Outcasts of Order

by L. E. Modesitt Jr

  Beltur turned and walked back to where Slowpoke was tied, drinking from a bucket that Beltur suspected Mheltyn had placed here. He looked to the relief teamster. “Thank you. I was a little tied up.”

  “I could see that, ser.” Mheltyn paused, then asked, “You were an arms-mage once, I hear?”

  “I was.”

  “An officer?”

  “Just an undercaptain.”

  “It shows. The way you dealt with the brigands. I don’t think most mages would do it that way.”

  Beltur smiled wryly. “I wouldn’t know. I didn’t work that much with other mages, except at the very end. I spent most of my time with a recon company.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me, ser. Thank you.” The teamster watched as Beltur waited for Slowpoke to finish drinking before he untied the gelding and led him forward to where Jhotyl waited.

  “Ready, Mage?”

  “I’m ready.” Beltur mounted quickly. “You want us to take it slow and steady on the ice, I take it?”

  “A very slow walk is best.”

  Almost a quint passed before all the wagons were clear of the ice that had been created by the brigands. Only then did Beltur speak again. “Whoever was the informer, it wasn’t likely to be one of the two inspectors, especially the Certan inspector.”

  Jhotyl nodded. “Because he asked about the pack mule, and I said it belonged to the mages.” The trader smiled wryly and added, “Unless he had a reason for getting rid of the brigands or wanted to teach them a lesson.”

  “Or to make the point that he deserved more of a cut of their booty,” called out Mheltyn from the seat of the lead wagon.

  “What’s the likelihood of more brigands?” asked Beltur. “You said earlier that there wouldn’t be many, if any, when we near Corumtal.”

  “If we do run into any more, it will be likely in the low hills before we reach the Viscount’s wagon road.”

  That didn’t exactly surprise Beltur, and he nodded, wondering what in the name of the Rational Stars he was going to do with Faeltur.

  LXXXVIII

  By sevenday evening, Beltur was tired, as well as slightly discouraged, largely because he hadn’t realized just how wide the Easthorns were. After six days of solid riding they were still in the high hills on the eastern side of the mountains, spending the night in a shabby way station, one with cracks in the wooden planks that made up the upper half of the walls, and with no wood for the hearth. That had required foraging, which, in turn, had reinforced what Faeltur and Jhotyl had said about the lack of real trees in the hills, because the comparatively small branches and dead wood that they had been able to find burned quickly and without much lasting heat.

  Beltur and his party—and Faeltur, whose hands were still bound—had finished their rations of salted mutton and hard bread and cheese and were huddled against the old and uneven stone wall that only rose a yard and a half from the packed clay floor before giving way to the uneven planks comprising the upper part of the wall.

  “I need to check your shoulder,” Beltur told the youth.

  “You check it every night and morning, ser.”

  “If he didn’t,” said Jessyla sharply, not quite snapping, “your shoulder would be filled with wound chaos. You’d be moaning, or trying not to, and on the way to dying. There was likely something smeared on that arrowhead.”

  “Just bear fat, the grubby fat that doesn’t render well. The good stuff’s for cooking.”

  Beltur doubted that the chaos that kept cropping up around Faeltur’s wound came from the fat, but rather came from something that had clung to the fat. “Hold still.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Beltur slowly sensed the area around the wound, finding more of the small but reddish-yellow wound-chaos bits, then used free order to destroy them. There were more than he would have liked, and that meant more heat in Faeltur’s shoulder.

  “Oooo … that’s hot.”

  “You’d be much hotter if I didn’t do this.”

  “I never knew there were mage-healers.”

  “You said that before.” Jessyla’s voice was terse.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve never been with mages. It’s … different. Are there many mage-healers?”

  “No,” replied Jessyla. “Mage-healers or healer-mages are few. You were fortunate. Otherwise, you might be dying.”

  Faeltur was silent.

