Colors of Chaos (58 page)

More than you thought, either. “That’s why we needed something different,” answered Cerryl, finding sweat dripping from his forehead in the sweltering afternoon, despite his position in the cooler and darker woods. He waited, his head throbbing, deciding not to undermine the lower part of the slope yet. That should wait.

Abruptly he shook his head. He wasn’t thinking. Sitting in the woods wouldn’t help much if some of the Spidlarian lancers did avoid his chaos-ooze trap. And how would he know when to remove the order supports on the lower section?

“We need to mount up… have the lancers ready for any that do manage to get up the slope.”

Hiser nodded. “I thought so, ser. The company is ready.”

Cerryl packed the glass in quick motions and untied the gelding from the sapling beside the oak, mounting hastily and heading toward the road. Now it won’t matter, but you should have thought of that earlier. Why didn’t you? Because you’ve used so much order and chaos that you can’t think?

He snorted as he urged his mount northward.

He could hear the faint first screams of Spidlarian mounts as they plunged through the thin crust of soil and grass, screams that were cut off as horses and riders were swallowed by the chaotic ooze.

Cerryl spurred his mount toward the main road and the top of the rise overlooking the meadow and the lower road, where he reined up and tried to grasp the situation.

Perhaps two-thirds of the blue lancers had pulled up short of the upper ooze-filled part of the sloping meadow. The remainder had apparently vanished into the churning dark ooze in the midpart of the deep meadow grass.

Cerryl took a deep breath and forced himself to concentrate, ignoring his already-pounding head and sliding his order senses to the lower part of the meadow, well behind where the bulk of the remaining blue forces were struggling to quiet scattered and spooked mounts and turn to retreat.

A dozen riders at the eastern side of the Spidlarian line started back toward the road-right over the area where Cerryl had removed the bonds that held both soil and clay together.

All dropped into more of the quicksand bog-like chaotic ooze that replaced the tall grass. One rider climbed to the top of his mount’s saddle and flung himself sideways. He fell flat onto the dark mass and lay there scrambling for an instant before vanishing under the dark brown ooze.

To the west, almost a score of riders rode sideways toward the woods, getting beyond the trapped chaos ground just before Cerryl completed the encirclement.

Whhhssttt! Cerryl arched a firebolt over and downhill from the blue lancers, forcing them to turn away from the chaos fire and smoldering grass and shrubs at the edge of the meadow. “You need to get them,” the mage gasped at Riser, even as he flung a second firebolt down across the meadow. “Stay close to the trees.”

Whhhsttt! One blue lancer screamed as the flames engulfed him and his mount, but the rest of the score or so struggled uphill and through the woods.

Cerryl struggled to finish undermining the slope, now that the remaining Spidlarian lancers were surrounded by the ooze trap.

Don’t think about it… just do it.

Hiser’s men swept down through the thinner trees on the western side of the meadow.

Whhssstt! Cerryl launched another firebolt below the escaping Spidlarians-to ensure they kept coming uphill-and then another-at the Spidlarians themselves.

Whhhsttt! He shivered in the gelding’s saddle, casting a last firebolt to aid Hiser’s company before the two groups of lancers met among the thinner trees.

Despite the flashes of light across Cerryl’s eyes and the blurring of his vision, the odor of burning flesh, the cries, and the screams of wounded mounts-those were enough to confirm his accuracy. He sat on the gelding, just holding himself in the saddle as he heard the clash of blades below him.

He began to see again-if intermittently-enough to make out when the last of the blue-clad lancers slumped in his saddle. Enough to see that Hiser’s men led four empty-saddled mounts back up through the trees.

Cerryl forced himself to scan the killing ground.

Three horsemen galloped downhill along the eastern edge of the meadow, close to the trees. Cerryl wasn’t sure where they had come from. Returning scouts perhaps, now trying to flee the carnage?

One scout turned his mount slightly westward, toward the ooze-covered ground, as if to avoid a fallen limb or something else. The horse jerked forward, issuing a scream, and then both mount and rider vanished into the dark brown ooze that extended even closer to the woods.

Neither of the remaining riders even looked back at the scream.

