Colors of Chaos

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  You’ll never live to be an old arms mage if you don’t. “That could be,” Cerryl said.

  After a time, the creaking and groaning of wagons filled the wider space in the canyon that was becoming a lake.

  Finally, Fydel drew Teras aside. “As soon as the wagon beasts are watered, we need to move on,” Fydel ordered Teras. “The water is almost up to the road.”

  “It will take a little time, but we’ll hurry best we can, Mage Fydel,” Teras answered deliberately.

  The sun had risen well above the canyon walls before the wagons and their teams had been watered, fed, and rested, and the water from the new lake was lapping at the side of the road as Fydel and Cerryl rode westward through the stream canyon. The road still rose, if more gently than before, and the murmurings from the lancers were louder as the day progressed.

  While they had seen signs of the passage of Jeslek’s force - hoofprints and droppings - no messengers had reached them, and outside of the sound of the stream and the intermittent calls of vulcrows and the infrequent squawk of a traitor bird the only sounds came from the force of lancers that Fydel and Cerryl led deeper and deeper into the Easthorns.

  Then, after a narrow defile, the road curved and widened into what appeared to be a small valley. There, under a single crimson and white banner, a squad of White Lancers waited.

  Cerryl nodded to himself as he saw the tumbled walls beyond and the trails of smoke that curled into the clear green-blue of the sky above. The rock slides that had obstructed the road had not been caused just by thawing and meltwater, and Axalt had definitely paid Jeslek’s tariffs.

  “The High Wizard has made his point,” Fydel observed. “Others will heed what has befallen Axalt.”

  “I wonder,” murmured Cerryl. “I wonder.” It had taken the disappearance and death of one duke and the destruction of two towers before the Dukes of Hydlen had understood the power of Fairhaven, and then only reluctantly. Would the devastation of one small mountain city really change the minds of the Traders’ Council of Spidlar?

  “Mages Fydel and Cerryl?” asked the lancer subofficer who rode forward toward the white and crimson banners that followed the two mages.

  “The same,” answered Fydel. “The High Wizard has continued toward Elparta. He would have you meet his forces just beyond the Easthorns. He also requests that you make prudent haste.”

  “Prudent haste? That we can do.” Fydel nodded and cleared his throat, turning in the saddle to Teras.

  While the two talked, Cerryl’s eyes took in the jumbled heaps of rocks that had once been walls, dwellings, warehouses… who knew what. The stench of death, while faint, was present and would grow, even in the cool under the clear skies. The scattering smoke trails whispered upward.

  Cerryl thought he saw a crouched figure scuttle from one pile of rubble to another, but long as he looked again, he could see no other movement. Then, he wouldn’t have moved either, not after what Jeslek had done to Axalt. He turned back toward Fydel.

  “There’s no reason to tarry here,” observed the square-bearded mage.

  Cerryl glanced over the devastation. “No. I would guess not.”

  Somewhat later, as the lancer column wound upward toward the end of the valley, picking its way through and around the rubble, Cerryl could hear the murmurings from the lancers who rode behind them.

  “… didn’t leave much for us.”

  “… didn’t leave much for anyone.”

  Will Jeslek leave much for anyone? Cerryl eased himself into another position in the too-hard saddle and kept riding.

  LXXXVII

  From where he rode beside Fydel, leading the White Lancers and halfway down the hillside, Cerryl could see a hamlet ahead, little more than a gathering of huts in a depression between the rolling hills. From around the huts rose the smoke of cook fires, and farther out Cerryl could discern scores of mounts confined, either in rough corrals or on tie-lines. The hamlet itself lay perhaps ten kays westward from the end of the canyon that had led them from fallen Axalt into Spidlar.

  Cerryl glanced back over the line of lancers, in the direction of the supply wagons still out of sight behind the hill he and Fydel were descending on the winding clay track that barely resembled a road. Behind them, the snow and ice of the Easthorns’ higher reaches almost merged with the puffy white clouds that had begun to drift in from the north.

