Magi'i of Cyador (51 page)

Yet he has nothing that he would actually call proof against the heavyset squad leader, only the knowledge that the man is communicating with Majer Maran and lying about it, only the growing contempt the senior squad leader has for Lorn. And Olisenn's contempt does not seem based in fact, for all the other officers, and even Kusyl, have acknowledged in some fashion that Second Company has handled far more ward-wall breaches than has been common, and with far fewer casualties for all the dangers involved.

No... Lorn had not done as well as he should have at the beginning. This he acknowledges, at least to himself, but no one offered assistance, and he had had to learn on his own. He also had to learn, that, as part of its efforts to strike against Cyador, the Accursed Forest always seemed to have its wild creatures attack the lancers before making their escapes. Or was that because they do not attack until they somehow know the Lancers and the Engineers are going to destroy each particular fallen tree? Which of those may be true, Lorn still does not know, only that the pattern has held for the time he has directed Second Company.

He puts his weight on the stirrups for a moment, lifting himself off the saddle, then looks to his right at the too-spread, line-abreast formation. Are he and the lancers being asked to hold back the Accursed Forest with no real hope of success in the years ahead? Just to purchase years or seasons for Cyador?

He laughs to himself. Nothing lasts forever. That he already knows. Some time, the ward-wall will fail. Even if the project Ciesrt had mentioned works and another way-whatever it may be-is found to restrain the Accursed Forest from reclaiming all of eastern Cyador, in time that, too, will fail. Is that why duty becomes important?

With a headshake, he smiles. Some men seek power, like Maran, because life ends. Others, like his father and Myryan, seek meaning. But the world is the same for both, and makes no effort to accommodate either.

His eyes survey the whitened granite of the ward-wall-stretching endlessly to the horizon, or so it seems, without a break, without a stream, without a river. Lorn straightens. He wants to shake himself-not that the observation would change anything-but he should have noticed. In all of Cyador, even in the Grass Hills, is there a diamond-shaped area ninety-nine kays on a side without a watercourse leaving or entering it? One with trees and high vegetation? One with flat lands immediately around it, which turn into rolling hills and plains within two kays?

Because the Accursed Forest is, he and everyone else have just accepted it. But what sort of power had it taken for the Firstborn to create such a containment-one that moved rivers and watercourses? And what sort of power did the forest possess to survive without such watercourses? Can it reach upward and tap the clouds? Is that why there is always more rain around it?

"Ser!"

Lost in his thoughts, for once Lorn is not the first one to spot the fallen tree-another of the mid-sized forest monarchs.

His eyes confirm the alert, and he turns his head toward Kusyl. "Form up five abreast here on the perimeter road. Send a messenger to Olisenn. Have him join us a kay this side of the crown."

"Yes, ser."

To the south, over the Forest, clouds are forming, and darkening. Lorn wonders if the rain will reach the deadland where they ride and if they will have to wait through a storm for the Engineers and then ride through mud to reach Eastend. With all that seems to be happening, he will not be surprised if Second Company will face rain and mud.

The second squad gathers itself back into a loose formation on the road, and Lorn and Kusyl ride just ahead of the first rank of the five lancers abreast, and on the inward side of the perimeter road.

"Still say more trees fall on the northeast side. Reyt-he's an engineer lancer-he says it's 'cause the winds come out of the northeast." Kusyl snorts. "So why do the trees fall into the wind?"

Lorn laughs softly. "Engineers have to explain, whether they can or not."

"Like we got to fight, whether we like it or not?"

"Something like that."

The two lapse into silence as they near the point on the perimeter road closest to the fallen tree.

"Squad halt!" Kusyl orders. "Easy in the saddle."

He and Lorn turn to watch the approach of the other squad.

"Ser." Olisenn nods as the first squad draws up parallel to the second.

"Staggered lines! We'll advance now," Lorn calls out. "Lances at the ready."

"Staggered lines. Lances ready. Stand by to discharge."

With a hundred fifty cubits between the two wide-spaced, five-abreast formations, the two squads move southward, each almost flanking a side of the tree's crown. The staggered lines allow the second line to fire past the first, as necessary, or to move forward when a lancer ahead exhausts his firelance.

