Soarer's Choice

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “They must have a reason, sir. Everyone has a reason,” suggested Fabrytal. “Sometimes they believe in the worst ones the most.”

  Mykel smiled at that. Certainly, that was true enough. The seltyrs of Dramur had almost everything, and yet they’d precipitated a revolt out of a need for…what? Wanting to prove that the alectors couldn’t tell them what to do? Wanting to be able to treat their women like slaves?

  Yet many women, like Rachyla, were far more perceptive than the seltyrs. Thinking of her, he wondered if she had even gotten his last missive to her. They both had hopes, but…

  He snorted softly. No matter what the soarers told him about finding or returning to the one to whom he was tied, it wouldn’t matter much unless he were wealthy and prosperous—or more powerful than he was ever likely to be.

  Mykel rode without speaking, following the lane along the eastern side of the hills for nearly a vingt before turning westward through a vale between a pair of hills. Ahead, at a wide spot beyond the crest of the lane, waited Jasakyt, Coroden, Culeyt, and Loryalt.

  “Seems strange not to see Captain Rhystan,” said Fabrytal.

  “He’ll do fine holding the bridge.” If the Reillies ever get around to it.

  Shortly, Mykel reined up beside the group, then looked to the scouts. “What are they doing now?”

  “They’ve got some big ceremony going, sir,” reported Jasakyt.

  “Another one?”

  “This one’s different…seriouslike. No beer, no wine. Solemn.”

  Put that way, Mykel liked the picture even less. “Any sign of mounts being readied to ride out?”

  “They’ve got grindstones out, and they’re sharpening those big blades of theirs,” added Coroden.

  “That sounds like tomorrow,” offered Culeyt.

  Loryalt nodded.

  Mykel looked at the Borlan road on the far side of the valley, beyond the swampy ground bordering the stream, then to Culeyt. “You’ll be here. If they stay on the Borlan road, don’t engage them. Don’t fire a single shot.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If they do come this way against you, you’ll have to hold them, at least until we can swing up the road and hit them from the south.”

  Culeyt nodded. “We can do that.”

  “If they don’t come at you or if you turn them back and they follow the road toward Borlan”—Mykel gestured to the south—“I want you to swing in behind them, but not too close, not so that they stop and fight you. It’s only two vingts from here to the bridge causeway, and I think once they see the open bridge they’ll move on toward it and Borlan.”

  Mykel certainly hoped so. He hadn’t been pleased to find the lane that might offer another route for the hill people. It hadn’t been on any of the maps, and yet it was traveled enough that it had been around for a long time.

  He should have known better than to trust maps, but then, there were more than a few things he should have known better about—like chasing down Reillies single-handed, or falling in love with a seltyr’s daughter.

  92

  Dainyl and Alcyna lifted off from the Myrmidon headquarters at dawn on Decdi, and still the Hall of Justice was suffused in Talent force, with pulsations of purple and black all too apparent to Dainyl. Somewhere in the depths, as well, Dainyl had sensed the amber-green of the ancients, implacable and distant, yet somehow nearer and stronger. Or was that just his imagination, playing on his fears?

  He doubted that, because even Alcyna had looked away from the Hall as they climbed out, carried southward by the wide-winged and tireless pteridons. Behind them flew the thirty-seven remaining pteridons of First, Fifth, and Seventh Companies. Strapped into a second lanceholder, on the left side of the pteridon’s thick neck, was a white banner of truce, to indicate that Dainyl wanted to talk.

  The waters of the Bay of Ludel were a hard blue-gray, seemingly without waves. The wind was little more than a light breeze, although the air was chill enough to remind Dainyl that it was winter, despite the cloudless sky.

  By late midmorning, after three glasses of steady flight under a silver-green sky that now bore a hazy sheen, Dainyl could make out the dome of the Engineering Hall in Ludar to the south. A thousand yards beneath the wings of the pteridons ran the great high road—empty of riders, sandoxen, or wagons. On most Decdis, the high road carried only sparse traffic, but there was usually some. Today, there was none. Several vingts to the west of the high road was the Bay of Ludel, which extended some three vingts to the south of the west side of Ludar. The great piers were empty of all vessels.