  Cerryl hoped the clouds didn’t bring rain-or not too much. He turned and studied the road ahead and the hillside that seemed to alternate between rocks, scrub bushes, and patches of grass-a land suited mostly to grazing, if that. He squinted, trying to see farther westward where several of the more distant hills appeared to be wooded, but the hills faded as the gelding carried him downhill.

  A half-kay or so outside the unnamed hamlet, the road flattened and widened somewhat. With the more level ground came the scents of horses and smoke and other less savory evidences of human habitation.

  In the hamlet itself, Jeslek and Anya stood outside a rough-timbered dwelling slightly larger than the handful of others, perhaps twenty cubits in breadth and ten deep and boasting a clay-chinked stone chimney. Cerryl could sense the residual of the chaos used to clean the dwelling

  “So… you have arrived.” Jeslek’s sun-eyes glittered. “At last. We have been here near on two days.”

  “We made prudent haste,” answered Fydel. “It took longer because of the rock slides and the rising waters. And the supply wagons you left for us to escort.”

  “You passed through Axalt?” The High Wizard’s eyes traveled from Fydel to Cerryl and then back to the dark-bearded mage.

  How else could we have gone? Then Cerryl realized, belatedly, that Jeslek wanted an acknowledgment of some sort. “We saw the destruction you wrought, High Wizard. Nothing remains of Axalt.”

  Jeslek snorted. “I have sent a message to the Traders’ Council of Spidlar, suggesting that they heed what befell Axalt.”

  “They will not,” said Anya, standing beside Jeslek, her flame-red hair fluttering in the light and chill wind that blew out of the Easthorns and across the rolling hills of southeastern Spidlar. “They scarce will have learned that we have arrived here. Nor will they credit all the levies to follow until they have seen them in battle.”

  Jeslek gestured toward the cots and small barns behind him. “Battle? It will be eight-days before we see any battle. By then, we will have advanced half the distance to Elparta.”

  “What would you have us do?” asked Fydel.

  “Best you quarter with us,” offered the High Wizard, “though we will be here for but a few days, while we refresh mounts and make repairs.” Jeslek glanced at Teras. “You had best consult with Senglat as to where you should camp your force and rest their mounts.”

  From where he had drawn his mount up next to Cerryl Teras nodded acknowledgment. “As you suggest, High Wizard.”

  “Shortly, we will discuss how we will proceed to bring Spidlar into the fold.”

  Cerryl dismounted wearily. Any respite would be more than welcome, but he doubted that Spidlar-or any land-would come into the fold all that willingly.

  LXXXVIII

  Cerryl sat on the hard bench beside Anya, across the rough-cut trestle table from Jeslek and Fydel. A light rain fell outside the small house, and occasional gusts of damp and cool morning air filtered through the open door.

  The High Wizard was half-turned on the other bench, his eyes fixed on Fydel. “There are only two roads from Axalt into Spidlar. The northern road goes to Kleth and the southern one to Elparta. They both split from the one leading out of this pigsty. The fork is about ten kays to the west of where we are now. There’s a town there, if you can term it such.”

  The dark-bearded Fydel nodded.

  “You and Cerryl will hold that town while Anya and I will lead the advance on Elparta, once the first levies arrive.”

  “Why don’t we just take the northern route and be done with it?” asked Fydel.

  “Because the n
orthern road is even worse than this track, and because we’ll need the river to move the levies down to Kleth and Spidlaria,” Anya answered for Jeslek.

  Cerryl wanted to hold his breath, so strong was the odor of trilia and sandalwood despite the breeze from the open door.

  “Which levies? Aren’t the Certans coming through what’s left of Axalt? Can’t they hold the town? That’s what levies are best at, anyway.” Fydel shrugged.

  “Rystryr’s levies are coming through Axalt, but we don’t want that Black arms commander coming out of the north and hitting them before they even get to the river.”

  “Honored High Wizard…” Fydel paused, then added, “I fail to understand. If we took the northern route - ”

  “Then this Black would hold Elparta,” interrupted Jeslek, “and he would control the river and be able to attack either our forces or the Gallosian levies. As I have told you, Fydel, he is an excellent field commander.”

