Less than two hundred cubits beyond the house with the chickens, a thin white-haired man turns toward the sound of hoofs, gawks for a moment, and then runs, spindly-legged, toward a white-plastered dwelling on the north side of the road that leads toward the central square. “White demons! White demons! Run! Hide! White demons!”
“Demons…!”
Shutters and doors close along the wide road, and shouts echo between and beyond the houses, rising well over the sound of hoofs.
Somewhere a bell begins to ring, clanging loudly and discordantly. From where, Lorn cannot say, for he remembers no belltowers or, indeed, any form of tower from viewing the town either from the hillside or earlier in his chaos-glass.
Lorn studies the makeshift lanes between the houses that they pass. Abruptly, he catches sight of barbarian warriors-nearly a score-trotting northward away from the center of the town and away from the Third and Fifth Companies.
“Follow me!” Lorn wheels the gelding down the lane parallel to the road and urges his mount forward into a pace faster than that of the barbarians.
“Follow the majer!” Rhalyt orders.
If Lorn can get enough ahead, then he can slow the barbarians with his firelance, enough for First Company to catch up and attack. He also would far rather deal with armed warriors than unarmed men who might be such.
Lorn can see the Jeranyi riders only intermittently, over gardens and between scattered trees, houses, and outbuildings. The riders appear to be looking backward, but not to the lane a hundred or so cubits east, where Lorn and First Company are paralleling their progress and slowly moving up.
After almost a kay, he turns the gelding westward down another track that slants to the northwest, angling toward the road carrying the barbarians. He is perhaps fifty cubits from the road on which they ride when the first riders appear.
Lorn levels the firelance and triggers it at the barbarian on the side of the column closest to him, a fresh-faced rider barely a man. Hssst!
The young rider’s upper shoulder flares into blackness, and he falls away from Lorn, his mount shying into the rider to the west of him. At the attack from the side, the bearded barbarian beside the man who fell, yanks the huge broadsword from his shoulder harness and turns his mount toward Lorn. So do two other riders.
“Leave them!” bellows a voice.
The Jeranyi riders turn toward Lorn, ignoring the orders. Behind him, Lorn can hear First Company nearing. Lorn triggers the firelance and lets fly with two more short bursts. Hsst! Hsst! One strikes the rider beside the warrior with the enormous broadsword who bears down on Lorn.
Hhssst! A longer burst fells the big rider, and the broadsword tumbles into the clay, but the riders following are so close that he is suddenly using the lance more as a shield, and the sabre to slide away the heavier and longer iron blades, absently wishing he had both sabres out.
Still, he cuts through the Jeranyi force, then sees two men starting to ride northward, away from the battle.
Hssst! The lance blast drops one, but the second man guides his mount to the side of the road, where he is shielded by a spreading, broad-branched tree. Lorn turns the gelding, and drops another rider from behind.
Then he is blade-to-blade with a wiry and bearded man. As a dagger knifes toward him, Lorn desperately throws pure mage-fire at the man, who collapses as his dagger slashes the leather of Lorn’s jacket.
The sub-majer wants to wipe his forehead, but concentrates on the swirling mass of mounts and men, except that the swirls subside, and all the riders who remain are Mirror Lancers. Two or three other Jeranyi riders have slipped away from the melee, but most of the Jeranyi are dead.
Lorn blots his forehead, then looks down at the slash in his jacket, and the red on his tunic. The slash across his ribs has barely broken the skin, but has resulted in enough blood to give the impression of a more severe wound.
“Are you all right, ser?” asks Rhalyt.
“I’m fine. Careless and stupid, but fine.” Lorn pauses. “How many did we lose?”
“Two, ser, looks to be,” the undercaptain says. “Two others wounded.”
“Strap the dead to their mounts for now. We’ll have to bury them tonight. We can’t carry them all the way back to Inividra. Gather the blades, and any other weapons. We don’t want to leave any around.”
Lorn finds a clean rag, gathers a touch of the black order, ignoring the headache it creates, and lets it suffuse his scratchlike wound, then slips the cloth under his tunic to absorb any last drops of blood.
The Jeranyi living farther from the borders do not appear nearly so good with weapons as those who raid Cyador regularly, or they do not do as well when surprised, and if either is so, he indeed has a chance to complete his campaign.
Once First Company has gathered the fallen blades and lancers, Lorn rides back toward the center of the town at a fast walk, Rhalyt and his company following, with perhaps fifteen blades strapped to a captured barbarian mount. Lorn glances from dwelling to dwelling, but most are barred and shuttered, as if to resist a siege or the like. Most are single-storied with plastered walls, plaster over withies in many cases, although one or two of the larger structures are of whitewashed bricks.
Emsahl and Quytyl hold the square, with three of the four squads stationed at intervals, firelances out and leveled. Several lancers are carrying out food from the chandlery, and loading it on packs fastened to a halfscore of horses commandeered, Lorn suspects, from the stable adjoining the inn.
“Ser?” Emsahl looks at the sub-majer as he reins up.
“There were some raiders-a squad’s worth or so-trying to escape. We got most of them.”
“Riding away?” asks Emsahl.
Lorn nods.
“Almost a shame you have to run them down,” ventures Quytyl from thirty cubits away.
Lorn laughs bitterly. “Amazing how brave they are when they’re killing people in our lands and when they have more blades and mounts, and how they aren’t interested in fighting when they’re outnumbered.”
“Most people are like that,” Emsahl suggests.
“Is everything going all right here?” asks Lorn.
“Locals cleared out almost before we got here. Might have been that bell.”
“Load up as quickly as you can. I’m going to check the wharf area.”
“Yes, ser.”
The river is less than half a kay from the square, and, once more, Lorn passes shuttered houses, wondering how many men who might bear arms are hidden within. Yet there are too many houses for his men to break into each, not without risking losses he can well do without.
Lorn reins up by the river wharf, where five bodies of men in gray-and-brown tunics lie across the wharf, as if they had died trying to stop the lancers from reaching the single flatboat tied there. As Lorn surveys the wharf, Cheryk rides forward.
“What’s in the flatboat?” Lorn asks.
“Bundles of wool, some tanned hides, two boxes of scented candles, a dozen amphorae with some sort of oil, and a strongbox with a hundred or so golds in it.”
“We’ll need to keep the golds.” Lorn laughs. “We might need them to pay the men.”
“Best we hope not.” Cheryk grimaces.
“Ser!” calls another voice.
Lorn turns in the saddle.
“I think you’ll be interested in this, ser.” Gyraet rides toward Lorn, gesturing toward the leather-wrapped package strapped behind his saddle. “We found fivescore blades in the second warehouse. Fourscore, maybe five-, were from Hamor. A score or so were cupridium sabres. No lancer markings, either, so that I’d say they were forged for trade.”
“Where’s the trader?”
“Ah…he tried to escape. With those. I had to use a firelance.”