Heritage of Cyador (saga of recluce Book 18) (2 page)

“The majer must insist on the right to bring traitors to justice.”

“He has the right to bring them to justice in Afrit, not in Cigoerne. That is the rule in all lands, and that is the agreement between Duke Kiedron and Duke Atroyan. We will enforce that right by force of arms if necessary.”

“The majer has declared that he will pass.”

“If the majer crosses the border with his battalion, we will enforce our right to protect ourselves.”

“Then … the majer says you will suffer the consequences.”

“So will he and all his men.” The undercaptain glances at the small but thickening cloud that has gathered partly above him and mainly over the center of the rise to the north of where Eighth Company has reined up, arms ready.

Abruptly, the Afritan armsman turns and rides back to the massed formation.

The undercaptain waits.

“Ser…?” ventures the senior squad leader.

“Have the squads hold their positions. I’ll give the order if we need to attack.”

“Yes, ser.”

While the senior squad leader relays the order, the undercaptain concentrates, extending his order-senses and beginning to create order-lines as parallel as he can make them to the dancing chaos within the small thundercloud overhead, a cloud that darkens moment by moment as raindrops begin to fall across the top of the rise.

A trumpet triplet sounds, and the Afritan battalion starts forward at a fast walk. Carefully and precisely, the undercaptain eases apart order and chaos in both the air above the advancing Afritans and in the ground below them. The Afritan riders break into a canter as they pass the faded green boundary post.

As he senses, with what he thinks of as brilliant light, the interplay between a deeper level of order and chaos, an interplay within all things, the undercaptain begins to separate small bits of order and chaos in the ground under the mounted mass of Afritan riders. Seemingly just before, but in fact, a calculated time before that point where his separations would unleash massive power, he limits the separation, and creates a quadruple ten-line order coil with the power going into a shielded circle around the Afritans.

HSSSST!!!!

Lightnings flare from ground and sky in a pattern that crisscrosses men and their mounts, galvanizes blades with such force that they are ripped from the hands of men who do not even feel their death. Thunder with the force of mighty winds slams into everything within that fiery circle, and the charred fragments of men and mounts are thrown to the ground, consumed almost totally by flame, and then covered with fine ash that is all that remains of the browned grass of harvest.

The undercaptain shudders in his saddle as a wave of silver gray flows over him, a wave unseen by any but him. His eyes blur, and tears stream down his cheeks. His head feels as though it is being pounded with a wooden mallet. He squints, enough to sharpen his blurred vision so that he can make out what lies before him on the top of the rise.

All that remains of a battalion of mounted Afritan armsmen is a circle of ash and blackened ground some two hundred yards across.

The senior squad leader gapes, then looks to the undercaptain, his mouth open, but wordless.

“The skies and storms favor Cigoerne,” says the officer. After a long silence, he adds, “Have Second Squad continue the patrol. The other squads will return to our camp. We need to tell the people of Ensenla that it is safe to reclaim what they can from their old town. They’re entitled to it. They’ve little enough left to their names.”

“Yes, ser.”

The rain is already beginning to let up as the undercaptain and the bulk of Eighth Company begin their return to the temporary camp and post in Ensenla, a post that the undercaptain knows full well will soon become a large and permanent base for protecting the northern border of the duchy.

I

Lerial looks up from the half-written report before him, thinking,
Saltaryn, if you only knew how all your efforts to improve my writing with precise statements are being corroded by the requirements of being post captain.
Then he concentrates on the words he has just written.

… the Afritan Guard continues to patrol the top of the ridge one kay north of Ensenla. They occasionally stray across the marked boundary. They do not stay on the south side of the boundary for long, and they refrain from crossing when a Mirror Lancer force larger or roughly equivalent to the Afritan force is present …

He shakes his head.
They’re not quite taunting us, but what can you do?
At the same time, he worries about what he writes, because he had earlier sensed, not that much after dawn, a number of riders leaving the Afritan Guard post to the north, and now he waits for his scouts to return and report.

Lerial glances from the dispatch he is writing, the required summary of Eighth and Eleventh Companies’ evolutions and other events occurring over the previous eightday, to the dispatch he had received two eightdays earlier.

