L. Modesitt - Magi'i of Cyador

He cocks his head slightly to better catch the murmurs drifting forward from lancers in the first squad.

“ … better Captain’n most …”

“ … no great shakes … all we do is ride and get attacked … ride and get attacked ….”

you want to chase barbarians all over the Grass Hills?”

Lorn represses a frown, then beckons to his senior squad leader.

The square-bearded and craggy-faced Dubrez eases his mount toward Lorn. He has been senior squad leader for over a year, ever since Nytral lost a leg to a barbarian blade and hobbled back to his home in Summerdock.

“I’m thinking we need a pair of scouts to look two or three valleys ahead-way ahead.” Lorn turns in the saddle, as if to face Dubrez, and raises his voice so that it will carry back to the complaining lancers. “They might be able to find some barbarians so we don’t have to ride quite so far.”

“Yes, ser, Captain,” Dubrez replies, a slight twinkle in his eye.

Lorn unsheathes his cupridium sabre, lifts it, and then studies the razorlike edge that can drive through the best of the barbarian blades. “I’m still thinking. I heard some of the men saying it might be a good idea.”

The murmurs from the riders behind die away.

“Of course, we wouldn’t be close enough to support them, not unless they were very careful and could get a start on the raiders.” Lorn shrugs. “Wouldn’t want them to get their throats slit so some barbarian can claim a woman.”

“No, ser.” Dubrez nods.

Both turn in their saddles and ride silently for perhaps half a kay before Dubrez speaks. “There’s more complaining now.”

Lorn nods. “There will be more.”

“Not good, ser.”

“We both know that.”

The company remains still-or the murmurs low enough that Lorn cannot discern them even through his chaos senses-even after the lancers ride over the low pass and along the gentle ridge.

As the Fifth Company descends into the Ram’s End valley, Lorn turns his attention to the holding, far closer to the south end of the valley and the route back to Isahl than the majority of holdings in the lower part of the Grass Hills. Most holders set their steads somewhere close to the center of the valley. Not so Ram’s End.

Something bothers Lorn, and he keeps studying the holding as they near it. “What do you think, Dubrez?”

“Quiet … no one out, and it’s near mid-day.”

Lorn nods and keeps riding, watching.

Then, they reach the stream and the wide and shallow ford,Lorn sees hoofprints-more than a mere handful, and as he looks toward the sod walls of the holding, he can sense that all is less than well. The gate is off its straps-that he can see from nearly a half-kay away-and, though it is almost mid-day, the line of smoke from the cookhouse chimney is but a thin gray line, as if from a dying cook fire.

The single small herd of black-faced sheep to the southwest of the gate are unattended-something that Lorn has never seen in three years-except in the aftermath of a barbarian attack. Lorn sees two silent shapes sprawled in the grass-a herder … and a long-haired sharp-muzzled black herding dog. Dark splotches stain the green and brown of the grass.

“Lances ready!” he snaps.

Dubrez turns in his saddle and echoes the command, an echo amplified by the individual squad leaders.

“Spread formation! Forward!” Lorn adds.

The Fifth Company reforms into a line abreast and rides toward the open hanging gate of the hold. The lancers cover but another hundred cubits before two sharp whistles pierce the noon air, and the sound of hoofs rises from within the sod walls of the hold. Then riders pour through the sundered gate, the first forming a rough wedge before the gate as if to allow those who follow to escape.

“Charge! Discharge at will!” Lorn orders. He spurs his mount, as do the Mirror Lancers behind him, trying to cut off the barbarians, or keep them trapped, against the sod wall.

A half-score of rough-clad riders gallop clear of the left flank of the Fifth Company, riding westward hard. The remaining twoscore raiders squeeze their mounts into a tight wedge that gallops toward the Fifth Company.

Hsst! Hssst! Two short bolts burst from Lorn’s lance. One strikes a barbarian, and then Lorn is using both firelance and sabre to parry one heavy iron blade, and then another, before the mare carries him past the edge of the barbarian wedge, and he turns his mount.

“First squad! Shofirg! Turn about!” Lorn’s orders rise above the flashing and hissing of the firelances. He followshis own orders and wheels the mare, charging toward the western flank of the barbarian wedge, guiding the mare past a grim-faced lancer, and then slashing his sabre left-handed across the neck of an unprepared barbarian who barely started to turn before the chaos-reinforced blade separates his head and torso.

Lorn swings away, more westerly, as perhaps a half score of the barbarians break through the Lancer’s line, but the first squad, following Lorn’s command, has already reformed.

Hssst! Hssst! After a last few flashes of chaos, the firelances are discharged and silent, and cupridium blades ring against dark iron.

Lorn slows the mare, eyes studying the swirl of bearded barbarians with dark blades, and cream-clad lancers with bright sabres, ready to lend his blade, as necessary. A wide-eyed barbarian breaks clear of the fray, and turns his mount westward, as if to escape.

Lorn raises the firelance, calmly. Hssst!

The barbarian slumps in the saddle, then slides downward, one boot still caught in a stirrup, his weight and length dragging the mount to a halt.

A second raider pulls clear of the fray, and Lorn again aims his lance, letting a short burst of personally-raised chaos burn through the man’s back.

Lorn waits, but no other raiders try to escape, and, as the last barbarian pitches out of his saddle, the clangor fades.

“To the hold!” snaps Lorn, moving the mare northward and through still-milling lancers. “The hold. Now!”

“The hold!” echoes Dubrez, and then Shofirg.

As Lorn rides in through the sagging gate, a bearded giant darts from the open door of the house, then lunges sideways and grabs a small figure-a dark-haired waif who, surprisingly, recalls Myryan to Lorn.

Lorn turns his mount and pulls the firelance from its holder, again-calling on the force beyond pure chaos, for he knows there is little of the stored chaos left in the weapon. He lets the mare walk slowly toward the barbarian.

There is blood on the trousers of the bearded man who holds the struggling girl before him, as a shield against what Lorn may do. “You lift that lance any more, demon, and I’ll kill her!”

A line of whiteness streaks from the silvridium tip of the lance, a line so thin it is almost invisible.

The barbarian convulses as his face blisters into charcoal, then vanishes. The knife wavers, then falls from dead fingers, leaving a slash across the small girl’s face, and the headless barbarian corpse pitches sideways.

The girl, suddenly released, staggers toward the still figure half-leaning, half-sprawled against the earth brick wall of the house.

“ … captain did it again …”

“ … hush …”

Lorn’s eyes flick across the area of the holding inside the sod walls. One dark-haired, slightly heavy-set, young woman-the one the girl clings to, sobbing-had been flung against the ceramic screen that shields the front door of the farm house. Her neck is at an angle that shows it has been broken. The second girl, scarcely ten, continues to sob loudly, clutching the dead woman, perhaps an older sister.

Except for the lancers of the Fifth Company, nothing moves.

Is there sobbing from within the house?