“Their majer makes what we got look good. The one officer that finds something, and they give him shit duty…”
Dainyl mentally marked that comment and kept listening, but neither Benjyr nor Meryst said anything more of immediate interest to him. After he finished with his breakfast, lacking, as usual, any sensibilities of finer taste, he left the mess and stepped back out into the light but chill breeze that swept across the courtyard.
As he looked to the northwest, he sensed something, a use of Talent that wasn’t normal. He hurried toward the squares where the pteridons were hosted, hoping either Quelyt or Falyna was there.
Falyna stepped forward as she saw the colonel approaching. “Sir? Something wrong?”
“I don’t know. Are you ready to fly? With a passenger?”
“Yes, sir. We’re the duty, such as it is—”
“Good. Let’s go. Head for where we found that ancient tunnel.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dainyl didn’t feel like explaining. How could he? He couldn’t afford to reveal that he was following a Talent-trace, not when he’d been careful to hide that he had any significant Talent besides shielding. While that had been true many years before… it wasn’t now, and he didn’t want to lose the advantage of being underestimated in that fashion, especially not after Tyanylt’s death and what he had discovered so far in Dramur. Nothing known to more than two people, and sometimes not even that, remained secret from the High Alector of Justice.
After Falyna mounted the pteridon, Dainyl followed, settling himself into the silver saddle behind her.
With a spring and a burst of Talent, the pteridon spread its wings and leapt into the sky, headed eastward into the prevailing wind. Within moments, taking advantage of the thermals over the wanner water off the coast, Falyna and the pteridon were high enough that Dramuria looked like a toy village below. Then the Myrmidon turned the pteridon to the northwest and continued climbing as they headed toward the peak of the ancients.
With the air so chill, the pteridon could climb higher, but the cold seeped through the insulating fabric of Dainyl’s uniform and even through the flying jacket.
Falyna looked back at the colonel. “Straight to the peak, sir? You want me to set down there, like before?”
“Circle it, first. I’ll let you know. Keep your lance ready when we get near.”
“Yes, sir.”
Abruptly, the pteridon dropped a good fifty yards, then began to climb again.
Dainyl looked down to his left as they drew abreast of the mining complex, but he could feel no Talent being used there, although he could make out a column of miners entering the mining compound. How many more would vanish today? And how?
He forced his attention to the terrain ahead.
As they drew nearer to the angled peak, Dainyl could still sense, faintly but clearly, the use of Talent, almost two lines of Talent, one red-violet and the other greenish gold, although the two seemed interlinked.
“That peak there?” called back Falyna.
“The one that angles, just to the left.”
“Got it, sir. Don’t see anything, not any more than last time.”
“Can you circle a bit higher?”
“We can try.”
As the pteridon swept past the cave, Dainyl caught a glimpse of the golden green arch—and of two figures, one stocky and one far smaller. The stockier figure seemed to be of red-violet, the slighter one of golden green.
“Don’t see anything there, sir!” called out Falyna.
“Make another circle!”
“Yes, sir.”
The red-violet vanished from Dainyl’s Talent-perception. One instant, it was there; the next it was not.
As Falyna brought the pteridon around for another pass, Dainyl studied the foliage and the rocky slope below the cave/tunnel and the bluff. He thought he could sense several landers or indigens several hundred yards below.
“Skylance ready!” he called.
“Lance ready!” returned the Myrmidon ranker.
The pteridon swept past the opening to the short tunnel again.
Dainyl could make out, literally suspended in midair, a hazy sphere of golden green. In that instant, as he watched, the sphere—at least he thought it was a sphere—vanished. It didn’t move; it just wasn’t there.
“Nothing there, sir.”
There wasn’t, not any longer, but Falyna hadn’t seen either presence, and that meant some sort of strong Talent-shielding, although Dainyl hadn’t sensed it.
Crack!
As Dainyl was rocked back in the pteridon’s second saddle, pain lanced through his right shoulder, the one that had barely healed from the last set of braises. Dainyl raised shields around his neck and head, all too aware of the drain his action would place on the pteridon.
