L. Modesitt - Colors of Chaos

“He is not that good,” mumbled Fydel under his breath.

“We have moved more ships into the Northern Ocean,” added Jeslek, “to keep them from getting blades or supplies once their stocks run low. Their crops were not good last year, and they’re short on mounts for their lancers and light cavalry.”

“Have you discovered more about the smith?” Anya asked Cerryl.

“He has made some devices of black iron and carted them to Kleth, as I told the High Wizard an eight-day ago.” Cerryl paused to swallow. “I cannot tell what the devices are, except that they hold great order. They feel like the one you recovered last year, so far as I can tell.”

“That is why we will scout all the roads first,” emphasized Jeslek. “Even our scouting forces should outnumber any Spidlarian horse you might encounter. This year, this year…we already have enough armsmen and horse to put them to flight, and we have more marching to support us.”

You said something like that last year .

Leyladin’s eyes widened, and Cerryl could tell she had understood the feeling behind his thought. He hoped no one else had.

“If you have no other inquiries, you may go and prepare for our departure.” Jeslek nodded.

Once outside the headquarters mansion, Cerryl and Leyladin mounted and rode slowly through the warm misting rain, back to the quarters they would soon be leaving.

“Jeslek’s not as well as he could be,” murmured the healer.

“Too much chaos?”

“I don’t know, but I would judge so. He could still muster enough power to bring down Kleth and Spidlaria.” Leyladin eased her mount closer to Cerryl’s gelding. “He does not seem quite so close to Anya. Did you notice that?”

“No,” Cerryl admitted. “He still turns to her.”

“It is not the same.”

Cerryl wanted to roll his eyes but refrained.

“I felt that.” Leyladin laughed. “You think I’m silly, but I’m not. You need to watch her even more.”

That-that Cerryl could definitely accept.

THE SHADOWS OF the trees to the west fell across the river road, covering the low brush and open ground between the road and the woods. In places, green sprouted through the few patches of dirty snow remaining from the long winter.

For nearly two kays the road curved back toward the river and the higher wooded hills that separated the packed clay from the water. Cerryl studied the hills alongside the river, frowning. His head throbbed from a day in which he had struggled to extend eyes and senses out around the patrol, not always successfully. Something about the hills bothered him and had from the moment his patrol had followed the road away from the river. Yet some of the Gallosian levies had been following the river road, since not all the levies could be transported on the barges and flatboats Jeslek had commandeered.

Cerryl glanced back over his shoulder. He hoped the forward pickets-half his force-didn’t have too much trouble during the night, but what use was clearing a road if you let the enemy return to it? Even so, the blues might circle the road. Cerryl shook his head. The ground was too soggy and the undergrowth too thick for much of that.

His eyes dropped to the young lancer riding beside Hiser, who struggled to remain in the saddle, blood oozing through the shoulder dressing, his head lolling, then jerking into awareness-and pain. Hiser tried to wave away the circling flies.

“…wish Leyladin or camp or something were closer…” Cerryl’s eyes studied the empty road. Still no sign of the camp.

“He’s still with us, ser,” Hiser said. “Not too much farther…”

Cerryl didn’t look back at the other saddle, the one onto which a body was strapped.

The river ran to Cerryl’s left-eastward as his patrols retraced their steps back south toward where he hoped to find the day’s encampment. The advance had slowed. After making nearly fifty kays in the first eight-day, they had covered less than fifteen kays over the past three days. And lost four men already .

Several thin lines of smoke appeared above the trees to the left, around another curve and apparently beside the river.

“Can see the camp…not too much farther,” Hiser repeated.

Cerryl turned to the lancer beside him. “Dyent, ride ahead and see if you can find the healer. Tell her that we have a lancer with a deep shoulder and chest wound.”

“Yes, ser.” Dyent urged his mount away from the main body.

Hope she’s not too exhausted…Is it fair to ask?

Cerryl stood in the stirrups momentarily, trying to stretch his legs, to shift the soreness. He hadn’t ridden so much in seasons. One season, but it had been a long winter .

Leyladin was waiting as Cerryl’s lancers rode in toward the fires. “Here! Bring him here.”

The raggedness in her voice tore at him. “Can you help him?” he whispered as he swung out of the saddle, stumbling when his boots hit the not-quite-even ground. Please don’t do too much …

“I won’t.” Her eyes and senses went to the dark-haired and pale young lancer that Hiser lifted out of the saddle and onto the pallet Leyladin had waiting-on the edge of an area holding more than a score of other pallets.

What happened?

“Too much.” She touched his hand and then stepped over and knelt beside the lancer.

Hiser hovered over the pallet.

Cerryl straightened. He couldn’t help either Leyladin or the lancer. Neither could Hiser. “Hiser, the healer will do her best for him. We need to get the men set up and the mounts watered and fed-and rubbed down.”

“Ah…yes, ser.”

“We need to make sure they get fed.” Cerryl took a deep breath and a last look at Leyladin. The healer in green looked frail, somehow. Cerryl swallowed, then forced himself away.

Once the men were settled, the mounts on a tie-line, and Cerryl had set his lancers up to be fed at the end cook fire, he walked toward the more central fire where he saw Faltar and Buar standing.

“What happened today?” Cerryl glanced up the gentle slope to where the wounded had been gathered. He could see a flash of green, but little more. “All those wounded…”

“We lost almost a whole boat of levies and some archers today,” Faltar said tiredly, turning and pointing down at the river.

“Said it was bad,” murmured the dark-haired Buar.

Cerryl looked at the boats. The forward craft bore scars, as though it had been slashed with a blade, and most of the stain and varnish had been ripped off the upper deck. The right side of the upper deck railing and the pilothouse were both gone.

“How?”

“You know those slicer things they use on the trails…” Faltar glanced at Cerryl. “Stupid of me. I’m tired. Of course, you do…”

Cerryl nodded.

“The black iron ones that smith made…”

“Dorrin,” Cerryl said, lowering his voice. “I told Fydel and Jeslek that he was making more black iron devices.”

“Well…he did. They put something like those horse slicers along the river. Fydel and Jeslek are down there now-looking at it.”

“So where were you?” snapped Anya, marching from the silk tent on the flat ground above the river. “They were set up on your side of the river, great Cerryl, and you were nowhere around.”

“We were on the road,” Cerryl answered. “Taking arrows.”

“They slipped up along the river, and you didn’t even see them?” Scorn dripped from the redhead’s voice.

Cerryl sighed. “I have only so many lancers. The road splits from the river. I told you that this morning. Jeslek told me to follow the road because Eliasar has to send most of the Gallosians that way. I did.”