Magi'i of Cyador (45 page)

The rest of the lancers reform into their squads, watching the vegetation, but no other creatures emerge.

Discreetly readjusting his garrison cap, and blotting his forehead, Lorn glances back toward the cannon, where the engineers are working to reposition the weapon. "Steady! They're going at it again!"

Another whining whistling blast follows, and a gap ten cubits wide appears between the ward-wall and the remainder of the trunk.

The second blast dislodges no more creatures, although a number of birds circle the trunk.

There is no sign of the vulcrows-none at all. Once more the engineers reposition the firecannon, and after each searing blast do so again until they have opened a gap between the wall and the remainder of the trunk that is more than fifty cubits wide.

Once the gap has reached that width and the inner road is clear, the Engineers turn the firecannon. The armored firewagon slowly tows it outward until it is roughly a hundred cubits from the crushed crown, between the crown vegetation and Lorn's company.

The Engineer Majer strides from the cannon toward Lorn, and Lorn rides forward to shorten the senior officer's walk.

"Thank you, Captain." Weylt smiles.

Lorn waits.

"Captain Lorn... now we're going to fire the crown. It's going burn hot. I'd leave your men where they are until the worst dies down. You might get another giant cat or two. You might not."

"We'll be ready, ser."

"Fine." Weylt turns and walks back to the firewagon.

Shortly the cannon screams again, except the fire flares into a broad fan, and immediately flames begin to shoot up from the center of the mangled limbs and leaves. As the fires spread, one section of the branches shudders, and a long gray-black giant cat leaps from the twisted branches and greenery, padding right past the armored firecannon.

The cat pauses two hundred and fifty cubits out from the spreading flames. Its dark eyes study the Second Company, lined five abreast at least good five hundred cubits away. Then, as suddenly as the others had attacked, the giant cat lopes almost due north, well away from the lancers and the engineers and their equipment.

Lorn has no intention of chasing it, not with the state of his company's firelances.

The flames continue to rise, crackling a fierce orange, and thick and acrid black smoke, twined with plumes of lighter gray smoke, rises into the now-clear green-blue sky, forming a haze that begins to spread.

At the ward-wall, several engineers are working, replacing the smashed crystal wards with others, ignoring the flame that flares three hundred cubits northward.

The flames are subsiding, leaving the trunk seemingly untouched, when the engineer majer returns, striding briskly toward Lorn, who urges the gelding forward again.

The majer begins without greeting, without preamble. "The wards are working, and there's little enough more we can do."

"Do you just leave the trunk now?" asks Lorn.

The majer laughs. "We're through with it. So are you. There's a timber factor who has a contract on anything like this. There will be a team out here in a couple of days, and within two eightdays, you won't know that there ever was a fallen trunk here. Good timber, they say. I wouldn't touch it, not with the residual dark order in it, but they ship it down the Great Canal and then sell it to the coastal traders. Get a good price, I understand. The fees they pay help pay our stipends, Captain, yours and mine."

Lorn nods. He understands the logic, but he wonders about the merchanters profiting on the deaths of lancers. "This seems like a large trunk," he observes, watching the Majer. "Is it, ser?"

"Thirty-five cubits at the ward-wall. That's the biggest I can recall. Be a few loads of solid timbers for the merchanters." The majer smiles ironically. "More than a few, I'd wager. They can handle it. I wouldn't. Once this dies down, we'll be returning to Eastend, and you'll be free to continue your patrol."

"We'll need to recharge or replace our lances at Eastend," Lorn says quietly. "There probably aren't a dozen lances left with charges."

"That we can handle, Captain. I'll see that a full set of lances is waiting for you."

"Thank you."

"Least we can do." The majer nods, then turns and leaves Lorn.

Lorn rides back to the second company. They will have a long ride to the next waystation, a very long ride, that will last well into the evening. Even when the return patrol is over, he will have no rest, not with the need to request replacements and draft letters to the families of the fallen lancers, and to handle all the other details that must wait until Second Company returns to Jakaafra.

LXXIV

In the late afternoon, Lorn leans forward in the saddle. He rubs his forehead, ignoring the burning in his eyes, and the itching of salty sweat on the two-day old stubble on his neck. Then he straightens, forcing himself erect as Second Company nears the locked and sealed granite structure that is the northeast midpoint chaos tower.

