Cyador’s Heirs (39 page)

Lerial listens, but not for long, because in little more than a third of a glass, a scout gallops back along the dirt road from a low rise roughly half a kay ahead. The scout turns his mount to ride alongside the majer. “There’s a squad of Afritan armsmen up ahead, ser. Just beyond the rise. They seem to be waiting for us.”

“Could there be more concealed somewhere?”

The scout considers, then says, “Be hard to do that. Over the rise there, the land’s flat as a table for more than a kay in any direction.”

“They haven’t used the rise for cover or for position. That suggests they want to talk. Still…” Altyrn turns to Juist. “Ready arms.”

“Ready! Arms! Pass it back!”

“Do you think they’ll attack?” asks Lerial as the scout heads forward to join the other Lancer who waits where the road reaches the top of the rise.

“Anything’s possible, but I don’t think so. The squad leader is in a difficult position. If he lets us pass without asking what we’re doing, he’ll be censured or worse. If he attacks, he might be killed, and he’d certainly lose most of his squad, if not all of it. If he threatens, he can’t back it up, unless he’s been sent out ahead of an entire company. And if that’s the case, we’ll just politely agree and alter our plans. I don’t think that’s likely, but we’ll have to see. They wouldn’t pick an area with no cover unless we’ve surprised them. That suggests the squad is more for reconnaissance or to show Atroyan’s banner.”

“Belatedly trying to establish what he believes are his borders?”

“Atroyan’s often been belated in his actions … and that can be dangerous for everyone.”

Once Altyrn and Lerial ride over the top of low ridge, Lerial can see the squad of Afritan armsmen, who wear the dull crimson tunics that Lerial remembers, but not the iron breastplates. The troopers are drawn up some three hundred yards west on flat ground. Lerial is surprised to see that one of the Afritan armsmen does in fact bear a banner, although in the quiet air it droops against the staff, and Lerial cannot make out the design, only that the narrow banner is the crimson of Afrit.

A single armsman rides forward to meet them, reining up some twenty yards from the two scouts, now only a few yards before Altyrn.

“Column. Halt,” the majer orders. “The undercaptain and I will meet the Afritan squad leader.”

Once the Lancers have halted, Altyrn nods to Lerial, and they move forward. The majer reins up several yards short of the Afritan. “Greetings, Squad Leader.”

“Greetings.” After a pause, the squad leader says, “Do you plan to cross into Afritan lands?”

“We do not,” replies Altyrn. “According to the maps sent to Duke Kiedron by Duke Casseon, the lands to the west and south of Tirminya belong to Duke Casseon. We’re on a trade mission to some of the forest towns located within those borders.”

The squad leader nods. “Might I inquire as to what towns, ser?”

“Apfhel, and then Verdell. After those, that depends.” Altyrn smiles politely. “I am most certain that Duke Atroyan would not wish you to trouble yourself with a mere two squads and an old majer doing his best to do a job that any bright captain could do.”

Lerial can easily sense the confidence behind Altyrn’s words … and the slight emphasis on “two squads.”

“We’re just patrolling the border, ser. There have been reports of poachers.”

“That is true … although I believe you have strayed a bit farther south than the accepted borders of Afrit, and that might upset Duke Casseon. I do appreciate your concerns, though. Most poachers have come from the north, and Duke Kiedron will be pleased to learn that Duke Atroyan takes his responsibilities so gravely that you are patrolling so diligently. We, of course, are relieved of the burden of dispatching them.” Altyrn smiles once more. “Although my men do appreciate the opportunity to use their weapons, there is little satisfaction in dealing with mere ruffians.”

For a moment, the Afritan squad leader frowns. Then he nods. “We wish you a successful mission. We will be on our way.”

“We wish you well,” replies Altyrn.

Both Lerial and the majer watch as the squad leader rides back to his men, and they turn and hard north along a narrow path that cannot really be termed a road.

“Do you think they’ll set up an ambush?” asks Lerial in a low voice.

“No. Half the men in his squad are scarcely older than you are. He just wants to send a dispatch saying that he stopped us and warned us … and be able to report what we said we are doing.”

