Fall of Angels (9 page)

  
"Volcanic ash. It's almost too hard, but if we crush it and mix it with some other stuff, and some of the clay at the base of the ridge, it sets pretty well, maybe too well, sort of like a stone epoxy. We won't be able to mix much at once, and that's going to be a problem."

  
"It hardens too quickly?"

  
Nylan nodded. "All or nothing. It either sets quickly, or it's slop."

  
"When will you start actually building?"

  
"Not until I get the footings set. Another couple of days probably. The first line of stones-that will really be like a sill-has to be perfect. We'll do a double wall up to the third-floor level, fill it with stone chips and clay for insulation-"

  
"Whatever you think." Ryba nodded and turned the horse down toward the section of the meadow that resembled a field of sorts.

  
As she left, Nylan pondered. Did he really need to cut all the stones? How big, or small, should they be? What pattern would optimize the energy usage and prolong the laser's useful life?

  
He took a deep breath, then laughed. He was taking too many deep breaths.

  
"No! I'm no friggin' field hand! You take your turn in the fields, too! Your ship's scrap, and you're no better than the rest of us now."

  
Nylan looked downhill and to the eastern part of the field from where the voice carried up across the meadow.

  
One of the stocky marines, one of the few not only bigger but broader in the shoulders than Ryba-Nylan thought her name was Mran, but he'd never been good with names and hadn't been concentrating that much-held the crude hoe like a staff, daring the captain to force her to return to work.

  
Nylan missed Ryba's response, but she vaulted out of the saddle and handed the reins to Siret, one of the three marines with silver hair like Nylan, and one of the more quiet marines, though Nylan thought the deep green eyes saw more than most realized.

  
"Big trouble, ser," observed Huldran. "Mran's tough, and she's a hothead."

 
 
The four other marines in the field drew back, slightly, but watched as Ryba carefully slipped off the crossbelts that held her blades and the belt and holstered slug-thrower, then laid them across the roan's saddle.

  
Mran smirked-Nylan could sense the expression as he and Huldran hurried downhill toward the field.

  
Then Ryba said something.

  
"You and who the frig else?" demanded Mran.

  
"Just me."

  
Except for his and Huldran's steps, and the faint rustling of the wind through the evergreens beyond the meadow, a hush held the meadow. Even the few remaining starflowers seemed held in stasis. Nylan wanted to shake his head, knowing what would happen. Mran didn't understand what Ryba really was.

  
"You afraid or something, Captain? "

  
"No ... I'm giving you one last chance to get back to work. If you don't, some part of your body won't ever work right again." The words were like ice. "I didn't think even you were stupid enough to take on someone raised as a nomad and wired as a ship's captain."

  
"You don't scare me, Captain."

  
"That's your problem, Mran, not mine. Get back to work."

  
"Make me."

  
"All right. You were warned." With the last word, Ryba blurred, as her hardwired reflexes kicked in.

  
Mran tried to slash with the hoe, but dropped it as Ryba's foot snapped her wrist. The marine used her good hand and reached for the pistol, but the captain followed through with stiffened hands and an elbow. A second crack followed the first, and Mran looked stupidly at the second damaged wrist-but only for a moment before she crumpled into a heap.

  
Ryba slowed to normspeed and smiled. "Anyone else think I shouldn't be in charge of things?"

  
"No, ser," came the ragged chorus.

  
Her face hardened. "Surviving in this place isn't going to be easy, and I don't want to have to keep doing this sort of thing." She glanced toward Nylan. "I might add that the engineer, the second, and the comm officer could have done the same thing, except that they don't have the advanced martial arts training, and they would have had to kill Mran. Disabling is harder." She smiled again and looked down at Mran.

  
The marine's eyes unglazed, and hatred blazed from them.

  
"Next time, I'll break your neck first. The only reason you're alive is the same reason Gerlich is alive. There are too few of us for genetic purposes, but you cause one single bit of trouble, and I'll drop you over that cliff without another thought. Do you understand?"

  
"Frig you!"

  
Ryba took a deep breath. Then her foot lashed out. Crack!

  
Mran's head snapped back, and the lifeless body slumped onto the field.

  
Ryba looked at the marines. "I never want to do this again-ever. But I will if I have to. We won't survive if everyone thinks she can second-guess me. I'll listen to ideas, and I have, and I've taken them. But there's no room for this sort of thing."

  
As Ryba belted on the crossbelts, Huldran turned to Nylan. "Hard woman."

  
He nodded. "I'm afraid she's right. According to our local source, old Narliat, we're regarded as the evil-doers from the skies, and force of arms and surviving up here in the cold are all that are likely to save us. More democratic systems don't work well with large egos, and marines and ship's officers all have large egos." Nylan snorted.

 
 
"Frigging lousy situation." Huldran's green eyes glared momentarily.

  
"Let's try to make it better." Nylan shrugged, and turned to walk back toward the incomplete tower. He didn't know what else Ryba could have done, not without creating even more problems in the days ahead, but he didn't want to talk to her at the moment. Even if some people, like Gerlich and Mran, or Lord Nessil, the dead local leader, seemed to respect only force, Nylan might have to accept it, but he didn't have to like it.

  
He looked back to where Ryba mounted. He suspected Ryba was shaking, inside-high speed took a lot out of a body-but the captain seemed as solid as the stone Nylan labored over as she turned the roan toward the next field.

XIII

"WHAT WILL YOU do with the cowardly wizard, dear?" asks the heavyset and gray-haired woman who sits on the padded bench in the alcove.

