L. Modesitt - Arms-Commander

“Archers! Hold your fire!” Saryn ordered, letting the order flow amplify her command. “Company! Forward!”

For the next few moments, everything seemed a blur to Saryn as she tried to keep her eyes and senses on the mounted raiders, and those on the ground, who could unhorse a guard by striking at the legs of the mounts.

She parried and cut, slashed and parried, working her way toward the barn.

Hssst!

Fire flared by her, so close that she felt her short hair had nearly crisped from the chaos-flame-and that only her residual hold on the order and chaos flows and her continuing movement had saved her from being charred. Glancing around, she realized that the chaos-mage had escaped the fray in the barnyard and was standing on the edge of a loading dock on the east end of the barn, gathering and concentrating more chaos.

At the same moment, another marauder charged at her.

Saryn angled the gelding toward the other rider, parried his wild swing, then slipped the blade and back-cut. She could sense the pain of her cut, perhaps because she was so close, and it disoriented her for a moment, but she turned the gelding just in time to see and sense a chaos-fire-bolt flaring toward her.

Somehow, she managed to smooth and shift the chaos flows so that the small fire-bolt sputtered into a section of bare ground. Immediately, the chaos-mage concentrated, and a second fire-bolt arched toward Saryn and those members of fourth squad behind her. With the speed of the fire-bolt, Saryn was pressed even to divert it slightly, and it slammed into the ground before her, close enough that she could feel the heat for a moment.

How could she strike back? She had no idea of how to throw order or chaos. But…iron…cold iron, didn’t that work against the white mages? Yet…she was a good forty yards from the mage, and she was tired.

She tried to hold to her sense of the order and chaos flows around her, then urged the gelding directly toward the white mage. For a moment, the man just looked at her. Then an even smaller firebolt wobbled toward Saryn, but she managed to “angle” the flows so that the chaos slid to the ground on her left side. The mage jumped from the loading dock and started to run.

Whether he was running or not, Saryn didn’t care. As soon as she was within ten yards, she released her second blade. Tired as she was, the blade only took him in the shoulder, but fire flared from around where it had penetrated. In moments, all that remained was a charred corpse.

Saryn scrambled to unsheathe her last blade, but when she turned the gelding, she discovered that there was no immediate need.

Several raiders had scattered, and one was riding up the slope to the northeast, spurring his mount for all he was worth. The rest were either dead or wounded, from what Saryn could see. Klarisa was crossing the barnyard, and Saryn didn’t even recall seeing the squad leader bring the other half of the squad into the melee.

The squad leader reined up. “We’ve got a good half score wounded here, ser. The raiders, that is. We’ve some slashes and cuts, but nothing too serious-except for Larya. She took a pike. Must have ripped open something. She bled to death before the fighting was over.”

Saryn winced. Even dealing with marauders who didn’t know that much about blades, there were casualties. She hadn’t considered that a ragged marauder would know how to use a pike against a rider, and she’d have to watch for that in the future-and go over it with the guards and squad leaders. “Bind up the captives’ wounds quickly, those you can. We’ll leave what’s done after that up to Lord Spalkyn. We can’t care for them beyond now, and they’re on his lands. I’ll tell him.”

Klarisa glanced past Saryn toward the barn, where a man of moderate size wearing a breastplate over a dark tunic stepped away from the armsmen there, who had followed him out into the yard filled with bodies.

Saryn counted eleven men. Eleven left out of a score.

The heavyset lord walked tiredly toward Saryn, the broadsword not completely into the shoulder scabbard. As he neared her, he pulled off the antique helm, revealing a short and full brown beard. “Our thanks, Captain…” He broke off as he took in Saryn’s face and the twin-bladed shoulder harness. “Who…you…with the banner, I expected…”

“The Lady Zeldyan sent us with her banner, Lord Spalkyn. There wasn’t time to explain. I’m Saryn, the Arms-Commander of Westwind.

“We’ve been accompanying the Lady Regent on visits to holdings…We did leave most of a Lornian squad at your holding with the regent and your consort, just in case the attack here was a feint.” Saryn paused for just a moment. “Is it better to hold here or return?”

“I’d say return…but it’s getting dark…”

“We can scout in the darkness, if that worries you…”

“You really are the Arms-Commander of Westwind? Why are you here?”

“We were sent to help the Regency. I’m one of the few angels who can survive the summers here,” Saryn said. “The guards I brought are mainly women from Gallos, although a few are from Lornth. We trained and equipped them.”

“They’re all women? Just from Candar? With all the raiders they killed? You must have taken down forty. There were more than threescore…”

“We did have five Lornian armsmen.” Saryn didn’t point out that she’d worried more about those five because her guards had far more experience than the Lornians.

“I won’t say that I understand,” Spalkyn replied. “I don’t. I am truly grateful that you arrived when you did.” He paused. “I would like to return tonight if that is possible.”

“We need to take care of our wounded-and yours-and collect horses, weapons, and recover what shafts we can. We will also need some rest for the horses before we set out, and we will have to travel at a moderate walk. And we’ll need to be your guests for an extra day or so.”

“For what you’ve done, I think I can manage that.” Spalkyn’s eyes drifted back across the slope, where the guards were already stripping the dead.

“There are ten or so captives. We’ll have to leave them for your people.”

“We’re not equipped to handle prisoners.”

“Those that can walk will come with us. Those that can’t…the crofters can handle.”

Saryn could sense that leaving the badly wounded marauders didn’t set well with the lord, but she could also sense his deeper anger at the attack.

“I’ll see how the crofters are doing. I think most of them made it into the fields and into cover. I hope so…” He turned and began to walk back toward the barn.

Saryn watched him for just a moment, then looked across the barnyard in the twilight.

Sixty-odd marauders coming after a small hamlet? It doesn’t make sense. Not unless someone paid them…

Unfortunately, she had a good idea that was the case…and from where the coins had come…as well as the feeling that they well might run into more raiders before they ever reached The Groves and young Lord Nesslek.

Late as they had finally ridden into Palteara hold on oneday night, Saryn did not sleep all that well, and she woke with the first strong light of the morning, with scores of thoughts and concerns circling through her mind. She couldn’t help but think over what had happened when Klarisa had reported the evening before that most of the raiders had wallets and coins in them…coins that Saryn had ordered to be pooled, then split among the guards, with a quarter of the total reserved for her to defer any expenses she might have to bear.

“Some even had silvers,” Klarisa had said. “Why would they be attacking a farm hamlet?”