Arms-Commander

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Dodging around bushes and clumps of grass and piles of other odoriferous substances made those fifty yards seem much farther…and her progress much slower, but she finally stood beneath the walls, trying to ignore some of the odors. From what she could sense, there were no sentries posted on the wall above her. The nearest was some twenty yards from the northern edge of the gates.

  She glanced eastward. Was there the faintest hint of light along the horizon?

  Step by step she edged along the rough outer surfaces of the stone until she was within ten yards of the sentry, where she stopped and extended her senses. She was closer than when she had severed the mountain ledge from the mesa…but then she’d been in no shape to do much of anything else afterwards. By getting nearer this time, she hoped that it wouldn’t be quite so much of a strain on her.

  A cough echoed from the sentry, and she froze for a moment, then continued to use her senses to feel for the junctures and nodes in the stone where order or chaos were more concentrated, trying to avoid the iron hinges and fastenings that felt silvery grayish black to her senses. Unlike the rock of the mountain ledge she had exploded, the quarried granite held flecks of order and chaos all along the edges where the stone had been cut, but those flecks were so tiny she could barely sense them. The nodes she did find were more uniform in size and strength, but there did not seem to be quite so many in a given area. That meant she’d have to link more junctures together and tie them to the area around the gate hinges.

  Although she knew that she was running out of time, she forced herself to be careful and methodical—linking, joining, smoothing the flows, almost like creating an electrical circuit, except that all the lines were live…or would be when enough were connected.

  Another cough jolted her, especially the words from the wall above and to the east of where she stood flattened against the stone.

  “…you see anything, Kulyn?”

  “…something out there…can’t make out…maybe a rider…”

  “…could be one of their scouts, watching us…”

  “…got a real bad feeling, Undercaptain. They got something against us…not going away…”

  The undercaptain laughed. “What can they do so long as we man the walls?”

  Saryn forced herself to continue creating the flow of order and chaos targeted at the stone supports of the gates, letting the words drift over her. She had to keep working because the eastern horizon was definitely getting lighter, and it wouldn’t be long before she was totally exposed—she might be already if anyone looked down.

  “Sargyl says they got a mage, ser…”

  “Might have a black one…you didn’t see any fire-bolts coming from them, did you? Besides, the black ones can only defend, and that won’t take the walls.”

  “Begging your pardon, ser, but there weren’t many from twentieth company that made it back…and they were fighting women.”

  “Renegades from Westwind, Lord Henstrenn says.” The undercaptain laughed again. “If those are the renegades, we’re better off leaving the Roof of the World alone.”

  Saryn almost smiled, but she could feel the energy building, as if everything were flowing toward the stone, and she dropped to the ground, flattening herself as much as she could.

  CRUMMPPTT!

  Beneath her, the ground shivered and shook for a moment…and then something hammered her flat. Waves of light and darkness sloshed back and forth in her skull, then subsided into a dull ache. She lifted her head and glanced around. A pillar of dust rose from where the gates had been, and she could feel the thunder of hoofs as the northern lords’ company galloped toward the gap in the walls.

  Quickly, she scrambled to her feet and began to run out toward where she sensed Ishelya was riding. No one seemed to notice her. For that, she was grateful. She was also glad she seemed to have some ability to sense and use the order and chaos flows, but the dull ache in her skull reminded her that she needed to be careful…very careful.

  As Ishelya brought both horses to a stop, Saryn swung up into the saddle, then glanced back toward where the gates had been. Half of Maeldyn’s forces were within the walls, and without even trying, Saryn could sense the rising number of deaths. She just hoped most of those were Duevekan or Suthyan.

  She turned the gelding toward fourth squad, realizing that the rest of the Westwind forces had almost joined the squad. As she rode toward her force, behind her she began to sense men and mounts milling around, moving slowly westward within the walls.

  “Captain! To the western gates! The Suthyans are trying to escape.”

