L. Modesitt - Ordermaster

At the sound and sense of someone coming, Kharl edged closer to the canvas, standing beside a guy rope. An armsman strode past. The man paused, looked around, shook his head, then continued toward the next large tent.

Kharl waited, then followed. While the armsman circled to the front of the tent and the two guards stationed there, Kharl made his way close to the rear canvas, where he listened.

“Lord Kenslan, Undercaptain Giron, ser.”

“Yes, undercaptain?” The voice was simultaneously surprisingly high and yet hard.

“You had asked for a report. Lord Ghrant’s black mage came up the orchard road. He set some sort of trap that killed a handful of our lancers. The mage Alborak and the lancers chased him back south. We don’t have a report on what happened yet.”

″Thank you, undercaptain. Let us know what occurred as soon as you hear.”

“Yes, ser.”

There was silence within the tent until the undercaptain was well away.

“Where is Yarak? Alborak is barely a wizard. That mage of Ghrant’s could be more than he can handle.”

“Yarak had another task. He went to make sure that our plans are not revealed. What Ghrant’s mage can do is limited. He is black, not white.” There was a laugh. “Kenslan, you worry too much.”

“Malcor, you worry too little. I have good reports on what that mage did. That’s why I suggested to Fostak that a stronger wizard would be necessary if we were to be successful. And you sent him off on this … fool’s errand.”

“Vatoran was the fool.”

Kharl nodded. There were only two men in the tent, and they were Malcor and Kenslan. He took a slow deep breath and concentrated, forming an impermeable barrier of hard air around each lord.

All sound from within the tent stopped.

Kharl felt light-headed, but continued to hold the hardened air barrier around the two lords.

At last came one red-tinged void of death, then another.

Kharl immediately released the barrier. From inside the tent came two dull thuds, followed by a muffled crash.

The mage found himself trembling once more. The effort to remove the two rebel leaders, combined with the requirement to keep himself shielded, had once more left his legs feeling like jelly. That wouldn’t do, not when he had a good five kays to walk back to the crossroads-avoiding armsmen the entire way and going much of the distance without being able to see and having to rely on his order-senses to navigate.

Besides, it would only be moments before the guards raised an alarm.

Kharl forced himself to move quickly back the way he had come, but he had covered less than a handful of rods before he heard the yelling, although he could not make out the words.

He kept walking, as fast as he could, knowing that he could not cover as much ground as he needed at any faster pace. He’d known that using magery would take strength, but what choice had he had? He’d have to practice more in the future. He couldn’t afford to be tired so quickly, not when he had to deal with Lord Ghrant’s enemies one at a time.

By the time he reached the southeast edge of the meadow and the hedgerow where he’d stopped before, he was staggering, and he was so light-headed he wasn’t certain how much longer he could even hold his sight shield.

Like it or not, he had to rest, even on the matted wet grass and dirt in the small niche in the hedgerow. He released the sight shield and sank onto the damp soil behind the twisted branches and winter foliage, which offered but minimal cover.

His fingers trembled as he fumbled out the water bottle. The water helped some. He only had one biscuit left, and half of a dried apple slice. He ate both, then just sat there, breathing hard.

The rain was coming down more heavily, and water drizzled off the branches overhead and down the back of his neck. He could hear and sense more yells, orders being barked. Before long, if someone hadn’t started looking already, they would be looking for traces, and they well might find his boot prints. Or someone might think about a tracking dog. The rain and the imprints of other boots might confuse them, but Kharl couldn’t count on that.

He wasn’t quite so light-headed.

He glanced around, looking to the orchard and toward the sentries and the stone wall. The rain made it harder to see clearly, and no one wasnearby, not that he could see. He decided against raising the sight shield. It was tiring, and he might need it more later.

He stepped around the end of the hedgerow and began to walk quickly toward the stone wall, as if he were headed on an errand or carrying a message. That was safer than skulking from tree to tree and looking guilty. Besides, with the mist and rain, at a distance his riding jacket was not that different from those of the rebels, and the black trousers were the same. The sentries most likely wouldn’t look behind themselves too much, and in the rain, they might even concentrate more on the meadow to the south.

Kharl kept walking through the muddy grass and dirt of the orchard, through a rain that slowly continued to grow in intensity. He tried to ignore the hubbub behind him, a snarling confusion that followed him, growing neither louder nor quieter. Before long, he could see the nearest pair of sentries, one less than a hundred cubits ahead, and slightly to his right, the other barely visible twice that distance away and well to the left.

He watched the nearer sentry closely as he neared the rebel. He was less than thirty cubits away when the man started to turn. Kharl pulled the sight shield around himself and angled his steps more to the right so that he would pass behind the man and reach the wall on the south border of the orchard close to the hedgerow bounding the west end of the meadow.

He was almost abreast of the sentry when he heard the mud-muffled hoofs of a horse behind him.

“Sentries! Eyes sharp! Eyes sharp! Got a scout, maybe a spy. Might be coming this way. See him … raise the alarm.”

Kharl kept moving.

“You, at the point, see anyone?”

“No, ser! Just rain.”

The rider moved eastward away from Kharl. He found himself almost stumbling and forced himself to concentrate on maintaining the sight shield as he eased over the low stone wall and began to make his way down the west side of the meadow. The going was slower, because the winter-dead grass had gotten slicker with the rain, and the dirt in the bare patches had turned to slippery mud.

Still, he made it down the side of the meadow and back through the gate, which he forced himself to secure once more. Once he was out of any possible sight of the sentries to the north, he released the sight shield. He followed the hedgerow eastward, then south.

He made it halfway up the slope, within a few hundred cubits ofwhere he had set the ambush, when he heard hoofs and riders on the road. He sensed a squad of riders. They reined up almost on the other side of the hedgerow from him.

“There’s no one on the road. Not any tracks in the mud.”

“What about the fields, behind the hedgerow there? Someone could walk or ride there and not be seen.”

Kharl looked around. He certainly couldn’t move fast enough to outrun a horse, especially the rain, and he had real doubts about how long he could hold a sight shield.

“Senstyn! Take your four and check out the fields to the west. Derk, you check the east fields there.”

The hedgerow closest to where Kharl was offered no real concealment. He looked back north. That was too open. To the south, perhaps a hundred cubits ahead, the hedgerow widened, just slightly, and it looked like there was an opening of some sort. Maybe.

He picked up his steps and hurried toward what he hoped would provide cover.

On the road, the riders also began to move.