  
The black-bearded young man pulls down his purple vest and walks toward the empty carved chair with the purple cushion, then turns back to face her. "Much as I distrust Hissl, Mother dear, I wouldn't call him cowardly. According to the handful of troopers who returned, he was attacked, and he used his firebolts. After Father and nearly twoscore troopers were killed, he retreated. If he hadn't brought them back, we still wouldn't know what happened for sure. Then I would have had to rely on Terek's screeing, and I don't like that, either. He's even more devious than Hissl."

  
"All wizards are devious. That was what your father said, Sillek," the lady Ellindyja responds.

  
"He was right, but they have their uses."

  
"What will you do with Hissl?"

  
"Nothing."

  
"Nothing? After he led your father to his death? Nothing?" Ellindyja's voice rises slightly, its edge even more pronounced.

  
"What good will killing him do? We've just lost three squads of troopers, and it looks like we now have an enemy behind us, right on top of the Roof of the World, possibly able to close off the trade road to Gallos. Lord Ildyrom and his bitch consort are building a border fort less than a half day's march from Clynya, and the Suthyan traders are talking about imposing more trade duties. Sooner or later, we'll have to fight to take Rulyarth from them or always be at their mercy." Sillek pauses. "With all that, you want me to kill a wizard and get their white guild upset at me? Create another enemy when we already have too many?"

  
"You are the Lord holder of Lornth now, Sillek. You must do what you think best... just as your father did."

  
"What good would executing Hissl accomplish?"

  
His mother shrugs her too expansive shoulders. "The way you explain it, none. I only know that difficulties always occur when white wizards are involved."

  
"I will keep that in mind." Sillek turns and walks to the iron-banded oak door, which he opens. "Take the wizards and the others to the small hall."

  
"Yes, ser."

  
Sillek holds the door to his mother's chamber and waits as she rises. They walk down the narrow hall to the small receiving chamber where he steps up and stands before the carved chair that rests on a block of solid stone roughly two spans thick. The lady Ellindyja seats herself on a padded stool behind his chair and to Sillek's right.

  
Seven men file into the room. The five troopers glance nervously from one to the other and then toward the two wizards in white. None look at Lord Sillek, nor at his mother, the lady Ellindyja. Hissl's eyes meet Sillek's, while Terek bows slightly to the lady before turning his eyes to Sillek.

  
"Who has been in the forces of Lornth the longest?" Sillek's eyes traverse the troopers.

  
"Guessin' I have, ser. I'm Jegel." Jegel has salt - and - pepper hair and a short scraggly beard of similar colors. His scabbard is empty, as are the scabbards of all five troopers. The left sleeve of his shirt has been cut away and his upper arm is bound in clean rags.

  
"Of the three score who rode out with Lord Nessil, you are all who survived?"

  
"Beggin' your pardon, ser, but we aren't. Maybe a dozen rode down the trade road to Gallos. Welbet led 'em. He said that you'd never let anyone live who came back with your father left dead."

  
"That's the way it should be .. ."

  
Sillek ignores the whispered comment from his mother, but the troopers shift their weight.

  
"Why did you come back?" he finally asks.

  
"My consort just had our son, and I was hopin'..." Jegel shrugs.

  
"Did you ride away from my father in battle?"

  
"No, ser." Jegel's brown eyes meet those of Sillek. "I charged with him." His eyes drop to his injured arm. "Got burned with one of those thunder-throwers, but I followed him until there weren't no one to follow. Then I turned Dusty back."

  
"Dusty?"

  
"My mount. I ran into the wizard at the bottom of the big ridge-him and most of the rest. Most went with Welbet. The rest of us came back with the wizard."

  
"What did you think of the strangers?"

  
Jegel shivers. "Didn't like their thunder-throwers. One woman-she was the one with the blades-she threw a blade, and it went right through Lord Nessil's armor, like a hot knife through soft cheese. Then she took his horse, and slaughtered three, four of the troopers with both the blade and the thunder-thrower, almost as quick as she looked at 'em."

  
"Were they all women?"

  
"Mostly, ser. Except the one I got. He had a thunder-thrower, but it did him no good against my blade."

  
Sillek's eyes turn to the second trooper.

  
"I be Kurpat, Lord Sillek. I couldn't be adding much."

  
"Did you leave my father?"

  
"No, ser."

  
Sillek continues the questioning without finding out much more until he comes to Hissl.

  
"And, Ser Wizard, what can you add?"

  
"About the fighting, Lord Sillek, I can add little, except the thunder-throwers throw tiny firebolts, much like a wizard's fire, but not so powerful."

  
"If they were not so powerful, why are so many troopers dead?"

  
Hissl bows his head. "Because all of the strangers had the thunder-throwers, and because the thunder-throwers are faster than a wizard. If your father had twoscore wizards as powerful as Master Wizard Terek, there would be no strangers."

  
"Pray tell me where I would find twoscore wizards like that?"

  
"You would not, ser, not in all Candar."

  
"Then stop making such statements," snaps Sillek. "Don't tell me that twoscore wizards will stop the strangers when no one could muster so many wizards. Besides, you'd all be as like to fight among each other as fight the strangers."

  
"Pray answer a widow's question, Ser Hissl," requests Ellindyja from the stool on the dais. "How was it that you counseled my consort to attack the strangers?"

  
Hissl bows deeply. "I am not a warrior, Lady. So I could not counsel the lord Nessil in such fashion. I did counsel him that the strangers might be more formidable than they appeared."

  
"But you did not urge him to desist?"

  
Hissl bows again. "I am neither the chief mage of Lornth"-his head inclines toward Terek-"nor the commander of his troops. I have expressed concerns from the beginning, but the chief wizard advised me that, since I could not prove that the strangers presented a danger, we should defer to the wishes of Lord Nessil, as do all good liegemen."

  
"You, Chief Wizard," Ellindyja continues, "did you counsel Lord Nessil to attack the strangers?"