His lips curl. Just as it is not written that a student mage who is not properly reverential shall not become a full mage.
He fingers the pages of the book again. He can scarcelysee where the cuts had been made to remove the pages, and the material of each page seems stronger than shimmercloth. No knife he knows would cut such tough material so cleanly. But the pages have been removed.
He opens the volume, almost at random. He has promised to read it, every page. He knows Ryalth must have had a reason, a reason well beyond sentiment, for though she has feelings, those emotions will not betray her.
He reads the words on the page before him once. Somehow, unspoken, they are not satisfactory. He murmurs them softly as he reads them again.
Although the old lands are in my heart,
in towers that anchored life with certain art,
in eyes that will not again see bold
the hills of Angloria or surf at Winterhold,
I greet the coming evening, and the night,
proud purple from the strange and setting sun
and the towered ragged course that I have run,
towers yet that hold the chaos of life,
and struggle with order’s unending strife,
for endless may they hold our light
against the long and coming night.
Worlds change, I’m told,
mirror silver to heavy gold,
and the new becomes the old,
with the way the story’s told.
Lorn shakes his head. The words, or most of them, are familiar, but hint at a meaning beyond the obvious. Yet Ryalth had asked a question when she had given him the book. What were the Firstborn like?
Will the volume in his hands tell Lorn that?
The lancer undercaptain slowly closes the ancient yet ageless volume. He will read more. In time. He has years at Isahl. Years.
XXVII
DESPITE THE CLEAR green-blue sky, and a bright sun nearly at its noon zenith, the winter wind whistles out of the northeast, chilling Lorn’s cheeks and ears, driving through the light earflaps on his white winter garrison cap. A faint dusting of snow lies scattered on bare patches of ground beyond the shoulder of the road and on the brown grass that stretches toward the lonely single hut and barn to the south of the road that is less than a narrow cart track.
The hoofs of the lancers’ mounts clunk faintly on the frozen clay of the road that stretches northeast past the single stead toward a gap between two hills. Beyond those hills, according to Nytral and the maps, lies another valley, one where three families raise black-wooled sheep and some few field crops.
Using his chaos senses, Lorn practices listening to the comments of the lancers in the first company behind him.
“ … winter patrols …”
“ … lot of riding … last eightday … first raiders all winter …”
“ … probably the last, too …”
“ … like that last winter … two bunches all winter … turned and rode away.”
“ … let the undercaptain hear that … or the sub-majer … be riding every patrol till you hit the Steps.”
“ … lancers don’t hit the Steps to Paradise … get buried under’em … Drext … even the officers.”
“Specially the officers.” A low laugh follows.
Nytral, riding beside Lorn for the moment, turns in the saddle, and the murmurs die away. The only sounds are the low whistle of the wind, the whuffing of mounts, and the dull clumping of hoofs on the frozen road.
Lorn smiles at Nytral. “Officers are the ones who send them out on winter patrols.”
“You hear more than most officers, ser. That’d not be always good.”
“So long as I know what they think, and so long as I listen to you and my own judgment, knowing what they think is better than not knowing.”
Nytral frowns momentarily.
One of the lancers earlier sent forward as a scout reappears on the road leading to the gap in the hills, but he rides southeast toward the Fifth Company with the measured pace that indicates he has found nothing disturbing ahead. Since the patrol is but Lorn’s second alone, the undercaptain is perfectly willing not to be riding into trouble with barbarian raiders.
“Looks good, ser,” observes Nytral.
“That’s fine.”
The scout turns his mount to ride beside Lorn, and Nytral guides his mount to the scout’s right.
“What did you find?” Lorn asks.
“Road’s clear to the holding in the next valley, sers,” the lancer reports. “No hoofprints on the road or the grass. Herders are out some, one or two, anyways.”
“Good,” grunts Nytral. “What about fires … cookfires?”
“Fires from most of the chimneys, maybe all. Could smell something cooking.”
Both Lorn and Nytral nod, nearly simultaneously.
Once the column, rising two abreast on the frozen road, reaches the low crest that overlooks the next valley, Lorn again studies the valley, trying to fix the details in his mind, hoping that he can, and knowing that the more he can retain, the better the chances for his success and survival over the years ahead. On a slight rise in the middle of the valley are dwellings clustered together and surrounded by an earthen dike tall enough to seem high from where the company rides nearly three kays away. The whitish smoke from the chimneys is blown into a low line that stretches from the northeast to the southwest.
“Cold as a trader’s heart at tariff time it be, ser,” offers Dubrez, riding behind Lorn and to his left.
“Or a lancer’s blade in winter?” asks Lorn.
“Colder’n a good lancer’s blade, ser.”
Nytral laughs once.
Lorn merely nods.
Below the crest, the road turns more directly eastward, and they travel another kay before they begin to near the earthworks in the center of the elongated oval valley. The earthworks are not insubstantial for a small holding, rising a good six cubits above the level ground, and close to nine above the base of the shallow ditch on the outer side of the earthen wall.
“It wouldn’t be easy for the barbarians to get over that,” Lorn observes.
“Easy enough to climb, but the old man here was an archer for the Mirror Foot years back. Taught his kin.”
“So the barbarians could climb over, but they’d have to leave mounts behind, and a handful of men and women with bows could pick off most of them?”
“Don’t know as most, ser, but raiding parties are not often more than two or three score, five maybe sometimes, and they’d lose maybe a score, and get little enough … some sheep, a woman or two, maybe a young girl, and some flour and maize, and fewer mounts than they’d lose in a raid.”
A single herder stands by the open gate on the west end of the earthworks, apparently the sole means of entry to the holding. The herder beckons toward the gate, and Lorn and Nytral guide their mounts toward the man in the sheepskin jacket and leather trousers.
“Might as well bring your patrol inside the dike, sers,” calls the herder.
“Thank you,” Lorn responds. As he rides through the open, but narrow, timbered gate, Lorn notes the huge pile of rocks on the top of the earthworks, and the chutes that would funnel those rocks behind the gate. He shakes his head at the amount of effort behind the herders’ defenses.
The single visible herd of sheep is clustered in a corral beside a long and low, sod-walled barn, and the corral is well inside the earthen dike that protects the holding. Theman who has beckoned them also wears a bulky hat with heavy earflaps that Lorn momentarily envies. The local lumbers toward them as Lorn and Nytral-and the Fifth Company-rein up and wait.