L. Modesitt - Colors of Chaos

Greasy black smoke seemed to puddle around the front lines of the blue-clad lancers, swirling back upon itself in the damp and still air.

An arrow hissed past the mage’s shoulder, and Cerryl jerked around in the saddle to see another pair of archers renocking their bows from mounts less than a hundred cubits to his right-almost as high on the grassy inclines to the west of the bluff as he was on the center.

His mind felt as clumsy as frozen hands had on cold mornings at the mill as he struggled to raise more chaos and fling it against the two bowmen.

Whhstt! Small as the firebolt was, the White mage’s aim was good enough to turn one archer into flames and ash and send the second spurring his mount down the grassy slope. The retreating archer tried to beat flames out with one hand and guide his careening mount with the other.

Squinting into the afternoon sun, Cerryl ignored the smell of burned flesh and focused on the blue-clad lancers nearly half a kay away on the trail road, lancers who seemed to be turning.

After a deep breath, Cerryl launched another large firebolt.

Wwhhhssttt! The globe of fire arched sedately over the grassy slope and dropped, splashing chaos fire across the second line of Spidlarians and their mounts.

Cerryl reeled in the saddle, points of light flashing before his eyes and his head throbbing. When he could see, he found that Hiser had ridden up beside him.

“They’ve turned, ser. You killed another half-score.”

Only another five score to go . Cerryl nodded slowly. “Send a scout to watch the trail on the far side. We need to make sure that they’re actually moving back.”

“Yes, ser.” Hiser rode back toward where his company had been mustered, waiting.

The gray-eyed mage struggled to get to his water bottle, his fingers trembling so much that he had to concentrate totally on unstoppering the bottle. He drank slowly, and the water seemed to reduce his shakiness and the frequency of the flashes before his eyes, but not the headache or the boneweariness he felt.

The sun was clearly nearing late afternoon, hanging over the low hills to the west, when Hiser returned.

Cerryl glanced up, taking in the sun and the shadows cast by the scattered trees and bushes. Had that much of the day gone?

“They’re going,” announced Hiser. “One of the scouts says they’re heading back along the road to Kleth.”

“For now,” Cerryl said. For now . He took a long and deep breath. One thing was becoming increasingly clear. Chaos fire was far more suited to either ambush or defense, not to direct-on attacks, not unless he could count on the enemy remaining massed in one place, and that seemed unlikely, to say the least.

The constant use of chaos, even on a small scale, seemed to be close to unworkable-at least for him-no matter how much order or chaos he could handle at longer intervals. He didn’t even want to think about why he was out in the backlands, fighting off Spidlarian armsmen with far too few White Lancers for the task, needing to muster chaos all too often-or about the lengthening separation from Leyladin.

IN THE ORANGE-TINGED light that followed dawn, Cerryl looked down at the glass on the rough-planked trestle table, rubbing his eyes. Over the past three eight-days, he hadn’t slept that well, not with the constant tracking of the Spidlarian forces and his efforts to keep them away from the supply road, especially with another set of Certan wagons moving out of the Easthorns and toward Elparta.

Because he knew he would never get back to it with all the screeing facing him, he permitted himself the luxury of a quick look in the glass for Leyladin, seeking that distant focus of order somehow faintly gray, rather than the pure black of Dorrin the smith. Was that because she lived amidst chaos? Or for some other reason? Why is there no mention of gray anywhere, not in any of the books or by any of the senior mages? Even as a warning?

The mists cleared from the glass, and, almost as if she had been waiting, the red-golden-haired healer smiled from where she sat in a green dressing gown at the writing table in her silk-hung room. The room still amazed Cerryl, but he smiled as well, even knowing that she could not sense his expression, because he was cheered by her smile. After a long look, he let the image go and looked at the blank glass on the table for a moment.

Finally, after taking a swig of water from his nearly empty bottle, he began to concentrate, scanning one by one the hamlets that bordered the supply road. All were vacant, as they had been since spring.

Cerryl rubbed his forehead once more, again wondering where the Spidlarians had gone. He stood and walked to the hearth, where he took a water bottle off the shelf and took a deep swallow. After that, he went back to the table and the screeing glass.

In time, he found the Spidlarian force, breaking camp in a higher meadow amid leaved trees, rather than evergreens. From what he could tell, they had doubled back north and west, midway between Fydel’s patrols and those of Cerryl, but more than forty kays north of the Axalt-Elparta road.

Cerryl consulted his rough map, then nodded. There was a trail, not really a road, that angled toward the Elparta road. He suspected that Jeslek probably wouldn’t have paid that much attention to the trail. But he will if you allow the wagons to be taken or his flank to be attacked . Cerryl pursed his lips. Could there be another force joining them?

With a sigh, he turned back to the glass, squinting as his eyes watered and the inevitable headache began to build.

There was another force, smaller than the first, but still twice the size of what Cerryl had, angling in from the west. Both blue forces would reach the Axalt-Elparta road at about the same point. Unless you stop them .

But how? His eyes watering, Cerryl massaged his forehead. Using pure chaos-particularly firebolts-definitely limited how many armsmen he could take on, especially at once. He took a last swallow from the bottle, then stood and walked to the open door.

In the stillness, the air outside the cot was already warmer than inside the rough wooden building as Cerryl walked toward the cook fires. The aroma of roasted mutton drifted toward him.

Standing by the rough pole corral fence, Ferek lowered the chunk of greasy meat he was eating. “You’d not be looking all that pleased this morning, Mage Cerryl,” observed the subofficer. “Have the blues gone into the Easthorns now, trying to reach the road?”

“I think not.” Cerryl motioned to Hiser.

The blonde subofficer swallowed the last morsels of the hard bread he had been eating and walked toward the mage and the older subofficer.

Cerryl’s headache and watering eyes reminded him that he also needed to eat, and the mage stepped aside toward the plank propped on two tree sections that served as a provision board. Cerryl took almost half a small loaf of bread and used his white-bronze belt-knife to laboriously cut a chunk of the dry white cheese that seemed nearly as hard as the wood on which it rested.

The bread, though warm, was dry, and Cerryl had to struggle to swallow a mouthful. He wished he’d brought his water bottle from the cot, but he managed to gnaw off a corner of the cheese before he turned back to the subofficers and swallowed before speaking. “There are two forces now, the one we’ve been chasing and another one, maybe half the size of the first. They’re headed toward the Elparta road, maybe forty kays west of here.”

“That’d be a solid two-day ride,” said Hiser.

“It should be three for them.” You hope .

“Together…what? Fourfold our numbers?” asked Ferek.