Then Smathyl walks back to Lerial. “Ride and lead my mount until you hear that everyone is on the way. Then stop and wait for me.”
Lerial looks at the narrow path and then at the wayguide.
“It’s wide enough for a mount and a man, but not two mounts.”
Lerial laughs softly. “I’ll take your word for it.”
It is almost a quarter glass later when Smathyl rejoins Lerial, somehow eases his mount past Lerial, then remounts. Second company begins to follow him along the narrow path that twists and turns through the thickest woods, or so it seems to Lerial. After some time, he finally makes that observation to Smathyl, riding ahead of him.
“That it does, ser, and for a reason. Should anyone find the path, they would be hard-pressed to find their way any place with any speed.” The wayguide turns in the saddle and grins. “Not that it’s difficult to make such a path. All one has to do is follow ground at the same level through the woods.”
At the same level … There is something to those words, something that almost but not quite reminds Lerial of … But he cannot grasp that elusive thought, and he goes back to practicing creating coil patterns.
Almost a glass later, Smathyl reins up in a small clearing where the path appears to end, with only enough space for a mount and rider to turn. Lerial immediately extends his senses and realizes that open ground lies beyond the clearing, perhaps less than ten yards away, yet he can see no sign of what he senses.
The wayguide whistles an odd tune, and two men in brown appear as if from nowhere to stand in front of the thick thornbush. Smathyl rides forward, and the three converse. Lerial can only make out phrases, even using his order sensing.
“… almost a kay…”
“… make sure … move quick…”
“… little ones…”
After a few more moments, Smathyl rides back to Lerial. “It’s clear to the south, but the evil ones have split. The larger body is a kay or so to the west. They won’t be able to see you because the trees extend farther south just west of here. We’d appreciate it if you’d turn all your riders west quickly so that it looks like you’ve been shadowing the tree line. The smaller group is almost two kays east, and they’ve got a wizard who’s throwing firebolts at the trees. Not big ones, but making a mess. So far he hasn’t started any fires.”
“Thank you. We’ll be as quick as we can. How steep is the stone wall beyond the grass?”
“Little more than half a cubit. You’ll have to walk your mounts down over that.” Smathyl pauses, then says, “You’re one of the hidden black ones, aren’t you, ser? Not that it’d be any of my business…”
“I can do a few things … some healing, and I can sense the clouds and the weather a little.” Lerial smiles wryly. “Just enough to get myself in trouble.”
“Anyone who tries to do what’s right usually does. That’s why so few of power remain good.”
Lerial is still thinking about that when the “thornbush” rolls aside and a section of the massive trunk of the tree beyond it swings back, revealing a space just big enough and tall enough for one Lancer to ride through, if by ducking his head.
“Go ahead, Captain.” Smathyl gestures.
Lerial cannot sense anyone out on the open grassland, nor can he see anyone through that opening. So he urges the gelding forward and lowers his head. As he rides through, he sees that there are two smaller trees, if substantial in themselves, around which a false trunk has been constructed, so that they appear to be two forks out of the base trunk.
The stone wall is more like a cubit high, and Lerial guides the gelding over it slowly, then calls back. “Watch the drop at the end of the green grass! Pass it back!”
Before long, second company is formed back into squads with a four-file formation riding westward but keeping close to the trees, with a single scout some fifty yards ahead. Lerial keeps checking the map against what he sees and what he order-senses. The breeze out of the north is warmer than it has been, but it is spring, Lerial reminds himself, and there could be a shift and another cold south wind at any time.
Half a glass later, close to midday, the ranker scout rides around a large bulge in the forest, then halts, signals, and heads back toward second company … in a great hurry at a canter, if not a gallop.
Lerial frowns. He has not sensed anyone, except a mist like chaos. A mist like chaos? A chaos concealment! He bites back what he almost exclaims.
The scout reins up. “They’re coming this way, ser, two companies, maybe three, and it’s like they knew we were coming.”
“How far?”
“Two hundred yards, ser! Maybe less.”
Withdraw … or fight? If second company immediately flees … that suggests that the company is alone … and invites further pursuit. “All squads!” orders Lerial. “Line out on first squad! Five front! Ready bows!”
The other three squads have barely formed a line when the Meroweyan riders emerge from around the trees to the west. There are a good three companies, and the lead squads carry spears, not quite so long as the mirror lances that Lerial’s company does not have, but long enough.
Lerial waits … watching as the Meroweyan horse thunders toward his single company, waiting, judging. At just over a hundred yards, he commands, “Fire at will!”
With the shorter distance, the archers and Lancers only lift their shafts slightly, so that any that might pass between the oncoming riders can possibly hit riders behind. All the shafts are concentrated on the leading squads, and at first, only a mount or two goes down. Then one rider swerves, and two others collide with him … and more shafts fly.
Lerial is about to order an instant withdrawal when he senses the concealment mist vanish. Almost simultaneously, a modest chaos-bolt arches over the oncoming riders, now less than fifty yards from Lerial, directly toward first squad.
Lerial immediately tries the best order pattern he has, hoping that this time, the order returning will go where he wants it-and well away from him. As he clamps the order-pattern around the chaos-bolt, a feeling of ugliness, almost like filth or sowshit, grasps him.
WHUMPPPHYT! The chaos-bolt explodes-or starts to-midway between the two forces-and then a brilliant line of golden red sears back behind the attackers. Chaos-fire flares in their rear, far more than the chaos-bolt could have contained. But, with the explosion and the dissolution of the order pattern, the ugliness is gone.
Then … a barrier of hazy silver black, like a low wall no more than two yards high, appears just in front of the first line of Meroweyan spearmen. The entire first line hits the barrier and piles up for a moment … before the hazy silver black vanishes, as if it had never been, leaving a tangle of men and mounts, and then a huge gust of hot air smashes into first squad, and most probably, the rest of second company.
Lerial is almost torn from his saddle, but manages to keep his seat. He glances around, seeing that two or three rankers are barely hanging on to their mounts.
“Second company! Withdraw! To the rear! Now!” Lerial can sense that, while the attack has been blunted, the armsmen in the Meroweyan rear, at last on both flanks, can easily swing around the mess his very temporary shields have created, and they far outnumber his company, not to mention that they are better armed for riding down his semitrained rankers, already likely short on arrows.
As second company reverses direction and Lerial urges the gelding back toward the rear of first squad, now the front, he keeps pressing his order-senses. What he notices immediately is that there is no sense of chaos amid the Meroweyan force. Either he has disabled or killed the white wizard … or he has shielded himself, and there is no way to tell. After several moments more, it is also clear to Lerial that the confusion created by Lerial and second company is apparently enough to stop any immediate pursuit.