Ordermaster

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “There’s no one here.” The mage reined up short of the well.

  “Eerie,” murmured Erdyl. “There’s no one in these cots real close to the road, none of them. This is the first one that’s burned, though. What happened, do you think?”

  “They didn’t want to give up their land, or part of it, to Lord West’s road.” Kharl dismounted and tied the gelding to the dead limb of a tree that had been charred by the fire and stood leafless between the burned cot and the well. He walked to the well. A bucket and rope still remained.

  After drawing the water, he let his order-senses check it, but he could detect no chaos-natural or wizardly-in the water. “It’s good.”

  “Mounts could use water. So could I,” said Demyst.

  After watering their horses and letting them rest for a half glass or so, Kharl and the others remounted. As he rode on, Kharl’s stomach grew tighter and tighter. While there were no more burned cots, and only a handful of empty cots and pastures, with untended fields that lay fallow, they saw no more holders outside. At times, Kharl could see others in the distance, and carts and wagons on back lanes, but none on the gray stone highway.

  A good glass before noon, Kharl could see, off to the west of the new gray stone road, a curving section of the old road-and the kaystone that announced Peachill.

  “We’ll cross to the older track now.” He turned the chestnut and let his mount pick his way over the uneven ground until they reached the original road. Even the ruts were old and worn down by rain and weather. Merayni and Dowsyl’s orchards were off a lane on the west side of the road, short of the hamlet itself. The small hutlike cottage where he had asked directions was also a heap of charcoal, burned at least a season before.

  As he guided the chestnut westward along the narrower lane, his eyes looked for the other cots and dwellings. He could see none, only another heap of burned ruins. His stomach clenched even more tightly.

  “Ser. .. ?”

  “I need to see someone-if they’re here. If they’re not. ..” He forced a shrug.

  “Doesn’t look like they left anyone here,” ventured Demyst. “Must have done something.”

  Kharl could only hope that the destruction remained near the old road, as he rode westward on the lane. Dowsyl’s orchard and house were a good two kays from the road, with the dwelling and storage barns set amid the orchard, between the pearapples and the peach trees.

  Less than a quarter kay farther westward, he came to another burned- out cot and barn. He swallowed, moistening his lips.

  “... worried, I think ...”

  “... be worried, too ... no one on the roads, empty cots, burned cots ...”

  Kharl glanced down the lane, toward the rolling hills to the west, hills covered with the full summer green of broadleaf trees, mixed with the darker green of the pines and firs. Ahead, to his right was the old stone wall that marked the beginning of Dowsyl’s lands and orchards. The pearapples and the peaches were in full leaf, and he could see the gold of the peaches amid the green. His guts twisted as he rode closer. He could not see the thatched roof of the house above the stone wall, nor the roof of the barn in the space between pearapples and peaches. Dreading what he knew was beyond the wall, he eased the chestnut through the gateless opening in the stone wall.

  At the other scenes of destruction, where the houses had been burned or just left deserted, there had been no indication of what had happened to the holders. At Dowsyl’s, that was not so. In the garden to the south of the charred ruins, six clear graves had been dug-and filled-heaped high with extra loam so as to leave no doubt that they were graves.

  For a long time, Kharl just sat in the saddle and looked. He could sense that they were indeed graves, with the faintness of old death. The graves were not new. They could have been dug within eightdays of when he had last visited Warrl. Within eightdays. Eightdays ... and Kharl had not even known. Had not sensed it, even.

  Egen had traced Warrl somehow, and because he could not touch Kharl, he had killed them all-Merayni and Dowsyl and their three children . .. and Warrl. Warrl. Kharl’s youngest.

  He did not know how much time had passed before he finally turned the chestnut and headed back out eastward on the lane, back through the ruins of Peachill. “Ser?” asked Demyst, gently. “You knew them?”

  “My consort’s sister and her consort, their children.” He did not want to mention Warrl. “He was a good man. An honest man.” He knew he could not say a word about Warrl, not and hold himself together. “Lord West’s men, you think?”

