He glances toward the clouds that do not seem to promise rain. Second Company has but one more day’s patrol before reaching the compound at Jakaafra-and the two full days off they receive after every fourth complete patrol to Eastend and back.
As he turns the gelding northwest on the wall road, Lorn studies the white-granite wall to his left. The chaos-flows are once more irregular-the response to his efforts of two nights before? Or another fallen tree? Or both?
A faint smile crosses his lips.
There will be another tree trunk down. That he knows. And there will be more wild creatures-and another day on station before the Mirror Engineers arrive.
“Was it worth it?” he murmurs.
“Ser, you speaking to me?” asks Kusyl from the other side of the wall road to his right.
“No, Kusyl. I was thinking out loud. How I’ll be glad when we finally get back to Jakaafra.”
“You and me, too, ser. Been a long summer, and it’s hardly been two eightdays since it even started.”
Lorn nods. Will he ever see the ripening-of pears and praise-or of anything for which he has silently worked?
LXXXIII
THE FOUR OFFICERS sit around the small table in the dining area at the Jakaafra compound. Only a single lamp on the wall is lit, illuminating the table but dimly, to Lorn’s advantage. Lorn takes a sip of the Fhynyco, then glances across the table at Gebynet, the Mirror Engineer majer, on his way through on one of the periodic inspections of the chaos tower that lies just beyond the compound. To Lorn’s left is Captain Ilryk, a tall and blond officer, with a high forehead and an angular face and pointed chin. After a moment, Lorn’s eyes travel to Undercaptain Juist, sitting to Ilryk’s left. “How do you like it?”
“Good!” The stocky Juist takes a solid swallow.
An enigmatic smile curls onto Ilryk’s lips, but he does not offer an opinion.
“It’s better than Byrdyn,” admits Gebynet, after a more refined sip, and another sniff of the bouquet. “How did you get it here?”
“I have some contacts with merchanter houses,” Lorn admits. “They have been kind enough to ship some items to a factor in Jakaafra.”
“You don’t look or act like you come from a merchanter clan,” Juist states bluntly.
“I don’t,” Lorn says easily, taking what appears to be a deep swallow, but is not, more like a bare sip. “I just know a few people, and Captain Meisyl suggested that it would bewise to order in a few bottles of a decent wine for times like these.” He laughs. “Few enough that they are with each of us gone off some place or another most days and nights.”
“True,” admits Gebynet.
“As I am when I am here,” says Ilryk, who commands the Fifth Forest Patrol Company based in Westend. As Lorn patrols the northeast ward-wall, so does Ilryk patrol the northwest wall.
“We’re all riding somewhere most of the time,” Juist says after another swallow from his goblet of Fhynyco. “Leastwise, none of you have to chase bandits.”
“I think, Juist,” offers Ilryk sardonically, “Captain Lorn and I would prefer the handful of bandits to facing stun lizards, giant cats, and night leopards. The bandits fear firelances and lancers, and fight seldom.”
“Most days … we ride longer,” counters Juist.
“Through more pleasant surroundings,” suggests Ilryk.
Gebynet laughs. “I’ve heard this before, and you two won’t change. I’d rather enjoy the Fhynyco, if you don’t mind.”
Ilryk smiles, still sardonically, while Juist looks at his empty goblet mournfully.
Lorn half-fills the undercaptain’s goblet, then addresses the Engineer majer. “Do you have to do more inspections when they send Majer Weylt off to work on the Great Canal? Or do they send him sometimes and you other times?”
“We do different things beside maintaining the chaos towers. Last year, after the storms, I spent almost a season in Fyrad, repairing the trading piers there.” Gebynet sips more of the wine. “Rather good vintage, captain.”
Lorn swallows obviously, then lifts the second bottle. “You should have some more. No sense in letting the bottles stand unused.” He refills both goblets and appears to refill his own as well. “Not these days.”
“You been having a lot of fallen trees, I hear,” offers Juist.
“Have the local people been complaining to you about the escaped creatures?” Lorn’s smile is crooked.
“We did get a night leopard last eightday, out east ofhere,” Juist answers. “That made a big melon grower happy.”
“Kylynzar, I’d wager,” Lorn suggests.
Ilryk shakes his head. “It would be that one.”
“How did you know?” asks Juist, glancing from Ilryk to Lorn.
“He’s been writing scrolls to me.” Lorn rolls his eyes, letting his words slur ever so slightly. “He wishes us to make sure that no creatures escape from the Accursed Forest. None at all. So I must risk lancers and myself-or risk myself even more.” Lorn turns to Gebynet.
“You have been here the longest of us. Are more trees falling this year?”
“Quite a few more than normal,” says Gebynet, adding quickly, “but not an unheard-of number.”
“Not unheard of,” Lorn says, looking blankly at the Mirror Engineer, “but how many companies have handled so many fallen trees in three seasons? Not quite three seasons,” he corrects.
“We have seen more this year than last on our wall,” interjects Ilryk, “but there are always more on the northeast. In the past two years, anyway.”
“I would not know ….” the majer answers slowly.
“Perhaps one?” asks Lorn idly, letting his truth-reading senses scan the Engineer.
“Three or four, I would say.”
Lorn nods. Gebynet is lying, and unhappy about it as well. He lifts the bottle again. “Some more. No sense in letting the bottle stand unused.”
Gebynet and Juist exchange glances, but allow Lorn to top off their goblets. Ilryk refuses, his amused smile still in place.
LXXXIV
IN THE MID-AFRERNOON sun, Lorn stands in the stirrups to let damp trousers dry as much as to stretch his legs. As on every afternoon in the recent days nearing harvest, the few scattered clouds provide little relief from the damp heat, andthe late-day rainstorms only add more moisture to the steamy heat. Each patrol day ends with uniforms soaked in sweat, and the soil of the deadland is powder under the hoofs of the patrol mounts, rising and infiltrating boots and uniforms, and leaving every lancer’s skin dry and itchy from salt and sweat and dust.
Lorn glances to his left, along the line-abreast of lancers, riding almost a hundred cubits apart now that first squad has but thirteen lancers out of the twenty when he had arrived three seasons earlier. The second squad has but twelve. No replacements are scheduled until the end of fall or the beginning of winter, and Lorn wonders how small Second Company will have gotten by then.
As he looks back to his left, as he takes in and ignores another zzzzzppp for a dead bloodsucking flowerfly, he can sense the intermittent pulses of chaos in the cupridium cables that link the crystal wards. Another tree is down across the wall, but how far from Second Company he cannot tell.
“Hot … never gets any cooler … be glad when it starts to frost,” grunts Kusyl from the outer edge of the wall road.
“Then we’ll have to slop through mud,” Lorn reminds the squad leader.
“I think I’ll take that.”
“That’s what you say now.” Lorn grins.
As they ride through the afternoon, Lorn keeps looking to the southeast, until his eyes confirm what his chaos senses have told him far earlier. Yet another trunk has fallen across the ward-wall.
“Another tree is down.”
“Five abreast!” Kusyl turns in the saddle and calls to Lorn. “Olisenn’s already seen it. His squad is going to five front now.”