Scion of Cyador

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Bundles of wool, some tanned hides, two boxes of scented candles, a dozen amphorae with some sort of oil, and a strongbox with a hundred or so golds in it.”

  “We’ll need to keep the golds.” Lorn laughs. “We might need them to pay the men.”

  “Best we hope not.” Cheryk grimaces.

  “Ser!” calls another voice.

  Lorn turns in the saddle.

  .; “I think you’ll be interested in this, ser.” Gyraet rides toward Lorn, gesturing toward the leather-wrapped package strapped behind his saddle. “We found fivescore blades in the second warehouse. Fourscore, maybe five-, were from Hamor. A score or so were cupridium sabres. No lancer markings, either, so that I’d say they were forged for trade.”

  “Where’s the trader?”

  “Ah… he tried to escape. With those. I had to use a firelance.”

  “Are those his trading records?”

  “Look to be, ser.” Gyraet offers a grim smile. “If I read ‘em right, some of the blades being used against us were forged in Summerdock.”

  “We need to keep those,” Lorn says. “Very safe.”

  “You ought to carry them-once we get the blades loaded and the stuff we want from the warehouses.”

  “Which warehouse had the blades?”

  “That one there-blades, some of those polished iron shields that’ll block a firelance, and those axes with hooks.” Gyraet gestures to the westernmost structure-smaller and older than the one from which the lancers are loading provisions.

  “Make sure it’s burned to the ground,” Lorn says quietly, “both of them.”

  “Aye, ser.”

  “We shouldn’t be staying here too long.”

  “What about the flatboat there?” asks Cheryk who rides out from behind the back of the warehouse.

  “Burn it. Use the oils,” Lorn says. “Are you almost through here?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Set everything afire and join the other companies in the square. We’ll form up there, and ride out.” Lorn turns the gelding.

  “…you hear that?… friggin‘ traders in Summerdock…”

  “…do anything for a gold…”

  “…our blood… their golds…”

  As Lorn rides toward the square, Rhalyt and his First Company following, again past houses with shutters fastened, and some few with doors flapping in the light wind, Lorn can sense a brief chill of a chaos-glass, which fades almost as quickly as it passes over him. The glass reminds him, once more, that his efforts to protect Cyador are going to cause more disruptions he had not foreseen, as if everything in Cyador and Candar is twined together in a web where the slightest tug on one side ripples the entire world.

  Still, he wants to get out of Disfek and on the road toward Jera, for that is where he can do the most damage, and perhaps find the greatest support for what he feels, but cannot prove.

  As he nears the square, he can hear the crackle of flames and see dark smoke beginning to rise into the sky, and the odor of burning wood and oils fills his nostrils. The Third and Fifth Companies are re-forming into four-abreast columns in a square empty except for bodies and lancers.

  Lorn squares his shoulders. They have barely begun to do what must be accomplished, and more than a hundred kays still lie before them.

  LXIV

  Lorn sits on a flat section of a stone wall by the side of the river road, under an oak that has barely begun to show new spring leaves and whose winter leaves remain mostly gray. He reads through the sheets of paper and parchment and bills of lading that Gyraet had discovered in the river town of Disfek. He has to squint in the early twilight to make out some of the words and figures. A few insects chirp in the low grass sprouting from under the brown stalks left from the previous year, and the occasional twirrp of a traitor bird berating some lancer drifts to Lorn as he reads.

  “Ten sabres from Bluyet House, Summerdock…” Lorn shakes his head. After his experiences with Flutak or Baryat the olive-grower, he cannot say he is totally surprised. Some traders and functionaries will clearly sell anyone or anything to make golds. He takes a deep breath, recalling the grower’s daughter, and wondering how many other innocents will die as a result of his efforts to make things right.

  “Right as you see them,” he murmurs to himself, before checking the dates on the records. The sabres were purchased recently-well after Lorn left Biehl, and after the Emperor’s Merchanter Advisor was replaced, Lorn thinks, although he is not certain about when that had occurred.

  “Ser?”

  Lorn looks up to see Emsahl, Gyraet, and Cheryk standing in the road. “Yes? I wanted to read these… in case there was something in there about blade sales in other towns.”

