“You worry, Majer, yet you refuse to learn from your experiences. But is it not the same as what we have already faced?” asked the marshal. “When our forces are small, they are vulnerable, as yours were when you held the mines. But the barbarians have not been able to stand against all forces, and we have reduced all before us.” He gestured at the hills flanking the river. “And we will take everything from those hills to the Northern Ocean.”
Piataphi and Themphi looked at the dusty brown grass that surrounded the green carpet on which rested the marshal’s carved and green-lacquered chair.
Triendar stepped forward.
“No, sage one. I need no cautions. I know the enemy is treacherous, and we have prepared as best we can. Cautions are best when preparing for the campaign. Cautions only reduce the boldness we need. Now we must reduce the enemy and carry forth the will of His Mightiness.”
All understood the unspoken sentiment-“lest we be reduced with the barbarians.”
CXXXVI
A reddish glow covered the sky above the western hills as Nylan set Weryl on his small bedroll and then sank onto his own, sitting and catching his breath, barely able to move. His back and shoulders were stiff. His thighs and legs burned from the long days in the saddle racing to get ahead of the white horde. And his head ached.
Whuuuu…uuufff…Downhill from where the engineer sat, the chestnut lifted her head, then tossed it, before going back to grazing, trying to seek out the green clumps of grass buried among the brown. Nylan’s mare grazed silently, if more intently.
After a moment, Nylan rose, wearily, and stepped toward the provisions bag he had set by the saddles and blankets. The four mounts grazed on the longer grass in the protected hollow below the scrub oaks, the tieline anchored to sturdy roots.
“Da!” called Weryl, lurching up from his own bedroll, trundling forward and throwing his arms around Nylan’s left leg. “Da!”
His own aches forgotten, the engineer bent and lifted the boy, hugging him tightly for a moment, their heads close together. “Weryl. Sometimes…sometimes…” Sometimes, it’s so hard to appreciate that while you’re little now, before I know it…you’ll be grown…already changing so much…
“Da…wadah?”
Nylan loosened his hug and grinned. “I’ll get you water, you little imp.”
“Wadah?”
“Yes, you can have some, even if you aren’t thirsty.”
“Da!”
“You understand more than you ever say, you sentimental man.” Ayrlyn looked up from the provisions bag Nylan hadn’t managed to reach.
“That’s dangerous.”
Not with me…
Nylan could sense both the thought and the warmth behind it. “Old habits die hard. I’m trying.”
“I know.” I know…
After a silence, he asked, “How are we doing? In getting ahead of the Cyadorans, I mean.”
“Tomorrow we should see Rohrn,” Sylenia interjected, stepping toward the angels. “If it has not been burned already.”
“The Cyadorans are three days behind us, at the rate they’re traveling,” explained the redheaded angel.
“You angels…you know what you should not and cannot see. Me, I trust what you say, but I would see Rohrn first.” Sylenia picked up the two water bottles. “There is a stream, and we need water.” She swept her hair, just loosened from the bands that held it when she rode, over her shoulder and marched downhill through the swaying and dry knee-high grass.
“You think they’re that far behind us?” Nylan shifted Weryl to his other arm. “They’ve only traveled one day in four?”
“They’re really not traveling fast. They seem more interested in destroying everything than in making a quick assault.” The corners of her mouth turned up sardonically. “What else would you expect of the descendants of the Rationalists? Nothing is human except them. No other ways or beliefs can be tolerated.”
“With just a little force to ensure the true and rational way.”
“Cynical, but accurate.”
“Force again.” Nylan sighed. “Will we ever escape it?”
“We can, but not by converting an existing system. We’ll have to begin from scratch. You know that.”
And he did. The forest of Naclos represented a different approach-the approach of balance, where the use of force became a last resort-only to balance order and chaos, rather than the first option or order of business. But even the forest had fallen before the Old Rats.
“There’s one little problem,” he pointed out. “We still have to make our strategy work.”
“It’s not little.” Ayrlyn laughed harshly. “And you were calling me the mistress of understatement?”
“I’m following your example.”
“My example? When it’s a dubious virtue, it’s my example?”
Nylan, still holding Weryl at his shoulder, looked down at the brown grass sheepishly, then back at Ayrlyn.
After a moment, she grinned.
So did he.
CXXXVII
“Riders ahead.” Nylan noted the dust on the road south from the bridge that guarded the east entrance to Rohrn.
“A scouting patrol. It’s not the Cyadorans, not under a purple banner.” Ayrlyn’s hand touched the hilt of the shortsword at her waist, then brushed back strands of hair off her still peeling forehead.
Nylan touched his own blade, but left it sheathed as the Lornians slowed their approach.
At the head of the column rode a redheaded subofficer, square-faced, impassive, backlighted by the low sun that hung barely above the bluffs on the far side of the river, the bluffs that held the roofs of Rohrn. The column halted. So did the angels.
“Greetings, Lewa,” offered Nylan. “We have returned. As we said.”
Lewa looked at both angels, then at Sylenia.
“It’s the angels!” called a voice from the rear of the squad-Fuera, Nylan suspected.
“When will you leave again?” Lewa’s voice was cold.
“Not until the Cyadorans are defeated,” Nylan said tiredly.
Lewa paused, then nodded slowly. “Your word, you always keep. For good, or worse.”
“We’re sorry it took so long, but,” Nylan admitted, “we needed to find a better way to fight the Cyadorans.”
“They are like locusts, stripping the ground, and like fire, laying waste to all before and behind them.”
Nylan almost swallowed, surprised at the unexpected verbosity.
“That is what ser Fornal says,” added the subofficer.
“He’s right about that,” noted Ayrlyn.
“We must patrol,” apologized Lewa, “else I would escort you. Fuera and Sias-they can be spared, and you should have some honor.”
“Thank you.”
“We did not see anyone within the last fifteen kays,” Ayrlyn said quietly.
“That would be good.” Lewa nodded politely, then called, “Fuera! Sias!”
At the subofficer’s order, the two former levies turned their mounts out of the column and rode forward.
“I ask you to escort the angels, and their companions, to the barracks and their quarters.”
“Ser.” Fuera nodded, but with a glimmer of a smile.
Nylan and the others drew their mounts to the side of the road. With a vague salute, Lewa nodded, and the patrol rode south.
“You have fought much sun,” offered Sias with a look at Nylan’s peeling and blistering forehead.
“You might say that.”
“We are glad you have returned,” added the former apprentice as the smaller group rode toward the bridge. “Could I still keep the tools? Some of them?”
“The ones I said were yours?” answered Nylan with a laugh. “Yes. I may need the others, but we’ll see.”
The bridge was empty and dark, and the dull clop of hoofs echoed through the streets of a deserted Rohrn, a town with shutters fastened tight, streets empty, doors barred.
“When did everyone leave?” Nylan asked Fuera.
“They have been going for almost an eight-day. Even the great holders here have sent their families to Lornth, some to Rulyarth.” Fuera spat toward the open guttered sewer-a dry sewer, Nylan noted.