down on the road wall, talking in low voices.

“This way. It’s shady there anyway.” Fydel shrugged.

The three looked at one another, then turned and followed the square-bearded and broad-shouldered mage back along the white granite paving stones, back eastward, until they stood in the shade of the bluff.

“Now. .” began Fydel, “Jeslek and Anya will certainly bring chaos-fire upon the mass of the Gallosians. None of you have their strength. So you must watch the battle and cast your firebolts at individual armsmen who may threaten them or you, or who look to be attacking places where our lancers are beleaguered.”

That made sense to Cerryl.

“That’s all you can do.” The older mage nodded. “You wait here. I will be screeing for them to see where the Gallosians may be.” He turned and walked back down the road.

Klybel rode past Fydel, and then past the student mages, eastward to where the lancers waited, some mounted, others preparing weapons or mounts or both.

Cerryl offered his water bottle to Lyasa.

“Thank you.” She drank, then looked southward. “I didn’t expect we’d get caught in a battle.”

“We might not,” suggested Kochar.

Lyasa and Cerryl looked at him.

“I guess we are, aren’t we?”

“Neither the prefect nor the overmage is likely to back down,” said Lyasa.

Cerryl took another drink from the bottle, then glanced farther eastward, where three lancers had tied the students’ mounts and watched them. His chestnut sidestepped and lifted his head, as if to indicate unhappiness with the situation. Cerryl agreed with the gelding’s unvoiced feelings.

The Gallosian armsmen appeared well before midmorning, the lead riders bearing purple pennons, and all riders bore polished oval iron-faced shields that shimmered in the sunlight. Heavy shields, Cerryl suspected from his own brief attempts to bear weapons. Besides the shields, each had an iron-tipped lance in a holder.

Again, an armsman rode forward under the messenger’s blue-trimmed pennant. The pennant fluttered in the hot light wind that swirled across the ridge and the highway, a wind not strong enough to bend the knee-high and browning grass.

Jeslek mounted his off-white horse, and with an escort of a half-score lancers, rode forward onto the ridge and reined up, waiting for the messenger.

The messenger inclined his head. “I bring you the words of the prefect under the flag of truce.”

“We listen under the flag of truce.” Jeslek waited, his white hair glittering almost silver in the bright sunlight.

“You have abused the right of the road and profaned the lands of Gallos. You must return them to the grasslands they once were, and pay the prefect three thousand golds in penance.”

Jeslek’s eyebrows rose. “Your prefect has a rather high opinion of the value of those worthless grasslands. He also has an excessive opinion of himself.”

“Are you refusing to undo the damage you have caused? If so, I am bid to tell you that you will suffer the prefect’s wrath.”

Jeslek offered a bland smile. “We look forward to seeing his wrath. It could be amusing.”

The messenger swallowed. “So be it, mage.” He turned his mount, riding quickly back toward the massed horsemen.

“They’ll charge quickly,” Klybel said. “Stand ready!” His voice rose as the order was echoed down the ranks of the white lancers.

“Stand ready!”

Fydel carried his screeing glass toward the spot where the student mages waited, his eyes darting back toward the Gallosian ranks.

“Arms ready!”

From the south sounded two trumpet notes, then two more.

A wave of dark shafts appeared in the green-blue sky, seemingly from nowhere, dropping into the ranked white lancers. At least three lancers sagged in their saddles.

“Archers! Hidden on the left,” called Fydel, standing on the road wall and yelling the directions back to Jeslek.

His face twisted in annoyance, Jeslek turned and lifted what seemed like a wave of fire that arched over the white lancers and surged over the north side of the ridge line.

Fydel gave a nod and slipped the glass into its leather case, then almost ran back to the students. “Start raising chaos!”

Cerryl watched the Gallosians but could not see where Jeslek’s fire tide had gone, only feeling that it had swept through a group of men.

“Aaeeeiii. .” Screams-brief, muted screams-followed the fire wave. No arrows did.

Jeslek stood bent forward, his hands on his knees, his face somehow both pale and flushed.

A mass of Gallosian horses charged across the ridge line, straight at the outnumbered white lancers, lances leveled.

