Arms-Commander

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Why?” asked Zeldyan abruptly, speaking for the first time in over a glass. “Why have they turned against Nesslek? Why now?”

  That question Saryn could answer. “Because they think they can, Lady, because the Suthyans are paying Henstrenn and others to do so, and because your presence reminds them of how wrong they have been. By overturning the regency and removing your son, they can blame you rather than their own failings. It has often been that way in many lands on many worlds.”

  Zeldyan looked sharply at Saryn. “At times, I almost forget that you are an angel who has seen many worlds. Tell me, Angel, what awaits us.”

  Saryn ignored the slight sarcastic edge to the regent’s question. “Other than lord-holders with bad judgment and a lust for power, I cannot say, Lady. I do not know when they left their holdings, how they proceeded, or how they intend to make their desires known. I do know that, what ever happens, Lornth will suffer far more than had they let the regency stand. I also know that is something that they will deny to their dying day.”

  “May those days be soon.” Zeldyan tightened her lips and paused, before adding, “I still wish you angels had not come to the Roof of the World.”

  “It was not our wish, either. We harmed no one until we were attacked. We took nothing of value, and nothing that anyone was able to use before we arrived. We were attacked because Lord Nessil and Lord Karthanos were too proud and too unwilling to let us hold land that no one wanted until we came. Each attack has cost those who attacked more, and wounded their pride more, and still they lash out where they can.”

  “Your truths are cold comfort, Angel.”

  “Truth has never offered comfort, Lady,” Saryn replied.

  Once more, Zeldyan did not speak for a time. Then she said, “Have you ever loved?”

  “Truly loved?” asked Saryn. “No…not really.”

  “Has anyone truly loved you? Truly?” Zeldyan paused. “Sillek loved me that way, you know.”

  “You were most fortunate in that.”

  “Do angels love that way?”

  Saryn had to think for a moment. Certainly, Ryba didn’t. But for all her feistiness, Hryessa did love Daryn. And Nylan…“Nylan, the one you call the black angel, and Ayrlyn love that way.”

  “Was that not why they had to leave the Roof of the World?”

  Was it? Saryn wasn’t certain that was all of it, although…She nodded. “Most likely.”

  “The Roof of the World is cold in many ways, besides its ice, I fear.”

  “It can be, Lady. Freedom is not always comfort.” Saryn frowned. There was something…somewhere…nagging at her. After a moment, she extended her senses. Ahead along the river, in the distance, perhaps where the road ran through the hills, she felt…riders…hundreds of men.

  Quickly, she scanned the land immediately around them. The mostly dried-out and low swamps filled the two hundred or so yards to the right of the road between the raised roadbed and the River Yarth. Slight hummocks bordered the road on the west, but the tallest was but a yard or two above the roadbed.

  She turned in the saddle. There was a small hill less than half a kay back, barely large enough to hide their force…and the wagons.

  “Companies halt! Outriders! Back!” Saryn ordered, boosting her voice with a touch of the order-chaos flows.

  “What—?” Zeldyan looked to Saryn.

  “There are at least two companies riding our way. We need to move back to the cover of that hill, where we aren’t seen until they’re almost upon us.” Saryn gestured over her shoulder.

  “We need to get to The Groves,” Zeldyan said.

  “I agree. But riding up to a force with greater numbers won’t get us there sooner.” Saryn pointed to the nearly flat field to the west. “Trying to go around them that way will only expose us, and retreating kays and kays to the last ford won’t help either.”

  Zeldyan looked to Saryn. “It appears as though I am in your hands…again.”

  “Guard captain! Third Westwind squad leader! Forward!” Again, Saryn boosted her voice.

  At that moment, Undercaptain Maerkyn rode back from the first Lornian squad and reined in beside the regent. “Why have you called a halt?” He looked to Saryn accusingly.

  Saryn waited until Hryessa also rode up and reined in, then said, “Armsmen are riding this way, two kays north, just out of sight where the road comes out of those hills.”