From:
   Jhalet, Commander, Mirror Lancers

To:
   Lerial, Captain, Ensenla Post

Date:
   Third Twoday of Winter, 593 A.F.

Subject:
   Border Patrols

Please find attached a map of the border between Afrit and Cigoerne, as agreed to by Duke Kiedron and Duke Atroyan. These borders are to be respected. Duke Kiedron has affirmed that no Mirror Lancer company is to cross them, even under extreme provocation. All officers and squad leaders are to be familiar with the borders and to conduct patrols in such a fashion that no Mirror Lancer evolution can be taken as provocative or as an encroachment upon Afritan lands.

Duke Atroyan has issued a similar proclamation to the Afritan Guard. Should the Guard inadvertently trespass, all Mirror Lancer squads and/or companies should offer the Guard the opportunity to retreat before resorting to arms. That opportunity need not be offered should any Afritan force commence hostile actions on the lands of Cigoerne.

If such hostile action is commenced on the lands of Cigoerne by Afritan or other forces, whatever response may be necessary shall be determined by the officer or squad leader in command of the Mirror Lancer force so attacked. In no case, however, shall a Mirror Lancer force knowingly enter the lands of Afrit. The sole exception to this directive is that a company commander or more senior officer may commission a force to recover Mirror Lancers carried into Afritan territory.

Any attacks by Afritan forces are to be reported expeditiously to Mirror Lancer headquarters, as are any border crossings for the purpose of recovering personnel. Such reports must contain the time, the location, and the complete scope of forces, both Mirror Lancer and others, involved in the action.

Lerial returns his attention to his own report and continues to write. A third of a glass later, he signs the report and eases it aside to let the ink dry before folding and sealing it for dispatch. He considers all that has happened over the past four years—and all that has not—ever since the people of Ensenla all fled Afrit over less than an eightday and subsequently rebuilt the town, or much of it, in the duchy of Cigoerne … and then demanded the right to continue to till their lands and tend their flocks on their ancestral hills.

Duke Atroyan’s response had been quick … and disastrous for the Afritan Guard. Lerial shakes his head, recalling the events that followed. Thankfully, over the last four years, he has not been required to use such force. The upside of the “effect” of such a storm has been that Duke Atroyan could suggest that the deceased field commander had been unwise to attack in such weather … and lay the blame there, with no word about the fact that the duke himself had ordered the attack while his brother, the arms-commander of Afrit, had been either inspecting the ironworks at Luba or ill with a severe flux … at least that is what Lerial has gathered over the years, from listening and from veiled hints from his aunt Emerya, who has her own sources. But the downside of letting a freak storm take most of the blame for the deaths of over five hundred men is that at least some officers in the Afritan Guard are wagering that such a freak storm is unlikely to occur again … and they are tired of being restrained from pursuing the growing numbers of refugees who have fled to Cigoerne, many of whom have been skilled crafters. Nor has Duke Atroyan grown more patient as time has passed … which is why Commander Jhalet issued the order that rests on Lerial’s desk. It is also why Lerial has insisted on training one squad from each company to use horn bows similar to those used by the Verdyn Lancers—even if it took some pressure by his sire to get permission for that … and well over a year of training.

Lerial has no desire to unleash the power of unbinding linked order and chaos again … and he has been fortunate in not having to do so.
But how long will you be able to refrain?

Cigoerne has grown to almost half again its size in five years, and places like Penecca, the “new” Ensenla, and Teilyn, as well as others that had been barely more that hamlets or small towns, now are far more than that, and the factors in Cigoerne have added two more river piers to handle the trade from all over Hamor, and even from Candar and Austra.

A rap on the study door breaks through his momentary musing. “Yes?”

“Captain, the watch reports the scouts are at the crossroads.”

“Thank you. I’ll be out in a moment.”

Lerial checks the dispatch, thinks about folding and sealing it, then snorts softly.
No point in doing that until you hear what the scouts have discovered … or not.
He rises and leaves the study, stepping into the small anteroom of the Ensenla Post headquarters building and walking to the duty desk.