  Beltur turned to Taelya, who was cuddled next to her mother. “I need you to create a shield.”

  “Now, Uncle Beltur?”

  “Now. You have to practice all the time or you won’t get better. It helps if you practice when you’re tired.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Beltur could sense that the small shield took effort, but it was solid enough to stop perhaps one or two arrows. After a time, he said, “That’s enough. You can let go now.” Then, smiling, he added, “Faeltur isn’t sure you could be a mage. Do you think you could create a little chaos flame right in front of him?”

  “I can too be a mage.” Setting her jaw, Taelya concentrated. A flame the size of her small fist appeared less than a yard in front of Faeltur, with enough heat that Beltur could feel it.

  So could Faeltur, who jerked back, then winced at the pain in his shoulder.

  “That’s very good, Taelya. Let it go, now.”

  The flame vanished.

  “See? I did it.”

  “You did it very well,” said Beltur. “Now … for a little practice sensing. I’ll put a concealment around me, and you point to where I am.” He stood, then placed a concealment around himself, easing to the left.

  “You’re there!” Taelya pointed directly at Beltur.

  Beltur moved again, and Taelya again pointed to where he was.

  “The next thing is that I’m going to put a concealment around you. It will be darker than night, but you can still sense where I am. Just point to where I am.”

  Taelya was silent for several moments. “You can’t see me. How do you know where I’m pointing?”

  “The same way you can sense where I am,” replied Beltur, moving as quietly as he could.

  “You’re there!”

  After several more movements, Beltur dropped both concealments and returned to settle beside Jessyla. “That’s all for tonight.”

  “That’s good.” Taelya yawned.

  Several moments later, in the dim light cast by the dying coals of the fire in the crude way-station hearth, Faeltur looked to Beltur and said quietly, “The little girl … she is already a white mage?”

  Beltur shook his head. “She can do enough to protect herself if she’s warned, and she can light lamps and candles, as you saw. She still has much to learn, and she has to grow and get stronger to be able to do more.”

  “The fur trader said that when you were an arms-mage, you killed hundreds. Are all mages that powerful?”

  “Some are likely more powerful than I am. Some aren’t. Part of how good a mage becomes is how well they are trained. I was fortunate to learn from someone who could help me.” And in the end, I couldn’t save him, hard as I tried. That memory would always bring pain, Beltur knew.

  Abruptly, Faeltur looked down and away.

  Later, when Faeltur, Taelya, and even Lhadoraak and Tulya had drifted into what had to be uneasy slumber, Jessyla said quietly, her lips at Beltur’s right ear, “Did you see Tulya’s expression when Taelya made that flame?”

  “No. I was watching her and shielding Faeltur, just in case Taelya put the flame too close. She was surprised?”

  “A little afraid, too.”

  Beltur frowned. “Maybe I should talk to Lhadoraak. He should be doing more of the disciplining of Taelya.”

  “Just in case she lashes out?”

  “Yes, I’ve already been worrying. That’s why I’ve had her working on shields and delicate control of chaos. I didn’t think she’d be this strong this young.”

  “That’s because no one’s thought to teach someone with the ability the way you have
,” said Jessyla.

  “That’s part of it, but she just has a great amount of ability.”

  “She doesn’t even have to try to keep her natural chaos separated from free chaos anymore. It’s habit. You made sure it was habit. That might be part of it.”

  “You’re doing well with that, too. I can sense that.”

  “It’s still not as much of a habit as it should be.”

  “Just keep working at it, and it will be.”

  “How did you get able to hold so many containments at once? I know Athaal taught you about them at first.”

  “I practiced on holding them around birds, as many as I could at a time. That was while I was walking to and from Jorhan’s smithy.”

  “Sometimes…”

  “Sometimes, what?” asked Beltur softly.

  “How you push yourself scares me, just a little. Why is that? That you do that, I mean?”

  “There have been times when I couldn’t save people. I suppose it might be that I never want to be in that position again.”

