L. Modesitt - Fall of Angels

“I see that part,” Nylan conceded. “What I don’t see is why people are like that. War leaves a few people better off, but most worse off. Sometimes, it’s even necessary to survive, but that means that the other side doesn’t.”

“Look at those Gallosian men who attacked earlier this summer.” Ryba’s voice was low and cool. “They couldn’t conceive of women like us. They wouldn’t face it. They would rather have died than faced the idea that women could be as tough and as smart-and they did. You have to face the facts, Nylan. Most people’s beliefs aren’t rational. They wouldn’t do what they do if they were. But they do, and that’s the proof.”

“I suppose so.” Nylan took another deep breath, trying to keep it low and quiet. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He just wanted to know why people were so blind. Sure-violence was always successful for the strongest, but only one person could ever be the strongest. So why did so many people delude themselves into thinking they were that person? “I suppose so … and I can see what you say. I don’t have to like it.”

“Neither do I.” Ryba yawned. “But I can’t change people.”

Nylan wondered if she really wanted to, but said nothing in the darkness. He turned to watch the cradle, hoping that Dyliess might understand, yet fearing that, if she did, she would not survive. He studied her profile in the silence until his eyes got heavy, until he dropped into an uneasy sleep, far too late, and far too close to an early dawn.

THE TRIANGLE RANG in the darkness, and Nylan bolted upright.

Ryba moaned in her sleep, and Dyliess snuffled andshifted on the lumpy cradle mattress. Slowly, the smith-engineer swung his feet onto the floor. He sat on the edge of the bed for a time, until Dyliess began to whimper. Then he eased his daughter from the cradle, and half sat, half fell into the rocking chair, with her on his chest, where he began to rock and pat her back.

The triangle sounded again, once, and Ryba mumbled, “Not yet.”

Nylan agreed with the sentiment, but waited until Ryba shifted her weight again with another groan.

“The great day has arrived,” said Nylan. “I hope it’s great. Better yet, I hope they just take their army and turn around.”

“That won’t happen,” mumbled Ryba groggily as she turned in his direction. In the dark, she fumbled with the striker for a time before she could get the candle lit. “I still don’t understand how you can see in pitch-darkness. Demons, it’s early.”

Nylan patted Dyliess, but her whimpers rapidly progressed toward wails.

“She’s hungry,” he pointed out.

“I can hear that. Just let me get half-dressed.” Ryba pulled leather trousers off the pegs and stuffed her legs into them, then pulled on her boots, leaving the thin sleeping gown in place over trousers and boots as she walked toward Nylan and their daughter. “Would you take Dyliess’s cradle down to the main level while I feed her?” asked Ryba. “After you get dressed, I mean.”

“You can feed her now?”

“Who else?”

Nylan stood, then handed Dyliess to her mother. Even before Dyliess started to nurse, the wails stopped.

“Greedy little piglet.”

“She’s not so little anymore,” Nylan observed as he began to don his leathers.

“She’s still greedy.”

Like the whole world, thought Nylan, but maybe I can change her a little. After he dressed and strapped the pair of blades in place, he lifted the cradle, stepping carefully so thathe didn’t trip on either cradle or blades. He snorted, thinking how pointless it would all be if he tumbled down four flights of stone steps before the battle.

“I’ll bring her down in a moment,” Ryba said. “Go ahead and eat.”

“Fine,” he grunted, struggling through the door with his burden.

After he slowly trudged down the steps and set the cradle next to the others carried down by either Siret or Istril or those who had helped them, Nylan paused. He saw a hand wiggling and walked over to look down at Weryl. Flat on his back, his son studied his own chubby hands, his short fingers intertwining, then separating, as if they were not really connected to his own body. Antyl-the new and very pregnant guard-stood watching.

Nylan bent down and touched Weryl’s arm lightly, trying to offer some cheer. After a bit, he straightened. In the next cradle lay Kyalynn, being rocked by Niera. His other daughter’s eyes were wide in the dimness, but she only looked, first at Niera, and then at Nylan.

Nylan walked around the cradle so that he could bend down without getting in Niera’s way, and he touched Kyalynn’s wrist. Her eyes turned to him, deep green and serious as he looked at her.

Finally, his eyes burning, he stood. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and started toward the great room. Though his guts were tight, he knew he had to eat, as much as he could stomach.

“I saw that, Nylan.”

He looked up as Istril stood there. Then he shrugged. “What can I say? I didn’t have a lot to do with their birth, but nothing can change that they’re my children.”

“You had a lot to do with their birth, just not their conception.” Istril swallowed. “I hope Weryl grows up like you.”

“I hope he grows up,” Nylan said bleakly.

“He will. I can see that.”

“You, too?” Nylan forced a chuckle.

“Me, too.” Istril paused. “You’re not riding with the guard?”

“No. I’m supposed to stay with the laser, and try to hold off their wizards in some way that I haven’t really figured out. So I don’t have to worry, in the beginning, anyway, about arrows and blades.”

“That doesn’t reassure me, Nylan.”

“What you’re wearing doesn’t reassure me much, either.” Nylan looked at the silver-haired guard, in full battle dress with twin blades, and the bow and quiver in her hands. “What about …?”

“Weryl? There are more than score eighty armsmen out there, and two of those small siege engines. Every person counts. Siret and I drew straws. I won, or lost, depending on how it goes. Yesterday, she went out with the sniping detail. You know they got almost two hundred of the Lornians, especially in the darkness?”

“What about their wizards?”

“They can’t see that well in the dark, and Saryn had the tactics laid out well. Only one shot from each position, then move. When you’ve got twenty kays of trail to leapfrog along and they don’t dare leave formation, it’s not that hard.”

“Of course,” Nylan said, “by this morning those fifteen hundred or so who are left are ready to kill us all, preferably by attaching sections of our anatomy to horses traveling at high rates of speed in different directions.”

“Probably. We just have to kill all of them. Then they won’t be a problem.”

Nylan looked at her. He thought he saw a faint hint of a smile. Then again, maybe he hadn’t. “That’s not a solution that works well over time.”

“No. It’d be a lot easier if most men were more like you, but they seem to be more like Gerlich.”

Nylan’s stomach growled, and his head felt faint.

“You need to eat, and so do I.”

Nylan nodded, and they walked toward the great room, where the tables were mostly filled. The candles helped dispel some of the predawn gloom, but not much, and theyflickered with the breeze through the open windows.

Istril sat down at the second table.

Ayrlyn-dark circles under her eyes-nodded as Nylan sat down at the head table.

“You’re tired,” Nylan said, reaching for the pot that held the bitter tea he needed-badly.

“It was a late night.”

“You went with the archers?”