Darknesses (30 page)

S
epti
had dawned clear and cooler,
perhaps fore-shadowing the turn of harvest,
now less than a week away. The sky above the lancer courtyard was brilliant
silver-green, and a brisk but not chill wind blew out of the north. Alucius was
mounted, his back to the open gates of the post. Before him, the
troopers—consolidated into three companies—had formed up by company.

“Twenty-first
Company, present and ready, sir,” Egyl snapped out.

“Fifth
Company, present and ready, sir,” Feran reported.

“Third
Company, present and ready, sir!” Koryt was still wearing a splint on his left
arm, and a sling.

“Stand
easy.” Alucius turned Wildebeast and rode back through the opening between
Twenty-first and Fifth Companies until he reached the open courtyard behind
them. He reined up short of the stone balustrade of the platform where Marshal
Seherak stood.

“Overcaptain.”

“We
stand ready to depart Dereka, Marshal.”

“All
Deforya wishes you well on your return home.” Marshal Seherak smiled warmly.
“Your efforts were magnificent, Overcaptain, and your bravery beyond belief.”

Without
even really trying, Alucius could sense the coldness behind the expression, as
if confirming once more how his Talent had become one of his physical senses,
functioning all the time, rather than having to be called up through
concentration. He could also sense the veiled contempt, as though the marshal
felt that Alucius to be a lucky and brainless fool. “We both know, Marshal,
that such bravery was born of desperation, carried out with skill, and rewarded
by luck.” Alucius smiled.

The
marshal’s smile changed, almost imperceptibly, and he replied, “That may be,
but it was bravery, nonetheless.”

“We
all are placed where we do what we must, sir, and I thank you for your
consideration, and for your generous supplies for our return journey. I will
convey your courtesy and your regards to the Lord-Protector.”

“We
are all appreciative of the Lord-Protector’s support of an independent Deforya
in these times.” The marshal emphasized “independent” ever so slightly.

Alucius
wished the Iron Valleys had been treated more “independently” by the
Lord-Protector, but he had the feeling that Deforya would not be independent
that much longer, not with the way the Deforyans fought and the way the
Deforyan landowners acted. “I will convey that as well, Marshal.” Alucius bowed
his head slightly, then turned Wildebeast, riding toward the gates. There he
took his place behind the token vanguard, at the front of the main body of
troopers.

“Column
forward!”

As
the force—now almost entirely Northern Guards—rode through the gates and turned
northward, Alucius reflected. Half a season before, six officers and five
companies had ridden out of Lanachrona, and the companies had all been close to
full strength. Now…three officers were riding back at the head of three
companies little more than the strength of two, he was the senior officer, and
everyone was proclaiming a great victory over the nomads, Aellyan Edyss, and
his pteridons.

More
worrying than that was the visit from the soarerlike spirit, and her guiding
him to the hidden chamber. Still wondering whether he had dreamed the visit, he
had visited the chamber one last time before he had mustered the troopers in
the courtyard…but the chamber and the mural remained.

As
Alucius rode past the Landarch’s palace, the half squad of Deforyan troopers
guarding the gates drew up to attention.

Alucius
returned the salute with a bow.

“Did
you see that?” asked Egyl. “That was the second time.”

“I
did. They understand what we did.”

“You
don’t think the officers do?”

“Some
of the officers do, I’d wager, but most of them are captains. The Landarch
does, but he’s as much a captive as those captains are.”

“Sir?”

“The
overcaptains and their superiors are all from landowning families. They control
the lands and the Deforyan Lancers, and whoever controls those controls
Deforya.” Alucius gestured toward the people on the sidewalks and in the shops.
“Look. Almost none of them are even looking at us. To them, a trooper is like a
lancer. There’s no difference. If anything, they’re happy to see us leave.”

Egyl
frowned. “You don’t think it’s that way in all lands?”

“Not
as much.” Alucius shifted his weight in the saddle. “In the Iron Valleys, you
have the crafters, the herders, and the traders. The traders had the most coins
and power, but they had to listen to the others some of the time. In
Lanachrona, they have the vintners, the traders, the craft guilds, and the
Southern Guard. The Southern Guard has more officers who worked their way up,
and that means they owe their loyalty to senior officers and the Lord-Protector,
not to those with golds.”

“You’re
worried, aren’t you, sir?”

“We’ve
got a long trip ahead,” Alucius said. “I’ll be happier when we get back to
Dekhron.”

“Dekhron,
sir?”