  Jessyla leaned even closer and kissed his cheek. “We need to get some sleep.”

  Beltur knew that … but still he worried about what might lie ahead.

  LXXXIX

  By noon on oneday, the hills through which the travelers rode were much lower, and there were only scattered patches of snow on the south-facing slopes. While chilly, the air was definitely warmer than it had been even on eightday, and with each kay that passed, the road continued to slope downward. Also on eightday, the stone-paved road had given way to a rutted track that had once been graveled, but remained that way only about half the time. Jhotyl had no explanation for why either Axalt had paved the road into the lands of Certis or Certis had paved the section closest to Axalt.

  Beltur wondered how old the stone paving was, but the fur trader had no idea. Parts of it looked ancient, but others seemed newer. Does the paved part date back to the time of Relyn?

  Earlier that morning, Beltur had noticed that the road had kept to an easterly direction, while the stream that had bordered it turned south into a narrow and winding gorge. He couldn’t help thinking he didn’t like being that far from water, especially given how much Slowpoke drank.

  While Tulya was clearly more cheerful with the warmer air, even smiling at times, Beltur was beginning to worry again. He wasn’t certain, but he had the feeling that a number of riders lay somewhere ahead. Whether they were armsmen serving the Viscount or more brigands he had no way of knowing, but he doubted that they served the Viscount.

  He became more concerned when he sensed a single rider behind an outcropping half a kay ahead, and even more so when that rider slipped away, riding to the east without returning to the road until he was well out of sight of the traders.

  “Someone’s scouting us,” Beltur reported to Jhotyl. “The scout’s riding east. I have the feeling there are more riders there, but it’s too far to say.”

  “Let me know when you can tell.”

  By the time another glass had passed, Beltur turned to Jhotyl. “There are close to a score of riders behind a ridge in the vale ahead.”

  “How far is the ridge from the road?”

  “It’s about half a kay to the north. The riders are about in the middle of the ridge.”

  “There’s no other passable way to Corumtal from here. Not at this time of year. And if we turn back, they’ll likely just follow us. Twenty sounds like more than you’d want to handle.”

  “We might be able to avoid them, or at least surprise them,” Beltur suggested. “If you don’t mind traveling like blind men.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can put a concealment around all of us, the way I did the other night in the way station when I was teaching Taelya.”

  “Mage … I was sleeping.”

  “A concealment hides people, like this.” Beltur dropped a concealment around Slowpoke and himself.

  “Where are you? Are you still there?”

  “I am.” Beltur released the concealment. “Unhappily, there are problems with using a concealment as you’ll see when I put one around you.” Beltur cloaked the fur trader and his mount in a concealment.

  “You’ve blinded me. I can’t see.”

  Beltur turned in the saddle. “Rhamtyl! Can you see Trader Jhotyl?”

  “Where did he go?”

  Beltur released the concealment, and Jhotyl seemed to appear from nowhere.

  “What good is that if we can’t see where we’re going?”

  “You can’t. Lhadoraak, Jessyla, and I can. We can sense where we are. Now … if each teamster walks and leads his horse with one hand, and holds to the wagon before him, and the lead teamster has a rope tied to Slowpoke’s saddle, we might be able to get across most of the vale ahead before the brigands realize we’re there.”

  “If they can’t see us, how would they know?”

  “A concealment doesn’t stop sound, and if we raise dust, it will hang in the air behind us once the concealment passes that dust.”

  “If they come after us, how will that help?”

  “Because they’ll be bunched together on the road.” If we get far enough along. “It’s much easier to deal with them if they’re in a bunch. If they attack us from the side—”

  “They can strike many more places. I understand that.” Jhotyl frowned.

  “Also,” added Beltur, “at the end of the vale, the land on each side of the road rises steeply, and it appears to be uneven. If we can get close to the east end of the vale before they discover us, that will force them closer together.”

  “And you can do something like you did in the mountains?”