The squads are still two hundred cubits from the crown when a pair of giant cats, their shimmering gray coats almost the color of the clouds gathering over the Accursed Forest, bound toward the lancers-toward the second squad, seemingly almost directly at Lorn himself.

"Discharge at will! Short bursts!"

Hssst! Hhhssssssst!

"Short bursts! Angel-fire! Short bursts!" Kusyl bellows.

Hsst! Hsst!

Five beams crisscross and find the leading giant cat, and it stumbles and rolls forward in a heap, dust rising around its body. The second creature sprints to the left side of the second squad. Lorn can see that, unless he does something, it will escape. He lifts his own firelance, and sights, boosting the chaos with what he has learned and practiced both in the Grass Hills and in secret-and confining it with the order binding he has seen from the Accursed Forest.

Hssst!

The narrow beam curves and burns through the huge cat's skull, and it skids along the powdering soil of the deadland.

"...see that!... captain's getting good with that lance...."

"...always been good..."

Lorn's eyes do not remain on the fallen creature, but fix on Olisenn, and the self-satisfied and sardonic smile that fades as the senior squad leader glances up to meet Lorn's eyes. Lorn returns Olisenn's expressionless scrutiny with an insouciant smile that he maintains almost as an insult.

Olisenn cannot conceal a frown.

Lorn wipes the smile from his face. He should not have given any warnings to the contemptuous senior squad leader, but he has had to pretend and ignore so much from the man that it is difficult to remain impassive all the time.

He hears a rustle in the branches, and his eyes and senses refocus on the greenery that appears dull in the afternoon sun that is dimmed by the high thin clouds to the west. He can almost sense the night leopards gathering.

"There's something coming from the crown. Leopards, I'd guess." Lorn raises his voice and gestures toward the vegetation. "Olisenn, move your line in closer! We don't want any to escape between us. Not after Majer Maran's last orders."

"To the right!" Olisenn repeats, frowning.

"Move it up. Lances ready!" Lorn orders the first squad, urging his own mount to the left so that he is almost beside Kusyl. "Second squad, lances ready. Prepare to discharge!"

The leaves twitch and rustle one more time, and then the leopards burst forth, not toward first squad, but toward the second squad.

Absently, Lorn wonders if that is because he bears some concentrated chaos, even as he orders, "Second squad. Discharge at will. First squad! Hold your lances!"

The leopards almost reach second squad before firebursts stud the air.

Hsst! Hssssttt!

"Short bursts!" Kusyl insists.

Hssst! Hssst! Hssst!

The short bursts that Kusyl has demanded rain across the fifteen or so night leopards that are almost among the lancers.

Lorn lifts his own lance as if toward the leopards, raising it slightly and turning it just beyond the leopards.

Two leopards scream... and one claws at a lancer's mount to Lorn's left before it falls.

Hssst! Hssst!

Lorn's eyes cross Olisenn's, and the senior squad leader's mouth opens, as if to protest, before the single chaos bolt blasts through his throat.

Seemingly without looking near Olisenn, Lorn sweeps his lance across two other leopards, letting his own chaos senses bend the flame to take them down. Other dark cat figures, some charred, some with but small-looking wounds, lie across the salt-streaked and powdery deadland soil.

"Close, ser!" Kusyl says, glancing around nervously. "Too close."

Lorn scans the area, but surprisingly, not a single leopard has escaped. This time. Nor are there movements or any rustling from the snapped and twisted limbs and crushed leaves of the tree's crown.

"Ser! Ser!"

Lorn looks up, surprised.

"It's Olisenn, ser!"

Lorn urges the gelding the seventy cubits or so toward the first squad.

When he reins up, two lancers, white-faced, are on the ground with the prone figure of the senior squad leader.

"What happened?" Lorn asks.

"Don't know, ser. When the leopards attacked you and second squad, ser... maybe a firelance... See... he's burned."

Lorn swallows hard. That he can do. "It could have been anyone's. It could have been mine. They were closer than I thought. It was probably my fault." He shakes his head. "I didn't act quickly enough." And that is certainly true, Lorn knows.

After a moment of silence, he adds. "He was a good squad leader. We'll miss him." He looks down. "If you... Fry gel... would..."

"Yes, ser."

"And Askad, too."

"Yes, ser."

