Fall of Angels (26 page)

  
The single remaining raider ducked under Istril's slash, started to counter, and looked at the stump of his forearm as Ryba's second blade flashed downward.

  
"Yield!" demanded the marshal, her eyes cold as the ice on Freyja.

  
The redheaded man, his hair a mahogany, rather than the fire-red of Ayrlyn or Fierral, clutched at his stump without speaking.

  
"Yield or die!" yelled Nylan in Old Anglorat, forcing himself to his feet, still clutching the wand that held the laser's powerhead.

  
"I... Relyn of Gethen Groves of Lornth ... I yield." The young fellow was already turning white.

  
"Nylan, can you handle this? There's still a bunch below the ridge." Ryba had pulled her blade from her other victim, not leaving the saddle, then turned the roan toward the ridge, Istril beside her.

  
Relyn swallowed as he heard her voice and watched the two gallop uphill, joined by four others.

  
"You'd better get down." Nylan glanced around. Both Huldran and Cessya had left, either to find mounts or follow on foot with their weapons. "If you don't want to bleed to death."

  
As he struggled out of the saddle, Relyn looked closely at Nylan, seeing for the first time Nylan's goggles and gauntlets. Then he pitched forward.

  
Nylan set aside the powerhead and walked toward the mount and its downed rider, noting the well-worked leather and the tailored linens of the rider. The black mare skittered aside, but only slightly as Nylan dragged the young man toward the laser.

  
"Hate to do this ..." he said.

  
A brief burst of power at the lowest level and widest spread cauterized the stump.

  
Nylan kept looking toward the ridge, but no one appeared. With his senses he could tell that Relyn was still alive and would probably live since the blackened stump wasn't bleeding anymore. The engineer wished he could have done something else, but what? He laughed harshly. Here he was, worrying about whether he could have done a better job saving a man who had been out to remove his head.

  
He left the laser depowered and walked to the wall where he picked up the blade he had just forged. Wearing the gauntlets, he could use it-if the need arose.

  
Should he chase after the others-or wait? He decided to wait, hoping he wouldn't have to use the laser again. He wasn't sure he could take any more killing. Since Relyn was still unconscious, he walked toward the black mare, starting with her to round up the three horses that had remained in the area, tying their reins to various stones on the solid part of the north wall of the bathhouse. Then he forced himself to check through what remained of the three bodies that he had blasted in one way or another with the laser.

  
Ignoring the smell of charred flesh, he methodically raided purses, removed jewelry, and stacked weapons on the partly built east wall. Then he went to work removing those garments that might still be usable. All three mounts had heavy blankets rolled behind the saddles.

  
"Oooohhh ..." Relyn moaned, but did not move.

  
Nylan looked toward the ridge. Finally, he looped some cord around the unconscious man's arms and feet, and then climbed onto the mare, who backed around several times before finally carrying Nylan and his recently forged blade toward the ridge.

  
The wave of death that reached him as he crested the ridge almost knocked him from the saddle. All he could do was hang on for a moment before starting downhill toward the figures on horseback and the riderless mounts.

  
As he descended, he began to discern individual figures, and almost all those he saw were in olive-black.

  
A black-haired figure turned the big roan toward him. "Nylan! Are there any more by the tower?"

  
"Just the one I tied up. The others are dead. What happened here?"

  
"There must have been nearly thirty of them . . ." Ryba smiled a grim smile. "A handful got away. The others, except one or two, are dead."

  
"What about us?"

  
Ryba shook her head. "For this sort of thing-it's not too bad. We lost two, I think, and Weindre took one of those blades in her left shoulder. We're claiming the spoils of war right now."

  
"Did you notice that these weren't bandits?" he asked.

  
"What do you mean?"

  
"Good mounts, good saddles, good clothes, good weapons, and jewelry and a lot of coins," Nylan explained.

  
"We'll talk about it later. We need to gather up everything." Ryba rode back downhill.

  
Since she seemed to have everything under control, Nylan turned the black around and headed back up the ridge to the tower.

  
By the time he had reached the uncompleted bathhouse and tied up the black, Relyn's eyes were open.

  
"I gave my word, Mage," he snapped.

  
"I wasn't sure, and you weren't awake enough for me to ask you," returned Nylan in Old Anglorat as he unfastened the cords. He extended his senses to Relyn's stump. "That probably hurts, but you'll live."

  
"Better I didn't."

  
"I doubt that." Nylan massaged his forehead, trying to relieve the pain in his eyes and the throbbing in his skull.

  
"Have you never been exiled, unable to return? That is what will happen when my sire discovers I was bested by women, and fewer of them than my own solid armsmen."

  
"All of us are exiles, young fellow. As for the women, you might note that they're not exactly the kind of women you have here." Nylan felt very safe with that assertion.

  
"You don't jest," returned the man dourly. "They had small thunder-throwers-and their blades ... had we blades such as those, things would have been different. Did those blades come from the heavens, also?"

  
Nylan looked down at the stony ground.

  
"You look confounded, Mage."

  
"My name is Nylan." The engineer didn't wish to answer, but even the thought of not answering was increasing his headache.

  
"Ser Nylan, surely you know where came such blades."

  
The engineer took a deep breath. "I... made them."

  
"Here? On the Roof of the World?"

  
Nylan nodded.

  
"Light! I must be cozened into attacking angels each worth twice any armsman, and supported by a mage the like of which our poor world has never seen." Relyn struggled into a sitting position on the wall. "You killed three of my men, did you not?"

  
"Yes."

  
"Might I look at that blade?"