The front line of Klybel’s lancers spurred their mounts forward, but slowly.

Whsst! Whstt! Whsst! Three quick firebolts from Anya splashed across the front of the Gallosians, and two mounts dived into the damp ground, snarling a half score of riders who followed.

Whhsst! Fydel lifted a larger firebolt that arced into the left center of the purple-clad armsmen, bringing down more mounts and men.

Still, a good score of the Gallosian riders reached the white lancers, and white and purple overtunics mixed together in a swirl, and the off-tune striking of lances on shields, blades on shields, and blades on blades drifted toward the younger mages.

Whst! Whst! Whst! Three more firebolts sailed over the nearer combatants and into the waiting ranked line of Gallosians.

The trumpet sounded again, and all the purple-clad figures surged forward.

Jeslek straightened, as though he had taken a deep breath, and around him rose another cloud of sparkling fire. That cloud sprayed into fragments and foamed above the few fighters remaining near the front of the white lancer line, then flowed into the front ranks of the charging Gallosians.

Cerryl swallowed-hard. The entire the front two ranks of the purple riders went down in a charcoaled and flaming heap, and at least another two ranks ended up either on the burning grass or turning into each other, dropping lances, and otherwise rendering each other ineffective.

Whst! Whst! Two more firebolts from Anya dropped into the confused mass, incinerating even more armsmen.

Whhsst! A single fat fireball from Fydel soared behind Anya’s, then dropped and flattened into a half-dozen points of single flame, each point a dying armsman.

“To the east!” called someone. “On the highway.”

Cerryl glanced down the Great Highway to his left-eastward-to see a short column of purple-clad lancers charging toward them.

“Fydel! You and the students! Stop them.” Jeslek’s voice was loud-and hoarse.

Stepping up and standing on the road wall, Cerryl turned eastward to face the riders-still almost half a kay away, but closing the gap rapidly.

Whhsttt!

A pale-faced Fydel lifted a fireball into the leading rider, turning man and mount into a flaming mass. The rider to the right pulled up, trying to beat out flames crawling across his tunic and snarling those behind him.

Those on the left poured past the charred mass and the burning armsman, the hoofs of their mounts pounding on the white granite paving stones of the road.

Whhssst! Another firebolt from Fydel flared into the granite before the oncoming Gallosians, splitting their force around the chaos-fire.

Whsst! A small firebolt from Lyasa arced into the purple-clad rider next to the road wall on the northern side. His chest a mass of flame, he sagged in the saddle, then toppled over the wall into the puddled water in the drainage way.

Cerryl lifted a firebolt across the two leading lancers, and both went down in a flaming heap. Two more rider plowed into the dead armsmen and then struggling mounts, and the charge stopped-momentarily.

Fydel took advantage of the congestion to loft another fireball into the riders blocked behind the fallen and still-struggling mounts.

“First and third squads-to the left flank on the road!” Klybel’s order rose above the confusion. Hoofs on stone sounded behind Cerryl and Lyasa.

Cerryl glanced eastward beyond the milling Gallosians. Another score of purple-clad riders rode more slowly from the east, and they bore neither lances nor blades but curved staves-bows.

“Archers on the left road flank!” called Cerryl. “More archers!” As he spoke, he arched a firebolt over the mass toward the oncoming archers, but it splashed on the granite short of them.

Kochar tried the same thing, with the same results.

“Too far,” muttered the redhead.

“Get the closer ones!” snapped Fydel. “You can do that.”

Cerryl’s eyes inadvertently flicked to the south, where yet another rank of mounted Gallosians thundered over, through, and around their fallen comrades toward the white lancers, who used blades against the handful of Gallosians from the first two attacks who had survived the fireballs.

An arrow clattered on the stones beneath Cerryl, and he jerked his eyes back to the Great Highway.

A good dozen archers remained mounted, loosing shafts.

Cerryl glanced to his left and right. No one was watching. Gathering chaos as he had in the tunnels, he focused it into a golden lance that flew straight-straight through the lead archer, who flew from his mount in flames.

Whhstt! One of Lyasa’s firebolts took out an archer on the flank.

Fydel lifted another fat fireball that exploded in the midst of the archers, leaving but two mounted. One turned his horse and started to ride away.

