Arms-Commander (Saga of Recluce)

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Saryn swallowed as she saw the figure of a small child in the grass. Beyond the dead child was another body, that of a pregnant woman, also half-naked. Saryn could sense that both the mother and the child within her womb were dead.

  Abruptly, she stood in the stirrups and gestured to the waiting squad. “Join up!”

  As she waited for the squad to reach her, she looked back at the bodies. She frowned, realizing that all the dead, except the white-haired woman, were redheads. How likely was that?

  “Brigands, it looks like to me,” offered Murkassa, when she finally reined up beside Saryn. “Bloody bastards.”

  Saryn studied the bodies for a time, looking back toward those of the men as well. There was something about them. Then she shook her head. “Armsmen. The weapons used on them… they’re too good for common ruffians.”

  “Why would they attack travelers? With the men, they weren’t headed for Westwind.”

  Saryn stiffened. There was something, and now that she was closer, she could tell that what she sensed just inside the edge of the woods was no animal. “Someone’s still alive.” She turned in the saddle, then nodded. “Detail a few of the guards to make a cairn over by the trees. I’m going to see…”

  “Do you need an escort?”

  “No… I’m pretty sure it’s a child.” Even so, Saryn rode slowly around the cart and the bodies toward the darkness of the tall evergreens, letting her senses take in what lay before her, one of the short swords in her hand, ready to throw or use as necessary. The closer she got to the yard-wide trunks of the tall pines, the more certain she was that a girl hid there.

  Saryn rode forward, slowly, then halted her mount at the edge of the trees. “We won’t hurt you. We’re all women. We’re from Westwind. You’ll be safe now.” She eased the short sword back into its scabbard.

  The figure huddled under a scrub evergreen did not move.

  After a time, the commander eased her mount forward and into the tall evergreens, stopping well short of the girl. Saryn wanted to tell the girl that she’d be safe, that everything would be all right. She didn’t. Instead, she waited, letting her senses take in the trees and the life deeper in the shadows. After a time, she spoke again. “Those who attacked you are gone.”

  A small face continued to peer through the evergreen bush, as if afraid to move.

  “You’ll be all right, now.” Saryn continued to wait, not wanting to press the girl, but afraid that if she dismounted or made any other moves toward the child, the girl would run deeper into the trees, where it would be even harder to find her. Besides, someone chasing her was the last thing the girl needed.

  As she sat in the saddle, waiting, Saryn glanced back, but Murkassa had matters well in hand, and half the guards were already gathering stones for a cairn. That was better. The girl didn’t need to see what had happened to the others.

  “You… you don’t have the silver hair. Are you an angel?” The girl spoke slowly into the silence. “Ma said we’d be safe if we got to the angels.” She stood up, almost as if she were offering herself as some form of sacrifice.

  Saryn swallowed. She wanted to vault from the saddle and take the child in her arms. Instead, she blinked back the burning in her eyes and smiled as warmly as she could. “We are the angels of Westwind, and you will be safe with us. Can you walk over here so that you can ride with me?”

  “My feet hurt… the rocks…” As she spoke, the girl slowly stepped around the bush and moved toward Saryn. Her hair was red, like that of all those slain, and she already had traces of freckles on her face, especially on her cheeks. She wore calf-length gray trousers and a faded gray tunic over some sort of undertunic. Streaks of blood ran across her feet and ankles. When she reached the shoulder of Saryn’s mount, she lifted her arms. Her brown eyes held both trust and fear—or those were the feelings Saryn sensed.

  Saryn leaned down and lifted her, amazed at how thin and light the child was. She must be close to starving. Then she set the girl before her and turned the mount. “We’re going to join the others.” After a moment, she asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Adiara, Angel.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Neltos.”

  Saryn had never heard of it, but then, there were all too many places in the world whose names remained unfamiliar. She wondered if she’d ever learn them all. “Where is Neltos?”

