Magi'i of Cyador (46 page)

"Good. We'll move out from the wall once we get within a half-kay of the trunk." Or sooner if the chaos-net of the ward-wall is gone.

Lorn scans the area ahead as the second squad rides forward, checking the ward-wall, the area around where the trunk spans the wall, and the crushed green crown of the forest giant farther to his right. While he sees small creatures scurrying from the Accursed Forest down the trunk to the crown area, Lorn cannot be sure what they might be, other than they do not seem to be large enough to be stun lizards or the giant cats.

Some three hundred cubits from the trunk, Lorn raises his hand and reins in the white gelding. "Squad halt!"

In the silence, he studies the ward-wall, noting to himself that the chaos-net has vanished. While the fallen trunk is not so large as the one they had encountered on the first half of the patrol, even from where he is reined up, he estimates that the diameter is still greater than fifteen cubits.

Beyond the trunk, he can see the bulk of the non-functioning midpoint chaos tower.

"Don't usually see 'em this close to a chaos tower," offers Kusyl.

"That's our luck," Lorn offers. "Send another messenger out to Olisenn. Have them form up five abreast and ride toward the crown. We'll wait here a moment while I write out the message to send back to the Engineers. Then we'll ride toward the crown, say, a hundred cubits off the trunk."

"Yes, ser."

Lorn finishes the message as quickly as he can and hands it to the squad leader. "Here."

In turn, Kusyl rides to the rear of the column and turns the scroll over to a thin lancer, who immediately turns his mount and heads back toward Eastend. The squad leader rides back to Lorn and reports, "On its way, ser."

Lorn nods. Both men know that the Engineers will not arrive until late the following day, if then. "Let's see what this trunk holds."

"Yes, ser. Lances ready! Forward at a walk!"

The horses' hoofs powder the dead soil, not quite crunching the lifeless ground, turning up white streaks of the stones and stones of salt once poured onto fertile soil.

They have covered no more than fifty cubits, and are still close to two hundred cubits from the trunk, when two of the giant cats bound from the trunk, one to the left of the line of lancers, and one to the right. Both animals angle toward the lancers, running at speeds that seem to halve the distance with each breath.

"Discharge at will!" Both Lorn and Kusyl shout the orders near-simultaneously.

Hhssst! Hssst! Firelance bolts flare toward the cats, and all appear to miss.

"Short bursts!" Lorn adds.

Hssstt!

One cat falls, growling, before the firelances converge on it. The other cat dashes sideways at an incredible speed and sprints northward through the gap between the two squads, heading away from the lancers.

"Hold your discharges!" Kusyl orders. "This one's dead, and you'll need 'em!"

The fallen cat seems slightly smaller than the one that had escaped the firelances, although it is hard to tell with most of the forward part of its body charred.

"Lances ready," Lorn orders, urging the gelding northwest, edging along the trunk toward the crushed mound of vegetation that had been the crown-a circular matted mass clearly smaller than that of the tree they had encountered on the outward patrol.

Perhaps fifty cubits short of where the tree's crushed upper branches begin lies a separate branch, nearly two cubits across, Lorn judges, and more olive colored and without smaller branches, almost like a huge vine torn from the Forest.

The branch undulates along its entire length, creating salt smears on the dead soil, and the lizard-like triangular head of a serpent rises beside the darker gray-brown of the tree trunk. The jaws open, extending wide enough to swallow a man.

"...mother of the Steps!"

"...barbarian's she-boar..."

"Advance and discharge at will! No closer than thirty cubits," Lorn adds. "Aim for the head. Short bursts!"

"Short bursts!" adds Kusyl.

The serpent curls, as if coiling for a strike.

Hsstt! Hssst! Hsst! The firelances probe, searing the unprotected serpent's head, which twists and turns as if trying to avoid the chaos-fire.

Then the head lifts and turns toward the lancers, slowly moving outward, trying to strike at the source of its pain.

More lines of fire converge on the slow-moving giant snake, and a series of shudders ripple up and down its length. The huge triangular head, blackened beyond any recognition, drops onto the deadland with a dull thump!

"Hold your discharges! Hold discharges!" Lorn orders.