“Sir!”
“I’m fine. Use the lance!” snapped the colonel. “Straight below the bluff.” The lifeforce-imbued uniform and jacket had kept the bullet from breaking through his jacket and tunic, but he would feel the impact for days.
“Coming round, sir. Hang tight!”
The pteridon began to lose altitude, if slowly.
“Can’t stay up here, sir!”
“Go right over that grove of trees ahead. Flame the center.”
Crack! Crack!
Dainyl could feel the force of one of the bullets against his shields, and, the corresponding loss of height by the pteridon.
A line of bluish flame arrowed from Falyna’s skylance toward the stand of evergreens that clung to the slope ahead and below. Yellow-and-blue fires flared, flame fountains that almost reached up to the pteridon as it passed overhead, a good hundred yards above where the trees had stood, amid the steeper rocky slopes and cliffs.
With those fires, Dainyl could sense the deaths of the men who had hidden in the trees.
“Another pass, sir?”
“No. None of them could have escaped that.” At least, the fire had killed all that were nearby, and it would have been far too wasteful of lifeforce to flame more of the forest and the living things within it. “Just head back to the compound.”
“Yes, sir.”
Once they were well away from the mountains and ridges, Dainyl released his shields. His entire body was trembling from the effort it had taken to hold them that long, because he had been forced to share the draw on the lifeforce around with the pteridon—or they would have crashed into the mountains themselves.
As they headed back down to a warmer altitude and toward the Cadmian compound just north of Dramuria, questions swirled through his thoughts.
The golden green lifeforce had to have been one of the ancients. It had matched the aura residue in the short tunnel. Where had the ancient come from? How could it have vanished so quickly? Why hadn’t he felt it before? What creature had created the red-violet lifeforce? Was the tunnel site some place of worship for the indigens or the landers? Where they worshipped or sacrificed themselves to the ancients? Had they fired at him to protect the ancient? And why now? That last question bothered him more than the others.
According to what little he had been able to read on the previous inhabitants of Acorus, they had retreated to the north and to the colder and higher places as the planet had warmed as a result of the seedings. But they were supposed to have died off centuries before. Dainyl certainly had seen no reports of them anywhere.
Was the cold the reason why it had appeared when it did? Or had alectors simply not been around when the ancients appeared because the ancients preferred extreme cold while alectors shunned it?
Dainyl shifted his weight in the saddle and harness, wincing as the straps pressured his injured shoulder. As a mere observer, he’d taken more injuries in a few weeks than he had in years as a Myrmidon ranker.
Falyna brought the pteridon in smoothly, but Dainyl was, for once, more than glad to put his boots on the stones of the compound courtyard. He just stood there for a moment.
“Hit you, didn’t they, sir?”
asked Falyna.
“It didn’t break through, but I’ll have trouble with the shoulder for a while.”
“Were they the rebels?”
“It doesn’t matter now.” Dainyl looked to the northwest, where a pillar of smoke rose. As an alector, he was supposed to be encouraging the growth of lifeforce, not destroying it.
34
Another week had passed, and, even in Dramur, the nights were chill, especially for troopers in the sheds converted to rough barracks, and in the small house Mykel used as well. They had not lost a mount to the pit traps for days, although they had been fired upon from a distance on several occasions, but no one had been wounded.
On Duadi morning, a still day with low clouds that promised rain that had yet to arrive, Mykel looked at the dispatch he had received from Majer Vaclyn, his eyes centering on the section that he’d read over and over.
… Your task under the Code is to bring these lawbreakers to justice. It matters not whether they are breaking the law by refusing to pay their debts or by actual revolt. If they will not surrender to lawful authority, you are to use whatever force is necessary under the regulations governing the Cadmian Peacekeeping Authority… Once the lawbreakers are brought to justice, you are to report the results to higher authority as expeditiously as possible.
