The Chaos Balance

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “As opposed to empty mounts?” asked Nylan.

  Huruc nodded, then glanced toward the training yard where Ayrlyn walked from practicing pair to pair.

  “Get that wrist stiff, Meresat! Keep your blade up! Up!” The redhead’s voice was hard, sharp, yet impersonal.

  “They look better already,” observed the armsman. He lowered his voice. “Is it true that you let that young cock Fuera charge you and then cold-cocked him three times in a row?”

  Nylan nodded. “I either had to destroy him or kill him, and I don’t have enough armsmen to kill one out of hand.”

  “They say you have eyes in the back of your head. Both of you.”

  “I’m glad they think so.” The engineer laughed.

  “You’re putting edges and points on the blades.”

  “Yes,” answered Nylan neutrally.

  Huruc shook his head ever so slightly, and Nylan understood. Good edged weapons-and the idea behind them- could be a danger to an overbearing Lornian lord.

  “We need every edge possible against the Cyadorans,” the angel smith added, wondering if Huruc would get the pun.

  “Keep your friggin‘ feet apart!” snapped Ayrlyn from behind Huruc. “A two-year-old could push you over.”

  Sias grinned and resumed pedaling the grindstone.

  The burly armsman just shook his head.

  LXIV

  CLANG! CLANG! THE armsman on watch on the second level of the converted barn rang the alarm chime.

  “Stand down,” snapped Nylan to the levies, glancing up at the watch post where a bearded armsman in purple stood and scanned the horizon. The angel engineer stood in the saddle and peered south, but could see nothing but the dust of riders. “But stand ready!”

  “Ser…” murmured the mounted squad..

  The engineer turned to Tonsar, on a roan beside him. “It’s probably Fornal, but hold until we know. If it is, we’ll meet him, and you take them through it again.”

  “Yes, ser.” The brown-bearded subofficer took a deep breath, then studied the squad. “Stand fast!”

  Ayrlyn eased her chestnut toward Nylan as he guided his mount away from the flat area behind the converted sheep shed.

  “They still just fling up a blade,” he said.

  “They’re getting better,” she answered, nodding her head toward the south. “Fornal, you think?”

  “I hope,” muttered Nylan as he reined up before the dwelling, his eyes focusing on the road to the south, the late afternoon sun uncomfortably hot on his back.

  Ayrlyn reined up beside him. His eyes flicked to the corral where the remaining horses, mostly the Lornian draft animals, gathered at one end.

  “Ser Fornal! It be ser Fornal!” called the watch.

  Behind him, Tonsar began to speak to the arrayed levies. “You are a miserable excuse for armsmen. Let us begin again. Do not hold your wands like brooms or I will chop them up with real cold iron…”

  With a half-smile, Nylan eased the mare into a slow walk out toward the road. “I’d like to see how he did before the men do.”

  “You’re afraid he didn’t do all that well?”

  “Who knows? Early success could be as dangerous as failure.” Nylan flicked the reins to urge the mare into a faster walk.

  Fornal wore dust like a second skin, as did the older armsmen who flanked him, and who reined back as the angels neared.

  “Greetings, ser Fornal,” Nylan offered.

  Fornal nodded brusquely, but offered no objection as Nylan eased his mount up beside the coregent. Ayrlyn slipped hers beside Nylan’s.

  Fornal had left with three full squads, one of hardened armsmen, and two of the better levies. Half a dozen saddles were empty, and blood splattered across twice that many riders. Just from the residual chaos oozing from the armsmen, Nylan could tell that most of that blood had not come from the Lornians, but more than enough had.

  Beside the half-dozen mounts with gray blankets under the empty saddles, or saddles with bodies strapped over them, there were nearly a dozen with blood-splattered white blankets, and two were piled with blades and another pair with various saddlebags, roped haphazardly in place.

  “You had some success, it appears,” ventured Nylan.

  “Better than I had hoped for a first skirmish,” admitted the black-haired regent. “They were surprised.” He slowed his mount to a walk as they neared where the lane split between the ways to the dwelling and the converted barn, then turned in the saddle. “Take care of the mounts first, except for the wounded. Put the wounded in the front bay.” Fornal turned and let his mount carry him toward the quarters of the converted barn.