“Where
else do we go? They’ve closed Emal, and we don’t have any orders. I’d rather go
to Dekhron than Borlan or Tempre—and Dekhron’s far closer.” That was another
worry, but Alucius was far more concerned about the worries he felt and
couldn’t even identify.

Tempre,
Lanachrona

I
n
the darkness,
with but a single lamp lit in the ancient underground
chamber, the chamber around and over which a palace had later been built, the
Recorder of Deeds stepped toward the Table. He shuffled, hesitantly, almost as
if his feet were carrying him against his will. His every breath was labored.

Finally,
he stood at the edge of the Table of the Recorders. Even in the cool of the
night, his forehead was damp with perspiration. His hands rested on the edge of
the Table, then grasped the underside of the lorken, as if trying to lift the
Table. The Table did not move.

After
a time, the Recorder looked down at the mirror surface, then at the ruby mists
that appeared. The ruby mists swirled upward, beyond the polished crystal
surface, into the dark air, wreathing themselves around the Recorder’s face.
Even as he turned his head, his body remained immobile.

His
entire frame shuddered, once, twice, then spasmed before crumpling into a heap
beside the Table.

The
mists vanished, and the mirror surface of the ancient Table once more appeared
polished and untouched, without even the trace of fingerprints on the edge of
either the crystal or the polished lorken around that shimmering surface.

Perhaps
a quarter of a glass later, there was a single groan, cut off abruptly. The
Recorder rolled over, straightened, then stood, with the grace of a much
younger and stronger man.

His
eyes lit upon the Table, and a satisfied smile crossed his lips before he
turned and walked briskly from the chamber.

A
lucius
glanced to his right,
north across the channeled stream to the gray
stone slopes rising beyond the artificial canyon that held the high road back
to Lanachrona. Ahead, the two scouts from second company were riding up the
slight incline of the road toward the point where it crested, beyond which the
high road ran flat for a good ten vingts, as Alucius recalled, across a narrow
valley that held little besides low brush and stones.

The
trees were as infrequent as he remembered, twisted and bent evergreens. There
was almost no undergrowth, even near the steams, except for small bushes
clinging to life in corners or angles in the stone where dirt and sand had
drifted over the ages since the road and canyon had been cut from the heart of
the Upper Spine Mountains.

As
he rode westward along the high road, the sense of sorrow felt stronger than it
had been. Alucius absently patted Wildebeast, considering. Was it that the
sensation was stronger, or that he was far more aware of it?

He
continued to have dreams—or fragments of dreams—with the alabaster-skinned men
and women dominating them. If the ancient frieze or mural under the lancer
quarters were accurate, and Alucius
knew
that it
was, even if he could not have proved that, then ancient Corus under the
Duarchy had been ruled by people like the Matrial. But none of the histories
had made mention of that. Nor had he ever heard stories or legends about them.

Then,
nothing written about the Matrial of Madrien over the past hundred years had
noted her different appearance. Was that something just taken for granted, so
unremarkable that none of the ancients had even considered it? Then, too, he
had only seen one or two of the pteridon riders, but they had been pale-faced,
although not so pale as the figures in the mural. Had some sort of Talent held
the riders unaging ever since the Cataclysm? Or did riding pteridons change the
nomads who had ridden them?

Alucius
had felt, but again could not prove, that the last rider he had downed, and
whose death had almost resulted in his own, had been Aellyan Edyss. That argued
for the idea that the use of the ancient pteridons made a change in those who
rode them. Had the Matrial’s torques been a use of ancient Talent-powers that
had turned the Matrial pale and violet-eyed? And unaging, as the Matrite
officers had claimed?

And
what did all that have to do with the spirit-woman’s showing him the mural? She
had told him that he had to see the mural. But why? What could he do? Did she
expect him to kill every alabaster-skinned person he met? Or to be wary of
them, as if he would not be anyway?

He
tightened his lips.

“You
all right, sir?” asked Egyl.

“Still
thinking,” Alucius admitted. “I keep wondering how Aellyan Edyss got those
pteridons, and whether there are any more somewhere. And why they obeyed him
and his riders.”

“I’d
rather not think too hard about that, sir. Just glad that you knew what to do.”

A
glass later, Alucius was still thinking…and more worried. He shifted his weight
in the saddle again, not because he was sore, but because he was uneasy. He had
not sensed the bluish violet creature so far on the return through the
mountains, but the absence of life bothered him more than it had on the journey
to Dereka. Even the faint glow of the eternastones of the high road appeared
fainter.