  “The scouts have not reported…” objected Maerkyn.

  “They will. Or they would have if I had not recalled them.”

  Maerkyn stood in the stirrups, then dropped to the saddle and looked at Saryn again. “The scouts are returning. How did you do that?”

  “My voice carries,” she replied politely.

  Another rider joined them—Rydala, squad leader of third squad. “Ser?”

  “Squad leader, there’s a force headed toward us. I don’t know yet whose force it is, but it’s likely to be the rebels. We can’t conceal all the tracks in the road, but they won’t look that hard if they see armed riders ahead. I want you to take a position on the road, back toward that hill there, close enough that you can ride back on the road, not too fast, as if your mounts are tired. Before all that happens, we’ll be riding back and taking position behind the hill, waiting to attack at the right moment. Your task is to be seen and let them get fairly close, then to recognize them, and appear to turn and retreat as slowly as possible without letting them catch you. They’ll either pursue quickly or advance in an orderly manner. Either way, they are likely to focus on you and not be looking quite so hard for others.”

  “Why would that be?” asked Maerkyn.

  “First, the rebel lords know that we only brought two squads from Westwind. Second, they’ve only seen the Westwind guards in groups of one or two squads,” Saryn explained. “And those likely to be ahead haven’t seen us with any Lornian armsmen.”

  “How many are there?” asked Maerkyn.

  Saryn concentrated for a moment, then shook her head. “They’re still too far away to be certain, but it feels like three companies.”

  Maerkyn frowned. “We have a little less than two companies.”

  “That may be, but the regent has decided that we need to get to The Groves, and we won’t get there by pulling back.” Saryn nodded politely. “If you would like to escort the regent back to the high ground behind the hill…?”

  Maerkyn glanced to Zeldyan, then replied, “Of course.”

  “I’d thought that you would take the western side of the back side of the hill, and we would take the east. That way, third squad could rejoin us easily.”

  “What then?” asked the undercaptain.

  “We attack, and when the time is right, you leave a squad to protect the regent, and follow up and attack their weakest point…or any squads that are isolated and easy pickings.”

  “Just like that?” Maerkyn’s voice verged on scornful.

  “Fairly so,” replied Saryn. “It seems to work. We’ve beaten something like four companies so far, always with two squads or less.” They might have faced more than that, but Saryn wasn’t about to take the time to count up the casualties. “Now…if we don’t want to get caught in the open on the road here, I’d suggest we remove ourselves to behind that hill.”

  Maerkyn looked to Zeldyan. The regent nodded, then added, “She has been rather successful at this, Undercaptain. Repeatedly.”

  Maerkyn nodded. “Then let us withdraw to the high ground, Regent, and prepare.”

  Saryn looked to Rydala. “Hold your squad in place until I move the others back. Then move back closer to the hill.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Saryn turned to Hryessa. “I’d like you to make sure that the wagons are out of sight, then lead fourth, fifth, and sixth squads. Hold back for a bit, then follow up as you see fit.”

  “You think they will break if we seem to be a second force?” asked the captain.

  “I’m hoping so. I also want you away from me, just in ca
se…”

  “That will not happen, but I will be certain few escape.” Hryessa’s smile was hard.

  As Hryessa turned and guided her mount toward the rear of the Westwind forces, Saryn had to wonder, not exactly for the first time, just what the captain had endured before coming to the Roof of the World.

  The combined Westwind and Lornian forces and the supply wagons were well out of sight in less than a quarter glass, and the only riders who remained on the river road were those of third squad, all recent recruits and trainees, except for Rydala. But that was why Saryn had chosen third squad. First and fourth squads would have to spearhead the attack, and the Lornians would take casualties in dealing with stragglers and the general melee.

  Saryn had gone over her battle plan with her squad leaders until they understood exactly what she wanted. In the simplest terms, the Westwind force would angle through the lead company behind a narrow chaos-blade, then swing back to head through the second company behind a second swath of chaos. After that…they might try a third one, or swing back and reinforce the Lornians. That assumed, as always, that Saryn could make it work.

