Blade? Nylan wanted to kick himself as he crossed the ridge and started downhill, toward the white forces that had still not even looked up-or so it seemed. The engineer eased the dark blade from his shoulder harness. Did he wave it? The business of leading armed charges was something new to him.
His lips curled for a moment, and he made a brusque flick of the shortsword-no waves or flourishes. “Blades out!” he ordered, just in case someone else had made his mistake, but he did not look back, concentrating on the grass ahead, trying to see if there were potholes or the like in the grass.
If there were, the mare avoided them. Nylan’s squad trailed the others by nearly fifty cubits when they hit the flat before the road, but it wouldn’t matter.
Three doublets sounded from some sort of horn, and the lancers swung toward the charging Lornians, not turning to retreat, but dressing ranks, almost automatically, as the Lornians bore down on them. Glittering reflections splayed from the small polished shields, making it difficult for Nylan to concentrate on an individual lancer.
A faint white mist surrounded the detachment, similar to, but subtly different from, the whiteness that had enfolded the white wizards who had attacked Westwind. The whiteness around the lancers was more…ordered, for all the lances of light that played from the small and heavy mirror shields.
Nylan focused on a Cyadoran who seemed to lead one section, but a tall man in glittering white beside the officer or subofficer had pivoted in his saddle and a long length of metal flicked-impossibly swiftly-toward the angel-too swiftly for Nylan to turn the mare.
“That’s why they’re called lancers, idiot,” he murmured to himself as he twisted in the saddle, and beat aside the glittering lance with the dark blade that seemed so short.
The lance shattered, as though it had been made of glass, but another lancer spurred toward Nylan, a sabre glittering in the midday sun, held low and angled to bisect the engineer, more light glaring into Nylan’s eyes.
Nylan flung his blade-almost blindly against the mirror shield’s light and nearly point blank-and threw himself sideways in the saddle, feeling the sabre catch the edge of his shirt, before the lancer slumped in the saddle, grasping at the short sword buried to its hilt in his chest.
Nylan brought up the second blade, struggling to get it out of the waist scabbard, and absently noting that he should have used the blade at his waist first, because the shoulder harness was easier to get to. He forced his thoughts away from the white pain of death that flowed around him, knowing that he had to get back to Weryl.
His eyes flickered to the scattered individual skirmishes on his right. Only Ayrlyn had cut through the column, as he had, and she was surrounded by three of the white-clad Cyadorans. He turned and spurred the mare toward the three lancers around Ayrlyn.
The healer’s blade wove a web of gray, and as Nylan drew nearer, one of the white-bronze sabres snapped, the blade streaking toward the trampled reddish soil like a crippled lander. The disarmed lancer backed off, then spurred his mount downhill at the sight of Nylan.
Neither of Ayrlyn’s two remaining attackers budged, despite the hoofbeats of Nylan’s mare, hoofbeats that sounded thunderous to the angel. The attackers were spreading, to catch the healer from each side.
Nylan winced even as his blade flashed, cleaving through the unprotected neck of the lancer to the right. The engineer staggered in his saddle, half-blind again, from the white knives that slammed through his eyes and skull with each killing, but instinctively, he raised his blade, though he felt blind.
At that, the remaining lancer ducked, and pulled his mount away.
While Ayrlyn could have slaughtered the Cyadoran, she held her blade, then slowly sheathed it as the handful of lancers retreated through the grasslands, circling back to catch the road.
For a moment, the silver-haired angel and the flame-haired angel just looked at each other-almost blankly-before Nylan squinted through the burning in his skull to survey the field.
To his left, Tonsar chevied a group back toward Nylan.
“You let him go,” wondered the subofficer. His mount’s muzzle was smeared with foam.
“I had to,” said the healer tiredly.
Tonsar glanced from one angel to the other, then shrugged. “Holding off three apiece and killing two each. That is not bad.”
“Not bad…who’s he jesting?” came across the space from where a handful of Nylan’s and Ayrlyn’s levies had drawn up.
Nylan wanted to grin, despite his throbbing headache, but managed to keep a straight face.
The dust on the hillside road faded, as the handful of Cyadoran lancers rode back south toward the mines.
Nylan’s urge to grin faded abruptly as the pounding in his skull continued and as he surveyed the trampled and dust-swept road and the fields that flanked it, looking at the white lumps and the handful of dark-clad figures strewn across the grasslands, and shields that still caught and threw the light.
Was it over? Nylan took one deep breath and then another, trying to slow the pounding in his chest. His palms were sweating, and, in addition to his throbbing headache and the sharp knives in his eyes, the corners of his eyes also stung from the salty sweat that had run into them.
He took another breath, swallowed, and looked around.
Fornal’s men were already stripping the dead, and only a faint cloud of dust showed on the south road.
A short skirmish, and…what? Thirty-five Cyadorans dead, and more than a dozen Lornians, and who knew how many cut and wounded?
Ayrlyn had already dismounted beside a moaning figure, and the engineer rubbed his forehead as he urged his mare toward her. Sooner or later he had to reclaim his first blade-if someone hadn’t already-from the dead lancer.
These killings were just the beginning. That was all too clear.
LXVI
Fornal took a small sip, as if he were trying to make the vinegary wine last, then set the earthenware mug on the rickety table that had once been the dining table for the Kulan holding.
Nylan took a sip of his ordered water, watching the shifting shadow profile of Ayrlyn cast by the candle. The healer sipped wine, even more infrequently than Fornal, the circles under her eyes even deeper than those under Nylan’s eyes.
Lewa coughed, once.
Nylan tried not to breathe too deeply of sweat and grime and dust.
All four looked through the dim light at Huruc, who used a whittled stick as a pointer on the crude map spread beside the candle lamp.
“The scouts say that they’ll head for a little place called Yasira,” the subofficer said. “They were setting up for nearly fifteen score, just like they did for the second attack on Hesra.”
Lewa looked down at the battered plank floor.
Nylan didn’t like the reminder. Every time the Cyadorans ran into trouble, they just increased their forces. Before long, they’d only be using five or sixscore lancers-or more.
“Too many for us now?” suggested Ayrlyn.
“We have score six, with another score or so coming from the Carpa area in an eight-day or so.” Fornal shrugged and fingered the mug. “We cannot attack or defend against score fifteen.”
“So why don’t we take a troop and warn the locals?” asked Nylan.
Fornal frowned.
“Our men could use the exercise, and it will make life harder for the white demons. They wouldn’t get any supplies-or fewer-that way.”
“We don’t know it’s Yasira,” said Huruc slowly. “And the people might not listen anyway.”
Nylan thought. They might not. The peasants weren’t fond of anyone’s armsmen, but he could try, and it should make the locals more likely to hide food or move it, and that would cut into the Cyadorans’ foraging efforts.
The candle flickered behind the sooty mantle with a sharper gust of hot wind that slipped through the half-open rear door to the main room of the dwelling.