“A pity? You intend to spare him?” asked Anya, her tone almost idle.
“Demon-light, no. After what he’s done to the levies.. - and the lancers from Hydlen and Gallos? Politically… that’s not wise.”
“What about your elusive smith? Hasn’t he cost you even more than their commander?” Anya added, “Drawing wire… much good it will do…”
“It cost us less than fourscore levies to get through his river trap, and we control the river all the way to Kleth. Brede is more dangerous.”
“He’s only a soldier, no matter how good,” reflected Cerryl. “Your smith may have more tricks planned. He has carted some more black iron devices to Kleth.”
“Perhaps… but they will not save Spidlar.” Jeslek smiled again.
“We could lose nine of ten levies and still outnumber the blues. We should not have to spend anywhere near that number-but we could.”
“The smith might cost us that,” suggested Cerryl.
“How? You are losing but a handful of lancers for every ten kays of road you clear,” Jeslek observed. “I expect Eliasar on the morrow, and we are less than twenty kays from Kleth.”
The last twenty could be the costliest, for both lancers and mages. “And almost two hundred from Spidlaria:”
“Spidlaria does not matter, not now,” said Jeslek. “Once Kleth falls, we will have Spidlaria within a pair of eight-days-or sooner.”
Anya’s smile was bright, hard, and particularly false. As Cerryl saw it, Anya reminded him of a viper or the drawings he had seen of the stun lizards of ancient Cyador.
CXXVI
A light mist drifted from the low and gray clouds, cool but not cold, as Cerryl rode slowly down the west river road. A hundred cubits to his right was the line of trees marking the river. Ahead on the left side of the road was the hamlet where Jeslek had told Cerryl to round up whatever peasants he could find. Do you really want to do this?
He wanted to shake his head, knowing that Jeslek would march the people ahead of the levies toward Kleth. The idea of using innocent people as shields turned his stomach. But so do Black traps using unseen wires to gut and kill young lancers.
Cerryl glanced at the cots as the two companies of lancers rode up. The door to the first cot-a one-room thatched dwelling with a mud-brick chimney that rose a good two cubits above the topmost part of the thatch-was closed, and the single set of shutters was fastened shut.
“Voyst! Check the doors,” ordered Ferek.
Cerryl could feel the ironic smile creep across his face as the lancers checked cot after cot, only to find no one present.
Ferek eased his mount up beside Cerryl. “We can’t be rounding up village folk or herders or anyone, ser,” complained Ferek, “not if there be none to round up.”
Cerryl glanced around the hamlet. “Every building is empty?”
“Yes, ser. Not a soul around. Not even a cat or a pig.”
“Then we won’t find anyone in the next hamlet, either.” Cerryl’s ironic smile faded. “We’d better check one more, though. So we can tell the High Wizard that they’ve all fled.”
“You think so, ser?”
“I’m sure of it.”
The second hamlet, five kays farther north along the west river road, was as vacant as the first had been.
“Let’s head back,” Cerryl told Ferek and Hiser. “There won’t be people in any hamlet or village from here to Kleth.”
“That ‘cause they knew what the High Wizard did to Elparta?”
“I’d guess so.” Cerryl turned the gelding, and they rode back through a day that had turned warmer and damper, under clouds that were beginning to lift. He could feel the sweat building under his shirt, even though it was early in the spring yet.
The road remained empty, with a deserted feeling, all the way back to the latest camp by the river, slightly less than fifteen kays south of Kleth. One of the barges was missing, being pulled upstream to Elparta to return wounded and bring back more supplies.
As Cerryl dismounted by the tie-lines for the light cavalry, he saw Faltar walking toward the area where the cook fires were being set up. “Faltar?”
The thin blond mage turned. He had a bruise across his cheek and a short, scratchlike slash on his forehead. “Oh… Cerryl.”
“What happened to you?” Cerryl tightened his lips as he saw the ugly purpling blotch. Is that because you worry that Faltar doesn’t have enough chaos strength for what he’s been tasked with?
