“What about a song?” asked Llyselle.
“A song?” questioned the red-haired comm officer, her voice wry.
“About how you angels routed the bandits,” suggested Narliat.
“I don’t know about routed,” muttered Denalle, her eyes dropping to the dressing on her right arm. Her left hand strayed toward the second dressing that covered her forehead, then dropped away. With a wince, she closed her eyes for a moment.
“I don’t make up songs that quickly,” answered Ayrlyn.
“But you are a minstrel, are you not?” asked Narliat.
“This is a verbal culture,” pointed out Saryn.
“Too verbal,” growled Gerlich, glaring at Narliat.
Nylan could feel himself tensing at Gerlich’s response and forced himself to let his breath out slowly.
“And it has too many wizards,” added the hunter. “And I don’t understand why the wizards serve the nobles, the lords, whatever they are. Those wizards have real powers.”
“The wizards, they cannot stand against cold iron,” answered Narliat, “and there are not a great many wizards.”
“Still don’t see…”
“Oh, Gerlich…” murmured Ryba, barely loud enough for Nylan to hear. “Think, for darkness’ sake.”
Nylan thought also, about cold iron, wondering why cold iron would prove a problem for a wizard. He could handle it, and Narliat said he was a wizard.
“Cold iron?” he finally asked.
“Why yes, Mage. The white ones, they cannot handle cold iron. It’s said that it burns them terribly.” Narliat shrugged. “I have not seen this, but I have never seen a white wizard touch iron. Even their daggers are bronze.”
Nylan frowned. Why would that be so? “Thank you.”
“Now that we have that cleared up,” Ryba said too brightly, “how about that song?”
Ayrlyn picked up the small four-stringed lutar she had brought down from the Winterlance, just as Ryba had brought the Sybran blades.
“How about this one?” Ayrjyn strummed the strings, adjusted one peg, then strummed again, and made another adjustment before clearing her throat.
A captain is a funny thing, a spacer with a net,
an angel gambling with her death, who never lost a bet.
The captain, she took us to those demon-towers,
then brought us back right through Heaven’s showers…
Nylan winced, knowing that the second verse would be bawdy, and the third even bawdier, then glanced at Ryba, who was grinning.
“I’ve heard worse versions,” she said. “Much worse.”
Raucous laughter began to rise around the fire even before Ayrlyn finished the last verse.
“… and she served him up well trussed, well done!”
The laughter died away.
“An old song? A Sybran song?” asked Denalle.
“I don’t know many,” admitted Ayrlyn, “but there is one.” The redhead readjusted the lutar, then began.
When the snow drops on the stone,
When the wind song’s all alone,
When the ice swords form in twain,
Sing of the hearths where we’ve lain.
When the green tips break the snow,
When the cold streams start to flow,
When the snow hares turn to black,
Sing out to call our love back.
When the plains grass whispers gold,
When the red blooms flower bold,
When the year’s foals gallop long.
Hold to the fall and our song…
Nylan glanced around the fires, then to the unlit and dark tower looming against the white-streaked peaks, and back to the marines. More than a handful effaces bore eyes bright with unshed tears. Some marines blotted damp cheeks when Ayrlyn lowered the lutar.
Huldran slowly walked out into the darkness, and Selitra laid her head on Gerlich’s shoulder, sobbing silently at the old Sybran horse nomads’ ballad.
“How about something a bit more cheerful?” suggested Ryba.
“I’ll try.” Ayrlyn readjusted the lutar and began another song.
When I was single, I looked at the skies. Now I’ve a consort, I listen to lies, lies about horses that speak in the darks, lies about cats and theories of quarks…
“Lies about cats and theories of quarks…” mused Nylan. “They’re all lies here, I suppose, at least the quarks.”
“You don’t think quarks are real here?” asked Ryba. Her hand rested lightly on his forearm, warm in the cool of the mountain evening.
“Who knows what’s real, or what reality even is?” he answered.