  Kharl just nodded, although he had no doubt that it was Egen’s doing. His throat was dry. He wanted to swallow, but he couldn’t. Beneath the grief, rage seethed, and his jaw kept tightening.

  How could anyone be so viciously cruel? For Kharl, it was beyond explanation. Four children, helpless, and one of them had been Warrl, who had only gone to Merayni’s to be safe.

  The mage shook his head. Merayni hadn’t been Kharl’s favorite, but she’d done what she had thought best-and it had led to her death. Kharl had tried to rescue Sanyle and keep Jenevra from Egen, and for that Egen had killed Charee, and tried to have Kharl flogged heavily enough that he would not survive. That had driven Arthal to sea on the Fleuryl-and to his death. Then Egen had used overtariffing and Tyrbel’s murder to drive away Warrl and send Kharl into hiding and eventually into flight from Brysta. Beyond that, Egen had burned every cot in Peachill.

  And that hadn’t been enough-all that because Kharl had stopped Egen from abusing one girl and rescued one of his victims?

  Thoughts kept swirling through Kharl’s head. Egen . .. always Egen. Bastard was too generous a term for Ostcrag’s son. So was pissprick... or anything else Kharl could think of.

  The other thing that bothered him was that, at least for a time, Jeka had not been harmed. Kharl frowned, then nodded. Egen had never known that Kharl had hidden with Jeka. That had to be the only reason. When Kharl had walked to Peachill to see Warrl, he had not gone as a beggar, but as himself. Had that pride doomed Warrl?

  And why hadn’t Egen done the same to Sanyle? Or had she fled to someone who could protect her? Kharl wondered if he’d ever know, but he just hoped that she had gotten safely to Vizyn. She had certainly known that it was not safe for her to stay in Brysta. Kharl shifted his weight in the saddle.

  No one said a word on the ride back toward the gray stone highway.

  As they neared the burned-out hut beside the old road, Demyst cleared his throat. “Ah ... we headed back, ser?” asked Demyst.

  “Not yet. We’ll keep heading south. We know what they’re doing. We don’t know why.” Especially now, Kharl had to know. What was Egen doing that required such cruelty, not just to Kharl, but to the holders he’d driven from their homes?

  Not until they were a good kay south of Peachill did Kharl call another rest halt, once more at an abandoned-but not burned-cot-and one where they were shielded by a short hedgerow and not visible from the new highway. They ate and watered and fed the mounts, then rested for almost a glass.

  No one said much to Kharl, respecting his silence and grief.

  Finally, he cleared his throat. “We need to get riding.”

  “Ser,” ventured Erdyl, “what are we seeking?”

  Kharl laughed harshly. “If I knew that, we wouldn’t have to be here. Lord West-or his sons-don’t want travelers here. They’ve built a new stone road, but no one is using it, and they don’t seem to want anyone using it. There aren’t any armsmen in Brysta. They’ve been replaced by patrollers in new uniforms. There are no ships in the harbor except those from Hamor, and no one seems to know what’s on them. The Hamorian envoy avoided telling me that. The Sarronnese envoy doesn’t know. We can’t even find most of the other envoys or their secretaries. Those secretaries that Erdyl’s talked to don’t know any more than we do. Or they aren’t saying.” He shrugged. “So we’ll keep riding for a while.”

  “Yes, ser. I didn’t mean . ..”

  “I know
,” Kharl replied. “It seems stupid, but there has to be some reason for all this, and we weren’t finding out in Brysta.” He climbed into the saddle and turned the chestnut back toward the gray stone road. He did not turn in the saddle to look back. He could not have done that and maintained any composure.

  They rode more than another glass, another five to seven kays, from what Kharl judged before he sensed another set of lancers riding northward toward them from beyond the low hill crest ahead. He glanced around before speaking. “Off the road, over by those trees. There are more lancers coming.”

  The five others followed, gathering around Kharl beneath an ancient black oak. “Before they get here, I’m going to put a sight shield around us. You won’t be able to see, but they won’t see us, either.”

  “No more fire?” murmured Cevor.

  “No. Not this time.” Kharl didn’t want too many lancers disappearing. Also, doing too much of the order-release magery took a heavy toll on him. “Just be quiet. They won’t be able to see us, but they can hear us.”

