“ … mother of the Steps!”
“ … barbarian’s she-boar …”
“Advance and discharge at will! No closer than thirty cubits,” Lorn adds. “Aim for the head. Short bursts!”
“Short bursts!” adds Kusyl.
The serpent curls, as if coiling for a strike.
Hsstt! Hssst! Hsst! The firelances probe, searing the unprotectedserpent’s head, which twists and turns as if trying to avoid the chaos-fire.
Then the head lifts and turns toward the lancers, slowly moving outward, trying to strike at the source of its pain.
More lines of fire converge on the slow-moving giant snake, and a series of shudders ripple up and down its length. The huge triangular head, blackened beyond any recognition, drops onto the deadland with a dull thump!
“Hold your discharges! Hold discharges!” Lorn orders.
He and Kusyl watch carefully from a good thirty cubits, but the shudders that shake the serpent slowly die away. Measuring the dead snake with his eyes, Lorn gauges the serpent to have been at least forty cubits in length.
He looks up as Olisenn leads the first squad toward them, at a slow and deliberate pace, far too slow, Lorn decides, although he says nothing.
The heavy-set senior squad leader reins up and looks at the dead serpent, then at Lorn. His mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. Finally he speaks. “One of those … I have not seen before. Nor have I heard of such.”
“If you and the experienced lancers haven’t heard of these, I hope we don’t run into more of them,” Lorn says quietly. “It wasn’t near as bad as a giant cat or a stun lizard. It was much slower. You need to stay a good thirty cubits back.”
“That I will remember.” Olisenn nods, his eyes still on the snake.
Lorn tenses, turning the gelding toward the bottom of the tree’s crown, where the branches have begun to rustle. “Lances ready!”
Even as the words leave his mouth, with another rustling of branches, a half-score or more of night leopards bound toward the two squads. One mount in the first squad shies sideways, and several lancers struggle momentarily to bring their horses back into formation.
“Discharge at will! Short bursts! Short bursts!”
Hsst! Hssst! Hssst! …
Short firelance bursts crisscross, forming almost a wallagainst the smaller leopards-smaller only in comparison to the giant cats.
Before Lorn can issue another order, the firelances are silent. Eight of the leopards are down, dead.
Lorn turns the gelding, watching as the two surviving night leopards sprint northward, their paws barely touching the soil, leaving the faintest puffs of dust as they make their way toward a distant woodlot.
“That be not good,” observes Olisenn, “the Forest creatures amid the woodlots and fields of the people of Cyad”
“No,” Lorn agrees, “but we have no way to track them or catch them.” And forty lancers and firelances are not enough to deal with all that accompanies one of the tree trunks that topple, or are toppled, from the Accursed Forest across the ward-wall. “I’d be surprised if we have charges in half the firelances.”
“More like a third,” suggests Olisenn.
“If that,” adds Kusyl. “And half a patrol to go yet.”
“We still have to wait for the Engineers and make sure nothing else shows up,” Lorn points out, probably unnecessarily, but he wants the lances spared, if possible.
“They will not soon arrive,” predicts Olisenn.
Lorn fears that as well. “We need to circle the crown and go down the other side. We’ll keep the squads together.”
“Yes, ser.” The quick response from both squad leaders conveys definite approval of that tactic.
Although Lorn thinks he hears some rustling in the branches, he sees nothing on the slow ride around the fallen tree. Nor do his squad leaders or any of the lancers see any more aggressive creatures.
The only animals they see are when they circle back to the southeast side of the tree in completing their circuit. The vulcrows and other carrion birds have already begun to feast on the dead serpent and the fallen night leopards.
Lorn looks south toward the Accursed Forest, wondering how many more trunks will fall across the ward-wall in his three years at Jakaafra, and how many more surprises like the giant serpent await him.
LXXVII
LORN WAKES THE next morning, just after dawn, stiff from lying on the hard soil of the deadland with only a thin blanket for padding and for warmth against a night that had almost been close to freezing. His skull aches, both from fatigue and from a vague memory of dreams-dreams of white walls being poured into the very earth itself, trees being scythed from the forests, and acid being dripped on his skin, except his skin had been the ground itself. His eyes turn south to the bulk of the Accursed Forest, but the Forest offers no answers.
He shakes his head slowly and stretches, gingerly. He drinks nearly an entire water bottle before he has any of the hard biscuits and cheese that comprise the emergency rations. The combination of liquid and food seems to clear his thoughts somewhat, and he studies the day, seemingly as cool as the previous one, although the wind out of the northeast has died down into an intermittent, if cool breeze.
As Lorn is smoothing his uniform in place, wishing again that he had been able to shave, Kusyl appears.
“The sentries say that nothing happened with the tree, ser,” Kusyl reports. “No cats, no leopards, no serpents.”
“Good. I’m going to have another look at the serpent. I won’t be long. Besides, there’s little enough we can do except try to keep any more leopards from breaking free.”
“Yes, ser.” Kusyl’s tone is not quite dubious.
“The sentries are still on duty?”
“Yes, ser.”
“When I get back, we’ll discuss the day-both for first and second squads.”
Kusyl nods.
Lorn walks the five hundred cubits or so from the bivouac area beyond the crown of the tree down the east side of the tangled branches. Four vulcrows flap off as the lancer captainnears the trunk and the dead snake. The astringent smell of crushed leaves mixes with the odors of musk and death as Lorn steps closer to the charred remnants of the serpent’s head.
For a time, he studies the mass of charred scales and the blackened white bone showing through. Then he studies the trunk, and then the branches. Finally, he walks back to where the two squad leaders wait. His boots are covered with the powdered dust of salt- and chaos-killed soil even after his short walk.
Olisenn raises his eyebrows as if to ask why Lorn had been studying the dead serpent. Kusyl merely waits.
“We need to maintain the guard to keep any more creatures from leaving the Forest or the tree. We’ll need to continue the sentry with four lancers with firelances behind him, until the engineers arrive and fire the crown.”
Both squad leaders nods reluctantly.
“We won’t mount anyone else until the engineers arrive, but we can rotate groups of lancers to that stream to the north to get water for themselves and their mounts-and to wash up if they want.”
“Yes, ser.”
“Why don’t you take the first group, Olisenn,” Lorn suggests. “You and Kusyl alternate groups of four from each squad.”
“As you wish, ser.”
Lorn nods. His thoughts are still on his dreams and the puzzle of the giant serpent.
“I’d like to report that to the second squad, ser,” Kusyl says.
“Of course.”
Lorn does not join the rotation for washing until well after mid-day, with the last group from the second squad. The cool water clears his head more, and he feels less itchy and more presentable after shaving.
It is late afternoon before two firewagons appear with the armored cannon. The officer who emerges from the lead firewagon to seek Lorn is one of the captains Lorn had met whenthanking Majer Weylt the morning Second Company had left Eastend.