  
Nylan looked down at the blade he had thrust through the tool belt. "This? It's not finished. The hilt needs to be wrapped." He eased the blade out, half surprised that he had not cut himself with it, though it was shorter than the crowbars carried by the locals. He showed it to Relyn, who brushed the metal with the fingers of his left hand.

  
"Would that I had a blade like that," said the younger man.

  
"They are for... the guards ... of Westwind."

  
"Westwind?"

  
Nylan gestured to the tower. "That's what we have named it."

  
"Westwind." Relyn shivered: "Westwind. A cold wind."

  
"Very cold," Nylan agreed, thinking about Ryba's coolness after the battle. What was he supposed to have done? Sprung into the saddle and chased after them? He laughed, thinking of himself bouncing along on the black.

  
"You laugh? You laugh?"

  
"Not at you, Relyn. At me. I was thinking about how awkward it is for me to ride a horse."

  
"I do not understand. Do not all men ride? All mages?"

  
"Yes, but we don't always ride horses into battle." Nylan turned at the sound of hooves, watching as Huldran and Cessya rode up.

  
"You're already organized, ser, aren't you?" asked Huldran.

  
"Pretty much," Nylan admitted.

  
"Who's the pretty boy?" asked Cessya.

  
"I think he's the guilty one. He thinks his father will disown him for being defeated by a bunch of women."

  
"He's not bad-looking."

  
"They think you're not bad-looking, Relyn," Nylan said. "Even if you are the one who plotted this. Might I ask why?"

  
Relyn shrugged. "I am the younger son, and when I heard that Lord Sillek had offered lands and a title to whoever reclaimed the Roof of the World ... I spent what I had. Now ... I am ruined."

  
"If you had succeeded, we'd have been ruined," pointed out Nylan as he turned to Huldran. "Who did we lose?"

  
"Weblya and Sheriz. Weindre got slashed up, but Jaseen says she'll pull through. A bunch of bruises and cuts for everyone else, except the marshal." Huldran sighed. "It's going to get tougher. We're just about out of rounds. Best to use what we've got left for the rifles."

  
"I wouldn't know," Nylan said, "but that would be my suggestion."

  
"That's what the marshal told us." Huldran turned in the saddle. "We've got to make another big cairn. Siret's bringing down the cart for the bodies. Since you're all right, ser..."

  
"Go on." Nylan waved the two off. "Do what you have to."

  
"A curious tongue you speak, Mage. Some words I understand. You are not, properly speaking, an armsman, are you?"

  
"No. I'm an engineer ... like a smith. I build things, like the tower, or this."

  
"Yet you slew three men, and you forge blades that. . ." Relyn groped in the air with his left hand. "And the women, they are mightier warriors than you?"

  
"For the most part, yes."

  
"Demons of light save us, save us all, for they will change the world and all that is in it."

  
Of that, Nylan had no doubts. And, from what he'd seen, it would probably be a better world-but would it be one that had a place for him? From Ryba's actions and gestures, daughter or no daughter, he wondered.

XXXIII

THE GRAY CLOUDS churn out of the north, and a cold rain falls across Lornth, heavier showers splattering in waves across the red tile roofs of the town. From behind the leaded-glass window, Sillek's eyes look south toward the river, though he sees neither roofs nor river.

  
"Sillek, did you hear me?"

  
He turns toward the alcove where his mother the lady Ellindyja adjusts the white fabric over one wooden hoop, then slips the second hoop in place to hold the linen taut. Golden thread trails from the needle she holds in her right hand.

  
"My dear mother, I fear I was distracted."

  
"Distracted? The Lord of Lornth cannot afford distractions, mental or otherwise, and certainly not distractions of the nature of the ... lady ... Kirandya." Ellindyja knots the end of the thread with motions that seem too precise for the white and pudgy fingers.

  
"I suppose not." Sillek's words are harsh as he sits on the straight-backed wooden chair opposite the alcove bench. "You were saying?"

  
"Ser Gethen-you might recall him, Sillek. He has more than score ten in armsmen, and all the lands between the rivers north of Carpa, even a hillside vineyard. I think he has several daughters near your age as well, and the middle one is said to be quite a beauty."

  
"I don't believe you were talking about his daughters."

  
"Ah . . . no." The golden thread completes the edge of a coronet on the linen, and the needle pauses. "Ser Gethen had a son, Relyn or Ronwin or something. He heard of your offer of lands and a minor title for destroying those witches on the heights-"

  
"Your idea, as I recall," interjects Sillek, "and a good one."

  
"And the young fellow gathered his funds and some armsmen and attacked the witches. He had a score and ten men, well armed. A half dozen returned."

  
"I had heard something of his exploit, but only this morning. Pray, tell me-how did this news come to you?"

  
"The youth's mother-Erenthla-she and I were once close, and she sent a messenger. That's of no matter now, Sillek. You certainly should not expect me to be totally cloistered. What is of import is that Ser Gethen is less than pleased. Erenthla-she is Lady of Gethen Groves- conveyed that. Rather clearly." Ellindyja's needle flickers through the fabric, creating another lobe to the coronet taking shape on the linen. "She hinted at her liege's loss of honor and that it might be linked to your failure to uphold that noble heritage bequeathed to you."

  
"Since you are determined to pin this upon me, why should I be disturbed? The young fellow knew the risks. Any raiding has risks. And he was a hothead, from what I recall. The kind that thinks every fight brings honor." Sillek stands, then his brows knit. "He was killed?"

  
"Far worse-he was captured. Being captured by women -even angels-makes it most humiliating, especially for his sire. Erenthla was clearly distraught. I should not have to point this out to you. Of course, Ser Gethen was forced to disown him, but he was Gethen's second son of two, and second in the succession, and there are only sisters after him."