  “Ah, ser…” Gyraet begins. “I said I thought there were traders from Cyad selling blades to the barbarians… and…” The captain shrugs.

  “These two good captains had their doubts?” asks Lorn.

  “Yes, ser,” answers Emsahl.

  Lorn flips back through the pages, then proffers a sheet to the senior captain. “This is the first. There are about five… so far. I’m not quite through them all.”

  Emsahl reads slowly, then hands the sheet to Cheryk. He looks at Lorn. “I’d be asking whether we might be better heading back.”

  “A line of retreat?” Lorn raises his eyebrows.

  “No lancer company has been this deep into barbarian lands.”

  “That’s true, and if we have to, we can cross the river and take the south side back. Right now that would be most unwise.”

  “Unwise?” asks Emsahl.

  Lorn smiles, almost bitterly. “Captain, surely you don’t think that a few blades like this mean anything? Any trader could make a mistake. Besides, what difference does a halfscore or even a score of blades make when there are so many barbarians?”

  “Ser!” Then Emsahl catches himself.

  “That is what I’d be told right now if we returned,” Lorn says. “A halfscore of blades forged in Summerdock mean nothing.”

  “He’s right,” Gyraet says. “They don’t care if we lose another score of lancers because there aren’t enough firelance recharges. Why would a halfscore of sabres forged in Summerdock change anything?”

  “You knew this, ser?” asks Emsahl.

  “I had a good idea. All the barbarians we killed east of Biehl had Hamorian blades, but they were new, and the traders were telling me everyone was trading blades in Jera. I’d seen a few Brystan sabres earlier, and I thought there would probably be others.” Lorn stands and shrugs, taking back the sheet from Cheryk after the older captain reads it. “Tales don’t mean much to lancer headquarters. The only thing they accepted was fifteenscore blades in the strongroom of the compound, attested to by two enumerators.”

  “So… we’re hunting blades as well as Jeranyi, ser?” asks Emsahl.

  “Both,” replies Lorn wearily. “Both.”

  LXV

  Although a cool breeze blows out of the north, the morning sun that foreshadows summer beats down onto Lorn’s back and neck, heating his whole body, and he continually blots his forehead and face as the Cyadoran force rides westward along the rutted river road toward the river town that the older maps had named as Berlitos. Since leaving the town of Disfek, they have swept through a handful of hamlets and smaller towns, but have found neither armsmen nor blades, and only a few score warriors, and they have been able to avoid using firelances, relying on torches and sabres.

  Still, Lorn reflects, if they remove a few score warriors here and a few score there, before long, the Jeranyi will not be nearly so able or eager to invade Cyador.

  The trees are far thicker now, particularly on the north side of the river where the Cyadoran force rides, and even farther north Lorn can see heavily wooded hills, with fields hewn from the forests. The fields do not show signs of sprouts, and even the roadside grasses are mostly brown, with few green shoots beneath. Because of all the trees and hedgerows even in the cleared fields, Lorn has sent ou
t more scouts to assure they are not surprised, but the reports he receives have shown no signs of armed Jeranyi. The relative scarcity of people tends to confirm the idea that the Jeranyi do not attack Cyador from poverty or from having too many mouths and too little land, but for reasons unrelated to golds or food.

  Ahead on the right shoulder is a kaystone-a large kaystone that Lorn can read from more than fifty cubits away: Berlitos, 10 k. From his maps, Berlitos is the only large town between his force and Jera-and it lies on the eastern triangle of land between the North and the South Branches of the River Jeryna.

  “Must be a big town,” suggests Emsahl.

  “The maps and the traders say almost fiftyscore,” Lorn says. “Some don’t live in the town, but nearby.”

  “Could raise a force there-a large one.”

  “We’ll have to see what the scouts discover and report,” Lorn replies.

  At the second kaystone, one that says-Berlitos, 5 k.-Lorn gathers the officers. They all dismount and he unrolls one of his maps to brief them under the shade of a tree that resembles an oak, but is not, while he waits for the scouts to return.