“Caltrops-hidden in shallow water where a little creek crossed the road.” Faltar started to shake his head, then winced, as if the movement hurt. “Can’t sense order under running water, and who would have thought… ?”
“Your mount?”
“Went down, broke a leg. I went with her, most of the way.”
“Caltrops-dirty nasty things,” murmured the dark-skinned Buar, riding up and dismounting. “Lost three mounts and a lancer. No arrows, though.”
“Everything in war is dirty and nasty.” Especially if it happens to you. “Do you need Leyladin to look at that?”
“No. I brushed the cut with a touch of chaos, and there’s nothing she could do about the bruises.” Faltar offered a crooked smile. “I do need to find another mount, though. I’m supposed to ride in the middle group of mages. You know, with Myredin, Ryadd, and the others. And Bealtur, of course. We get to fry the countryside.”
Cerryl winced.
“Someone told me that everything in war is nasty.” Faltar grinned at Cerryl.
“You’re right,” Cerryl conceded. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t last another year.” The midday sun had finally burned away most of the mist and was beating down as if it were almost summer when he turned toward the river to find the High Wizard.
Before seeking out Jeslek to report his inability to gather locals to serve as targets, Cerryl stopped by the awning tent, which held but two lancers. One held his arm while Leyladin checked the leg of the other-white-faced and stretched out on a pallet. All those previously wounded had already been sent back to Elparta the day before.
Cerryl eased toward the healer.
“Oooohh!”
“There,” said Leyladin. “Just don’t move until I can bind it.” She turned to the second lancer.
“The bone… I can see it.”
Leyladin turned, her eyes lighting on Cerryl. “Cerryl… could you give me a hand here? I need you to help me straighten his arm and hold it in place while I set the bones in place and bind them.”
“Just show me what you want.”
Leyladin raised her eyebrows. “Here. Hold like this…”
Cerryl followed her instructions, trying to keep the arm in place as Leyladin used her senses, a fair amount of force, and her ordering to reset the bones where she wanted them. In the end, the lancer lay unconscious on a pallet, his breathing hoarse, while sweat streamed down the mage’s face and neck.
“Thank you.” Leyladin was pale. “I couldn’t do that if I had many who were wounded.”
“I can see why.” He guided her to the one stool, under the shade of the awning. “You need to sit down.”
“Why are you back so early?”
“The peasants fled.” He shrugged. “So I couldn’t round them up to act as our advance guard.”
“That doesn’t seem to bother you.” Leyladin took a swallow from her water bottle and offered it to him.
“Thank you.” He took a small swallow. “I’m bothered, and I’m not. I don’t think peasants or croppers should take attacks meant for armsmen, but I don’t like seeing our armsmen and lancers killed by nasty Black tricks because the Spidlarian traders won’t pay tariffs to support the roads that help their trade.”
“People are people,” she said tiredly. “The traders want more coins. The Guild needs to survive. The viscount and the prefect and the dukes want to stay in power and live well, and there’s not enough coin for everyone to do what they want. So they fight.”
Is it that simple? There’s not enough, and they f
ight? Except that leaves even less when the fighting’s done.
“You’re right,” she answered his thought. “But the winner has more, and the losers can’t do much about it. I’ll be all right. You need to find Jeslek. We can talk after that. I’ll find something for us to eat.”
“Thank you.”
She smiled, and he had to smile back, although his smile faded once he turned. As he walked toward where Jeslek’s tent was being set up Cerryl could still sense the pain that Leyladin had felt as she had straightened and bound the lancer’s arm. Is that what it feels like? No wonder she’s exhausted all the time.
Anya stepped from under the small tree where she and Jeslek had been sitting on stools. “You were supposed to round up the peasants and hold them at the hamlet.”
“I can’t round up what isn’t there.”
“You didn’t turn up any peasants? Did you warn them off?” asked Anya.
Jeslek stood, blinking as he stepped forward into the sun. “I doubt Cerryl would do something that foolish, Anya. Would you, Cerryl?”
Cerryl ignored the High Wizard’s sarcastic tone. “Someone else warned them. Spidlarian lancers, I’d guess, from the tracks.”