  “The market town is Meltosia. We didn’t go through Kyphrien. We went around it at night. Ma didn’t say why. She made me promise to be quiet.”

  “Where were you going?”

  “Ma and Da said we were going to Suthya.”

  “Did they tell you why?” Saryn reined up on the road. She was careful to keep her mount pointed away from the overturned cart although the guards had already moved the bodies to the edge of the clearing, where they were piling stones over them.

  Murkassa eased her mount closer to the commander’s.

  “Lord Karthanos… he was doing bad things to folks like us. That was what Da said.”

  “Folks like you?”

  “You know, Angel. Redheads. We turn red in the sun, too.” Adiara stopped speaking, and she looked at the squad leader. “You don’t have silver hair. Are you an angel?”

  “I am from Westwind… now,” Murkassa replied. “The commander is truly one of the angels. She came from the stars. So did the Marshal, and she has black hair.”

  “Not all of the guards of Westwind have silver hair,” Saryn said gently. “Some do, and some of their daughters do, also.”

  “You have children?”

  “We are women,” Saryn said, somewhat dryly. “Some of us have children.”

  “Will you take me with you?”

  “Yes.” From what the girl had said, Saryn doubted she had any relatives who would want her, and Saryn had no intention of riding down through the eastern Westhorns and through Gallos on the off chance of finding any who might want Adiara. “You must understand that West-wind is cold much of the year.”

  “You won’t let anyone hurt me, will you?”

  “No.” Saryn paused, then asked, “Will you tell me when all this… happened?”

  “This morning, Angel. We stopped for the night down at the other end of the vale. There’s a pool in the stream. There was a hole in the rocks where we could shelter. We had only set out…” Tears seeped from the girl’s eyes. “Ma told me to run… and not look back.” She shuddered, and her hands clutched the base of the horse’s mane.

  “How many of them were there?” Saryn asked quickly. There was little point in allowing Adiara to dwell on the actual events.

  The girl looked around, taking in the twenty guards, mostly around the cairn, except for the outriders posted as guards. “As many as you… I think.”

  “No one ran after you?”

  “A man rode after me, but he didn’t go into the trees.”

  Saryn nodded. “Did he try to follow you farther? Did he say anything?”

  “He said I was too young to bother with. Someone else said I’d die in the woods.”

  “Miserable brigands,” murmured the single guard beside Murkassa.

  Adiara raised her head. “They were not bandits…” She shivered. “They wore armor under their rags. Uncle Rastyn said so. Then, they took out their swords…” Her words stopped.

  “That’s enough,” Saryn said gently, wrapping one arm around the girl, who had started to shiver again. “You’ve told us enough.”

  For a time, the only sound in the clearing was that of rocks dropping on rocks as the guards finished the cairn.

  “What do you plan?” Murkassa finally asked.

  “To go hunting,” replied Saryn. “They’ll expect it. So we’ll have to be careful. Very careful.” Careful enough that we can remove all of them. “The girl will have to come with us.”

  “It might be good for her.”

  Would it? Saryn had her doubts.

  “Will you catch them, Angel?”

  “
We’ll see what we can do.” Saryn wasn’t Ryba. She couldn’t see whether she and the squad would be able to deal with the false bandits, but they did need to know more, and only by tracking the armsmen could they learn what was behind the attack on the travelers.

  X

  The false bandits had left tracks easy enough to follow as they had headed eastward, in the general direction of Gallos and the next valley, where the roads split into those to Lornth, Gallos, and northern Lornth or Suthya. The hoofprints had all been similar, with an imprint of “G” within a square, indicating that the mounts had been shod by the same smith or farrier, most likely in the ser vice of the Prefect of Gallos.

  Even though the brigand armsmen had close to half a day’s head start, as second squad continued through the afternoon at a moderate walk, Saryn could sense that the Westwind contingent was gaining ground. In late afternoon, when the white sun had dropped below the tops of the western peaks, and the road was covered in shadow, the squad neared another stream.

