Ordermaster (22 page)

   
Kharl continued to consider what he could do. Before long, either armsmen or lancers would charge in force, and he could not hold shields for that long, not around even a small group. His last efforts with releasing chaos had not been totally successful, but perhaps ... maybe ... using the order of the orchard . .. and his own shields ...

His lips tightened. He would have to see.

   
Three more volleys flew toward Kharl and the lancers. Between the thick foliage and Kharl's quickly raised and lowered shields, none reached the defenders.

   
Then a horn sounded, and a full company of rebel lancers dressed their lines, then unsheathed blades.

"Don't leave the trees until I tell you!" Kharl hissed to Demyst.

   
"You heard the mage," the undercaptain ordered. "Stay under cover till you get the word."

"Sitting ducks ..." murmured someone.

"Not yet," replied a deeper voice.

   
There came two blasts on the horn-off-key-and lancers trotted toward the orchard, blades at the ready.

   
Kharl disliked what he was seeing, because Hensolas and the white wizard were sacrificing troops-essentially Ghrant's troops-to wear down Kharl. Yet, Kharl reminded himself, the same thing would have happened, and might anyway, in a pitched battle between Casolan's forces and those of the rebels.

   
Kharl concentrated on a single section of the split rail fence, waiting until the lancers were almost upon it, when he unlinked the order in a section a third of a yard long, erecting a curved hardened air shield behind that fence section.

Whhhsssttt!.. . Crumptt!

   
The glare was so bright that, for a moment, Kharl could not see, and even behind the shield, he could barely stand.

   
Belatedly, he dropped the shield, and almost collapsed as the wave of death swept over him.

   
A blackened quarter circle radiated from the section of the fence a rod in front of Kharl. Nothing remained except blackened heaps and fine ash for a good five rods. For another ten rods beyond that, everything was blackened, as if a fire had swept across everything.

The air was filled with screams of mounts and groans of men-not

from the attackers, for none of them remained, but from the second company of lancers, those almost twenty rods back.

   
Point stars of brilliant light flashed before Kharl, and he had to squint to try to focus on the remainder of the attackers' forces. He could feel a wave of fatigue somewhere, but he called on more of the order from the orchard and walled off that tiredness.

Hssttt! A firebolt flared toward the orchard-aimed directly at Kharl.

The mage flung up an order shield, and fire sheeted to both sides.

   
The branches and leaves that protruded forward of Kharl flared into flame and ashes, and Kharl found himself standing in the open, if half-concealed by fine gray ash floating everywhere. He took a step backward, under a heavy branch. He was breathing deeply, trying to catch a solid gulp of air as ashes finer than dust swirled around him.

Hssst! Another firebolt slashed through the ash-filled air.

   
Kharl staggered. He couldn't keep up the defenses much longer, and no one was moving close enough for him to use the order-release of chaos effectively. What else could he do? He was limited in how he could create chaos, and he couldn't fling it the way the white mage was.

He swallowed, coughing, blocking yet another chaos-bolt.

There was one other possibility .. .

   
He waited for the next bolt, and as it flashed toward him, he formed a curving tube, almost like an invisible curved cannon that was aimed back toward the banner that showed-he hoped-where Hensolas was. As the firebolt slid through the tube, Kharl released a touch of order from the very air behind the firebolt, adding speed and force to it, then juggled the tube, trying to focus it on the banner.

But. .. Kharl had overdone it, and the firebolt flared behind the banner.

   
He went to his knees, under the storm of death and anguish that slammed into him, a wave almost as great as the effect of his one order-released chaos blast-and far more deadly, landing as it had in the midst of two companies of waiting lancers.

The banner had fallen, and mounts and men scattered.

   
Kharl could sense the white wizard, could feel that the other's shields had weakened.

  
Almost without thinking, Kharl began to move, walking swiftly through the gray ash and dust that was everywhere, straight toward the white wizard. He was just trying to get close enough to clamp hardened air around the other.

   
Another firebolt flared toward Kharl, and he redirected it, this time, toward the two other remaining intact companies of lancers, those on the west side of the road.

   
Drawing even more strength from the orchard, the last of that black mist of order, Kharl staggered when a deep groan, an anguished wail, emanated from the very earth itself, or so it seemed. Even with that anguish shivering through him, he managed to remain upright and cover another ten rods before the next firebolt came, a slightly weaker blast that he directed toward a group of officers who had clustered around a single figure-Hensolas, Kharl thought.

   
White chaos-fire splashed directly into the center of the officers, and more death washed over Kharl. The remaining lancers and armsmen, those still alive, were scattering away from the wizardly battle.

   
Kharl could feel, solidly now, the shredding shields of the white wizard, and he clamped the air hard around the other, throwing back one chaos-bolt then another, then, later, a third, one that guttered out even as it splashed around the dead form of the white mage, a form that vanished in white ash as Kharl released the hardened air around the wizard.

Kharl coughed, trying to clear his throat and lungs.

   
Ash was everywhere, ash and the odor of death and burned flesh. Ash and blackened forms that had been men and mounts.

   
Kharl couldn't help retching as he turned and stumbled back toward the orchard-except it was no longer there. Where the orchard had been was also an ashen wasteland. All that was left were two ash-covered oblong shapes that might have been barns.