  “There is a long gradual slope ahead, a giant ridge that ends in line of hills ahead, and the town is on the flat below the hills. There is but one bridge, and that goes over the North Branch of the river almost as soon as you ride down into the town. Esfayl, I’d like you and Second Company to hold the bridge. We’ll all be there to take it, if necessary. Then we’ll take the main road right to the town square and then to the warehouse and trade district. We’re not going to try to slay anyone who doesn’t attack us. Berlitos is far enough from Cyador that there aren’t that many barbarians from it who ride against us. Here, we have a different task.” He pauses. “We’re going to destroy the three traders’ warehouses behind the river piers, and then burn them and the piers.” He looks at Esfayl. “We’ll have to leave the bridge because we’ll need that to get to Jera.”

  “We’re going on?” asks Rhalyt.

  Esfayl winces.

  Lorn looks around. “I wasn’t sure we could make it, but if we can take Berlitos without heavy losses, we’re going to Jera. That’s where all the blades are being ported, and on the way back we can follow the West Branch of the River Jeryna to within thirty kays of Inividra.” Lorn pauses. “If we’re in good shape we can even take out a few more raiders from behind on our way back home.”

  “Ser,” says Cheryk, “here come the scouts.”

  Lorn turns and waits.

  The lancer scout reins up before Lorn. “Ser… on the end of the long ridge, mayhap four kays west-that’s where the road starts to go down into the town-there be a good fivescore barbarians formed up.”

  “Did you see any others?” Lorn looks up at the lancer.

  “No, ser.”

  “What sort of arms?”

  “Mostly the big blades-some with the poleaxes that have the hooks on ‘em. And they’re wearing gray uniforms.”

  Lorn nods, even though he likes the idea of uniforms not at all. “Is it open ground there?”

  “Fields in front of them, but lots of trees on both sides of the road east and toward the hills.”

  “So we can’t circle them?”

  “Be hard, ser. Have to go through the trees.”

  Lorn glances at the map, then frowns. He looks at the scout. “Is there enough room for a squad to ride by at an angle-say fifty cubits out, and then turn back westward?”

  The scout frowns, and his eyes glaze, as if he is trying to visualize what he has seen. After a moment, he clears his throat. “Might be, ser.”

  Lorn motions for the scout to move his mount back. He turns to the officers. “What do we have left in the firelances?”

  “Maybe… three, four charges in each,” suggests Gyraet. “Some without any, some pretty close to fully charged.”

  “We’ll form up… say a third of a kay back from them… and if they don’t charge, we send the squads in one at a time… have them ride in at an angle and discharge their lances across the front…”

  Emsahl smiles. “And if they break ranks, the squad comes back, and we take the barbarians on the front?”

  “If they charge,” Lorn says. “I don’t think they will at first. They’ve picked the best spot to defend the approach to the town. The road narrows into a pass of sorts behind them. There are trees, and we can’t bring all our lancers into the fight there. We’d get picked off if we try to go through the woods. But if our lancers ride by, at around forty cubits, they can blast the front rank of their armsmen. If they have those polished shields, then have them aim lower, and take out the mounts. We’ll keep sending a squad at a time, until they attack, retreat, or until we destroy them.”

  “You think they’ll just stand there?” Cheryk frowns. “They won’t know what we’re trying at first. I’d guess they won’t charge for the first squad or two.” Lorn shrugs. “Then, who knows? If we can pick off a score or so, if they charge, we can cut them up in wider fields beyond the trees. If they hold or retreat, we’ll keep using the firelances of a squad at a time. At some point, if we’re careful, they’ll either charge blindly or break.” He stops and studies the faces of his officers. “Any questions?”

  “What sort of formation?”

  “We’ll ride there in columns of two, and form up that way, each company beside the next starting on the right with First Company. Leave enough space so that, when they charge, if they do, you can shift into four-abreast before we meet the charge.”

  After another glance around, Lorn shrugs. “We might as well mount up and see what we face.” With a wry smile that he feels he is wearing too often, he walks to the gelding and swings up into the saddle. The officers also mount, and, shortly, the Cyadoran force rides eastward.

