The Chaos Balance

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “… frig… frig…” muttered Ayrlyn. “Damned recoils…”

  By the time Nylan could begin to pick up images, most of the whites were down, sprawled on the wagons or the ground.

  The last of the Cyadoran armsmen turned his mount back toward distant Syadtar.

  Despite the fire white in his head, Nylan croaked out: “Get him, Buretek.”

  It took the young archer three shafts, but the armsman fell, as the others had.

  Ailsor looked tiredly at Nylan, his bow almost hanging in his hands. “That… well… it wasn’t really a fight, was it?”

  “No,” Nylan admitted with a shrug. “It wasn’t.” He coughed, trying to clear his throat. “And it’s not honorable. War isn’t honorable, and the Cyadorans certainly aren’t. Is slaughtering children honorable?”

  Ailsor looked dumbly at the engineer.

  “What harm would it have done to let a few escape? Is that what you wanted to know, Ailsor?” asked Nylan.

  The archer looked down at the tumbled plaited-grass screen.

  “It would have destroyed the effect,” Ayrlyn answered, her voice hoarse and tired. “We don’t want them knowing what happened.” She set aside the bow. “Go get the shovels. We need to fill this in. Buretek can stay here. You get his mount, too.”

  After a moment, Ailsor nodded.

  “I’ll get them and bring back your mount,” the engineer told Ayrlyn, who nodded wearily. Nylan followed the archer, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other.

  After untethering both mounts, Nylan worked loose one stake, then the other, and rolled the rope around the two before slipping them into a saddlebag. By then, Ailsor had disappeared, riding back to the ambush site leading Buretek’s mount.

  The engineer mounted and led Ayrlyn’s mount around the hill and down the road to just below where the redhead stood, dismantling the screen and tossing the pieces into the trench. She reached up for the shovel before Nylan extended it.

  “Are you sure you should be digging?”

  “It’s not digging, just pushing stuff back in the trench. Besides, physical work helps, somehow.” She glanced up. “Drop the reins. She’ll stay.”

  With the redhead’s tone, Nylan would have stayed put too, if he’d been the mare. He eased his mount down the slope, slowly picking his way above the rock barricade.

  Tonsar waited on his horse on the far side. “It worked. You were right, ser angel.”

  “How many did we lose?”

  “Three. Winse, Ungit, and Duira. Ungit…” Tonsar shook his head. “He did not listen.”

  “There’s always someone who doesn’t get the word.” The engineer turned the mare. “Siplor, you take over that first wagon. Meresat… you’ve got the second. You’ll need to replace that snapped wheel. Use the spare on the rear.”

  Nylan edged the mare up to the first wagon, mostly filled with kegs.

  “That’s real Cyad beer!” Siplor grinned at the angel. “And biscuits, and two wheels of cheese.”

  “We’ll share it with the others at camp, but you get to dole it out.” Nylan forced a smile, flicking the reins gently to ease the mare to the second heavy wagon, filled mostly with barrels stacked on end. The white-brown powder around the waxed end-ropes indicated that some had to be flour.

  Meresat looked glumly at the broken left front wheel. “You can do it,” Nylan encouraged him, ignoring his own headache and the white flashes that blocked his vision intermittently. “Or would you rather dig burial trenches?”

  “No, ser.” Meresat slowly trudged to the spare wheel mounted on the rear of the wagon.

  From above the barricade, Ayrlyn cleared her throat, then ordered, “Wuerek you and your group-let’s get those bodies buried. Over there out of sight of the road, and deep enough that scavengers don’t dig them up.”

  Nylan could sense-somehow-that they shared the same, or similar, headaches and intermittent vision. Buretek and Ailsor shifted the shovel between themselves and were finishing the work of filling in the archery blind.

  Ayrlyn mounted the chestnut, but remained on the uphill part of the road above the barrier.

  “Fuera-the rest of you,” rasped the engineer, “get the rocks back in the places we set.”

