Scion of Cyador

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Yes, ser.” With a nod, the round-faced squad leader rides toward his squad and the lancers in it used as scouts.

  “Forward, two-abreast, by columns!” Lorn orders.

  Orange light is seeping over the low hills as the column begins to move eastward on the narrow and rutted dirt road that roughly parallels the river.

  The sun stands just above the low trees and hills on the horizon when Lorn’s force of Mirror Lancers and Guards halts on the south bank of the river, almost two kays east of Nhais. Lorn glances back, to the west, where the town is partly obscured by a slight haze, perhaps from a combination of moisture from the river and dust. To the east, low hills undulate beside the river, getting steeper more to the south. There are neither signs of the barbarians nor recent hoofprints in the dust of the road, except those placed there by Swytyl’s scouts.

  “Water by squads!” Tashqyt orders. “Keep the mounts out of the water.”

  After watering the chestnut, Lorn blots his face with a dampened cloth, then remounts and rides to the top of the low bluff that forms the southern bank of the river. So far as he can tell, as his maps had indicated, the river narrows and deepens as the hills steepen a kay or so east of where the force rests.

  Shortly, he is joined by Tashqyt, Swytyl, Whylyn, and Drayl-the Mirror Lancer squad leaders, and by Wharalt-the grizzle-bearded senior squad leader of the District Guards.

  Wharalt looks straight at Lorn. “Ser… you been most careful in not pushing us. But you got scouts out, and we be heading toward where the raiders were going. We going to meet them soon?”

  “Today or tomorrow,” Lorn says. “Today, I would judge, but the scouts will tell us. I am hoping to circle south slightly, and then head northeast about five kays east of here.”

  “Ah… ser, why not wait for them? If I might ask?”

  “Because there is a bend in the river that has high bluffs, and we are going to trap them there, if at all possible.”

  Wharalt raises his eyebrows.

  “Wharalt… we are the only force of lancers east of Biehl. If we allow any to escape, there will be more raids of the type we have seen. I cannot keep a large force here and leave the port unprotected, and I don’t think you and the District Guards wish to spend the next several seasons chasing barbarians until the Majer-Commander can move more lancers here. So…” Lorn shrugs. “…we will attempt to remove them all at once. If that does not work, then we will be spending at least several more eightdays tracking and chasing those who escape.” The overcaptain offers a wintry smile. “I would prefer none escape.”

  “When you put it that way… ser… there’s more light on what we been doing.” Wharalt nods slowly and evenly. “Mind if I pass that along?”

  “No. They should know.” Lorn pauses, then adds, “I’d also prefer that the raiders not know we’re here or what we have in mind. The other thing you’d best tell your men, all of you, is that barbarians don’t back down, and that they hate us all. What you saw in that hamlet and those steads is what all lancers find everywhere after a barbarian raid.”

  “What my brother said,” adds Swytyl. “Came back without his arm. Said he was lucky. Said what they did to the women-”

  “That’s right.” Lorn overrides the squad leader quietly. “You all saw that, and we don’t want it to happen in Nhais. We need to move on now.”

  “Yes, ser.” The assents are almost in unison.

  The day continues to warm as they ride eastward along the river. By early midmorning, in the distance to the east, Lorn sees dark birds circling, but cannot make out whether they are vulcrows or smaller scavengers. Outside of the tracks of their own scouts, the road dust shows no signs of riders.

  As they ride, once more the feel of a chaos-glass sweeps across Lorn and is gone. The overcaptain purses his lips and keeps riding, silently.

  They have ridden another five kays when the first of Swytyl’s lancer scouts returns.

  Lorn has the column stand down, and sends a handful of men down the steeper slope to the river to fill water bottles while he hears the scout report.

  “You were right, ser. They’re a-comin‘ down this road, slow-like, maybe another five kays, on the far side of the road.”

  “On the other side of this hill here-that’s where the road and the river bend north, is it not?” asks Lorn. “And then here’s another hill farther along?”

  The scout looks at Swytyl, then at the overcaptain. “Yes, ser. Runs that way near-on two kays, maybe like three, ‘cause there be another hill there.”

