Lorn jerks his attention back to the crushed green leaves of the canopy, and the rustling that foretells night leopards. “Night leopards!”
“Frig!”
“Dark angels …”
Lorn manages to drag out the other sabre and wonders just how effective he will be guiding the gelding with his knees. He swallows and blinks as the smaller cats continue to bound from the greenery-far more than a score.
Hssst! Hssst! Hssst! The handful of firelances left from those lancers who had been in the third rank flare, and lines of chaos crisscross the dark feline forms, those that have not already reached lancers and their mounts.
“Short bursts! Short bursts!” Shynt bellows.
A mount screams.
Lorn finds himself swinging the Brystan sabre left-handed to drop a night leopard that has streaked toward him, while holding the second sabre ready in his right.
Hsst! Hsst!
Lorn does not recall well the next moments, only that he employs both blades, and that no leopards turn and flee, but all continue to attack.
Abruptly, impossibly, it seems, there are no creatures attacking.
Lorn glances down. One trouser leg is slashed, and there is blood splattered across his boots and legs. His eyes feel like knives are being driven through and behind them, and his skull feels as if it had been split with a dull wedge. He blinks and tries to assess what remains around him.
Close by, he can see five mounts lying on the deadland. One shudders and tries to rise, shudders and tries again, butthe mare’s right foreleg is crushed and twisted, possibly from the lashing tail of one of the stun lizards.
One lancer lies on his back, his body swollen, and his face covered with red blotches from the attack of those paper wasps that had escaped Lorn’s firelance.
Other unmoving forms-five-lie beside the charred forms of the lizards, the giant cats, and the night leopards.
Kusyl rides slowly toward Lorn. Dark splotches cover his gray’s coat, blood is smeared across the forearms of both sleeves.
Not sure that the attack is over, or that the comparative stillness is lull, Lorn keeps scanning the area, with both chaos senses and sight. The only sounds come from the lancers and their mounts, and the pitiful whimpering of the mount that will have to be destroyed.
A vulcrow flaps overhead, then glides above Lorn and down toward one of the lizard carcasses. Lorn blots his forehead to keep the sweat from eyes that already burn and slash into his skull, but he does not close his eyes, but keeps watching.
“Form up on me!” Kusyl orders.
“Reform!” yells Shynt, his voice cracking slightly.
Lorn watches the greenery as the lancers reform, those that remain and can, then rides to where Kusyl sits on his mount before the remaining eleven members of the second squad.
“Never … ever seen aught like that, ser,” observes the squad leader.
Lorn shakes his head, but only minutely, for each movement sears his vision. “I haven’t either.” He swallows, but that helps little with the dryness in his mouth and throat. “Best we remain formed up and see what happens for a bit. Except … have a couple of men look to the wounded … do we have any?”
“Yes, ser.” Kusyl frowns. “Seven down, I think, both squads. Those that stayed mounted be all right, save slashes … excepting Thylt … lizard tail snapped his arm.”
Shynt eases his mount to join them, as all three continueto survey the twisted branches of the fallen tree. “We have no charged lances remaining.”
“I doubt if anyone does,” Lorn says hoarsely.
The silence continues for some time, yet the only movement is that of the handful of vulcrows that are gathering, flapping down to feed on the dead lizards.
“There is a second tree,” Lorn says. “Have second squad remain here with the wounded. First squad and I will circle the other tree, but we’ll stay well back. Well back,” he adds.
Shynt nods.
“We won’t send a message to the Engineers until we look at the second tree-carefully.” The captain looks at Kusyl. “If you’d have someone collect the lances that were discarded or dropped, and see how many are left with charges ….” He laughs once, harshly. “If there are any at all.”
“Yes, ser.”
Lorn turns in the saddle to Shynt. “First squad ready?”
“Yes, ser.”
Lorn and the first squad slowly ride past the midpoint chaos tower, then continue almost another half kay before turning southward and beginning a circuit around the second fallen trunk, at a distance of a good five hundred cubits. Lorn watches the trunk … and listens. All he hears are the murmurs of lancers.
“ … two stun lizards … never saw so many of those angel-dead leopards …”
“ … captain killed one lizard himself … big cat … lots a’ small ones …”
“ … better … got the worst luck of any officer …”
“ … not worst luck … worst wall … northeast always been bad … say it be the winds …”
“ … heard he got consorted on furlough …”
“ … might as well … lots don’t live to get back to Cyad ….”
Lorn concentrates on the fallen tree, but no branches rustle, and there are no signs of any other wild creatures-besides the vulcrows that perch on the trunk, and then fly back to pick at the carcasses.
“Not a thing on this trunk. Strange it be,” Shynt observes. “They were waiting for us at the first.”
Lorn nods, his eyes going to the ward-wall that lies still ahead, continuing to ride parallel to the second trunk, the firelance held out, even though the chaos charge is gone. He compares the bark to what he has seen earlier, a bark that is darker, smoother-harder perhaps.
As they near the wall that hardness is clear. Once again, the trunk has also destroyed or knocked out of the wall a good three courses of the granite stonework.
“Tough tree, this one,” Shynt says. “Hope we don’t see more like this.”
More like what they have just endured, and there will be no Second Company. Yet not a single wild creature has escaped-unless they had left well before the lancers arrived. Lorn shrugs. If that is the case, he can do nothing, but accept that Maran will blame him for that as well.
No matter how carefully Lorn writes his patrol report, Maran will find a way to blame Lorn.
CVIII
AFTER TURNING THE gelding over to Suforis and ensuring that the firelances are locked in the armory, Lorn hurries back to his study, stopping only to drop his gear, and reaching the Second Company studies even before Kusyl-if Kusyl even intends to do so. Lorn carries the scroll passed to him by Suforis, who has informed Lorn that Lesyna has actually brought it from Dustyn. A second scroll waits in the outer study, one from Cyad through the lancer courier system. The one from Cyad has been opened and resealed, if most carefully.
Once he is in his study, and has lit the lamp to lift the twilight gloom, Lorn opens Ryalth’s scroll first, smoothing it out gently.
My dearest,
I have returned safely. It is most late tonight, but I will write now, else I will have little time for eightdays to come. No … Ryalor House did not suffer in my absence. Having three enumerators and a junior trader sufficed. There are many opportunities, and some I see clearly for the first time …. I already have a buyer for the lamps, and an offer on the melon ice wine ….
He skips over the rest of the general references to trade opportunities, looking for her reaction or his family’s reaction to their consortship.
You had asked I send the scrolls. I did, but I sent them with a scroll of my own, requesting their leave to call. Your sister Jerial appeared at the Plaza herself and escorted me to the evening meal. Your father apologized for not coming personally, but he asked that I understand his presence in the Plaza would have negated all we had done in our arrangements. They were not only kind, but far warmer than I would have believed. We will continue to be circumspect, and I have officially engaged your sister as my personal healer. That is rare, but not unheard of ….