“And you just turned around?” asked Anya.
“No, we checked the next hamlet and some of the cots beyond that. They were all empty.” The younger mage gave an apologetic smile he didn’t feel. “All of the hamlets and villages from here to Kleth are empty, I suspect.”
“Cerryl has a feeling for such, Anya. I am quite sure that he is correct. We will have to adjust our attack accordingly, and I am most certain Cerryl will be of great assistance.” Jeslek turned his eyes on Cerryl. “You may go. I will summon you later.”
“Yes, ser.” Cerryl turned, ignoring the coldness in Anya’s eyes and the set to her jaw.
Jeslek had always been devious and self-centered, but he appeared to be developing a streak of almost wanton cruelty. Did being High Wizard do that? Sterol had been far more direct… and trustworthy. And Cerryl hadn’t cared much for Sterol, but he cared far less for what Jeslek seemed to have become. That would get worse, too, long before they reached Spidlaria or even Kleth.
CXXVII
The mist rose off the edges of the River Gallos, shrouding the far bank as Cerryl squeezed Leyladin a last time.
“Remember what Kinowin said,” she whispered. “Do what you must do, but no more.” Her lips brushed his cheek as she stepped back, still holding his hands in hers.
That will be hard. “I understand, but it’s going to be hard.” He released her hands and stepped away from the shadows of the healer’s tent, walking downhill toward where the others were gathering, feeling her green eyes on his back.
Faltar nodded to Cerryl but did not speak. Cerryl nodded back, offering a smile of encouragement, one he wasn’t sure he felt.
Standing by the High Wizard’s tent, Anya surveyed the group, then turned and murmured something Cerryl could not hear. Clad in whites that shimmered in the gray of predawn, Jeslek stepped from the tent. His red-rimmed but still glittering sun-gold eyes raked across the mages assembled there. A half-pace back stood the squat Eliasar, his face impassive. Behind him was the goateed Bealtur, who glanced away as Cerryl looked toward him. On the gradual slope above and behind the mages were the captains and overcaptains, some in the green of Certis, some in purple, some in gold and red, and one in the cyan of Lydiar.
“Today, we begin the advance to take Kleth,” began the High Wizard. “The blues are gathered there, and once they have been crushed there is no other bar to our redemption of Spidlar. Eliasar or Anya or I have talked to each of you about your duties, but I will parse them out again so all know what the others’ tasks are.”
As Jeslek paused for a moment to let the words settle on the group, the faintest tinge of orange light glimmered on the eastern horizon.
“The heavy cavalry of Gallos will be the van proper…” Jeslek’s eyes flicked from the overcaptain with the broad purple sash downward to Cerryl. “Cerryl, since we have no peasants to march before the levies, you and your light lancers will patrol the road before the main part of the vanguard. Your task is to detect any Black sorcery. Buar will work with you.”
Cerryl nodded.
“Behind the van will follow the first of the heavy levies, those of Gallos, then the first section of White mages. They will burn the fields back away from the road.” Jeslek snorted. “There will be no cover and no crops. Let them suffer.” His voice rose ever so slightly. The sun-gold eyes glittered with the same intensity, despite the red that rimmed them. Chaos smoldered around the High Wizard, more chaos than ever, so much chaos that Cerryl’s own eyes wanted to twist away from Jeslek.
“Then the lancers of Certis and the Certan foot…”
Cerryl continued to listen, but his thoughts drifted from the High Wizard’s words. At times, the whole purpose of the Guild seemed fruit-less. How could anyone bring prosperity to lands where rulers and greedy traders wouldn’t even pay for the roads that brought them prosperity? And how could Jeslek think that mere destruction would force them to change their minds?
“…you know your orders. Carry them out.” A line of fire sparkled upward toward the orange-tinged puffy clouds and dark green-blue sky.
Cerryl turned and began to walk toward his lancers, where dust already rose and mixed with the smell of horse droppings and cook-fire smoke.
