Extending his perceptions again, ignoring the fire that ran through his body, he let the mare trot forward, afraid a run would jolt him right out of the saddle.
Huldran rode on his right, Weindre on his left, and twoothers he didn’t look back to identify slightly behind.
Another firebolt flared, but Nylan raised his blade, using his senses somehow to deflect it.
A third firebolt slammed at Nylan, cascading around his blade, and almost singeing his hair.
The engineer felt as though he were riding in slow motion, but he kept moving, holding the blade like a talisman, ignoring the soreness in his muscles as he and the guards narrowed the distance between them and the wizard.
Two firebolts, in quick succession, flashed toward them, but Nylan, with his senses, eased them aside.
As the white wizard saw the guards beating their way through the armsmen, he glanced left, then right, and squinted.
Nylan could feel the sense of distortion, the wrenching feeling twisting at his sight, and he fought it, muttering under his breath, “I will. I will see what is. I will … will …”
His head seemed to split as unseen lines of fire stretched from the wizard to him, but he held firm, his eyes blurring, only knowing that the wizard’s defenders were melting under the flashing, often crudely hacking, blades of the Westwind guards.
Suddenly, the wizard turned his mount and started to gallop away. Two blades flashed through the air. One struck, almost a glancing blow, Nylan thought, but the wizard almost seemed to disintegrate.
“Get those blades!” ordered Huldran.
Nylan, ignoring the blinding knives that accompanied each glance at the bodies strewn across the area around the fields, and the gash in his arm that he had not even noticed before, urged the mare toward the knot of armsmen besieging Ryba and the guards around her.
As the two guards reclaimed their blades, Huldran, Weindre, and Nylan rode over the corner of the bean field toward the dust-shrouded figures struggling in the mid-morning light.
Gerlich loomed over the group, and his blade cleared a guard from her mount, almost bisecting her.
Nylan winced at the additional pain of more death, but leaned forward in the saddle, still gripping his blade.
“Now, we’ll see, Angel and Marshal!” yelled Gerlich, spurring his mount toward Ryba, pushing aside one of his own armsmen as he came up on her left side, the huge blade spinning like night toward the marshal, even as she turned.
The dark-haired leader dived sideways as the blade clove through the neck of the roan. The big red horse crumbled, but Ryba tucked and rolled out, staggering erect into a space in the midst of the dust and horses.
One of Ryba’s arms hung loosely as Gerlich wheeled his mount toward her.
Her shoulders slumped, and Nylan watched helplessly. Gerlich’s blade rose again.
At the last moment, the forgotten slug-thrower came up … and four even shots stitched four welts of red across Gerlich’s chest. The big blade slipped from his fingers as his mouth dropped open.
As the ten or so armsmen turned, as if to attack the dismounted marshal, Saryn lifted both her blades. Each glittered like black fire in the midday sun, each impossibly reflecting the sun. Saryn and the half-dozen guards beside her charged the remaining armsmen, splitting off half the group and backing them away from Ryba. The guards’ black blades glittered in the late morning light, glimmered like black fire.
A second group of five guards, led by Fierral, formed a tight circle around Ryba against nearly twice their number.
Nylan turned toward Ryba’s attackers, and the mare pulled up short, almost slamming into an armsman’s mount from behind. As the man turned, seemingly in slow motion, Nylan’s iron blade slashed.
With the cold white of another death, Nylan shuddered, and his senses screamed.
No matter how hard he tried to hold on, the engineercould feel himself slumping in the saddle, almost in slow motion, as the power of that exploding whiteness slammed into him, and his fingers grasped at the mare’s mane, trying to hold on. Trying …
CXI
ZELDYAN SITS NEARLY upright in the rocking chair, Nesslek on her shoulder, patting him as he cries. “Now … now …” She nods to Sillek. “What did Terek tell you? You went running out of here like the Westhorns had burst into flame.”
Sillek looks down at the uneaten remnants of his midday meal. “I’m worried.”
“That is obvious.” She continues to pat Nesslek.
Her son arches his back slightly and gives an uccurpppp.
“There … does little Nesslek’s tummy feel better? There …” Zeldyan raises an eyebrow. “Does this have to do with your adventuresome wizard’s exploits?”
“He’s dead. Somehow they turned his wizardry back on him and cut him down with cold iron.” Sillek stands and walks to the window, his eyes looking toward the fields filled with grain turning gold, a gold he does not see though his eyes rest upon the fields. “They have demon blades-or angel blades-or something. Hissl threw his fire at the head angel, and she turned it with her blade. I didn’t see it in the glass, but Terek swears it happened.”
“Do you believe him?”
Nesslek whimpers again, and Zeldyan brings him up to her shoulder, patting him once more.
“I’ve never seen him look that shaken.”
“How many of Hissl’s armsmen survived?”
“A handful, if that. They were led by a big man who was one of the best I’ve seen. He had a big blade, as big as my father’s, and he used it like a toothpick. It wasn’t enough.”
“What about the angels?”
Sillek turns from the sunlight and the window. “They lost some. How many I couldn’t say, but there seem to be as many as before. Their leader was wounded, but she was still giving orders. I don’t know about their mage. They were carrying him off the field, but the glass didn’t show any blood. Terek thinks he was only stunned, says that he tied Hissl’s magic in knots at the end.”
“You’re very worried.”
“You know why,” Sillek answers. “They’ll get more women after this. They know how to train them. They have blades that turn wizards’ fire and cut through plate armor. They have bows that send arrows through anything. I have Ildyrom stirring up rumors that I’m a coward, and that I intend to turn Lornth over to the women. I have my own holders who will demand that I destroy this abomination, and what will I get out of it?” Sillek snorts. “If I’m unlucky, I’m dead. If I’m lucky, I’ll win a victory that will destroy me. To win, I’ll need to raise an army-not a force, but an army as big as the one that took Rulyarth-and I can’t pull your father out of Rulyarth, or the forces that support him. So I need more mercenaries and levies, and both are expensive. That means a tax on the holders. Who else has got coins? That will make them mad, and they won’t remember that it’s their bitching that created the mess.”
“It is that bad, isn’t it?”
Nesslek burps again before his father can respond.
“It’s worse. I hate those women. Just by existing, they’re going to destroy me, one way or another.”
“No they won’t. Life is never easy, but you can defeat them. I know you don’t want to, and I don’t, either, but we don’t want a holder revolt, either.” Zeldyan smiles. “When you come back, then you certainly won’t have any trouble with Ildyrom.”
“No. That’s true. One way or another I won’t have to worry about Ildyrom.” He walks over to the chair. “Let me take Nesslek. You haven’t had a bite to eat, and all I’ve done is talk.”
“Careful,” says Zeldyan with a laugh. “You shouldn’t let anyone see you acting like a nursemaid.”
“Bother that,” mutters Sillek, lifting Nesslek up to his shoulder. “I’m a nursemaid to all those holders who are afraid that, if those women survive up on that mountain, they won’t be able to keep beating their own up.”