L. Modesitt - Magi'i of Cyador

Nytral eases his mount past the holder and partway through the gate. After a moment of studying the area, he turns in the saddle and nods curtly to Lorn.

“We thank you,” Lorn tells the bearded man, who inclines his head briefly to the undercaptain.

“Two abreast!” Nytral orders. “Straight to the troughs. In formation, by squads.”

Lorn guides the white mare through the gate and to the north side where he and Nytral watch as the lancers ride past them.

The ground inside the four-cubit-high embankment is earth churned by sheep and cattle, dark frozen mud that will turn into oozing slop within eightdays, if not sooner. The odor of manure permeates the air, mixing with the sweet-smoky odor of burning peat. The doors to the sod-walled stock barn beyond the water trough are closed and barred, although Lorn can hear the lowing of cattle.

“Water by half-squads! You be starting, Dubrez!” Nytral orders, his words ringing across the holding.

After the first squad has watered and remounted, Lorn waters his mare before Shofirg’s squad while Nytral watches. The young officer then watches as Nytral rides his mount to the trough.

The holder now steps nearer to where Lorn sits astride the mare.

“Have you seen any trace of the barbarians lately?” Lorn asks the local.

“Little early for raiders,” says the redbearded figure. “Bogs on the north side still show ice ….”

Lorn takes in the man’s words, not understanding the exact importance of when the ice might melt as a predictor, but understanding fully the herder’s feeling about its accuracy. “Have they ever attacked before the ice melts?”

“One time I recall, ser … be the year afore the last.”

Nytral remounts and guides his mount back beside Lorn’s.

“Would that we’d be able to offer more, ser ….” The holder’s voice is almost pleading.

Lorn understands the plea, but were he to pay, even a few coppers, for every watering or every meal offered to his company, his purse would be empty well before the end of each patrol. Worse, the holders would come to expect it, and Lorn knows where that would lead. “I would that you could, too, holder. I would that I could offer you some poor recompense.”He smiles. “Perhaps we will be able to remove some barbarians.”

“You do that … and you be doing more than most in these days.” The herder inclines his head, slightly.

The last of Shofirg’s men remounts, and the younger of the two squad leaders turns his mount toward Lorn and Nytral. “All the mounts have been watered, sers.”

Lorn leans forward in the saddle, toward the herder. “Thank you.” Then he nods to Nytral.

“Ride out, by squads, two abreast.” While Nytral does not yell or shout, his voice carries throughout the holding-and well beyond the earthen dike, Lorn suspects.

Although it nears mid-day when the Fifth Company is clear of the holding wall and fully on the road northeast, the light wind is but fractionally warmer, still a mixture of warmer and cooler air. The road itself remains frozen except for a few muddy spots where small bumps face directly south and trickles of water ooze from the raised and thawing ground.

Neither Nytral nor Lorn speaks until the company is well beyond the first of the four holdings in the valley.

“They don’t think we’ve done much,” Lorn observes.

“The Lancers never do as much as anyone wants, ser. Specially out here. Might be different if the Emperor … if His Mightiness’d ever been a real lancer. Or if we had more lancers. Never enough lancers, never have been, I been thinking ….”

“No.” Lorn frowns. Nytral’s speculations are not good for the sub-officer’s future, not with anyone besides Lorn.

“Best not be thinking what can’t be.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Lorn agrees. “There are only so many firewagons and so many lancers, and there’s not much we can do about it.”

For a time, they ride without speaking.

Herders from the other three holdings do not appear as the Fifth Company nears, and passes, their earth dikes. Nor are their gates opened.

By mid-afternoon, the Fifth Company nears the easternend of the winding valley, a valley empty of all herders and herds-except those within the earthen dikes that they have since passed. The scouts have ridden out of sight over the top of the hill, and the column of riders, two abreast, starts up the gentle incline.

Lorn glances up at the sound of hoofs. Two scouts spur their mounts down the road from the crest of the low pass that leads out of the Four-Holders Valley and toward the next valley, that of the Burned-Out-Stead.

“Frig!” mutters Nytral under his breath. “Frigging raiders …”

“Halt!” Lorn raises his arm, then gestures downward. Behind him, the riders of the company rein up.

Lorn and Nytral wait for the scouts, both scanning the road behind the scouts, as well as the brown grass and the few scattered bushes with their handfuls of gray winter leaves. Nothing moves except the lancer scouts.

“Raiders, sers! They’re riding up the far side, almost halfway to the crest.” The words burst forth from the younger scout before he has even fully reined in.

“A good four score. Could be more,” adds the older scout.

Lorn turns in the saddle. Behind them, less than a hundred cubits back, is a low depression, and west of that a slight swell.

Nytral’s eyes follow Lorn’s. “Best we can do, ser.”

“We’d better do it, then.”

“Column back to the rise, Shofirg!” Nytral orders.

“Squad two back to the rise, Dubrez!” Lorn’s voice, seemingly less penetrating than Nytral’s, carries to the second squad.

Dubrez nods and replies. “Second squad to the rise!”

Lorn turns the mare, and the others follow his lead, until the Fifth Company has reformed on the highest ground nearby, in a single long line, slightly convex, that for all its apparent length will still be flanked on both ends by fourscore barbarian raiders.

“We’ll let them come to us,” Lorn decides.

“Not reined up, ser?” Nytral’s voice holds a slight edge.

“No … but we won’t charge until they’re hitting the dip in the ground there.”

“Won’t slow’em much.”

“Will anything?” Lorn raises his eyebrows, then pushes back the once white garrison cap.

Nytral laughs, not quite hollowly.

In the colder afternoon wind, each moment seems longer than the one that preceded it, and the hillside and road that lead out of the valley remain empty.

“They were riding up, sers,” insists the younger scout, although neither Nytral nor Lorn has even looked toward the lancer. “They were.”

“They’ll be here,” Nytral says. “This time of year they don’t turn back.”

Lorn surveys the line of lancers once more, then checks his own firelance. He can feel the chaos stored within it-red and golden white. His eyes flick from the Fifth Company to the hill above and then back to the lancers.

One moment, the hill is empty. The next finds mounted figures riding down toward the Mirror Lancers.

“Lances ready!” Nytral orders.

Forty lancers pull their three-cubit-long white firelances from holders and level them, waiting for the raiders to close, for Lorn’s command to charge, and for the inevitable order to discharge chaos.

Lorn looks at the sweep of riders-five score, if not more, arrayed in a loose formation no more than three deep. Unlike the mounts of the barbarian bands he has encountered earlier, these horses bear no saddlebags or gear stowed behind the saddle-not that he can see. The riders carry long blades, blades bared to the sun, each weapon a half blade longer than Lorn’s own sabre. Even across the half-kay that separates the two groups, the raiders’ bared iron blades shimmer with the ugliness of death-ordered iron.