L. Modesitt - The Chaos Balance

“We could use more cheese,” Nylan said. “I worry about Weryl.”

“He’s fine, but we could use the cheese-and you might think about cloth-if it’s not too expensive. Cloth’s never cheap in low-tech cultures.”

He turned the mare toward the chandlery. Although there was a stone hitching post with a brass ring outside, no mounts were tied there.

“Should we stay in the inn? Or have a hot meal? It’s getting toward sunset,” Nylan said almost absently as he dismounted and tied the mare to the bronze ring in the stone post outside the chandlery.

“See what sort of reception you get.” Ayrlyn slipped off the chestnut and tied her beside Nylan’s mount. Then she urged the gray forward and tethered him as well. “I’ll carry Weryl.”

“I can carry him.”

“I just have this feeling…” insisted Ayrlyn. “How is your shoulder?”

“Fine-as long as no one puts a blade through it.” Nylan grinned and eased Weryl from the carrypak and to Ayrlyn. The boy squirmed for a moment, flailing arms and elbows, then quieted.

The comparative silence of the late afternoon was broken by the sound of hoofs-cantering or galloping into the town.

“Told you so!” yelled a voice.

“Angels!” said another.

Nylan turned to his left, where two men vaulted from mounts across the street, tied them quickly outside the cooper’s, and ran toward the chandlery. Two others remained mounted by the tied horses.

“Careful,” murmured Ayrlyn.

The smith wasn’t exactly certain how he could be careful with two armed men heading toward him, but this time he wasn’t about to let anyone get in the first slash.

“You killed my brother!” A bearded blond man dragged the huge blade from the shoulder harness and lumbered toward Nylan. Lagging behind was a smaller black-bearded figure.

The smith stepped off the wooden plank walk, turning to face the local, wondering what to do, even as his tongue and mind triggered the combat step-up reflexes and his hands drew the blade from his waist scabbard.

The huge crowbarlike blade seemed both to fly at Nylan and to move in slow motion. He whipped the Westwind blade into a parry-one of those designed by Ryba to slide the big blades. Nylan did not strike, although the blond was totally exposed for a time, and instead stepped back, holding his blade ready.

“Murdering bitches!” The blond levered the crowbar around for another massive slash.

Behind the blond, the black-haired man waited, licking his lips.

Absently, Nylan wondered why having no beard made everyone assume he was a woman. Or was it his wiry build as well? He eased away another massive slash, almost effortlessly, and said, slowly, so slowly, it seemed, in old Anglorat, “We’re just travelers, I only wanted to buy some cheese.” As he spoke, he decided he sounded idiotic, but he slipped to one side and avoided another grunt-driven, wild slash.

The black-haired man suddenly raised his blade and darted forward.

Nylan threw the blade and ducked, half-rolling and coming up with the second blade, even as his mind automatically performed the ordered flux-smoothing that targeted the first blade.

The smaller man pitched backward, the black blade buried nearly to its hilt in his chest.

Nylan staggered, blinded with the white fire that slashed at him from the death of the smaller man. He backed up, knowing the mounts weren’t that far behind him, and feeling the renewed throbbing from his left shoulder.

The blond man charged again, grunting and bringing the huge two-handed blade around like a crowbar.

Nylan’s muscles followed the well-drilled patterns, and, as suddenly as it had begun, the blond lay on the street, dead from the slash that had nearly severed shoulder and arm from trunk.

“Stand still…” came Ayrlyn’s voice out of the white fog that battered at him.

Nylan stood very still for a moment, almost blind, before, squinting through the flashes of white that intermittently blinded him, he bent and withdrew the black blade, cleaning it on the dead man’s tunic. His guts churned, but he wondered if that feeling came from Ayrlyn, relayed through the order fields he had tapped, or came from the strain of reflex step-up. His shoulder had begun to burn and throb again as well.

“His purse,” whispered Ayrlyn.

Mechanically, Nylan bent and used the shortsword’s edge to cut loose the dead blond’s wallet. Then he slowly walked toward the smaller man and repeated the process. He struggled to reclaim the thrown blade, his hands clumsy, but finally pulled it clear. Dumbly, he stood there with a blade in each hand, one clean, one still streaked with blood.

The two others started to ride across the clay of the street toward Nylan. He squinted, backed up, and fumbled the clean blade into the waist scabbard as the two riders slowly spread, as if to flank him.

Behind the smith, Ayrlyn set Weryl by her feet and drew the blade from her right scabbard, stepping into the street past the boy.

“Stop!” screamed the gray-haired woman who dashed into the street in front of the two Lornians. “You’ll get killed, just like Gustor and Buil did. They’re the black angels! Don’t you see?”

Nylan waited, blinking through intermittent vision, trying to see better, breathing heavily, but not daring to drop out of reflex boost.

“The angel didn’t attack him,” insisted the gray-haired woman. “He pushed aside Gustor’s blade, two or three times. He said he was a traveler. They got a child, and Gustor went for a blade.”

The brown-haired man reined up, nearly on top of the woman. “Jenny-leu…you’re Gustor’s cousin, and you stick up for those…always knew you were a woman-lover.”

“Wister, I be forgiving that this time. I never want to hear it again. Understand?”

Surprisingly, the rider lowered his head.

“I be no idiot, either. I know one thing. They never attack first. You attack, and they be killing you. You see, Wister, how fast he moved.”

Nylan hoped that belief in angels never attacking first, but being deadly, spread far and wide. He still gripped the blade-ready to throw it, if necessary, although he doubted that he’d be able to function, let alone move, if he had to kill another Lornian.

Jennyleu and Wister stared at Nylan, but his eyes went to the second horseman. The other had reined up also.

“See,” Jennyleu finally said. “A man and a woman and their child, and Gustor’s dead. If someone went for you and your kid, wouldn’t you stop ’em?”

Wister lowered the blade, smaller than Gustor’s but still nearly twice the length of the shortswords Nylan had used, and looked toward the smith. “You done, angel?”

“I never wanted to fight. All I wanted was to buy some cheese for my son.” He swallowed. “I could have held off the first man, without hurting him, for a while, but not two at once.”

“Idiots!” snorted Jennyleu. “Hotheads! A man wants to buy cheese, and you four darkness-near go off getting yourselves killed.”

Wister kept looking at his mount’s mane, and the fourth rider eased his mount back toward the cooper’s. The cooper stood by the barrel, eyes wide, wooden mallet in hand.

After glancing at Ayrlyn and Weryl, Nylan fumbled out the rag and cleaned the blade before sheathing it. Wister and the other rider sheathed theirs slowly. Ayrlyn did not, but no one said anything. Then Nylan bent and slowly lifted the blond man and carried the body across the street, draping it over the man’s saddle. Then he did the same for the smaller man. His eyes burned, and so did his shoulder. He hadn’t wanted to kill anyone.

“See that. He picked up Gustor like he was a baby,” murmured Jennyleu to Wister. She turned to Nylan. “All you angels that strong?”