Darknesses

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Oh?”

  “The overcaptain is clearly a herder. They will have to use Lanachronan rifles. They carry farther. Much farther—beyond the ability of a herder, in fact.” Tarolt smiled cruelly. “Nightsilk has its limits, you know.”

  “The last time…he killed all four. How many have you been able to find in an afternoon?”

  “Enough. They will succeed, or they will not. Either way, something will be accomplished. At the very least, the colonel will be reminded of where his allegiances must lie. And it is possible that, if they do not succeed, the overcaptain will wish even more strongly to remain a herder. If he does so long enough, his abilities will not matter. It would be best, however, if that were not left to fate. I will need four hundred golds within the glass. Here.”

  “Four…hundred?” stammered Halanat. “Four hundred?”

  “For him, and for what is at stake, it is cheap at the price. Once he reaches the quarasote lands, even twenty bravos and four hundred golds will not suffice.” Tarolt stood. “Best you hasten.”

  Slowly, as if stunned, Halanat also rose.

  119

  Alucius woke early on Tridi, then, even after saying his good-byes to third squad, had to wait for the clerks to arrive so that he could make sure that Faisyn and the third squad rankers got their furlough and pay. He also had to wait for his own release orders and pay.

  Alucius would have liked to have said a formal good-bye to the rest of Twenty-first Company, but, as he had suspected, those who opted to remain as troopers had already been transferred to Fifth Company and were in Soulend under Feran—where those of third squad who wished to stay in service would eventually join them. The others had been released early, doubtless as a gold-saving practice, as would be those of third squad who were due for release in the next month.

  So Alucius saddled and packed Wildebeast—then waited for clerks who were late, later than normal, and who apologized profusely. Two were most apprehensive, but Alucius could not determine why, even with his Talent. Also, all that morning Alucius had not seen Colonel Weslyn, and so had to tender his farewells to Majer Imealt. Still, by the third glass of the morning, he and Wildebeast had left Northern Guard headquarters.

  The dwellings on the northern side of Dekhron, once more, seemed dilapidated, both in comparison to those in Tempre and those he recalled in Madrien. Shutters were unpainted, or splitting, or the paint was peeling. Most of the dwellings had been built of salvaged stones from even more ancient dwellings, and most mixed stones of differing sizes and colors. The roads reflected the same lack of care. Except for the high road itself, the side roads and lanes were dirt and clay, somewhat muddy from the rain of the night before.

  None of this was new to Alucius, but whenever he had returned home from a prolonged absence, it was as though he saw the Iron Valleys as a stranger might.

  As he rode through the north side of Dekhron away from Northern Guard headquarters for the last time, Alucius guided Wildebeast around a produce wagon, headed north to Iron Stem, he suspected. Just beyond the wagon Alucius passed the last dwellings that could have been said to have been part of Dekhron, although there were isolated huts and holdings and small farms all along the high road, except in one swampy area north of the road to Sudon and in a few rockier hill areas where little grew.

  Ahead the high road was empty—for the moment. Alucius stood in the stirrups and stretched, then settled into the saddle. He wished he’d been able to get away earlier, since it would be late in the evening, possibly close to midnight, before he reached the stead. If Wildebeast got too tired, Alucius could stop in Iron Stem, much as he disliked prolonging the journey home—and back to Wendra.

  The clouds had lifted somewhat, but the sky remained gray, and the wind was no longer warm but carried a definite touch of fall. For the first time in months, Alucius was not perspiring under his nightsilk undergarments, and it was also the first time that he wasn’t riding into either battle or unfamiliar lands.

  He smiled slightly at the irony.

  With the road clear, by early in the afternoon he was nearing the crossroads where the side road west led to Sudon, the location of the Northern Guard training post. He also realized that something was nagging at him.