  Once he had raised the sight shield, Kharl could hear more than a few swallows and someone’s fast and nervous breathing. He just hoped none of his group would do something stupid.

  The second patrol was close to forty lancers-two full mounted squads. The riders were moving at a trot, and were out of sight before long. Kharl waited until he was certain before releasing the sight shield.

  “Whew!” Alynar shook his head. “Felt like I was in a cave, ser.”

  “Strange,” added Demyst. “I could hear the hoofs, but they just kept riding.”

  Kharl turned the chestnut toward the new road, heading southward once more.

  Over the next glass or so, east of the gray stone road, a road that had gradually changed its course so that it now pointed south-southeast rather than due south, the hills became more rugged, with occasional gray escarpments. Kharl had the feeling that the same kind of stone had been cut and used for the highway.

  By then, it was well into late afternoon, and the holdings were getting more scattered. Kharl frowned as he looked at a hillside to the west at the blackened ruins of what had to have been a mansion or a lord’s dwelling. The cots below it were unharmed, and he could see some figures working the fields. Then he nodded. An unfriendly lord-or one independent of Egen-might well have been a threat. Now, the golds from rents doubtless went to Egen.

  For the next kay or so, Kharl began to sense something ahead, but he couldn’t tell exactly what, beyond the general feeling of people and chaos and order-almost like a sizable town. That would not have been surprising, although there were few large towns to the southwest of Brysta, from what Kharl remembered. Most were either on the coast, to the east or north.

  Still, the feeling grew.

  Then they had to take cover once more, as another patrol appeared from the south and rode northward.

  Once the third patrol had passed, Kharl concentrated on what he had been sensing ahead. There were lancers, buildings, and the chaos left from wizardry, and not all that far away. From what he could tell, it was beyond the hillcrest on the east side of the road.

  “This way.” Without looking back, he turned the chestnut into the meadow to the left of the gray stone road and headed toward the woods or woodlot that looked to be a kay or so farther to the east, straddling the top of the low ridge. He hoped the woods would provide some cover.

  A single holder at the bottom of the hill yelled something, but Kharl ignored him, and the man went back to digging out his irrigation ditch.

  It took nearly a half glass for Kharl to reach the woods and guide his mount through the edges until he reached a place where he could look southward over the long and shallow valley that stretched to the southeast from the ridge. The gray stone road split the valley almost evenly. Another two kays to the southeast, between the road and a stream, Kharl could see what looked to be a town, except that the buildings were all long and low structures.

  “Looks like barracks,” ventured Demyst. “Rows and rows of ‘em.”

  To the north of the area with the barracks were fenced enclosures filled with horses. Smoke rose from more than a score of chimneys. Farther to the east, beyond the streams, were rows of huts, and beyond them was a raw slash in the stony escarpment and a long and wide pit. Lines of tiny figures snaked in and around the pit.

  “That’s the quarry, one of them,” Kharl said.

  “Like a town ...” murmured Erdyl.

  “More like a fort, with the quarries there.” Demyst frowned. “They don’t need a fort to guard the quarries.”

  “The fort’s not for that. It’s to train armsmen.” “For a war against the Lord South?”

  Kharl didn’t want to answer that. Lord South was certainly what Egen wanted people to think, but the fort was far closer to Brysta than to Surien. As he studied the valley, Kharl could sense at least two white wizards, perhaps three. Two of them were strong, perhaps not so strong as the strongest he had faced in Austra, but not to be taken lightly.

  After a moment, he turned in the saddle and looked at the undercap- tain. “We’ve seen what we need to see. We can head back.”

  “Just... head back, ser?” asked Erdyl.

  “You want us to charge an entire fort and all those armsmen?” asked Kharl. “Some of them are Hamorian, and the others are Nordlan. We’re not at war.” Not yet, anyway, he thought.

  He eased the chestnut back though the woodlot. At the north side, he checked the road and the meadows, but both were clear. The holder still labored on the irrigation ditch. The man did not even look up as Kharl and the others rode back to the gray stone road and turned back north.

