The Chaos Balance

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Are you interested?”

  “I’ll have to see. You only asked when I forced you to.” The healer tossed her head, and the flame-red hair glinted with a light of its own in the gloom.

  “I’ll try to do better in the future.” Nylan lifted Weryl overhead. “Your powerpaks are still fully charged, aren’t they?”

  “Oooo…” Suspended over Nylan, Weryl immediately drooled, and the liquid dropped on the smith’s chin. Nylan set his son on the blanket and wiped his face. “Serves you right,” Ayrlyn said.

  “Thanks. I’ll remember that when we’re… whatever.” The smith absently reclaimed Weryl once more. “Doing what we can where we can. You know, in some ways, it was idiotic to just leave. No destination, no plans.”

  “It would have been better to wait until Ryba found a way to dispose of me or turn you into an armless stud, the way she threatened Gerlich? Sometimes, O rational smith, you have to go with your feelings. By the time you can rationally figure it out, it’s too late.”

  “Maybe… I don’t know as I’m a very good smith, though.”

  “The locals thought you were, and that’s one test.”

  “Maybe,” Nylan repeated.

  “Don’t you think you could be a smith somewhere?” Ayrlyn asked.

  “I don’t know. I’d guess it would have to be a small town somewhere they don’t have one. The locals have to be better than I am.”

  “I wonder about that. You can feel the metals, and most people here don’t seem to have that ability. Both Nerliat and Relyn were clear on that. Lord Sillek managed to survive because he had three white wizards-three in an entire kingdom. That tells me that the talent for wizardry-or the ability to use it-isn’t common.”

  Nylan scooped up Weryl and just held him for a moment, hoping the involuntary stasis would break the try-to-escape pattern the boy had adopted.

  “Waaaa-daa-daaaa!”

  “All right.” Nylan set Weryl back on the blanket, and the silverhead dropped on his knees and crawled toward Ayrlyn.

  “It’s my turn?” Ayrlyn scooped Weryl up and set him back on the blanket.

  Weryl laughed.

  “I think it’s luck and chance. We’ve all ridden the angel powernets, and sensing the order flows, the chaos flows, whatever it is that passes for magic here, is a lot easier if you have.” Nylan intercepted Weryl’s attempt to crawl over his boots. “Look at Westwind. Only three of the original marines had any talent, but all of the officers who had to ride the fluxes showed up with it.”

  Ayrlyn shrugged. “Could be. My point stands. There can’t be that many smiths who have your talents.”

  “That may be, but I don’t have any tools either.”

  “You’re too guilt-ridden to take any.”

  They both laughed, before Ayrlyn had to grab Weryl again.

  XXIII

  THE VAN OF the Mirror Lancers rode four abreast, heading east on the great North Highway, and yet there was room for a steamwagon beside them. The white stones of the roadbed, which shimmered at a distance, would have displayed slight pits and hairline cracks if examined too closely.

  Behind the van came the full Second of the lancers, then the Fourth, and then the Sixth. Even four abreast, the column of horse stretched almost a full kay.

  Then came the steamwagons, only half a score, for all their individual bulk and power, their iron-tired wheels rumbling, engines puffing, brass rods and pistons moving and glittering under the white-gold sun. Each wagon pulled two long trailers laden with supplies and covered with white tarpaulins.

  Behind the wagons rode the Eighth Mirror Lancers, and then the Tenth, and behind them streamed the Shield Foot, followed, a half kay farther back, by the Shining Foot. All in all, the assemblage of horses, wagons, and foot extended more than three kays along the North Highway.

  In the first third of the column, immediately before the steam wagons, rode Majer Piataphi, with two captains flanking him. All wore the white and green of the lancers, and their saddles were of hard-finished white leather.

  “The Shining Foot cannot walk as fast as the lancers or the wagons,” observed the balding captain to Piataphi’s right. “We are slowed to their pace.”

  “I doubt the barbarians will note, Captain,” responded the majer. “They are convinced it will be seasons before we act.”

  “It will take more than an eight-day to reach Syadtar, even with the steamwagons, and another eight-day through the Grass Hills to the mines,” pointed out the other captain.