  He had looked back over his shoulder several times, but so far as he could see, and that was at least three vingts back, there was no one on the road. Ahead, the road rose gradually as it passed through the low rolling hills that extended from before him over three vingts until about a vingt before the crossroads. He could still see a vingt ahead, and that part of the road was clear.

  Alucius reined up and listened. Outside of a few birds, calling from a low hedge beside a lane that led to the east, he could hear nothing. Nearby, he could sense nothing of any size with his Talent. He thought he could sense a number of men farther ahead, but that was probably some squad or company riding to or from Sudon Post—or possibly a training group on maneuvers.

  After a time, he urged Wildebeast forward once more, but he kept scanning the road ahead, as well as the areas to each side of the road.

  He rode another vingt northward until he reached the gentle incline that was the only real slope on the high road between Dekhron and Soulend. The clouds remained low, but without offering more rain. The sense of men ahead was stronger, yet he could sense none that close to the road. There were two groups, one in the low hills on each side of the road—somewhere more than a vingt ahead. From what he could determine, each had the lifethread of a normal man, and not the purple double-thread of an ifrit-possessed puppet, nor the green-shot blackness of a herder.

  He checked the rifles at his knees, making sure each was fully loaded, then uncorked a water bottle and took a long swallow. Rather than hurry Wildebeast, he stopped, dismounted, and used one of the water bottles to water his mount before he resumed riding, at a slightly slower pace. The road behind him remained empty.

  After another half vingt, Alucius was certain. There were two groups in the hills ahead, each at least several hundred yards back from the high road, one group on the east, and the other on the west.

  He took a long deep breath. Now what?

  He had no proof that the men were waiting for him. Yet he could not imagine any good reason for them to be waiting on both sides of the road except to attack travelers. Was he becoming so fretful and self-centered that he thought that ordinary brigands were out after him personally—or were they? He shook his head. All he wanted was to get home, but, whatever the men were, continuing on the high road would have been foolhardy.

  With a sigh, he turned Wildebeast westward, because the hills were slightly higher there, and because the men who waited would have more trouble seeing his approach from the southwest. When his Talent-sense indicated that he was within a hill line of the group of men on the west side of the high road, Alucius rode Wildebeast up the hillside, red sandy soil and rocks, with scattered pines and junipers, until he reached a cluster of junipers less than thirty yards from the top. There he dismounted and tied Wildebeast to the center juniper, where his mount would not be seen unless someone ventured within less than fifty yards.

  Taking both rifles and the one ammunition belt he had retained, Alucius edged up the back side of the hill to the top, and an area with more pines, enough that, while his Talent could sense the waiting men, his eyes could not. Step by step, he slipped downhill and northward until he had a clear view, from behind a pine with low, spreading branches, of those he sought.

  The men in the westernmost group were not soldiers, but bravos in dark gray, and Alucius just watched for a time. What exactly should he do? There were ten of them, all waiting, some sitting, some stretched out in firing positions, but a good two hundred yards from the road. The distance alone convinced Alucius that they had been dispatched to kill him.

  Despite his efforts to remain calm, he could feel a slow rage building. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. He had done his best to do his duty and protect his land and his family—and yet peopl
e kept trying to kill him—and he still didn’t know who or why, although he had his suspicions that Colonel Weslyn wasn’t exactly innocent—and that some traders who had been members of the disbanded Council might be involved. But his suspicions were only that.

  For a time, he just watched the men who watched the road.

  He could ride around them, and they would never know. And he didn’t know that they were out to kill him—not absolutely. From their weapons, and the carefully chosen position with a clear line of fire across the high road, there was no doubt that they intended to kill someone. Their clothing, their “Talent-feel” indicated to Alucius that they were not troopers, but hired bravos.

  Finally, he began to ease downhill, as quietly as possible, until he was less than a hundred yards away, just a few yards higher than they were, but on the adjoining hill. He studied the bravos again, noting the one on the end, who appeared to be in charge. Then, he lifted his rifle.

  Crack!