  “You will heal them? The wounded? You are healers.” Fornal’s dark eyes went from Nylan to Ayrlyn.

  Nylan glanced at Ayrlyn before answering. “We’ll do what we can. It depends. We’ll have to look at each.”

  Fornal nodded to see the two lines of mounted levies that Tonsar had drawn up. “They look more like armsmen. We will need every one. The white ones are thick as flies.” He reined up under the watch post, and, after a moment, looked at Huruc, who stood waiting, impassively. “You have a burial detail?”

  The senior armsman nodded.

  “We lost ‘a half-dozen-more than I would have wished, but it happens.” Fornal inclined his head to Huruc, then eased his mount toward the right, and the corral. The angels let their mounts follow. Fornal reined up by the unwalled but roofed shelter at the north end of the corral where the mounts -of the senior armsmen and officers were kept.

  Nylan and Ayrlyn dismounted as well, tying their mounts. They could unsaddle and groom them later.

  “We’ll start on the wounded immediately,” Nylan said to Fornal.

  “Each one you save will live to kill another white demon,” said the regent. “I have heard that your healing is without peer in Candar. Let us trust you can heal many.”

  “That depends on their wounds,” Ayrlyn answered.

  “Do what you must.”

  Neither angel said anything as they recrossed the practice yard.

  “Tonsar?” Nylan said quietly, stopping for a moment and looking up at the mounted subofficer.

  “Ser?”

  “That was very thoughtful of you to draw up the men to welcome ser Fornal. I should have thought of it, but I am glad you did.”

  “I would be a poor subofficer, ser, if there were some matters I did not know more of than you.” Tonsar grinned.

  “All right.” Nylan had to grin back. The grin vanished as he thought about the wounded. “Run them through the last exercise again. Then, have them groom their mounts before dinner. We’re going to be busy doing some healing.”

  The burly subofficer nodded.

  As they neared the barn, Ayrlyn reached out and squeezed Nylan’s hand. “I know you wanted to kill Fornal, but thank you.”

  “For what? Being sensible? For ignoring his setup? If we don’t save them all, we’ve failed?”

  “Of course.”

  The six wounded armsmen lay on pallets barely raised off the dirt floor by worn and filthy planks.

  The first man sat on his pallet cradling an arm. Another man stood beside him, shaking his head. “He won’t let us touch him.”

  “No butchery! No…” Sweat poured off the dusty and muddy forehead, but the armsman did not look up.

  “Do we have splints?” Nylan murmured. “Or something like them?”

  “Haven’t seen any.” Ayrlyn turned to the uninjured man. “Get us two lengths of straight wood, about the width of a blade and no longer than his forearm-and some strips of cloth.” She paused. “Actually, get us about a dozen lengths of wood like that.”

  “Yes… ser.” The man scurried away.

  “We’re not-” began Nylan.

  “You’re not cutting off my arm! I’ll die first.”

  “We’re not cutting off anything,” Nylan said gently.

  “Then you be no healers I know.”

  “No, we’re not. We’ll b
e back in a bit. And you’ll keep your arm.” Nylan could sense that the break was a compound sort of thing, but within the capabilities of healing through the fields-if done soon.

  They moved to the second man-young, with a scraggly blond beard and rosy cheeks. A dirty bandage covered a deep gash in his shoulder, and the slump of his body and the pain in his eyes warned Nylan.

  “Deep thrust and some broken bones,” murmured Ayrlyn.

  Nylan could feel the chaos of infection, although it was not great, not yet.

  “Two of us,” said Ayrlyn, “but we can do it. Let’s check the others first, quickly.”

  The third man was already dead from internal bleeding of some sort.

  They exchanged glances, then moved to the next.

  “Crushed bones in the hand” was Ayrlyn’s verdict. “Maybe we can get back some function.”

  The fifth patient looked blindly past them, his breathing ragged, the white of chaos already filling most of his body.

  The sixth man had a deep bruise/cut/gash across the top of his right thigh, open almost to the bone. An older armsman waited there, holding loops of gut or thread or something, and a needle in his hand.