Cerryl forced himself to take a deep breath before casting forth the narrow focused fire lance that he’d hidden for years from Jeslek. The first beam lanced through the trailing rider and caught the leg of the leading horse, who went down in a heap.

The surviving blue lancer vaulted clear of the falling mount, somehow, but Cerryl’s second fire lance caught him before he reached the trees.

Swaying in the saddle, Cerryl rode slowly along the main road, looking down at the dark mass of ooze that had swallowed over a hundred riders and mounts, both looking to see destruction and hoping he needed to raise no more chaos and devastation.

Hiser rode to met him at the midpoint of the road above what had been a meadow. “Ser? There were but three left.”

“I… just did… what… they did… all last year.” So you want to be like them? Cerryl leaned forward in the saddle, emptying his guts on the grass by the shoulder of the road. Then he straightened, ignoring the churning in his empty stomach. He steeled himself and concentrated, removing the barriers he had built, letting order flood back into the ground. The ooze shivered, once, twice, and slowly seemed to solidify.

On his mount beside Cerryl, Hiser gave a shudder. “Terrible… no one will guess what lies buried there.”

“Terrible…” murmured another lancer.

Cerryl was less sure of that. Armsmen, lancers, even mages died in wars and skirmishes. Was any one death less terrible than another?

Crack! A line of lightning flashed to or from the hillside where he had incinerated the last of the Spidlarian lancers. The ground shivered, and a light and acrid mist drifted from the foglike clouds that had formed over the battle area.

Cerryl’s eyes burned, and stars flashed across whatever he could see. He turned the gelding, hoping he could ride long enough so that they could rejoin Ferek and his company.

“You be looking like darkness, ser.”

“Probably.” Cerryl felt like darkness, if not worse, barely able to stay in his saddle. Yet he had neither lifted a blade nor repulsed one. He wanted to shake his head, wondering what Eliasar and the other arms mages might have thought. But he rejected the gesture, feeling that his head might roll off his shoulders if he moved it suddenly.

He could have used a healer-especially a certain healer.

As he followed the subofficer back toward Ferek’s company, back toward the camp and the bedroll he knew he needed, he could not help but overhear some of the lancer comments.

“… blues were stupid.”

“… see why the High Wizard left him.”

“… patrollers said he was tough.”

Cerryl didn’t feel tough, just exhausted-and stupid and lucky. He’d made too many mistakes in trying to execute his plan and had to use far too much chaos as a result. He wondered when the next attackers would arrive-and from where. And if he would ever learn the best way to handle situations where he was overmatched in forces.

Why don’t they just pay their tariffs? We all lose this way. He shivered as he rode, his vision so blurred he was almost blind. Why? Why can’t they see?

Neither the late-afternoon heat, nor the clouds that had begun to break up, nor the stench of death in his nostrils provided any answer.

XVCIII

Cerryl looked down at the glass on the trestle table, a table narrower than the table he had used in the last cot he had appropriated. Both table and cot were newer as well-but not much-and equally battered. The glass had turned up blank, as had every other attempt he had made for more than an eight-day.

He massaged his forehead, then closed his eyes, becoming more aware of the mixed odors of manure and cook-fire smoke drifting in through the open cot doorway on the warm early-morning breeze. With the smoke came the odor of cooked mutton-always cooked mutton. Cerryl even missed the hard cheese, now that the last of that had been eaten.

No sign of any more Spidlarians… why? After nearly a season of chasing the blue lancers, there were no more to be found. One battle-and that wiped out all that they could send to southeast Spidlar? Or were they mustering a far larger force? It couldn’t be Cerryl’s failure to scree, not when he could still call up Leyladin’s image or that of the red-haired smith Dorrin in Diev.

Cerryl he opened his eyes, trying to ignore the faint headache that never seemed to fade completely anymore. Then he stood and stretched.

A message to Jeslek, that was what he needed to write and send off, stating the apparent situation and asking if the High Wizard needed Cerryl and his lancers. He walked slowly to the cot doorway and then across the hoof-packed clay toward the cook fires. The hard biscuits he had eaten at dawn weren’t enough, and he needed more to eat. He would have to choke down the strong-tasting mutton, like it or not.

“Some mutton, ser?” asked the lancer cook.