“Where we are is real.”
And that was a definition as good as any, Nylan thought, his eyes taking in the almost luminous ice of Freyja, the needle peak that would dwarf even the most massive tower he would ever be able to raise.
XXII
“LORD SILLEK LET it be known that he would not be displeased at whoever reduced the squatters’ holding on the Roof of the World to rubble and returned the seal ring of his father.” Terek pulls at his chin as he walks to the tower window.
“He’s not taking another army up there,” answers Hissl, leaning back from the glass upon the small table.
“We discussed that earlier. In his position, would you? This approach will encourage every cutthroat in Lornth to attack those women.”
“What good will that do?” Hissl stands and walks toward the second open window to let the breeze cool him. “Lord Nessil had score three armsmen. Not even Skiodra has that, and you saw how he backed down when he came face-to-face with those devil women. What could a handful of brigands do?”
“Lord Sillek has to do something. The… expedition to the Roof of the World was rather… embarrassing for Lord Nessil…” Terek turns back toward Hissl.
“For his family, you mean?” asks Hissl. “A corpse is beyond embarrassment.”
“Young Lord Sillek wishes to avenge his father.”
“And to solidify his position?”
“He’s willing to grant lands and some minor title to whoever succeeds. Something like Lord of the Ironwoods, no doubt.” Terek laughs. “There are bound to be some who feel that no women can be that dangerous.” The chief wizard shrugs. “Besides, there are not that many of them, and for every one that is killed-that will make things easier for Lord Sillek.”
“Let us see,” muses Hissl ironically. “Lord Nessil lost forty-three armsmen, and those angels lost three. Say there are two dozen left up on the Roof of the World… why, that means Lord Sillek, or someone, only needs to sacrifice around four hundred armsmen.” Hissl’s voice is soft and smooth. “And that would be in a battle on an open field. It might take ten times that once their tower is completed. Do you suppose we could persuade Lord Ildyrom, Lord Ekleth of Spidlaria, and-”
“Enough of your foolishness,” snaps Terek. “The lord’s stratagem against those angels cannot hurt him.”
“Do you believe they are really angels?” asks Hissl.
“It might be in our interests to claim that they are-or at least that they are fallen angels.”
“Some of them died. Angels don’t die,” points out Hissl.
“I believe that was one of the men.”
“There were four graves for their own, and there are still two men walking around. That means three of the women died.”
“You are rather tedious, Hissl,” says Terek.
“I am attempting to be accurate.”
“Then let us call them fallen angels. That makes them seem more vulnerable.” Terek pauses, then adds, “And what other… accuracies… might you add? Helpful accuracies?”
“Those thunder-throwers… I do not think that they will be able to use them for too much longer.”
“Would you stake your life on that?”
“Not at the moment. In a year… yes.”
Terek waits. “Go on. Explain. Don’t make me drag everything out of you.”
“Only a
handful of them are experienced with blades- the leader, one of the men, and one of the smaller women. But they are teaching the others. The thunder-throwers are more effective than blades. So…” Hissl shrugs. “Why are they spending time learning a less effective weapon? Also, they have begun to build a tower.”
“On the Roof of the World? One winter and they’ll be dead or ready to leave.”
“I don’t know about that.” Hissl touches his left cheek with his forefinger, and he frowns. “We were wearing jackets and cloaks. The wind was cold. It was still just beyond spring up there. They were in thin clothes, and they were sweating-all of them.”
“We will see.” Terek pulls at his chin again. “We will see.”
“Yes. That is true.” Hissl frowns ever so slightly, then smiles.
XXIII
THE GREEN THAT had sprouted from the hand-furrowed rows of two of the fields rose knee-high in places, waist-high in others, depending on the plants. The potatoes had been planted in evenly spaced hillocks, but the green-leaved plants nearly covered all the open ground of the third field, except along the diagonal line where the water from the storm eight-days earlier had created a trench, since filled in. Behind the fields, the landers squatted, droplets of dew beading and then streaking the metal. Well beyond them were the large cairn and the seven others, including the latest one for Desinada. Already, dark blue flowers grew from between the cairn stones to mix with the red blood-flowers that were fading as the summer passed.