  Let’s hope so. “That’s the idea.”

  “Don’t you ever attack first?” asked Jhotyl.

  “Not often.”

  “Have you ever attacked first?”

  Beltur had to think about that for a moment. “I’ve taken the attack to someone once they started something, but I can’t recall ever attacking first. Letting others make mistakes first seems to work better for me.”

  “Seems to me that you’re letting others set things up to their advantage.”

  “That might be because I’ve never had the advantage of numbers or position,” replied Beltur.

  “You should think about that,” suggested Jhotyl.

  At times, the trader’s words seemed … untrader-like. “You sound like you know something about arms and tactics.”

  The trader smiled. “Very little. For a time, I was close to those who did. I listened.” He shrugged. “Listening is useful. More useful than talking, most times.”

  Beltur could sense that Jhotyl wasn’t telling the entire truth.

  “When will you put us under this concealment?”

  “When we get to where we can almost see the ridge in the vale. If we can’t see where they are, they’ll not likely see us.”

  “I’ll call a halt now, and you can tell everyone the plan.”

  More than a quint later, the travelers resumed their measured pace through the end of the wider valley and then between the hills leading into the smaller vale—a far better place for an ambush. Just before the space between the hills widened, Beltur lowered the concealment over the group. Beltur was more than glad that he’d shown Taelya about concealments and that she had enough ability with sensing to know what was around her, although her abilities only extended thirty or forty yards, less if she happened to be hungry or tired.

  Beltur led the party, with Jhotyl on the right of the lead wagon horse, led by Rhamtyl.

  Jessyla rode between the first and second wagon, with Tulya beside her and Taelya farthest to the right, the mule and spare mount following, while Lhadoraak led the third wagon.

  As the group moved into the vale, Beltur kept sensing the riders hidden among the bush-like pines near the base of the ridge, but none of the riders moved out of hiding, even as Beltur reached a point on the road almost even with them. From what he could tell, there weren
’t any riders posted farther ahead, at least not for several kays.

  He kept sensing, having the feeling that there was … something … something not quite right. Then he swallowed. A swirl of chaos! Frig! They’ve got a white wizard … maybe only a scrub mage … but it won’t be long before he senses something.

  While Beltur could have used full screens over the entire party, total screens over that distance while riding two kays would have exhausted him, and the last thing he wanted was to have no shields or weak shields when the attack came, and it was indeed likely to come. He turned in the saddle in the direction of Jhotyl. “The raiders have a scrub mage. He hasn’t sensed us yet, but it likely won’t be long. Where the hills come together is still about half a kay away, and they’re about half a kay to the north of us. Can the wagons take a fast trot for a half kay?”

  “Not unless the teamsters can see where they’re going.”

  Beltur thought. Traveling under a concealment meant the attackers couldn’t see exactly where the travelers were, but neither could anyone but mages know where the attackers were, and Beltur could shield against just arrows until the brigands got close. That was as far as his thoughts got, because he sensed the raiders throwing themselves into saddles.

  Beltur dropped the concealment. “Keep moving as fast as you can safely! Lhadoraak and I will hold them off.” He moved Slowpoke to the north side of the road.

  “Teamsters! Fast trot! Now!” yelled Jhotyl.

  “Lhadoraak! Join me!” shouted Beltur. Then he glanced eastward. The distance to the narrowing of the open ground was still close to a thousand yards, and the riders bursting out from cover were likely to reach the travelers before they reached that point.

  “What do we do now?” asked Lhadoraak as he reined up beside Beltur.

  “We follow the wagons. I’ll shield for arrows and when they get close we’ll try a few tricks of sorts.” Beltur turned Slowpoke and urged him into a trot. He hadn’t covered more than two hundred yards before the brigands loosed their first shafts, but those dropped out of the sky when they hit Beltur’s outermost shield.

  That didn’t seem to slow the riders at all as they angled toward the road and the travelers.