  The head bravo dropped.

  Alucius continued to fire, deliberately, until he emptied the magazine of the first rifle. Then he picked up the second and continued.

  When it was empty, there were three bravos alive and scrambling toward cover.

  Alucius reloaded both rifles, then cast out his Talent-senses. One of the bravos had edged northward and was running to his mount. The other two would have had to circle or to cross open ground to reach their mounts.

  Ignoring the departing rider, about whom he could do nothing, since the man was not in clear rifle-shot range and beyond the reach of Alucius’s Talent, Alucius waited for a moment, then another. He could sense that the bravo who had escaped was riding due east, straight toward the other group of bravos, and that meant Alucius couldn’t afford to stay where he was very long at all.

  As he was debating whether he should withdraw immediately, one of the bravos tried a dash for his mount.

  Alucius dropped him in two shots.

  The other began to circle eastward. Alucius immediately retreated back up the hill, then down toward the cluster of junipers where he had tied Wildebeast.

  Once there, he reloaded both rifles and scanned the area with his Talent.

  Someone with the bravos was a good tracker, because Alucius could tell that they were following the general path he had, and that certainly meant that they were following him. He glanced around the hillside, but the cluster of junipers where he stood provided the best cover. Wildebeast had already carried him nearly twenty vingts, and Alucius doubted that his mount, strong as he was, could give him that much of a lead over more than ten men on fresher mounts chasing him.

  Alucius dropped behind the junipers, settling behind the one that gave him the best view of the approach from below, and waited. Farther to the north, Wildebeast remained, tethered and quiet.

  Good sense would have dictated that he should have just avoided the bravos and ridden on, but his feelings had told him that so-called good sense wouldn’t work. Good sense had told him, back in training years before, to avoid Dolesy. That hadn’t worked, either, and in the end, he’d had to fight. His feelings had told him that it was better to fight when he had an edge than when he was caught unaware.

  Before long, in less than a tenth of a glass, below him, Alucius could hear mounts—and voices—if barely.

  “…why we doing this…killed eight…”

  “…ten golds a man…that’s why…and because, we don’t get him…who hires us?”

  Ten golds a man? That was more than a trooper made in two years. Alucius swallowed and continued to wait, lying behind the thick trunk of the ancient juniper.

  “…quiet…can’t be too much farther…Sylor…ease out to the left…”

  While Alucius could have shot the bravo who had been ordered out ahead, he did not, but waited, and before long, he could see—as well as sense—the first four men in the rough column that followed his tracks uphill.

  He waited a bit longer, then lifted the rifle.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  “Frig!”

  The riders retreated back into cover behind the scattered pines and junipers, and Alucius quickly reloaded. He had killed two of the attackers, and wounded the third, gravely. But he had less than twenty cartridges left for something like ten bravos.

  He could sense conversations from below, and feel as the attackers split into three groups.

  Three separate groups burst from behind copses of pines, spurring their mounts up the gentle slope.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Alucius fired at the center group, the one slightly ahead of the others, then when he’d emptied his first rifle, turned to the one on the right—to the west.

  He’d fired four more shots when splinters cascaded across his face, momentarily blocking his vision.

  Then his whole body was yanked sideways, and pain flared up his left leg.

  Somehow, he managed to roll to the right enough to avoid being hit again, but for several moments, he could not see, both from the wood splinters and the intense watering of his eyes. Lying flat, he fumbled more cartridges into the rifle he held, trying to blink away the involuntary tears.

  Thunk! Another bullet plowed into the juniper above him.

  Eeeiiee!

  Alucius winced at the scream from Wildebeast, sensing his mount dying under a flurry of bullets. He moistened his dry mouth and finally was able to clear his eyes.

  From what he could see and sense, beyond the throbbing agony in his leg and left side, there were still five bravos—three behind a pine to the east, slightly above him, and two others, below and to his right.