Nylan turned to the west, where, in the dawn, the fog seemed to rise off the squared structure of black stone that dominated the area above the field. The final upper sill of the wall stones stood more than ten times the height of a woman. Rising out of the middle of the tower was a square construction of mortared stones, and at the central point about half the rafters for the roof were connected. The remaining rafters were lined up in the stone working yard below the tower.
Nylan stood in the dawn and studied the south-facing opening that would be the doorway. While the heavy pins had been set in the stone lintels, the door had yet to be built, as did the causeway to it.
His eyes flicked from the tower base up the black stones. No great work of art, but it would be big enough and strong enough to do what would be necessary, unless the locals decided to drag siege engines through the mountains, or spent seasons building them and supporting the builders with an army. Neither seemed likely. Then, he reflected, nothing about the planet was terribly likely.
At the sense, rather than the sound, of someone approaching, he turned toward the landers.
“You don’t sleep much, do you?” Ryba stopped several paces short of him.
“Neither do you, apparently.”
“Burdens of leadership, curse of foresight…” Ryba cleared her throat, then turned toward the tower.
His eyes followed hers. “Still a lot to do. Sometimes, more than sometimes, I wonder what else I’ve forgotten.”
Her hand touched his shoulder. “It’s beautiful… the tower, and I can see, you know, that it will last for generations. Maybe longer.”
“You can see that?”
Ryba shrugged, almost sadly. “Some things I can see. Like the women who will climb the rocks searching for Westwind, for hope, for a different life. Like the men who will chase them, not understanding.”
“Westwind?”
“I thought it was a good name. And that’s what it will be called.” Her laugh was almost harsh. “So we might as well start now.”
Nylan turned to her. “You’re seeing all this?”
“Nylan… you can bend metal and power, and Ayrlyn can touch souls with her songs, and her touch heals small injuries-and Saryn-she glitters when her hands touch the waters or a blade. Why shouldn’t I, who rode the greatest neuronets of all, why shouldn’t I have a power beyond the blades?”
“Foresight?” he whispered.
“At times… yes… It’s only occasional… now… but I wonder…” She shook her head. “You think it’s easy to kill one of your own, to be as hard as the stones in your tower? To see what might be, if only you’re strong enough… ? To know that everyone will die if you’re not…”
His hands touched hers, and found that her hands and fingers were cold, trembling, for all that he had to raise his eyes to meet hers.
XXIV
“THUS CONTINUED THE conflict between order and chaos, between those who would force order and those who would not, and between those who followed the blade and those who followed the spirit.
“On the Roof of the World, those first angels raised crops amid the eternal ice, and builded walls, and made bricks, and all manner of devisings of the most miraculous, from the black blades that never dulled to the water that flowed amidst the ice of winter and the tower that remained yet warm from a single fire.
“Of the great ones in those times were, first, Ryba of the twin blades, Nylan of the forge of order, Gerlich the hunter, Saryn the mighty, and Ayrlyn of the songs that forged the guards of Westwind…
“For as the skilled and terrible smith Nylan forged the terrible black blades of Westwind, and wrenched the very stones from the mountains for the tower called Black, so did Ryba guide the guards of Westwind, letting no man triumph upon the Roof of the World.
“For as each lord of the demons said, ‘I will not suffer those angel women to survive,’ and as each angel fell, Ryba created yet another from those who fled the demons, until there were none that could stand against Tower Black.
“… and so it came to pass that Ryba was the last of the angels to rule the heavens and the angel who set forth the Legend for all to heed…”
Book of Ayrlyn
Section I
[Restricted Text]
XXV
SILLEK LOOKS DOWN the lines of horse, then back toward the west branch of the river, and the ford. Behind him, the fourscore armsmen shift in their saddles.
