Whheeeee…. eeeeee! The shrieks of suffering and dying horses climbed above those of the armsmen.
Another fireball flared, turning the grass before the Lornian forces into a wall of flame, flame so hot that it seared the skin and singed the hair of the men and horses in the front rank.
Sweat ran down Nylan’s forehead, and into his eyes, burning them as the struggle to release the energy in the order-chaos boundaries throughout Candar burned through his skull and soul. His own hair crinkled in the heat.
Beside him, Ayrlyn tweaked the shallower lines of order, and a line of flames, dark flames, rose from the fields before the advancing Shining Foot, turning white uniforms black, charring the flesh under the blackened shells that had marched proudly instants before.
Nylan’s stomach turned-or was he feeling her revulsion?
Somehow, someway, he had to tap some kind of order-chaos energy-before everyone was killed. But he couldn’t reach it!
Whhhhsttt! Another white-red fireball flared across the morning sky, splattering death and flames through the armsmen to the angel’s left.
More screams of mounts and men filled the morning, and the light wind carried cinders, ashes, and the odor of charred meat. Nylan’s guts turned again.
The sun burned more brightly, or so it seemed, upon his back, and the oncoming Cyadorans appeared endless-endless ranks of white, of shimmering shields and clashing reflections.
His shirt was soaked, and his eyes burned from salty sweat, from trying to reach and channel elusive chaos. But if he couldn’t tap that distant force…how could the white mages? He didn’t feel them doing anything like that-and they were certainly using order and chaos.
“If you can’t reach the one you need,” he murmured, “use the one you can reach.”
Are you sure? asked a small voice.
He shook his head, but sent his perceptions down, straight down, to where rock met magma, to where a different sort of order and chaos met. There, there he seized the deeper boundary, the edge between rock and magma.
Do you want to do this? His jaw tightened. What choice did he have? He was too far from the forest and had too little time left. There is always a choice.
Do what we must…Ayrlyn’s calm thought helped.
With a sound between sob and cry, he cleft order and chaos, struggling to hold layers and layers of order between him and the raw white energy, especially between Ayrlyn and that energy.
As they struggled, Ayrlyn adding her order, her force, yet another fireball sprayed the meadow, this time less than a hundred cubits before them. Nylan could feel his own hair crisping more, the heat of chaos fire washing over both him and Ayrlyn, their skin near burning from the chaos fire.
Concentrate on your work…Ayrlyn’s calmness soothed the questions in his soul as he wedged chaos and order farther apart, building a channel up from the depths, a channel to the back side of the Cyadoran forces, even as he tried to create an order wall before their own armsmen.
Not much good if you turn us into cinders.
Ayrlyn coaxed and eased yet more of the black webs, the unseen black patterns, into that barrier.
Whhssttt! Whsstt! Two fireballs in quick succession splashed against the unseen barrier, with the gouts of chaos fire rebounding toward the advancing Shining Foot.
A half-score of white-coated foot flared like fatwood in a winter fire, and the line slowed, but only momentarily, before the Shining Foot surged forward once more, the second line of troops marching over the charred corpses of those who had led the charge.
Whhhstt!
The white mages continued to cast their fireballs, despite the barrier, despite the casualties to the advancing Shining Foot.
The trumpets sounded again, and the heavy drumming of hoofs rumbled the ground, nearer than ever before.
Not yet! Nylan thought desperately. Not yet! His eyes opened involuntarily. The Cyadoran forces were nearly upon the Lornians, and Gethen’s blade was poised, raised.
Nylan closed his eyes, tried to speed the rising globs of chaos, to open order channels, hundreds of them, and his forehead spewed sweat. His eyes were blind, unseeing, as all his efforts went into pressing order against chaos, against the power from the depths.
But the Shining Foot surged northward, and the lancers pounded forward, toward the Lornians, toward them, toward Gethen, toward the chaos fields that had yet to rise where Nylan struggled to bring them into the open air.
The engineer’s breath rasped from his laboring lungs and through his raw throat.
“Make ready,” ordered Tonsar, his voice firm, far steadier than Nylan felt.
Nylan reached, straining, for the slow-rising deep chaos.
The Shining Foot to the left began to run, less than a dozen yards from Gethen’s forces, building speed.
And still the demon-damned chaos seemed to float upward, ever so slowly, ignoring the straining, the order channels, and the need for its presence now.
Nylan groaned, knives flashing through his skull, pressing order against chaos, chivying the energies upward, ignoring the nearness of the chaos, ignoring the shivering of the ground, and the fireballs that continued to fall across the field.
Now…!
CXLI
The majer saw the white awning at the crest of the rise, barely a dozen cubits higher than the fields and meadows stretching east and north from where he sat astride the white stallion. With a glance at the still-forming lancers of the van, and the low and disorganized structures of the barbarians’ town beyond, he chucked the reins, then turned his mount toward the mages’ tent. Only one of the mages looked up as Piataphi reined in the stallion before the tent.
“Greetings,” called Themphi.
“Why all these preparations?” asked the majer. “There are few indeed to guard their town. It is not worth guarding, or would not be were it ours.” A grim smile creased his face. “Or are the barbarians more than you have admitted?”
“Often matters are not as they seem, you may recall.” Triendar raised his head from the table and the screeing glass. “Did you ever find the fivescore Mirror Lancers who vanished?”
“No.” The majer frowned, then glanced at the line of white mages that formed to the west of the small, open-sided tent. “You know that.”
“We do,” said the white-haired magician, an edge to his words. “That is why these mages gather here. Each is assigned to a unit and will use firebolts on your enemy.”
“Just make sure that they don’t flame ours.”
“They won’t.” Triendar smiled coldly. “You command your men, and I will command mine.”
Piataphi finally nodded his head brusquely when neither mage offered more. Then he raised his sabre in salute, and rode toward the left flank where the First Mirror Lancers waited for their commander.
After the majer departed, Triendar surveyed the line of white mages. “Once the horns for the advance are sounded, you will use your firebolts to destroy the barbarians directly before your assigned units. You will use your fire until the enemy is no more. You will not use fire if it will kill our armsmen. Is that clear?”
A series of nods punctuated the line of white-clad men.
“Go.”
Triendar watched as the mages mounted and rode toward their separate units in the postdawn light.
“What do we do?” asked Themphi. Behind him, Fissar swallowed nervously.
“We watch for the mages who destroyed the lancers before. We must destroy them.” Triendar frowned and concentrated on the glass.