Ordermaster (79 page)

"Not just me."

"No. But I did."

   
Jeka uncrossed her legs and reached for the scuffed shoes. "Need to eat. So do you."

"Once this is over, we need to get you some boots."

"See about that, then." But there was a faint hint of a smile.

   
As he headed down to breakfast, following Jeka, Kharl realized something else. He still hadn't seen Werwal or his consort. There was no one he felt comfortable sending to the rendering yard. If he went, he'd need to take at least Alynar or Sestalt, and that would leave the residence poorly protected with Osten's lancers coming into the city. Jeka was good at sneaking around, but Kharl didn't want her where he didn't at least have a chance to protect her. He didn't want to send anyone, in fact, until he knew that Brysta would remain relatively orderly.

   
Everything he did, he felt, was some sort of compromise between what ought to be and what could be. Belatedly, as always, he realized, that was why Lyras wanted to stay away from the Great House and the Lord of Aus-tra. There was always conflict, a need for compromise in ruling, and in law, as the clerk Jusof had pointed out to him in Valmurl. Law was not justice,

and given people's differing feelings about what they deserved, and what they wanted, it couldn't be.

   
That was another reason why he shouldn't ever try to be more than he was, a mage and a lord. He'd just make matters worse-or tear himself up inside-or both. He'd precipitated the second revolt in Austra by trying to second-guess what Ghrant had needed. Now, in less than a season, he'd created swaths of death and destruction just trying to do his job as envoy to the West Quadrant.

Still, he fretted about both Werwal and Jeka, for very different reasons.

LXXXV

As Kharl had suspected, Osten's forces were not ready on sevenday, although Kharl had been able to sense the approach of Egen's white wizards by late in the day. By sunset, he felt as though they were still well south of Brysta proper, south even of the barracks on the south side of the city.

   
Early on eightday Kharl and his group rode out to join Osten's forces. The day had dawned with a hazy sky, but Kharl had the feeling that it would clear. That meant that Egen was more likely to attack, since the white mages preferred not to fight in the rain. By midmorning, all of Osten's forces were moving southward on the ring road, less than a kay from where it joined the south road. The lancers led the column, and the armed foot brought up the rear, with the supply wagons trailing, and having a hard time of it in the muddy clay left by the combination of summer-end rain and the mounts and men traveling before them.

   
Kharl and his small party rode just behind the vanguard, in the second body of troops, following Osten and his personal guard-lancers clad in a blue so dark it was almost black, with a thin piping of silver-gray. Osten had detailed-not quite grudgingly-two squads of lancers as support for Kharl. Kharl's trousers were mud-spattered, and there were even a few splotches on his sleeves, although those had dried quickly even under the hazy morning sunlight.

The ground on both sides of the road held low hills, but the those on

the eastern side were higher and presaged the more rugged hills to the south. Kharl could just make out, over the tops of the woodlot trees ahead to his left, the beginning of the long ridge to the north of the southern patroller barracks.

"How far away do you think Egen is?" asked Demyst.

   
"About four kays south of here, close to the barracks where we were before." Khaii's order-senses gave him a rough idea. Over the past day, he had pondered whether he should have destroyed the structures, but at that time, he'd been more worried about the eastern fort and whether more white wizards might appear. If he had, he certainly wouldn't have had the strength for at least another day to deal with the eastern fort, and who knew what those patrollers might have been able to do?

"They moving?"

"They don't seem to be."

"Waiting for us to come to them."

   
Kharl nodded as he sensed two scouts who rode back toward Osten. He just hoped that Osten would tell him what they had discovered, although he had more than a few doubts about Osten's judgment. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, he wished he had been faced with better choices as to whom he needed to back on behalf of Lord Ghrant.

   
After perhaps a quarter glass, a lancer pulled his mount from the column ahead and began to ride back toward Kharl.

   
"Lord Osten wants something, I'd wager," offered Demyst, riding beside Kharl.

   
"All lords do," Kharl said dryly, realizing as he spoke the words that he'd condemned himself as well. His wry smile was brief.

   
The lancer turned his mount to ride on the shoulder, alongside and matching pace with Kharl and his escort. "Lord Kharl, Lord Osten would like you to join him."

   
Kharl eased his mount forward and onto the shoulder, where he rode past the rear of Osten's guard until he neared Osten himself.

"Lord Osten ..."

The blond lord turned his head. "Join me."

   
Kharl eased his mount beside Osten, momentarily conscious of just how much bigger he was than Osten.

   
"Lord Kharl," Osten began, "what can you tell me about the would-be usurper's position?"

   
"I do not have scouts, as you do, but the main body of his forces, and three or four white wizards, are somewhere ahead. I would judge about three kays."

   
For a moment, the narrow-faced Osten was silent. Then, he nodded. "Almost exactly two and a half kays ahead. His wizards or his patrollers killed one party of scouts. The two who just returned tell me that we face three companies of mounted patrollers and two companies of patroller foot, with almost ten companies of regular Nordlan lancers. The entire rebel force has retaken the southern barracks area."

   
"There was nothing to stop them. The barracks were empty, and they took everything with them when they retreated earlier."

"All the supplies?" Osten's voice was disbelieving.