  “Why are we moving the rocks off the road?” Nylan glanced around, but couldn’t identify the speaker, not when he had to concentrate even to see. He took a deep breath before answering. “We want the Cyadorans not to know what happened. If armsmen and lancers just disappear, that’ll make a lot of their people unhappy, hopefully with their commanders. How would you feel if your supply wagons and some reinforcements disappeared without a trace?”

  “… nasty thoughts, he has…”

  “… keep telling you that you don’t mess with angels…”

  “… ways of the angels…” Tonsar glanced at Ayrlyn, then at Nylan, and shook his head.

  Nylan was afraid a lot more head-shaking would be going on before the fighting was all over-if it were ever all over. Somehow one battle just led to another. Was that human history on every planet in every universe? “… the regent… call it dishonorable…”

  “… ha… rather be dishonorable than dead…” Fornal might not like Nylan’s tactics, but he wouldn’t mind the food-or the beer. Neither would the armsmen mind the improved fare.

  With his left hand, Nylan rubbed the back of his neck, then his temples, but the headache still pounded through his skull.

  Ayrlyn rode around the road barrier on the uphill side where most of the stones had been removed and placed in scattered locales along the uphill side of the road.

  “The headaches just get worse,” the redhead said as she reined up beside Nylan.

  “It seems that way.”

  After a moment, Ayrlyn added, “Think about those dream trees, about both order and chaos. It helps a little.”

  “Dream trees?” How could mentally re-creating dream trees help? Then again, there was a lot he still didn’t understand about Candar. Dutifully, he tried to turn his thoughts to the dark trees with their flows of both order and chaos.

  Beside him, Ayrlyn smiled faintly as Fuera and his detail removed the last of the road barrier rocks, and as one of the newer levies began to sweep the road with a makeshift broom.

  LXXXVII

  THE HAMLET OF Syskar crouched two kays away, under the late afternoon’s hot sun, under the blistering green-blue sky, and a cloud of yellow-gray dust rose from under the hoofs of the Lornian armsmen approaching Nylan and the captured wagons.

  Fornal reined up, the squad behind him slowing even more abruptly, then reluctantly sheathing unneeded blades.

  “Greetings,” offered Nylan. “We’ve brought a few supplies.”

  For a long moment, the regent glanced at the three heavy-laden wagons. “Supplies are welcome, yet…” He paused, then added, “Our holders would not expect us to stoop to becoming highwaymen. They would suggest that our mission was to destroy the white demons.”

  “We did,” said Ayrlyn, her mouth turning up, although her eyes did not smile. “We eliminated almost a score of white armsmen. It seemed a shame not to bring back what they wouldn’t need.”

  “The Cyadorans will call it dishonorable, and it will cost us more than you cost the demons. What will keep them from raiding our supply wagons now?” Fornal turned his mount as if to ride back to Syskar ahead of the returning force.

  “How?” asked Nylan. “If they take a small raiding party, you can destroy it. A large one can’t move that quickly. Besides, if we keep whittling them down, they won’t have enough men to do raids and hold the mines.”

  “Will we have enough men left to attack, or defend against their attacks?” asked Fornal. “How many men did you lose to get those wagons?”

  “Three. One was because the damned fool didn’t listen. We killed nearly a score of theirs once they stalled at the barricade.”

  “A score?”

  “Sixteen,” reaffirmed Ayrlyn. “The archers got about half
when they got tangled up. Then Tonsar dropped rocks on them and brought the mounted armsmen in from behind.”

  “It was like slaughtering trapped goats, ser regent. For once, the white demons were penned up-”

  “They were penned up, and you killed them?”

  “Do… the great and beloved holders of Lornth… want a score of reinforcements at the mines?” Nylan asked tiredly. “They want you to defeat the Cyadorans. Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

  “I admit, angels, you have killed many white demons. Perhaps it takes one to kill one.” Fornal looked to Nylan for a moment, then at Ayrlyn, whose brown eyes flashed blue. Finally, he glared at Tonsar, but the burly armsman merely met the regent’s gaze evenly. After a moment, Fornal continued. “You have done so well, angels, that it is only right that you should have the honor of being the first to meet their massed might.” Fornal smiled lazily, then flicked the reins and rode toward the shed barracks, his mount raising dust that fell almost as it rose.

