Fall of Angels (57 page)

  
Saryn stood beside Blynnal, correcting her.

  
Behind Saryn, Hryessa and Murkassa practiced, already, from what Nylan could tell, making good progress toward achieving Ryba's standards for all the guards, whether originally angel marines or local refugees.

  
The engineer pursed his lips as he bent for more mortar. Results-Ryba got them. He just wasn't fond of the tactics.

  
"Working hard again, I see."

  
Nylan glanced up to see Ayrlyn standing there. "What else do obsessed engineers do?"

  
"I'm leaving tomorrow morning ..." The redhead let her words trail off.

  
"All right." This time, Nylan understood. "Can I finish up this batch of mortar?"

  
She nodded.

  
The engineer turned to Cessya. "I'll finish here. Would you go find Huldran and tell her just to unload the stones and then take the cart back. I need to talk to Ayrlyn about what we need from her next trading trip."

  
"Yes, ser." Cessya grinned. "Walking's easier than moving stones."

  
"We'll make up for it after the noon meal," Nylan promised, returning her grin, then looking back down at the stone in front of him.

  
"I'm still looking for an anvil?" Ayrlyn asked as Cessya started uphill, toward the tower and the rock-strewn canyon beyond the stable canyon.

  
"We need spikes, and nails, almost any kind of hardware. A set of hammers, I'd guess, big ones for the forge." Nylan troweled the mortar smooth in the joints between two stones. "And some circular saw blades for the sawmill."

  
"We don't have one," the redhead pointed out with a smile. "We don't have a forge, either."

  
"We'll have both, before the end of the year." The smith extended the trowel for more mortar.

  
"Nylan .. . why do you drive yourself so hard?"

  
"Because . . . what else can I do? Ryba wants to change this world to one where women rule, and she'll leave the ground soaked with blood, including mine, if I try to stop her. Besides, she's right about the way women are treated, and you can't change that without even greater force." He paused and wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm.

  
"Building things won't change that," Ayrlyn reflected. "You're just allowing her to do more."

  
"What am I supposed to do? I've got three children, and I only knew about one of them until they were born. Am I just going to condemn them to a short and nasty life? If they have strong walls and warmth and clean water, that leaves them less at the mercy of this friggin' world. I don't like it, but Ryba's the only ship in port."

  
"What do you want?"

  
The smith finished the joint, and extended the trowel to the battered tub for more mortar. "I don't know. I know what I don't want. I don't want killing after killing. I don't want to be cold and dirty and hungry. I don't want that for Dyliess or Weryl or Kyalynn." He shrugged, then applied the trowel again.

  
"You want to be appreciated, but you don't want to force people to appreciate you. You want to be loved, but not used."

  
"You might say that," he admitted. "But that's true of most people. Don't you feel that way?"

  
"Yes"-Ayrlyn smiled warmly-"but I thought we were talking about you. You feel responsible for all your children, and yet you feel used. And you won't say anything about it. You don't like to talk about your feelings, not directly, and you try to avoid it. Was it that way growing up?"

  
"My mother always said there was no use in complaining. No one cared, and we might as well save our breath. So Karista and I didn't. The older I got, the truer it seemed." He set down the trowel as he finished the last of the mixed mortar. "What about you?"

  
"There you go again. Two sentences about you, and switch the subject to me." Ayrlyn laughed. "My father was the warm one, and he joked a lot. He was quiet about it, but he also made it known, like your mother, that outside the family, no matter what people said, most didn't care."

  
"It sounds like he cared."

  
"Your mother didn't? I'm sure she did."

  
"Oh, she did," Nylan admitted, "but she felt it should be obvious, and why belabor the obvious? Actions speak louder than words-that was her maxim."

  
"So you keep trying to make your actions do the speaking?" The redhead shook her head. "Most people don't read actions very well. They need words as well, lots of them, preferably words that say how wonderful they are."

  
"You're more cynical than I am."

  
"You're not cynical at all, Nylan." Ayrlyn reached down and touched his arm gently, her fingers warm and cool at the same time. "You're a caring man who's never allowed himself to express what he feels. You feel guilty and self-indulgent when you even think about what you feel. So you keep doing things and hope people understand."

  
"Probably." Ayrlyn snorted and squeezed his arm.

  
"What about you? After last fall, aren't there going to be armsmen out there looking for a trader with flame-red hair?"

  
"It's getting cut shorter, and I'll be wearing a hat. If they notice, well, it takes time to send messages in this culture, and we'll try to stay ahead of Lord Sillek's authorities."

  
"I'm not sure I like that."

  
"What else can I do? We need the goods, and now is better than later."

  
The engineer nodded reluctantly, then stood as the bell rang for the midday meal.

  
"Time to eat? You headed my way?" asked Ayrlyn.

  
"Is there any other way?" Nylan swallowed. "Don't answer that."

  
"I won't, but I'll remember that you asked it." She smiled gently, and Nylan smiled back.

LXXXI

ZELDYAN SITS, PROPPED on the edge of the bed, Nesslek at her breast, wearing a green silksheen dressing gown that sets off her golden hair.

  
"He's mostly good," she says, looking down and smiling.

  
"Except when he cries in the middle of the night." Sillek rubs his eyes and yawns, then walks to the window of the room. The fields beyond Lornth, those he can see, have turned green, the light green of crops recently sprouted, with a hint of brown underlying the green. "Some night- just a night-couldn't he stay with a nurse?"

  
"When he's older, but he's not even a season yet," points out Zeldyan. "Would you want to trust the heir of Lornth out of our sight so young?" She offers an open smile.

  
"I may not survive another season." Sillek laughs. "Undertaking this campaign may get me more sleep than staying in my own bed."

