L. Modesitt - Fall of Angels

“It’s no use.” One of the marines sat back and wiped her forehead.

The unmoving figure was that of the junior officer-Mertin. Above sightless eyes and streams of dried and drying blood, his forehead looked slightly lopsided.

The marine stood. “Those blades are more like iron crowbars.Not much edge. Damned sword caved in his temple. He just stood there and shot, never ducked. He got about four of them.”

Nylan looked toward the other grouping. “Who’s that?”

“Kyseen, I think. Mangled leg. Three of them hit her at once. She got two. The third got her with his horse. She still got him.”

Nylan shook his head. The entire fight still seemed both horribly real and terribly unreal.

From what he could tell, several other marines were also down.

From the hillside above, Ryba rode downhill, leading three more riderless mounts. More to the west, another marine and Gerlich were on horseback, trying to corner several more of the riderless horses. Nylan counted nearly a score of mounts being held, tethered, or chased.

Nylan glanced back toward Kyseen.

“Dumb bastard!”

Since she sounded as though she had a chance for recovery, and since he was certainly no medtech, he walked back toward the uphill side of the lander shells where Ryba was directing the construction of something where the horses could be tethered.

“Nylan!” ordered Ryba. “Get a couple of marines and check the bodies. Those that aren’t too badly wounded we’ll try to save for information. Gather all the weapons, anything valuable, and have your detail bury the rest deep enough that scavengers, or whatever they have here, won’t get them. Keep any cloaks or jackets or armor or boots-if they’re in good condition.”

Nylan nodded. While he didn’t like the idea, he understood the need.

“Don’t bury any of the dead horses yet.” Ryba made a sour face. “Maybe we can butcher some and stretch out the concentrates.”

Nylan frowned. Horse meat? Maybe it would be better than concentrates, but he had his doubts. To stop thinkingabout that, he asked, “Who got away besides the fellow in white?”

“Maybe a half dozen. One or two were wounded, I think.” Ryba turned her mount toward the end of the meadow where Gerlich lurched in the saddle as his mount nearly carried him into an overhanging pine branch. “Use your legs, Gerlich, and your head!”

Nylan pointed to the three nearest marines. “You, you, and you-we’re the scavenger-and-burial detail.” He saw Huldran. “You too, Huldran. We’ll start up by the rocks and sweep down. Carry the bodies to the lower end of the meadow, near the drop-off.” He gestured.

“That’s a long ways,” pointed out a tall woman, who, like him, had come out of the mysterious underjump with silver hair.

Nylan tried to remember her name. Was it Llysette?

“Llysette, it’s downhill-”

“It’s Llyselle, ser.”

“Sorry. In any case, Llyselle, it is downhill and away from the water, and it’s going to be hard to bury them deep enough to get rid of the smell. There are rocks there, for a cairn, if necessary.”

“Yes, ser.” The four gave him resigned looks.

“Why don’t we just drop them over the cliff?” asked Huldran.

“That would probably just cause more trouble with the locals, and we don’t need that.”

“How would they know?”

Nylan shrugged. “I don’t know, but they’ve got something-call it technology, call it magic. They knew Ryba was our leader, and they knew we came from space or the local equivalent.”

“Great …” mumbled one of the other marines.

“Stow it, Berlis,” said Huldran tiredly. “The engineer’s usually been right, and these days that counts for a lot. Let’s get on with it.”

“Take any weapons, knives, any gadgets or coins. Jewelry,too,” added Nylan. “The more we find, the more we might be able to figure out about these people.”

The sun had dropped behind the mountain peaks by the time Ryba, Gerlich, and their work crew had completed a makeshift corral for the captured mounts and by the time a large cairn and five individual graves had been completed and filled in the southwestern corner of the open area, just beyond the end of the meadow and less than two dozen steps from the beginning of the drop-off.

Saryn was by the cook-fire area, making an attempt to butcher a dead horse. Nylan shook his head, but kept walking toward the stream. He needed to get the blood and grime off himself, if he could.

Not much more than an eight-day and already five were dead-Mertin and four marines. Then, again, reflected the engineer, without the combat-trained marines and Ryba, things would have been worse, much worse.

Nylan bent down and washed the rock dust and dirt from his hands in the narrow stream. Then he walked back toward the lander where they had stockpiled the plunder, such as it was, from the corpses. They had gathered nearly three dozen of the heavy iron blades that scarcely seemed sharp enough to hack wood. After thinking about Ryba’s Sybran blade and how she had sheared right through the local plate and chain mail, Nylan shook his head.

He neared the lander, and Ayrlyn, who stood by the single remaining local. The man half sat, half lay almost against the side of the end lander on a thin tarp. The pale green eyes surveyed Nylan, and the man spoke.

Nylan almost caught the words.

“He’s asking if you’re the only true man here,” said Ayrlyn from his elbow. “He wants to give you his sword. Or he would if he still had it.”

“Honor concept, I suppose.”

“Only men have honor here? Are we in trouble!” snorted the former comm officer. Her brown eyes flashed that impossible shade of blue.

“If I take his sword, I’m responsible for him, I suppose.”

“Something like that, I’d guess.”

“Does that mean he gives his word not to escape, or is it meaningless nonsense?” Nylan’s voice was hoarse, tired.

“Who would know?”

Nylan stared at the local. “I’ll take his moral sword, or whatever. Tell him that if he breaks his word, he’ll wish no one in his family had ever been born.” Nylan was tired. Tired and angry, and he just wished that things hadn’t degenerated into slaughter so quickly.

Even before the flame-haired comm officer started to speak, the man paled, and words tumbled from his lips.

Ayrlyn looked sideways at the engineer. “For a moment, I thought you almost glowed.” She shook her head, and fires seemed to shimmer in her hair. “Whatever you did, he claims you’re his liege. His name is Narliat.” She lowered her voice. “You did something that scared the living darkness out of him. He called you master or mage, something like that.”

Nylan rubbed his forehead. “This place makes me feel strange. It’s almost like being on the net, except it’s not.” He almost could understand the man’s words, and the language was somehow familiar, but not quite. He kept rubbing his forehead.

Ayrlyn looked at him. “It is strange. I’ve had a couple of flashes like that, except it’s more as though I could feel the trees or the grass.” She glanced around nervously. “I’m not crazy. I’m not.”

“We’re probably just tired.” Nylan looked at the prisoner. “Now what?”

“Tell him to stay here, and he will.”

Nylan did, and Ayrlyn repeated the words. Narliat bowed his head.

The two angels walked toward the cook fire where Ryba waited. Nylan glanced to the rocky outcropping where a pair of sentries were outlined against the twilit sky.

The captain turned her head. “How many in the cairn?”

“Forty-three.”

“Forty-three? That many?” burst out Kyseen from the litter by the fire.

“That few,” said Ryba. “There were almost sixty, I think. Probably another three or four were wounded. They’ll probably die, if the locals’ medical care matches their weapons. That means almost a dozen escaped.”