L. Modesitt - Magi'i of Cyador

The undercaptain forces himself to wait, to measure the closing distance. He moistens his lips, watching, as the riders loom larger, bearded men bearing long blades, surrounded by another sort of chaos-the chaos of blood-lust?

As the raiders near the uphill depression, charging toward the Fifth Company, yells and unintelligible battle cries suddenly burst forth and spill across the brown grass of the gentle slope that has slowed them not at all.

“Now!” snaps Lorn.

“Forward! Forward and discharge at will!” orders Nytral. “Discharge at will!”

The Mirror Lancers of the Fifth Company move forward, ponderously, slowly at first, but when the two forces are less than a hundred cubits from each other, the Lancers are moving almost as fast as the barbarians.

“ … Slay the white demons!”

“ … Death to the demons!”

Other calls fill the air, but all are from the barbarians.

Abruptly, the barbarian line changes-gaps appearing here and there. But the gaps are not so much gaps as the result of groups of three barbarians charging toward a single lancer.

Hssstt! Hssst! … With less than fifty cubits between the leading barbarians and the lancers, golden-white chaos bolts flare from the firelances.

Lorn holds back on using his lance, though he rides forward toward the raiders, and finds himself leading the fray.

Five riders are swinging toward him as he finally lifts his lance, and triggers it. Hssst! Hsstt! Hsstt! … Not all the bursts strike barbarians, and he ducks and throws himself sideways and under one of the swinging iron bars that promises death if it strikes him full.

Then, gasping, he finds the mare has brought him through and beyond the barbarian line-practically alone. A good forty cubits to his right, Nytral has emerged, and the squad leader charges back toward the mix of men tangled with each other.

Lorn wheels the mare and rides back-more deliberately, his eyes flicking across the field. Less than twenty cubits before him, a barbarian lifts, not a long and unwieldy hand-and-half blade, but something like a sabre somewhat more curved than that of a lancer. The barbarian ducks as he nearsthe melee, and starts to slash across the unprotected left side of a lancer.

Hssstt! Lorn flicks a short bolt of chaos from the lance into the barbarian’s back, then urges the mare toward the next group of fighters, men hacking at each other, silvery cupridium blades against the order-death-infused, edged iron bars of the attackers. Absently, Lorn wishes he could use a sabre as well in his left hand as in his right.

Hsstt! The chaos transfixes another bearded barbarian.

Two more barbarian riders turn their mounts, then, inexplicably, ride toward a group skirmish to Lorn’s left. Lorn follows them, picking off the laggard with his lance. He wonders how long the chaos charge will last, careful as he has been. He can sense that a goodly fraction remains yet.

A single wavering yell echoes across the afternoon, and a good three score riders ride across the hillside, not back the way they had come but toward the hills on the northern edge of Four-Holders Valley. Beside and around the road, the Fifth Company finds itself without attackers, except those that have fallen.

Lorn takes a long deep breath, feeling sweat cooling on his forehead and the back of his neck. He counts quickly. There are six Mirror Lancers lying on the brown grass, and he can see blood on the winter jackets of half a dozen more. He hopes some of that blood is not that of the lancers. Close to a half-score barbarian mounts are without riders, and more than a score of dead or dying raiders lie sprawled or crumpled in the trampled brown grass.

The light, cold wind cannot carry away the odors of blood and death, not all of them, nor the odor of damp dead grass churned up by more than a hundred horses.

Lorn walks his mount back to where the barbarian with the odd-looking sabre has fallen. He dismounts and reclaims the blade and the scabbard, fastening them behind his saddle. Then he remounts and rides back to where Nytral is reforming the company. No one has noticed his efforts.

“Squad leaders. Report,” Nytral orders as Shofirg and Dubrez ease their mounts to a halt opposite Lorn.

Shofirg’s winter jacket is slashed open across his left shoulder, and blood smears the oiled white leather. “Lost four lancers, five wounded. Eight lances with chaos charges left,” replies Shofirg.

“Two lancers gone, three wounded. Eleven lances … most are low, though,” adds Dubrez.

“Use the barbarian mounts for the blades and any shields they left. You know what to do with our dead.”

“Sers …” both squad leaders incline their heads, then turn their mounts, heading back to their squads.

“Have they done that before?” Lorn asks after a moment. “Sending three men after a single lancer?”

Nytral frowns. “Hadn’t seen that.”

“They did,” Lorn assures the senior squad leader. “That’s why there were gaps in their attack to begin with. They figured out that a lancer has to concentrate on a single attacker at a time.”

“Didn’t look that different,” replies Nytral. “Could be they’ve been doing it for a while.” He pauses, then adds. “Lot more raiders in that party than most. Lot more.”

“How many are there usually when they attack?”

“Most times, maybe a few more than a company.”

“They had more than twice what we did,” Lorn observes, then adds, “We’re headed back. We’ve got only about two-thirds of a company, and not many chaos charges.”

“They’ll be back … afore sunset tomorrow,” predicts Nytral. “Even if we head back. They’ll follow.”

“With more horsemen?” asks Lorn.

“No … They can’t go back to the clan without wounds or trophies. The raiders rode off … they didn’t get much.”

“Will they try an ambush, you think?”

Nytral pulls at his chin. “Not so as you’d say that. Low light … some place where we’d not suspect … nor see … but no sneaking round … usually don’t pick off scouts … can’t count on that, though.”

“We’ll have to be careful, then.” Lorn has been getting the feeling that there is little predictable about the barbarians except their desire to kill lancers-and their success in doingso despite the effect of the firelances. The antique sabre, still solid, and Brystan, he thinks, raises another set of questions, ones he will not voice, about how better blades, if older ones, are reaching the barbarians, and why no senior officers have mentioned the change.

Lorn’Alt, Isahl, Captain, Mirror Lancers

IN THE HOT air of late summer, his third summer in Isahl, Lorn shifts his weight in the saddle. Then he blots the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand to keep it from running into his eyes. His hand comes away damp and slightly reddish from the road dust, and he is careful to wipe it on the square of cloth tied to his saddle. Even so, his cream uniform is streaked with pink from the dust, as are those of all the lancers in the Fifth Company.

To the west of the road that hugs the east side of the valley, the grasslands stretch almost four kays or more before another set of hills. The tips of the blades of grass, some of which would reach shoulder high on his mare, have already begun to brown.

Ahead to the north lies the Ram’s End Valley, and beyond that one of the valleys with an abandoned and burned-out holding, one that had never been re-inhabited, Lorn suspects, because there are no streams in the small valley and but one meager spring. He wonders, not for the first time, why the Grass Hills are drier now than in distant years past when the first holders were sent forth from Syadtar.