He listened. After a moment, he could hear hoofs on harder ground, sounds that vanished almost immediately, as did the half-score lancers.
Fydel and Teras kept riding downhill toward the meadows and the cattle that grazed there. Since they did, as did the lancers who followed, so did Cerryl, but he kept his eyes and senses alert for order or chaos concentrations-or more arrows.
The road and the valley remained unchanged-until the lancer detachment rejoined Fydel and the others halfway down the road to the valley.
“They were gone, ser,” reported the subofficer who had led the half-score lancers back to rejoin. He offered a nod to Captain Teras. “Would have foundered our mounts trying to catch them.”
“Fall in, at the end,” said Teras laconically.
“Yes, ser.”
The lancers rejoined the column.
“Lucky this time,” Fydel said dourly. “Won’t always be looking in the right direction when someone looses a shaft.”
“I’ll take good luck when we can have it,” replied Teras from beside the square-bearded mage, “especially against attackers who loose shafts and then flee.”
“We need more levies. That way we could just move ahead and take over all these hamlets.” Fydel grinned at Cerryl. “Then you could worry about peacekeeping and this sort of thing.”
“Thank you,” the younger mage answered. “I appreciate your faith.”
“Think nothing of it.” Fydel’s grin broadened.
“We might get some fresh beef out of this patrol,” suggested Teras. “The men will appreciate that.”
“We all will,” said Fydel.
Except for the peasants who lose their animals. Cerryl just nodded and blotted his forehead again.
XCI
JESLEK LOOKED AROUND the small cot, his eyes flashing in the gloom, first at Anya, then Fydel, and finally resting momentarily on Cerryl. As Anya smiled behind the High Wizard, Cerryl could sense he wasn’t likely to enjoy what was coming.
“Fydel was most impressed with your ability to sense the blues.” Jeslek smiled a bright smile that was as false as Anya’s well-practiced expression.
Cerryl waited.
“You have also had experience in directing patrollers and in battle,” Jeslek continued. “I would be most remiss if I did not employ such talents.” Another smile followed as the High Wizard pointed to the map flattened on the crude trestle table, barely illuminated by the single brass lamp on the wood beside it. “Here is southern Spidlar. The main body of our forces will be traveling westward to Elparta. To begin with, the levies will come through the Easthorns from Rytel. We must protect this section of road from the mountains to where our forces are, and eventually to Elparta.” Jeslek offered a perfunctory nod. “It makes little sense for you to accompany us, Cerryl, not now. It also makes less sense for Fydel to patrol the entire road between our forces and the Easthorns.”
“You wish me to patrol a section of the road?” asked Cerryl not quite guilelessly.
“Fydel will command the patrols immediately to the rear of the main body of forces and from the town to the west of the fork hamlet.”
Fydel nodded.
“You will patrol the section you recently traveled, from the mountains through this town to the fork hamlet and halfway to the next town.”
“That is about fifteen kays west of here,” Anya interjected.
“You will have twoscore White Lancers and two subofficers.” Jeslek smiled again. “You have been most creative in the past, and I am certain you will use that skill to Fairhaven’s advantage once again.”
“Two score…” mused Cerryl.
“Fydel will be closer to the Black arms commander’s forces and will need a somewhat larger force.” Jeslek lifted the stones holding down the corners of the map, one at a time, then rolled it up. “I do not propose to have large groups of lancers strung out across Spidlar. You and Fydel are to stop any attacks, when possible without losing many lancers, to avoid battle when you cannot, and to ensure that any levies traveling the road are warned well in advance of any possible attacks that you cannot turn.” Jeslek paused before his final words.
“With your skills, Cerryl, I am certain you can handle such a mundane task.”
Behind the High Wizard, Anya smiled through the dim lamplight.
“I appreciate your trust and confidence.” Wonderful! You’re in charge of more road than Fydel and with fewer lancers. Yet another opportunity for failure and disgrace, especially against an experienced Black commander.
XCII
THE BREEZE FROM outside the small cot was warm already, even though the sun was barely above the horizon. Cerryl could hear someone feeding the horses and the clanking of a cook pot. His eyes dropped to the screeing glass upon the time-worn wood before him, and he leaned forward on the bench, slowly sketching from it what he could on the rough map beside the glass. He paused and dipped the quill in the traveling inkstand once more, then added another dashed line that represented a narrow trail. His maps suffered in accuracy, but making them was another way beside riding every cubit of trail and road to learn more about Spidlar. He particularly tried to follow and note on his crude maps the narrow trails that were not exactly roads. Those were the ones that an experienced lancer leader might well use against someone-like Cerryl-who did not know the land, especially in dry weather.
He shook his head and went back to screeing. Finally, after his fingers began to tremble, he let the image of a patch of land to the northwest of his encampment fade, and he put his head in his hands, closing his eyes for a time.
A bit later, he smiled and reached for another place. Leyladin’s image swirled through the mists, and a puzzled look crossed her face. Then came a smile, a broad smile, and her fingers touched her lips. Behind her, Cerryl could see the green silk hangings of her room.
After a moment, Cerryl let the image fade, a wistful smile upon his own lips. While he could sense when someone used a glass to scree him, he still wondered how Leyladin could sense he was the one looking at her, but, in a way, she’d known him first through the glass and had always recognized his screeing. What else has she always known?
He frowned and studied the blankness before him on the rough wooden trestle table. The glass showed him no riders in blue, no armsmen in each of the hamlets he screed-those within a day’s ride of the road between Axalt and the staging town where he and his small detachment of lancers were based. His screeings did not mean that his lancers might not face ambushes, only that there were no large bodies of armsmen that near.
They’re all making Jeslek’s advance difficult, that’s why. Cerryl wiped his forehead, damp with the effort of working with the glass, then took a swig from his water bottle.
He concentrated again, thinking about the smith in distant Diev, whose focused order radiated across the kays separating them.
The red-haired smith was beside his forge, drawing wire, and Cerryl could sense the order in that wire even through the glass. Like Leyladin, Dorrin glanced up as his image strengthened in the glass before Cerryl. Unlike the blonde healer, the smith scowled, but briefly, before returning to drawing wire.
“Ordered black iron wire,” murmured the gray-eyed mage, shaking his head. What Dorrin was doing would cause great troubles for the White forces moving toward Elparta, even if Cerryl did not yet understand how. That he could feel. Does Jeslek know? Or care?
Cerryl stood and packed the mirror back into its carrying case.
XCIII
WHILE THE MORNING cook fires were building, Cerryl took the screeing glass from its case and set it on the trestle table-the beginning of his daily pattern. The already-warm wind gusted through the open door, swirling Cerryl’s white trousers around his legs and boots and carrying the odor of green wood into the cot.