Fall of Angels (The Saga of Recluce #6)(189)

For a while, as the sun climbed, and he began to sweat under the leathers, he walked back and forth. Then he wandered out into the grass. Except for the six of them, the entire Roof of the World appeared empty. The tower was barred and silent, and even the insects seemed quieter than normal. Or was that his imagination?

"Why are battles always fought on clear days?" asked Nylan to no one in particular as he sat down in the narrow slit entry, his boots resting on packed clay that had once been grass.

"They are not," answered Relyn from the left side of the emplacement. "I have fought in rain and mud. Not snow."

The smith-engineer nodded. Then he looked at the man in black. After a time, he got up and walked back and forth behind the silent and still unpowered laser. He looked at Relyn a moment, then beckoned, and walked away from the emplacement, letting the one-armed man follow. He stopped a hundred cubits out into the meadow and turned.

Relyn frowned. "What is it?"

"After this is over, it's time for you to leave-as soon as you can." Nylan glanced uphill, but nothing had changed.

"The Angel?"

Nylan nodded. "One way or another, I won't be in very good shape after this. Too much killing is hard on me." He met Relyn's eyes. "I promised. But don't lay a hand on anyone, or I'll chase you to the demon's depths."

Relyn shivered. "I would not, not after all this. Not after what I owe you." He shrugged, then smiled bitterly. "First, we must triumph."

"Don't prophets always win?" Nylan gave a wry grin and walked back toward the laser emplacement.

Relyn followed more slowly, fingering his chin with his left hand.

Huldran glanced from Nylan to Relyn, then just shook her head.

Shortly, a small group of riders appeared just over the crest of the hill, but turned their mounts to face the other way, presumably down on the advancing Lornians. Nylan thought he saw Ryba's latest roan, but he couldn't be quite sure.

Nylan was blotting his forehead, and even Relyn had opened his jacket by the time a single rider cantered down the road from the ridge. Nylan didn't know her name, though he had seen her in training, and she rode well.

"Ser! The enemy is about a third of the way up the ridge. The marshal said that she won't be able to send any more reports."

"Fine. Tell her to make sure the field is clear when the enemy comes down. Do you understand that?"

The guard's face crinkled. "The field must be clear when the enemy comes down?"

"The field must be clear of guards when the enemy comes down." Nylan corrected himself. "Do you have it?"

She repeated the words, and Nylan nodded. Then she turned her mount and started back up toward the ridge.

Relyn looked at Nylan's face. "You plan some terrible magic."

"It's not magic. Not mostly," Nylan added as his head throbbed as if to remind him not to lie, "but, if it works, it will be terrible." He muttered under his breath afterward, "And if it doesn't work, it's going to be terrible in a different way."

"What do you want us to do?" asked one of the new guards.

"When the engineer works his magic," answered Huldran, "his body will be here, but his thoughts will not. Our job is to protect him from anyone who would attack."

Nylan hoped no one got that near, but somehow nothing worked quite the way it was planned in any battle. Or in anything, he added mentally.

As the faint and distant sounds of the tumult mounted and purple-clad riders finally crested the ridge, Nylan powered up the firm cell assembly-seventy-seven point five percent. Could he smooth the flows for the fiery weapons head, the way he had for the industrial laser heads?

Another wave of purple riders reached the ridge top, and the Westwind guards began falling back, drawing back across the ridge top, sliding westward toward the road to the tower.

The Lornian forces slowed where the pikes should have triggered, but Nylan could not see what exactly had occurred, except for the unseen whiteness that signified death and more death.

Nylan sent out his perceptions, his eyes still on the hillside above. He could almost sense the Lornian commander, the arrows falling around him as the man gestured with the big blade. Idly, Nylan thought that he could have shot the man. Then he nodded, and his stomach chilled into ice. Ryba had ordered her guards not to kill him. She was not aiming for the defeat of the Lornians. She wanted to keep the Lornian army whole and moving into the laser's range, and she was gambling on the laser and Nylan to destroy them totally.

"Damn you! Damn you ..." he muttered.

Suddenly, as the Lornian forces began to move again, to flow around the east end of the pike defenses, the remaining visible guards seemed to peel off the hillside behind the pike lines and ride westward toward the tower. The flow of arrows dropped to a few intermittent shafts.

Ryba reined up on the lower hillside, just above Nylan's bridge, and the remainder of the guards did also-not much more than half a score. Even if some guards remained in the rocks and in the ridge trees, casualties had been high-as usual.

Nylan hadn't seen Ayrlyn, not since breakfast. Why did he keep thinking about her-because she was one of the few that seemed to care about more than force? Because he had come to care for her? He shook his head. The only thing he could do now was use the laser. His thoughts traced the power lines, and slowly smoothed out the fluxes and the swirls within the cells.