Fall of Angels (The Saga of Recluce #6)(188)

Behind him followed Huldran and three of the newer recruits, none of whose names Nylan knew, carrying the heavy firin cell block and the rest of the equipment.

Nylan positioned the tripod, then clicked the firing head onto the swivel. After that came the power cable.

"Let's move the cells to the center here," he suggested, and one of the new guards, a mahogany redhead, helped.

After that he straightened and looked at the three new guards. "That's all we need for now. Go do whatever you're supposed to do."

"We're supposed to guard you," the redhead said. "Oh ... all right. Then get as many shafts as you can and whatever else you need and report back here. When the time comes, try to use arrows and keep them at a distance. The farther away the better."

"Yes, ser."

The three guards started walking toward the tower. Nylan shook his head and turned to Huldran. "I'll check this out while you get our mounts. When you get back, I want to inspect the pike lines. Is that all right?"

"I get to walk up to get the horses and bring them back, and you get to ride?" asked Huldran, raising her eyebrows. "I thought it was a good idea," said Nylan. "Sometimes, ser, you still have certain male characteristics."

They both laughed. Then Huldran trotted uphill along the paved road to the stables and the corrals where not only the horses were, but where the sheep had been gathered.

As the early golden light fell across the meadows, and the fields, Nylan slowly went through each and every connection, letting his senses check the lines where the flows would follow. He did not power up the system. He could sense that it would work, and he knew that he would need every erg of power, and probably a lot more.

When he had finished, Huldran had not returned, and he looked out to the west, to Tower Black standing in the light against the shadowed rocky hills that rose eventually into the higher peaks of the Westhorns. In the flat morning light, the Roof of the World was quiet except for the steps of the last guards heading up to the stables. The grass hung limp in the stillness, dew glittering like tiny diamonds in the light. The scene appeared almost pastoral.

As Huldran rode across the grass, leading the brown mare, Nylan took another deep breath, conscious that he had recently been taking a lot of deep breaths, a whole lot-and that nothing had changed. He still had to destroy hundreds of men, just so Westwind would be left alone. He walked behind the emplacement and started to check the mare's saddle before he mounted.

The triangle rang three times-twice. A squad or group of guards rode down past the smithy and the tower, and over Nylan's short bridge and up the hill past the end of the paving. As they vanished over the crest of the ridge, the triangle rang again in triplets, and Nylan swung into the mare's saddle and started toward the pike emplacements.

Another set of riders passed the tower, and one turned her horse toward the laser emplacement, then changed her direction toward Nylan.

Behind her, the three newer guards hurried across the meadows, followed by a man in black-Relyn.

Nylan reined up and waited for Ryba.

The marshal drew up beside him, and began to speak. "The Lornians are forming up and beginning to march toward the flat down on the other side of the ridge. The scouts say that they're two kays down past the flat." The marshal glanced toward the sun. "I'd guess it would be after midmorning before they'll be in your range. Longer if we're successful."

"Then I hope you are most successful," Nylan said.

"We'll see. That's something I don't know. I'll try to send you messengers, if we have any to spare." Her eyes were bleak.

"Don't worry," he answered. "I'll do what I can." As if I had tiny real choice at all, between you and them.

As Ryba spurred her horse back toward her guards, Nylan glanced to the great forest beyond the steep eastern cliff that dropped away in its nearly sheer fall. The forest was almost a black outline against the morning sun, and Nylan's eyes rose to Freyja, glittering mercilessly in the cool and the clear morning light.

After a moment, he urged the mare up the hill. Rather than dismount and risk revealing too much, just in case the Lornians' wizard could see what he did, he rode past each post of the lower line slowly, letting his senses range over what he had constructed. The weights and links seemed sound, and all the cords were in place. Then he repeated the effort with the upper line before easing the mare up to the crest of the ridge.

All he saw on the northeastern side was what he always saw. There were no massed bodies, no horse soldiers, just grasses and road and trees.

He squinted and studied the area to the west. Perhaps there was a low cloud of dust rising above the trees that bordered the wide meadows leading toward Westwind, but the trees shielded his vision.

After a time, he turned the mare and rode back down the road and across the meadow to the laser.

"See anything, ser?" asked Huldran as he rode past the front of the quickly bricked emplacement. "Some dust, I think, but it wasn't moving that fast."

"It never is," said Relyn, "unless it's on the field and moving right toward you. Then the horses and dust rush at you. At the same time, you feel like they move so slowly."

Nylan reined up and tied the mare in back, beside Huldran's mount where she would be largely sheltered from stray arrows or crossbow bolts or whatever missiles the Lornians might employ. Then he checked the laser again.