Fall of Angels (The Saga of Recluce #6)(16)

Not much more than an eight-day and already five were dead-Mertin and four marines. Then, again, reflected the engineer, without the combat-trained marines and Ryba, things would have been worse, much worse.

Nylan bent down and washed the rock dust and dirt from his hands in the narrow stream. Then he walked back toward the lander where they had stockpiled the plunder, such as it was, from the corpses. They had gathered nearly three dozen of the heavy iron blades that scarcely seemed sharp enough to hack wood. After thinking about Ryba's Sybran blade and how she had sheared right through the local plate and chain mail, Nylan shook his head.

He neared the lander, and Ayrlyn, who stood by the single remaining local. The man half sat, half lay almost against the side of the end lander on a thin tarp. The pale green eyes surveyed Nylan, and the man spoke.

Nylan almost caught the words.

"He's asking if you're the only true man here," said Ayrlyn from his elbow. "He wants to give you his sword. Or he would if he still had it."

"Honor concept, I suppose."

"Only men have honor here? Are we in trouble!" snorted the former comm officer. Her brown eyes flashed that impossible shade of blue.

"If I take his sword, I'm responsible for him, I suppose."

"Something like that, I'd guess."

"Does that mean he gives his word not to escape, or is it meaningless nonsense?" Nylan's voice was hoarse, tired.

"Who would know?"

Nylan stared at the local. "I'll take his moral sword, or whatever. Tell him that if he breaks his word, he'll wish no one in his family had ever been born." Nylan was tired. Tired and angry, and he just wished that things hadn't degenerated into slaughter so quickly.

Even before the flame-haired comm officer started to speak, the man paled, and words tumbled from his lips.

Ayrlyn looked sideways at the engineer. "For a moment, I thought you almost glowed." She shook her head, and fires seemed to shimmer in her hair. "Whatever you did, he claims you're his liege. His name is Narliat." She lowered her voice. "You did something that scared the living darkness out of him. He called you master or mage, something like that."

Nylan rubbed his forehead. "This place makes me feel strange. It's almost like being on the net, except it's not." He almost could understand the man's words, and the language was somehow familiar, but not quite. He kept rubbing his forehead.

Ayrlyn looked at him. "It is strange. I've had a couple of flashes like that, except it's more as though I could feel the trees or the grass." She glanced around nervously. "I'm not crazy. I'm not."

"We're probably just tired." Nylan looked at the prisoner. "Now what?"

"Tell him to stay here, and he will."

Nylan did, and Ayrlyn repeated the words. Narliat bowed his head.

The two angels walked toward the cook fire where Ryba waited. Nylan glanced to the rocky outcropping where a pair of sentries were outlined against the twilit sky.

The captain turned her head. "How many in the cairn?"

"Forty-three."

"Forty-three? That many?" burst out Kyseen from the litter by the fire.

"That few," said Ryba. "There were almost sixty, I think. Probably another three or four were wounded. They'll probably die, if the locals' medical care matches their weapons. That means almost a dozen escaped."

"Killing two thirds of an attacking force sounds pretty good," pointed out Saryn.

"I'm more worried about the one in white," mused Nylan. "It wasn't a laser, but he had a lot of power."

"It doesn't make sense. Whatever weapon he used burned right through the lander's ablative tiles like they weren't there-until it got to the thin steel undershell. That's not a laser. The ablative tiles would have stopped even a small weapons laser." Saryn winced as she shifted her position on the stone.

"Call it magic," suggested Nylan.

"Magic?" Ryba's eyebrows lifted.

"There's something here like a neuronet-"

"You think this is all imagination? That we're really trapped in the Winterlance's net?"

"Oh, frig ..." muttered Gerlich.

"No. There are too many independent variables for a net to handle, especially the interactions and apparent actions between individual personalities. Also, there's a feel about the net," explained Nylan. "It's not here."

"Thus speaks the engineer." Gerlich's tone was openly sarcastic.

Nylan ignored it.

"What do you think of the local swords?" Nylan asked Ryba. "You're the only one with any experience, I think."

"Not quite," said Gerlich. "I did club fencing for a while."

"So did I," added another voice. "Sers . .."

Nylan looked at the wiry silver-haired marine.

"I'm Istril," the marine explained apologetically.

"That's a help," said Ryba slowly. "You're all going to have to use blades, I think, before the year is out, anyway. Maybe sooner. Unless we can manufacture bows and learn archery."

"Why ..." started a voice farther back in the twilight. "Oh ... sorry."

"Exactly. Fierral took inventory. That little firefight cost us nearly three hundred rounds. That's actually pretty good. One in nine shells counted. Except we only have about six hundred rounds left. That's maybe two battles like we just went through." Ryba bowed to the marine force leader. "Without the marines, we'd all be dead or slaves."