  “On me!” ordered Hryessa. “To the western gates!”

  Saryn let the bulk of the riders pass her before swinging the gelding parallel to the column, noting that Hryessa already had each squad five abreast. Three more guards detached themselves from fourth squad and moved into position, flanking her on both sides. Then, the rest of fourth squad moved in behind them.

  On Hryessa’s orders, no doubt.

  As Saryn neared the western end of the holding walls, she saw that the armsmen riding out through the western gates, even before they were fully open, were clad in red and gold.

  “Squads abreast!” came the order from Hryessa, followed by, “Fourth squad hold for the commander! All others, charge!”

  Saryn couldn’t help but frown, as she began to gather and weave the order and chaos flows once more, hoping she would have the strength to divert at least some chaos-bolts away from the guards.

  The first guards reached the Suthyans without a single fire-bolt being cast, and the short swords of the guards ripped into the red-clad armsmen, who fought with a combination of desperation and resignation. That was the way it felt to Saryn.

  There aren’t any white wizards left?

  A few moments later, a squad in red and gold wheeled away from the melee and angled due north from the walls, as if to make a break between the Westwind and the Lornian companies that were following the others in though the eastern gates. Saryn could sense chaos amid the withdrawing Suthyan squad.

  That’s where he is.

  The last thing she wanted was any Suthyan mages surviving.

  “Fourth squad! On me!” Saryn projected her voice and command, drawing the short sword from the right knee sheath.

  “On the commander!” ordered Klarisa.

  Fourth squad surged away from the melee and behind Saryn as she rode toward the Suthyan squad. She could sense a concentration of chaos, but no fire-bolts arched toward her.

  Then…when they were yards from the Suthyans, a single word rang out. “Now!”

  A blinding flare of white light flashed before them, so bright that Saryn could see nothing. She could still sense the Suthyans ahead, and the chaos-mage, who had turned his mount to the east and was breaking from the squad.

  In the instants she had before she reached the first Suthyans, Saryn focused her order-chaos into an unseen knife wedge barely a yard wide, linked it to the blade, and flung both, directing them toward the fleeing wizard. The order-chaos-knife angled across the few riders to her left, cutting through them, and the black blade slammed through the white wizard’s shields.

  Another white flare flashed, and Saryn could sense nothing where the white wizard and his mount had been. She still could see nothing.

  Just before reaching the first rider in the Suthyan squad, she pulled a second short sword from her battle harness and slashed at the Suthyan, slightly off to her right. His block was weak, but accurate, suggesting that he’d closed his eyes, knowing what was coming…the first time.

  She ducked, kept moving, and back-cut, before coming up with a direct thrust under the guard of the next Suthyan. She was still operating mostly by sense, although her vision was beginning to return. Another parry and a cut, and she was behind the Suthyan squad.

  She wheeled the gelding and attacked from behind.

  For a time, the fight continued, but as the guards recovered their vision, more Suthyans dropped…and then more.
Then, there were but a handful of mounted Suthyans from the small squad.

  Saryn was about to move toward them, when she sensed, behind her, a smaller body of armsmen riding from the western gates, immediately beginning to turn south. She turned her head to see that they wore red and black—Keistyn’s colors. With that, she wheeled the gelding.

  “Fourth squad! To me! Now!”

  “On the commander!”

  What was left of fourth squad—or those who could respond—formed into a wedge behind Saryn as she rode toward Keistyn’s armsmen. As she neared them, she recognized Keistyn himself at the forefront.

  “Running away when you can’t bully?” Saryn order-flung the words at him. “You don’t want to fight when women make it too hard for you, little boy?”

  “Do your worst, bitch commander!” Keistyn spurred the big charger directly toward Saryn and fourth squad.

  Saryn didn’t feel charitable, not in the slightest. She also didn’t want to use any more order-chaos than she had to, but her squad was battered and outnumbered. She wove together as much order and chaos as she could and linked it to the short sword she hurled at him, with a wider and thinner chaos–cutting blade.

