Nylan stopped beside the burly Tonsar, trying to conceal the headache that throbbed through his skull. The last thing he needed was to have to kill in camp. He bent and retrieved the blade, wiping it on the dead man’s tunic, then sheathed it, squinting against both the glare of the low sun and his headache.
“I am glad you were near, ser angel,” Tonsar said. “Though I would have liked to have struck him down.”
“I wish you could have,” Nylan said, meaning every word. His head kept throbbing, and his eyes watered from the pain behind them. For the hundredth time or so he wondered why. What was it? Why did it strike him and Ayrlyn? Did the sensitivity go with the ability to use the planet’s order fields?
And why had he even been carrying a blade? He never did around the camp.
Had it been subconscious aggression against Fornal? Would Tregvo be dead if Nylan hadn’t reacted to Fornal’s baiting of the night before?
“I would have used mine on him, sooner or later,” Ayrlyn said quietly, beside his shoulder, having arrived so silently he had not even noticed. “But I wonder about the mail vest.”
So did Nylan. Another of Fornal’s intrigues, designed to show the capriciousness of the angels, and how they interfered with the rights of “real” men? Or just coincidence? Or just an indication of the cultural conflict that he and Ayrlyn were generating, just by example?
Somehow, Nylan doubted that he’d ever find a clear answer. Nothing was ever clear. Of that he was certain, quite certain.
“Iyltar, Borsa-strip and bury this vermin,” Tonsar ordered, sheathing his blade, his eyes turning to the quarters’ stoop, where Sylenia sat on the bench, still holding Weryl, as though the child were a talisman.
CII
In the darkness past midnight, the air was almost cool enough to be comfortable as Nylan stood and stretched, and stretched again.
“Ready?” asked Ayrlyn.
“Ready as I’m likely to ever be for this sort of thing.” He turned and embraced the redhead, and they held each other for a long moment in the silence broken only by the faint chirping of some insect.
“Well…” she finally said.
Nylan let go. As she headed toward Borsa’s inert form, he turned and walked over to the sleeping Tonsar, curled on his right side. “Time to rise and shine.” The angel tapped the other’s boot with his own, not quite certain how the burly armsman would react.
“What…?…dark…” mumbled Tonsar.
“That’s the idea, remember?” Nylan forced cheerfulness into his voice.
“Now?” Borsa asked. “It’s still dark.”
“Now,” insisted Ayrlyn, moving toward Vula.
Slowly, the squad awakened, and began to check mounts and arms.
“No one will expect an attack at this demon-awful hour,” grumbled Tonsar, adjusting his saddle, his fingers fumbling slightly in the darkness. “Truly, they are the dark angels. We stumble and trip, and they move as if it were daylight.”
Nylan’s night vision wasn’t that good-the depth of night was more like twilight to him-but it probably seemed that way to the struggling armsmen.
The breeze was strong, almost a real wind, reflected Nylan, and he could understand why some animals in the Grass Hills might well prefer the night to the day. He would, if he weren’t hardwired to be such a day person.
After checking his mare, he turned to Ayrlyn, who had stretched out on the ground again, presumably sending her perceptions out on the wind once more to check the Cyadoran camp. Nylan waited, while the rest of the squad packed bedrolls and formed up behind Tonsar.
“Anything?” he asked when Ayrlyn finally shifted her weight, indicating her perceptions had returned to her body.
“Nothing. I think half the sentries must be asleep.”
Nylan could sense the sadness behind her words, and he half-nodded. He was beginning to understand Fornal’s feelings. What they were doing was nothing short of despicable-but it was necessary to stop people who were despicable all the time, rather than just in war. The problem with honor was that history had demonstrated all too clearly on all too many planets that it wasn’t terribly effective against an enemy unless you had superior forces, and that was what they didn’t have. All they had was a better catapult that could heft larger incendiary grenades with a much nastier and longer-and-hotter-burning fluid and an even larger supply of the ceramic grenades. All in all, he hoped-mostly-that their “improvements” would penetrate the thick-walled barracks. He had no doubts about the deadlier impact on exposed men and horses.
Ayrlyn had insisted the changes would be enough to devastate the Cyadoran barracks. Nylan swallowed and forced himself to recall all the bloated bodies of innocent peasants in all the hamlets.
“There isn’t much choice,” Ayrlyn responded to his unspoken feelings. “We both know that Cyador is going to try to take over Lornth. They’ve got another army on the way, or they will. We have to reduce the odds while we can.” She snorted. “Now, I’m the one who sounds like Ryba. Creating better weapons and promptly using them.”
“The difference is that she liked it,” Nylan said. His head twinged ever so slightly. Darkness! He couldn’t even deceive himself about Ryba.
“I don’t like her for a lot of reasons, but she doesn’t enjoy killing either. She likes flaunting power, but not killing.” Ayrlyn paused. “She uses people, and you’ve got reason to be bitter, but don’t make her worse than she is.” A soft laugh followed. “What she is…that’s bad enough.”
“Just as I thought you were getting soft on her.”
“Not soft. Isn’t it harder for you to distort things, even to yourself?”
He nodded, knowing she had felt his discomfort and his assent.
“Unless I’ve missed something, we’re clear.” She half-turned and motioned, adding, “Let’s go.”
The two mounted, the last to do so.
With the muffled impact of slow hoofs on grass and dirt, the squad eased their mounts and the pack animals through the lower swale between the two hills and out onto the flat below the mining camp walls, moving quietly and steadily toward the northwest corner. A single torch flickered from the northeast watchtower, but its light barely illuminated the walls within three cubits.
Ayrlyn swayed in the saddle, trying to split her senses, to judge where the best position for the catapult would be. Nylan tried to follow her perceptions with his, but, as had happened the last time, he was more aware of the strange wrongness of the ground beneath, far more aware, as though great violence had been done to the land, and then that violence had been sealed beneath the drying grass and soil. He tried not to shudder, even as the faint images of the grove and the distant forest slipped into his thoughts with the contrast between the balanced forces of the forest, always changing, but always balanced, and the great frozen imbalance beneath him, indeed beneath much of the southern part of the Grass Hills.
“This is fine. No sentries awake here.” Ayrlyn reined up.
Nylan jerked slightly in his own saddle at the redhead’s words, then eased back on the mare’s reins and raised his hand to Tonsar.
“It’s fine.” Her voice was low. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Just momentarily…disoriented.” He shook himself. “We’d better get moving.” He turned in the saddle. “We’ll set up here,” he whispered.
“I suggested that.” There was a faint hint of gentle laughter in Ayrlyn’s voice.
The smith followed her lead and dismounted.
Sias took the reins of Nylan’s and Ayrlyn’s mounts, leading them slowly back from the space where the redhead, Borsa, and Vula quickly assembled the catapult.
Nylan took a slow breath, aware that the insect chirps had died away with their presence. Would anyone in the camp notice? The night-shrouded walls remained silent; the only sounds those of the Lornians breathing, an occasional whuff from the mounts, those held, and those of the squad waiting, in readiness, if necessary, to defend the catapult team long enough for them to mount. He began to set out the thin clay-walled canisters on the flat beside the catapult, even before the other three had finished assembling the device.