  “I can close it, but the chaos would kill him.”

  Nylan smiled. “This one-this will be easy.”

  “Such a deep wound…” The voice lowered. “Most die.”

  “He’ll live,” Ayrlyn said.

  “He is my sister’s consort.”

  “Shouldn’t we try… the way you did with Nesslek?” the redhead asked Nylan.

  “For around the infection, but it’s not quite the same.”

  She nodded. “Still…”

  Nylan extended his perceptions, joining them with Ayrlyn’s, and discovered some infection/chaos, but had no trouble in forcing it out, knitting a sort of barrier that bound the white chaos away and around the wound. The young man looked at them stolidly.

  Ayrlyn touched his forehead, and the armsman’s eyes closed. “Now… stitch up the wound.”

  “Yes, lady healer.”

  Again, after the stitches were knotted, the two pushed away the remaining chaos in the wound and stitched area.

  “We’ll have to keep doing this,” she pointed out.

  “If we do it daily, it won’t take much.”

  They straightened. A man stood in the shadows, holding lengths of wood.

  “Now… for the broken bones.” They walked back toward the first man, who watched them, fear and sweat pouring from him.

  In the end, they staggered out of the makeshift infirmary.

  “Four out of six… not too bad,” mumbled Ayrlyn.

  “That’s malpractice… on Heaven,” said Nylan.

  “Miracle… here.” Ayrlyn coughed, pushing Nylan toward the cookfires. “We need to eat.”

  Nylan agreed, and he followed Ayrlyn’s steps toward the small fire at the end where the officers got served.

  “Did you heal Gerrit, ser angel?” asked the cook, who thrust half a loaf of black bread on Ayrlyn’s trencher.

  Ayrlyn looked blankly at the red-bearded man.

  “Blond fellow. Looked like his forearm was smashed.”

  “He’ll heal. Be some eight-days, but he’ll be fine.”

  Another man, balding and breathing heavily, stepped up. “What about Giste? He was the big fellow.”

  “I’m sorry.” Nylan took a deep breath. “He was dead before we even got there.”

  “How many will live? Any of them?” asked the balding man.

  “Four. The one with the smashed hand probably won’t hold a blade well, but he’ll keep the hand.” Ayrlyn turned and walked unsteadily toward the dwelling that served as quarters and headquarters.

  “Why not Giste?” pursued the armsman behind Nylan.

  “Because the damned blade shredded his guts, and even the best healer can’t unshred a chopped intestine.” Nylan turned to follow Ayrlyn.

  “Don’t push it, Delman,” cautioned a voice behind the angel. “We’re darkness lucky we got any healers at all.”

  Nylan carried his wooden trencher toward the dwelling, and the shaded side porch on the east side.

  Fornal already sat on one of the stools on the side porch and chewed on a chunk of greasy mutton-all the meat was mutton, and the animals were slowly vanishing, Nylan reflected, doubting if the remaining strays and abandoned flocks would be enough to last the summer. Then, would they and the Lornians survive the summer, once the Cyadorans decided to act?

  Huruc just sat on the top step, chewing noisily.

  The angel smith stepped around the senior armsman and sat down on the other end of the bench from Ayrlyn, and after a bite of the tough bread, forced himself to take a bite of the mutton. It was greasy-and strong.

  “It’s pretty fierce,” Ayrlyn said with a smile. “But it helps.”

  “These are good rations,” suggested Huruc. “Times have been, in the grasslands, where we had only moldy cheese and roots-the wild onions.”

  “I’d prefer they not get any worse,” answered Nylan.

  “So would all the men,” said Huruc, his mouth half-full. He swallowed and asked, “How did your healing go, angels?”

  “Four of them should live, three to carry a blade,” answered Ayrlyn.

  “That’s good,” said Huruc. “Most usually die.”

  “I had heard that the angel healers could heal almost all,” said Fornal mildly.

  “I’m sure the Marshal of Westwind wishes that were true,” Nylan answered blandly, after too long a pause to think of a suitable answer. “There would be three times as many guards there, if it were so.”

  “What about the blond?” asked Huruc.