  Keistyn’s mouth opened, but no sound emerged as Saryn’s blade buried itself in his chest and the chaos-knife continued onward, separating his body—and the bodies of men and mounts beside and behind him—into two sections.

  Only a few armsmen on the flanks escaped the deadly wedge, and they turned their mounts almost due south and galloped away.

  “Fourth squad! Reform! On me!” Saryn glanced around, but the only riders outside the western gates were those of Westwind. Then she looked to Klarisa. “How bad was it?”

  “We lost four, it looks like, in the first and second ranks…because of the bright light. Another four were wounded. They should recover.” The squad leader shook her head. “I was lucky. I was behind you.”

  Saryn wouldn’t have called being behind her lucky. Surviving being behind her was.

  Hryessa had reformed the remainder of the company, and Saryn led fourth squad toward the company and the guard captain.

  “They’re still fighting inside,” Hryessa said.

  Saryn glanced toward the walls, trying to extend her senses, but that effort brought lightknives and involuntary tears to her eyes. She stopped trying, although she had a sense that the fighting was largely sporadic. “They’re just mopping up. We’ll stand by and take anyone who tries to escape.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Even without trying, Saryn could sense the agreement behind the captain’s words.

  Hryessa glanced to the north. Saryn followed the motion and saw one of their wagons rolling toward them, driven by Dealdron.

  “I have more blades!” he called as he brought the wagon and the team to a halt some fifty yards away.

  He shouldn’t have been out here, not that close to the fighting. After a brief moment, she laughed at her thought. How many men had thought the same about women over the years, whenever a woman left “her place”?

  Hryessa smiled, then looked to Saryn.

  “See if anyone needs any and send a guard to get them.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  While Hryessa dealt with the blades, Saryn looked back to the holding walls and the still-open western gates. Someone was riding out…but the armsmen wore green and purple, and at the head was Zeldyan.

  Saryn waited, even as four guards moved up to flank her.

  Zeldyan, accompanied by what looked to be two squads, rode up and halted. The rear squad rode around the first and formed up parallel to it. After a moment, she spoke to Saryn. “I heard your words to Keistyn. It was Keistyn, wasn’t it?”

  Saryn flushed. “I was angry. He and Henstrenn plotted and plotted, and their plots killed so many who didn’t have to die.”

  “I think everyone heard them…everywhere. What did you do?”

  “I lost my temper,” Saryn equivocated. “Then I killed him. The squad killed most of those with him.”

  Zeldyan nodded. “Most of those who heard what you said threw down their arms. Some others refused to surrender. It wasn’t the words, but the power. For a moment, everything stopped. Even those who fought lost heart. Except Henstrenn.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Maeldyn went after him. He wounded Henstrenn, but Henstrenn wouldn’t surrender. He ran at Maeldyn with a knife dripping something, maybe poison. Maeldyn cut him down. Henstrenn’s son was killed.” Zeldyan shook her head. “His own father…”

  “He killed his own son?”

  “He was yelling that better his boy die than bow to some bitches.”

  Saryn couldn’t help but wince. With that attitude, she was more than glad Henstrenn was dead…but his own son? And what did that mean for Lornth? “We need to ride into the holding.”

  Zeldyan nodded. “It’s over…now.”

  Saryn turned the gelding to head back into the captured holding. She stiffened in the saddle as she heard the faintest of murmurs, somewhere from within the Lornian squads.

  “…demon-damned bitches…killed too many good men…”

  She wanted to turn and demand just where the speaker had been for the past generation with all the infighting and battles that had killed far, far more than what she had accomplished in the last season. It wouldn’t do any good. Men like that already have their minds made up, and facts they won’t believe change nothing.

  She kept riding, flanked by her guards, back toward the holding, dreading seeing all the dead and wounded, even as she rode past and around the bodies of mounts and men. Behind her followed the rest of the Lornian and Westwind forces, and behind them Dealdron drove the wagon, doubtless to hold the weapons and goods that would be collected…in time.