“I don’t think he expected to come across two squads here.”

“No. He didn’t. That might affect your father as well.”

“You think he might consider attacking Penecca because he thinks there aren’t as many Lancers there?”

“That’s possible. It’s also possible that he might have to consider putting more armsmen here and away from the north border nearer the river. There’s also the problem that it will be days, maybe an eightday, before Atroyan finds out. He also can’t be certain that we’ll be doing what we said we were.”

Which we aren’t … or not exactly.
Lerial can see how important it is not only to know what has happened, but to be able to judge what will happen … and he wonders if he will ever have that kind of skill in judgment.
Lephi won’t. That’s for certain.

Altyrn looks at Lerial. “That’s a very serious expression on your face.”

“I was just thinking about how my father has to decide what to do when he only knows what happened days before.”

“An effective ruler is one who can determine what others will do before they do it.”

Lerial considers those words. He can anticipate where an opponent’s blade will be before it is there, but is there any way his skills with reading order-chaos flows can help him anticipate what others will do in other areas … or over time?

XLIII

For the next two days, while Lerial, Altyrn and the two squads pass through small hamlets, and see isolated steads and occasional flocks of sheep, and in one case, goats, neither Lerial, the majer, nor the scouts see any other signs of armsmen, poachers, or raiders.

There are scattered clouds, but no rain, and that is anything but good, Lerial knows, for the coming crop year, and especially for the herders. He does do his best to study the clouds with his order senses, and try to determine the patterns within each. After a time, he begins to get a feeling of which clouds might produce rain … or snow, if the weather continues to chill, since he is now wearing his jacket closed and more than glad for the heavy gray riding gloves that the majer had given him.

As the afternoon draws out on fiveday afternoon, Lerial can see that the low rolling hills behind them are giving way to lower and lower rises until the ground before them is almost flat, although the Wooded Ridges to the south appear to be higher above the plain, and he can see wooded hills in the distance to the west and west–northwest. The grass before them is all tannish brown and no more than calf-high.

Altyrn calls a halt for the evening at an abandoned stead that consists of little more than collapsing sod walls that had once been several barns and a grassed-over hummock that might have been a house. There is a well, however, with a wooden cover, and a recently used firepit, as well as signs that others have used the ruins as a way station, although not within the last few eightdays.

As he is tethering the gelding to a tieline anchored in one of the sod walls, he asks the majer, “If there’s a well here, and grass, why was the stead abandoned?”

“It’s a shallow well,” says Altyrn. “It’s likely there’s no water in summer and harvest … The lands here are dry, and there aren’t any streams until we get much closer to Apfhel.”

“When will that be?”

“If we don’t run into rain or raiders, we should reach the beginning of the forest road late tomorrow morning.” Altyrn glances toward the scattered clouds and then toward Lerial.

“They don’t feel like rain clouds. If they get lower, there might be a quick shower, but I don’t think so.”

Lerial looks toward the firepit where two Lancers are struggling with a striker and kindling to start a fire with a few scraps of wood and some brush. “They’ll need more wood.”

“Juist has already sent men to that grove over there.”

Lerial follows the majer’s gaze and sees a line of trees, most likely the remnants of a windbreak.

“Most of the wood will be green. It’s too bad there aren’t any camma trees around.”

“Camma trees?” Lerial has never heard of them.

“Cammabark is an excellent firestarter. You have to get it just right, though. Too dry and it explodes. It only grows in certain places. The people of the Verd limit where it can grow, obviously.”

Cammabark?
Lerial is still pondering over that when he realizes the majer has left to talk to Kusyl.

The evening meal is mainly bread and cheese, with baked roots of some sort that Altyrn has directed several rankers to dig up on one side of where the stead house had stood. The roots are chopped up and added to dried mutton that has been soaked in boiling water and then fried over the cookfire. Lerial eats the roots and mutton, not exactly with enthusiasm, but at least he isn’t hungry when he finishes.