  “How far are they from that far hill, the one the road goes over?”

  “Another six kays, mayhap.”

  Lorn nods and turns in his saddle. “Swytyl! Get me the squad leaders.” While they gather, Lorn dismounts and checks his maps, and then hands the chestnut’s reins to one of the younger new lancers. He glances up toward Tashqyt. “We’ll need a few lancers to hold mounts. I want you all to look at a map.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Once the four Mirror Lancer squad leaders and Wharalt are gathered, Lorn spreads the map on the dusty grass beside the road and outlines the geography. “Here we are… and that is about where the barbarians are. They probably are going to stay near the road here, and swing along the river like so… I can’t see them climbing the hills there, as they’re getting steeper, when there’s a flatter and easier way to Nhais by the river road…” He pauses, and glances at the grizzled Wharalt. “Can your men hold a line until the barbarians are within a hundred cubits before you mount a charge against them?”

  “Aye, we can do that.”

  Lorn nods and begins to outlines what he has in mind. “Wharalt… the barbarians have scouts, but they only ride about a kay or so ahead of the main body. They’ll probably ride past the bend until where the road looks clear to Nhais. You wait behind that slope there, either until they turn back or until they’re a good kay farther west…”

  “Then we come up and block the space between the steep hill and the river, so they either charge us or turn into that space in the bend?”

  Lorn nods. “If the scouts pass you, you’ll have to have a man or two detailed to watch for them.”

  “We can do that.”

  The overcaptain gestures toward the river. “The road curves to follow the river, and because there’s a hill to the south. We’ll circle the back side of the hill, so there aren’t any tracks on the road, and wait. Once they’re past, we’ll use the firelances to push them west, and they can either ride into the guards or draw up defensively on the flat ground of the bluff with their backs to the river-”

  “If they don’t push, ser… ?” asks Wharalt.

  Lorn laughs. “Then we reverse the plan, and we hold the line and you charge.”

  “That be splitting our forces.”

  “We won’t be that far apart,” Lorn points out.

  “They’ll fight like black angels, you don’t give them anywhere to go,” suggests Drayl.

  “They do anyway.” Lorn points to the east where the vulcrows still circle. “That’s another hamlet filled with bodies, I wager. We don’t want them going anywhere.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Lorn rolls up the map. “Get the water bottles filled, and the squads ready.” He walks toward the chestnut, slips the map into the case behind his saddle.

  “…never seen maps like that…”

  “…around the overcaptain much, and there be much you never saw…”

  Not too much, Lorn hopes, as he mounts.

  He leads the two companies around the back side of the hill, far slower going as they dodge brush and patches of thorny green cacti that Lorn has not seen before.

  Still… it is well before midday when they reach the back side of the slope that overlooks where the road turns north into the bend in the river. There, just below the crest of the hill, Lorn and Tashqyt wait, listening for hoofs, voices… anything. Below and behind them are the two companies of Mirror Lancers from Biehl.

  Th
e sun is more like that of late midsummer than of late summer or early fall, and sweat continues to collect under the brow of Lorn’s garrison cap. The perspiration oozes toward his eyes, and he continues to blot it away with the back of his sleeve. Beside him, Tashqyt shifts his weight in the saddle.

  The chestnut whuffs, and Lorn leans forward and pats her shoulder. “Easy… easy, there. Waiting is hard on all of us.”

  Lorn almost senses someone, something, and eases the chestnut uphill, just enough that he can peer eastward if he stands in his stirrups.

  A pair of barbarians ride along the road, moving at a quick walk. Lorn ducks and eases the chestnut back farther downhill, out of sight.

  As he and Tashqyt wait-as do the Mirror Lancers behind them-the sound of low voices carries over the crest of the hill, but not the meaning of whatever the two warriors are discussing. Tashqyt looks at Lorn. Lorn shakes his head, and gestures toward the east. “Not long,” he murmurs, hoping he is correct.

