L. Modesitt - The White Order

His eyes went back to the single horse and rider.

The rider gestured toward them. “You two. One of you-you have it-you must help!” He spurred his mount, and the horse took another dozen steps, and then his leg seemed to give way. The rider half-fell, half-flung himself clear and staggered into a heap in the dusty road.

“Cerryl-there be trouble,” murmured Dylert. “Help me close the mill door, quick-like.”

Cerryl turned and ran to the door, pushing while Dylert pulled. When the long sliding door had but a cubit left to close, Dylert gestured to Cerryl. “Cerryl! Hurry and close the door on the finish barn, and stay inside! Be making sure you stay there. Understand?”

“Yes, ser.” Cerryl nodded and ran down the causeway to the finish lumber barn. He glanced over his shoulder.

The rider was rising to his feet, glancing back at the oncoming lancers.

Cerryl tugged the finish barn door, smaller than the one at the mill, until it was nearly closed, before slipping inside. His eyes went to the mill, its door closed, and then back to what he could see of the road, but all he could see was the rider, turning back toward the mill, drawing a blade.

The youth’s lips tightened, and he pulled on the door, sliding it closed-almost. He left a sliver of space between the massive doorpost timber and the door itself, so little that no one could have seen without being right at the door. Then he watched, squinting through his peephole.

The dusty rider half-walked, half-staggered uphill, moving determinedly toward the mill, carrying a shimmering blade. His eyes flicked uphill, and Cerryl almost felt as though the rider sought him.

The man drew closer to the mill, less than two hundred cubits from where Cerryl hunched behind the door. He wore a belt scabbard, not a shoulder harness the way the demon women had or the way mercenaries supposedly did. His sleeveless tunic was stained and streaked with dust and dirt, as was the once-fine silk shirt beneath it, and even at a distance, Cerryl could see-or sense-that the fugitive’s face was flushed and that a faint white glow surrounded him-like it cloaked the books from Cerryl’s father.

The fugitive’s eyes raked across the buildings and fixed on the finish barn. Abruptly, he turned as the drumming of hoofs rose again, nearer, and a score of lancers appeared, but a hundred cubits or so downhill from the single man.

All the lancers wore the cyan livery of Lydiar, except for the man riding beside the lancer officer who led the troop. The exception was a figure dressed entirely in white-a white mage.

Cerryl shivered but kept watching.

The lancer officer gestured, and the lancers reined up. Three lancers, bearing bows already strung, rode to the front of the column and drew arrows from their quivers with a fluidity that bespoke long practice.

The fugitive squared himself to face the archers. He raised a hand, and a small ball of fire arched from his fingertips toward the lancers.

Cerryl held his breath as the fire flared toward the Lydian lancers, yet none moved.

The white mage nodded, and simultaneously the fireball splattered into fragments that fell short of the riders. A tuft of brown grass burst into flame, and then ashes.

For a moment, the shoulders of the blond man in the travel-stained clothes slumped; then he straightened and raised his blade to the late afternoon sun. The metal glistened as though it held the fires of the sun, even after he had lowered it to chest height. He faced the lancers, neither stepping back nor forward.

The lancer officer snapped an order, and the archers released their nocked arrows.

The fugitive’s blade seemed to flash, and he stood untouched, two broken arrows lying by his feet, both somehow charred and snapped.

The lancer officer glanced at the white wizard. This time, the wizard raised his hand, and a larger fireball flared toward the blond man.

Once more the golden-fired blade flashed, and fragments of fire spewed around the fugitive. Cerryl could see a black slash across the back of the man’s left arm. The man was breathing heavily but continued to hold his strange blade in the guard position.

Another firebolt flashed from the white wizard, parried by the blond man, and yet another firebolt. After the third firebolt, the fugitive barely could raise the sword.

Cerryl missed the order from the lancer officer, but arrows flew toward the blond man. The first arrow took the fugitive in the arm. A second missed, as did a third as he threw himself to the side, but his leg slipped on the gravel of the road.

As he fell, the man hurled the blade. It flashed white and gold as it spun hilt over point and into the low brush at the end of the meadow by the road.

Two firebolts flashed from the hands of the white wizard in succession, exploding over the body of the fallen man and rising into a pillar of flame.

When the fires receded, all that remained was an irregular star of blackened ground-no body, no ashes, just an odd-shaped star of soot. Soot and the odor of burned meat.

Cerryl leaned against the doorpost and swallowed hard to keep from gagging. By the time he had regained full control, the drumming of hoofbeats had died away, and the lane was empty. Even the dust over the road to Lydiar had begun to settle.

He slowly pushed the barn door open enough to slip out. Then he studied the lane and the road. The lancers-and the white mage-had indeed left on their return to Lydiar.

Slowly, Cerryl walked down the lane, avoiding the star-shaped patch of soot, until he reached the area where the dead man had thrown the blade. A faint glint of something tugged at his eyes, except that tug urged him to look away.

He fought the feeling and followed it to a deeper patch of grass. Gingerly, he picked up the blade by the hilt, a hilt of bronze, apparently wrapped in something like silk.

Cerryl studied the blade, noting that it was not iron or steel or anything like it, but more like the metal of the knife that had been his father’s.

The sound of boots on the road alerted him, and he slipped the blade behind him as he turned.

Brental smiled. “You need not hide that blade, Cerryl. I see we had the same thought. You found it, and it be yours. Might I see it?”

After a moment, Cerryl extended the blade sideways, looking over Brental’s shoulder as Dylert walked down the lane from the barn.

Brental took it, then squinted. “I can hardly see it. It twists your eyes right well away from it.” He shivered and quickly handed the blade back to Cerryl. “It be yours, if you wish it.”

Cerryl took the blade back.

Dylert nodded, as if to agree that the blade was Cerryl’s.

Brental glanced past Cerryl, toward the Lydiar road, before speaking. “You saw the firebolt? The flame the poor fellow cast? Pity-poor chaos flame, too, it was.”

“Chaos flame?” blurted Cerryl.

“Aye,” answered Dylert. “The fellow with that blade there, he’d a been a renegade white-one who’d not follow their rules. Strict they be, about chaos and its use.” He looked hard at Cerryl. “Seen a handful over my years. A man has the talent and not be under their rules and protection, the white mages, they like as not kill or rain a fellow. . and them’s the lucky ones.” He shook his head slowly. “In their own way, they be fair, fairer than most dukes and the like. But a man should walk a fair piece to stay on their good side. Aye, and he should.”

Their good side? Had they one? Cerryl wondered.

“Glad I be as just a mill man,” said Brental, following his words with a nervous laugh.

Cerryl forced himself not to look down at the blade in his hands, a blade that felt strangely comfortable and simultaneously uncomfortable as he held it loosely.

“Well. .” Dylert added into the silence, glancing to the west where the sun hung low over the house. “Day’s done. Be time soon for dinner.” He turned and walked briskly back uphill.