Fall of Angels (20 page)

  
The triangle sounded again, and Nylan heaved himself up off the step and back out into the sunlight.

  
Three riders guided their mounts down toward the landers, following the trail past the tower yard. On the fourth mount, riderless, a body was slung across the saddle, a body in the black olive drab of a marine.

  
"Who?" asked Huldran as Istril led the horse past the tower yard.

 
 
Nylan looked at the laser and then toward Istril and the dead marine, but the body was facedown.

  
"Frelita."

  
Nylan didn't know the marine by name, since he hadn't learned them all, but he'd probably recognize her face-or recognize when she wasn't there at dinner. For a time, the tower crew watched the horses and their riders.

  
"We can't help them by looking," Nylan finally said.

  
"I'll be glad when the tower's finished," added Huldran.

  
Weblya laughed once. "Then we'll have to build a real ramp, and some stables. There's a lot to do."

  
"How about a bathhouse with showers?" suggested Nylan. "And a place to do laundry?"

  
"Showers with ice-cold water? No, thank you," answered Stentana.

  
"He's working on a furnace," said Huldran. "Maybe he can give us a hot-water heater."

  
Nylan groaned.

  
Huldran grinned. "I can ask, ser."

  
"Let's worry about getting a solid roof on the tower first."

  
"Yes, ser." The blond squared her shoulders.

  
Nylan finished the last of the roof slates before the sun even touched the western peaks, with enough time-and power left-for him to shape two more of the black blades, although they couldn't be used, not easily, until some of the hides of the big cats killed by Gerlich were tanned-or until they got some kind of leather to wrap the hilts.

  
After that, Nylan stowed the laser cells back in the space under the tower stairs. Then he trudged to the upper stream and washed up as well as he could before making his way toward the cook fires.

  
Three repeated rings on the triangle called all but the sentries around the fires.

  
Ryba stood on one of the lengths of logs, and studied the group, waiting for silence. Her face was grim. "Frelita's dead. It didn't have to happen, but she really wasn't paying attention."

  
"... poor woman . . ."

  
"... should have watched closer . .."

  
"You idiots!" snapped Ryba, her voice cold as a winter gale, cutting off the low murmurs. "Did you think that after one round of bandits, they'd all go away? We can't afford to lose one of you every time some idiot brigand shows up. Do you want to be the next one skewered by one of those arrows? There's no such thing as one band of brigands in a place like this. You kill one bunch, and more show up. And life is so frigging hard here that they don't care much if they die, so long as they have some fun along the way. Fun is food, wine, beer, and women-and they don't care how they get their women."

  
Saryn fingered the sharp edge of her blade, one of the better ones Nylan had done, and one of the matching pair that the former second pilot wore. "... I do ..."

  
Her words were as clear as if she had been standing beside Nylan, and he frowned. How had he heard Saryn so clearly?

  
Ayrlyn, halfway between Nylan and Saryn, shook her head, then glanced at the engineer, raising her eyebrows. He shrugged back, trying not to cough as the smoke from the cook fire twisted toward him.

  
Perhaps it wouldn't be too long before Rienadre and Denalle had fired enough bricks to start building the big stove and the furnace in the lower level of the tower. Maybe completing the tower would help with some of the security. He pursed his lips. Who was he kidding? Crops had to be tended. Someone had to hunt. Others had to keep watch. The tower would be great against the winter, and at night-but not that much help in the warm days, except as a higher vantage point.

  
"Women are slaves here-outside of Westwind. And don't you forget it. There are few men off the Roof of the World who wouldn't want to kill you, humble you, rape you-or all three. We're the evil angels to a lot of these people. Now we can change that, and we're going to-but we can't do it if you get yourselves killed." A cast of sadness crossed the captain's face. "I'm sorry about Frelita. I wish it hadn't happened. And I'm still sorry about Desinada. But let's not let it happen again." She stepped down and walked through the marines toward Nylan.

  
He touched her forearm, and she looked at him, then nodded toward the tower. So they walked back up the gentle slope until the black stones loomed over them.

  
"It always takes death or force to get people's attention. And one death sometimes doesn't even do it," Ryba began. "I've got to act like some ancient dictator just to get people to follow common sense."

  
"Not all of us," suggested Nylan.

  
"Thank the darkness." Ryba sighed. "But they complain about sawing planks, cleaning saw blades, or making bricks. Don't they?"

  
"Sometimes."

  
"And what do you tell them?"

  
"I ask them if they want to spend the winter with a thin layer of metal between them and snow twice their height, eating frozen food and breaking their teeth-if they've got the strength to eat." Nylan paused. "Selling the tower's easy. They can see it. It's hard to sell alertness, or general preparedness, or anything people can't touch."

  
Ryba nodded. "Sometimes ... sometimes, I get so tired."

  
Nylan put his arms around her.

  
She stiffened for a moment, then relaxed. "Have to remember to take comfort when I can."

  
"That's all we can do."

  
After a time, they separated and walked slowly back toward the cook fires and a late supper. Overhead, the cold stars blinked out and shone down on the Roof of the World, each as cold as the ice that coated Freyja, as cold as the latest cairn in the southwestern corner of the Roof of the World, where there were getting to be too many cairns, too quickly.

XXVII

THE LOW GRAY clouds that had brought the long-overdue afternoon rain scud eastward and toward the mighty Westhorns as Sillek peers on his knees through both the twilight and the chest-high, damp grasses. Less than a thousand cubits away, across a slight depression, lie the earthen ramparts that sit on the last raised ground controlling the approach to the ford-and the road to Clynya. Behind the ramparts are several tents, and more than a handful of long rough-planked buildings with sodded roofs. The air smells of damp grass, soil, and woodsmoke.