Whatever force was necessary. Mykel didn’t like the orders, and he’d hoped that his report to the majer would have suggested that his mission was unwise. The majer clearly didn’t see it that way, and Mykel had one of two choices. He could refuse and be flogged for failure to obey orders, then imprisoned for the remainder of his term at hard labor, probably in the very mine that seemed to be part of the problem. Or he could carry out his orders, but, hopefully, in some way that did not make the situation worse.
He wasn’t sure how to carry out the orders without making things even worse, and he didn’t feel like ruining his life. He snorted. How many officers ended up doing what he was going to do, knowing that the orders were idiotic, but not wanting to be punished for saying so?
He folded the dispatch and slipped it into the pouch that he put in the chestnut’s saddlebags. Then he turned to Bho-ral, who had been waiting quietly in the long morning shadow of the sagging barn.
“Majer didn’t read your report, did he, sir?”
“He read it. He disagrees. Breaking the Code is breaking the Code. Those who break it must be punished, even if they didn’t have a choice. People don’t choose to have crops fail. They don’t choose where their parents settled, and not everyone has brains to escape their fate.”
“Those that don’t, they get punished for their lack of brains,” Bhoral replied. “We all get punished one way or another. That’s life. You do the best you can.”
Mykel laughed, harshly. “I’m going to talk to the chandler. Have the scouts meet me in half a glass. You know where.” He mounted the chestnut and rode westward, past the bedraggled sunbean fields. Some of the villagers actually looked at him as he rode past, although none addressed him.
He reined up outside the chandlery and dismounted, tying the chestnut to the rail. He’d continued to stop every day to buy something, although often it was only for a copper or two. Captains didn’t have that many free coins.
The chandler watched as Mykel hurriedly crossed the front porch, but said nothing as the captain stepped inside and studied the tables and shelves, many of which had far fewer provisions than on the previous day.
Mykel walked to a shelf on the side wall. There in an open, carved box, which looked as though Harnyck had been dusting or polishing it, was a miniature knife in a sheath. He slowly picked it up, noting that it was not even as long as his palm was wide. The leather of the sheath was old, blackened, and cracked. The knife was all one piece, with evenly rough-patterned black stone, almost like onyx, inlaid on each side of the hilt, forming a grip. The metal was silvery, with a hint of copper or bronze. Unlike most knives, it was double-bladed, and the blade was narrow. It looked exceedingly sharp.
“What’s this?”
“A knife, looks like to me.” Harnyck’s voice was even.
“Is it for sale?” Mykel eased the knife back into the sheath, which, old as it looked, was doubtless far less ancient than the blade.
“I wouldn’t sell that to my worst enemy.”
“Then you ought to be able to sell it to me.” Mykel knew , he had to have the knife, but not why. That was a frightening feeling, because he’d never had to have anything.
“Bad luck to sell it. Worse luck to keep it,” Harnyck said slowly.
“Do you know someone poor, who needs coins?” asked Mykel.
“These days, who doesn’t?”
Mykel extended five silvers he couldn’t really afford. “You give these to them, and the knife to me.”
Harnyck looked at Mykel. “I can’t refuse that, Captain, but you’ll be wishing I had.”
“I won’t back out.” Mykel laid the coins on the shelf. “Tell me why.”
“A bargain’s a bargain.” Harnyck smiled and picked up the coins. He handed the knife to Mykel. “I give you this, of my own free will, and you have offered to take it of yours.”
“I have,” Mykel agreed.
“It’s a knife of the ancients. You knew that when you saw it. For that artistry, it’s worth a score of golds. You know that, too, I’d wager.”
“I know it’s valuable. That’s not why I wanted it.”
For the first time, Harnyck smiled. “I could tell that, too. My father told me only to give it to a good-hearted enemy in a time of great trials. He also said that it would either destroy or make the man who received it.”
“I’m glad you think so highly of me.” Mykel’s humor was forced, and he realized that he’d probably said the same exact words to the chandler before.
“You will do terrible deeds, Captain. All who have held that knife have.” Harnyck smiled again. “Leastwise, that was what my da told me.”