"...too bad didn't put a waystation here..." murmurs a lancer riding behind Lorn.

"...make too much sense..."

Lorn motions, and the second squad turns out from the ward-wall and follows the road that loops around the midpoint chaos tower and the low wall that connects it to the ward-wall.

In the fading afternoon light, as he rides within fifty cubits of the solid granite walls, Lorn studies the bulk of the midpoint chaos tower. Is it his imagination, or does the granite of the tower somehow seem less solid than the tower at Jakaafra? He frowns, concentrating on the tower with both sight and fatigued chaos-senses. He shakes his head. "Ser? You all right?" asks Kusyl.

"I'm fine." He offers a laugh. "As fine as any of us are, anyway." As Kusyl nods and looks away, Lorn's lips tighten. From what he can tell, the midpoint chaos tower has failed. There are no pulses of chaos energy flowing in the cupridium conduits from the building to the ward-wall, although the wards along the wall proper still hold and flare their chaos net.

The flow of chaos must be traveling all the way from Eastend and Jakaafra. Is that why the Accursed Forest is now attacking along the northeast ward-wall? Or had the tower failed years earlier and the failure been kept silent?

Again... what he does not know would fill endless scrolls. He rubs his forehead once more, knowing that they still have another sixteen kays to cover before they reach the waystation.

LXXV

As the Second Company forms up in the courtyard of Eastend, its compound a mirror image of Westend, Lorn walks toward the long building that holds the Mirror Lancer detachment, wondering if anyone will even be there. The corridors and studies are empty, and Lorn heads back to the officers' dining area. With each step, his boots click faintly on the polished stone floor of the corridor.

There, at the sole occupied table in the dining area, he finds Majer Weylt and two engineer captains. All three rise as he approaches the table.

"Captain," offers Weylt, "can you join us?"

"I fear not," Lorn says. "My company is forming up now." He bows to the majer. "I just wanted to let you know that I appreciated your having the firelances ready, Majer. Your efforts were most welcome."

"Thank you for your courtesy." Weylt's eyes twinkle above his thin lips. "I see you found another... appropriate... sabre."

"There were some spares in the armory here." Lorn's lips quirk momentarily. "I'm not the first, I gather."

"You broke yours?" asks the squat captain to Weylt's right.

"Ah... not exactly. I put it in a stun lizard's eye, and it dissolved, I think. At least, I couldn't find it after the lizard died."

"You... killed a stun lizard with a sabre?"

"...and most of the charges in my company's firelances," Lorn adds smoothly. "We still lost more than a few lancers."

"The lizard was over twenty cubits in length. I saw the carcass before we burned it," Weylt adds. "Most impressive." He nods his head. "We won't keep you, Captain, but it has been a pleasure meeting you and working with you."

"And you, also." Lorn returns the nod with a bow and smiles. "You will pardon me if I hope we do not work together too often?"

Weylt laughs. "Indeed! Indeed. Have an uneventful return patrol."

"We hope to. Thank you again."

With a smile and a last bow, Lorn turns and walks back to the courtyard where he reclaims the gelding from the stableboy. He checks his gear, leads the gelding into the courtyard, and then mounts quickly.

While the courtyard remains in shadow, the sun has risen, and the deadland beyond the gates is flooded with light as Lorn lets the gelding carry him toward the waiting lancers. He frowns as he considers he should have looked for Weylt earlier. There are so many little aspects to his job that are not in the manual and on which he has not been briefed. Then, he supposes, that is true of many positions within Cyador and the Mirror Lancers.

"Wondered where you were, ser," offers Kusyl as Lorn rides up to the head of the column where both squad leaders wait.

"I was offering our thanks to the head of the Mirror Engineer detachment for the replacement firelances and sabres. He was out on his own patrol yesterday, but he was the one who ensured they were waiting for us."

Kusyl nods. "He seems solid enough, if a bit brisk."

"He has to cover twice as much ward-wall as we do," Lorn points out. "Is everyone ready?"

"Yes, ser," reply both squad leaders.

