L. Modesitt - Ordermaster

What could Kharl do?

Hssst!

Kharl barely managed to get just an order shield up. Stupid! He needed to concentrate on one wizard at a time. He and his squad were less than thirty rods from the lesser wizard and his personal guard. He forced his eyes and his senses on the nearer wizard, trying to find the line of chaos that had to be there.

Hssst!

This time, Kharl managed to deflect the chaos-bolt back toward the white wizard, forcing the white to use his shields against his own chaos-fire. Two Hamorian lancers and their mounts, out to the side of the white wizard, went down in flames. One of the mounts screamed-an agonizing cry that went on and on.

Kharl ignored it, concentrating on the wizard, feeling, using all his order-senses, as the other drew upon chaos, seemingly from deep withinthe earth, formed it, and hurled it toward Kharl, now less than ten rods from the white wizard.

Kharl caught the chaos-tie between that ball of chaos and the wizard who had cast it, but lost the tie before he could fully sense it, when he had to throw up another order shield. If only he had a moment more, but the closer he got the less time he had, and yet, from a distance, he could do nothing.

Ahead, he could sense another huge wave of chaos bursting across the hillside-and this time, the redness of Austran deaths flashed across him. He could also sense more Hamorian lancers turning, raising lances, but Kharl forced his concentration back to the nearer wizard, watching the man in white. As Kharl rode ever nearer, this time, he caught the tie and link, but, again, he was too slow, and had to release that link-barely in time-to throw up another order shield. He was drenched in sweat and breathing heavily, and he had not even lifted a cudgel or a staff-or anything.

He forged his attention into a narrow line, ignoring the oncoming Hamorian lancers, waiting. As the white wizard drew upon the chaos of the earth deep beneath, Kharl seized the linkage and created an order shield within the channel, throwing the chaos back upon the white wizard, within the wizard’s own shields.

Whhhsst!

Kharl flung up his own shields, around him and the squad, as an expanding blast of chaos radiating from where the lesser white wizard had stood.

The impact of that force against his shields jerked him back in the saddle, braced as he was. The reddish white voids of scores of deaths washed across Kharl, and tears streamed down his face from the pain and the brightness of that explosion.

Kharl shook his head, blotted the dampness from his eyes with the rough fabric of his uniformed sleeve. Everything around him was faint, washed out, but he immediately began to look for the other white wizard, both with eyes and order-senses. The lancers who had been charging Kharl were gone, seared into ashes or less, and perhaps half the Hamorian forces had already died. That didn’t matter, not so long as a single white wizard remained.

Kharl could feel another massive wave of chaos rising, and it was not directed at the hillside, where Hagen and his forces held out, crouched andhiding behind the sandstone ridge-those that had survived thus far. It was directed toward Kharl and no other.

Find the link … don’t think of shields … Find the link, Kharl kept telling himself. Let the chaos flow back along that link … and return to me. Let it flow. He kept concentrating on the wizard facing him.

For a long moment, he could see-as if they were less than a rod apart-the smooth-skinned wizard with the angular face, and the deep black eyes that had seen more than Kharl ever wanted to see.

Then … that vision was gone, and reddish-tinged white chaos fountained from beneath the ground, rising skyward in a plume, unseen except by the two mages and the white wizard. The earth trembled, then rocked beneath the gelding’s hoofs. Somewhere, another mount screamed.

Kharl kept concentrating, reaching for the link between wizard and chaos, between power and the depths from which it came beneath the earth. He had eyes and senses only for that link, even as he rode forward, ever closer to the figure that glowed eerily in more chaos than Kharl could ever have imagined, could ever have wanted to imagine.

Time seemed frozen, with chaos towering over him, ready to fall and crush him.

Kharl struck, twisting through that undefended back linkage, opening it and letting all the chaos that had been gathered from the depths rush to and through the white wizard.

As the whiteness of that chaos burned more brightly than the sun for that instant, Kharl threw up an order shield, one that held all the strength and will that remained in him, one to block out the fires that seemed hotter than any forge, any boiler, any sun.

NO!!!!

Kharl shuddered under the assault of will and chaos, under a wave of heat that stopped somewhere short of him, but still burned. The very earth groaned, twisted, and heaved. Sheets of flame flared skyward from the ground.

As fire flared everywhere, as Kharl could feel himself toppling in the saddle, and someone grabbing for him, he also realized something else. The greater white wizard had been a woman. How he knew that … he did not know, but the thought flashed through his mind, just before the blackness slammed across him.

Somewhere in that hot blackness, ashes and death sifted down across him, and distant voices he could not make out called out in languages hecould not understand. Then, there was a silence, and he could feel that he was on his back.

“Eyes moving …”

The first thing Kharl felt was water, warmish water, across his forehead and face, as he lay on his back on a hard surface-the road, he thought.

“Ser Kharl?”

He opened his eyes, but the light seared them, and he closed them immediately. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a growl, followed by a paroxysm of coughing. After a moment, he coughed out matter, perhaps fine ashes. Then, as the coughing subsided, he managed to sit up, assisted by someone he could not see.

Slowly, he tried to open his eyes again, slitting them and squinting against the light. The all-too-familiar daggers stabbed into his skull.

“Ser … best you drink some water.”

Kharl didn’t argue, either about the water or about eating the bread and cheese that a lancer handed him in small morsels. Everything tasted like ashes-again-but he put the food in his mouth and chewed, methodically. He swallowed the water in between mouthfuls. Finally, he slowly rose to his feet on legs that felt as weak as water.

“You think you should be standing, ser?” asked Undercaptain Demyst from his mount.

“No. I probably ought to get mounted and let the horse do the standing.”

A lancer laughed, quietly, but the laugh died away as Demyst turned his head and glared to his right.

Kharl closed his eyes for a moment. That helped relieve the pain and the glare, although he knew that the sun wasn’t that bright.

“Just a moment, ser,” said another voice. “Janos is bringing your mount.″

″Thank you.″

Kharl stood there, waiting, his eyes still closed, with the odors of ashes and death swirling around him. There was no sense of chaos. He still could not quite take in what had happened, or the stillness around him.

“The lord-chancellor’s on his way down, ser. Had to go around the back side of the hill, a long way. That’s what Stevras said. Sent him as a messenger.”

“I’d better get mounted.” Kharl slit his eyes again. The pain daggers were still there, but he tried not to wince as he turned and took two steps toward the gelding. Mounting was easier than seeing what he was doing.

Once in the saddle, he had to cough again, and, for a moment, he thought he might not be able to hold down what he had eaten, but he closed his eyes, and the coughing subsided. As he sat in the saddle, waiting for Hagen, he realized that he could sense no chaos. None. That was good, he supposed.