  Dainyl had not taken notice of it before, although he had not over-flown Ludar that often, and not for years, but the Engineering Hall was on a low ridge, one perhaps not even noticeable from the ground, that was the southeasternmost extension of the rocky hills forming much of the western boundary of the bay. Immediately south of the Engineering Hall was the long structure of the Palace of the Duarch of Ludar. Once more, Dainyl could not help but smile at the domes and curves of Ludar, and the green gardens and trees, the beauty of a city well planned—and its construction well executed. The streets and boulevards surrounding the Engineering Hall and the Palace were empty as well.

  Dainyl reached forward and pulled out the white flag and unfurled it, a banner a good yard wide and three long, large enough to be seen from a distance, bracing it against the holder. Then he called to Alcyna, “I’ll lead the way with this. Have everyone else stand off! They’ll have lightcannon, and they’ll fire if everyone follows me.”

  “Yes, sir.” Alcyna raised her arm in acknowledgment, then raised her voice. “Bear off! Bear off! The Highest will bear the truce flag in. Pass it back!”

  Dainyl began a gentle descent from a thousand yards, reaching five hundred at the point where he crossed the northern boundary of Ludar, on the north side where the city truly began, when a beam of deep blue flared upward from the Engineering Hall. While he could not prove it, Dainyl suspected that Ruvryn, or Paelyt, or their engineers had designed that particular lightcannon and perhaps all those in Ludar to draw from the Table under almost any circumstances, just as the invaders in Hyalt had.

  After reinforcing his shields, Dainyl tried to lift the truce banner higher as he descended even farther, to less than three hundred yards above the ground.

  Yet another blast flared upward, this time clearly in his direction, despite the long white banner that had to be clearly visible from the Engineering Hall.

  He was less than half a vingt away when the third blast came within yards. He could sense the ripping of lifeforce from somewhere—but through the Table. Extending a Talent probe, he tried to study the Engineering Hall, but could only sense the purple miasma centered on where the Table was. The lightcannon had fired from beyond the edge of that.

  Did he want to keep trying to persuade them to talk? His eyes angled back toward the truce banner.

  Another bolt of lifeforce energy slammed against the edge of his shields. Dainyl dropped the truce banner, letting it flutter toward the ground. Samist, Brekylt, and Alseryl had attacked Elcien without provocation or warning, and now they did not even wish to talk, as they continued to use weapons that would lay waste to Acorus long before its time.

  Down…and right…just above the water. The pteridon complied, half furling its long leathery wings and dropping like the predator it was toward the winter blue-gray waters of the bay.

  Dainyl hoped he could deal with the lightcannon. No one else would even have a chance against a weapon like that, possibly even more powerful than the ones of the day before—or of the one in Hyalt. He would have little enough chance if the blue blasts struck him and his shields directly.

  Once he was but ten yards above the water, Dainyl made a complete course reversal, turning back to the southeast on a heading centered on the Engineering Hall. He glanced back to the northeast, where the other pteridons circled, well out of the range of the lightcannon. With relief at not having to worry about them for the moment, he eased
out the skylance, and at the same time began to probe for the ancients’ web. It had to be near the Table.

  Finding that blackish green web took longer than he had thought it would, for it was deeper beneath the soil and rock. He was almost at the edge of the bay, north of the piers that had held the oceangoing ships of the Duarchy days before, when he finally located and Talent-linked to the web.

  The pteridon swept between the twin green towers at each end of the long causeway, from which the piers jutted out into the bay, and toward the Engineering Hall.

  He was less than half a vingt away from the Hall and the lightcannon when light-rifles began to fire at him. His shields, boosted and bolstered by the lifeforce/Talent of the ancients, frayed slightly at the edges, but were more than adequate.

  In quick bursts, he triggered the lance, taking out each light-rifle whose energy he could sense, but he was almost over the Hall—and he could not sense the lightcannon, not until he was past it.

  Banking the pteridon right, toward the Palace, he could sense an enormous buildup of energy behind him.

  Down…as low as possible!