   
Twenty-one riders waited, covered in gray, still mounted, as Kharl stumbled back toward them. Brilliant point stars flashed before his eyes, flaring, and each flaring star sent a dagger through his eyes and deep into his skull. Every muscle, and every part of his body, even down to his toe-nails, ached.

"Ser . .. that you?"

"It's me." Who else would it be, he wanted to scream. Who else?

   
Demyst guided the gelding toward Kharl. The mage had to clamp his jaws together to climb into the gelding's saddle, and his legs almost gave way before he got his boots in the stirrups.

   
The undercaptain turned from side to side, his mouth open, staring at the wasteland of ashes and blackened stumps and fallen figures, and at the

lines of blackness seared through the very earth to the southeast of the river road. "Never seen ... never ..." His voice faded away.

   
"Chaos-fire ... what the white wizards use." Kharl realized his words were dull, stating the obvious, but his throat and jaws throbbed when he spoke, and he didn't feel like explaining more. He doubted he could, or would ever want to.

"Now ... what do we do, ser mage?" asked Demyst.

   
"We head back to the Great House." Kharl turned his mount eastward. In the few moments when he could see, in between the lightstars and pain daggers that blinded him, causing involuntary tears that carved lines in the ash covering his face, he thought he made out a handful of riders moving eastward, back toward Valmurl.

   
Kharl felt as though he should be elated, or at least satisfied. Hensolas and the white wizard were dead, and so were most of the rebel armsmen and lancers. But most of those troops had not been rebels. They had served the rebels, and Kharl doubted that they had been given much choice.

   
His mouth tasted like ashes, and each breath he drew in, raggedly, reeked of ashes and death. When he could see, he saw lancers gray-coated in ashes, and when he could not, he could remember all too vividly the pain of all the deaths, and the last groaning from within the earth as he had gutted, unknowing, the vast orchard for the force necessary to prevail.

   
He tried to wash the taste of ashes out of his mouth with a long swallow from his water bottle, but the water tasted like ash and death going down his throat.

XXIII

c

Oomewhere, along the road back to the bridge over the River Val, Kharl passed out. Or fell asleep. Or dropped out of the saddle.

   
He knew that because he found himself lying on something hard and cold-the ground. Someone was washing and blotting his face with cool water. But the water tasted and smelled like ashes.

"Ser Kharl... ser."

   
Kharl managed to turn his head to the side and cough out some of the water that had been choking him. Despite the hazy sunlight, there were large irregular patches of darkness drifting across his eyes. The lightstars and the daggers that they jabbed into his skull seemed to have subsided a little. Rather than being agonizing, they had become more like the lashes of a tiny whip.

"Sorry ..." he mumbled.

"Are you all right, ser?"

   
Of course he wasn't all right. No one who fell out of a saddle was all right. He could tell that his left leg was sore and bruised, and that there was a large lump on his forehead above his right eye. "... getting there ..."

   
"One moment, you were riding," Demyst said, "and the next you weren't."

   
"Happens sometimes after magery," Kharl said slowly, coughing some more.

   
After a time, he struggled into a sitting position. He'd thought that he wouldn't collapse anymore after doing magery. He'd been wrong. Again. "There's some bread and cheese in my saddlebags . .. might help."

"Sileen ... get the provisions from the mage's saddlebags."

"Yes, ser."

   
Kharl just sat on the ground on the shoulder of the road, looking blankly eastward. The River Val bridge was less than ten rods away. He supposed he'd been lucky. He could have fallen off on the bridge, hit his head on the railing, and gone into the water and drowned. At least, that way, he wouldn't have to explain how he'd been trapped by Hensolas. He hoped Hagen and Norgen didn't ask too many questions .. . but Hagen didn't miss much.

   
"Ser ..." As the undercaptain extended the provisions bag, and a water bottle, his voice was both solicitous and respectful.

   
Kharl wondered why. He'd led the squad into a trap, almost gotten them burned to ashes, and then he'd collapsed and fallen right out of the saddle. That sort of behavior shouldn't have created respect. "Thank you."

   
He forced down the bread, which tasted of ashes, like the water had, and chewed off several morsels of the hard yellow cheese. The black patches that drifted across his field of vision shrank, but did not disappear entirely. Much to his surprise, he did finish everything in the bag, as well as empty the water bottle.

   
After eating, he took a damp rag and wiped the blood from the gash over his forehead and the ashes from his face.

"We could wait here a while," suggested Demyst.

   
"No. I should have eaten right after the ... fight. Magery takes food." Except that he doubted he could have kept anything down then.

"You're in charge, ser."

"In a moment, we'll start back."

Demyst nodded.

   
Kharl's legs were still a bit weak when he finally stood and walked toward the gelding, but he remounted, if carefully. He patted the horse's shoulder. "Be trying not to fall out of the saddle again," he said to the gelding. "Makes us both look bad."

XXIV

JSJiarl and his small force reached the Great House less than a glass before sunset. They'd had to stop several times for Kharl to rest. His left leg was sore and getting stiffer, and the lump on his forehead was tender, occasionally throbbing, as he made his way into the Great House from the stables.

   
He decided to report to Hagen on the expedition, first, but when he made his way to Hagen's first-floor study, there were no guards there, and the heavy oak door was locked. That meant the lord-chancellor was off somewhere and unlikely to return soon. With a shrug, Kharl went off to get some supper. He'd have to talk to Hagen in the morning-or whenever the lord-chancellor returned.