“If you lead the charge again, won’t he concentrate on you?”
“He might, but he’s high enough above the road that I can’t charge him directly. At least, I don’t think I can.”
“Won’t your shields deflect chaos-bolts? They did before.”
“For a while. But if my shields hold, he’ll just aim farther back and burn the rankers beyond my shields. The stronger he is, the smaller my shields have to be.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“Aim the attack at the point closest to him.”
“The road is so narrow that we really can’t do that.”
Beltur thought for a moment. “Is there a ranker who can loose those iron-shafted arrows at the wizard, or close enough that he’ll think they’ll hit him?”
“What do you have in mind, Undercaptain?”
“If I take a small group that starts loosing arrows at him, he’ll aim chaos-bolts at me. They’ll have to use the iron arrows though.”
“Those aren’t much good beyond a hundred yards, if that.”
“We’ll be closer than that. We’ll have to be for them to do any good.” That was another guess on Beltur’s part, but they had to be close so that the wizard didn’t have much time to react. “Hopefully, my shields will splash the chaos on any Gallosians near us, which might open things up behind us. It will also keep him from doing as much damage to the rest of the company.”
“You think so?”
“I’d like to think so.”
Laugreth laughed softly. “So would I.” He turned in the saddle. “Gaermyn … you heard the undercaptain. Do you have someone who can shoot that well during an attack?”
“Most of them.”
“We’ll put one on each side of the undercaptain, and he can lead the way.”
With those words from the captain, Beltur decided to cloak himself from order and chaos. He didn’t see much point in cloaking the entire company, since the Gallosians had to know where they were, but the last thing he wanted was for the white wizard to know exactly where he was.
“This way, Beltur.” Laugreth led the way to where Fourth Squad had formed up, then waited for the other squads to take their positions.
Finally, he ordered, “Company, forward!”
The first hundred yards were slightly downhill, the next hundred near-level, at which point Beltur dropped a concealment over the company, just before the company reached where the road dropped down a gradual slope to the fork in the road. That was where Recon Two would have come into sight without the concealment. The Gallosian wizard might well be telling company captains where Recon Two happened to be, but without seeing the company, the Gallosians might be reluctant to loose shafts, if indeed they even had archers.
The first Gallosian units were still almost two hundred yards away when Beltur sensed something else. “Captain … the first units are pikemen and shieldmen.”
“Can you knock the first rank aside?”
Beltur kept his sigh to himself. “I can try.” What else will he want? And how long can you keep doing this? Yet, how could he not try? Elparta had taken him in when Gallos had thrown him out … and then there was Jessyla. If Elparta fell …
He shook his head, knowing the captain couldn’t see him.
They rode another hundred yards in silence and darkness. By then, he could hear the Gallosians.
“… out there a couple hundred yards…”
“Pikes! Stand by. Shields! Ready.”
“They know we’re here,” said Laugreth.
“The white wizard told them, but they don’t know exactly where. How close do you want to be when I drop the concealment?”
“Thirty yards, unless they loose arrows before that.”
Beltur forced himself to wait as the distance decreased, and the comments from the Gallosians became clearer.
“… hear hooves…”
“… got to be close…”
“Why are we waiting?”
Beltur had a last-moment idea. “Just before I drop the concealment, I’m going to extend it over the front ranks of the Gallosians.”
“Fine. Let me know.”
Beltur said nothing until they were around forty yards. “Extending concealment. Forty yards.” He smiled at the surprise from the Gallosians.
“… can’t see…”
“… frigging mage blinded us…”
“… where are the bastards?”
“Thirty yards,” declared Beltur.
“Company!”
Beltur dropped the concealment.
“Charge!”
Beltur urged Slowpoke on, just hoping that the gelding wouldn’t spook at the pikes, then decided to extend his shields another few yards so that the shield would knock them away before they looked that close to Slowpoke. He also angled the gelding slightly between two pikes.
Even so the impact on his shield felt as though he’d been hit with a blunt timber, and he immediately contracted his shield to just in front of Slowpoke, but wide enough to cover the rankers riding closely beside him on each side. Once through the pikemen and shield bearers, Slowpoke and the shield plowed aside several footmen with spears.
Beltur guided the gelding slightly to the left, angling more toward the mage.
HHISSST!
Chaos-fire splattered away from the shield, and a wave of heat flared across Beltur, no worse than midsummer in Fenard, but definitely warmer than fall in Elparta. A second chaos-bolt followed the first as footmen scattered away from Beltur. It created more heat, like a fire close up.
Beltur forced himself to look beyond the Gallosian rankers ahead, using sight and senses to locate the white wizard. “See the five men on the knoll to the left! The one in the middle is the white wizard. Start loosing shafts! The iron ones!”
A third chaos-bolt slammed into Beltur’s shield, and heat felt like he’d passed through an oven. He could sense iron shafts heading toward the mage, then saw reddish flares as the shafts bounced off the wizard’s shields.
“More shafts! Now!” Beltur could see they were less than forty yards from the knoll and the wizard. Without quite knowing why, he put order on the arrowheads being nocked by the two rankers.