  “Ser!” called Chyanci, one of the outriders, who had reined up at the edge of the water on the south side of the road. “Over here!”

  With Adiara still seated before her, Saryn eased the big chestnut gelding toward the outrider and the stream.

  Not only were there hoofprints trampled into the mud, but Chyanci leaned down and pulled a grayish cloth or rag with blood on it out of one of the scrub oaks growing on the uphill bank of the stream. “Looks like one of them was wounded, maybe pretty badly. Some of the blood hasn’t hardened.”

  “They can’t be all that far ahead,” offered Murkassa. “How close do you think we are?”

  “I’m no tracker,” Saryn admitted, “but the imprints in the mud are still crisp. That discarded wound dressing hasn’t hardened. I can’t sense anyone that close to us. They’re more than a kay away, but I’d guess less than ten kays. They’re probably going to stop near where the three roads branch in different directions.”

  “What do you have in mind, ser?”

  “We’ve pushed the mounts some,” replied Saryn. “I’d rather not press that hard. They’re not going back to Gallos, and we’ll take them on our terms.”

  Murkassa nodded.

  “I’ll go ahead with the outriders to make sure that they’re still headed east. I don’t want us surprised, either.” Saryn eased the gelding closer to Murkassa, then said to Adiara, “You’ll have to stay with the other guards.”

  “I can do that, Angel.”

  “Good.” Saryn lifted the girl and passed her across to the squad leader. She was still surprised at how light the girl was for her age, which had to be around eight or nine. “Find a good bivouac site somewhere along the stream here.”

  “We’ll take care of it, ser.”

  Saryn turned the gelding. “Chyanci, Abylea!”

  “Yes, ser.” The two outriders rode to join Saryn.

  “We’re going to scout out the road to the east.” The commander turned her mount and headed through the dip in the road where a spring rivulet ran to join the larger stream. Then she urged the mount into a fast walk along the flatter section of road on the other side. The two outriders followed her.

  For the next kay, Saryn sensed only small creatures, except for a mother bear hidden away with cubs and a red deer doe. After that, as the road began to rise once more, and the snowdrifts under the tall pines got deeper, she sensed less large life. The hoofprints continued up the gradual incline, but she could see that the slow pace of the riders was slackening even more.

  Still, after almost three kays, she felt that she and the other two were only slightly closer to the Gallosians. The light was fading, and she knew the road would climb for another kay before leveling out, then descending into the valley to the northeast. While she had nightsight, the others didn’t. But she felt better knowing that the Gallosians weren’t that close… and that their mounts were tired. She’d also have wagered that the guard mounts were in better shape. She had no doubts that her guards were.

  “Hold up. We’ll head back now.”

  “Do you think they’ll make the valley to night?” asked Abylea.

  “If they do, they’ll have tired mounts. They probably plan to stay there and rest for a day. That’s unless they come across more helpless travelers.” Saryn turned the gelding.

  “Will we attack tomorrow?”

  “That depends on what the day brings. We’ll attack when we can be certain of the outcome.” Saryn’s voice hardened with the last words. She didn’t want a single Gallosian returning to Fenard and Arthanos.

  In the twilight, the two outriders exchanged glances.

  “Let’s go.” Saryn urged the gelding forward, back down the road toward second squad. At least the grade was gradual enough that it wouldn’t be that hard on the horses.

  Even so, by the time Saryn returned to the bivouac area, twilight had given way to night across the Westhorns, and a small cookfire was burning. Saryn noted that Murkassa had found dry deadwood so that there was little smoke. Now wrapped in a blanket, Adiara hunched close to the fire.

  Saryn rode over to the first tie-line where the mounts were tethered and two guards stood watch. She dismounted, unsaddled, and rubbed down the gelding before walking slowly toward the small fire.

  “Any signs of them, ser?” asked Murkassa, standing as the commander approached.

  “Not within about four kays.”

  “There’s no easy approach to us. I’ve posted sentries where we’ll get plenty of warning.”