  
"Can you set those buildings on fire, Master Mage?" he asks Terek.

  
"This grass is damp, ser."

  
"The buildings?" hisses Sillek.

  
"Yes, ser, but I'd have to get closer, much closer. They've cut away all the grass-"

  
"Burned it, I think," corrects Sillek. "You can see in the dark, can't you? Mages are supposed to be able to do that."

  
"In the dark? You want us to do this in the dark?"

  
"As I told Koric, I'm not a slave to an outmoded code of honor, Master Chief Wizard. That bastard Ildyrom disregarded honor and traditional boundaries when he seized the grasslands west of Clynya and built this fort to hold them. Honor says I should send my armsmen against a bunch of mongrel scum to have them killed? Frig honor. I intend to get the grasslands back without killing my men."

  
Terek shifts his weight from one knee to the other in the high damp grass, all too aware he does not wear the hip-length boots that Sillek does.

  
"When it gets dark, Koric and a handful of the best will escort you and the two other wizards down as far as you need to go. I want everything in that fort to burn-everything."

  
"But they'll flee."

  
"Of course." Sillek smiles. "I've thought of that, too. Now, let's get back and get ready." He glances to the darkening western horizon, then back to the thin lines of smoke coming up from the wooden huts behind the earthen walls.

  
Terek shivers, but follows the lord as the two creep back through the grasses, hoping that the sentries in the fort can see nothing but grass waving in the evening breeze. ". . . all this sneaking ..." Terek mumbles to himself. "Do you want to ride up front in a charge to take that fort, Master Wizard?" asks Sillek, still easing through the damp grasses in a crouch, grasses that bend and then spray Terek with the rain that has coated them. Terek wipes his forehead. "No, ser."

  
"Then stop complaining. I'm a lot more interested in winning than in being a dead hero, and, from what I've seen, so are you,"

  
When they reach the low hill that shelters the Lornian forces, Sillek straightens and massages his back.

  
Koric waits and listens as Lord Sillek explains.

  
"... won't be too much longer before it's dark enough for you to start, Koric."

  
"Yes, ser."

  
Sillek touches his arm and lowers his voice. "Who else can I trust to ensure these ... wizards ... do as they're supposed to? I can't spare a score of horse or the archers."

  
"I understand, ser. I'll do my duty."

  
Both Sillek and Koric understand the words that Koric does not speak. But I don't have to like it.

  
"I know," Sillek says. "Just remember. It's the results that count." He studies the almost-dark sky and the stars that have appeared. "You'd better get started."

  
Koric nods.

  
Sillek wipes what moisture he can from his leathers, and boots, before mounting and beginning his instructions to the horse troopers.

  
As the skies continue to clear, and the white firepoints of the stars blink across the grasslands, Koric leads the three wizards through the grass. Watch fires glimmer at the four corners of the fort, spilling light into the darkness.

  
Another group from Lornth circles behind the wizards, heading for the ford in the West Fork. The dozen men bear longbows and filled quivers.

  
Farther from the Jeranyi redoubt, sheltered by the slope of the land and the, chest-high grass, Lord Sillek and his horse wait, then he nods, and, almost silently, the troopers begin their roundabout ride to the south side of the road that leads from the ford to the fort.

  
The grass bends and whispers, showering Hissl with droplets. He wipes his face and follows, at a crouch, Koric and the chief wizard.

  
"Keep down," hisses Koric. "You mages get us discovered, and you'll spend the next season in cold iron, if the Jeranyi don't catch us, and do it first."

  
Hissl takes a deep breath and wipes more water out of his eyes. Jissek just puffs along after Terek. Behind them follow a half squad of armed troopers, also creeping through the damp grass and darkness.

  
"Is this close enough?" asks Koric as he pauses and glances toward the watch fires that are little more than a hundred cubits away, their flames flickering in the light but steady wind out of the west that brings with it the smell of wood fires, probably from wood ferried downstream from the headwaters of the West Fork. Mixed with the wood smoke is the odor of cooking grease.

  
Hissl licks his lips, trying to ignore the growling in his guts.

  
"Close enough," admits Terek, "even for Jissek."

  
"You start when you're ready," orders Koric. "The others will watch for the fires."

  
"The center building is mostly wood," offers Hissl in a low voice.

  
"Thank you, Master Hissl," responds Terek.

  
"Stop it, you two," mumbles Jissek. "Let's get on with it."

  
"You also, Master Jissek," hisses Terek. "I'll do the first, then Hissl, and then you, Jissek. Take your time, and hit something."

  
Whhsttt!

  
The first firebolt arcs out of the grass and drops into the fort- slamming into the side of a building where flames lick at the rough-dressed log wall.

  
Clang! Clang!

  
The Jeranyi warning bell echoes through the fort.

  
More fireballs arc out of the darkness and fall across the buildings within the earthen walls.

  
The bell clamors more, then falls silent as the sound of voices and muffled orders fill the once-still evening.

  
".. . mount up and fall in!"

  
"Archers! . .. Where are the frigging archers?"

  
"Fire! Water for the cook hall! Fire!"

  
Three additional fireballs, the first the largest, drop in succession into the fort.

  
"Aeeeeiiii!" A scream tells that at least one has struck more than wood.

  
The crackling of flames joins the chorus of orders and the whuffing and whinnying of hastily saddled mounts. The night air lightens with the growing flames from the buildings in the fort, with burning canvas, and the smell of smoke thickens as it drifts toward the wizards.

  
Another round of fireballs flares eastward. After his fourth firebolt, Jissek drops to his knees and holds his head. Terek snorts and flings another ball of fire toward the fort, and so does Hissl, who ignores the sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool night wind.