  A good half glass passed under a sun hotter than Saryn liked. The hill itself held only a few bushes and was mostly covered in browned wild grasses and weeds, although the west side backed up to grasslands that looked more hospitable.

  “We cannot see the road from here. Do you expect to hear them from a greater distance than one can see?” asked Maerkyn.

  Saryn waited on the gelding, behind the crest of the hill, with Maerkyn to her left and Zeldyan beyond her. From where she was, a ride of less than five yards would bring her to where she could. “I know where they are. Just a trace beyond a kay away. They’ve caught sight of third squad, and Rydala is acting confused, having her squad mill around for a bit…”

  “Your guards don’t mill,” Maerkyn said.

  “That’s true, but you’re one of the few Lornian officers alive who knows that.” Saryn paused, then added, “They’ve decided to pick up their pace a bit, but they’re being cautious.”

  She could sense the van company picking up speed and trying to catch the apparently slower and tired guards, and she began to weave together the order and chaos flows she would need before that long.

  “Stand by!” she called to Maerkyn. “They’re almost in position.”

  She could sense the undercaptain’s shrug…and fatalism. She ignored both and raised her voice. “Westwind! Squads one and four! On me!” Then she urged the gelding up over the last part of the hillcrest and down through the knee-high browning grass that crackled with each hoof that struck it. As she came down over the rise, a quick glance confirmed that the lead riders were in blue-and-gray livery—the colors of Lord Jaffrayt—one of those who had declared rebellion. The riders on the road looked up as the guards poured over the eastern side of the dusty hill. The immediate effect of the charge was to slow the riders in the van more than those in the rear.

  Saryn loosed her first short sword at close to sixty yards, but with a far narrower chaos-blade. Even so, it sliced through the heart of the entire first company. Saryn forced herself to ignore the screams and the dark voids of death that assaulted her as she drew the second blade and rode through the tunnel of death and destruction she had created and onto the wide east shoulder of the river road.

  The company that followed the first one wore orange tunics trimmed in black. They did not hesitate even after seeing the carnage on the road before them, but charged toward Saryn even before she could swing her mount back to the left…and before she had fully gathered and smoothed all the order and chaos into a flow that she could link to the short sword.

  Saryn was almost on top of the first rank—or they were nearly on top of her—before she could release the blade. While that cleared a bit of a path, she had to struggle to get her third blade out of the knee sheath, barely in time to parry the all-too-large blade of an armsman who charged in at her from the left, from just beyond the too-narrow wedge of destruction she had flung.

  She managed to keep moving and deliver a back-cut, enough to get clear and begin to create a third chaos-and-order-flow knife. The riders in the third company—also in orange and black—had slowed somewhat, and that gave Saryn a few moments more as she found herself on the west side of the road. She turned the chestnut back toward the road and urged him forward toward the third company.

  Since so far as she could see, there was not another company behind the third one but only some scattered riders with wagons and pack animals, she widened the chaos-blade slightly before releasing the short sword and drawing her last blade.

  A wider swath of armsmen and their mounts fell before her, and were scattered by the forces she had wielded. Then, lightknives and unseen hammers pounded her eyes and her skull, but not quite fiercely enough to immobilize her, as she turned the gelding back toward the rear of the third company.

  How she looked, she had no idea, but when she rode toward the disoriented rebel Lornian armsmen at the rear, they all turned their mounts and scattered away from her.

  From that moment on, the resistance of the rebels seemed largely to melt away, although some individual armsmen held on, swinging their huge blades until one guard or another wore them down. Before all that long, Saryn reined up and surveyed the area, through vision intermittently blurred by lightknives.

  A handful of riders in blue and gray spurred their mounts into the drying swamps, clearly trying to reach the river. Another broken squad in orange and black had managed to escape the Lornians and raced southwest, possibly toward refuge in Masengyl, or elsewhere.