  “We may need warning, but not from them.” Saryn took a long swallow from her water bottle. “They’re trying to make the crossing valley. They’ll wait there for a day or two. I don’t think they even know we’re following them.”

  “No. Women don’t track down armsmen. You’d think they’d know better after ten years,” said Murkassa.

  “Why would they? We’ve protected travelers and routed anyone who came at us, but we haven’t actually tracked and attacked anyone.”

  “Wouldn’t they think we might when they started to send squads to terrify travelers?”

  “No,” Saryn replied. “Women in Gallos wouldn’t even consider that. They have the idea that we’re like the females of most species—females will protect their own and their cubs, but they won’t go that far from their territory to chase a marauder.” She smiled. “We’re about to change their ideas.”

  At that moment, Adiara turned and looked up from the fire, her eyes wide.

  Saryn could sense the mixture of feelings within the girl—sadness, anger at the death of her mother, exhaustion, but most of all, something like awe, as if she had seen a glimpse of something she had never seen before.

  XI

  Fiveday dawned bright, with frost across everything, and a rime of ice on the still waters at the edge of the stream. The thin layer of slushy snow in the shade had a crunchy crust of ice on it that would soften by midmorning. All that was usual for spring on the Roof of the World, and morning duties were quickly completed, so that Saryn and second squad were riding eastward long before the sun cleared the taller peaks.

  As they started up the gradual incline in the road that Saryn had scouted the night before, she turned in the saddle toward Murkassa, riding to her right. “You’ve got five bows. How many are good with them?”

  “All, ser. I’ve trained everyone, but the five who carry them are as good as anyone in the guards. All of them can put the shafts through plate, sometimes at a full gallop. Zanlya can hit a moving target the size of a pearapple at fifty yards, sometimes close to a hundred.”

  Westwind shafts, thought Saryn, with arrowheads forged by Nylan before he left. Those arrowheads were the ones that the guards spent glasses searching for after they’d used them against brigands… or poachers. That was something on which both Ryba and Saryn agreed. The replacement arrowheads forged by Daryn, Huldran, and Ydrall were good… but not so good as those done by Nylan. Everyone knew it, and no one ever said so.

  Sometimes,
the guards sang the song Ayrlyn had written about Nylan, but never when Ryba was around. Saryn smiled briefly as she recalled the engineer’s embarrassment at the opening lines: Oh, Nylan was a smith, and a mighty mage was he … She also wondered if the former comm officer had composed the song just to assure Nylan’s legacy.

  “How long will we be riding, Angel?” asked Adiara.

  “All day,” replied Saryn. “You’ll have to ride with some of the others soon.”

  The girl nodded solemnly.

  A glass or so later, Saryn turned the girl over to Raena, one of the junior guards, and joined the outriders. That way, she could sense any dangers as soon as possible.

  For a time, Saryn and the two outriders rode silently along the high stretch of road between the evergreens and shaded snowdrifts. The air was chill enough that the only scent was the faintest hint of pine and spruce.

  “Do you think they’ll have attacked more travelers?” Abylea finally asked.

  “I hope not. It’s early in the year for travelers, except for traders, and I don’t think they’d want to attack traders.” Saryn shrugged. “They might not be that smart, though. If the traders start avoiding Fenard especially, that won’t make the Prefect happy.”

  “But he’s the one who had to have ordered the armsmen—”

  “We don’t know that, not yet. Besides, rulers don’t always understand what happens as a result of what they order. They just think they do.” Saryn couldn’t help but think about the UFA marshals who had ordered the Winterlance into a battle that ended up throwing the ship into another universe. There were always unintended consequences… even for those like Ryba, who could glimpse a corner of the future. Unlike the se nior UFA officers, or the traders of Suthya, Ryba understood that.

  By midmorning, Saryn and the outriders were leading second squad down the long and winding slope into the crossroads valley.

  “There’s a thin plume of smoke,” reported Chyanci. “Over there, back by the knoll on the southwest side. That’s the high ground.”