He and Kusyl watch carefully from a good thirty cubits, but the shudders that shake the serpent slowly die away. Measuring the dead snake with his eyes, Lorn gauges the serpent to have been at least forty cubits in length.

He looks up as Olisenn leads the first squad toward them, at a slow and deliberate pace, far too slow, Lorn decides, although he says nothing.

The heavy-set senior squad leader reins up and looks at the dead serpent, then at Lorn. His mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. Finally he speaks. "One of those... I have not seen before. Nor have I heard of such."

"If you and the experienced lancers haven't heard of these, I hope we don't run into more of them," Lorn says quietly. "It wasn't near as bad as a giant cat or a stun lizard. It was much slower. You need to stay a good thirty cubits back."

"That I will remember." Olisenn nods, his eyes still on the snake.

Lorn tenses, turning the gelding toward the bottom of the tree's crown, where the branches have begun to rustle. "Lances ready!"

Even as the words leave his mouth, with another rustling of branches, a half-score or more of night leopards bound toward the two squads. One mount in the first squad shies sideways, and several lancers struggle momentarily to bring their horses back into formation.

"Discharge at will! Short bursts! Short bursts!"

Hsst! Hssst! Hssst!...

Short firelance bursts crisscross, forming almost a wall against the smaller leopards-smaller only in comparison to the giant cats.

Before Lorn can issue another order, the firelances are silent. Eight of the leopards are down, dead.

Lorn turns the gelding, watching as the two surviving night leopards sprint northward, their paws barely touching the soil, leaving the faintest puffs of dust as they make their way toward a distant woodlot.

"That be not good," observes Olisenn, "the Forest creatures amid the woodlots and fields of the people of Cyad."

"No," Lorn agrees, "but we have no way to track them or catch them." And forty lancers and firelances are not enough to deal with all that accompanies one of the tree trunks that topple, or are toppled, from the Accursed Forest across the ward-wall. "I'd be surprised if we have charges in half the firelances."

"More like a third," suggests Olisenn.

"If that," adds Kusyl. "And half a patrol to go yet."

"We still have to wait for the Engineers and make sure nothing else shows up," Lorn points out, probably unnecessarily, but he wants the lances spared, if possible.

"They will not soon arrive," predicts Olisenn.

Lorn fears that as well. "We need to circle the crown and go down the other side. We'll keep the squads together."

"Yes, ser." The quick response from both squad leaders conveys definite approval of that tactic.

Although Lorn thinks he hears some rustling in the branches, he sees nothing on the slow ride around the fallen tree. Nor do his squad leaders or any of the lancers see any more aggressive creatures.

The only animals they see are when they circle back to the southeast side of the tree in completing their circuit. The vulcrows and other carrion birds have already begun to feast on the dead serpent and the fallen night leopards.

Lorn looks south toward the Accursed Forest, wondering how many more trunks will fall across the ward-wall in his three years at Jakaafra, and how many more surprises like the giant serpent await him.

LXXVII

Lorn wakes the next morning, just after dawn, stiff from lying on the hard soil of the deadland with only a thin blanket for padding and for warmth against a night that had almost been close to freezing. His skull aches, both from fatigue and from a vague memory of dreams-dreams of white walls being poured into the very earth itself, trees being scythed from the forests, and acid being dripped on his skin, except his skin had been the ground itself. His eyes turn south to the bulk of the Accursed Forest, but the Forest offers no answers.

He shakes his head slowly and stretches, gingerly. He drinks nearly an entire water bottle before he has any of the hard biscuits and cheese that comprise the emergency rations. The combination of liquid and food seems to clear his thoughts somewhat, and he studies the day, seemingly as cool as the previous one, although the wind out of the northeast has died down into an intermittent, if cool breeze.

As Lorn is smoothing his uniform in place, wishing again that he had been able to shave, Kusyl appears.

"The sentries say that nothing happened with the tree, ser," Kusyl reports. "No cats, no leopards, no serpents."

"Good. I'm going to have another look at the serpent. I won't be long. Besides, there's little enough we can do except try to keep any more leopards from breaking free."

"Yes, ser." Kusyl's tone is not quite dubious.

"The sentries are still on duty?"

"Yes, ser."