  Anya smiled her blindingly false smile. “We also wouldn’t have any Gallosian levies because they wouldn’t march downriver into Spidlar We wouldn’t be there to lead them, and the agreement for levies requires the White Lancers to provide horse support. Or do you propose that we abandon half the ground armsmen that we have already called

  “As for the Certan levies, you and Cerryl have to provide the escort and horse support, and that means you will be quartered at the town at the road fork, whatever its name might be.” Jeslek raised his snow-white eyebrows. “As Anya has pointed out, we also have to have a way for the Gallosian levies to enter Spidlar, and that has to be by the river or the river roads. That means we have to reach the river, and that’s where Elparta is.”

  “So we do the dirty work-”

  Jeslek’s eyes flashed.

  “Whatever you wish, High Wizard,” Fydel said quickly.

  “I am High Wizard, Fydel, and it would behoove you to recall that.” Jeslek’s voice moderated. “Have you a better way of ensuring that all the levies are joined?” After a moment of silence, Jeslek nodded, almost to himself. “I thought not. Now… we are to expect the first Certan levies in an eight-day. Until they arrive, Anya and I will advance as far as we can without engaging any large Spidlarian forces. You will scree the north road and run patrols to ensure that we are not flanked…”

  Cerryl continued to listen, still wondering precisely why Jeslek had insisted on Cerryl’s own presence. The breeze died, and, again, he found himself overwhelmed with the scents of sandalwood and trilia.

  LXXXIX

  Cerryl walked slowly toward the cook fire behind the squarish house, looking toward the south. Although the fields and meadows were green, the color that faded with the sun as he studied the land had been the lighter green of early spring, and the evening was getting chill, like every evening since they had left Jellico.

  Cerryl eased up closer to the cook fire, stopping to the right of Fydel and Anya. He sniffed the scent of a mutton stew of some sort.

  “How did it go today?” asked Anya, tendering a mug of something to the square-bearded mage.

  “The same as yesterday, and the day before.” Fydel shook his head, his eyes going to the west, where the purple of the sky deepened. “I wish the darkness-damned Certans would get here. If they don’t…”

  “If they don’t… what?” asked Jeslek as he strode up to the fire. “Do you want to go back and fetch them?”

  “It might be better than trying to fend off the raids from that Black renegade,” suggested Fydel dourly.

  “We won’t have to wait that long. The first detachment has reached the ruins of Axalt.” Jeslek glanced at the lancer cook. “How long?”

  “A bit longer for the stew, ser.” The cook looked down at the boot-packed ground around the stones of the cook-fire ring. “I’m sorry.”

  Everything took longer, reflected Cerryl silently. Everywhere.

  “Did you lose anyone today?” asked Anya, glancing back to the square-bearded mage.

  “Not today. One lancer took an arrow in the thigh, but it wasn’t deep. We never saw the archer.”

  Cerryl frowned but said nothing. How could Fydel not see an archer?

  “You think it’s easy?” snapped Fydel as he turned to the younger mage. “You try one of the road patrols. The blue bastards don’t stay in one place. You go down one road, and some archers are firing at your squad from the woods to your rear. If you try to clear out the woods, you lose more men because they can’t make any speed on horseback there. If you avoid the woods, you can’t get anywhere. The fields are still muddy.” Fydel looked at Cerryl. “Tomorrow… you should come with us. You’ll see. Darkness, you’ll see.”

  “Perhaps you should, Cerryl,” Jeslek said. “It will give you an idea of just how you will handle peacekeeping once we take Elparta. There’s not much else you can do until the levies get here.”

  “Yes, ser.” The last thing Cerryl wanted to do was ride along roads that weren’t even lanes trying to keep raiding parties away from the camp.

  “And you can flame any archer you see,” Jeslek said with a smile, “since you seem to find it so easy.”

  Fydel laughed. Even Anya smiled.

  Cerryl took a long, slow breath, then looked toward the cauldron, hoping it wouldn’t be that long before the mutton stew was ready. He had to wonder how he could get in trouble without even speaking. Were his expressions that obvious, or were Fydel and Jeslek once more out to put him in situations where he was more likely to fail? As he waited for the stew to finish, he forced a pleasant smile onto his face.