That shaft flared against the wizard’s shields, and Beltur could sense that something had happened. The same effect occurred with the next shaft! “Again!”
He added more order to the next pair of shafts … and to the third pair.
At that moment, he began to feel light-headed, and he just hung on for a moment.
Abruptly, chaos flared from the knoll and five Gallosians turned into charcoaled figures.
How much order did you put there? Even that question made his head ache, or ache more.
Beltur could barely hang on to his shield and dropped it just to cover himself and Slowpoke, but by then no one seemed to be near him and the two rankers. He slowed the gelding to a fast walk, but kept moving. He didn’t want to be close to the fighting because he could feel his shields all slipping away.
Then he was swaying in the saddle.
“Catch him, Dobryn!”
Those were the last words he heard before the blackness, tinged with flecks of white-hot chaos, flowed over him.
LXIII
When Beltur woke, his head was splitting, and he lay on his back on a narrow pallet bed. Flashes of light flicked in front of his eyes. They didn’t come from the small oil lamp suspended from a spike in the wall.
“Where…”
“You’re all right, ser. You’re at the barracks. The healer said you’d be all right in a while, but you’re not to do any more magely stuff. Not for a while.” A younger ranker stood by the plank wall that confirmed to Beltur that he was indeed in the barracks, possibly in his own temporary bed.
“The healer? What healer?” Beltur’s throat was dry, and his voice rasped with each word.
“Older blond woman. She seemed to know you.”
Margrena, then. Another thought crossed his mind. “When is
it?”
“After sixth glass. It’s still fiveday, ser.”
“Thank you.”
“There’s stuff here for you to eat and drink, ser. Especially drink. You’re supposed to do that as soon as you can.”
Beltur had to roll onto his side and brace himself on the side of the narrow bed in order to sit up. The ranker stepped forward and handed Beltur a mug. Beltur found his hands were shaking so much that he had to use both of them to hold the mug and take a small swallow of the ale. After several swallows, his mouth and throat didn’t feel so dry, and there weren’t quite so many flicker-flashes breaking up what he could see. His hands also stopped shaking. Mostly.
“How did the company do?” he finally asked.
“We lost eight in the last fight, ser. Five wounded. Ryhsyn likely won’t make it. Would have been a lot more if we hadn’t broken through.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about, ser. Would have been a lot worse if you hadn’t opened them up so we could get through.” The ranker paused. “You be all right, now, ser? Captain said I was to tell him when you woke.”
“I won’t go anywhere.” That was true enough. Beltur scarcely felt like moving.
After the ranker hurried off, Beltur drank more of the ale, and then ate some of the sweet bread and the pearapple that had been left for him. By the time he finished, most of the light flickers had stopped, and the throbbing in his head had subsided to a dull ache, and the last of the tremors in his hands seemed to have stopped. On the other hand, he was even more aware of the soreness in his thighs, chest, neck, and shoulders, soreness that might show up as bruises before that long.
He couldn’t sense anything, not even faintly and only a few yards away. Yet he wasn’t totally surprised when the captain walked into the small space and looked at him. The captain’s uniform was splotched in places, as if he’d wiped away blood and other matter. Beltur might have been able to sense that, if he’d been able to sense anything.
“You look a lot better than when they carted you in here, Undercaptain.”
“I imagine so, ser. I don’t remember much after we rode past where the Gallosian mage was.”
“You and the two rankers almost made it to our lines before you collapsed.”
Beltur definitely didn’t remember that. “How are the men?” he asked cautiously.
“Fifteen dead, so far. Another eleven wounded.”
Beltur winced. That was a quarter of the company.
“The majer thinks we worked wonders.” Laugreth’s voice was dry. “It depends on how you look at it.”
Beltur didn’t say anything.
“After two days of real fighting, we’re less than eight-tenths of full strength. Just two days. On the other hand, we’ve effectively removed almost three companies of Gallosians. To the majer and the marshal, our casualties are acceptable.”
“Twenty-six men.” Beltur didn’t know what else to say.
“Six of them look to recover fully. One will likely die. The other four … with luck and a good healer…” Laugreth paused. “I understand about shields. I’ve seen your concealments. What else did you do?”
“I did what you ordered, ser. I shielded Slowpoke, and we broke through the pikes and shields, and then we rode toward the mage on the knoll. I just had the rankers shoot iron shafts at the mage.”
“That’s what your rankers said. But you must have done something more. I talked to the majer. Other companies have loosed iron shafts at mages, and they just get knocked down.”
“That happened at first, but we got really close … and I added a little order to the shafts.” Beltur suspected he’d added too much order, and that was what had exhausted him. Or part of it.
“That was what I thought. I asked some of the mages if that could be done. None of them think order can be added to iron except when it’s being forged.”
“Then I don’t know what I did. That’s what I thought I did.”
“I told the one of them … Cohndar, he said he was the head mage, what I saw, and he said that you must have been using chaos.”
“I definitely didn’t use chaos,” said Beltur. “If I’d added chaos to iron shafts, both rankers would have burned to death.”
“They would have?”