  “…keep firing…can’t have many cartridges left…”

  “…earn those golds today…”

  Alucius forced his concentration onto the those behind the pine, easing his rifle around and waiting.

  It felt like he had waited a quarter glass or more when one looked up.

  Crack! Crack!

  The red-washed dark void that passed Alucius confirmed that death, and that left four.

  Thunk! More splinters cascaded down, but not into Alucius’s eyes.

  He turned back to the two behind the pine, almost willing one to move.

  Time passed, and then a bravo lurched sideways—enough. Still it took two shots Alucius reloaded…too slowly.

  “Circle uphill…” someone called. “Keep low. You can fire down on him.”

  The remaining bravo from the two at the pine began to move, keeping very low, especially his head. Alucius couldn’t get a clear shot, but he kept watching, moving his rifle, and waiting for an opening.

  Another shot shook the tree, and scraps of juniper rained down on Alucius.

  With the shot, the uphill bravo scrambled across an open space.

  Alucius fired, once, twice, before his third shot caught the man in the leg. As the bravo twisted, involuntarily, Alucius’s fourth shot caught him in the chest.

  Alucius reloaded—as much as he could—and that left him with three cartridges and two bravos.

  “Now!” came a voice.

  From somewhere another bravo appeared, mounted, and using the horse as a shield, moved toward Alucius.

  Much as he hated to, Alucius brought down the horse with a single shot, but it took two more to get the rider.

  So far as Alucius could tell, there was but a single bravo remaining. Unfortunately, Alucius had no ammunition left, and his left side was a mass of pain. His head throbbed.

  Thunk! Thunk! As the bullets hit the tree above him—barely above his head—more juniper greenery and splinters cascaded around Alucius.

  The remaining bravo had ammunition, and sooner, or later, he couldn’t help but get Alucius, unless…

  Another bullet flew within a span of Alucius’s head.

  With a last desperate effort, Alucius extended a thin Talent-probe, snaking it across the fifty yards or more between him and the man, trying to hold it, trying to use skill, rather than force. Everything wavered before his eyes, and he
could barely sense the other. He struggled to reach the man’s main lifethread node, trying to find and unlock that node.

  Alucius felt the sickening twist, and then a snap of Talent-energy—followed by a wave of blackness that swept over him. Just blackness, without a hint of green.

  Caawww…caawww…

  Something jabbed at Alucius’s outstretched hand. He tried to move it, and another wave of pain swept over him. Slowly, he opened his eyes. A yard beyond his hand, a crow looked at him, then took a hop and flew away.

  “Not…ready…for you…yet…” Alucius dragged himself out from under the juniper and toward Wildebeast. Flies were already settling onto his dead mount. He swallowed. Wildebeast had carried him from Madrien to Deforya to Lanachrona and back, and through the bloodiest of battles—and he’d died from bravos’ bullets in an ambush. Because Alucius had been a proud fool, thinking he was invulnerable.

  After a moment, Alucius glanced from the dead—and faithful—stallion to the sun, now but a span above the western horizon. He doubted he could walk, and he didn’t have a mount.

  Despite the headache he had, he cast out his Talent-sense…hoping to find one of the bravo’s horses. He could sense two.

  He tried to Talent-project the sense of feed, of grain and water.

  After a time, both horses began to move.

  The sun was almost touching the horizon by the time he managed to entice one close enough to grab the stirrup and lever himself up, then climb and crawl into the saddle, all the time using Talent to reassure the mare. His left leg was still totally numb.

  Then he urged the mount northward.

  He just hoped he could last until he could make Sudon Post—or the road to it.

  He didn’t remember much of the ride, just the growing darkness.

  At some point, he heard someone talking, and he forced himself to concentrate.

  “Sir…sir?”

  A young face in a Northern Guard uniform looked out of a circle of darkness at him.

  “Brigands…” Alucius managed. “In the hills…off high road…south of the Sudon crossroad…”