L. Modesitt: The Chaos Balance

The majer rode from the mages’ tent toward the van on the right. His eyes slowly scanned the vast semicircle of arrayed Cyadoran troops, from the Shining Foot to the Mirror Lancers between foot companies.

“Never so many,” he murmured. “Never foot companies.”

“Majer!”

Piataphi turned in the saddle.

Captain Azarphi raised an arm in salute.

The majer eased his mount toward Azarphi, who waited before a double squad of white lancers.

“You are still to lead the first charge?” asked the younger officer.

“His Mightiness’s orders have not changed,” answered Piataphi.

“They never do.” Azarphi’s voice was low. “They never will.”

“No.” Piataphi’s response was as bleak as the grayness in his eyes.

“You think this is worse than the mines, don’t you?” Azarphi shook his head. “There aren’t that many of them, and we’ve crushed them every time.”

Piataphi forced a smile. “We have. And the powers of Whiteness willing, we will again.”

“I’ll see you with the spoils of this barbarian land, even a willing wench!” answered Azarphi with a wide grin.

Piataphi returned the smile. “I’d best be where I’m supposed to be.” With a nod, he urged the white stallion northward and past the Shining Foot.

The serjeant raised his blade as the majer reined up. “Van squads ready, ser.”

“Good.” Piataphi turned his mount and studied the field once more. The seemingly small Lornian force was drawn up in four squares, with gaps between each, clearly stretching to avoid being immediately encircled.

“They’ll have to draw together, won’t they?” asked the serjeant behind and to Piataphi’s left.

“I don’t know what they’ll do,” answered the majer. “They don’t fight the way they used to.”

“Pity. It was easier that way. It hasn’t been that bad, though.”

Piataphi nodded, then frowned. Between the second and third Lornian groups was a small squad. Two dark figures stood on the ground, and the mounted squad reformed before them.

“What’s that?” questioned the serjeant.

“Mages. Black mages. We leave those for our mages.”

“Fine with me, ser.”

The horns rang out from the center of the arc, and the odd-numbered Shining Foot moved forward, heavy steps measured, in time, and the rhythm of their steps rose over the scattered murmurs of the Cyadorans. Light flashed from the polished shields, reflections cascading across the outnumbered Lornians.

A single fireball arched from somewhere behind Piataphi and crashed into the dusty ground well back from the Lornians. The defenders did not move, even as three more fireballs flared across the skies and burned their way nearly to the waiting barbarians.

The second set of horn signals bugled across the field.

The majer surveyed his squad, then lifted his blade. “To the right center!”

“To the right!” echoed the serjeant.

Ahead of him, Piataphi could see another wave of fireballs, and these hissed down on the rightmost square of the defenders. Bodies flared like oil torches, their screams lost in the thunder of hoofs.

His eyes went to his left, toward the black mages. Had one fallen? No matter, one way or the other. His enemies lay before him.

The ground rumbled and swayed beneath the stallion’s hoofs, and the majer’s knees pressed more tightly, holding his seat as he gestured with the blade. “Forward! Now!”

He urged the stallion into full canter, feeling the backwash of heat from the white fireballs.

“Fry us as well….” came from behind him.

His squad was almost abreast the Shining Foot to his right, when the trumpets sounded once more, and the foot picked up the charge toward the waiting Lornians.

Piataphi smiled grimly.

Another set of fireballs arched overhead, so close that the majer could feel the heat picked up by his raised blade.

“No!”

The white fires splattered on an unseen shield, and flowed/splashed back toward the lancers and the nearer foot. Piataphi spurred the stallion into a leap over the low rolling clingfire, holding to his seat even with the jolting landing.

“Here! The lancers!” He turned the white back right, charging toward the outnumbered Lornians, blade again ready.

The ground lurched beneath him.

Fires, like red trees with flaming arms that grasped toward him, flared in a line between him and his lancers and the defenders. Heat, more intense than a furnace, hotter than the worse conflagration at the mines, welled around him.

Automatically, his blade went up in salute to the unknown mages, then vanished, as did the stallion and the bitter smile that was the majer’s last expression.

…And chaos burst into the air, with dark dust, and the odor of brimstone, and the heat of furnaces stoked by the hearts of stars.

Nylan and Ayrlyn stood. Legs unsteady against the ground that surged beneath them, they stood.

The earth heaved like a chaos-fevered giant, and dust surged from every crevice. Gouts of fire flared irregularly from the hills and plains. Behind them, in Rohrn, even the lowest and rudest buildings swayed, and roofs sank and crumpled between splayed walls.

Farther north and east as well, as far east as Henspa, as far north as Carpa, houses, buildings, shuddered, and some fell. Others were etched with cracks across white plaster and stucco.

Soil flowed like water, in places swallowing grass, in places bursting forth like a muddy tide, slow-splashing across once-cultivated fields and once-grazed meadows.

The link with Cyador , prompted Ayrlyn. Now! Do it deep .

Deep? Of course. Nylan almost laughed as he reached deep, then sent his probes deep and south, as he could feel that intertwining of the forest reaching for what he fed, for what he channeled. And the forest swelled, and order-chaos tendrils swept and strengthened themselves beneath all Cyador, beneath the new rivers and the old, beneath the old hills and the new, beneath the towns of order built on chaos. And Cyador trembled…yet held against the forces Nylan and Ayrlyn raised.

Whhsttt! Whhstt! Whhstt!

Three fireballs slammed against the order barrier beyond the Lornian forces, rebounding into the charging white lancers. The tall force leader on the white stallion somehow dodged the firespray, still leading his force toward the outnumbered Lornians.

To the right of the struggling angels, a black-garbed figure raised a blade, and tenscore armsmen galloped toward the other company of oncoming Mirror Lancers. Lances of reflected light played across the Lornians, and some raised hands to be able to see against the glare.

“Frig…” muttered the engineer, trying to twist the rising gouts of order to separate the two forces, realizing he could not stop the fires that would strike Fornal and his men, not with the forces already unleashed and rising. “Frig…”

Chaos fire burst from the ground, not in a line, but like a forest of fire trees. Like a forest, like a forest . The fire trees lifted the charging Lornians and the lancers on both sides of the black angels, strewing them like harvested grain, like stalks scythed, black-crisped instantly, and cast aside as fast-dispersing dust.

The tall Mirror Lancer officer raised his blade, even as he was no more, as man and horse crumbled into scattered and powdered charcoal.

Nylan sensed the death all around, closer, more immediate. Absently, the engineer winced, even as he knew the first two companies of white lancers had been turned into charcoal, and that Fornal was no more. The Lornian regent might have survived, had he waited.

The tripled notes of the Cyadoran battle orders echoed forth once more, and yet another line of Mirror Lancers heeded the horn calls. The ground vibrated again, as their mounts threw them toward the Lornian lines and the angels who struggled there. The horses charged toward the fire trees of order-bounded chaos. For a moment, but a moment, the white livery and shimmering shields threw back chaos, before the horses and Mirror Lancers flared into blackened figures that rose, and fell, crumbling like towers of finely powdered charcoal.