  XCII

  For the glass after she rode into the holding of the late Lord Henstrenn, Saryn did very little but observe while the armsmen and guards searched all the buildings and rounded up the few remaining rebel armsmen, most of whom were wounded. Once those tasks had been accomplished, Saryn dismounted in the receiving courtyard and walked toward the white-granite steps leading to the entry foyer of Henstrenn’s villa, an elaborate single-story structure set on a knoll within the walls.

  She paused when she saw Dealdron’s wagon just a few yards west of the entrance and Dealdron standing beside it, loading something into the wagon bed. “What are you doing?”

  “Lord Maeldyn and his armsmen fought their way inside. Some of the guards were helping bring out bodies and weapons.” He gestured to the cart behind the wagon. “The bodies go there, the weapons and tools here.” He paused. “They say they’re almost done.”

  “You’re being very diligent.” Her voice carried a touch of amusement.

  “Too many who have skill with arms forget the costs of those arms, unlike you.” He smiled at Saryn. “What is in the wagon will support three companies of yours for over a year. It could be longer.”

  “What of the other lords?”

  Dealdron shrugged. “I just tell them that I am following orders and that they should ask you.” He grinned for the briefest of moments. “There are also more than a few silvers you will need. No one else knows how many.”

  Saryn could not say a word for a moment, not because of what he had said but because of what lay behind the words—a clear devotion to her, at the very least. Finally, she said, “Thank you.”

  Dealdron just inclined his head.

  As she headed up the steps, she couldn’t help but wonder why she found his devotion to her so unnerving. He was good-looking and took care with his appearance. He was bright, although his formal education was certainly lacking, but he definitely had worked at learning…and kept at it. She really didn’t care that he’d been a plasterer and an ostler…So why does his affection upset you? Because you’re actually attracted to him and yet so far above him in position? How many men have found and expressed an interest in younger women not of their “official” stature? Should it b
e any different for women? She swallowed as she realized the implications of the question she’d just asked herself. But why? Was it because he’d never intruded in the slightest on her, and always tried to please her, not by flattery or deceit, but by doing to the best of his skills what he thought she needed done?

  She shook her head. Thoughts about Dealdron would have to wait. But they can’t wait too long, came a stray thought from somewhere.

  She hurried through the villa’s front foyer and down the corridor to the right, where a pair of armsmen in Maeldyn’s tan and black were stationed outside a door. Stepping between them, she joined Maeldyn, Zeldyan, and Spalkyn in a small chamber, most likely the late lord-holder’s private study. That location afforded a view of the town and the river through the study’s wide south windows. The four sat around a square table, one Saryn suspected had been used more for gaming than for writing or meeting. She couldn’t imagine Henstrenn meeting with even three other people at the same time, not unless he planned to cheat them out of something, either by gaming or politicking.

  “What should we do with the prisoners?” asked Spalkyn, whose left forearm was heavily bound.

  Saryn refrained from replying immediately, instead using her senses to see if there happened to be any wound chaos in Spalkyn’s arm, despite the lightknives that stabbed through her eyes as she did. She found no chaos, but she reminded herself to check later…when she had recovered more of her strength.

  “They can’t stay here,” said Zeldyan.

  “Have them help rebuild The Groves,” suggested Maeldyn, “and pardon them if they do. Execute them if they refuse.”

  “They shouldn’t be allowed back on the holding here, either,” said Zeldyan. “They served Henstrenn.”

  “Nor in the town of Duevek,” added Saryn. “Other towns in the holding lands, but not Duevek itself.”

  “That’s reasonable,” agreed Maeldyn. “Whoever succeeds Henstrenn shouldn’t have to deal with that.”

  “That’s another problem,” offered Spalkyn. “There are no living heirs to Duevek. No close ones, anyway.”