  “From the screeing mirrors, we can tell that the barbarians have few armsmen left from their petty wars, and fewer coins. There are no horse moving, no foot being gathered, not even their ragtag levies. We will be at the mines before they can gather forces.” Piataphi coughed as the wind swirled ashes and cinders from the steamwagons around him. “Taking the mines will be harder than holding them. These barbarians will sneak through the trees and the hills, and loose their jagged-edged arrows and be gone before you know they are there. Screeing glasses are not much good for small bodies of fighters.”

  “Is not that why the Lord Protector of Cyador told us to clear the area around the mines?” asked the balding captain. “Yes, Miatorphi.” Piataphi lowered his voice. “We still have to maintain that area. It is one thing to destroy or drive out everyone; it is another to hold it-as his great-grandsire found out. That is why we must strike quickly and annihilate everyone.” He coughed again as the following wind swirled down more smoke. “Let us ride up with the van until the wind changes.”

  He guided his mount to the clear left side of the white stone high-way, then urged it to carry him ahead of the exhaust gases from the mighty wagons.

  XXIV

  THE MARE WAS breathing heavily as she carried Nylan out of the narrow space in the rocky defile where the road finally leveled, and started back down once more.

  Nylan glanced ahead, where the orange white sun had just dropped below the Westhorns, and where the shadows cast by the peaks to the west had cloaked the road and the wooded valley ahead in gloom. The smith shifted his weight in the saddle and, as his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, rubbed his forehead in relief from the-glare he had been facing for what had seemed so long.

  “It’s hard riding into the sunset,” he said, half over his shoulder to Ayrlyn, whose chestnut followed.

  “Gaaa-dah!” answered Weryl, windmilling his arms.

  “By this time of day, any riding is hard,” Ayrlyn snorted. “Even your son thinks so.”

  “He has sense. Tell me again why doing this is a good idea.”

  “Because all the other ideas are worse,” suggested the flame-haired healer.

  “That has some merit, but not the sort of thing you read about or see on trideo screens.”

  “We saw our last trideo screens a long time ago,” she pointed out, “but you’re right. Fictional characters always have one good choice. They just have to find it.”

  “And us?”

  “The least of terrible choices, and sometimes all choices are bad.”

  The smith straightened his legs, easing himself up in the saddle, prompting another set of arm-windmills by Weryl. Ahead appeared two crude long walls, forming a half-roofed triangle that faced a stone-ringed firepit. To the left was an overgrown path-leading presumably through the trees to the stream. Nylan could smell the dampness from the marshy flats beyond the structure, borne on the cooling light wind out of the west. “That looks like a rough sort of way station,” Nylan said. “It is,” said Ayrlyn. “We used it once, I think. There are lots of mosquitoes on the path to the stream. I remember that.”

  “Should we go on?”

  “There’s not much else. The road gets rocky and narrow beyond the valley, and winds away from the stream.”

  “Great. I hate mosquitoes.”

  “It’s quiet,” said Ayrlyn, as they rode toward the triangular shelter.

  Nylan strained his ears, in between Weryl’s interruptions, but could hear nothing, not even
the normal whirrs and insect chirps. His eyes went to the road, and he frowned, then pointed. “Hoofprints, there.”

  “They’re more recent,” Ayrlyn said, standing in her stirrups and scanning the area behind the shelter.

  The smith’s eyes flicked to the structure, but no one lurked in the back, and the flat area around the fire seemed untouched in the growing dimness. He studied the trees again, but the thick foliage revealed nothing. Twirrrppp… twirrrppp…

  Nylan didn’t recognize the annoyingly cheerful bird call, and only saw a flash of yellow-banded black wings. “What’s that bird?” He felt there was something about it he should remember.

  “They’re noisy.” Ayrlyn frowned as though she were trying to recall something as well.

  The yellow and black bird perched on a shrub on the other side of the rock-circled firesite, its head cocked in a perky attitude. Twirrrppp… twirrrppp…

  Nylan started to extend his senses beyond what his eyes could see when he heard the faintest of clinks, and his hand reached for the blade in the shoulder harness, realizing all too late that he should have drawn the blade first. The bird was a traitor bird!