  Tonsar slowly moved his head from side to side. “If we keep killing them, they will not have that many armsmen. If we do not, then…”

  Nylan wished Fornal could understand that simple argument. Or was Fornal merely preparing the way for their removal? Nylan took a deep breath. He wished he hadn’t. He smelled; his clothes smelled; and even finding enough water to wash either was going to be a chore.

  Everything was getting to be a chore.

  “It always is,” said Ayrlyn.

  Nylan nodded.

  LXXXVIII

  THE BLOND WOMAN cooled herself with a narrow, bone-backed feather fan, then took a sip of greenjuice from the goblet on the table. The air in the sitting room hung so heavy that none of the candles even flickered, and the silhouetted shadows on the wall appeared painted there as the two regents sat motionless for a lingering moment.

  “Your brother is most upset,” Gethen began slowly. “I have never seen such words on a message scroll.”

  “The words must be terrible,” offered Zeldyan with a smile, fanning herself once more.

  Gethen eased the scroll across the table to his daughter. “I would not try to repeat them.”

  Zeldyan set aside the fan and began to read, while Gethen refilled his goblet, then half-drained it with a single long swallow. He blotted his forehead as she read.

  “It is hot, too hot,” he finally said into the silence.

  His daughter nodded and continued reading.

  Gethen refilled his goblet once more.

  “He sounds like Lady Ellindyja,” mused the blonde as she set down the scroll, “with all the talk of honor. And his concerns about the holders.”

  “He does, but we cannot ignore them.” Gethen lifted his goblet, but lowered it down without drinking. “What the angels do disturbs me as well. They teach levies to be armsmen, and that is well. But their tactics… they will do anything to win.”

  Zeldyan touched her chin, then frowned. “Is it so terrible that they have found a way to destroy more of the white demons? Or to keep them from raiding our hamlets?”

  “What will happen if the angels are successful?”

  “And you think that our levies will learn that also?” asked Zeldyan.

  “There is that possibility.”

  “And there will be revolts against bad holders?”

  “Fornal was right. The angels will change Lornth. They are already doing so.” Gethen pursed his lips, then scratched his right ear. “Their actions will bring all the white demons in Cyador to our doorstep. And with what will we stop them, then?” asked the older regent.

  “They would take Lornth piecemeal without the angels.” Zeldyan stood and walked to the doorway to the adjoining sleeping chamber, where she listened for a time before returning. “He’s sleeping, but I thought I heard something.” She lifted the goblet, sipped, and walked to the open window, so smoothly that the candles did not flicker as she passed. “You are right, my sire. Yet what choice have we? With the angels, Lornth will change, and much we hold dear will vanish. Without them, all will be destroyed.”

  “Then let us hope the angels have a way. to stop tens of thousands of white demons. For that is what it will come to.”

  Zeldyan looked down on the few scattered lights that were Lornth for a time before turning. “Must it always come to that? If we defend ourselves adequately, then we face greater force and hatred, not only from without, but from our holders. If we do not, we face death or becoming vassals. Be those not the choices you pose, my sire?”

  Gethen took a deep breath, deep enough that the candles wavered, but did not answer.

  “Have I not stated what choices there be, my father?” asked Zeldyan more softly.

  Gethen looked into the goblet, but found no answers, and lifted his eyes to meet hers. “You have seen what your lord saw, and that bodes ill. Mayhap, the angels can stop the white demons… mayhap. But I like not trusting in strangers and stranger magery. And I like not a land where holders may be questioned by peasants. For it will come to that.”

  “Nor I. Nor I.” She paused. “Yet…better Lornth than no Lornth.”

  The faintest breath of hot air seeped into the room, so faint that it did not move the silhouetted shadows that again appeared painted on the sitting room walls.

  LXXXIX

  NYLAN SET THE hammer on the crude bench closest to the anvil, squinting as he walked out of the shade and into full morning sun to meet Tonsar. The brown-bearded armsman remained mounted and looked down at the smith.

  “We are ready to leave, ser Nylan.” Tonsar gestured vaguely southward.

