Without slowing, Lorn looks at her and levels the firelance.
She does not move from the window, nor does she wince. “Go ahead. Turn me to ashes, brave demon.”
“We don’t kill children. Unlike your brave warriors, who gut women and small children.”
“You took our lands.”
Lorn does not answer. He has no answer, for there is none. His hands bear unseen blood, from the old woman just killed by his lancers to the olive-grower’s daughter in Biehl, yet he doubts that any course he would take that might be effective would not shed some innocents’ blood. The only real question is how he can shed the least. He also doubts that the ancients had many choices, except dying or turning into barbarians, and the barbarians will always think the lands of Cyador are theirs.
“Demons…” hisses the woman from the window he has passed.
Lorn does not look back at the smoke curling into the sky, but keeps his eyes fixed ahead, looking for men with blades, and for Esfayl’s Second Company on the road before them.
LXII
By late afternoon the clouds have thinned into a high haze, and the day has warmed considerably, enough that Lorn has taken off the winter jacket. The stream to the left of the road is running deeper and faster, perhaps because the last of the snow is melting.
Yet neither Lorn nor the scouts can see any signs of recent travel on the road itself, no new tracks that would signify someone fleeing them-only cart tracks several days old and a few hoofprints. Have those who escaped the carnage at the first town fled eastward? Does no one expect him to be heading northwest? Has he done something so unexpected that none know how to react?
The road is a good ten cubits above the water almost on a bluff overlooking a bend where the current has dug a deep pool. Lorn glances at the stream, now almost a river, and the deep pool in the bend.
Then he glances at Emsahl, riding to his right. “You think that’s deep enough down there to cover fivescore blades?”
Emsahl smiles. “Deep enough, ser. Good idea, too. Don’t want to carry ’em, and they’ll likely rust before they’re found. If they’re found.”
“If you’d send a messenger back to Cheryk?”
Emsahl turns in the saddle. “Dwyt…the majer’d like to see Captain Cheryk up here for a few moments.”
“Yes, ser.”
Lorn looks down at the river bend ahead. While he’d wanted to carry the blades, it is a waste of horses and can only slow them down. He wonders what some future peasant will think when the river changes course and his plow runs into iron…or will the plow just turn up red dust as it cuts through the clay deposited over the years?
He shakes his head, riding northwest and waiting for Cheryk to join them.
LXIII
From the low hillside to the east of the second river town, Lorn studies the approach, from the saddle of the white gelding, his eyes flicking from the map to the town and back. He is flanked by Emsahl, Cheryk, and Esfayl, whose eyes follow Lorn’s in the early-morning light. Mounted behind them are the other company officers.
Unlike the first town, the second town is more regular. Some of the dwellings are white-plastered, and some have tile roofs. Lorn can see a small square and what appears to be an inn, and beyond the town, fields with evenly lines of recently-turned dark soil.
“What do you think?” Lorn finally asks Emsahl.
“Sweep through…slay those we can get. Fire the warehouses and the barns. Don’t go house to house.”
“And get the supplies and mounts we can,” Cheryk suggests.
“And the blades.” Lorn rolls the map and nods slowly. “Third and Fifth Companies come down the main road.” He glances to his left. “Esfayl, can you circle ahead and block the road to the west?”
“Yes, ser.”
“Go ahead and get your company moving. We’ll give you some time to circle out to the west.”
Esfayl nods as he guides his mount away from the others.
“Cheryk and Gyraet-you’ll take the river wharfs and warehouses. You head around the front of the hill, and then take the old road by the river.” Lorn looks over his shoulder. “Rhalyt…your company will follow me, and we’ll go where we’re needed. We’ll start with Third Company.”
“Yes, ser.”
Lorn and the officers turn and ride back down the narrow trail past the herder’s cottage where five lancers watch over the herder and his family to ensure that none escape to warn the town. The bearded man looks impassively at Lorn and the officers, then drops his eyes abruptly. The boy, whose head does not quite reach his father’s shoulders, stares at Lorn. The graying woman watches her son. All three project an air of disbelief, as if Mirror Lancers could not possibly be attacking so far inside Jerans.
Lorn looks toward the road below, almost wishing he had not undertaken the whole campaign, yet he knows of no other way open to him to stop the increasing attacks of the Jeranyi. His lips twist. Then, he knows of no one else in Cyador who wishes the attacks to stop, or who wishes such enough to do something. If there were no attacks, many in the Mirror Lancers would feel that they had no purpose. And the traders who supply the blades do not wish the attacks to cease, for they would lose golds. It seems that the only ones who wish the attacks to stop are the lancers who die and the poor folk of northern Cyador who are the victims.
Esfayl already has Second Company moving along the trail that circles the northern backside of the ridgelike hill by the time Lorn reins up at the head of the column of waiting Mirror Lancers.
Rhalyt reins in behind Lorn, then turns in his saddle and addresses the two waiting squad leaders. “We’re to follow the majer. Our task is to deal with any problems. Keep your lances ready and use short bursts.”
Once Rhalyt finishes, Lorn nods and says, “We need to wait for a bit to let the others pass the orders and get ready. Cheryk and Gyraet will be turning south once their companies clear the hill.” He cocks his head, listening for the orders from the other officers.
“…taking the river wharfs and warehouses…turn left at the first crossroads…”
“…short bursts! Really short bursts.”
The sub-majer and Rhalyt wait for Emsahl and Quytyl to join their forces.
“Ser…do you think they’ll have a force waiting somewhere?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t see anyone, and the town is open enough, without much in the way of trees. So it will be hard to hide a large group of armsmen.”
“Ser!” Emsahl calls forward. “Third and Fifth Companies are ready!”
“Fourth and Sixth stand ready!”
“Column forward!” Lorn raises his arm, then lowers it, and urges the white gelding forward.
Again, the road eastward between the narrow river and the hill is empty, and the dampish clay shows but a few wagon tracks and scattered and older hoofprints. A low fence of rails set between piles of stone flanks the road on the right and uphill side, then ends a hundred cubits short of the first crossroads, distinguished mainly by the lack of bushes or trees, merely a flat area, with a lane winding around the west side of the hill on the right side of the road, and a rutted way on the left.
As he and First Company near the crossroads, Lorn looks over his shoulder and can see Cheryk and Gyraet lead their companies southward, splitting the Cyadoran forces. He turns to Rhalyt, “Have them go to four-abreast. The road is wide enough now.”
“Four-abreast. Four-abreast!”
Just past the crossroads, a kaystone on the right shoulder notes: Disfek, 2k. A single thatched dwelling is nestled in a hollow to the right of the road a half-kay or so beyond the road marker. Behind it is a long and low building around which are gathered a handful of chickens that begin to scatter as the column of riders approaches. Someone slams the gap-planked front door of the thatched house, and then the shutters are closed from inside, long before Lorn and Rhalyt reach the eastern end of the stone and rail fence that separates the unkempt brown grass from the damp clay of the road.