  “Daaa-dah!” Both Weryl’s chubby hands grasped at his arm.

  “No.” Nylan eased his hand free and grasped the blade. “No!”

  Whhsstt! One arrow hissed past his shoulder, and he lurched forward, before he stopped, the reflex halted by Weryl’s strangled yell and bulk in the carrypak.

  A line of fire creased Nylan’s left shoulder, and he spurred the mare in toward the shelter, hoping that he could use the log walls as a barrier to the archer, and knowing that he was too close to flee without becoming an even better target.

  Hoofs thundered out of the woods toward the two angels. Awkwardly, Nylan struggled to get his blade free, hampered by Weryl’s very presence and the boy’s anger at being nearly squashed-and two very active and windmilling arms. He didn’t look at Ayrlyn, having his hands full in trying to turn the mare and raise his own blade.

  Five riders burst up the path, led by a tall and bearded man on a roan, who wore brown leathers and swung a hand - and - a - half blade like the crowbar it resembled toward Nylan’s head with a yell. “Haaaüi!”

  All too conscious of Weryl on his chest, Nylan somehow parried the first brigand’s wild cut, half-ducking as the man rode past and toward Ayrlyn. He barely managed to get the blade back up before the second and third riders were on him.

  The second rider, in gray, missed with a slash, and the third, in tattered brown leathers, lifted a rusty blade with a black-toothed smile.

  Desperately, Nylan threw his first blade, as he had learned through much trial over the past two years. Then, trying to yank the mare away from the two with one hand, he struggled with Weryl, the mare, and his unsteady seat in an effort to clear the second shortsword from the waist scabbard. The mare skittered sideways.

  “Get him, Skittor… get-”

  “Watch the other.”

  A wave of whiteness swept over Nylan, leaving him momentarily blind, as his thrown blade slammed through the second brigand. He tried to duck, again hampered by Weryl and the carrypak… and by his son’s whimpers and flailing arms. A slash of fire and a dull ache slammed the smith’s left shoulder-the off-center blade of the third bandit-and Nylan half-slumped in the saddle before somehow jerking the second blade clear of its sheath. He had to stop them-if not for himself, for Weryl.

  Another dull impact slammed across the top of his left thigh as he brought the dark gray blade up in time to parry a third half-wild slash. Despite the pain-blinded and intermittent images relayed by chaos-stressed eyes, he managed to block another flurry of weak slashes before his eyes cleared enough and his blade, following Ryba’s and Istril’s training, brought down the third brigand.

  Fighting white flashes like renewed knives in his eyes, he turned the mare back toward the road, where a single rider slashed at Ayrlyn.

  The man barely had a chance to look up in surprise before the Westwind shortsword cut through him.

  Then… Nylan clung to the saddle, effectively blind, with his eyes providing but scattered images that strobed against the increasing darkness of the twilight, while he struggled to keep his fingers around the heavy blade in his right hand. “Daa… daaa… wah-dah?”

  “Your daddy’s hurt.” Ayrlyn’s voice came from a great distance, although the smith knew that she had reined up beside him.

  “Wah-dah?”

  Nylan forced another deep breath… and another, telling himself to concentrate on breathing, hoping that no more brigands showed up.

  .“I’m having some trouble seeing, but you don’t look like you can see at all. I’m going to tie up my mount, and help you and Weryl down. Can you hold on for a moment?”

  “Yes,” he croaked.

  Whuff… uffff. His mare tossed her head.

  “Easy,” he muttered, squinting against the white knives that jabbed from his eyes into his skull. “Shit… can’t even defend… without friggin‘ blindness…”

  “Daa?”

  “We’ll be all right.” He hoped so. At least, he could hear the chitter of insects, and the whine of something else. Mosquitoes seeking free blood?

  “Waa-dah?”

  “Have to wait.” He forced his eyes open, ignoring the pain. Was it less? Scattered images flicked at him, then vanished, then returned in an annoying pastiche of vision and blackness.

  Nylan looked slowly around the former camp/way station, trying to make sense of each image.