  It is slightly before midday when the Cyadoran forces reach the eastern end of the open spaces and look westward along the road that is flanked by near-solid forest. The road itself is blocked by almost fivescore Jeranyi wearing grayish blue tunics-uniforms of sorts-and some bear long Hamorian blades. Others bear the long-handed billhooked axes that Captain Akytol had mentioned years before when he had relieved Lorn at Jakaafra. They are mounted in a line running from about twenty cubits from the woods on the north side of the road, to twenty cubits from those on the south side, a line almost seventy cubits wide and two riders deep.

  Lorn watches as the Cyadoran forces form up by company, the squads side by side, so that each company presents a four-abreast front. The Jeranyi still do not move, but wait.

  “First Company, first squad, forward and discharge lances at will!” orders Lorn.

  Lorn can almost sense the Jeranyi puzzlement as a single squad rides out from the Cyadoran forces, then angles toward the center of the Jeranyi line.

  I Hsst! Hsst!… Perhaps twoscore firebolts rake the front riders of the Jeranyi. Lorn watches carefully, and he sees no more than half a score of those bolts hit before the first squad from Rhalyt’s company rides back to its position on the right flank.

  “First Company, second squad!”

  Lorn watches closely as more firebolts slash the Jeranyi. This time, close to a score hit the defenders, and he can sense the movement among the barbarian riders. “Emsahl… Cheryk… Third and Fourth Companies- squads to four-abreast. Stand ready to charge.”

  “Third Company…”

  “Fourth Company…

  Esfayl’s voice rises above those of the senior captains. “Second Company, first squad, forward!”

  “Fifth and Sixth Companies! Four-abreast! Stand ready to charge!” Lorn orders.

  Esfayl’s first squad has no more than begun to discharge firebolts when the entire Jeranyi line begins to move forward, slowly, then into a full gallop. After but a few steps, the Jeranyi have become a ragged line with no cohesion.

  Even before the movement is readily apparent, the veteran Cyadoran captains are issuing their orders. “Forward! Discharge at will!”

  “Concentrate the firelances on the
riders with the axes!” Lorn orders. “Firelances on the axes!”

  “Firelances on the axes!”

  Dust lifts from the road and from the recently-tilled narrow fields flanking it, as the larger Cyadoran force knifes toward the outnumbered Jeranyi.

  Lorn forces himself to hold back slightly, not to be in the absolute front of the line, but he still drops two Jeranyi with his firelances, and easily ducks under a clumsy blade to dispatch a third Jeranyi with his Brystan sabre. As he wheels the gelding, he realizes that the battle, if it could be called such, is almost over.

  Half the Jeranyi have been wounded or downed before they reached the Cyadoran lancers, and half of those remaining are felled by the more experienced Mirror Lancers within moments. The others are so outnumbered that is not long before they, too, lie across the road and fields.

  As he rides through the dust already settling in the early afternoon, toward his captains, Lorn frowns. Are the only barbarians who can fight, those who live on the edge of the Grass Hills?

  “More like a slaughter.” Cheryk is shaking his head as he watches the sub-majer ride up.

  “Send out the scouts. Let’s make sure it’s not a trap,” Lorn orders. “And set up two of the companies for attack in case another force arrives. Third and Fourth!”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Sixth Company, guard the road behind us!”

  “Quytyl! Have your men collect the blades and dispatch their wounded.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Lorn remains mounted, studying the road and the areas beyond, but the only riders who finally near the Cyadorans are the scouts, riding along the road from the pass that leads down into Berlitos.

  Lorn gestures for Emsahl, Cheryk, Esfayl, and Gyraet to join him, and the four captains ride over and rein up beside Lorn.

  “Go ahead,” Lorn tells the lancer scout.

  “There be a few folk on the bridge, ser, but it be like no one even knew we fought. We looked down, and the wagons are moving by the river, and a rider or two be on the roads, mayhap a carriage.”

  Lorn shakes his head and looks over the captains. “Let’s take the town as we planned. Esfayl… the bridge. Third and Fifth Companies-the square, Fourth and Sixth-the wharf area. First Company on me.”