  The pteridon skimmed across the gardens, its wings seemingly spans above the bushes, and its wingtips occasionally cutting through the ends of tree limbs.

  SSSSsssssss!

  The deep purple-blue energy that seared through the air passed less than two yards above his head, and less than half that above the pteridon’s crest.

  Around the Palace…keep low.

  More light-rifles began to fire as he swung around the Palace, but Dainyl ignored them as he completed the turn and headed back for the Hall—less than three hundred yards away.

  He immediately triggered the lance, focusing it on the stone terrace on the south side where he knew the lightcannon was mounted, pouring Talent force into that narrow beam.

  Right! Steep bank!

  The weapon itself exploded into a shower of metal and crystal, killing the alectors who had been firing it, but some sort of insulation had blocked and diverted the boosted skylance beam from the storage crystals and the link to the Table. Still, his attack had stripped away most of the Talent camouflage.

  The pteridon straightened out on an easterly heading, and Dainyl waited several moments before turning back toward the Engineering Hall. When he did, from a vingt away he could see two more lightcannon, both mounted on the north terrace, but one on the east end and the other on the west. Each was sending occasional bolts of dark blue light toward the Myrmidons. Since the Myrmidons were well north of Ludar, those bolts were only a warning—and more wasted lifeforce energy.

  If he didn’t shut down the lightcannon, it would make little difference who “won,” because everyone would lose.

  On his third approach to the Engineering Hall, Dainyl concentrated on linking to the energy of the web well beneath Ludar. The pteridon was barely clearing the low trees and the topiary of the Duarch’s gardens as it swept toward the north terrace and the lightcannon.

  More light-rifle fire centered on Dainyl, and a blast of blue force passed so close overhead that the heat and power shook the pteridon. Dainyl’s shields were strained, and sweat threatened to run into his eyes.

  He aimed the skylance, not at the lightcannon’s discharge formulator, but at the heavy cable at its base, a cable he could not see, but only sense with his Talent, for all the energy it carried. Then he triggered it, pouring energy from the pteridon and from the amber-green in the depths, guiding it with his Talent.

  Left! Hard!…Keep low.

  The pteridon made more of a sweeping turn than a steep bank, but it couldn’t bank more steeply, not without digging a wingtip into shrubbery or trimmed lawn of the gardens only yards beneath them. Dainyl kept pouring energy into the cable.

  CRUMMPTTT!

  As the pteridon was being hurled toward the ground, Dainyl threw all his own Talent and whatever else he could draw into shields and protection. In addition to his own shields, for a moment, he was surrounded in amber-green.

  Then he was rolling across a stretch of lawn, ending up with his back against a hedge.

  Link to the web! Link yourself to the web, or you will die.

  Dainyl rolled away from the hedge and struggled to his knees. That was an effort because the very ground beneath his feet was swaying, and a deep set of groans issued from deep within the earth itself. He turned his head, and then his body, trying to see where the soarer was who had spoken.

  One of the ancients hovered beside him, but she was not facing him but the pteridon that had struck the ground almost a hundred yards away and was struggling to right itself with what looked to be a broken wing. Dainyl had never seen an injured pteridon.

  An intense line of brilliant amber-green flared from the ancient to the pteridon, so bright that Dainyl blinked and then closed his eyes momentarily against the glare. The green vanished, and a pillar of blue flame flared upward, so hot and intense that Dainyl threw up both arms to shield his face.

  In moments, the flame had vanished, leaving only a circular blackened patch in the expanse of grass—and ashes where a tree and another section of the hedge had been.

  A pteridon gone—like that.

  Dainyl staggered to his feet, turning to the soarer, who seemed to be fading.

  Link or die… That message carried both an imperative and sadness.

  Then she was gone, as if she had never been there, as if she had died and never existed. That was what Dainyl felt.

  He looked northward, into the sky, his mouth open. More than a score of ancients had appeared in the midday sky, hovering, each one close to a pteridon and Myrmidon. Dainyl knew what was going to happen.

  He turned, looking for another pteridon, for anything, for some way to stop the coming carnage in the sky.