Mykel wasn’t cheered by the chandler’s smile. Slowly, he slipped the knife inside his tunic. “I already have. I probably will again. Most Cadmians do.”
“At least, you know it.” Harnyck stepped back. “The silvers will help some bairns… and not mine. I’d not stoop to that.” He paused. “Good day, Captain.”
“Good day, Harnyck.”
Mykel’s mouth was dry as he left the chandlery. What in the world had he done? Five silvers? Why? What did the knife mean?
He untied the chestnut slowly, then mounted, turning the horse back eastward to meet with the men he had assigned to watch the comings and goings around Jyoha. Again, on the way from the town, some looked at him. None said a word, and none smiled.
35
Tridi had passed without a word from the observers he had stationed, but early on Quattri, well before dawn, one of the messengers from the scouts had awakened Mykel with word that a number of women were leaving the village along the lane that led to the sawmill.
Mykel had Bhoral roust out the entire company and quickly readied himself. Before pulling on his riding jacket, he took out the knife of the vanished ancients, easing it from its sheath and looking at it once again. The blade was smooth and shiny enough that it should have shown a reflection, but it did not. There was not a mark of corrosion or rust on it, and the metal was at least as hard as steel, if not harder, but not nearly so heavy. The facings on the grip were of a stone that looked like onyx, but was far harder. The blade was sharp enough to shave with, too sharp, if that were possible—Mykel knew, he’d tried and cut himself— and double-edged, unlike most knives, but like a dagger. Yet the blade was too short for a single killing thrust, for all its strength and sharpness. There were no markings and no inscriptions.
After a moment, he replaced it in the sheath and tucked into the inside pocket of his riding jacket. When he had time, he would make a special slot on the inside of his belt for it. It couldn’t hurt to have another knife, one that wasn’t obvious, small as it might be. He picked up his rifle an
d headed for the makeshift stables. •
Mykel finished saddling the chestnut, then rode out into the open space before the sheds that served as barracks. He glanced up at the dark sky. Through the thin night haze he could see Asterta, the warrior moon, almost at the zenith. Warrior moon, but for which warriors did the moon bode victory? As he dropped his eyes to the dimness around him, Bhoral rode up.
“Company’s almost ready, sir.”
“Good. We’ll take the back lane south. I’ll take first and second squads up through the fields and through the second growth. You take the others on the sawmill road.”
“Yes, sir. Scouts out! Company forward!”
While every sound seemed amplified in the predawn grayness, no one seemed to look out of the handful of cots set off the south lane, although smoke rose from most of the chimneys. Near the end of the lane, the company turned westward onto the cart path that crossed the main road south. After another quarter glass Mykel could see the lane he sought to his right.
“Bhoral?”
“Sir?”
“Time for you to take squads three, four, and five.”
“Yes, sir.” The senior squad leader turned his mount and pulled off to the side.
Mykel kept looking over his shoulder until he was sure that Bhoral and the three squads were clear.
Shortly, a scout appeared out of the trees on the west side of the path. “Captain?” The scout rode forward and swung his mount alongside that of Mykel. “Look to be about two squads, near that first campsite we found. Couldn’t get too close. They’ve got pickets, but they’re only fifty yards out and on the lane side. Not all that careful.”
“Good. Are you ready to ride ahead and take over point?”
“Yes, sir.”
Once Jasakyt had joined the other scouts at the front of the squads, Mykel turned. “Squad leaders forward,” he said quietly. “Pass it back.”
Gendsyr and Alendyr appeared within moments, one riding on each side of Mykel.
“We’ll be crossing the fields, then following the edge of the older forest. We’ll ride up until we’re thirty yards away and form into a firing line, rifles ready for immediate fire. If they hear us, we’ll quick time into position. First squad to my left, second to my right. I’ll give them a chance to throw down their weapons. If there’s any resistance, I’ll order immediate fire. Quiet riding from here on.”
Alector's Choice Page 18
