The Order War (23 page)

Justen put his arm out to the tree, encircled by a carpet of short green grass. The bark of the lorken was deep-ridged and nearly as black as the wood he would find beneath. Yet he had seen no lorken so massive this far in his ride from Sarron, not that he had been allowed much time to ponder trees.

“You have had little enough time to find this tree.” The
slender young woman with the silver hair, still dressed in brown, appeared beside the dark and massive trunk.

“Is this another dream?” he asked.

“No. Not if you consider dreams as the fragments of sleeping thoughts poorly perceived, and even more poorly recalled.” Her voice rang a sad silver.

“But who are you?” Justen tried to step forward and found he could not.

“You will find my name in Naclos. That is where you must go, if you would find yourself.” Her face was somber. “You have not, you know. Unless you find yourself, you are fated to…” She paused. “But that I cannot say. Only that you will never rest. For you have created chaos from order, and that will twist your very being unless you come to the Balance.”

Justen pondered for a moment.

The rustling of steps, the crackling of a branch, and the low whisper of the wind woke the engineer. He quietly eased into a sitting position next to the stone wall, his senses and his eyes searching the darkness around him.

He squinted as a light that was not a light began to glow in the air less than three cubits away. As he watched, the face of a dark-haired man peered at him from the glowing white mists.

Recalling, all too belatedly, his screen training, Justen forced himself to concentrate and to weave the starlight around him, hoping to hide himself from both physical and magical searchers.

For a time, for what seemed a long time, he sat in his dark cocoon until he was certain that the White Wizard had lost his vision. By then, whoever or whatever had prowled the road had also vanished. When he released the shield, only to the darkness of night, he began to shiver. The shivers continued despite the warm fall air, even when he wrapped his cloak around himself to add to the warmth of the blanket.

The blanket failed to add much warmth, and he shivered through the night, so tired that he shivered through the dawn and did not stagger up until the sun had not only cleared the horizon, but the tops of the scrubby trees on the eastern hills.

Standing in the morning light that gave little warmth, he
was so chill that he half-expected his breath to steam. He stretched gingerly, letting his senses and eyes search the area, but he could sense only a handful of birds, some assorted small rodents, and the mare.

He washed in the stream that was little more than a trickle, but the best water he had been able to find, and drank, wincing at the metallic taste. His incipient beard itched, and he wished he had a razor, but that luxury had been lost along the way as well.

After fishing a battered pearapple from the saddlebags, he slowly ate, hoping that the fruit would not be too acid on his empty stomach. As he finished the pearapple and washed his hands clean of the sticky juice, heavy wings beat through the morning.

Ye-ahhhh
. At the sound of the vulcrow, he turned toward the half-dead willow, a good fifty cubits up the streamlet, where the bird had alighted. Something about the vulcrow’s arrival bothered him, and he extended his senses, but only until they touched that vague whiteness that confirmed his fears. The distant White Wizard was linked in some way to the bird.

Ye-ahhh
. The vulcrow flapped into the sky toward the south.

“Almost as if he were looking for us,” mumbled Justen. And why had the bird headed south?

He groomed the mare quickly with the curry brush he had found in the left saddlebag and dropped the saddle blanket into place, wishing that it were not dark gray on both sides and that the red stripe did not show through. Then he hefted the saddle onto the mare. With only a single whicker, she let him.

After rolling the blanket and slipping it into place behind the saddle, he mounted, looking around for the vulcrow, but the black bird was nowhere in sight…yet.

He let the mare take an easy pace as he continued to study the road for signs of a turnoff for Clynya, or for a way to turn west and get back to the river. He wished that he had followed the river, but he’d been reluctant to ride across others’ fields, harvested and plowed under or not, and his earlier en
counter with the holder and his bow had disabused him of any notion of impartiality on the part of the locals. His black garments seemed as unpopular as those of the Whites or the Iron Guard.

Turning in the saddle, Justen looked to the west, but he could not even make out the line of trees that marked the western fork of the river. Back to the east, he could see—barely—a few trees that might be following the smaller tributary to the Sarron.

Why wasn’t there a road closer to Clynya? What had he overlooked?

Yee-ah…yee-ah…
From a pile of stone that marked a field corner another hundred kays ahead, the dark vulcrow called.

Justen moistened his lips. Only another few kays and he would turn west, road or no road.

“How can we catch him, Ser Wizard?” The force leader of the White lancers nodded politely at Eldiren.

“It shouldn’t be that hard. He’s not awake yet, and may not be for a while.” The White Wizard glanced to the still-graying eastern horizon. “He doesn’t seem to have much food, and he’s not yet aware that we’re following him. He’s also not taking the quickest route. He missed the first turn to Clynya—”

“How could he do that? He’s a wizard, too.”

