L. Modesitt - Ordermaster

Kharl hardened a space of air just in front of him.

Crack! Crack! …

The reports of the rifles sounded muffled. Abruptly, Kharl could feel the force of bullets on the air shield, leaching away some of his strength, if only a slight bit.

As quickly as they had come, the lancers wheeled, then rode back over the rise.

Kharl released the shield. He reached for his water bottle and took it out, taking a long swallow of the still-cool cider before corking it and replacing it in its holder.

“Why’d they do that?” asked Demyst.

“To tire me out,” Kharl replied.

He sat in the saddle, thinking. The rifles changed everything, at least in the open field. Facing sabres or even crossbows, he could get close enough to use his order-magery-or his disorder-magery. With the white wizards tracking him with their sorcery, he couldn’t use a sight shield to get closer without the lancers seeing him-and they could keep firing at him until he was exhausted before he could ever get close enough-on the road or open ground.

He glanced toward the ridge ahead and took in the woodlots. From what he recalled, there was a narrow road through the ridge from the east. The ridge was steep enough that the lancers and patrollers couldn’t fire directly at him and his small party without getting close-very close.

“Ser?” asked the undercaptain.

“We’ll have to leave the road. We’re headed up toward that ridge, using the hills and woodlots for cover.” Kharl turned the gelding off the road and through a gap in the low stone wall that bordered the meadow.

He kept his order-senses looking for lancers, or patrollers, but could not sense any as they rode up the sloping meadow almost directly east. A slight gust of wind swept across them, bringing a few scattered drops of rain, then died away, as did the rain droplets.

As they reached the first woodlot, Kharl could sense no one near the trees, but to the south, another squad of lancers-or the same squad-was using the lower ground between the hill and the ridge as an approach to the road-to try another attack. Kharl smiled, because by the time the lancers reached a point overlooking the road, their quarry would be to the east and south of them, and the lancers would have to ride uphill to catch Kharl.

Still, he didn′t like the fact there were lancers between him and the ridge.

The woodlot ended just short of the flat hillcrest, and Kharl reined up while still in the trees, looking southward.

“We could follow these hills. There’s that other road,” Demyst said, pointing to the brown track a good kay to the south. “Cross the road and follow those hills on the south till we get to the gap in the ridge.”

Kharl nodded. At least until they reached the road, they would either be in the trees or close enough to cover, and mostly on higher ground than any attacker. He had to remember that his goal was not necessarily to kill lancers, or patrollers, but to get close enough to kill Egen and the white wizards.

They covered another half kay to the south before a company of mounted patrollers rode eastward on the narrow road through the ridge gap. Behind them were what looked to be several oblong, canvas-covered carts.

Kharl looked farther south. The next hill had an escarpment of gray stone that faced south and slightly west, and looked to afford some protection, at least for men on foot, and they could tie the mounts farther back in the woodlot.

“Can we make it to that next hill there, you think?” Kharl asked the undercaptain.

“Easy, ser. Won’t even take more than a fast walk. That grass down there is long, and the ground’s soft. Harder here near the crest. You thinking about that rock there.” Demyst grinned.

“I was. Is there something wrong with it?”

“Not so long as we don’t let’em circle to the southeast and come up through the woodlot. Could trap us then.”

“We could have Jeka watch back there.”

“Might be a good idea.”

Kharl urged the gelding forward.

Demyst was right. Kharl and the five other riders reined up just above the jagged upthrust gray rocks before the patrollers had stopped riding the road. There were far more than Kharl had realized-a good three companies. The mage turned in the saddle. “Jeka?”

The former urchin and weaver rode slowly toward Kharl, then reined up. Kharl thought that she was far more graceful on horseback than he was, even though she’d only ridden twice in her life.

“You want something, ser?”

“You said you wanted to be helpful. We need some help.” Kharl pointed to the southeast. “We’re going to see if they attack us here. We don’t want someone sneaking up the back side of the hill on us. Can you ride over to the edge of the woodlot there, on the higher ground, and keep watch. If they start something like that, ride back, but don’t come out of the woods. Just call out and let us know.”

“I can do that.”

“Thank you.”

“You want me to go now?”

“Be best if she does, ser,” suggested Demyst.

“If you would,” Kharl said to Jeka.

She turned the horse and rode steadily up the gentle slope until she was riding beside the trees.

After watching her for a long moment, Kharl turned his mount uphill toward the nearest part of the woodlot. By the time he had had tethered his mount well back in the woodlot, remembering to pull out his provisions bag, all three companies of mounted patrollers were drawn up on the flat to the north of the narrow road. Kharl hurried back downhill and into a position behind the rocks. Behind the patrollers, surrounded by two squads of lancers in the tan uniforms of Hamor, were the white wizards-three from what Kharl could tell.

“Like as they were waiting for us,” muttered Alynar from the rear.

Kharl had no doubts that they had been, not after having felt one of the wizards tracking them. He still didn’t understand why the patrollers and wizards were going to attack him. “If they waited,” he murmured, “we’d have to come to them.”

“Ser,” said Demyst, with a crooked smile, “they don′t know that. Best we don’t tell them.”

Still, Kharl wondered as he peered out through a gap in the gray rock. He would have liked to have gotten closer to the barracks as well. Something was happening behind the patrollers, with the carts, but Kharl couldn′t see exactly what it was. The mounted patrollers, their lines dressed, moved forward slowly across the flat, but less than a third of a kay before halting once more. That left them at the base of the slope, a quarter kay downhill from Kharl and his small party. Kharl could see that these patrollers also had rifles-every last patroller.

Thwump! Soil and rock and mangled vegetation exploded from the ground less than a hundred cubits below and to the right of Kharl.

“Cannon,” murmured Demyst. “Friggin’ cannon.”

What could Kharl do about cannon? If they tried to reach their mounts … at least some of them, if not all of them, might get shot … or run down. And Kharl couldn’t do magery on the run, either.

Thwump!

The second blast was to the left, but more like seventy cubits away.

Kharl forced himself to concentrate on the cannon. While they were too far away for him to affect with his order-senses, he had felt the mixture of chaos and order that had accompanied the shell and the explosion. Was there any way to channel that? To turn it back?

He could sense the expansion of chaos and the near-instant flight of the next shell-and it landed less than fifty cubits directly in front of the rock outcropping. Soil and rock fragments sprayed above his head.

“Ser?”

“I’m working on it!” Kharl snapped. There had been a channel of order and chaos, the path that the shell had taken.