On the next rolling hill is another force of cavalry, under the white banner bearing a single fir tree-the banner of Jerans. Sillek studies the Jeranyi force, noting the.varying sizes of the troopers opposing his. Men and women both bear arms, their mounts standing, waiting, in the knee-high grass.
“Barbaric,” he mutters.
“The women?” asks Koric. The mustached and slightly stoop-shouldered captain spits out onto the grass. “Sometimes they’re nastier than the men. Rather fight the Suthyans any day.”
“Do you see Ildyrom over there?”
“He’s the one in the green jacket. Verintkya’s the big blond bitch next to him. She uses a mace sometimes, they say. Split your head with a smile, she would.”
Sillek turns in the saddle. “Master Terek.”
“Yes, Your Grace?” The chief wizard eases his mount closer to the Lord of Lornth.
“Will your firebolts reach the Jeranyi?”
“From here, ser? It’s a long pull…” Terek’s ungloved hand brushes his white hair. Behind him Hissl and Jissek watch Sillek intently.
“Yes or no?”
“Yes, ser.” Terek holds up a hand. “But we can’t send so many. It takes more energy to send bolts that far.”
“Can you tell if Ildyrom has any archers there?”
Terek gestures to Hissl.
“There are a couple of troopers with the short curved bows, but no longbows, ser.”
“So they can’t quite reach us with arrows…” Sillek pauses, then turns to Terek. “Go ahead, Chief Wizard. Fry as many as you can.”
Beside Sillek, Koric clears his throat. “Ser… begging your pardon.”
Terek waits, as do Hissl and Jissek.
“Yes, Captain?” Sillek’s voice is smooth-and cold.
“Using firebolts… I mean… what if they’ve got wizards?”
“Is that your real concern, Captain, or are you clinging to my father’s outdated sense of nobility?”
“Ser…” Koric drew himself up in the saddle.
“Koric… I’m not interested in battlefield tales or bo
asts. I’ve got a bunch of bitch-women at my back with thunder-throwers. I’ve got Ildyrom and Verintkya trying to take over the good grasslands between the South Branch and the West Fork, and the Suthyans are raising the port tariffs in Rulyarth. Now, if I can get rid of Ildyrom without losing anyone… so much the better.”
“Next time, they’ll bring wizards,” said Koric.
“There aren’t many, if any, as good as ours.” Sillek turns to Terek. “Is that not correct, Master Wizard Terek?”
“I believe so, ser.”
“Good. Prove it.”
Koric frowns as Terek concentrates, then points.
Whhhhssttt! With a whistling, screaming hiss, a firebolt arcs from Terek’s fingers out over the valley between the two hills and falls across two Jeranyi troopers.
The twin screams shriek across the gently waving grasslands, and greasy smoke billows from the other hillside. A riderless horse rears into the midday sky, then lets forth a screaming whinny before bolting down the hillside in the general direction of Berlitos, the forest city of Jerans that lies more than four days of hard riding to the west.
The remaining Jeranyi horse hold, though the troopers on them seem to shift in their saddles before several arrows fly eastward. The shafts drop harmlessly in the tall grass well below the hilltop where the forces of Lornth wait.
“Another!” commands Sillek.
Terek frowns, but concentrates. A second firebolt arcs over the valley and toward Ildyrom.
The bolt splashes across the chest of a roan who rears, screaming, so suddenly that the rider is flung backward and falls into a crumpled heap. More greasy smoke rises as the fatally wounded horse falls and rolls, then quivers, in the damp grasses. A trooper dismounts, checks the still figure in the grass. Shortly, two Jeranyi troopers quickly put the body on a packhorse.
Then the fir-tree banner jerks, and then the Jeranyi turn and ride westward, disappearing behind the hilltop, leaving three piles of smoldering ash.
As Sillek watches, Terek takes a deep breath, and Hissl, observing the pallor on Terek’s face, nods to himself.
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