“Yield or die!” yelled Nylan in Old Anglorat, forcing himself to his feet, still clutching the wand that held the laser’s powerhead.
“I … Relyn of Gethen Groves of Lornth … I yield.” The young fellow was already turning white.
“Nylan, can you handle this? There’s still a bunch below the ridge.” Ryba had pulled her blade from her other victim, not leaving the saddle, then turned the roan toward the ridge, Istril beside her.
Relyn swallowed as he heard her voice and watched the two gallop uphill, joined by four others.
“You’d better get down.” Nylan glanced around. Both Huldran and Cessya had left, either to find mounts or followon foot with their weapons. “If you don’t want to bleed to death.”
As he struggled out of the saddle, Relyn looked closely at Nylan, seeing for the first time Nylan’s goggles and gauntlets. Then he pitched forward.
Nylan set aside the powerhead and walked toward the mount and its downed rider, noting the well-worked leather and the tailored linens of the rider. The black mare skittered aside, but only slightly as Nylan dragged the young man toward the laser.
“Hate to do this …” he said.
A brief burst of power at the lowest level and widest spread cauterized the stump.
Nylan kept looking toward the ridge, but no one appeared. With his senses he could tell that Relyn was still alive and would probably live since the blackened stump wasn’t bleeding anymore. The engineer wished he could have done something else, but what? He laughed harshly. Here he was, worrying about whether he could have done a better job saving a man who had been out to remove his head.
He left the laser depowered and walked to the wall where he picked up the blade he had just forged. Wearing the gauntlets, he could use it-if the need arose.
Should he chase after the others-or wait? He decided to wait, hoping he wouldn’t have to use the laser again. He wasn’t sure he could take any more killing. Since Relyn was still unconscious, he walked toward the black mare, starting with her to round up the three horses that had remained in the area, tying their reins to various stones on the solid part of the north wall of the bathhouse. Then he forced himself to check through what remained of the three bodies that he had blasted in one way or another with the laser.
Ignoring the smell of charred flesh, he methodically raided purses, removed jewelry, and stacked weapons on the partly built east wall. Then he went to work removing those garments that might still be usable. All three mounts had heavy blankets rolled behind the saddles.
“Oooohhh …” Relyn moaned, but did not move.
Nylan looked toward the ridge. Finally, he looped some cord around the unconscious man’s arms and feet, and then climbed onto the mare, who backed around several times before finally carrying Nylan and his recently forged blade toward the ridge.
The wave of death that reached him as he crested the ridge almost knocked him from the saddle. All he could do was hang on for a moment before starting downhill toward the figures on horseback and the riderless mounts.
As he descended, he began to discern individual figures, and almost all those he saw were in olive-black.
A black-haired figure turned the big roan toward him. “Nylan! Are there any more by the tower?”
“Just the one I tied up. The others are dead. What happened here?”
“There must have been nearly thirty of them …” Ryba smiled a grim smile. “A handful got away. The others, except one or two, are dead.”
“What about us?”
Ryba shook her head. “For this sort of thing-it’s not too bad. We lost two, I think, and Weindre took one of those blades in her left shoulder. We’re claiming the spoils of war right now.”
“Did you notice that these weren’t bandits?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Good mounts, good saddles, good clothes, good weapons, and jewelry and a lot of coins,” Nylan explained.
“We’ll talk about it later. We need to gather up everything.” Ryba rode back downhill.
Since she seemed to have everything under control, Nylan turned the black around and headed back up the ridge to the tower.
By the time he had reached the uncompleted bathhouse and tied up the black, Relyn’s eyes were open.
“I gave my word, Mage,” he snapped.
“I wasn’t sure, and you weren’t awake enough for me to ask you,” returned Nylan in Old Anglorat as he unfastenedthe cords. He extended his senses to Relyn’s stump. “That probably hurts, but you’ll live.”
“Better I didn’t.”
“I doubt that.” Nylan massaged his forehead, trying to relieve the pain in his eyes and the throbbing in his skull.
“Have you never been exiled, unable to return? That is what will happen when my sire discovers I was bested by women, and fewer of them than my own solid armsmen.”
“All of us are exiles, young fellow. As for the women, you might note that they’re not exactly the kind of women you have here.” Nylan felt very safe with that assertion.
“You don’t jest,” returned the man dourly. “They had small thunder-throwers and their blades … had we blades such as those, things would have been different. Did those blades come from the heavens, also?”
Nylan looked down at the stony ground.
“You look confounded, Mage.”
“My name is Nylan.” The engineer didn’t wish to answer, but even the thought of not answering was increasing his headache.
“Ser Nylan, surely you know where came such blades.”
The engineer took a deep breath. “I … made them.”
“Here? On the Roof of the World?”
Nylan nodded.
“Light! I must be cozened into attacking angels each worth twice any armsman, and supported by a mage the like of which our poor world has never seen.” Relyn struggled into a sitting position on the wall. “You killed three of my men, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“Might I look at that blade?”
Nylan looked down at the blade he had thrust through the tool belt. “This? It’s not finished. The hilt needs to be wrapped.” He eased the blade out, half surprised that he had not cut himself with it, though it was shorter than the crowbars carried by the locals. He showed it to Relyn, who brushed the metal with the fingers of his left hand.
“Would that I had a blade like that,” said the younger man.
“They are for … the guards … of Westwind.”
“Westwind?”
Nylan gestured to the tower. “That’s what we have named it.”
“Westwind.” Relyn shivered. “Westwind. A cold wind.”
“Very cold,” Nylan agreed, thinking about Ryba’s coolness after the battle. What was he supposed to have done? Sprung into the saddle and chased after them? He laughed, thinking of himself bouncing along on the black.
“You laugh? You laugh?”
“Not at you, Relyn. At me. I was thinking about how awkward it is for me to ride a horse.”
“I do not understand. Do not all men ride? All mages?”
“Yes, but we don’t always ride horses into battle.” Nylan turned at the sound of hooves, watching as Huldran and Cessya rode up.
“You’re already organized, ser, aren’t you?” asked Huldran.
“Pretty much,” Nylan admitted.
“Who’s the pretty boy?” asked Cessya.
“I think he’s the guilty one. He thinks his father will disown him for being defeated by a bunch of women.”
“He’s not bad-looking.”
“They think you’re not bad-looking, Relyn,” Nylan said. “Even if you are the one who plotted this. Might I ask why?”
Relyn shrugged. “I am the younger son, and when I heard that Lord Sillek had offered lands and a title to whoever reclaimed the Roof of the World … I spent what I had. Now … I am ruined.”
“If you had succeeded, we’d have been ruined,” pointed out Nylan as he turned to Huldran. “Who did we lose?”
“Weblya and Sheriz. Weindre got slashed up, but Jaseen says she’ll pull through. A bunch of bruises and cuts for everyone else, except the marshal.” Huldran sighed. “It’s going to get tougher. We’re just about out of rounds. Best to use what we’ve got left for the rifles.”