L. Modesitt - Arms-Commander

Saryn couldn’t help but smile. “That’s enough, Dealdron,” she said warmly. “You’ve made your point.”

He grinned back at her, clearly amused. “Only because it is in words. In all else…” He shrugged.

“I doubt that I know a fraction of what you do in practical skills, things like stonework, plastering, carpentry, horses…”

“Skill at arms is most practical in Candar, Commander.”

“I would that it were not. I would that…” She shook her head. “We do what we must.”

“So we do.” His eyes fixed on her for a long moment before he offered an embarrassed smile. “When would you like the gelding to be ready?”

“A glass before first light.”

“He will be ready.”

“Thank you. I need to find Hryessa.”

“She’s giving the newer ones more training by the smaller barn.”

Saryn nodded and turned, walking slowly toward the other barn. The momentary intensity of his glance had unnerved her, more than unnerved her. Why? Because you might actually feel something for him?

Tomorrow would come all too soon, she reminded herself. All too soon. After that, she could consider what she might feel.

Not surprisingly, Saryn did not sleep well on threeday night and ended up waking even earlier than she needed to. After dressing without lighting the single lamp, although she suspected that Zeldyan was already awake, she slipped out and made her way through the darkness toward the stable, thinking about what lay ahead.

She wasn’t skilled enough with the order-chaos flows to deal with the iron straps and hinges that held the gates in place, but she didn’t have to be. All she had to do was link enough nodes in the stone that held the hinges to destroy the support.

All? She smiled wryly. She also had to blow the gates in a way that left her functional afterwards, because taking down the gates was only a prelude to the battle, not the entire battle, as had been the case when she had dealt with the Gallosian army marching on Westwind.

Both Hryessa and Dealdron were waiting for her in the light of the lamp just outside the stable door. Dealdron held the reins to the gelding, already saddled.

“Fourth squad is almost ready,” said the captain.

Saryn nodded. They’d decided the night before to save first squad-and the squad’s ten archers-for what followed Saryn’s efforts with the gates. “And the rest of the company?”

“They’ll be ready in less than half a glass. We will leave shortly after you and fourth squad. We will circle to the north so that no one can hear us before we ride toward the gates, and we will stand ready at half a kay.”

“Stay well back of the others until the gates are down.”

“We can do that, but we will move up to cover you.” Hryessa smiled. “The others need to do some of the work.”

They do…for more than one reason. “We’ll let them.” But I don’t want very many Suthyan survivors if we can eliminate them without losing too many guards. “Try to pick off the ones who break and flee. We don’t want to have to fight them later. They’re the kind who cause trouble time after time.”

“Yes, ser.”

“I need to be going.”

Dealdron handed her the reins, and said quietly, “If you would, Commander…take care of yourself.”

Not quite impulsively, she put her hand over his for an instant before taking the reins, squeezing it gently, if but for a moment. “Thank you.” She could sense his confusion and consternation…and found it touching. “I’ll do my best.”

Then she swung up into the saddle and checked the knee sheaths. Both held blades, giving her four with the two in her battle harness. She hoped that four would be enough. She nodded to Dealdron and Hryessa, then turned the gelding toward fourth squad, formed up some twenty yards away on the flat ground beyond the stable.

She reined up just short of Klarisa. “Squad leader.”

“Commander.”

“Once we’re within a few hundred yards of the walls, I’ll need one guard to ride closer with me and take care of my mount. You and the squad will hold for my return.”

“Yes, ser. Ishelya will be riding with you. She’s one of the best horse-women we have.” Klarisa turned. “Guard Ishelya, forward.”

Even in the darkness, as Ishelya rode forward, Saryn could see and sense that the guard was small and muscular.

“Sers.” Ishelya inclined her head.

“Head out, squad leader,” Saryn said. “We want to be five hundred yards northeast of the eastern gates.”

“Yes, ser.” Klarisa added in louder voice, “Squad, forward. Silent riding.”

Close to a quarter glass had passed, Saryn judged, before the squad came to a halt. Only a few lamps glimmering to the southwest marked the darker silhouette of the keep walls and the buildings within the granite barrier.

“Hold here until the gates fall.”

“Yes, ser.”

Saryn turned to her escort. “Let’s go.”

While Saryn wanted to hurry, a fast walk was far quieter, and it took a while before she sensed she was perhaps seventy yards from the dark walls. She reined up and dismounted, then handed the gelding’s reins up to the guard. “Ishelya,” she said, her voice low, “I want you to ride back out another fifty yards and wait. There will be an explosion if I’m successful. When that happens, ride back here with my mount as quickly as you can.”

“Yes, ser.”

Saryn turned and began to walk quietly toward the walls, using her sight and senses to try to avoid anything that might cause her to trip or stumble. The sound might well alert a sentry. Then, too, a sentry might still see her, but that was less likely in the darkness since she had ridden to a point not opposite the gates, but opposite the walls some fifty yards northwest of the gates. That was so she could walk straight to the wall in an area where there were no lamps close by and hug the wall as she moved closer to the eastern gates.

Dodging around bushes and clumps of grass and piles of other odoriferous substances made those fifty yards seem much farther…and her progress much slower, but she finally stood beneath the walls, trying to ignore some of the odors. From what she could sense, there were no sentries posted on the wall above her. The nearest was some twenty yards from the northern edge of the gates.

She glanced eastward. Was there the faintest hint of light along the horizon?

Step by step she edged along the rough outer surfaces of the stone until she was within ten yards of the sentry, where she stopped and extended her senses. She was closer than when she had severed the mountain ledge from the mesa…but then she’d been in no shape to do much of anything else afterwards. By getting nearer this time, she hoped that it wouldn’t be quite so much of a strain on her.

A cough echoed from the sentry, and she froze for a moment, then continued to use her senses to feel for the junctures and nodes in the stone where order or chaos were more concentrated, trying to avoid the iron hinges and fastenings that felt silvery grayish black to her senses. Unlike the rock of the mountain ledge she had exploded, the quarried granite held flecks of order and chaos all along the edges where the stone had been cut, but those flecks were so tiny she could barely sense them. The nodes she did find were more uniform in size and strength, but there did not seem to be quite so many in a given area. That meant she’d have to link more junctures together and tie them to the area around the gate hinges.

Although she knew that she was running out of time, she forced herself to be careful and methodical-linking, joining, smoothing the flows, almost like creating an electrical circuit, except that all the lines were live…or would be when enough were connected.