L. Modesitt - Ordermaster

As he neared the vortex, he struggled, through sweat and heat, and exhaustion, to rebuild his air shield and order shield. Exhausted as he was, he had to … just to get close enough to do what he could, what he had to do.

What could he do? The blinding lightsword he had never seen before, never even read about or thought about. Could he turn it against their shield?

The shrilling rose until he could hear it no longer, until his eyes were watering with agony from the unseen needles stabbing through his ears and into the depth of his skull … and still it rose. Kharl forced more order into the air shield, waiting, watching, trying to pick out Egen as well.

The lightsword flared toward him.

He tried to grasp it with order, and it was like trying to grasp smoke or fog. Yet it struck his shields so hard that he rattled back and forth in his saddle. Explosions of brilliance and light made the noon sun in summer seem as dark as night in the deepest cave that had never seen light.

Once more he was without shields, his defenses shredded.

The chaos-vortex dimmed more than the last time, but the ground shivered, and the vortex began to regain its brightness once again.

The gelding was barely walking forward, and Kharl was panting, breathing heavily. His face felt burned as if he had spent days in the sun without shade, and he knew much of his exposed skin was blistering. It was hard to keep his eyes open from the swelling around them.

What could he do?

The ground quivered once more.

Kharl tried to swallow, but his throat was so dry he nearly choked.

What … how?

He looked at the glowing chaos shields and the brilliant vortex rising once more like a hammer that was about to strike and smash him flat.

The ground trembled more strongly.

The ground?

With what felt like his last strength, Kharl reached toward the white wizards, not directly, but toward the chaos tap that extended deep within the very earth. There was the slightest chink, one of necessity, he felt, just beneath the earth, where one kind of chaos met another and was transformed.

Kharl did not try to change or force anything created by the chaos-wizards. Instead, he began to work on a simple red stone, one mostly of iron, to release the order bounds within that chunk of rock lying just between the two kinds of chaos-and directly beneath the wizards and Egen.

As those bounds dissolved in the iron-stone rock, Kharl drew back his order-probe and flung shields around himself and those just behind him, hoping that his party was all there.

The ground rumbled.

A firebolt flared toward Kharl, a fraction of an instant too late, exploding against his belatedly drawn shields.

Somewhere to the east, he could sense a handful of riders galloping southward from the Hamorian forces, trying to put part of the hill between themselves and the battle; but he would have to worry about them later, after dealing with the wizards.

Then …

A sound like iron being ripped apart, like the agony of a mother losing a child, knifed through Kharl.

The light of the great vortex was nothing compared to the flaring chaos-inferno that exploded skyward. As each chaos-wizard’s shieldfailed, the explosion lanced higher. Kharl shuddered in his saddle, hanging on with both hands as the gelding reared, screaming.

As the whitened redness of death flared around him, he knew, could sense, that none of those opposing him on the hill had survived.

A grim smile crossed Kharl’s face, if but for a moment.

Slowly, so slowly, it seemed, everything faded, and the afternoon sun returned, so dim by comparison that the sunlit afternoon looked like late twilight.

Kharl, Demyst, Jeka, Erdyl, and Alynar remained alone on a fire-scoured rise. The air was like a furnace, and fine ash drifted everywhere.

Kharl forced himself to turn the gelding, although he could see nothing, except through his order-senses. His face was aflame, and he felt as though every bit of skin had been blistered away.

“We need to get away.” His voice came from a great distance, it seemed to him, and patches of blackness appeared before his eyes, then vanished.

Deliberately, he rode southwest, picking a path down the hill away from the area where the scattered grass and brush still smoldered, down to where he could turn westward, then back toward Osten and his forces.

Before long, riders appeared, moving from the east. Kharl squinted. There had to be close to half a company, and all were wearing patroller uniforms-except for one figure in blue.

“Ser!” called Demyst.

The patrollers spurred their mounts toward Kharl and his small group. Several had their rifles out.

“Behind me!” Kharl ordered, hoping that Jeka, above all, was close enough for his shields, shields he only hoped he could hold long enough for Egen to approach more closely.

“Fire! Aim for the mage!” Egen’s voice carried across the ten-odd rods that separated the two groups.

Crack! Crack! …

Kharl rocked in the saddle at the force of the patroller’s volley, and he could feel his grasp on his shields slipping.

“Keep firing! He can’t hold on!” snapped Egen.

Kharl forced himself to reach out, to stretch for a bit of iron, sensing a small amount in Egen’s belt, and untwisting and releasing the order-bonds.

Crumpt!

More light flared across the hillside. When Kharl could see again, his eyes took in another patch of blackened ground.

Somehow … after all that had happened, Kharl just wished Egen had known, really known, who Kharl was. But life didn’t always work out the way one hoped. There hadn′t been a real confrontation, just a footnote to a battle, and Egen was dead. It didn’t seem that Egen had paid enough for all his villainy, not near enough.

“Ser?” Demyst’s voice broke through Kharl’s reverie. “It’s not that safe here, still.”

“You’re right.” Kharl urged the gelding downhill and more to the west.

They had ridden less than half a kay when yet another group of riders appeared, these in Brystan blue.

Kharl blinked when he saw the serjeant who commanded the squads of lancers that had accompanied him-and the half score of lancers who remained, though the lancers hung back from the serjeant.

“You stayed here?” Kharl asked.

“As would any smart man, ser mage.”

Kharl could feel his own party closing up behind him.

“Lord Osten is now Lord West,” Kharl announced, using almost his last strength. “He has the field. You can tell him that he will know where to find me.”

Kharl swayed in the saddle.

The serjeant smiled, driving his mount toward Kharl and lifting his sabre. Kharl tried to turn, but he was sluggish, so sluggish.

The blunt edge and the hilt of Erdyl’s sabre-thrown end over end-slammed into the serjeant’s shoulder and neck.

Then Demyst and Alynar struck, and the serjeant sagged in his saddle.

Another lancer slashed at Erdyl, who had no sabre.

Somehow … Kharl managed to unlink the tiniest bit of order from something-whatever was easiest-in the lancer who had slashed Erdyl. As the chaos flared, Kharl flung up a half shield, one that directed the force across the rest of Osten’s lancers.

Not only blackness, but strobing light-flashes flared across and before Kharl, clouding his order-senses. He could barely feel Jeka, riding closer to him.

“Get me out of here,” he hissed to her. “Can’t hang on much longer. If Osten gets to me …″

At that moment, the deeper blackness swept over him.

Kharl. woke up in a bed. He thought it might be the large bed in the residence, but, since he still could not see, and since his head throbbed so much that he could not use his order-senses, he was far from sure.