L. Modesitt - The Chaos Balance

A half-score of white-coated foot flared like fatwood in a winter fire, and the line slowed, but only momentarily, before the Shining Foot surged forward once more, the second line of troops marching over the charred corpses of those who had led the charge.

Whhhstt!

The white mages continued to cast their fireballs, despite the barrier, despite the casualties to the advancing Shining Foot.

The trumpets sounded again, and the heavy drumming of hoofs rumbled the ground, nearer than ever before.

Not yet! Nylan thought desperately. Not yet! His eyes opened involuntarily. The Cyadoran forces were nearly upon the Lornians, and Gethen’s blade was poised, raised.

Nylan closed his eyes, tried to speed the rising globs of chaos, to open order channels, hundreds of them, and his forehead spewed sweat. His eyes were blind, unseeing, as all his efforts went into pressing order against chaos, against the power from the depths.

But the Shining Foot surged northward, and the lancers pounded forward, toward the Lornians, toward them, toward Gethen, toward the chaos fields that had yet to rise where Nylan struggled to bring them into the open air.

The engineer’s breath rasped from his laboring lungs and through his raw throat.

“Make ready,” ordered Tonsar, his voice firm, far steadier than Nylan felt.

Nylan reached, straining, for the slow-rising deep chaos.

The Shining Foot to the left began to run, less than a dozen yards from Gethen’s forces, building speed.

And still the demon-damned chaos seemed to float upward, ever so slowly, ignoring the straining, the order channels, and the need for its presence now.

Nylan groaned, knives flashing through his skull, pressing order against chaos, chivying the energies upward, ignoring the nearness of the chaos, ignoring the shivering of the ground, and the fireballs that continued to fall across the field.

Now…!

The majer saw the white awning at the crest of the rise, barely a dozen cubits higher than the fields and meadows stretching east and north from where he sat astride the white stallion. With a glance at the still-forming lancers of the van, and the low and disorganized structures of the barbarians’ town beyond, he chucked the reins, then turned his mount toward the mages’ tent. Only one of the mages looked up as Piataphi reined in the stallion before the tent.

“Greetings,” called Themphi.

“Why all these preparations?” asked the majer. “There are few indeed to guard their town. It is not worth guarding, or would not be were it ours.” A grim smile creased his face. “Or are the barbarians more than you have admitted?”

“Often matters are not as they seem, you may recall.” Triendar raised his head from the table and the screeing glass. “Did you ever find the fivescore Mirror Lancers who vanished?”

“No.” The majer frowned, then glanced at the line of white mages that formed to the west of the small, open-sided tent. “You know that.”

“We do,” said the white-haired magician, an edge to his words. “That is why these mages gather here. Each is assigned to a unit and will use firebolts on your enemy.”

“Just make sure that they don’t flame ours.”

“They won’t.” Triendar smiled coldly. “You command your men, and I will command mine.”

Piataphi finally nodded his head brusquely when neither mage offered more. Then he raised his sabre in salute, and rode toward the left flank where the First Mirror Lancers waited for their commander.

After the majer departed, Triendar surveyed the line of white mages. “Once the horns for the advance are sounded, you will use your firebolts to destroy the barbarians directly before your assigned units. You will use your fire until the enemy is no more. You will not use fire if it will kill our armsmen. Is that clear?”

A series of nods punctuated the line of white-clad men.

“Go.”

Triendar watched as the mages mounted and rode toward their separate units in the postdawn light.

“What do we do?” asked Themphi. Behind him, Fissar swallowed nervously.

“We watch for the mages who destroyed the lancers before. We must destroy them.” Triendar frowned and concentrated on the glass.

In the middle of the white mists appeared a man and a woman. The man had shimmering silver hair, the woman hair like flame.

“Angels. Just two, not three.”

“But they fought Lornth,” protested Themphi.

“They have always hated those of the Rational Stars,” pointed out the older mage. “They are not rational.”

“Obviously. They sought the Accursed Forest.”

The two white mages watched the angels in the glass, the only two figures on the Lornian side who were dismounted, though surrounded by a squad of armsmen who glanced nervously from side to side.

“Still, they do nothing,” murmured Themphi.

“They do more than nothing. They are reaching beneath the ground. Perhaps they are earth mages, save I have never heard of such.”

The Cyadoran horn calls echoed across the flat, and the sound of marching foot followed.

A series of fireballs arced toward the north side of the Lornian forces and exploded. Triendar offered a quick smile that faded. A satisfactory series of screams ensued, and Themphi nodded.

In the glass, the male angel winced, staggered.

“Send a fireball toward the angels,” ordered Triendar.

Themphi frowned, concentrated, and a whitish globe formed and accelerated northward, plowing into the ground and casting flame toward the angels.

Both angels stepped back. Triendar smiled, but the smile vanished as a wall of flame seared up in front of the advancing Mirror Foot.

“How?” The older mage snapped, “No matter. Another firebolt.”

A huge firebolt arced deliberately toward the angels, and both stepped back. A barbarian armsman beside the angels beat out flames that had spread across his sleeve.

A series of smaller bolts cracked across the morning sky. More Lornian mounts and their riders flamed and fell.

“Another.”

Themphi wiped his forehead and concentrated, then staggered as the ground shifted underfoot.

“…they can’t do that, can’t keep doing it, anyway,” muttered Triendar. “More fire.”

The younger mage swallowed.

The horn calls redoubled, and the Mirror Lancers charged.

A firebolt exploded in midair, well short of the enemy.

Driblets of sweat beaded on Triendar’s forehead. “They can’t.”

More firebolts splatted short of the enemy, some recoiling upon the Cyadoran forces.

Both mages exchanged glances, and the mirror blanked. The ground shivered, shuddered, and seemed to swell beneath their feet.

Themphi sensed the growing force, glanced at the glass on the table and threw himself prone, yelling, “Down!”

Triendar frowned and opened his mouth. The earth rolled, and the older mage grasped for the table to steady himself. The glass on the white-framed table exploded. Triendar shuddered, then collapsed across the table, blood welling across shattered glass and white splintered wood.

The ground heaved, and plumes of molten rock and sulfurous fumes rose, shrouding the sun, before the quick-forming clouds above cut off even more light. The screeing table collapsed under the dead weight of the white-haired mage.

Beyond the tent, the ground heaved, shivered, cracked, and then opened with a groan.

Themphi crawled to his knees, trying to stand, when another heaving of the ground cast him facedown into the dust.

“An earth mage. Who would have thought…” Themphi’s last words were lost as the wave of rock and soil cascaded down across the tent.