  As Kharl rode back northward, his eyes and senses concentrating on discovering Egen’s lancers before they spotted his small group, questions twisted through his thoughts. The gray stone road extended at least twenty kays south of Brysta, but how far did it go? One of the histories said that the forces of Fenardre the Great had been able to complete a kay of stone road a day. If Egen’s forces had been working on the road for even half a year, and could do half as much, he might have already completed over a hundred kays. That still left close to a hundred more before the road reached the border of the south quadrant- unless the road-building had been going on in secret much longer. How long had it been going on? Was the refused consorting just an excuse? Were the Hamorians helping Egen with the road so that they could use it once they took over the South and West Quadrants of Nordla? Couldn’t Egen see what they had in mind? Or did he think he could outwit them? More important, could Kharl do anything? What? How? When?

  Kharl rubbed his forehead. For the moment, they needed to get off the road and find somewhere to spend the night. He doubted he would sleep well. He hoped he could sleep some.

  LXXI

  Kharl and his small group did not manage to get back to the envoy’s residence in Brysta until close to dark on eightday. Kharl had avoided Peachill on the way back, not wanting to face it as a reminder that he had failed Warrl as well.

  While they had been able to find shelter in one of the abandoned cots on sevenday night, time after time, all through eightday, they had been forced to leave the road and hide, to avoid being seen by armed road patrols, far more than they had seen on their way southward. Kharl hoped that was because of the disappearance of the one road patrol, and not because some armed action was about to begin.

  After the evening meal, most welcome after two days of bread and cheese and dried meat, Kharl, Demyst, and Erdyl sat in the library.

  “What do you think of the road?” Kharl looked at his secretary.

  “I have never seen one so fine,” Erdyl admitted. “We traveled more than twenty kays, perhaps thirty, and it must continue for at least another ten.” He paused. “But, ser ... I do not see the need. There were no large towns. According to the maps, Surien is more than five hundred kays to the south.”

  Closer to six hundred, Kharl thought. “So why are the Nordlans building such a high ro
ad? Is that your question?”

  “The Nordlans and the Hamorians,” suggested Demyst. “Hamor likes good roads.”

  “They make it easier to control a land,” added Erdyl. “They make transport easier. If we had a good road from Norbruel to Bruel.. . Ghardyl was always saying that we could see another hundred golds a year.”

  “So Hamor is fanning the conflict between Lord West and Lord South to get Lord West to build the road?” Demyst set his goblet on the table, tilting his head slightly.

  “They might even be paying for part of it.” Kharl thought that the Hamorians were going farther than that. He would not have been surprised if they were even supporting Egen in a bid to unseat his father-and his brothers. That way, Egen would at the very least owe Hamor, and if his bid failed, Nordla would be weakened and racked with conflict.

  Either way, it would be far easier for the emperor to begin the conquest of all of Nordla

  than it would have been otherwise.

  “What can you do, ser?” asked Erdyl.

  That was indeed the question. What could he do?

  “I’ll have to think about that,” he finally replied. “It’s been a long eight-day.”

  Later, he sat in the study, with but the single desk lamp lit, his eyes fixed on nothing, his thoughts spinning through his skull.

  What should he do? Envoys were just supposed to report, weren’t they? To let Hagen and Ghrant know what was happening? But he had no way to send a report, and by the time he could, the West Quadrant would be a battlefield-or a fiefdom of Hamor.

  He didn’t know for certain that Egen was going to replace his father, or when that might happen. Nor did he know what the Hamorians would do ... or when. He didn’t think that it would be that long. At the least, he needed to be ready, to plan what he could do.

  Deliberately, he took out a sheet of paper and a markstick, slowly sketching out a rough map of Brysta, and the surrounding area. If Egen held the harbor and the south, then the only way to leave the city was by the east road-really the southeast road-to Eolya. The north road to Sagana turned into little more than a dirt trail after a half score of kays, and there were no roads worthy of the name to the northeast or due east. That suggested that any movement of lancers or white wizards along the ring road from the south might indicate the beginning of whatever might happen.