Eldiren laughed.

The officer stepped away from the mare.

“He didn’t expect trickery from the locals. They plowed over the road, built a fence, and even planted some bushes.”

“But how—”

“When you can use the vulcrows and see things from the air, it’s obvious that when a road starts in the middle of a hillside, something’s been done.” Eldiren handed the officer
a sheet of parchment. “Take your fastest half-squad and lead them along the route marked. You have to get to the crossroads, marked with the red cross there, before he does.” Unlike Zerchas and Beltar, Eldiren climbed into the saddle of a white mare, not into a coach, before continuing. “All you have to do is take the shorter road, the one he didn’t take, and hurry. Just wait at the crossroads until we join you or until you get a message. If the engineer comes, capture him, of course. That’s all you have to do.”

“All? Capture an engineer wizard with a half-squad? We still have to make up a day’s travel.”

“No. If you get there first, he’ll turn away. He won’t come to you.”

“But two day’s travel in one?”

“Less than that, really. I’m sure you’ll manage.” Eldiren waited for the officer to mount, looking pointedly at the other’s horse. “I doubt that anyone is going to stop us, at least not until we reach Clynya and try to cross the river there, and that will be a while, perhaps longer, and the political situation may have changed.”

“Begging your pardon, Ser Wizard, but you sound as though you’d rather chase this engineer, even to the Stone Hills, than go to Clynya.”

“Our task, according to the great Wizard Zerchas, is to track down this engineer, if possible.” Eldiren grinned briefly. “Now get your squad and get moving.”

“Yes, Ser.”

“Unless you’d rather go with Zerchas…”

“We’ll be moving right out, Ser.” The officer swung quickly into his saddle.

Justen pulled up at what looked to be a footpath—or less. He still had not seen a road back to the river, or toward Clynya, and he had traveled another three kays, more than he
had promised himself. But the road he was traveling, from what he could tell, had curved until it now ran almost due south, separating ever more widely from the river with each step the bay mare took.

“Shall we take it?”

Since the mare waited for his decision, he turned her onto the path that began between two fields. The dusty path ran alongside a stone wall that traversed a gentle slope for several hundred cubits. Every fifty cubits or so, Justen had to guide the mare to the left or duck or push the yellow scrub-oak leaves and branches out of his face.

“More like a dog’s way,” he muttered as a branch rebounded and scraped the side of his face.

The wall turned back toward Rohrn just over the top of the hill, and so did the path. Justen reined up. From what he could see, the path ran parallel to the road for several hundred cubits, then angled again toward the river, but not in nearly so direct a line as the section he had just covered. He shrugged. Somehow…somehow, he had this feeling that no matter which way he went, getting to Clynya wasn’t going to be easy.

Yee-ahhh
. The same white-tinged vulcrow sat on a bare limb of a dead pearapple not more than two dozen cubits away, almost at eye level with Justen.

The engineer took a deep breath, looked away from the dark bird and studied the path. The dusty track
looked
like it turned back toward where he thought the river ran.

Yee-ahhh
.

“All right. Any way is better than sitting here.” He paused. What about the White Wizard? And what about the dream? Why was the wizard sending his familiar after Justen? Should he think about Naclos? Naclos was somewhere to the south, either over the spur of the Westhorns or across the Stone Hills—and the Stone Hills were just about the driest and hottest spot in Candar. Had the dream been merely a dream?

He flicked the reins. “Let’s find the river and try to get across.”

Yee-ahh
. The vulcrow flapped into the midday sky, a
black blot against the high gray clouds that promised neither rain nor sun.

The mare carried him downhill and eventually to a branch in the path, where again he reined up. The right-hand branch seemed to head back toward Rohrn. Where the left went, who knew, except that it seemed to flank the side of the stubbled grainfields that had appeared behind the sheep meadows and to run toward a jumble of small buildings perhaps a half-kay ahead.

With an exasperated sigh, Justen guided the mare onto the left-hand path.

His stomach growled. Too bad there had not been more food in the saddlebags. Why not? Had the Iron Guard gone into the battle hungry? Or had she been so new to fighting that she had not learned the need to carry her own supplies? Was she any different than poor Clerve, who hadn’t wanted to fight at all? Justen shook his head, and his eyes burned again.

“Got to keep moving…” he mumbled to the mare, trying to make out the buildings on the low hummock ahead, and finally wiping his eyes and swallowing. His stomach growled again, and the mare whickered plaintively.

“All right.” Justen laughed at the incongruity of it all—his stomach growling and the mare whickering as on a path that might not go anywhere, he tried to reach an unseen river while being watched by an unseen White Wizard and an unseen dream druid. “All right. Let’s see if we can get some food.”