  “Just keep an eye on the mines. If there’s any sign the Cyadorans are getting anything ready that deals with wagons, I want to know-immediately!” Nylan cleared his throat. “Avoid any fighting. Right now we’ve lost enough men. If they happen to see you-and try not to be seen-but if you are, seeing you will upset them enough.”

  Tonsar frowned.

  “Believe me… it will.” Besides, we’ll need every man we’ve got for the next trick.

  “You follow the wagons again?” asked Tonsar after another awkward silence. “It will be eight-days or longer before more come from Cyador.”

  “There’s another way to make them pay.” Nylan offered a crooked smile. “A quicker one, I suspect.”

  The armsman scratched the back of his head.

  “Take their copper when they try to send it home.”

  “They will not like that. No, they will not. But will they risk sending wagons back to Cyad after… ?” The armsman paused, and his mount whuffed and took a step sideways.

  “Now, you see why I didn’t want anyone to escape? The whites don’t know that we took out their supply wagons. They might guess, but they don’t know.” But you do. And you know that most of the men you had killed were innocents. Nylan rubbed his forehead.

  “I would not wish to be your enemy.” Tonsar grinned. “But I am not, and we are ready.”

  “Go…” Nylan forced a smile and watched for a time as the small squad trotted southward out of Syskar, raising a low cloud of yellow-gray dust that settled quickly in the still hot air.

  He walked along the sunny side of the shed barracks, trying not to choke at the smells rising from his crude distilling apparatus. Two more of the tubes had sprung leaks. He wrapped each leak with a rag and then plastered it with the moistened clay from within the broken pot set aside for the purpose.

  Then he walked to the well and washed his hands- twice-and then his face, not that the effect would last.

  The smith’s forehead was dripping again by the time he stepped back into the comparatively more shaded space under the chicken coop roof and blotted away the sweat.

  Sias glanced up from the bellows and looked at the half-barrel serving as a quench tank. “You need more water, ser?”

  “Just a bucket, Sias.” Nylan reached for the tongs to slip the metal on the anvil back on the coals. He’d never promised he wouldn’t forge black iron arrowheads for himself or Ay
rlyn. Still, even looking at the metal almost turned his stomach.

  He grimaced as he waited for the iron to heat to the necessary cherry red. The longer the war or conflict or whatever it was went on, the more squeamish he felt. What a great warrior and commander that made for!

  How could he deny what he felt? Those in power made decisions, generally to preserve their power, and those who carried out the decisions suffered-or died. Yet he felt that the growth of Cyador was wrong, but so was Fornal’s view of the world. Both imposed order of sorts through absolute force- just different kinds of order.

  Was that why he dreamed about the damned trees-and their chaos and order flows? Did they represent an answer his subconscious was trying to formulate? Or were they something real his unconscious was trying to reach?

  Do you want to know? Really know?

  Despite the heat in the chicken coop smithy, he shivered. Engineering background or not, he lacked the cold rationality of a Ryba-or a Zeldyan-and even the callousness of a Fornal.

  “You all right, ser?” asked Sias, returning with the bucket. “I thought this was too hot for you.”

  “It is.” Nylan didn’t bother to explain as he took the heated iron and slipped it onto the anvil. “Can you add some more coal to the fire?”

  “Yes, ser.” Sias added the brackish water to the quench barrel and then used a wooden scoop to add the brownish black coal to the forge coals.

  The engineer raised the hammer, and then struck.

  Cluunnggg… clunggg…

  A half-dozen deadly arrowheads later, Nylan set aside the hammer, let Sias bank the forge coals, and walked to the shaded stoop of the dwelling, from where Ayrlyn had waved-presumably to indicate she had something resembling a midday meal. The Lornian cooks only prepared breakfast and the evening meal.

  “Daaa! Daa!” Weryl tottered down the dusty path toward Nylan.

  Sylenia followed, more slowly, a shy smile on her face, her eyes on the toddler.

  “It’s good to see you, too.” Nylan grinned as he hoisted Weryl to his shoulder and walked toward the dwelling and Ayrlyn. “And thank you, too, Sylenia. I probably don’t tell you that enough, but we’re glad you’re here.”