“Yes, thank you.” Cerryl took the fat-dripping chunk, leaning forward as he chewed off a tough mouthful to keep the grease from his whites.

“Any sign of more Spidlarians?” The broad-shouldered Hiser stepped toward the slender White mage.

Ferek turned from where he stood on the far side of the cook-fire ring, gnawing on a chunk of the dark meat, waiting for Cerryl’s answer.

“There aren’t any close. They’re all around Elparta, or downriver at Kleth.”

“Don’t make sense,” mumbled Ferek. “We’re easier pickings than the High Wizard and all those Certan levies.”

“There aren’t that many around Elparta,” Cerryl said.

“Beats me, then, why it be that the High Wizard hasn’t taken the place.”

“He’s trying not to level it, I’d guess,” Cerryl said.

“Didn’t stop him none at Axalt,” pointed out Ferek, with a hoarse laugh that cracked.

“Mayhap that be why,” answered Hiser. “Having the river and the piers’d make our task the easier.”

Cerryl took another bite of the mutton, wondering whether that were the entire reason. Or had the Black armsleader been more difficult to find and subdue than Jeslek had initially calculated?

“He don’t take Elparta soon, and we’ll be here like all winter and then a fair piece.” Ferek’s voice was dry. “We be not getting many of the lancers and levies from Hydlen, either.”

“Those in Hydolar care only for their own lands and coins,” Hiser said, adding after a laugh, “and everyone else’s women.”

“Sons of clipped-coined cutpurses, every one,” Ferek declared, “‘cept those who like their sows better than their women.”

Cerryl shook his head, if minutely. A long and hot summer going nowhere was leading to a long fall and winter, with short supplies and shorter tempers among the lancers.

XCIX

Cerryl stood in the doorway to the one-room cot that served as meeting place, bedchamber, and rain shelter. In the dim light of the late-summer twilight he reread the scroll that had arrived earlier in the afternoon with the messenger from Jeslek.

While there may appear to be no Spidlarian forces near the road and lands you hold for Fairhaven… when the Black Isle is involved, appearances may be indeed deceiving… We should never be so deceived…

Your skills and presence are not required for the taking of Elparta, and it would be foolish for the Guild to hazard all of its brethren in Spidlar near Elparta unless such is required by events…

I remain convinced that events do not yet require the massive use of chaos against Elparta… Until summoned, you are to remain near the midpoint of that portion of the main road lying between the Easthorns and the present position of our forces… to secure it for safe usage by all those who answer to Fairhaven, and to ensure that all who use the road do answer to the White City…

An inquiry, and you get assigned another twenty kays or more of road to patrol? Cerryl glanced up from the scroll and massaged his forehead with his left hand. From what he gleaned from the lancers who had brought Jeslek’s scroll, the White Lancers and the Certan levies had advanced to within thirty kays of Elparta and the river-or closer. But they had been there for nearly three eight-days, and nothing had happened. Jeslek had not pressed an attack, nor had the arms commander of the Spidlarians.

Why not? Jeslek had never hesitated to employ force against others when it served its purpose, or his. Did he lack the levies he had been promised by the prefect of Gallos and the Duke of Hydlen?

Cerryl’s fingers went to his chin. Groups of Certan levies-and supply wagons-had passed every few eight-days, but not a single armsman from Hydlen. Gallosian levies would have come to Jeslek directly from the south-if any had.

Cerryl began to reroll the scroll as Hiser walked toward the cot. “Good evening, Hiser.”

“Evening, ser. Not trying to be too nosy, ser, but you got a scroll a bit ago.”

“From the High Wizard,” Cerryl admitted. “He wants us to keep guarding the road, even farther west now.”

“We haven’t seen a blue in two eight-days, could be longer.”

“That doesn’t mean we couldn’t. Or won’t.”

“So we’re still staying here, ser?” asked Hiser.

“For now.” Cerryl gestured vaguely with the loosely rolled scroll. “The High Wizard remains concerned that the Black Isle has some secret way to attack from his rear or to destroy all the White mages if they are in one place. So we will remain here.”

The young blond subofficer shrugged. “It could be worse. We’re taking fewer losses than those with the High Wizard.”