  Nylan smiled. “He should live. We stopped the chaos early enough. Even so, he won’t lift a blade for seasons. Not until the bones knit. You’ll have to make him a cook’s helper or something. It’ll free someone else to fight.”

  Ayrlyn asked politely, “What happened?”

  “We ran into one of their raiding parties. They didn’t expect us.” Fornal smiled. “Not many escaped.”

  “How many in the party?”

  “A score and a half, I’d guess.”

  Nylan held back a frown. His guess was that Fornal had caught a scouting group of sorts, not that Nylan had any problems with the coregent’s decision to take them on-not after he’d seen the bodies of innocent Lornians scattered across Kula. “A few more times, and they may wish they’d picked on some other land.”

  “Not the white demons. They will stay until the last man.”

  ‘Then, we’ll have to get rid of them to the last man-even if we do it one at a time.“

  Huruc laughed gently. “A merchant’s approach to fighting.”

  “No,” answered Nylan, after swallowing another mouthful of bread and mutton, “one that works.”

  “You angels did not do such,” pointed out Fornal.

  “We didn’t have much choice, and where we could follow that doctrine we had almost no losses. Westwind lost two-thirds of its original forces in pitched battles against more numerous opponents.” Nylan frowned at the twinge through his skull. He should have remembered that the order forces of the damned planet never let him exaggerate without reminding him-often painfully. Still, the point was basically true.

  “Because we have not attacked the enemy encampment, some holders would claim I have lost honor.” Fornal shrugged. “I would not regain it by dying in battle.”

  Nylan wasn’t sure if that were an apology of sorts, or an observation. “If you drive out the Cyadorans, won’t that suffice?”

  “For some. For others… they would find some other reason to find fault.” Fornal shook his head with a sad smile and then stuffed a large chunk of bread into his mouth. He did not look back at Nylan.

  After eating, Nylan walked around to the front porch where Sylenia held Weryl.

  “Weryl!” Nylan held out his arms.

  “Daaa!” The boy lurched from the nursemaid’s arms and across th
e planks.

  Nylan scooped him up, and, for a time, just held the silver-haired boy, letting himself feel the warmth, the aliveness. Weryl finally began to squirm.

  “Sorry, son. You felt so good.” Nylan eased himself down onto the plank floor and set Weryl on the planks beside him. “So good.” He still asked himself at times if he were carrying out Istril’s charge as well as he could. He supposed he always would.

  “Ser Nylan?” asked Sylenia.

  “Yes?”

  “Might I depart for a time?”

  “Of course.” He paused. “Try not to get into too much trouble with your armsman.”

  Sylenia blushed as she rose from the bench.

  “That was unfair, Nylan,” said Ayrlyn from the doorway.

  “I apologize, Sylenia.”

  The nursemaid blushed again, but smiled shyly as she slipped past the angel smith.

  Ayrlyn sat on the bench.

  “Ah-yah!” Weryl tottered toward the redhead. “Ah-yah!”

  Nylan followed the nursemaid’s progress toward the makeshift barracks.

  A squat armsman eased his mount toward Sylenia, then spurred the horse away after she spoke. The smith frowned and glanced at Ayrlyn.

  “We’ll need to watch that.”

  He nodded slowly. Along with how much else, he wondered.

  LXV

  I WASN’T READY for my first fight.“ Nylan offered a grim smile to the levies ranked in three fines before the sheep-shed barracks. ”That’s one reason why we’ve pushed you. I was lucky, but that’s not something you can always count on.“ He nodded to Tonsar. ”Have them mount up, and check each man’s gear. Then I will.“

  “… never lets anything past him…”

  “… he talks… she looks through you… and they say she’s warm, compared to most angels…”

  Always the stereotypes-Nylan glanced at Ayrlyn as they walked toward the corral and their waiting mounts. “And they think you’re cold,” he said with a low laugh, thinking about Ryba.

  “For them… I am. Ryba wasn’t far off about the men in Candar.” She shook her head. “If I appeared at all human, they wouldn’t respect me. It’s the same for you, except you’re a mean bastard and I’m just a cold bitch. Bastards get more respect than bitches.”