"When I get back, we'll discuss the day-both for first and second squads."

Kusyl nods.

Lorn walks the five hundred cubits or so from the bivouac area beyond the crown of the tree down the east side of the tangled branches. Four vulcrows flap off as the lancer captain nears the trunk and the dead snake. The astringent smell of crushed leaves mixes with the odors of musk and death as Lorn steps closer to the charred remnants of the serpent's head.

For a time, he studies the mass of charred scales and the blackened white bone showing through. Then he studies the trunk, and then the branches. Finally, he walks back to where the two squad leaders wait. His boots are covered with the powdered dust of salt- and chaos-killed soil even after his short walk.

Olisenn raises his eyebrows as if to ask why Lorn had been studying the dead serpent. Kusyl merely waits.

"We need to maintain the guard to keep any more creatures from leaving the Forest or the tree. We'll need to continue the sentry with four lancers with firelances behind him, until the engineers arrive and fire the crown."

Both squad leaders nods reluctantly.

"We won't mount anyone else until the engineers arrive, but we can rotate groups of lancers to that stream to the north to get water for themselves and their mounts-and to wash up if they want."

"Yes, ser."

"Why don't you take the first group, Olisenn," Lorn suggests. "You and Kusyl alternate groups of four from each squad."

"As you wish, ser."

Lorn nods. His thoughts are still on his dreams and the puzzle of the giant serpent.

"I'd Like to report that to the second squad, ser," Kusyl says.

"Of course."

Lorn does not join the rotation for washing until well after mid-day, with the last group from the second squad. The cool water clears his head more, and he feels less itchy and more presentable after shaving.

It is late afternoon before two firewagons appear with the armored cannon. The officer who emerges from the lead firewagon to seek Lorn is one of the captains Lorn had met when thanking Majer Weylt the morning Second Company had left Eastend.

Lorn rides the gelding closer and reins up, waiting.

"Captain Lorn, Captain Strynst. Majer Weylt sends his apologies, but the spring rains were too heavy, and there was a break in the retaining walls for the Great Canal, and he was summoned to assist there."

"From Eastend?" Lorn asks.

"It's a distance, even by firewagon, but there aren't that many good engineers, and the Majer is one of the best." Strynst smiles apologetically.

"We're glad to see you," Lorn replies. "I was just surprised that he'd be called from so far."

"There aren't that many Mirror Engineers any more. Most of us are here, except for the few that are in Fyrad working on the fireships." Strynst turns and studies the trunk. "Not too bad, this one." He gives a wry smile. "Of course, it fell right on a ward. Happens nine times out of ten. Biggest reason to believe the Accursed Forest thinks in some way. That couldn't happen by accident-not year after year."

"I never thought anything with the Forest was an accident." Lorn laughs once.

"Some lancer officers do. Most of them end up dead." The engineer captain gestures toward the upper branches three hundred cubits northward. "Have many creatures running loose?"

Lorn's eyes follow the gesture momentarily, then fix back on the engineer. "Two giant cats, one serpent, and a pack of night leopards. Vulcrows, of course."

"A serpent? Never heard of one of those."

"It's a big one," Lorn says, gesturing in the general direction of the crown. "Forty cubits, maybe longer. Two cubits thick."

"We'll take a look when we fire the crowns." The captain pauses. "You get all the creatures?"

"One giant cat and two of the leopards escaped. There wasn't any real way to catch them."

"There never is once they leave the trees and get past the lancers. Until some holder gets killed trying to protect his stock or kills them because they get cornered in a pen or something." Strynst shakes his head. "Might as well get started. Pull your men back, and we'll set up the firecannon."

"They're all back at the crown area now, Captain. I thought it would be better to set up there to keep any more creatures from breaking loose. If you want, I can move some up here."

"A half-score-behind the firewagons," Strynst suggests.

"I'll have them there shortly." Lorn turns the gelding and rides back north, knowing, again, from the order-chaos patterns that he feels and cannot yet fully explain, that nothing more will occur. Not with this fallen trunk.

"Thank you." Strynst turns and walks back to the firewagon. Lorn turns the gelding, letting the horse walk slowly toward the waiting lancers. He takes a deep breath. Spring has just barely begun.