Was
that because his Talent-senses were sharper and more active? Or because the
deadness of the mountains had actually leached out more of whatever power the
stones had held? Or just because he was worried more?

By
all rights, he shouldn’t have been worried. He had survived an almost
impossible situation in Deforya, and he was on his way home. He had less than
four months left on his obligation to the Northern Guard, and there was no
immediate sign of more battles or war. Because of a soarerlike spirit’s visit
and some dreams, he was worried?

He
shivered. Then he frowned. Why was he cold? It was almost harvest, but he was
wearing nightsilk undergarments and a riding jacket, and the breeze through the
canyon from the west was just pleasantly cool.

After
a moment, a red emptiness washed over him. The coldness ahead had caused those
deaths—and he hadn’t expected such a feeling along the high road. But whatever
had caused the deaths of the scouts lay ahead. He turned to Egyl. “Ready
rifles! Pass it back.”

“Ah…yes,
sir. Ready rifles. Twenty-first Company! Ready rifles!”

Before
Egyl could question him, Alucius asked, “Who are your best marksmen?”

“Waris
and Dueryn, of course, and probably Makyr and Fiens.”

“Order
them forward.”

Something
lay ahead, and while it was hostile, it wasn’t anything like lancers or nomads.
What it was, Alucius had no idea, but the coldness and the deaths he did not
want to mention left no doubt that it wasn’t friendly.

Alucius
waited to say more until the four were riding abreast behind him. Then he half
turned in the saddle. “There’s something ahead. I don’t think it’s friendly.”

“But
the scouts—” Egyl began.

“They
may not have seen it in time. I want you four directly in a line immediately in
front of me, so that you have a clear line of fire. You’ll need to be ready as
we near the crest of the road.”

“Yes,
sir.”

As
the four eased around Alucius and Egyl, the overcaptain checked his own rifles
and began to infuse the cartridges in each of his rifles with the same kind of
darkness that had brought down the pteridons. Once he felt that each bullet was
so charged, he began to slip the darkness of life—for that was the way he had
come to see it—into the cartridges of the four who rode before him.

The
chill and darkness became more and more oppressive as the column neared the
gentle crest in the high road. Alucius felt as though a wall of water lay
ahead, ready to break down and sweep them away. Yet…what could they do but
advance? Retreating before a powerful foe in a narrow canyon was worse than
advancing.

Alucius
readied his first rifle as he rode. Even before the first six quite reached the
crest, there were gasps from the others. Alucius glanced sideways at Egyl. The
squad leader’s mouth was open, and his eyes were wide.

The
twenty-odd creatures that circled in the air ahead were like smaller purplish
pteridons, without riders, roughly half the size of the pteridons ridden by the
nomads. The claws on their forelegs were longer, metallic blue talons, glinting
and knife-sharp. The six creatures blocking the road were worse. Each was close
to four times the size of a draft horse, with massive shoulders, a long
triangular horn, and scales that shimmered purple.

The
two scouts and their horses—or their bloody remains—lay less than a hundred
yards ahead of Alucius.

“Aim
carefully. Prepare to fire. Fire!” Alucius put his first shot through the eye
of the horned creature on the right, then switched to the second, and fired
again. Both went down, and columns of blue flame rose from where each had been.

One
of the wild pteridons cartwheeled out of the sky, and the others dived toward
the troopers. The horned Talent-beasts lowered their heads.

Alucius
fired two more shots at the larger beasts. One shot missed entirely. The second
plowed into the massive shoulder of the fourth beast, and bluish flames erupted
from the wound.

Before
him, the four marksmen fired deliberately, and a pteridon exploded in the same
bluish flames.

Alucius
raised his rifle and used the last shot to aim at the nearest pteridon. While
the shot missed, it was close to the beast, and it swerved slightly, and missed
Waris by a fraction of a yard. He switched rifles, and fired another shot at a
pteridon—and hit it. A blast of blue flame washed toward the front of the
column, turning the forearm of Fiens’s riding jacket into flame.

The
three remaining horned beasts were within fifty yards.

“Fire
at the ones on the ground!” Alucius ordered, trying to infuse the cartridges of
the marksmen and of Egyl with blackness. Ordering an oblique or a retreat would
have been useless. That Alucius knew.

Another
horned beast flared into blue flame, but a pteridon swept out of nowhere and
slashed Dueryn from his saddle, dropping his body, with long black scars that
still burned, on the eternastone in front of the troopers.