  The sun rises higher, and more sweat oozes down the back of Lorn’s sunburned neck. He wishes there were trees or cliffs or some form of shelter, but the only types of vegetation that are more than shoulder-high are a very few straggly trees and the willows that intermittently flank the river.

  A low murmuring drifts toward them, and Lorn straightens in the saddle. So does Tashqyt. Both wait until it is far louder, seemingly right below them.

  Lorn continues to wait, then edges the chestnut forward up the slope.

  The rough column of barbarians-riding three- and four-abreast-is more than halfway past Lorn. He ducks and eases his mount back downslope. From his single quick survey, he believes there are closer to fifteenscore riders.

  Finally, he raises his arm-and drops it. Tashqyt does the same.

  Behind them the squads, riding four-abreast in each squad, move up and over the crest of the hill, coming downhill at a quick trot before increasing their speed on the road and the flat that flanks it.

  Three barbarian warriors trailing the main party look back and uphill at the charging lancers. All three wheel.

  Lorn levels his firelance.

  Hssst! Hsst! One of the men drops; the one on the far right twists in the saddle.

  Hssst! Hsst!

  “Short bursts! Short bursts!” Lorn orders.

  “Short bursts!” echo Tashqyt, Swytyl, Whylyn, and Drayl.

  Ahead, shouts come from the barbarian warriors.

  As he rides toward the end of the barbarian column, Lorn watches as the barbarian force seems to separate-the leading riders spur their mounts and swing northward off the road, while perhaps twoscore of the trailing riders wheel to attempt to stop the Mirror Lancers.

  With the Bristan sabre in his left hand, and firelance in his right, Lorn finds he is still leading the charge. He also senses the presence of a chaos-glass, then pushes that thought and feeling away.

  Hssst! Hssst! The short bursts of lances flare through the already-hot midday air, and more than half the defenders are dead even before the first two squads of lancers plow through them-though not without casualties.

  Lorn parries a big blade with the sabre, ducks, and backhands the raider who has tried to bring the large blade to bear on the overcaptain.

  Still, the defenders have created enough of a delay-as has another group farther westward along the road-that the barbarians have reformed in a bowed semicircle in the bend area to the south of the road.

  Lorn also doesn’t like the ragged breaking-up of his own forces, and he barks out the orders. “Halt! Halt and re-form! Five-abreast! Five-abreast!”

  His orders are echoed, and within moments… across a space of two hundred cubits, two forces face each other.

  The sound of hoofs tells of the arrival of the brown-clad District Guards, their cupridium lances gleaming in the noonday sun.

  Lorn-still in the front center of his re-forming Mirror Lancers-snaps, “Half the Guard on each flank! Half the Guard on each flank!”

  Surprisingly, to Lorn, the barbarians do not charge, even as the red-trimmed brown tunics of the guards move into position on each side of the two Mirror Lancer companies. That they do not charge bothers Lorn, but he waits, ready to order a charge at any moment, but wanting to make sure that the guards cover the flanks.

  In the hot stillness, four barbarians ride forward, reining up a good hundred cubits from Lorn. The lead rider-a bearded blond giant-holds a figure before him in the saddle-that of a small girl. He holds a dull dark blade at the girl’s throat.

  “See, white demons! We have your women, more than a score. You let us return, white demon, and we will not harm these…”

  Lorn stiffens inside. He glances to his left, then his right. The guards to his right are not quite in position, but all his other forces look to be. “You have invaded our land, and I should let you leave untouched, after all those you have killed?” He calls back to the blond warrior, easing the chestnut forward as he does, so that he is a good twenty cubits forward of his forces, where he can be seen. He has not spied any archers, and he hopes there are none. He keeps his lance low, although he has raised it some.

  “These lands you took from our forefathers. They are not your lands. They were never yours, and soon they will again be the lands of the Jeranyi.” The Jeranyi leader jerks his head sideways. To his left is another rider holding a child, and Lorn can see women bound to mounts farther back in the barbarian forces. “We have your women, you see.”

  Lorn eases the chestnut farther forward.

  “Do not raise your devil lance, or she will die. So will the others!”

