“That is true, ser.” The senior squad leader turns and walks back out through the door, closing it behind him.
Lorn replaces the Patrol reports in the foot chest and locks it, replacing it on the floor where it had been, then opens his door and steps out into the outer study.
“Ser!” says Kusyl, who has apparently just arrived.
“Just keep on with getting the personnel records in order, Kusyl, Olisenn. I’m going to get more familiar with everything in the compound.” Lorn nods and steps past the junior squad leader out into the short corridor that leads out to the courtyard.
The rain that had been falling earlier in the morning has given way to a fine and cold drizzle. Lorn readjusts the summer garrison cap and steps out into the courtyard, heading toward the stables.
The mist-shrouded courtyard remains empty as Lorn crosses the damp stones to the stables, where he eases through the barely open sliding door into the warmer and drier air of the stable. He blots his forehead and glances around, then begins to walk farther back into the stable. The main corridors are swept clean, and each stall contains fresh straw. He glances upward, but he sees no cobwebs, or any piles of dirt in the corners.
“Ser? Is something wrong?” The thin-faced blond-hairedstableboy appears, a worn broom in his right hand.
“Not a thing.” Lorn glances toward the stall where the gelding is. “Since I’m new here, I’m just trying to learn about things. What’s your name?”
“Suforis, ser.”
“I’m Captain Lorn, Suforis. How long have you been here?”
“I only started here when Captain Dymytri was in charge … winter turn when I was twelve. Say the captain afore him was nice, too, but I didn’t know him.”
“Do you like it here?”
“Yes, ser. So long as I keep the stable clean and the officers’ mounts and the spares groomed, and all of them fed, Clebyl doesn’t look my way, and that’s fine by me. Lesyna-she’s agreed to be my consort next winter turn, and Clebyl says I can be the assistant compound keeper if I keep working good. Haven’t had an assistant here in two years. Assistants get the second quarters with the kitchen.” Suforis smiles brightly.
“How many stalls do you have?”
“Stable has two score and twelve-enough for two companies and a half score spares. Not that many, though,’cause Undercaptain Juist only has a score and a half for the domestic patrol. Says he doesn’t need that many, really, but I’m not supposed to know such.”
“He must not have much trouble.”
“Almost never. Towns north of here real peaceable, ser. Good reason to live here. They say some of the rankers settle down here when they get through.”
“How are the mounts?” Lorn gestures toward the gelding.
“Yours be a good’un, ser. Most are. Have to rotate the mount the big squad leader rides, even if he gets the biggest ….” Suforis shakes his head. “Other’n that, n’ gettin’ the farrier up here from Jakaafra regular like … well … take care of the mounts, and they take care of you. Get to ride the spares … make sure that they get exercise … it be a good life ….”
“Good.” Lorn smiles. “Anything I should know?”
“Well … ser … not that I’d be knowing, but I heard tell that if you run into a stun lizard best you stay leastwise fifteen cubits back. Cats don’t matter much … have to get claws into you, and if’n they do …” Suforis shrugs.
“I appreciate the advice, Suforis. If there’s any way I can help out … let me know.”
“Thank you, ser.” The young man bobs his head.
“Thank you.” Lorn turns and slips back out into the courtyard and the drizzle. Looking up into the clouds, he nods abruptly and heads back to his quarters.
Once he crosses the courtyard and enters his quarters, Lorn locks the door, then opens the wardrobe and extracts the screeing glass Jerial had stolen from their father’s study and given to him. Carefully, he sets it on the desk and studies it. Can he do what he knows can be done? What his father and the Senior Lectors can?
Finally, he pulls up the chair, seats himself, and concentrates on the circular mirror. His thoughts go to the enigmatic Olisenn. Lorn doesn’t want to try Maran unless he becomes proficient.
The glass fills with a grayish mist, which silvers into a blank and bright surface reflecting nothing. Finally, a small image swims into view-two squad leaders at a table.
Lorn swallows, surprised, and loses his concentration. A blank glass reflects his own perspiring face back at him. A single drop of sweat falls on the glass.
He can do it!
He leans back in the chair and takes a deep breath. How can he develop and use the skill … without revealing that he possesses it, for revealing it will certainly create greater incentives for the senior Magi’i and Mirror Lancer officers to ensure his death-and the Second Company records illustrate a high mortality for company officers-a mortality higher than for the average lancer, and far higher than it would be reasonable to expect.
LXVIII
IN THE GRAYNESS of dawn in late winter, Lorn leads his white gelding from the stable in the first waystation on the northeast side of the Accursed Forest-exactly thirty-three kays southeast of the compound at Jakaafra.
Olisenn is waiting, standing by the oversized mount that will bear him.
“It looks like another cool morning, Olisenn,” Lorn offers.
“Yes, ser. It won’t be long before the Forest truly stirs.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Lorn waits for whatever the senior squad leader has in mind.
“You intend to keep riding with the second squad and Kusyl, ser?” asks Olisenn.
“It seems like a good idea for now,” Lorn temporizes. “You have the experience to command the first squad, indeed all of Second Company, should anything happen to me. Kusyl does not.”
“But I cannot offer easily any insights.”
“That is true, but perhaps you can continue to share them in the evenings at the waystations. In that fashion, all can benefit.” Lorn smiles easily.
“I will as I can, Captain.”
“I’m sure you will, Olisenn, and we all appreciate your knowledge and experience.” With another smile, Lorn mounts and then guides the gelding to his right, to where Kusyl has begun to form up the second squad.
“Ser?”
“I’ll be riding with second squad today, possibly for the entire patrol.” Lorn shrugs. “We’ll have to see how things go.”
Kusyl nods.
Once both squads are formed up and mounted, waiting in waystation courtyard under the heavy but formless gray clouds, Lorn gestures for Kusyl and Olisenn to bring theirmounts nearer. He waits until they have reined up before he speaks. “This morning, second squad will ride the wall position; first squad will do the perimeter.”
“Yes, ser.”
“Yes, ser.”
“Let’s go.”
The sound of hoofs on stone echoes for a brief time as Second Company rides through the gates and toward the ward-wall, each squad deploying into the spread line-abreast formation used for surveillance of the border of the Accursed Forest.
Lorn rides about twenty cubits to the right of Kusyl, closer than the normal spread of fifty. Despite the lingering dampness, the ward-wall is dry and sparkles in the indirect light filtering through the low-lying clouds.
The sun continues to struggle to burn through the mist left from the rain of the night before, but without complete success, so that the second squad rides along the ward-wall under a sky that shifts from dark to bright gray, then almost brilliant white, before it turns darker once more.
One stretch of wall looks precisely like another, whitegray blocks evenly matched, topped with crystal wards that flicker chaos. The wall stretches southeast, seemingly an endless line to the horizon.
ZZZZzzzzpt! Lorn frowns as he turns toward the sound above the wall. At a second loud zapping sound, he glances toward Kusyl. “Kusyl?”