Later, after dark, he slips away from the fire and back behind one of the sod walls where he creates a concealment, then eases back toward the gathered Lancers, moving slowly and cautiously, since he cannot see from within the concealment, but only sense the other Lancers through his sensing of the flow of order and chaos around them. He gradually makes his way to where Kusyl and Juist are seated on a low hummock that might have once been a sod wall, then halts and listens.

For a time, the two squad leaders talk about the day’s ride, and the weather, and about various individual Lancers. Lerial takes in that information, hoping the more he learns about the men and the way the squad leaders talk and handle them, the better he will be if he has to lead real patrols.

After a moment of silence, Kusyl clears his throat and lowers his voice. “What do you think of the undercaptain?”

“What should I think?” replies Juist, his voice carrying a trace of amusement.

“He’s not what I thought he’d be.”

“That’s bad? He asks good questions, mostly, anyway.”

Lerial winces at the “mostly,” but continues to listen.

“You heard what happened in Tirminya?”

“The business about him cutting an arrow in half with his sabre?”

“Don’t laugh. Two of my boys saw it. He cut one shaft in half and knocked another out of the air. And … like for a couple of moments … he moved so fast they didn’t even see him.”

“That’s a problem?” asks Juist ironically. “He’s spent most of the last year training with a sabre. Two seasons with the majer. That’s more blade training than most officers get in ten years.”

Lerial can sense that there is something about what Juist is saying. He isn’t lying, but … there’s a mixture of order and chaos around his words. Withholding information perhaps?

“There’s more there,” says Kusyl flatly.

“He’s from the Magi’i. Be surprised if there isn’t.”

“If he’s a magus … why is he an undercaptain?”

“Word is,” says Juist, “that he’s a decent field healer.”

“Oh … sowshit.”

“Hasn’t stopped him from slicing a raider’s throat from ear to ear.”

“Still strange…”

“He’s the Duke’s son. How is he going to learn anything if he doesn’t see what we do? Anything happens to the Duke or his older brother, and he’s the Duke. Even if it doesn’t, he’s likely to be leading in the field. Be thankful the Duke has enough sense to send him out before he’s in charge of anything.”

“That’s why … the majer?”

“Take you this long to figure that out?”

“Sort of thought so all along.”

“If the undercaptain needs to know something, tell him. He’s still young enough to listen. Won’t always be that way, from what I’ve seen.”

Those words bother Lerial. Is Juist talking about Lephi … or his father … or just officers in general after they become captains or overcaptains?

“He doesn’t say much. Just asks questions.”

“How else is he going to learn?”

“Still … something about him…”

“You don’t like it when you can’t figure out an officer, do you?” asks Juist.

“Nope. You’re no different.” Kusyl chuckles.

“Not much. Except there are times you don’t need to know and, if you’re smart, you don’t try to learn.”

“Oh?”

“Like the majer. Looks like a white-haired old officer. He’s done things I’d never want to do. Why do you think the Duke sent his son to train under him? You notice that the undercaptain always says ‘ser.’ He’s a lord, and he’s real polite to the majer. Not just words, either.”

“Never thought of it like that.”

“Best you do.” Another silence falls between the two before Juist says, “What ever happened to that girl you met in Barteld?”

Lerial slips away and makes his way back toward the wall where there are no horses tied before he releases the concealment and heads back toward the fire.

He is a good fifteen yards away when Altyrn appears. “Where have you been?”

“Walking around. Trying to do it as quietly as possible … just for practice.”

“I see.” Altyrn pauses. “I’ve got fairly good eyes at night. I didn’t see you.”

Lerial shrugs. “I don’t know what to say, ser. I wasn’t about to wander off.”

There is the slightest pause. Then the majer says, “All the best leaders and rulers have special talents. The very best, though, know when to use them, and when not to.”

“I’m learning that, ser, but sometimes you have to practice for a long time before you know enough to understand when to use something and when not to. I can sense where most blades will be just before they get there, but it took more than two seasons of practicing with you and the Lancers at Teilyn post before I had enough skill to use that sense.”

“I thought that might be the case. Some healers can sense where people will move before they do.”

“I’ve tried that … but I can’t do that.”
Not yet.

“You never know what you can do unless you work at it.”