  Two mounts snorted by the stream, riderless. The bandit in tattered brown leathers lay sprawled facedown beside the ashes of the fire, a dark splotch around his shoulder.

  The one in the gray shirt lay faceup, his head at an angle, nearly at the feet of Nylan’s mount.

  Ayrlyn walked slowly past the fire site back toward the smith.

  A third mount-a gelding, Nylan noted in a clear and somehow detached way-skittered sideways on the slope leading to the stream, his hoofs raising puffs of dust. The figure on the gelding’s back twitched, then slid ponderously from the saddle into a heap in the dry dirt scraped by the hoofs.

  He turned his head, slowly, feeling the light stabbing in his right shoulder, and the dull aching throbs in his left. His right thigh hurt, and he looked down. The leathers were unbroken. A bruise from the flat of a blade?

  “Daaaa…” whimpered Weryl. “Daaaa…”

  “… all right… it’s all right,” mumbled the smith.

  “Like flame… it is,” snapped Ayrlyn as she took the reins and started to lead his mount toward the shelter. “You’re bleeding… like a hounded… deer… look lower than .. : clam shit.”

  “Had trouble…” Nylan turned his head, trying to see if any more brigands could be around. His neck twitched, and the muscular quiver sent more arrows of fire into his skull. “We… got them all,” Ayrlyn affirmed, still speaking between heavy breaths. “Don’t… know… how…”

  Beyond her, he saw another riderless mount, and a horse struggling-and failing-to rise. “Friggin‘… mess.” The engineer had to agree. “Can you get down? Hand me your blade.”

  “Oh.” He looked stupidly at the shortsword, lowered it, and let her take it. Then he managed to swing his uninjured leg over the saddle and started to climb out, but his fingers lost their grip on the saddle rim he had used to steady himself, and he half-dismounted, half-fell against Ayrlyn. “Oofff. You’re still heavy.”

  “Daaa…” protested Weryl. “Sorry… son.”

  Still blinking against both the throbbing and aches from all over his body, and the white flashes that interrupted his vision, Nylan half-stood, half-leaned against the timbers of the shelter. Ayrlyn quickly unfastened and laid out his bedroll, then eased Weryl out of the carrypak.

  “Sit down,” the healer said, holding the silver-haired boy. Nylan sat. His thigh and shoulder protested, and his vision wavered as he did.

  “Stay put!” Ayrlyn snapped at Weryl as she stripped the car
rypak off Nylan and studied the wound in the smith’s shoulder. The boy blinked and stayed put on the foot of the bedroll. “You really took a gash here,” she mumbled. “I’m glad I brought some dressings.”

  He sat quietly as she lit a small candle and used its light to see as she began to clean and bind both shoulder wounds. Around them the darkness grew, and the whuffing of the bandits’ mounts breathing diminished as the insect chorus swelled, backed by the sound of the stream.

  “I can tell we’re not going anywhere for a day or two.”

  “I’ll ride tomorrow.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “Wah-dah?” asked Weryl.

  “In a moment,” Nylan said, his night vision taking in again the carnage that surrounded the crude way station. Even in leaving Westwind, they didn’t seem to be able to get away from violence-from the fact that force determined destiny. He started to shake his head.

  “Don’t move. I still have to clean out the rest of this mess. Let me see that arm.”

  Nylan raised his right arm, and the redhead peeled back the sleeve slightly. Nylan could feel her reordering the fields around his wounds and using her skills and senses to push back the whitish chaos of infection.

  “You’ve never gotten this beaten up before,” she said.

  “You try fighting with a carrypak,” the smith offered wryly, “and with Weryl flailing around.” He took a deep breath. “I need to figure out some other way to carry him before long.”

  “Always the engineer.”

  Nylan wished he could be just an engineer, or even a smith. Instead, he found himself using blades. He did shake his head. Who was he deceiving? Even the U.F.F. had only wanted his destructive skills as a combat power engineer. Would it ever be different?

  “There.” Ayrlyn rose. “Now I need to see about the horses and the purses of those brigands.”

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “I can’t see very well.”

  “Bruised-some little gashes. Nothing like you.” A ragged smile crossed her lips.