L. Modesitt - Scion of Cyador

“There is a way to cross the river at the town, a ford less than a kay south,” Lorn says. “We will ride longer tonight. For if we cannot cross the river to attack them, neither can they cross to attack us, even if they know we are here. We will rise and move earlier in the morning, while it is cool, and we will cross the ford and travel upstream. We will also check to see where the river is deepest along a certain bend.”

Swytyl raises his eyebrows.

“We will try to circle and attack them where they cannot ford the river to retreat.” Lorn offers a grim smile. “After all their efforts, I believe we owe them that.”

Swytyl nods. “Yes, ser.”

“Have someone watch the river, though, as we ride toward Nhais.”

“Yes, ser.”

Again…Lorn can but do his best, and hope. He does not mention that, if he fails, the way lies open to Escadr and Dyeum. It is enough that he knows.

The sun has not even risen when Lorn and his force ride in along the dusty north road and into the center square of Nhais, into a square consisting of little more than an open dirt plaza, surrounded by low buildings, but the gray light is bright enough to show the poverty of the place. On the west side is an inn, with a front porch covered by a sagging roof and supported by peeling, whitewashed timbers. The inn’s signboard depicts a brown bull. On the north side of the square are a chandlery and a cooper’s. On the east is a long low building, with boards nailed across the windows and the door. The whitewash has peeled away from the shutters, and the wood is cracked and weathered. The south side of the square has three buildings of two stories each hunched together. The end two structures lean into the center one, but none bears a sign, and the shutters and doors of all three are closed.

The structures, except for the inn, show walls of a reddish brown brick. The inn has mud-plaster over the brick. That Lorn can tell from where the whitewashed plaster has broken away. All the roofs but that of the inn are of some form of woven withies, Lorn thinks, something he has not seen before in Cyador. The inn’s roof is of ancient and cracked red tiles.

Nhais is not the kind of town that Lorn thinks of as Cyadoran. The dwellings are unkempt, without hedges or privacy screens. Many are without shutters. The streets are unpaved and dusty now, and will be muddy in rain and snow.

Lorn glances toward the inn once more, where three men stand under the sagging porch. Otherwise, the square is empty.

“Poor town,” whispers Tashqyt.

“Poorer still if we don’t stop the raiders,” Lorn murmurs back.

As Lorn and the first squad of Mirror Lancers pass the inn porch, the murmurs of the three men drift toward the riders. Lorn listens, his hearing chaos-sense aided.

“…Mirror Lancers…an overcaptain. What they doing here?”

“…you want to ask?”

“Jerem said…raiders in the north…”

“…let ’em go…less said the better.”

“Better lancers ’n raiders…”

“Some choice…”

If they had seen what Lorn has seen, he reflects, they would not think such. But most folk do not reckon well what they have not seen.

Lorn and Tashqyt turn down the street leading southward, toward the ford, the dust-muted sounds of hoofs drowning out the murmurs of the men on the inn’s porch. The houses by the square give way to huts, then a handful of hovels near the river.

The town is set on a low bluff, and less than twenty cubits above the river, and beyond the last poor hut, there is a slope down to the water. The river is lined with bushes and low willow trees, and the leaves of both are dust-covered. From bank to bank is less than a hundred and fifty cubits, and, in the dry time of early harvest, the river is low. Mudbanks protrude from the brownish water. Wagon tracks lead down the slope and up the far side a hundred cubits away.

Lorn turns in the saddle. “We’ll cross in single-file by squads. Then we’ll head back east along the river. Upstream of the town, we’ll find a place to water the mounts.”

“Well upstream,” suggests Tashqyt.

Lorn nods.

“Cross by squads, single-file!”

“By squads, single-file,” echo the squad leaders.

The chestnut sidesteps slightly as she takes a first step into the brownish water, but the river is so shallow at the ford that Lorn’s boots never touch the water’s surface. He reins up at the top of the bluff on the southern shore, scanning the river and the land and hills to the east. But he sees no one, not even animals or livestock, just a few scattered dwellings farther to the south and west.

Once the entire force has crossed, Lorn gestures to Swytyl, then waits for the squad leader to near before speaking. “Send out the scouts…at least five kays east of here. We’ll ride along the river road here until we find a good place to water the mounts. Then, we’ll keep moving north.”

“Yes, ser.” With a nod, the round-faced squad leader rides toward his squad and the lancers in it used as scouts.

“Forward, two-abreast, by columns!” Lorn orders.

Orange light is seeping over the low hills as the column begins to move eastward on the narrow and rutted dirt road that roughly parallels the river.

The sun stands just above the low trees and hills on the horizon when Lorn’s force of Mirror Lancers and Guards halts on the south bank of the river, almost two kays east of Nhais. Lorn glances back, to the west, where the town is partly obscured by a slight haze, perhaps from a combination of moisture from the river and dust. To the east, low hills undulate beside the river, getting steeper more to the south. There are neither signs of the barbarians nor recent hoofprints in the dust of the road, except those placed there by Swytyl’s scouts.

“Water by squads!” Tashqyt orders. “Keep the mounts out of the water.”

After watering the chestnut, Lorn blots his face with a dampened cloth, then remounts and rides to the top of the low bluff that forms the southern bank of the river. So far as he can tell, as his maps had indicated, the river narrows and deepens as the hills steepen a kay or so east of where the force rests.

Shortly, he is joined by Tashqyt, Swytyl, Whylyn, and Drayl-the Mirror Lancer squad leaders, and by Wharalt-the grizzle-bearded senior squad leader of the District Guards.

Wharalt looks straight at Lorn. “Ser…you been most careful in not pushing us. But you got scouts out, and we be heading toward where the raiders were going. We going to meet them soon?”

“Today or tomorrow,” Lorn says. “Today, I would judge, but the scouts will tell us. I am hoping to circle south slightly, and then head northeast about five kays east of here.”

“Ah…ser, why not wait for them? If I might ask?”

“Because there is a bend in the river that has high bluffs, and we are going to trap them there, if at all possible.”

Wharalt raises his eyebrows.

“Wharalt…we are the only force of lancers east of Biehl. If we allow any to escape, there will be more raids of the type we have seen. I cannot keep a large force here and leave the port unprotected, and I don’t think you and the District Guards wish to spend the next several seasons chasing barbarians until the Majer-Commander can move more lancers here. So…” Lorn shrugs. “…we will attempt to remove them all at once. If that does not work, then we will be spending at least several more eightdays tracking and chasing those who escape.” The overcaptain offers a wintry smile. “I would prefer none escape.”

“When you put it that way…ser…there’s more light on what we been doing.” Wharalt nods slowly and evenly. “Mind if I pass that along?”

“No. They should know.” Lorn pauses, then adds, “I’d also prefer that the raiders not know we’re here or what we have in mind. The other thing you’d best tell your men, all of you, is that barbarians don’t back down, and that they hate us all. What you saw in that hamlet and those steads is what all lancers find everywhere after a barbarian raid.”