L. Modesitt - The Chaos Balance

Another figure stood inside the door, and Nylan had to stop suddenly to avoid running into the shorter man.

“This be my son, Jirt,” offered Hisek. “These are angel folk, travelers, ’cepting that the flame-hair’s also a trader at times. Silver-hair’s a smith.”

“My sire’s guests are welcome.” Jirt frowned as he looked at Nylan, obviously confused at the lack of whiskers until he saw the stubble.

“The flock?” asked Hisek.

“They’re in the corral. No cats-so the lambs are all there. Cats be out later.” Jirt was square like his sire, but brown-haired and brown-bearded.

“Good! We can eat now. You brought the meat, trader lady. You serve,” said Hisek. “Sit.” Hisek indicated that Ayrlyn and Nylan should take the end places on the benches.

As the others sat at the trestle table, Ayrlyn ladled out the stew. Another crash of thunder seemed to rock the house just as Ayrlyn served herself, and the rain splashed down in sheets.

“We’re very thankful to be here,” she told Hisek.

The stew wasn’t bad, neither as awful as the messes that Kadran had made in learning to cook nor as good as Blynnal’s cooking. It was plain and filling, and the dried venison helped a lot. Kisen’s biscuits were heavy, but the one that Nylan offered Weryl seemed to keep the boy busy, half as food and half as a teething ring of sorts. At least, Nylan managed to eat a good dozen mouthfuls before he went back to alternating spoonfuls between Weryl and himself.

“You have a lot of trouble with the cats?” Nylan asked Jirt.

“Depends. Last year was bad. Lost half the lambs,” answered the herder, his mouth full. “This year…not so bad. Yet. Cold winters make easier springs.”

“Why is that?” asked Ayrlyn.

“The deer. Cold winter, the deer have it hard. They get weaker, and that makes it easier for the cats. Cats are smart. Rather go after a deer than a sheep and a herder that could kill ’em.” Jirt reached for another heavy biscuit. “Solid biscuits, sweet. Like ’em that way.”

Kisen smiled.

“True what they say about the angels,” ventured Hisek, “that they-you folk-destroyed all Lord Sillek’s armsmen and some eighty score of Lord Karthanos’s folk?”

“That’s about right. We didn’t want to, but when you have two thousand armed men trying to kill you-” Ayrlyn shrugged.

“Idiots…” mumbled Hisek through his food. “Can’t live there. Can’t even pasture up there’less you’re a rich lord. All it’s good for is bandits, and been a lot less of them since the angels showed. Got more from you, trader, than from the folk out of Lornth.”

“Peace, now,” said Nylan. “Both Karthanos and the regents of Lornth agreed to let Westwind be if Westwind keeps the roads safe of brigands.”

“Some sense after all,” noted Jirt.

“Only one who gets killed is the common man,” said Hisek. “Golar was a levy. Lucky to come back alive. Brother didn’t. That grassland lord of Jerans killed him. Him and his bitch consort.”

After more small talk and after all the biscuits were gone, and after Nylan changed Weryl again-thankfully he was only wet-the three men dragged the table to one side of the room.

“There’s the best we can do,” offered Hisek.

“That’s fine,” said Ayrlyn.

“Much better than outside in this weather,” Nylan agreed.

Jirt and Kisen retreated through the mishung door to the small bedroom, and Nylan rolled out his bedroll in the corner away from the fire, letting Ayrlyn have the closer space. After easing Weryl onto the side closest the fire, he stretched out, glad to get the weight off his feet and buttocks. For a time, he felt better. Then he began to notice that the plank floor was hard, as hard as if it were made of the rock that comprised the walls.

Plick! A raindrop splatted on the floor behind his head.

The engineer turned his head toward Ayrlyn. Her eyes met his, and she gave a half-shrug with the shoulder she wasn’t lying on.

“Better than being outside,” she said.

Plick! Plick! As if to emphasize her statement, the hissing of the rain became a heavier splashing, and another set of thunder rolls echoed outside.

Nylan turned slightly, careful not to roll onto or into Weryl, or to put his weight on the healing shoulder.

Plick!

Across the room, the older man began to snore, like a crosscut saw that rasped across Nylan’s nerves.

Plick! Plick!

He closed his eyes again.

Plick!

The engineer opened them and turned, whispering to Ayrlyn, “Tell me how it’s better than being outside again.”

In the darkness she smiled, and her hand reached out and squeezed his. “It is. You’re dry.”

He was dry. He was also tired, and his wounds and muscles ached.

Plick!

He took a deep breath, trying to relax.

Beside him, Weryl turned, but Ayrlyn squeezed his hand again.

Nylan glanced along the road, a road that now bore a few more cart tracks and hoofprints, then overhead at a patchwork of green-blue sky and white and gray clouds that moved rapidly westward.

In the fields to the left of the road stood a small hut, surrounded by gardens, where a woman in tattered trousers and a frayed gray shirt mechanically scraped away weeds with a warren. She did not even look toward the road.

“You still think we should go to Lornth? Why?” asked Nylan, shrugging his shoulders and enjoying the freedom of not carrying Weryl.

“Call it a feeling…” This morning, she wore the carrypak that held Weryl, and the silver-haired boy was awake and quiet-watching the long-horned cattle behind the split-rail fence on the south side of the road.

In turn, Nylan had the rope that led back to the gray. He glanced over his shoulder, but the gelding followed quietly.

The ironwoods again flanked the north side of the road, and Nylan wondered how many kays they stretched. There were none on the south side. Because the peasants got rid of them immediately? Nylan would have. They couldn’t remove those on the north side because the lands belonged to the lord of Lornth, at least from what Nylan had figured out.

“You have any thoughts on why you feel Lornth is where we should go?” he pursued.

“Not really. Something tells me-it could be because one of the regents is a woman-that Lornth would be better.”

“That’s like saying Ryba would be more merciful.” Nylan laughed harshly. “Women aren’t necessarily more charitable because they’re women. You’re more charitable because you’re you.”

“That may be.” Ayrlyn shrugged. “It doesn’t change the way I feel about it.”

“I hope you’re right.” Nylan grinned at Weryl.

The boy waved both arms, jabbing one back into Ayrlyn’s ribs.

“Ooohhh…you’ve got sharp elbows, Weryl.” The healer rubbed her ribs. “We need to think about designing some sort of seat, behind the saddle, perhaps.”

“Behind?”

“It’s safer, and it would leave your arms free for a blade or a bow if we ran into brigands. Or have you forgotten how you got all chopped up.”

“No. You’re right. I’ll think about it…when we get someplace where I could make it.” Ahead, around the gentle curve in the road that arced to the right, Nylan could see another hut, similar to the last, except that no one tended the garden.

“You said you had a dream? What sort of dream?” Ayrlyn asked, easing the chestnut closer to Nylan.

“Trees-old trees, and they were struggling against something. Order and chaos were twisted together. But what was funny was that it made sense, and I don’t see how twisting order and chaos together could make any sense at all.”