As he neared the hovel—not even a house—he let his senses drift out in front of him. A single person hid behind the rough stone walls of the well between the hovel and the ramshackle structure that probably served as a barn. Even from more than a hundred cubits away, Justen could sense the pain and the fear.

With a deep breath, he slowly rode forward into the yard, studying the dusty tracks indicating that animals had been gathered and herded away at least several days earlier.

What looked like a heap of rags beside the well moved.

“Are you all right?” asked Justen.

“Fine. Priest ye be…asking a question…be that stupid…”

Justen strained to catch the sharply spoken words, the first he had heard in the old and lower-Temple tongue. After dismounting, he looked for a place to tether the mare.

“Rahmra…too worried…about his old bones to come. Sent a young fellow instead.” The heap of rags revealed itself to be a gray-thatched woman who looked sightlessly at Justen.

Justen frowned and wondered how to answer the woman. What was she doing by the well, and what he should do?

“You…be of the Temple?”

“Yes, but from a farther domain, lady,” he finally answered. His senses had confirmed that the woman had broken her leg. “How did you hurt the leg?” he asked.

“Be the first sensible words you said. And maybe a healer? To help old Lurles.”

Justen tied the mare to the post on the far side of the well and looked over the stones. A frayed rope end moved in the slight fall breeze. “I know a little. You slipped when the rope broke?”

“Slipped. That idiot Birsen undermined the step, forgetting his wife’s mother…forgetting, I say, sure and he didn’t forget. Hoped the Whites or his trickery would get me. You aren’t one of them, be you?”

Justen chuckled. “No. There’s a White Wizard who’s been following me, but he must be a good way behind.”
I hope
, he added mentally. “Let’s see what we can do for you, first.”

Lurles tried to straighten herself on the tilted stone that had once been a step, but the wave of pain that swept from her almost forced Justen to stop. “Oh…ummm…”

“Easy…” His fingers brushed across the rags—almost clean, he was surprised to find—and across the leathery, sun-darkened legs. “It’s broken.”

“Course it’s broken. No other way I’d be left here. But I can’t walk with the flocks, and Firla has to carry Hyra.”

“All right. Let me carry you to your…pallet.”

“I got a bed. Maybe not fancy, but it’s a bed, and it’s mine own.”

Justen grinned. He liked the old woman. Then the grin faded. As old as she looked, he doubted she was as old as his own mother, and Cirlin certainly didn’t look old and withered. Light as she was, Justen had no difficulty in lifting her and carrying her back to the hovel.

“Long time since I got swept away by a young, strong fellow. Almost worth it.” Her harsh laugh betrayed the pain. “Mine’s the one with the headboard, in the corner.”

The hovel contained one long room, with a cooking hearth at one end and two beds—one in each of the corners at the end opposite the hearth—two tables, four stools, and three rough wooden chests along the back wall. On the smaller table were still stacked buckets, several pitchers, and various cooking implements.

Justen laid the woman on the bed, then studied the leg, both with his senses and his eyes. Should he try? How could he not? “I think I can set it.”

“Set what?”

“Put the bones so that they will heal right.”

“Then stop jawing about it and do it. Just like you Temple types…and you men. Talk and talk.”

“It will hurt.”

“Can’t hurt worse ’n having Firla did. Almost died then.”

Justen took a deep breath. What else could he do? If he didn’t set and try to splint the leg, she’d probably die, or never walk straight again.

It took him three tries and three waves of white-hot agony before he managed to get the bone ends back together. The last try dropped the woman into unconsciousness, and Justen almost crashed into the floor himself.

When he could stand, he looked about for something he could use to bind the leg in position. With a last check around the hovel, he half-walked, half-staggered, out to the old barn, where he tried to avoid the worst of the manure and ignore the stench. A single hen, apparently overlooked by the holders, clucked at him from a back rafter.

He found no rope, but took three stakes and an old hide that seemed sound enough to be cut into thongs.

Lurles was still quiet when he returned. One of the stakes was too long. He managed to break it and whittle the end
smooth. He cut a series of thongs and started to arrange the stakes around her leg, then frowned. He couldn’t splint the leg, not without lifting it. And he needed more support around the break. Again he searched through the hovel, until he found what looked to be an old cutting board. After cutting half the hide into an oblong, he put the hide on the board and eased both under the leg beneath the break. Then he wrapped the hide around the leg, placed the stakes, and began to bind the stakes as tightly as his senses indicated was safe. When he was finished, he let a little order trickle from him into her leg, focusing on the ends of the bone.

“Ooo…”

“Just be quiet. The worst is over.”

“Didn’t hurt as bad as Firla.”

