“We will do so.” Klybel inclined his head. “With your permission, I will place a company on the road-both to the east and west. They should be sufficient to protect the flanks-at least until your mages can react.”
“As you see fit, Captain. We will make ready.”
Klybel turned his mount and headed eastward to where the main body of white lancers had been breaking camp in the sheltered area beside the Highway and under a low bluff.
“Another day of hard work.” Jeslek stretched and glanced at Anya, then Fydel. “The Gallosians will attack. Stupidity. . but they will attack.”
“You are convinced?” Fydel shook his head, glancing to the hills south of the Great Highway, hills not yet raised into mountains-unlike those to the east and north.
“They wanted only an excuse to attack the day before. Now that they know we have raised mountains, they have such.”
“But. . raising mountains? Will they not think?”
“It has been many years since any have faced the true power of the Guild. A single aging mage in Fenard. . does not show such power.” Jeslek shrugged. “They will demand something impossible-perhaps that we restore the land. Then they will threaten, and then they will attack.”
“But why?”
“Because they have been ordered to. Enough questions.” Jeslek pointed westward to the ridge line that intersected the south side of the Great White Highway. “Let us proceed. Leave your mounts.”
Cerryl took another swallow of water and walked behind Fydel, who carried his screeing glass and case. Lyasa and Kochar flanked Cerryl, and the three students walked quietly.
“Why would they be ordered to attack us?” Fydel asked in a low voice, looking to Anya.
“Jeslek is right.” Anya’s voice was also low, but loud enough for the overmage to hear. “Fairhaven has not shown enough power in recent years, and so the prefect believes such power does not exist.”
Lyasa tapped Cerryl on the shoulder, and as he turned, rolled her eyes. Cerryl smiled ironically in return.
“They’re stupid,” Kochar mumbled. “People are going to get lolled.”
Stupidity usually got people killed, reflected Cerryl, but the ones who got killed weren’t always the stupid ones.
The high and hazy autumn clouds had slowly thinned, and the south wind had risen, bringing a hot dry breeze that combined with the strengthening sun to warm the granite of the road.
Cerryl glanced across the empty ridge line, wondering how soon it would be filled with mounted armsmen. He could feel the sweat collecting under his tunic as the day continued to warm.
Jeslek stopped and gestured. “Klybel says that the Gallosians will ride across the ridge. We will cast firebolts from the higher end here. Fydel-you and the students will be farther eastward, by that clump of brush there, just in case they try to use the road. If they do, use your first firebolts to bring down the lead mounts. That will slow everyone down, and even a student mage should be able to cast chaos-fire at an armsman who cannot get out of the way.” The overmage gestured to Anya, and the two sat down on the road wall, talking in low voices.
“This way. It’s shady there anyway.” Fydel shrugged.
The three looked at one another, then turned and followed the square-bearded and broad-shouldered mage back along the white granite paving stones, back eastward, until they stood in the shade of the bluff.
“Now. .” began Fydel, “Jeslek and Anya will certainly bring chaos-fire upon the mass of the Gallosians. None of you have their strength. So you must watch the battle and cast your firebolts at individual armsmen who may threaten them or you, or who look to be attacking places where our lancers are beleaguered.”
That made sense to Cerryl.
“That’s all you can do.” The older mage nodded. “You wait here. I will be screeing for them to see where the Gallosians may be.” He turned and walked back down the road.
Klybel rode past Fydel, and then past the student mages, eastward to where the lancers waited, some mounted, others preparing weapons or mounts or both.
Cerryl offered his water bottle to Lyasa.
“Thank you.” She drank, then looked southward. “I didn’t expect we’d get caught in a battle.”
“We might not,” suggested Kochar.
Lyasa and Cerryl looked at him.
“I guess we are, aren’t we?”
“Neither the prefect nor the overmage is likely to back down,” said Lyasa.
Cerryl took another drink from the bottle, then glanced farther eastward, where three lancers had tied the students’ mounts and watched them. His chestnut sidestepped and lifted his head, as if to indicate unhappiness with the situation. Cerryl agreed with the gelding’s unvoiced feelings.
The Gallosian armsmen appeared well before midmorning, the lead riders bearing purple pennons, and all riders bore polished oval iron-faced shields that shimmered in the sunlight. Heavy shields, Cerryl suspected from his own brief attempts to bear weapons. Besides the shields, each had an iron-tipped lance in a holder.
Again, an armsman rode forward under the messenger’s blue-trimmed pennant. The pennant fluttered in the hot light wind that swirled across the ridge and the highway, a wind not strong enough to bend the knee-high and browning grass.
Jeslek mounted his off-white horse, and with an escort of a half-score lancers, rode forward onto the ridge and reined up, waiting for the messenger.
The messenger inclined his head. “I bring you the words of the prefect under the flag of truce.”
“We listen under the flag of truce.” Jeslek waited, his white hair glittering almost silver in the bright sunlight.
“You have abused the right of the road and profaned the lands of Gallos. You must return them to the grasslands they once were, and pay the prefect three thousand golds in penance.”
Jeslek’s eyebrows rose. “Your prefect has a rather high opinion of the value of those worthless grasslands. He also has an excessive opinion of himself.”
“Are you refusing to undo the damage you have caused? If so, I am bid to tell you that you will suffer the prefect’s wrath.”
Jeslek offered a bland smile. “We look forward to seeing his wrath. It could be amusing.”
The messenger swallowed. “So be it, mage.” He turned his mount, riding quickly back toward the massed horsemen.
“They’ll charge quickly,” Klybel said. “Stand ready!” His voice rose as the order was echoed down the ranks of the white lancers.
“Stand ready!”
Fydel carried his screeing glass toward the spot where the student mages waited, his eyes darting back toward the Gallosian ranks.
“Arms ready!”
From the south sounded two trumpet notes, then two more.
A wave of dark shafts appeared in the green-blue sky, seemingly from nowhere, dropping into the ranked white lancers. At least three lancers sagged in their saddles.
“Archers! Hidden on the left,” called Fydel, standing on the road wall and yelling the directions back to Jeslek.
His face twisted in annoyance, Jeslek turned and lifted what seemed like a wave of fire that arched over the white lancers and surged over the north side of the ridge line.
Fydel gave a nod and slipped the glass into its leather case, then almost ran back to the students. “Start raising chaos!”
Cerryl watched the Gallosians but could not see where Jeslek’s fire tide had gone, only feeling that it had swept through a group of men.
“Aaeeeiii. .” Screams-brief, muted screams-followed the fire wave. No arrows did.
Jeslek stood bent forward, his hands on his knees, his face somehow both pale and flushed.
A mass of Gallosian horses charged across the ridge line, straight at the outnumbered white lancers, lances leveled.
The front line of Klybel’s lancers spurred their mounts forward, but slowly.