“Ser.” The duty ranker looks up.

“I’ll have something later for a dispatch rider. Let the duty squad know.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Thank you.” Lerial then walks out into the cold wind blowing out of the southwest and stands waiting for the scouts to ride into the post and report. He does not wait long.

The two Mirror Lancers in their greens and heavy riding jackets—and gray gloves—rein up outside the headquarters building. Both have red faces from the cold and wind. “Tie your mounts. You can report where it’s warmer.” Lerial smiles. He can recall every winter he has spent in Ensenla, and how much he appreciated the few days of leave spent at the palace in Cigoerne.

Once the three are seated in his study, Lerial nods to Vominen, the former Verdyn Lancer who transferred to the Mirror Lancers as soon as he could, even before the Verdyn Lancers became Mirror Lancers and ceased to exist as a separate force. “You look like something has happened.” It’s not that the scout looks that way, but that Lerial can sense the patterns of order and chaos that flow around him, and the turbulence of those patterns is suggestive.

“Ser … almost all of the Afritan Guard pulled out of the north Ensenla post just after dawn this morning.”

“How do you know?” Lerial grins. “Or did you sneak over there?”

“Wouldn’t call it sneaking, ser. Just rode over and asked one of the herders. Besides, there was no one about, and they do the same when they can.”

“And?”

“I rode almost to the gates. They’re barred. No one’s in the watchtower. No smoke from the chimneys. No smoke in midwinter, ser?” Vominen shakes his head.

“What did you see, Naedar?”

“Same as Vominen, ser. One of the herder boys said they took three wagons, too.”

Lerial nods slowly.

After another third of a glass with the two scouts, Lerial feels they have told him everything they can recall, and he dismisses them. He looks to the dispatch he had written earlier.
You’ll need to rewrite that and send it off immediately.

Why … why in the name of the Rational Stars would Rhamuel pull three companies of guards from Ensenla when for the past two years those guards have been patrolling the border and looking for any excuse to provoke the Mirror Lancers into a skirmish?

Lerial can think of only two reasons—a crisis in Swartheld, even an armed uprising, since Duke Atroyan has been far from the most effective ruler of Afrit, or an attack on Afrit, most likely on Luba or even Swartheld itself, by the forces of Duke Khesyn of Heldya. Either of those events would be far worse for Cigoerne than another Afritan attack on Ensenla or anywhere else along Cigoerne’s northern border.

Could there be other reasons?
Quite possibly, although Lerial has no idea what they might be, only that it’s unlikely that they would be any better than the alternatives that he already suspects are the reasons for the Afritan withdrawal.

II

By fourday morning, just before muster, Lerial has still heard nothing from headquarters, not that he expected a dispatch in the morning, but he had thought there might have been one on threeday afternoon. He’d even sent lancers to check the lone pier that serves Ensenla, and the scouts had talked to more of the Afritan herders and growers, but none of them knew anything more than Lerial and the scouts. A delay in response from the commander means nothing in itself, but Ensenla post is less than a day’s ride north of Cigoerne—though a fast ride to make in that time—and Lerial sent out the dispatch on oneday.

There’s no helping that,
he thinks as he steps out of headquarters to receive the morning reports. Both officers are waiting on the narrow porch.

“Eleventh Company stands ready, ser,” reports Undercaptain Strauxyn.

“Eighth Company stands ready, ser,” reports Senior Squad Leader Fheldar, who handles the muster for Lerial, since Lerial is both Eighth Company captain and post commander.

“Good.” Since Eleventh Company is the duty company for the day, Lerial turns to Strauxyn. “Keep up the scouting runs on the Afritan post … and to the west, just in case the withdrawal was some sort of feint. If anything changes, let me know. Keep someone posted at the pier as well.”

“Yes, ser.”

At the inquiring looks from the two, Lerial shakes his head. “You’d have already heard if we’d gotten a dispatch from the commander. He may not know anything more than we do.”
In fact, he might not even have known what we know.
Lerial understands the need for following the chain of command, but there are times when not following it might result in better information … and sooner, and this might be one of those times, since it is just possible that either his father or his aunt might have information that would be useful.