He blinked, slowly able to catch glimpses of the ground ahead and the horse bearing the dead Gallosian. As the engineer trotted after the dead Gallosian, and his blade, his vision slowly returned, but his head continued to feel as though someone had driven an arrow or a blade through his skull. Each time he opened his eyes, knives stabbed through them. A quick look back reassured him that the guards had matters in hand, and he could see that Saryn had come to Ayrlyn’s aid, and dispatched the other attacker.
Nylan rode nearly a kay before managing to catch and calm the skittish horse that still bore the dead man. By the time he recovered his blade and rode back, there were no Gallosians left standing. Two of the archers had reclaimed mounts and rode furiously down the lower part of the ridge, followed by a single armsman.
Nearly a dozen horses lay across the battle site.
Fierral looked sourly at Nylan as he rode up. “We’ll need more arrows.” Her eyes took in the dead body. “Yours?”
The engineer nodded.
“You must be surprising with that blade.”
“He threw it through him,” Ayrlyn said tiredly, rubbing her forehead, as she stood by her mount and began to unload medical supplies.
“Through him?”
Fierral rode closer and lifted the corpse half off the saddle, then levered the inert form out of the saddle. The corpse hit the ground with a dull thud. “You’re as bad as the marshal.”
Except she doesn’t get splitting headaches that almost knock her off her horse, thought Nylan.
Murkassa rode up, holding her arm, and slowly dismounted.
Ayrlyn looked at the slash on the newer guard’s arm. “It’s only a little more than skin-deep. Get that grime washed out good, and then see me or the engineer.” She looked toward Nylan.
He nodded. “That I can do.”
Ryba rode over, shaking her head.
“What?” asked Ayrlyn.
“I just told her to stay back. She shouldn’t have been in the front row. Ryllya, she’s dead,” added the marshal. “The newest ones aren’t ready for this.”
Ayrlyn walked across the rocky ground to where Hryessa looked down at a handsome brown-bearded man. Blood welled out from his left shoulder and above the breastplate.
“He’s dying, and I killed him.”
“He would have killed you,” Ayrlyn said gently. “That’s what happens when people fight. They could have left us alone. They didn’t.”
“Lyntar … said … beautiful women … golds … there for the taking …” The brown-bearded man forced a smile, then tried to hold back a cough. His face paled, and the strangled cough brought up only blood-bright blood. “ … wrong … he was … about the taking …” He looked at Hryessa. “So slender … like … dagger …” His lips moved, but no sound issued forth, and his eyes glazed over.
Beyond the dead Gallosian was another … of more than a score strewn across the slope.
“Nistayna!” ordered Ryba. “You and Cessya bring back the carts. We’ve got a lot of hauling to do.”
“I don’t understand it,” Ayrlyn said. “They just kept coming. Half of them were dead before they even reached us. It was as though they couldn’t believe they were being killed.”
“They couldn’t,” snapped Fierral. “In their mind-set, women can’t even try to kill, except maybe to protect their children. These idiots’d rather give up their lives than their beliefs.”
“That just might change after a few battles,” Nylan said heavily from his saddle. “You’ll be devils, and they’ll try to kill you without mercy.”
“There are rumors everywhere,” said Ryba, reining the roan up beside Nylan. “We’re angels; we’re devil women. We’re beautiful; we’re hags. The rumors don’t matter. What matters is that we’ve got to get better. Every guard has to handle a bow and blade as well as Fierral or Istril. It would help if they could also throw a blade like you can because things are just going to get worse.” Ryba surveyed the battlefield, where women in leathers stripped and stacked bodies and loot, where other women collected horses.
The creaking from below the ridge indicated that the carts were on the way to recover the assorted leavings and loot.
“With each success and each new rumor,” said Ryba, “we’ll get more women trying to escape, and more armsmen and brigands looking for easy loot because they can’t believe we’re real. Then, as Nylan says, one day, they’ll believe it, and someone will head up here with a real army, and we’d better be ready. We’ll need more arrowheads.”
“More arrowheads,” groaned Nylan.
“It’s better than having to meet them blade to blade, and, speaking of blades, can you make any more?”
Nylan looked at Ryba. “We’re having enough trouble with arrowheads. I made those blades out of structural braces, and I barely could handle those with a laser. All that charcoal I’ve got up wouldn’t warm one lousy brace.”
“We need something.”
“I’ll see about reworking some of the locals’ blades-the terrible ones,” said the engineer-smith, “if you don’t mind the potential revenue loss.”
“Good.” Ryba paused, then added, “At least all this loot will help us get supplies for winter.”
Nylan and Ayrlyn rubbed their foreheads and exchanged glances.
XCVI
AFTER THE LONG afternoon of cleaning up carnage and wounds, and building a cairn for Ryllya, the guard he’d never known, and an evening meal filled with quiet and exhaustion, Nylan sat in the rocking chair, holding Dyliess. Ryba lay in the darkness, silent on her separate couch.
For whatever reason, rocking his daughter in the gloom of the tower helped his throbbing head, more than the darkness or the hot and welcome meal prepared by Blynnal.
.. and who will rock you to sleep?
Your daddy will rock and sing you a song,
There’s only a cradle and nothing is wrong.
When the sun has set and the stars are so high,
I’ll rock you and hold you’til morning is nigh …
By the time Dyliess dropped off and he had slipped into his separate couch bed, the throbbing inside his skull had subsided to a dull echo of the former hammering.
After a quick flash of light through the window, the evening breeze brought the rumble of distant thunder over the western peaks and then the dampness of air that had held rain. Perhaps the rain would wash the sense and stench ofkilling off the Roof of the World. Perhaps sleep would help.
Again, not for the first time, nor for the last, Nylan wondered why so many people respected only force. He tried not to sigh.
“The killing is hard on you,” Ryba observed.
“You’ve noticed.” He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice, knowing he failed.
“You’re good for about one killing a battle, aren’t you?” asked Ryba quietly. “That makes it hard when people are riding around with blades.”
“Very hard, especially when you’re on a horse and can’t see.” Nylan stretched. His legs and arms were sore, from some combination of riding and smithing, neither of which he did terribly efficiently, he feared.
“Why?”
“With every killing, there’s a whiteness that fills the field, or the local net, or whatever you want to call it. It goes through me like an invisible but very sharp dagger.”
“This place …” said Ryba heavily. “The more we succeed, the more everyone wants to destroy us.”
“That’s true everywhere.” Nylan yawned. “It’s just more obvious here.”
“We’re going to get more women, and that means we’ll need more weapons.”
“More arrowheads,” groaned Nylan, trying to put aside the thought of more deaths.
“Can’t you make any more blades? We need both. I’d really like each guard to have two blades. That way they could throw one if they had to. The more standoff capability we have …”
Nylan wanted to laugh at the thought of a throwing blade being a standoff capability. How far they’d fallen from lasers and de-energizer beams, although the weapons laser still remained mostly intact. “We’re having enough trouble with arrowheads.”