  The sky exploded in blue flashes.

  He had not taken a dozen steps before the sky was empty—both of pteridons and of ancients—and a wave of what he could only describe as death and sadness swept over him. In an instant, less than an instant, the ancients had destroyed thirty-nine pteridons.

  He shuddered.

  Beneath him, coming from the web of the ancients, was that menacing cold and amber-green force that he had been sensing through his Table travel for months, looming over Ludar, as if it were a massive wall of rock ready to crush the city—yet it was rising from beneath Ludar. At the same time, the shuddering and shaking of the earth did not die away, but became stronger, the vibrations quicker and more intense, so much so that Dainyl had a difficult time maintaining his footing on the manicured lawn of the Duarch’s garden.

  He turned back southward, looking at the massive oblong structure that was the Palace of the Duarch, as the entire building began to vibrate—and to sink into the very ground.

  Abruptly, he felt weak, disoriented, as if he were going to collapse. What was happening?

  The purpleness that had shrouded the Engineering Hall and the Table contracted, writhing against something, then exploded outward into a fine mist that seemed to evaporate like fog.

  Dainyl swallowed inadvertently and forced what little Talent he seemed to have left, and it was all green, toward the web beneath, trying to link with it before he lost all consciousness.

  Yet making that connection seemed impossible, as if each time he reached forth to link the web twisted away from him.

  Faint stars flashed before his eyes, and his legs felt like jelly, almost unable to support him.

  Around him, the rumbling increased, and the ground no longer shook, but began to heave, sections of the turf rippling until the lawn looked like a green ocean. Dainyl staggered, trying to maintain his footing, even as he could sense an enormous pressure within the Engineering Hall.

  The Table! All the energy within it was about to explode.

  Lystrana…Kytrana…he had to get to them, to Dereka.

  With a last effort, he pressed his link to the web, letting himself be suffused in amber-green, and feeling himself sink downward, even as the Table
and the Engineering Hall exploded in a deafening roar.

  Downward…through an amber-green that no longer felt so menacing, toward the web itself…

  93

  As Culeyt had predicted, the entire mass of Squawts and Reillies began to ride out of their encampment at dawn on Decdi. Before long, according to the scouts, they were riding—or flowing—down the Borlan road toward the bridge. Mykel had moved the three companies he had with him into the prearranged positions, while he took up a vantage point in the center of the companies, concealed over the crest of several grassy knolls to the east of the flat bluffs, less than half a vingt from the Borlan road. The section of road directly to the west of Mykel was also about half a vingt to the north of the causeway approaching the bridge, a graceful arched eternastone structure wide enough for two wagons abreast, or five riders comfortably.

  In the early chill, Mykel was grateful that the low morning sun offered some slight warmth on his back as he waited beside the roan for the next set of reports from the scouts. After a time, he readjusted the sling on his right arm. He’d taken to not wearing it for short periods every day, but he was likely to be in the saddle for a long time in the day ahead. Fabrytal stood beside Mykel.

  After a time, the undercaptain cleared his throat. “Sir?”

  “Yes, Fabrytal?”

  “You know the ground was shaking early this morning just before dawn?”

  “I know. I felt it.” Not only had Mykel felt it, but he’d also sensed a wave of green Talent, seemingly radiating from the Aerlal Plateau, or at least from that direction. “It lasted for more than a quarter glass.” The earthquake—or whatever it had been—had felt much like the one that had leveled the ironworks earlier. What else had the ancient soarers done? Would it affect the battle ahead? How?

  Mykel couldn’t help but worry about the River Vedra, so much so that while the Cadmians were forming up, he’d ridden to the edge of the bluffs to check the water level. The river had been no higher—or lower—than the day before. Since the bluffs were a good thirty yards above the river, Mykel felt slightly reassured. But only slightly. Still, it seemed unlikely if not impossible that enough water could flow down the Vedra to wash over the top of the bluffs, particularly since the volume of water would flood the lower land to the east on the south side of the river west of Dekhron and be lost long before it reached Borlan. For all that, where the soarers were concerned, Mykel had learned not to discount anything. Something was going to happen.