  XC

  Just because he’d given Fydel a questioning look the night before, now Cerryl found himself back on the gelding, his muscles no longer aching but only moderately sore. Fydel’s score of lancers rode northward on a road that was more trail than road, a track of dusty gray clay that rose in powdery clouds with each hoof that struck it, a track barely able to take two riders abreast. Despite the full morning sunlight, the day was pleasant, although Cerryl suspected that the afternoon would be hotter and far less pleasant.

  On the east side of the road was a piled stone wall, no more than two cubits high. Behind the stone was a higher meadow, where fresh green shoots twined up between the frayed and brown stalks of the previous year. To the downhill and left side of the road was a field that had been plowed, but which showed no regular growth, just scattered splotches of green against the dry tan soil.

  Cerryl wondered if the arrival of the White Lancers had driven off the peasants before they could plant.

  “See? There’s no one there. Or you think there isn’t. Except they’re there… waiting with some dark angel trap.” From where he rode to the left of Cerryl Fydel snorted.

  Glancing across the open terrain, Cerryl had to wonder where the Spidlarian forces would even hide. He couldn’t detect any chaos or order that could have been used to conceal riders or armsmen on foot.

  “They don’t use magery,” Fydel answered the unspoken question. “You’ll see.”

  As they continued northwest on the narrow road, the cultivated fields gave way to more woodlots or woods and meadows-and peasant cots even more widely scattered.

  A fly buzzed past Cerryl’s face, and the gelding’s tail swished to brush the offending insect away, sending it back to plague Cerryl. He swatted at it several times before it flew elsewhere; then he blotted his forehead.

  After a time, the road dipped into a swale, with a small marsh below the road to the left. A brook ran from the east through a depression in the road. A good thirty cubits upstream from the road was a clump of bushes, the small new leaves barely unfurled and the second-year leaves still half-gray.

  “They hide in places like that. Well… they won’t hide any longer.” Fydel’s face screwed up in concentration.

  Cerryl could feel the chaos buildup. “There’s nothing there.”

  “There won’t be,” grunted the older wizard.

  Whhhstt! The fireball arced out and fell onto the clump of bushes. Chaos flam
es spurted into the sky as the bushes flared red. A puff of flame fluttered from the bushes before arching into the ground and dissolving into white ashes that fell into an oval on the brown and green grass. Cerryl swallowed as he realized that the brief flame puff had been a bird of some sort.

  The flame tongues where the bushes had been died away almost immediately, leaving reddish embers and thin trails of black and gray smoke that wound skyward. The acrid scent of burning brush and winter leaves filled the air, then died away as the light breeze scattered the ashes, even before Cerryl and the lancers reached the marshy area.

  “Easier that way,” grunted Fydel. “Doesn’t leave them anywhere to hide.”

  Cerryl hadn’t seen that much cover, not any sufficient to conceal any force large enough to threaten even a score of lancers. “How big a force do they have?”

  “Around here? A score perhaps, but they don’t ever send that many-just a few archers. They loose some shafts, and they’re gone. They don’t use magery, and you can’t use a glass to find something that disturbs neither order nor chaos.”

  Cerryl nodded, his eyes flicking to the left at the ashes and wisps of smoke that had been marsh bushes, then to the road. Another hill, higher than the one the troop had just descended rose beyond the stream, and the road angled eastward and began to climb once more.

  The murmurs from the lancers who rode behind Teras drifted up to Cerryl over the dust-muffled sound of hoofs.

  “… up and down… up and down…”

  “… got two mages today… Mayhap that’ll help.”

  “Don’t count on mages…”

  “Ready lance or blade’s best defense for a lancer.”

  Cerryl rubbed his nose, trying to stop the itching. Kkkchew… He rubbed his nose.

  From the next high point in the road Cerryl looked northward. Ahead, the road turned eastward as it curved down and around the hillside toward a broad valley filled with meadows where scattered purple wildflowers dotted the green. Beyond the meadows was a forest or woods that stretched up the hillsides. Nearer, below the road to the left, the grass was sparser. Occasional bushes-still showing furled winter-gray leaves and bare branches-bordered the uphill side of the road.