Nylan felt himself growing angry, and the darkness rising within him, but he bit back the personal anger and chose his words carefully before he spoke. “It is no evil to lose, either a battle or a hand, to someone who is better. It is a great evil to refuse to struggle against your losses. I offer you a tool to help in that struggle. Are you too proud to use that tool? Does an armsman refuse a blade when his is broken?”
Rather than say more, Nylan turned and left. He was one of the first at table for the midday meal, rather than the last, but he refused even to look in Relyn’s direction.
After he ate, Nylan excused himself and trudged back to the north side of the tower, where he set up the laser with the remaining powerhead.
On the other side of the tower, in the fields, the field crew-Selitra, Siret, Ellysia, and Berlis, who still complained about her thigh wound-were gathering the beans, and digging up some of the bluish high-altitude potatoes. The potatoes that didn’t seem ready could wait, but with the threat of light frosts growing heavier, the last of the aboveground produce had to come in.
Between the carcasses dragged in by Gerlich and salted or dried, and the wild roots, and crops, and the barrels of assortedflours gotten in trading, Westwind might get through the winter-on tight rations. The food concentrates were almost gone, far faster than Ryba or Nylan had anticipated.
Clang! Clang! The triangle sounded twice.
Nylan looked up from reconnecting the second powerhead as Istril led four other riders uphill toward the ridge. Another set of would-be crop raiders, no doubt. There wasn’t the swirl of the white chaos-feel on the local net that happened when large numbers of armsmen showed up. Why his senses worked that way, he didn’t know, only that they did.
Since they didn’t seem to need him, he turned his attention back to the work at hand. With the goggles in place, he studied the sheets of metal taken from lander three and the lines chalked on them.
Finally, he triggered the laser and began to cut the knife plates, quickly and without much smoothing. All eight went quickly, and he took a deep breath when the long-handled plates were completed. The rest of the “valves” could be worked out with local materials, if necessary.
He moved the leftover metal and laid out the three rough bow forms and the three composite cores he had already cut.
Maybe … maybe … the laser would last through all three.
At the sound of hooves, Nylan looked up. Istril led a mount, over which was a body. So did two of the marines who followed. Seven mounts, and three bows in all, and no obvious casualties for the marines. Nylan took a deep breath, then noticed that Istril had turned toward him.
She reined up well short of the laser.
Nylan checked the power and pushed back the goggles. “No casualties?”
“No.” She smiled broadly. “The bows work well. Very well.” Then the smile became a grin. “Gerlich doesn’t know what the frig he’s talking about. He couldn’t have sent an arrow as far as your bows, even with that monster of his. It’s technique.”
Nylan nodded. “With most things, it’s technique.” “The bows may save a lot more lives than the blades, ser. Ours, anyway, and that’s what we’re worried about.” Shepaused, then flicked the reins. “We need to take care of these.”
Nylan offered her a vague salute, watched as she turned her mount, then lowered the goggles.
The energy flows tumbled through the powerhead like green rapids, and Nylan felt he was using all his energy just to smooth them, and it took even more to begin to shape the rough metal bow frame around the composite.
Once more, his face was a river of sweat as he struggled with the laser and the shaping. And once more, he was drained, arms lined with internal fire and legs shaking, by the time he finished the bow and quenched it.
The powerhead was failing, yet, after what Istril had told him, the bows might be the most important thing he could make before the laser system collapsed. So he rested on the cracked stone he used as a seat, trying to catch his breath and regain his strength before beginning the next bow.
“So … the mage is working hard.” Relyn ambled into the north tower yard. He carried Nylan’s creation in his left hand.
“The mage always works hard.” Nylan wiped his damp forehead.
“You sweat like a pig. Yet I see no weapons, no hammers, no hot coals.”
“This is harder than that.”
“What? You work the fires of the angels’ hell?”
Nylan stood and walked toward the firin cell bank and the laser wand. “Watch. Then you can decide.”
Relyn’s lips tightened, but he said nothing as Nylan lowered the goggles. The engineer inserted the composite strip in the groove of the bow frame, then picked up both with the tongs and the laser wand with his right hand.
Again, the greenish light flickered, and Nylan wrestled with the fluctuating power levels as he molded metal around composite. Sweat streamed into and around his goggles. His arms and eyes burned, and his legs felt rubbery even before he quenched the bow and set it aside.
He pushed back the goggles and blotted his face dry, buthis eyes still burned from strain and the salt of his sweat. His tattered uniform was soaked. For a few moments, he just sat there, doubting whether the powerhead would last through another bow.
“Worse than the fires of the angels’ hell,” Relyn finally offered.
The words startled Nylan since, with all the concentration required, he had forgotten that the young noble had been watching.
“It’s hard, but I wouldn’t know about the angels’ hell. I’ve only seen the white mirror towers of the demons.”
“You look like men and women, but you are not.” Relyn shook his head. “You bend the order force around chaos and form metal like a smith, and the fire you use is hotter than a smith’s. Yet all the other angels say none but you can wield that green flame.”
“I won’t be able to do that much longer. The flamemaker is failing,” Nylan conceded.
“That is why you work so hard?”
The engineer nodded.
Finally, Relyn bowed his head. “I have not been gracious, or noble. This … it is a work of art, and you were generous to create it for me, especially when you have so little of the flame left. And you put some of your soul in it. That I can see. I will use it, as I can, but I would not wear it after my last words when we ate-or yours.”
Nylan understood that the statement was as close to an apology as he was ever likely to get, and that the words had cost the younger man a great deal.
“It is yours to use.” Nylan paused. “I only ask that you use it for good, not evil.”
Relyn lifted his eyes. “You have not …”
“No. I would not compel,” Nylan said, mentally adding, Even if I knew how, which I don’t. “The choice is yours. I don’t believe in forcing choices. People resent that, and their resentment colors their actions and their decisions.”
Relyn studied the smooth metal. “Now … I must think.”
“About what?”
The younger man gave Nylan a crooked smile. “About what I have seen and what I must do.”
“I wouldn’t stay here,” Nylan said bluntly.
“But you do.”
“That’s true, but I’m an angel. You aren’t.” As he spoke, Nylan found himself thinking that he was only half angel, assuming pure Sybran equated to pure angel.
“Even angels have choices, Mage.” Relyn lifted his remaining hand, then turned and walked uphill toward the ridge.
“What was that about?” Nylan asked himself, walking back to the bucket by the wall. He drank and splashed his face before returning to the last bow.
He shouldn’t have worried about the last bow. The entire powerhead fused solid when he triggered the power. He looked at the day’s work-five bows. Seventeen bows in all. Not enough, but better than none.
He began disassembling the laser, and he had returned all the components, useless or not, to the tower, all except the bank of firin cells and the five bows, when Ryba rode down from the ridge and reined up.