“I’m glad.” Justen shook his head. If the pain she’d suffered from his inept bone-setting was less than that of child-bearing, he didn’t want to be around any birthings anytime soon. “I need to find something you can use to get around with—in a while. You shouldn’t move that leg right away.”

“Lying here, I’ll starve.”

“Not immediately.”

“Birsen got a second staff. It’s under their bed.”

Justen retrieved the heavy staff and set it beside her bed. “It’s on the floor.”

Her hand groped from the low bed until her fingers identified the wood. Then: “Thirsty.”

“I’ll see what I can do about retrieving the bucket and rope.”

“Spare rope’s in the third chest.”

Justen opened the chest and found a short coil of hemp rope, two wooden mallets, and a saw blade wrapped in oiled rags. After taking the rope and closing the chest, he turned. “I’ll be back in a while. I need to fix the bucket and water my horse.”

“Not going anyplace.”

“Please don’t.”

Outside, a faint drizzle had begun to fall. He looked to the north at the thickening clouds. Only early afternoon, and he had rain to contend with. He didn’t even have an oilcloth or a tarp. He swallowed as he recalled burying the trooper in the
ground tarp. No…she deserved that little. He shook his head and peered over into the well.

Whheee…eeeee…

“I know, lady. You’re thirsty and hungry,” Justen told the mare.

The well was shallow, not more than eight cubits deep, and the frayed rope had caught on something almost within reach.

By holding on to the one sound well post, Justen managed to stretch himself far enough inside the stones to grab the rope. He frowned as he studied the end of the rope. It had not frayed, but had been cut almost all the way through. To keep the Whites from getting water—or to try to harm the old woman?

Justen decided he didn’t like Birsen. After cutting another four cubits of rope, he tied it to the existing well rope. He untied the short upper piece and thrust it into his belt before lowering the bucket, lifting it, and setting the water on the stone well wall. He let his senses drift across the water, order-spelling the slightly murky liquid. He could feel the dizziness with the order-spell, and he realized how hungry he was getting.

Still…the first bucket went into the small trough, and he untied the mare and retied her where she could drink. The second bucket he left on the stones, realizing that he had not brought anything out with which to carry water back inside.

“Forgot a water bucket,” he explained, stopping to replace the rope he had not used. He also pulled out the loose rope and set it on the corner of the big table.

“Not real practical, you Temple fellows.”

“No.” Justen laughed, took both pitchers off the smaller table, and went back to the well. He returned shortly with two full pitchers of pure and cold water.

First, he helped ease the older woman into a sitting position, propped up against the old headboard. Then he went back to the serving table and poured some of the water into a battered crockery mug that he carried to Lurles.

“Here.”

She groped until she had the mug, then drank greedily.

Justen pulled up a stool and sat down to rest his unsteady
legs before pouring a drink for himself. The water helped enough that his immediate dizziness receded.

“We need to get you something to eat.”

“And ye, too, I suppose, young fellow?”

“If we’re being honest, lady—me, too. I’m no angel, able to live on tall peaks without sustenance.”

“Bah…load of manure. Not the Legend bit about men, but about women being so pure. People who have blades use them. Could be man or woman. Makes no difference. Except men are nastier.”

“Food,” suggested Justen.

A silence stretched out between them.

“You be no Temple priest, be you?”

“No. I’m not. And I’m not a healer, either. I know something about it, and if you can stay off that leg…much…for a while, it should heal straight.”

“Must be a Black devil…stead of a White one.”

“Yes, if you want to put it that way,” Justen admitted. “I am from Recluce.”

“Why ye bother with old Lurles?”

“I needed food, and you needed help.” Justen silently damned himself for being honest with the old blind woman, but somehow it was important to him, if to no one else, not to deceive her.

“You could have left me.”

“Not after I knew you were hurt.”

“Why do you need food?”

“I was separated from my brother in the fighting, and I was trying to get to the river where I could cross, but the bridges were gone at Rohrn. I was hoping I could get across near here, but I missed the river road somehow.”

“Wizardry, most likely. There be a three-way fork at Rohrn—the two bridges and the road ’long the river. But there be no fords till the bridge at Clynya. It’s a deep gorge most places there. You take the by path from here, and it climbs and climbs, not that it be so noticeable…only when you be tired.”

Justen mechanically refilled her mug and offered it back to her.

“There’s bread and cheese in the hole by the serving table.”

“Are you sure?”

“You smell like an honest fellow. You talk like an honest fellow, and you act like one. I be wrong before, and be wrong again. That be life.” She laughed, and despite the blackened and missing teeth, Justen could see that once she must have been a pretty girl. He swallowed, set the pitcher down, and walked to the serving table.