  Lorn forces himself and his lance swings up. Hssst!

  The chaos-bolt drives through the bearded blond’s chest. Almost as quickly, the big blade of the warrior beside the leader and the captive slashes through the girl’s neck.

  Hssst! The barbarian who has slain the woman slumps across his mount’s mane.

  “Charge! Discharge firelances at will!” Lorn orders. “Charge!” Lorn urges the chestnut forward, hoping the charge will force at least some of the barbarians to choose between righting lancers and killing captives.

  “Kill them!” shouts a barbarian, and the tall warriors charge to meet the Mirror Lancers.

  Hssst! Hssst! Firelance bolts flash across the less-than-hundred cubits separating the two forces.

  A high-pitched scream disabuses Lorn of the delusion that a few hostages might survive even before the firebolts from his lance rake across two barbarians. Then he is alternating slashes and parries with the sabre and triggering short blasts of chaos-fire on those few occasions when he can find enough space to take on a barbarian without striking a lancer or guard.

  Dust swirls up, and horses scream. Men yell.

  Lorn finds he is behind the barbarians, somehow alone for a moment. He lifts the lance.

  Hssst! Hsst! Two bolts in succession drill through the back and neck of two barbarians.

  Lorn turns to his right and looses another bolt, to bring down yet a third barbarian from behind. He gets in three more bolts before a giant of a figure with a blade nearly so long as Lorn’s firelance comes charging past a dying lancer and toward the overcaptain.

  Lorn barely manages to slide the other’s blade off his sabre. The firelance crumples as he uses it to parry the barbarian’s backswing, but the big blade remains caught in the thin cupridium of the lance long enough for Lorn to jab the point of the sabre through the other’s neck, and wrench it back out. At times, the point he had added to the Brystan sabre has made the difference. He drops the lance and manages to yank clear the second sabre, smiling mirthlessly. Then he urges the chestnut toward a lancer beset by three barbarians.

  Lorn takes the first from behind, and the second from the side with the official lancer sabre, and then he is past and fighting off another huge figure.

  The dull sound of metal on metal becomes more common, and the hssting of firelances dies away.

  Abruptly-or so it seems-there are but lancers and guards looking
blankly at each other, eyes darting this way and that, seeking another barbarian.

  Lorn reins up, and looks across the grassy grass, grass now splashed with splotches of blood and other substances, and littered with bodies, some of horses, but mostly of men-and a handful of children and women. He tightens his lips and sheathes his lancer sabre, switching the Brystan one to his right hand. He is aware that whichever magus has been using a chaos-glass to view the battle is no longer doing so. “I hope you saw enough blood…” he murmurs under his breath.

  After scanning the field, he reins up by a fallen barbarian, his eye caught by the shimmer of the blade beside the body, and dismounts. He takes the blade and studies it slowly.

  “Ser! Ser!” Tashqyt guides his mount up beside the overcaptain’s.

  Lorn glances up at Tashqyt.

  “It’s over,” the squad leader reports. “We even checked the edge of the bluff, but no one escaped that way.”

  “I know.” Lorn lifts the big blade, Hamorian-forged and -ground, from the workmanship. “I want all the blades collected and saved. Put them on the spare and captured mounts. The Majer-Commander will need proof.”

  “Proof?”

  “That Hamorian traders are sending blades to Jera, and that those blades are being used to kill lancers.” Lorn mounts slowly. His legs are tired, and his eyes stab. Then he glances down at the body of a woman, sprawled on the grass. He does not see how she died, but she is barely younger than Ryalth or Myryan. Or the grower’s daughter he had killed.

  After a long moment, he looks up and meets Tashqyt’s eyes. “This time… it’s over.” He clears his throat. “What about our men?”

  “Ah… we took some losses, ser.”

  Lorn waits.

  “A good score - and - a - half from the lancers, almost a score from the guards. And Whylyn, and two of the Guard squad leaders.”

  “Threescore…” Lorn’s smile is tight. “Too many, but not bad for a first battle for most of them, and not at all bad against fifteenscore.”