The archer looked down at the tumbled plaited-grass screen.
“It would have destroyed the effect,” Ayrlyn answered, her voice hoarse and tired. “We don’t want them knowing what happened.” She set aside the bow. “Go get the shovels. We need to fill this in. Buretek can stay here. You get his mount, too.”
After a moment, Ailsor nodded.
“I’ll get them and bring back your mount,” the engineer told Ayrlyn, who nodded wearily. Nylan followed the archer, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other.
After untethering both mounts, Nylan worked loose one stake, then the other, and rolled the rope around the two before slipping them into a saddlebag. By then, Ailsor had disappeared, riding back to the ambush site leading Buretek’s mount.
The engineer mounted and led Ayrlyn’s mount around the hill and down the road to just below where the redhead stood, dismantling the screen and tossing the pieces into the trench. She reached up for the shovel before Nylan extended it.
“Are you sure you should be digging?”
“It’s not digging, just pushing stuff back in the trench. Besides, physical work helps, somehow.” She glanced up. “Drop the reins. She’ll stay.”
With the redhead’s tone, Nylan would have stayed put too, if he’d been the mare. He eased his mount down the slope, slowly picking his way above the rock barricade.
Tonsar waited on his horse on the far side. “It worked. You were right, ser angel.”
“How many did we lose?”
“Three. Winse, Ungit, and Duira. Ungit…” Tonsar shook his head. “He did not listen.”
“There’s always someone who doesn’t get the word.” The engineer turned the mare. “Siplor, you take over that first wagon. Meresat…you’ve got the second. You’ll need to replace that snapped wheel. Use the spare on the rear.”
Nylan edged the mare up to the first wagon, mostly filled with kegs.
“That’s real Cyad beer!” Siplor grinned at the angel. “And biscuits, and two wheels of cheese.”
“We’ll share it with the others at camp, but you get to dole it out.” Nylan forced a smile, flicking the reins gently to ease the mare to the second heavy wagon, filled mostly with barrels stacked on end. The white-brown powder around the waxed end-ropes indicated that some had to be flour.
Meresat looked glumly at the broken left front wheel.
“You can do it,” Nylan encouraged him, ignoring his own headache and the white flashes that blocked his vision intermittently. “Or would you rather dig burial trenches?”
“No, ser.” Meresat slowly trudged to the spare wheel mounted on the rear of the wagon.
From above the barricade, Ayrlyn cleared her throat, then ordered, “Wuerek, you and your group-let’s get those bodies buried. Over there out of sight of the road, and deep enough that scavengers don’t dig them up.”
Nylan could sense-somehow-that they shared the same, or similar, headaches and intermittent vision. Buretek and Ailsor shifted the shovel between themselves and were finishing the work of filling in the archery blind.
Ayrlyn mounted the chestnut, but remained on the uphill part of the road above the barrier.
“Fuera-the rest of you,” rasped the engineer, “get the rocks back in the places we set.”
“Why are we moving the rocks off the road?”
Nylan glanced around, but couldn’t identify the speaker, not when he had to concentrate even to see. He took a deep breath before answering. “We want the Cyadorans not to know what happened. If armsmen and lancers just disappear, that’ll make a lot of their people unhappy, hopefully with their commanders. How would you feel if your supply wagons and some reinforcements disappeared without a trace?”
“…nasty thoughts, he has…”
“…keep telling you that you don’t mess with angels…”
“…ways of the angels…”
Tonsar glanced at Ayrlyn, then at Nylan, and shook his head.
Nylan was afraid a lot more head-shaking would be going on before the fighting was all over-if it were ever all over. Somehow one battle just led to another. Was that human history on every planet in every universe?
“…the regent…call it dishonorable…”
“…ha…rather be dishonorable than dead…”
Fornal might not like Nylan’s tactics, but he wouldn’t mind the food-or the beer. Neither would the armsmen mind the improved fare.
With his left hand, Nylan rubbed the back of his neck, then his temples, but the headache still pounded through his skull.
Ayrlyn rode around the road barrier on the uphill side where most of the stones had been removed and placed in scattered locales along the uphill side of the road.
“The headaches just get worse,” the redhead said as she reined up beside Nylan.
“It seems that way.”
After a moment, Ayrlyn added, “Think about those dream trees, about both order and chaos. It helps a little.”
“Dream trees?” How could mentally re-creating dream trees help? Then again, there was a lot he still didn’t understand about Candar. Dutifully, he tried to turn his thoughts to the dark trees with their flows of both order and chaos.
Beside him, Ayrlyn smiled faintly as Fuera and his detail removed the last of the road barrier rocks, and as one of the newer levies began to sweep the road with a makeshift broom.
LXXXVII
The hamlet of Syskar crouched two kays away, under the late afternoon’s hot sun, under the blistering green-blue sky, and a cloud of yellow-gray dust rose from under the hoofs of the Lornian armsmen approaching Nylan and the captured wagons.
Fornal reined up, the squad behind him slowing even more abruptly, then reluctantly sheathing unneeded blades.
“Greetings,” offered Nylan. “We’ve brought a few supplies.”
For a long moment, the regent glanced at the three heavy-laden wagons. “Supplies are welcome, yet…” He paused, then added, “Our holders would not expect us to stoop to becoming highwaymen. They would suggest that our mission was to destroy the white demons.”
“We did,” said Ayrlyn, her mouth turning up, although her eyes did not smile. “We eliminated almost a score of white armsmen. It seemed a shame not to bring back what they wouldn’t need.”
“The Cyadorans will call it dishonorable, and it will cost us more than you cost the demons. What will keep them from raiding our supply wagons now?” Fornal turned his mount as if to ride back to Syskar ahead of the returning force.
“How?” asked Nylan. “If they take a small raiding party, you can destroy it. A large one can’t move that quickly. Besides, if we keep whittling them down, they won’t have enough men to do raids and hold the mines.”
“Will we have enough men left to attack, or defend against their attacks?” asked Fornal. “How many men did you lose to get those wagons?”
“Three. One was because the damned fool didn’t listen. We killed nearly a score of theirs once they stalled at the barricade.”
“A score?”
“Sixteen,” reaffirmed Ayrlyn. “The archers got about half when they got tangled up. Then Tonsar dropped rocks on them and brought the mounted armsmen in from behind.”
“It was like slaughtering trapped goats, ser regent. For once, the white demons were penned up-”
“They were penned up, and you killed them?”
“Do…the great and beloved holders of Lornth…want a score of reinforcements at the mines?” Nylan asked tiredly. “They want you to defeat the Cyadorans. Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
“I admit, angels, you have killed many white demons. Perhaps it takes one to kill one.” Fornal looked to Nylan for a moment, then at Ayrlyn, whose brown eyes flashed blue. Finally, he glared at Tonsar, but the burly armsman merely met the regent’s gaze evenly. After a moment, Fornal continued. “You have done so well, angels, that it is only right that you should have the honor of being the first to meet their massed might.” Fornal smiled lazily, then flicked the reins and rode toward the shed barracks, his mount raising dust that fell almost as it rose.