Fornal shook his head. “For all that, my Lornth is perilously close to perishing.”
“The Lornth we grew up cherishing, Fornal, perished the day the angels landed. Whatever may come, it is better than having all Lornth burned and dying under the white hordes.”
“You will regret ever having listened to the silver tongues of these angels. For all their honor, they are as dark and evil as the white demons.”
“Do we have a choice of demons?” Gethen rose from the chair, right hand holding the hilt of the blade fully as long and heavy as the one Fornal bore. His eyes did not leave his son’s as he inclined his head but slightly. His lips crooked. “For that matter, in this life, have we ever had any choices, except to do what we have thought best?”
CXXXIX
The majer stepped out of the direct sunlight and under the tent awning, past the two Mirror Foot guards. Neither guard moved as Piataphi approached the carved and lacquered green chair where the marshal waited, fanned by yet another guard.
The majer bowed.
“You have news, Majer?”
“The barbarians have stopped retreating, ser,” announced Piataphi. “The van scouts report that they have gathered on the west bank of the river to defend the town called Rohrn.”
“The name matters not.” Queras raised his right hand, then dropped it. “Like all the others, it will stink. They all stink. Once it is razed, once we have the land in hand, then we will build a proper town, houses with tile floors, and baths, and covered sewers. A town worthy of Cyad and His Mightiness.”
“When will the attack begin, Fist of His Mightiness?” asked Piataphi.
“Tomorrow.”
“The only access from the east bank is a stone bridge, and they have removed the center span,” said Piataphi carefully.
Queras frowned, then said coldly, “The engineers are constructing the bridges upstream of the town now. There should be no problems. The water is low. By tomorrow, all will be on the west bank.”
Piataphi bowed. “You have foreseen all.”
Queras offered a faint smile. “The river bluffs that protect them from any attack from the east will leave them nowhere to go. That will be more…expeditious than chasing the smelly wretches all over the plains.” Queras smiled. “You see, Majer, there is no problem that cannot be solved with the application of adequate force.”
“Yes, ser.” Piataphi bowed once more, deeply, deeply enough that the marshal did not see his eyes.
CXL
In the darkness that held but a glimmer of gray, the chimes clanged, off-tone, off-key, once, then again.
Nylan looked across the darkness of the quarters with eyes that had been open for what seemed most of the night to the cots where Sylenia lay, and where Weryl snored softly. Despite the open shutters, the room was close, hot, and the sounds of men moving across the packed clay of the barracks yard grew louder. A horse whinnied, then another answered. A set of wagon harnesses jangled.
He turned to face Ayrlyn’s also open eyes. “Not much for sleeping, was it?” he whispered.
She shook her head, then leaned forward and touched his cheek with her lips. “I’ll be glad when it’s over.”
“I hope I’ll be glad when it’s over.”
“Pessimist.” Ayrlyn stretched, then rolled into a sitting position, her knees tucked up almost to her chin.
“Realist. We’ll either be dead or the agents of a huge change, and no one likes agents of change, especially our friend Fornal.” Nylan yawned and sat on the edge of the bed that was a cross between a cot and plank platform. His back was stiff, and he stood slowly, stretching. “Ohhhh…”
“It’s not that bad,” hissed Ayrlyn.
Outside, the off-key triangle chimes clanged again.
“Da? Ahwen?” Silver-haired Weryl sat up, his green eyes wide, arms extended.
“In a moment, son. Let your old dad get his boots on.”
“Does no one here ever sleep?” grumbled Sylenia, throwing back her blanket with a disgusted gesture.
“Actually,” Nylan said, “we were sleeping while you were out exchanging sweet words with a certain armsman.”
“Sleeping you were not, not even when I returned.”
Nylan flushed.
…walked into that one… Ayrlyn shook her head and headed for the provisions bag.
As Ayrlyn used her dagger on the remaining squash bread, Nylan hacked off several slices of the hard yellow cheese. Even more than an eight-day old, the orange bread was better than that turned out by the Lornian armsmen’s cooks. On the other hand, the cheese, tough as it was, remained a definite improvement over wasol roots.
“The cheese, it is hard.”
“It’s what we have.” Nylan refrained from comparing cheese and wasol roots. “The bread is still good.”
Ayrlyn grinned, then erased the expression as she handed a slab of the orange stuff to Weryl, who sat on the end of his cot, eyes fixed on the food.
“Food.”
“You can eat,” Nylan told his son, and followed his own advice.
When they had finished their quick breakfast, the engineer looked to the redhead. “Can you find out where the Cyadorans are-without using too much effort?”
Ayrlyn’s eyes glazed over, and Nylan waited…but only briefly.
“They’re camped on the bluffs four or five kays south, and they’re beginning to form up.”
Nylan nodded. “The chimes were right, then?”
“Looks that way.”
The two began to strap on their blades.
Then, Nylan picked up Weryl, holding him tightly. His eyes burned, and he swallowed. How long he held his son, he did not know.
“Nylan…” …need to go…
“I know.” The engineer lifted his head and looked into the green eyes. “You be good for Sylenia, you understand?”
“Good, da?”
“He always be good,” said the dark-haired nursemaid. “Greedy, mayhap, but good.”
Nylan set the silver-haired child on his cot, but Weryl’s arms stretched out again. “Da?”
“He has to go, child.” Sylenia picked up the boy. “They both must go…and Tonsar.”
Nylan and Ayrlyn eased out into the yard under a dark green-blue sky barely turning orange in the east beyond the roofs of Rohrn. The clank of harnesses, the whuffing and chuffing and neighing of mounts and the low murmurs of wary armsmen filled the space between the stables and the barracks.
As they crossed the yard toward the stable, the dark-cloaked figure of Fornal pointedly turned his back to the angels, and began to talk to Lewa. Nylan frowned.
“He doesn’t want to see us.”
“I wonder why.”
“Because he can’t deal with us. He knows we’re the only hope, but we stand for change and for a lot of things he finds hard to accept. And he’s smart enough to know that there’s no point in making a point until there’s a reason to,” suggested Ayrlyn.
“After the battle, if we have an ‘after.’”
“Something like that, but there will be. And we’ll have to deal with that, too.”
“So…we’re disposable if we win?”
“I don’t know,” Ayrlyn admitted. “Gethen’s hard to read, and there’s Zeldyan. She’s not happy with Fornal, either.”
Huruc offered a half-gesture, half-salute as he rode past.
Both angels returned the gesture.
“Some people still think we exist,” Nylan noted.
“The better ones.”
Nylan tried not to breathe too deeply, not when the front of the stable smelled of manure, horse urine, damp straw, and other even less appetizing items, but his nose twitched and his mouth curled.
“Pretty rank,” Ayrlyn confirmed.
Like their choices-rank: Ryba’s feminist dictatorship-clean, ordered, and oppressive; Lornth’s honor-bound, backward, and filthy male autocracy; or Cyador’s chaos-founded, clean, male-dominated, and all-controlling empire.
“We have another choice,” she pointed out. The forest…more home than anything…