Whhsttt!

The thin student mage mustered more chaos and released another light lance, effective at downing the last archer moving forward.

Behind the archers rode another company of the purple-clad armsmen bearing long iron blades that glittered in the midday sun.

Fydel staggered and reached out to grasp the road wall.

Cerryl glanced toward the riders, then tried to spray chaos across the front rank, the way he once had in the sewers.

A flare of light washed across the Gallosians, and the four riders and their mounts slowly tumbled into a blazing line of fire, a line that nearly engulfed the next set of riders.

Whsstt! Lyasa’s firebolt scored more riders, and even a smaller blast from Kochar splashed into those who followed.

The road cleared-almost. Out of the smoke came a single rider. The lancer bore down on Cerryl, the long gray blade swinging straight at the student, even as the armsman tried to shield himself behind the smallish oval shield.

Whhst!

A flare of golden light-like an arrow-speared the lancer, who looked dumbfounded as he pitched back out of the saddle onto the ground.

Cerryl glanced around. The road was empty, except for a handful of white lancers, the mages, and burned heaps that had once been men and mounts.

Lyasa stepped up beside Cerryl and glanced at the circular hole in the beaten leather armor of the Gallosian. She glanced at Cerryl, then cast a small fireball onto the corpse.

“Why-” Cerryl broke off his question.

“Better this way.”

“Thank you.”

Lyasa smiled. “There will come a time. .”

Cerryl nodded. He would pay his debts.

They turned. The ridge was a sea of swirling smoke and dark heaps. To the west, Cerryl could see a handful of riders in purple, moving slowly. On the ridge line remained only the white lancers-perhaps two thirds of them.

Jeslek sat exhausted on the road wall, his face so red that Cerryl could see the color from more than a hundred cubits away. Anya sat beside the overmage, her back to Cerryl and Lyasa.

Kochar stepped up beside the two student mages and looked at the charred corpse of the last lancer. “Oh, you two did stop him.”

“We managed,” Cerryl said. “I needed some help from Lyasa.”

“At least he admits it. .” Fydel’s words drifted with the wind and the smoke from the intermittently burning grass and low brush toward Cerryl. The bearded mage also sat on the road wall, leaning forward, forehead resting in his hands.

Cerryl swallowed, trying not to smell the odor of smoldering brush and burnt flesh, wondering what and how much he would have to keep hidden in order to survive.

“Let’s look at that arm,” demanded Lyasa.

Cerryl glanced at his arms, first one, then the other. His sleeves were smudged with dirt, soot, and grime, but he didn’t think he’d been wounded. He felt stupid as he realized Kochar had been hurt, and he watched as Lyasa lightly bathed the slash in chaos-one of Broka’s techniques, he recalled-and then bound it.

Around them, white lancers began checking corpses for weapons and coins.

Cerryl looked at the last lancer he had killed.

“Go ahead,” said Lyasa. “His purse is yours.”

Cerryl forced himself to cut the thongs and take the purse, only lightly burned. It held two silvers and three coppers. Was that the worth of a man’s life?

He put the coins in his own wallet, trying not to shake his head. He glanced upward. Was it midafternoon already?

Behind them, Fydel slowly stood and walked westward, toward Jeslek and Anya.

“I don’t understand.” Kochar checked the dressing on his arm. “About Jeslek. He can raise mountains, but those Gallosians, they almost got us.”

“It’s simple.” Lyasa sighed. “Chaos-fire is pure chaos-it’s concentrated chaos. It takes more effort. When Jeslek raises the hills, he’s moving and directing a lot of chaos in the ground that’s already there. When you cast a firebolt, you have to separate the chaos from the world and force it somewhere. That’s harder.” She looked at Kochar. “How do you feel right now?”

“Like horse droppings,” admitted the redhead.

“Look at all three of them.” She gestured toward the section of road wall where the three mages sat, talking in low voices. “I couldn’t raise a chaos-fire ball the size of my fingernail. I’ll bet they couldn’t either.”

Cerryl kept his mouth shut, just nodding. “Maybe we should join them.”

The other two walked alongside him as the three made their way toward the full mages.