“Lot of horse and foot out here-good thing they don’t have mages to throw firebolts,” said Ferek, looking down from the saddle.
They’ve got a Black mage who might do worse-except I don’t know what that might be. “We’ll have to make sure they don’t have something else hidden.” Cerryl turned as he saw Buar approaching.
“Do you know what we’re seeking?” asked Buar.
“No-except that it will have order surrounding it, as if it were black iron or something like that.” Cerryl finished checking the girths, which seemed tight enough, not that he was the most expert of horsemen, if far, far better than a year before. Then he mounted. “Are we ready?”
“Yes, ser.” Both Hiser and Ferek nodded as they spoke.
The dampness from the winter ice and the melted snow and ice had vanished days earlier, and the horses’ hoofs already raised dust as Cerryl’s lancers turned northward on the west river road.
“Doesn’t the road get better?” asked Buar, drawing up beside Cerryl.
“Four, five kays up, or so,” Cerryl answered, trying to get his thoughts off more distracting subjects-like Leyladin and the growing chaos around Jeslek and the shortsightedness of various Candarian rulers. “That’s where it widens.”
Two scouts rode past the column on the shoulders of the road, leaving low dust trails in the still morning air. Two scouts, Jeslek’s concession to some prudence.
The Gallosian heavy lancers had moved onto the road behind Cerryl’s force, and from behind them came cadenced marching songs and the measured step of the Gallosian foot. The column plodded northward along the river road. The sun crept higher into the eastern sky, bringing more light and increasingly unwelcome warmth to the land, the road, and the riders. Nothing moved anywhere except the riders and the armsmen, northward toward Kleth.
As the sun climbed, Cerryl struggled to keep his eyes and senses on the road. The line of packed clay curved eastward in an arc that followed the river, then curved back westward. To the west of the road were fields, showing even shoots of green, green that Faltar and the others would sear as they had those already left behind the column.
As they rode around the curve to the west, Cerryl studied where the road ahead changed. As he had seen in the screeing glass, the last ten kays, those closest to Kleth, were almost like a White highway, with oblong paving stones, radiating a faint order, set edge to edge. The paved center of the road itself was nearly fifteen cubits wide, enough for two wagons abreast.
“Better here,” said Buar.
“Looks to be so.”
The paving st
ones looked normal enough, and the low stone walls were set back more than ten cubits from the edge of the paving stones, The walls were just a shade less than two cubits high, hardly tall enough to harbor the invisible knives that the blues had placed in more wooded areas. Not unless they can make them invisible or they’re aimed at the horses.
Cerryl rode at the front of the van, on the western side of the road, with a lancer between him and Buar, who rode the eastern point. As they neared the beginning of the paving stones, Cerryl tried to get a feel for the road. He could sense nothing out of the ordinary except the faint nagging order of the oblong paving stones-and that this part of the road was not new, but old. Had the entire road been paved at one time? Or had the traders run out of coins for paving?
“… like one of ours.”
“… don’t even think it.”
The gelding’s hoofs struck the paved way, and Cerryl continued to study the wall and the paving stones, yet all he could sense or see were the stones and the strong residual order they held.
“Riders ahead!” called one of the scouts riding but a hundred cubits ahead of the column and along the shoulder of the road.
Cerryl strained.
A small company of blue lancers appeared from behind a low hill, riding at an angle to the road. They reined up abruptly, drew bows, and loosed a double handful of shafts.
Cerryl raised a chaos barrier, struggling as he did to trace any possible order concentrations.
Whhstt! A shaft tumbled past Cerryl, its momentum killed by his barrier.
Thunnk! A second shaft plowed into a lancer somewhere behind the mage, who winced at the sound.
As quickly as they had halted and loosed their shafts, the blue lancers wheeled and rode northward.
Cerryl forced his senses onto the road, even as Teras sent forth a line of Gallosian cavalry to pursue the blues, who swung around the curve in the road that brought it more eastward. Cerryl’s eyes and senses picked up the Spidlarian lancers on the crest of the hill toward which the road curved and climbed-the lancers and something else. The Black mage-the smith.
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