  Less than a quarter glass later, the road held only the Westwind and regency forces, and the wounded who could not escape…and all too many bodies.

  Should we pursue the stragglers? She shook her head. One way or another, they needed to find out what had happened.

  Saryn glanced farther north along the road…and saw another group of armsmen. Had she missed a whole company? No…they were the wounded, those who had been wounded earlier and who had followed the more able armsmen…and who had hung back when the regency forces had attacked.

  There are not that many. Her entire abdomen tightened. That was hardly a good sign. As she watched, some of the riding wounded turned their mounts away out into the fields and grasslands to the west. The others waited, almost dumbly, as if half-stunned.

  Saryn rode toward Hryessa, who had organized fifth and sixth squads to sweep through the dead and wounded, while the other four squads took up stations around the battle area.

  “Ser.”

  “Where are their survivors?”

  “Riding away from us as fast as they can. They’re all heading sort of south once they get away from us. I’ve got most of the guards ready to attack if they try to regroup.”

  “What do our casualties look like?”

  “Ten dead, maybe more. Four or five who might not make it. Another ten or so with wounds that should heal.”

  “Have them finish up the sweep of the bodies, but make it quick, for blades and for coins or jewelry, and see if there are any that look like lord-holders.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Maerkyn rode toward the two, reining up. “Second Lornian company is reformed, Commander. Three dead, ten wounded. We’ve taken station around the regent.”

  “Thank you, Undercaptain. I appreciate that.”

  “Might I ask, Commander…You never offered them terms,” Maerkyn said. “You…you just attacked and slaughtered them.”

  “They’d already declared rebellion against the regency, and they were part of those rebel lords who had already twice attacked forces bearing the regency banner.” Saryn paused, then asked, “Whose colors are orange and black?”

  “Lord Kelthyn’s, I believe. The blue and gray belong to Lord Jaffrayt.”

  Saryn frowned. She had seen no armsmen in brown and yellow or in the red trimmed in black. Had both Henstrenn and Keistyn taken the east road back toward their holdin
gs—or toward Lornth—knowing that Saryn and Zeldyan would be on the river road, and leaving the other two lord-holders to face Saryn and the Lornians? She wouldn’t have put it past either Henstrenn or Keistyn. Then she nodded. “If you would tell the regent that I need to find out some information, but that I will join you both shortly to let her know what we’ve discovered.”

  Maerkyn nodded politely. “Yes, ser.” He turned his mount and headed back up toward the hillside where the Lornians had formed around the regent.

  “He is much more respectful,” said Hryessa.

  “Yes.” I can’t imagine why. Saryn couldn’t help the sarcastic tenor of her thoughts. “I need to question the rebel wounded back there.” She gestured.

  “You need some guards.” Hryessa gestured toward the nearest guards in fifth squad.

  Saryn waited until she had six guards flanking her before she rode slowly northward, finally reining up short of one of the wounded, an armsman in gray and blue, with an arm strapped to his chest and a dressing covering what remained of his left ear. He sat almost lopsided in his saddle.

  “Where did you get wounded?”

  “Up north…the villa outside Carpa…”

  “What happened there?” pressed Saryn.

  “We fought…the squad leaders said we won.”

  “You didn’t see what happened?”

  “Some of them got away…some of ’em got us…” The wounded man just looked at Saryn. “That’s all I know.”

  Sensing that he had told her all he could, she moved on to the next man, who had a crudely splinted leg that stuck out. She wondered how he’d mounted, unless his comrades had lifted him onto the horse. “What did you see?”

  “Not much…” His eyes widened. “You’re one of those…angels…”

  “What did you see?” Saryn repeated.

  “Lots of fighting…we were the first…”

  After questioning close to fifteen armsmen—all those who seemed lucid—Saryn broke off the interrogation and rode back to the hillside to find Zeldyan, Hryessa, and Maerkyn.

  They rode closer once she reined in the gelding.

  Hryessa looked to Saryn. “Commander…your attack killed both Lord Jaffrayt and Lord Kelthyn.”