  
"I'm glad it's only sleep you're wishing." He turns from the window and steps to the bed, bending and brushing her cheek with his lips. "It's not all I'm wishing, but I want you well."

  
Zeldyan flushes, ever so slightly. Then she frowns. "I still worry about your being so far from Lornth."

  
"Whatever I do, it will be far from Lornth. I have two enemies trying to bleed us dry, and another one that my own holders won't let me forget. Or my mother."

  
"Has she done anything beyond talking to Lygon?" asks Zeldyan.

  
Sillek frowns faintly, then turns to the window. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean . . ."

  
"That's all right." Sillek strokes his black beard without turning. "Lord Megarth approached me. So did Lord Fysor. They were old friends of my sire." He shrugs and turns, his eyes bleak. "What can I do?"

  
"I'm sorry," Zeldyan repeats. "So am I."

  
"It all seems so stupid." Zeldyan lifts her free left hand to stop his objection. "I know. I know. You've explained, and so has your mother, and so did my father when he disowned Relyn, but it's still stupid."

  
"Has anyone heard from Relyn?"

  
"No. Father thinks the angel women have kept him captive. Have your wizards seen him?"

  
"No. That doesn't mean much, though. They can't scree inside that black stone tower, and during the winter how could anyone tell one person from another in those heavy coats and scarves?" Sillek sits in the chair beside the bed and yawns. His hand strokes her cheek for a moment.

  
Nesslek gurgles, makes a soft sneezing sound, and returns to nursing.

  
"You just get to eat and sleep and be close to your mother," says Sillek to his son. "And keep me awake." He stands.

  
Zeldyan reaches out and touches his hand. He wraps his fingers around hers for a moment, and then their fingers part.

LXXXII

RIENADRE GESTURED TOWARD the brick forms stacked in rows on the crude trestles. "It'll be another few days before these are ready."

  
"We do what we can." Nylan needed more of the bricks so that he could finish the smithy and the forge.

  
"That we do." Rienadre picked up the axe.

  
Nylan flicked the leads, and the gray mare whuffled. The cart creaked as it rocked forward under the load of building bricks. A heavy gust of wind whipped through Nylan's hair, then dropped away. Overhead, high cumulus clouds dotted the sky, some showing dark centers, for all that it was only slightly before midday. The gray whuffled again, and the cart creaked, and Nylan walked beside, along the rutted trail that was not quite a road.

  
Whufff. . .

  
"I know. It's no fun carting bricks uphill. Well.. . it's no fun walking alongside you, either."

  
The cart-the one Saryn and Ayrlyn had built, not the one that they'd obtained from Skiodra and repaired-creaked again. The other was with Ayrlyn, and Nylan wondered if she would be able to obtain saw blades on her trading run. Then he, in his copious spare time and with his great ignorance of low technology, would attempt to build a sawmill.

  
He snorted. The healer had perhaps four golds, and several blades. What were they going to do to get through the early summer? He swallowed, thinking about her flame-red hair and the anger Westwind was generating.

  
A flash of yellow-banded black wings crossed the trail, and the yellow and black bird alighted on the end of a dead pine branch and cocked its head in an almost inquiring attitude at Nylan.

  
"Hello there," said the would-be smith.

  
Twirrrppp . . . twirrrppp . . .

  
The cart creakked once more, and the bird responded to that as well.

  
"I think you like noise."

  
At that comment, the wings spread, and the bird departed.

  
Ahead, Nylan heard voices, and saws, and the regular thump-chop of an axe. Fierral and the timber crew were at it, and before long, he'd have to come down and turn the piles of limbs, the crooked ones, the stumps, and the other sections unsuited to timber, into charcoal. The idea was simple enough, a controlled burn under low-oxygen conditions. That meant burying most of the wood, probably in a long pile and lighting one end. How many times would he have to try it before he got it right?

  
He flicked the reins again.

  
Before long, the cart crossed another low rise in the trail. To the right, downhill, was a clearing filled with stumps. At the east end was a pile of limbs, odd pieces of trees, flanked by a tall brush pile. Along the traillike road were two low piles, one of squarish timbers and one of planks.

  
From a pole fastened between two smaller pines and fashioned from a roughly smoothed and stripped fir limb hung four gutted hares.

  
Nylan's eyebrows rose, and he slowed to examine the game.

  
"Hryessa," explained Fierral, walking up. "She made some snares. Can you take those up to Blynnal and Kadran?"

  
"Where's Kyseen?"

  
"Working with us. There was a general consensus that she's better with a blade and an axe or saw than in the kitchen, and I really doubt that Blynnal will ever be much with a blade. Hryessa and Murkassa-they'll be good, but not poor Blynnal. On the other hand-"

  
Both turned at the sound of hoofs.

  
"Weapons! Blades and bows!" Fierral's blue eyes turned cold, cold as the ice on Freyja.

  
A black-haired woman clung to what seemed to be the plow-harness or horse collar of a big brown beast that lumbered down the slope toward the guards. Before her on the horse was a small, dark-haired child. With each step, they bounced, and Nylan winced.

  
Hryessa arrived almost instantly, and Berlis wasn't that far behind. Weindre stood by one end of the pole with the hares on it, her bow in hand.

  
The woman pulled at the leads, and the plow horse slowed.

  
Fierral glanced uphill, then stepped forward and caught the leads up short, just beyond the harness. Foam streaked the gelding's muzzle.

  
The dark-haired woman straightened on the horse's back, holding her head higher, her arm around the girl who sat before her. Their brown tunics had recently been cleaned, but both riders were mottled with dust, and muddy patches appeared on the mother's cheeks.

  
"Are you ... the... mountain women?" asked the woman in a hoarse voice.