L. Modesitt - Colors of Chaos

“More than I thought…” murmured Hiser.

More than you thought, either . “That’s why we needed something different,” answered Cerryl, finding sweat dripping from his forehead in the sweltering afternoon, despite his position in the cooler and darker woods. He waited, his head throbbing, deciding not to undermine the lower part of the slope yet. That should wait.

Abruptly he shook his head. He wasn’t thinking. Sitting in the woods wouldn’t help much if some of the Spidlarian lancers did avoid his chaos-ooze trap. And how would he know when to remove the order supports on the lower section?

“We need to mount up…have the lancers ready for any that do manage to get up the slope.”

Hiser nodded. “I thought so, ser. The company is ready.”

Cerryl packed the glass in quick motions and untied the gelding from the sapling beside the oak, mounting hastily and heading toward the road. Now it won’t matter, but you should have thought of that earlier. Why didn’t you? Because you’ve used so much order and chaos that you can’t think?

He snorted as he urged his mount northward.

He could hear the faint first screams of Spidlarian mounts as they plunged through the thin crust of soil and grass, screams that were cut off as horses and riders were swallowed by the chaotic ooze.

Cerryl spurred his mount toward the main road and the top of the rise overlooking the meadow and the lower road, where he reined up and tried to grasp the situation.

Perhaps two-thirds of the blue lancers had pulled up short of the upper ooze-filled part of the sloping meadow. The remainder had apparently vanished into the churning dark ooze in the midpart of the deep meadow grass.

Cerryl took a deep breath and forced himself to concentrate, ignoring his already-pounding head and sliding his order senses to the lower part of the meadow, well behind where the bulk of the remaining blue forces were struggling to quiet scattered and spooked mounts and turn to retreat.

A dozen riders at the eastern side of the Spidlarian line started back toward the road-right over the area where Cerryl had removed the bonds that held both soil and clay together.

All dropped into more of the quicksand bog-like chaotic ooze that replaced the tall grass. One rider climbed to the top of his mount’s saddle and flung himself sideways. He fell flat onto the dark mass and lay there scrambling for an instant before vanishing under the dark brown ooze.

To the west, almost a score of riders rode sideways toward the woods, getting beyond the trapped chaos ground just before Cerryl completed the encirclement.

Whhhssttt! Cerryl arched a firebolt over and downhill from the blue lancers, forcing them to turn away from the chaos fire and smoldering grass and shrubs at the edge of the meadow. “You need to get them,” the mage gasped at Hiser, even as he flung a second firebolt down across the meadow. “Stay close to the trees.”

Whhhsttt! One blue lancer screamed as the flames engulfed him and his mount, but the rest of the score or so struggled uphill and through the woods.

Cerryl struggled to finish undermining the slope, now that the remaining Spidlarian lancers were surrounded by the ooze trap.

Don’t think about it…just do it .

Hiser’s men swept down through the thinner trees on the western side of the meadow.

Whhssstt! Cerryl launched another firebolt below the escaping Spidlarians-to ensure they kept coming uphill-and then another-at the Spidlarians themselves.

Whhhsttt! He shivered in the gelding’s saddle, casting a last firebolt to aid Hiser’s company before the two groups of lancers met among the thinner trees.

Despite the flashes of light across Cerryl’s eyes and the blurring of his vision, the odor of burning flesh, the cries, and the screams of wounded mounts-those were enough to confirm his accuracy. He sat on the gelding, just holding himself in the saddle as he heard the clash of blades below him.

He began to see again-if intermittently-enough to make out when the last of the blue-clad lancers slumped in his saddle. Enough to see that Hiser’s men led four empty-saddled mounts back up through the trees.

Cerryl forced himself to scan the killing ground.

Three horsemen galloped downhill along the eastern edge of the meadow, close to the trees. Cerryl wasn’t sure where they had come from. Returning scouts perhaps, now trying to flee the carnage?

One scout turned his mount slightly westward, toward the ooze-covered ground, as if to avoid a fallen limb or something else. The horse jerked forward, issuing a scream, and then both mount and rider vanished into the dark brown ooze that extended even closer to the woods.

Neither of the remaining riders even looked back at the scream.

Cerryl forced himself to take a deep breath before casting forth the narrow focused fire lance that he’d hidden for years from Jeslek. The first beam lanced through the trailing rider and caught the leg of the leading horse, who went down in a heap.

The surviving blue lancer vaulted clear of the falling mount, somehow, but Cerryl’s second fire lance caught him before he reached the trees.

Swaying in the saddle, Cerryl rode slowly along the main road, looking down at the dark mass of ooze that had swallowed over a hundred riders and mounts, both looking to see destruction and hoping he needed to raise no more chaos and devastation.

Hiser rode to meet him at the midpoint of the road above what had been a meadow. “Ser? There were but three left.”

“I…just did…what…they did…all last year.” So you want to be like them? Cerryl leaned forward in the saddle, emptying his guts on the grass by the shoulder of the road. Then he straightened, ignoring the churning in his empty stomach. He steeled himself and concentrated, removing the barriers he had built, letting order flood back into the ground. The ooze shivered, once, twice, and slowly seemed to solidify.

On his mount beside Cerryl, Hiser gave a shudder. “Terrible…no one will guess what lies buried there.”

“Terrible…” murmured another lancer.

Cerryl was less sure of that. Armsmen, lancers, even mages died in wars and skirmishes. Was any one death less terrible than another?

Crack! A line of lightning flashed to or from the hillside where he had incinerated the last of the Spidlarian lancers. The ground shivered, and a light and acrid mist drifted from the foglike clouds that had formed over the battle area.

Cerryl’s eyes burned, and stars flashed across whatever he could see. He turned the gelding, hoping he could ride long enough so that they could rejoin Ferek and his company.

“You be looking like darkness, ser.”

“Probably.” Cerryl felt like darkness, if not worse, barely able to stay in his saddle. Yet he had neither lifted a blade nor repulsed one. He wanted to shake his head, wondering what Eliasar and the other arms mages might have thought. But he rejected the gesture, feeling that his head might roll off his shoulders if he moved it suddenly.

He could have used a healer-especially a certain healer.

As he followed the subofficer back toward Ferek’s company, back toward the camp and the bedroll he knew he needed, he could not help but overhear some of the lancer comments.

“…blues were stupid.”

“…see why the High Wizard left him.”

“…patrollers said he was tough.”

Cerryl didn’t feel tough, just exhausted-and stupid and lucky. He’d made too many mistakes in trying to execute his plan and had to use far too much chaos as a result. He wondered when the next attackers would arrive-and from where. And if he would ever learn the best way to handle situations where he was overmatched in forces.