Noting Lorn’s expression, Kusyl calls back an answer. “One of the big flowerflies, ser, the bloodsucking ones. Some reason, they can’t cross the wall. Heard an engineer explain it once, something about the bloodsuckers coming with the firstborn, and that there aren’t any in the Forest.”
“I’m not sure how that makes sense,” Lorn says slowly, his eyes still on the wall along which the gelding carries him. “The chaos barrier is there to keep the Forest in. So why would it choose an insect that’s not part of the Forest?” Why would and how could the chaos barrier choose anything? He frowns. Does the Forest choose to destroy foreign insects?Why? Or would it destroy any foreign body that crosses the ward-wall?
Kusyl shrugs with both hands. “That, I’d not be knowing, ser.”
The two continue to patrol, silently, since the distance between them makes conversation uncomfortable.
The second squad patrols another kay of wall and deadland, then another.
“Ser! … Ser … Ser!”. The yell comes from near the end of the line, a good six hundred cubits to the northeast, relayed by nearer lancers.
“Line halt!” Kusyl orders.
As the lancers rein up to a halt, Lorn guides his mount away from the wall to the lancer with the raised firelance. “Yes, lancer?”
The lancer points to the ground. On the deadland soil is a single bone, and a line of giant cat tracks. The bone-look-ing like it might have come from a sheep or goat-has been there for a time. There are no other signs of the giant cat’s prey, and the tracks are indistinct, blurred by the light rain of the night before.
“Just keep an eye out. It looks like that happened yesterday.”
“Yes, ser.”
Lorn turns his mount back toward the ward-wall, gesturing for Kusyl to give the order for the patrol to resume.
The morning warms until the air is almost uncomfortably damp, and sweat collects under the edge of Lorn’s white garrison cap.
The clop-clop-clop of hoofs offers a regular, almost soothing rhythm as the second squad continues in a spread formation that stretches from the road wall in a double line abreast, each rider a good fifty cubits from the next.
Lorn suppresses a yawn. He can understand why officers can get killed on Forest patrol duty, lulled into boredom by the endless sameness and suddenly confronted with the danger of a great cat or a giant stun lizard.
He has individual bits of information that should allowhim to form a better image of the situation he faces. He just needs to look at them differently, but it is difficult to think after a day of painstaking and mind-numbing patrol, looking for any trace of the Forest’s breakout.
Suddenly, he straightens, fully erect in the saddle. That, too, is another bit of information. He thinks about what the Engineer Gebynet had said, something about patterns … of immense breakouts following a shoot as vigorous as the one he and his squad had destroyed on the southwest side of the Accursed Forest.
Patterns? What are the patterns? He shakes his head. The other question is who knows what the patterns are? Who has all.the Patrol records?
Lorn nods grimly.
LXIX
TO LORN’S RIGHT, a good dozen kays northeast, high and white puffy clouds scud along, swiftly, in the direction of the Westhorns. Between the clouds, sunlight falls in shafts that angle toward that distant ground. Directly overhead, the early afternoon’s green-blue sky is mostly clear. At times, the slightest hint of a breeze wafts by Lorn, but the air has been largely still, despite the fast-moving clouds above.
Beyond the deadland and the outer perimeter road, the grass, and even farther away, the fields and woodlots are slowly greening, with the winter-gray leaves returning to their spring colors and the new leaves and shoots showing a lighter and brighter shade of green.
Lorn looks to his left, along the line of the second squad lancers riding the deadland inside the perimeter road. Beyond them are the riders of the first squad. Lorn can even make out the rounded bulk of Olisenn near the ward-wall.
After nearly seven days on patrol, with a day’s respite at Eastend-a virtual duplicate of Westend-Lom will be happy when they reach the compound at Northend, althoughit is always called the compound or Jakaafra, just as the compound at Geliendra is always called by the name of the nearby town as well, rather than the official name of Southend.
“Ser! Shoots ahead!”
“Shoots ahead! … ahead!” The report is echoed by the other lancers in the patrol line and relayed toward Lorn and Kusyl.
Lorn shakes his head as he uses his heels to nudge the gelding into a trot toward the lancer with the upheld firelance.
“Line halt! Line halt!” After barking the order, Kusyl turns his mount to follow the company commander.
Both the squad leader and Lorn rein up a good thirty cubits short of the shoots sighted by the lancer. At less than two cubits high, the twin green fronds are far shorter than the one Lorn had seen and has destroyed on his ride/patrol to Jakaafra, and they seem far more slender. He can sense only a hint of the black order that looms behind the ward-wall, but he studies the greenery for a long moment.
“Ser?”
“Have them flame by duads,” Lorn orders Kusyl.
“Yes, ser. Form up!” Kusyl orders. “Prepare to flame by duads!”
After the lancers of the second squad reform from their line into the standard column of twos, Kusyl looks to Lorn.
The company captain nods.
“Advance, and discharge lances!”
Under the warm afternoon sun, Lorn watches, but the shoots wither under the chaos flames of the firelances, leaving nothing but a black ash that disintegrates into a power, and then disperses under a light breeze that fades into stillness.
Lorn watches the ashes disperse, letting his chaos-order sense probe the ground, but there is no sense of any underlying well of dark order. Then he pulls out a message blank and turns his mount toward the ward-wall to note the ward location before dispatching a messenger to the Engineers atEastend. He knows that the Engineers will find nothing, but he will not suggest that, not at all. He also adds the location in his own small notebook.
He erases the momentary frown from his face as he rides toward the ward-wall-and Olisenn. The frailty of the shoots bothers him, especially after he has sensed the incredible dark order that lurks behind the whitened granite stones of the ward-wall.
LXX
LORN SETS ASIDE the bronze-tipped pen as he finishes the second of the two patrol entries, then lays the paper at the side of his study desk to dry. He turns in the chair and glances out the window at the clouds flowing from the south and building and darkening to the north. With the warm dampness of the morning and the clouds, he has little doubt that it will rain, perhaps for several days. But the Second Company will have to set out on patrol the next morning, rain or no rain.
He turns back to the desk, fingering his clean-shaven chin before he lifts the thin manual that Maran had given him, already showing smudges and scuffs. Inadvertently, he compares that to the ancient and spotless silver-sheened volume that Ryalth had presented to him, and he shakes his head, forcing his thoughts back to the patrol manual as he slowly searches for something he had seen-or thought he had-when he had first read it.
… a Lancer company captain cannot halt breaches in the ward-wall, nor can he prevent the inimical creatures of the Accursed Forest from escaping such breaches, but he must do all within his power to ensure such creatures are destroyed before leaving the deadland barrier and before they can inflict damage upon the people of Cyad or upon their livestock and lands.
A wise captain will manage his deployments in such fashion so as to assure that his lancers are exposed to no unnecessary danger and so that casualties are minimized while making sure that as many creatures as practicably possible are destroyed before they can create harm ….