“How do you even find the cats?”
“We don’t find them all. That’s why stun lizards and crocodators show up in the Great Canal or in the rivers. That’s why there are giant cats throughout this part of Cyador … but the offspring of those that survive are smaller than those that first escape.” Gebynet’s lips twist into a crooked smile. “The animals aren’t the problem; the trees and the vines and bushes are.”
“Speak for yourself, majer,” suggests Sherpyt.
“Ah … well, it shouldn’t affect you, Captain Lorn, but the cats and stun lizards seem to seek out people who handlechaos-mages especially, and then engineers like Sherpyt who handle chaos-powered equipment.”
“Have any attacked you?”
Sherpyt pulls back his sleeve. A long red gash runs up his forearm, disappearing under the white shimmercloth. “There’s another on my leg. Two different attacks.”
“That’s another reason why all the Engineers on duty beyond the compound carry the short firelances in sheaths,” Gebynet explains.
A server in solid green appears with a casserole dish, and a basket of bread, then vanishes without speaking.
“Best we eat while it’s hot.” Gebynet serves himself two ladlefuls of the mutton stew, consisting mostly of mutton chunks, carrots, and some other root vegetable that Lorn does not recognize by sight. Gebynet passes the casserole to Lorn, and breaks off a chunk of the rye bread. “Eat hearty.”
The primary taste of the stew is salt. The carrots are orange mush, while the roots have been cooked until they are soft masses held together with stringy fibers. Lorn alternates stew, bread, and very small sips of the Byrdyn.
“Exactly what do engineers do here?” asks Lorn after several mouthfuls.”Besides destroying growth that escapes from the Forest. Or is that all?”
“We’re the ones who repair the wall if it gets breached. That doesn’t happen often,” the majer explains. “We also repair anything else that needs it.”
“How often?” Lorn persists.
Gebynet frowns, then wrinkles his forehead. “Only about once or twice a year, and those aren’t big breaches-usually only a course or two of stone-and replacing the cables. That’s the harder part because you have to break the connections on two of the wards, and that usually means replacing those as well.”
Lorn lifts his eyebrows, hoping that the Engineer majer will add more.
“Repeated chaos flows make anything brittle. The wards have chaos flowing through them all the time. They’re solid when they’re in place, but if anything breaks through thechaos net-or moves them-most of them shatter.”
Lorn takes more of the stew, and more bread, and enough of a sip of the wine to provide a hint of seasoning, pondering what the two engineers have conveyed. “You’re more like Magi’i than Lancers ….”
“Almost all of the officers are about the same as third or fourth level mage adepts,” concurs Gebynet. “At some point, it was suggested to each of us that our talents might be better used in the Engineers.”
“We’re Magi’i with tools, Lorn,” adds Sherpyt. “With tools and with far less status and power.”
Lorn frowns.
“Have you ever seen a Mirror Engineer in Cyad?”
The Lancer officer shakes his head.
“You never will.” Sherpyt delivers his words in a matterof-fact tone that offers more caution than would any amount of bitterness or emotion. “When they need us to work on a fireship, it goes to the yard at Fyrad. The Magi’i handle chaos repairs in Cyad.”
Lorn nods.
“Our talents are necessary, and best kept where they can be employed most fully,” Sherpyt adds.
“Just like those lancer officers who are unwise enough to reveal that they can handle chaos,” Gebynet adds smoothly. “But enough of details. I trust you understand why we wanted to let you know why we appreciated your timely report on that shoot, and why such reports save us in the Engineers from even greater … difficulties.”
“I had not realized the speed with which the Accursed Forest grew.” Lorn takes a last mouthful of the stew, knowing he can stomach no more.
“Until they have seen it with their own eyes, most do not,” answers Gebynet.
“It can be frightening,” agrees Sherpyt, pushing his bowl away, and taking a slow sip of the Byrdyn.
Lorn finds himself yawning.
“You have had a long patrol already, with another threedays to go.” The Engineer majer lifts an empty glass. “Do not let us keep you.”
Lorn rises. “I must thank you both for the wine, the hospitality, and for enlightening me about my duties and the dangers that accompany them.”
“Our pleasure. Our pleasure.” Gebynet’s voice is warm, and his eyes and mouth both smile. “Anything we can do … please let us know.”
“I will.” Lorn bows slightly, before he steps back toward his temporary room. “I certainly will.”
LXVI
THE ALMOST-SETTING SUN falls on Lorn’s left shoulder as he rides northeast along the outer perimeter road toward the white walls a kay ahead-walls that mark the Mirror Lancer compound at Jakaafra. The sky above the compound is already darkening with clouds sweeping in from the east. A chill wind blows into the Lancer captain’s face, a wind bringing a raw dampness that foreshadows rain-or sleet. Behind Lorn rides a half-squad of lancers, just gathered in from their line abreast formation, the senior ranker riding beside him.
Despite the warnings from the two engineers three days earlier in Westend, neither Lorn nor any lancers in the squad have seen any other sign of the Accursed Forest attempting to escape the confines of the ward-wall.
Lorn’s eyes flick to his right, toward the ward-wall itself where Kusyl rides with the other half of the replacement squad, then back to the compound ahead, and the white granite bulk of the chaos tower adjoining the compound and looming over it.
“Not too far to go,” Lorn offers, his words barely louder than the sound of hoofs on the granite stones of the perimeter road.
“No, ser. Should get there before the rain,” replies Ubylt, the ranking lancer in the squad.
A hundred cubits ahead, to Lorn’s left, splitting off at an angle from the outer perimeter road runs another road, to the northwest.
“That goes where? Do you know, Ubylt?”
“To the town of Jakaafra, ser. Folks use the outer road to get to the towns around Westend. Be faster that way.”
Lorn nods to himself.
Hoofs clop on the hard granite of the road as Lorn and the half score of lancers with him ride toward the compound, an oblong of light compared to the towering darkness of the Accursed Forest just to the south.
Kusyl brings his half of the replacement squad toward the compound on the western kay-long connecting road that parallels the wall running from the ward-wall proper to the white-granite bulk of the structure housing the chaos-tower. The stone glows faintly with the suffused energy of chaos in the growing darkness of late twilight, a glow invisible to those without Magi’i-like talents.
“Didn’t see anything, ser, not on this last leg,” the squad leader reports to Lorn.
“We didn’t either, and I’m grateful for that.”
Lorn and Kusyl lead the recombined squad through the open gates. The compound at Jakaafra could almost be a duplicate of the one at Westend, except that the gates are in the middle of the southern wall, rather than in the middle of the eastern wall.
Two lancers are lighting the lamps on the wall behind the gates, and lamps have already been lit on several of the low stone structures deeper within the outpost.
“Stables that way, ser,” suggests Kusyl, gesturing ahead and to his left.
“Thank you.” Lorn urges the gelding leftward.
A heavy-set and jowled lancer waits by the stables, his round face impassive in the light of the lamp in the holder to the left of the door, his eyes cold as he surveys the approaching column. He steps forward as he catches sight of Lorn. “You’re the new captain, ser? For Second Company.”