“Good eve, angels,” added Lewa as he stood and followed Fornal.
Huruc sat and looked down at the mug. After a moment, he turned his head toward Ayrlyn. “What you say makes sense, but I fear it.” He paused. “Tell me, angel healer, why I fear your counsel.”
Nylan and Ayrlyn exchanged quick looks.
“It appears I am right to fear,” added the armsman with a laugh.
Ayrlyn nodded. “What we do has been effective, has it not? And it will become more effective. That will sting the lord of Cyador, and he will send more armsmen. It’s always that way.” She took a deep breath. “Then we will have to find out how to kill those men, and, if we succeed, he will send more. In the end, either Lornth or Cyador will fall.”
“That was fated from the beginning,” Nylan said softly. “The mines were only a game for the lord of Cyador to see how he could conquer Lornth. Cyador is not ruled by grassland bandits like Lord Ildyrom. And Cyador does not believe in honor as Lord Fornal does.”
“I have known that,” Huruc answered, “and it gives me no comfort.” He rose. “I thank you for your straight words, though many would not, if they knew them. Best they do not. Good night.”
After the older armsman left, Nylan stood, as did Ayrlyn. “Now what?” he asked.
“We figure out how to change the world-or we die.” Her words were cold, and so were her hands, despite the evening heat.
LXXI
“They skulk around and watch,” snapped Miatorphi. “If we ride out with less than twoscore lancers, they wait, and then they attack, and run. We’ve lost half our scouts, ten at a crack, twice, and more than a few in some skirmishes, and that one time where we lost nearly a half company.” He scowled. “Three men left.”
“They only attack when they have an advantage in numbers,” added Azarphi, his narrow face shimmering in sweat. “If we ride out with more, nothing happens.”
“One on one, they’re no match for a Mirror Lancer,” said Miatorphi.
Majer Piataphi frowned. “Some must be. One of their war leaders sliced right through a blade and a shield. Funssa brought back the shield. Another shattered a lance and a sabre with a short blade.”
“So…we move in larger groups.”
“That’s not the point,” countered Piataphi. “That means they’re using blades with sharp edges, and not just those metal bars they call swords.”
The two captains waited.
After a moment, the majer continued. “The sooner we get rid of them the better. Have you located their camp?”
“It’s here, we think.” Azarphi pointed to the map. “One of the smaller hamlets where we removed all the contraries in the first sweep.”
“Take the entire Fourth and Sixth Lancers.” Majer Piataphi frowned. “And the Eighth. Attack their base. Their ‘honor’ will make them defend it if we attack-and that will be the end of them.”
“What if they show some common sense and retreat?” asked Miatorphi.
“We lose nothing. Destroy the camp. Raze it to the ground. Then they will have a less suitable base. We will keep doing that until they have no place suitable.” The majer smiled grimly. “And we only move in forces of two companies or more. That should put an end to these efforts to whittle away our men.”
LXXII
Nylan lowered the hammer and turned the cooling blade, but it looked and felt right. From the partial shade under the eaves, his eyes strayed toward the trampled grasslands beyond the corral, where Ayrlyn again worked the levies in the already hot mid-morning sun.
He smiled. No longer, not after the skirmishes, was there such reluctance to the drills. Some of that was doubtless because several of those who had been clumsy or reluctant were dead or wounded. Still, neither the other levies nor the professionals drilled, and, after a while, it might be a problem to keep upgrading the skills of the angel-led squads.
“You can stop pumping,” the smith added to Sias. “Take a quick break.”
Fornal strolled toward the makeshift smithy as the apprentice trotted toward the well and as Nylan slipped the blade into the cooling tank, not much more than brackish water, and not nearly so effective as what he had used on the Roof of the World.
“I see why you didn’t allow your trainees to practice with blades,” said Fornal. “Don’t the narrow blades break more often, though?”
Nylan set the blade on the forge stones to anneal before turning to face the black-bearded regent. “They might. We work on how to avoid taking a big blade straight-on. That’s hard on both the armsman and a blade. Besides, the point is to take out your enemy, not bang up his blade.”
Fornal nodded. “You have a different view of arms.”
“I suppose so. We don’t like to fight.” The smith shrugged. “If we have to, we want to get it over as quickly as possible, with as little injury to us or to our armsmen as possible.”
“Are all angels that way?”
“Most of them. Ryba likes to humiliate her personal opponents as quickly as possible, I think. She’s good enough that it’s never been a problem.” Looking over Fornal’s shoulder, Nylan could see a line of dust on the south road. “Do you have scouts out? Someone’s riding hard.”
The dark-haired regent glanced south for a minute, then back at Nylan. “Ours. Perhaps the Cyadorans are on the move.”
“I’d be surprised if they weren’t. Empires don’t like being stung by wasps, especially barbarian wasps.” Nylan grinned.
“You are pleased to think of yourself as an insect?”
“Fornal…as you pointed out, I’m more interested in what works than in how I look.” Except that you like to be well thought of as much as the next person. Nylan repressed a frown at the inadvertent self-correction. Whatever it was about Candar, he was having more and more trouble deceiving himself-about much of anything. “Not that I mind looking good,” he added to quiet the twinges in his skull.
“It is good to know that a terrible angel has some vanity.” Fornal did not quite grin as he waited.
“More than some,” Nylan admitted.
Fornal did offer a faint smile.
The rider guided his dust-streaked mount straight to Fornal, reining up, then swallowing as he looked at the regent. “Must be more than score twenty riding this way-still more than ten kays south, though,” panted the scout.
“Score twenty? All mounted?”
“Yes, ser.”
“Go,” snapped Fornal. “Send Huruc, Lewa, and the other angel here.”
The scout flicked the reins and turned his mount toward the barn.
“Should we fight?” asked the regent after the sweating scout trotted toward the barn barracks.
“Against that many? Why? We can keep picking them off, bit by bit. This attack just points out that what we’re doing is right.” Nylan paused as Ayrlyn rode up and dismounted.
She tied the chestnut to a corner post and stepped toward the two men, her face impassive. “Bad news? A big Cyadoran force?”
“Gifrac says there are score twenty,” answered Fornal.
“We must have upset them,” observed Ayrlyn.
“I don’t think it takes much,” said Nylan.
The three waited as Huruc and Lewa strode across the dusty ground toward them. The sole chicken pecked at the ground along the east side of the old barn, ignoring the hurrying humans and the armsmen who gathered and watched the five.
“Gifrac said the white demons were bringing score twenty against us.” Huruc’s voice was neutral.
Lewa just bobbed his head and waited.
“I do not like to retreat,” Fornal said. “You know that. But a dead commander does not fight again, nor does one without many armsmen.” He offered a grim smile. “We move to Syskar, and then…then we kill more white demons.”
“I’d better get the men loaded out,” said Huruc.
Lewa nodded once more and turned to follow the senior armsman.