“That’s what happened to the Gallosian mage. When all that ordered iron hit the chaos of his shield, everything exploded.”
“Then … why…?”
“I’m a black mage, but I’m not like Cohndar and some of the others. I don’t know why.”
“There was another mage there, Waensor or something.”
“Most likely Waensyn. He’s not exactly fond of me.”
“He muttered something … well … about you being … sort of a mongrel mage.”
“He’s said that before.”
Laugreth smiled. “I couldn’t help but tell him that the mongrel dogs I’ve known were usually the smartest and always the most loyal. Loyalty and intelligence make them useful.”
“I’m sure he appreciated that,” replied Beltur sardonically.
“What does he have against you? Did you take his girl or something?”
That startled Beltur. “His girl?” Jessyla? How could he think that? “She was never even interested in him.”
The captain laughed. “It’s good to see that.”
“See what, ser?”
“You’re thinking about a woman even when you look like wild horses ran you down.” Laugreth smiled, if for a moment. “Are you sure you’re all right? I need to look in on the others.”
“I think I will be.” Before the captain could leave, Beltur asked, “How close are the Gallosians?”
“They haven’t been able to advance today, and we’ve pushed them back in places.”
“What about siege engines?”
“There’s no sign of them yet.” The captain stepped back. “You’re supposed to take it easy for a while. I’ll check with you tomorrow morning.”
Beltur sat on the edge of the pallet bed and finished the last of the bread, as well as the ale. He was debating what to do next, when a woman in healer greens and holding a pitcher stepped into the space. It took him a moment to recognize her. “Margrena. The ranker said you were here.”
“I’d have expected order exhaustion from Jessyla, but not from a full mage.”
“How is she?”
“She’s fine. I need to watch her. She tends to give too much of her own order.” Margrena looked hard at Beltur. “What in the Rational Stars did you do? You didn’t get so order-depleted just by holding shields and smashing an entire company.”
“I didn’t do that. We just broke through the shield wall and pikes.”
The healer shook her head. “Your captain said that you and that horse that no one else can really control killed or wounded something like fifty Gallosians in your last charge. He said he’d never seen something like that before.”
“I didn’t see much at all. I was just trying to break through so that we could get back, and then I had to hold a shield against a white wizard’s chaos-bolts,” Beltur admitted.
“You were shielding others and wielding off chaos? Don’t you know what that can do to you?”
“It’s exhausting. I know that.”
“When a chaos-bolt hits your shield, you lose a bit of order. You don’t notice it like that. It just feels harder to hold the shield, but it draws order, and if you don’t have enough free order around you, it will draw order right out of you.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You wouldn’t have. White mages have that problem with chaos, not order.”
Beltur nodded slowly, then asked, “You said you were worried about Jessyla. How is she?”
“She’s fine. She’s showed more sense than you did.”
“It didn’t seem that I had much choice at the time.”
“You likely didn’t. That’s why you need to think things out before you get into such
a situation.” Margrena’s expression softened. “Unhappily, the knowledge to see things in advance comes with experience, and experience is a costly tutor.”
Beltur was beginning to understand that even more.
“You drank all the ale?”
“I did. I also ate the bread and pearapple.”
“Very good. Here’s a pitcher of ale. Drink another mug before you go anywhere or do anything. Don’t use any order or chaos, not even for shields. Not until you’ve had a good night’s sleep. If you do even a fraction of what you did today with order or chaos in the next day or so, it could kill you.”
The seriousness in Margrena’s words froze Beltur for a moment.
“I told the captain that, too. By tomorrow, you might be able to do a very few things. Carefully. If you get light-headed or dizzy or feel weak, stop. No matter how little you think you’re doing.” She handed Beltur the pitcher. “I need to go. They said they were bringing in more wounded. Drink some more ale right now. I know I’m repeating myself. You’re young enough you need to hear things more than once.”
“Yes, Healer.” Beltur managed a smile, then immediately refilled his mug.
Margrena shook her head.
Beltur thought he saw a hint of a smile as she turned away.
He’d drunk another half mug of ale by the time Zandyr stepped into the makeshift cubicle. Other than some wrinkles and creases, his uniform looked almost untouched, and his hair was brushed into place.
“You’re alive, I see.” The blond undercaptain sat on the end of his bed.
“Mostly, anyway,” bantered Beltur.
“I heard you fainted after you charged the mage.”
Beltur just looked at Zandyr for a long moment. “You might see it that way. It wasn’t what happened.”
“What did happen, then?”
“The best way I can explain it”—to you anyway—“is to say that attacking the mage was like being thrown into a stone wall from the saddle at full gallop.” Beltur wasn’t about to explain about order and chaos and the effect of the loss of either. Besides, he felt like he’d hit a stone wall.
“Why is that?”
Because Zandyr actually looked puzzled, Beltur replied, “Because white wizards have shields. You can’t see them, but they’re there. My shields hit his.” That was a total falsehood, but Beltur didn’t care. It was true in a roundabout fashion, since two mages, one aided by a few volleys of iron-shafted arrows, had clashed, and one was dead, and the other, apparently, had come much closer to that than he’d ever intended.
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