L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

“Come in. Close the hatch.”

“Yes, ser.” Kharl opened the door, entered, and closed it behind him.

Hagen stood beside the circular table. His eyes were reddened, and deep black circled them. “How do you feel?”

“Fine, ser.”

“I’m going to ask you something. It’s not an order, but a request, and I want you to understand that.”

Kharl nodded, waiting.

“The highlanders are about to attack the keep. They broke through the regulars early this morning. Before long, it’s likely they’ll surround the town. Lord Ghrant will make an attack shortly, I believe, in hopes of breaking them and driving them back. He has charged me with the safety of his lady and heirs. I think you could help me.”

“I’ll go,” Kharl said immediately.

“You don’t have to.”

“You didn’t have to take me aboard, ser. What’s right is right. I think I ought to bring my staff.”

“That wouldn’t hurt. We need to hurry.”

“I’ll get the staff.” Kharl understood that Hagen had spent extra time, just to meet Kharl in private, so that Kharl would not feel influenced by others watching, and it was another measure of the man that Kharl appreciated.

The carpenter hurried down to the shop, where he reclaimed both the staff and his winter jacket and gloves, before hurrying back topside. Hagen met him at the quarterdeck. For the first time, the captain wore weapons, a sabre and a long belt knife.

Kharl followed Hagen onto the pier, a pier that grew wetter with each wave that broke against it, as higher waters surged into the small harbor from off the Great Western Ocean.

At the end of the pier waited a small detachment of armsmen in black and yellow, only eight in all. There were two mounts without riders.

Kharl had never ridden a horse. He’d seen riders mount, and he managed to do so. He struggled to get the base of the staff into what looked like a lance holder. Then he glanced at Hagen. “I’m not a lancer, ser.”

“We’re not riding into battle. We’re only riding to get there. Just hang on to the saddle and the reins.”

Kharl hoped he could.

The undercaptain and another lancer led the way, two abreast, with Kharl and Hagen riding behind them. Kharl felt that he bounced more than rode as the column moved at a quick trot through the stone-paved streets of Dykaru, eerily empty under the hazy morning sky, with the horses’ hoofs being the loudest sound, echoing off the streets and white-plastered stone walls.

“We’re supposed to meet the rest of the company on the orchard lane leading to the causeway,” Hagen said to Kharl.

Kharl nodded, as if the words meant something, not that they did. He had no idea even what the keep looked like, except from a distance. He would have liked to try to see if he could sense the white wizards, but merely staying on the mount took most of his concentration. Still, it was faster than walking.

Before long, they reached the northern edge of the town, where the dwellings thinned, and a parklike expanse of grass and trees extended toward the ridgetop keep a kay away. Kharl could smell smoke, if faintly. The park seemed empty of armsmen, except in the distance off to the right, where a squad of riders had reined up, facing toward the white walls of the keep. The lancers wore dark blue and gray.

“We’ll circle to the west some to reach the lane,” Hagen ordered, turning his mount left onto a graveled road that fronted the park.

From the keep a series of horn blasts rang out, and there was the muted thunder of hoofs, but Kharl could see no riders. He took a moment to let his order-chaos senses feel the area before him. Almost immediately, he could feel an upwelling of white chaos more to the right, beyond the riders in blue and gray, who had already ridden northward, and out of sight. There had to be fighting in that direction, Kharl felt, although he could not say exactly how he knew, only that he did.

None of the armsmen spoke. The loudest sound was the clicking of hoofs on the pure white gravel of the lane. Kharl tried to shift his weight and came close to falling but grabbed the saddle and caught himself. He was not an instinctive rider; that was certain. In less than a tenth of a glass, the short column turned right onto a paved road that arrowed through an orchard toward the southwestern corner of the keep.

“From the right!”

Kharl turned in the saddle to see a good score of riders in the dark blue and gray riding toward them along a gravel service path in the orchard. Somehow he managed to turn the horse to face the attack, but he wasn’t about to try to charge the attackers and try to use the staff at the same time. He fumbled the staff out of the lance holder, hoping that he could stay mounted while using both hands on the staff.

Because the others rode toward the rebels, Kharl was at the rear when the enemy lancers reached them.

Several of Ilteron’s men went down, as did two of those in black and yellow, and then a lancer in blue and gray was bearing down on Kharl, his sabre coming toward Kharl in a vicious cut.

Kharl underhanded the staff, bringing it up from below the man’s guard. The heavy iron-banded end slammed into the lancer’s forearm, then into the side of his face. Kharl reeled in the saddle, but struggled back upright. The attacker lay on the ground unmoving.

Bringing the staff back into position, Kharl could only deflect the slash of the next attacker before the lancer was past him.

Another rider-Hagen-had wheeled his mount back and rode past Kharl, cutting down one of the attackers from the blind side.

The third lancer to charge Kharl saw the staff and tried to swing closer to the carpenter to block the staff short of its most effective length, but Kharl dropped the tip and angled it more from below, catching the attacker’s sabre arm while he was still a good three cubits from Kharl. There was a cracking sound, and the sabre went flying.

Then, just as suddenly as the attackers had appeared, they vanished, except for the six or so bodies that lay on the gravel of the service path.

Kharl found he was breathing heavily.

“You wield a mean staff, even mounted,” called out Hagen.

“Not…a…mounted weapon,” gasped Kharl.

“We need to get to the end of the lane.”

The six remaining lancers had regrouped. After putting the staff back in the lance holder, Kharl urged his mount up beside Hagen’s as they rode along the remaining quarter kay of the lane toward the two short stone columns where the orchard ended and a grassy expanse separated the orchard from the keep.

As they neared the stone posts, a column of riders in black and yellow rode toward them down a causeway from the keep. Kharl could see blood splashed across the tunics of those leading the oncoming column.

“Captain Hagen! Captain Hagen!” An undercaptain spurred his mount toward Kharl and the others.

“We’re here,” Hagen said quietly once the other had reined up. “The lady?”

“She and the boys-they’re waiting at the keep gates. The guards there have the causeway clear, and they’ve pushed them back. Don’t know how long they can hold.”

“Lord Ghrant?” asked Hagen.

The undercaptain shook his head. “He’s trapped on the ridge to the north of the keep. Holding them at bay. He’s trying to keep the wizards from getting close enough to fire the keep. They’d be lofting fireballs over the walls.” Kharl could sense the truth of that. He also hadn’t thought about wizards being able to destroy a stone keep.

Hagen looked to Kharl.

Kharl nodded. “He’s speaking the truth.”

“Get the lady and the boys down here as quick as you can, and with as many lancers as you can spare. We’ve already been attacked once.”