Lorn glances at the tree crown, as if to check to see that nothing else lurks there, then back at the two lancers. "I'll be acting as squad leader... for the rest of the patrol...." He lets his words trail off, before straightening in the saddle. "...wish... otherwise." He closes his mouth and slowly turns the gelding.

"Captain's upset...."

"...wouldn't you be...."

"...he charged that lizard... saved three-four last spring... and those cats... doesn't get upset... just killed three... right here...."

"...doesn't like to lose lancers..."

Lorn rides slowly back to Kusyl, shaking his head. "It shouldn't have happened this way."

"That sort of thing happens, Captain," Kusyl replies with a long face. "Happened before, try to avoid it, but you spread out too much, and they get away. Won't be the last time 'less we get more lancers."

"We won't get enough." Lorn laughs, a harsh bark. "We're not getting any until winter turn." He takes a deep breath. "If you'd set up the sentries, Kusyl. I need a moment. Then... then we'll have to send another messenger to the Engineers."

"Yes, ser."

Lorn needs more than a moment, but a moment is all he will get, since he will have to take over the first squad, and watch them as well.

The slow roll of thunder from the south, from over the Accursed Forest, passes across the Second Company, and the south wind rises, with the hint of dampness that foretells the rain and the mud Lorn is expecting.

Then too, before long, he expects Majer Maran will be arriving. Of that, Lorn has no doubts.

LXXXVII

Lorn glances out the inner study window into the courtyard, where the early fall sunshine bathes the white granite in a clear light. Then his eyes drop to the stacks of papers on his table desk.

In the outer study, a dazed-looking Kusyl is reading through all the personnel files in the foot chest. Lorn worries about Kusyl's administrative abilities, but Kusyl can read and write, if slightly laboriously, since lancers are not promoted to squad leaders, even junior ones, unless they can. More important to Lorn is that Kusyl, rough-edged as he is, is loyal to Lorn and to the Mirror Lancers, not to blind ambition.

Should Lorn have acted against Olisenn? How could he not? Maran would not have transferred the man, and even a request for transfer would have created the incentive for Olisenn, or Maran, to act against Lorn, and Lorn does not wish to have to deal with both Olisenn and Maran at once. Lorn has no doubts, even if he has no proof, that Olisenn was an accomplice in the removal of Captain Dymytri. And Lorn has seldom regretted acting; he has regretted more the times when he has not acted, as in the case of Myryan's consorting, which he fears will harm her more than he knows. Still... that he has been forced so to act troubles him.

He glances over the scrolls.

Although he has finished the patrol report summary to Majer Maran and the request for a replacement squad leader and the authority to promote Kusyl permanently to senior squad leader, Lorn has more than a few tasks of his own remaining.

One of them is to request, again, replacement lancers for his understrength company. Another is to write to his family, carefully, since Maran will certainly intercept such a scroll and read it. He must also consider how to change the tactics of approach to the fallen trees, in such a way that seems, if not natural, at least understandable to his men.

Lorn picks up the pen. A scroll to Commander Meylyd for more lancers will be the easiest. He does not expect much, but knows that if he does not request such, he will be considered lacking in concern for accomplishing his duties and protecting both the people of Cyad and his lancers.

After he completes it, his eyes scan the page.

...the first squad of the Second Company stands at twelve lancers, with no squad leader, only an acting leader from those twelve. The second squad consists of thirteen lancers and the new senior squad leader. Second Company is less than two thirds its normal complement... but has been tasked with handling double the number of ward-wall breaches seen in past three-season periods running from winter through summer. Therefore... requesting replacement lancers to bring the Company to full complement, and your action, insofar as dispatching or promoting a permanent junior squad leader....

Lorn sets aside the scroll to dry and starts on the second one, the one to his family that will doubtless be read by Maran or Meylyd.

...the past seasons have exacted a toll on my company, for the Accursed Forest has continued to press against the ward-walls with continued presence. More than that, it would not be proper to say, save that we have persevered against all manner of obstacles foreseen and unforeseen... most difficult charge is to ensure that the wild creatures do not escape to plague the people of Cyad and yet not to expose the lancers to untoward harm or attack from such creatures... few understand the true need for the tasks which I now undertake, nor would I before I had come to Jakaafra....