Alucius
snapped off a shot at the pteridon, momentarily slowed, and was rewarded with
another blue explosion. Then he concentrated on the remaining horned beasts.

The
last one skidded to a halt ten yards from the front of the column, and Alucius
tried his best to throw up the greenish barrier. He had to have been partly
successful, because the heat, while intense, merely crisped hair rather than
burning exposed skin.

The
pteridons redoubled their attacks, striking the column from all angles,
slashing and swooping.

Despite
the speed of the creatures, slowly, so slowly, their numbers diminished.

Alucius
forced himself to concentrate on two things—his own shooting and supplying
darkness to the cartridges of those around him. In time—how long it was Alucius
didn’t know—he shot the last one, then lowered his rifle.

For
all the chaos and the slashing attacks, there were fewer bodies strewn on the
shoulder of the highway, or amid the column, than Alucius had feared. Far more
than he wanted, but fewer than could have been.

“Have
the captains report,” he said tiredly to Egyl. “Tend to the wounded, but have
Waris and your other marksman—Makyr—ride ahead a half vingt—but not out of
sight. And have them keep an eye open.”

“Yes,
sir. Waris, Makyr, you heard the overcaptain.” Egyl pointed to a trooper in the
column. “Esklyr, ride back and tell the captains that the overcaptain would
like their reports.” The squad leader looked at Alucius. “Almost got you, too,
sir.”

Alucius
looked down at his right arm. A long rent ran down Alucius’s sleeve, cutting
through both riding jacket and tunic, leaving the nightsilk beneath shimmering
and untouched. His arm was so sore that he could hardly move it. “I didn’t
notice. I was lucky.” In fact, his whole body was shivering imperceptibly, as
if he were totally exhausted. He reached down and took out the water bottle,
swallowing deeply. The water helped.

As
he waited for the officers and the reports, he glanced at Waris and Makyr, but
no more beasts appeared. More important, the coldness he had felt was gone, and
all that remained was the omnipresent sense of sorrow. Then he turned
Wildebeast and studied the stony valley on all sides. There were no traces of
any of the Talent-beasts, except for black greasy splotches where they had
burned. There were no charred bones, no scales…nothing except the residue of
intense fires.

Alucius
could feel something else—or the lack of something. There was no life at all
around them. Even the evergreens, although they looked green, were dead, and
would be brown in weeks, if not days.

Then
he let out a silent sigh of relief as he saw Feran riding along the shoulder,
followed by Koryt. Koryt still had his arm in a splint, and the dressings
binding the splint were charred on one side, and Koryt’s face was reddened on
the same side.

Feran
reined up. “Fifth Company, ten dead, five wounded.” The older captain was
hoarse, his voice raspy.

“Third
Company,” Koryt reported, “six dead, three wounded.”

“Twenty-first
Company, sir,” Egyl said, “three dead, seven wounded.”

Nineteen
dead. Alucius paused. “Thank you. You and your troopers handled this well. Most
companies would have broken.”

“What…were…those
things?” asked Feran.

“I
don’t know, but the flying ones looked like pteridons. Maybe they were wild
pteridons, the kind that the ancients tamed into the ones we saw with the
nomads.” Alucius considered. “The big ones on the road—they looked like
sandoxes would, if they had horns and scales.”

“Sandoxes?
Like in the legends? How—”

“I
saw a picture of one once,” Alucius said. “A drawing, really.” He moistened his
lips, realizing that, outside of the mural under the Derekan lancer barracks,
he had never seen a picture. Yet he had known what that creature had been, and
it had been so natural to know that he had never questioned how or why he had
known.

“I
still don’t understand why some shots brought them down and some didn’t,” Feran
said.

“Mostly
shots from the front of the column,” Koryt said. “Saw one of the scouts—Waris,
I think—bring down two of those flying horrors.”

Alucius
was glad for more reasons than one that he’d thought of infusing the bullets of
others with darkness. “They had a better angle, but I didn’t want the troopers
spread out where they could have been picked off one by one.”

Feran
nodded in agreement.

“We’ll
need to pack the bodies out of here, those that we can.” It was probably a
useless gesture, but Alucius didn’t want to bury anyone in the sorrowing dead
ground in the Upper Spine Mountains. He couldn’t have explained why, but as
overcaptain, he didn’t have to. He would have to explain the losses to the
colonel, and possibly write a report that might end up getting sent to the
Lord-Protector. He didn’t look forward to that, either, but explaining it
couldn’t be anywhere as bad as what they’d just been through.