   
"All of them except some cannon powder, but the cannon were damaged in the battle." Except one. And Kharl wasn't about to mention that.

"The scouts did not report cannon."

Kharl nodded, waiting to see what Osten would say next.

   
"They have blocked the road, and hold the flat to the east and the high ground to the west. They have fixed crude pikes across the road to block our lancers there or to force us into the marshy part of the flat or uphill against the patrollers with rifles."

   
"Most of the patrollers are probably Hamorian lancers in patroller uniforms," Kharl suggested.

   
"That is like him. Ungrateful wretch!" Osten spat to the side away from Kharl. "I found it hard to believe that he could have trained so many in a year, even with ..." The lord-heir let the words trail away.

   
Kharl noted that Osten had yet to refer to his brother by name. "He didn't. That way, the emperor-"

   
"The white demon can claim that he only supplied a few wizards and some training to the men of the would-be usurper. That is so like Hamor. Be that as it may, what great aid do you offer us?"

   
"The hills to the west are not at all that high, and the slopes are gentle. That is where the white wizards are. If they were not there, you could take the hills and flank ... the usurper. Then he and his men would be trapped against the ridge and the marshy ground."

   
"You want me to send men against the wizards?" Osten's voice turned scornful.

   
"No. I intend to deal with the wizards-with the two squads of lancers you loaned me, of course. We'll circle behind them and attack them from

the west. From what you've said, and from their positions, they expect you to attack. They plan to use the wizards to kill as many lancers as possible before you can reach them." Kharl smiled politely. "What I suggest is that you ready your men for such an attack, and take a great deal of time doing it. When I have dealt with the white wizards, you take the hills to the west and begin to encircle them."

"What about the rifles?"

"They'll go when the white wizards do." If I am successful.

   
"Pardon me, ser mage. What happens if you are not successful?" Osten's voice was cold.

   
"You have lost nothing but two squads of lancers, and your enemy is that much weaker," Kharl pointed out. "You hazard little. From where his forces are set, he cannot attack quickly."

"When will you begin your attack?"

   
"When we get there," Kharl said flatly. "You will see chaos-fire and much else."

   
Osten offered an excessive half bow from the saddle. "We await your efforts, Lord Kharl."

   
"Thank you, Lord Osten." With a smile he did not feel, Kharl turned his mount, his shields ready for any treachery, although he did not believe such an attempt would come until later.

   
As he rode back northward to his own small detachment, when he passed the last rank of lancers, he infused a small mass of order into the saddlebags of one of the lancers. When he later cloaked his own order, he hoped that the white wizards would perceive the order in the saddlebags as him-or as his failure to shield himself adequately.

   
Even so, Kharl couldn't help but wonder what new tactics the white mages with Egen might try. He had no real idea, but he did know that almost every time he had faced one of the Hamorian mages, they had done something he had not anticipated. That might also reflect his own lack of training and experience. From what Whetorak had revealed, Hamor trained its envoys extensively, and Kharl would have been surprised if its mages had not also had some type of instruction. He could have used some of that himself, rather than having to discover everything by trial and error.

   
He snorted quietly. That blade had two edges. On the one edge, he'd had to learn late things others had known early. On the other, he'd discovered techniques no one else seemed to know.

   
Kharl rode directly to the subofficer in charge of the two lancer squads accompanying him. "Serjeant."

"Yes, ser?"

   
"We're going to be heading west from here. We're breaking off, and we'll be circling around."

"Ser?"

   
"The white wizards are on high ground ahead to the west of the road. We'll be attacking them ..." He paused. "I'll be attacking them, and you'll be there to make sure that someone doesn't send a squad or something at me. Also, with two squads, we'll look more like a scouting party, and they won't think so much about it. You ride with me, and we'll lead the way."

"Ah .. . yes, ser."

Kharl looked past the serjeant to his own undercaptain.

   
Demyst nodded, although his face carried a worried expression that was not quite a frown.

   
After raising the shield to cloak his own order, Kharl eased the chestnut gelding back onto the shoulder of the road, then over a soggy depression into a field that looked to hold some sort of beans. At the western end of the field, there was a lane that wound to the southwest. That was the general direction they needed to go.

   
As he and the serjeant rode down the rows of the bean field, Kharl was conscious of the words of the lancers who followed Demyst, Erdyl, Jeka, and Alynar.

"One mage ... and he's gonna take on the white devils?"

"You see what he did already? Nothing but rocks ..."

"Rocks aren't wizards . . ."

   
Kharl was well aware of that. He turned in the saddle and managed to get out some of the bread and cheese that he had taken from the residence, knowing he would need it. He managed several bites before they reached the lane-barely wide enough for two mounts abreast.

"How far, ser, before we reach the wizards?"

   
"They're about two kays over there"-Kharl pointed south-southeast- "but the way we're going is more like three or three and a half. Lord Osten will be slowing his advance and preparing. He won't attack until we're done."

"We're not going to charge the wizards, now, are we?"

   
"Not all the way. Just to get me close enough to deal with them." And that was far closer than Kharl wanted to be.

   
Although there were cottages and sheds amid the meadows and fields, Kharl saw not a single soul. That was scarcely surprising, not with a long column of lancers and armsmen visible on the south road stretching back toward Brysta.