"Let us go. First squad will start on the wall."

"First squad, advance!"

"Second squad..."

As Second Company rides through the gates and northwest toward the ward-wall, Lorn wonders what awaits them on the patrol. Was the other Engineer majer-Gebynet-correct in predicting a rash of excursions by the Forest? Or will the ward-wall offer another quiet and uneventful patrol?

Thinking about the non-functioning midpoint chaos tower, Lorn doubts that many patrols will be uneventful, but ensures that a pleasant smile remains on his face as he rides beside Kusyl.

LXXVI

In the late early morning, the sun hangs just over the Accursed Forest, its towering trees revealed and then obscured by the scattered and white puffy clouds that scud westward. A cooler breeze blows out of the northeast, reminding Lorn that the season is spring, where summer heat is followed by chill and then by rain or mist... and then by wind or more heat, before the irregular cycle begins once more.

To Lorn's right, the two squads of lancers are spread in a long line abreast, searching the deadland for signs of Forest activity beyond the ward-wall. To his left is the ward-wall, that seemingly unchanging low rampart of chaotic permanence that stretches northwest to the horizon, reflecting as it has for generations the vision and the skills of the Firstborn. And the power of the Accursed Forest.

The low clopping of hoofs and the breathing of lancer mounts are the only sound beside the sighing of the breeze that is slowly changing into a cold wind. Lorn hopes the chill will be dry, and not one that leads to cold rain or sleet.

He looks to the wall and notes the chiseled marker: N 480 E. They have another ten kays to ride before they reach the midpoint of the northeast ward-wall-and the granite structure housing a chaos tower that does not work.

His shifts his weight in the saddle and glances once more to his right, out at Olisenn and the first squad, riding methodically across the dead-land, looking for signs of growth Lorn doubts they will find.

As the sun rises, so does the wind, and the cold air, sweeping off the winter heights of the distant Westhorns, chills more than the spring sun warms, but the Second Company's lancers ride steadily northwest.

After covering another two kays, Lorn glances toward the wall, and both his eyes and chaos-chorder senses study it. The chaos pulses through the cupridium cables are less regular. Does that mean another fallen trunk? A breach in the wall itself? Trouble with a chaos tower? Or his own imagination?

He shivers as another cold chill washes across him-that of someone using a chaos glass to scree him. Maran? Or a higher-level magus from the Quarter of the Magi'i. He maintains a faint smile until the chill fades.

Is the screeing because of what he senses? Or is what he senses independent of the user of the chaos-glass?

Whatever it may be, he must wait. Still, Lorn gestures for Kusyl to ride closer.

With a puzzled expression, Kusyl follows Lorn's gesture and guides his mount almost beside Lorn's gelding. "Ser?"

"Do you think we should space the men farther apart when we go five abreast?" Lorn asks. "Say another cubit or so apart?"

Kusyl frowns. "Too far, and there is a greater risk that their lance fires will strike each other if leopards or cats get too near."

Lorn nods, his eyes on the wall ahead, waiting until he can make out the faintest hint of darkness where the ward-wall touches the horizon. Finally, he turns once more to Kusyl. "There's another tree trunk down, across the ward-wall up ahead. I can just barely see it."

Kusyl stands in his stirrups and squints. "I see nothing."

"In a kay or so you will," Lorn assures the junior squad leader.

They ride nearly another kay and a half before, abruptly, Kusyl peers forward. "There is a trunk. You have good eyes, Captain."

"It's in knowing what to look for," Lorn replies. "I didn't know what that was when I started. Let's form up on the road, and send a messenger out to Olisenn. He might have seen it, but he might not yet." After a moment, he adds. "We can ride five abreast on the road for a while, until we get nearer the tree."

"Form up on the road!" Kusyl orders. "On the road, five abreast!"

"...not another fallen tree..."

"...would draw unlucky bastard of an officer..."

"...more angel-fired cats... stun lizards..."

"...don't know that..."

"...by Steps of Paradise, I do... better believe I do...." Lorn ignores the mutterings, keeping a pleasant smile on his face as he lets the gelding carry him forward.

"Formed up, ser," Kusyl reports. "A messenger is riding out to first squad."