Fall of Angels (The Saga of Recluce #6)(46)

"And what do you tell them?"

"I ask them if they want to spend the winter with a thin layer of metal between them and snow twice their height, eating frozen food and breaking their teeth-if they've got the strength to eat." Nylan paused. "Selling the tower's easy. They can see it. It's hard to sell alertness, or general preparedness, or anything people can't touch."

Ryba nodded. "Sometimes ... sometimes, I get so tired."

Nylan put his arms around her.

She stiffened for a moment, then relaxed. "Have to remember to take comfort when I can."

"That's all we can do."

After a time, they separated and walked slowly back toward the cook fires and a late supper. Overhead, the cold stars blinked out and shone down on the Roof of the World, each as cold as the ice that coated Freyja, as cold as the latest cairn in the southwestern corner of the Roof of the World, where there were getting to be too many cairns, too quickly.





XXVII



THE LOW GRAY clouds that had brought the long-overdue afternoon rain scud eastward and toward the mighty Westhorns as Sillek peers on his knees through both the twilight and the chest-high, damp grasses. Less than a thousand cubits away, across a slight depression, lie the earthen ramparts that sit on the last raised ground controlling the approach to the ford-and the road to Clynya. Behind the ramparts are several tents, and more than a handful of long rough-planked buildings with sodded roofs. The air smells of damp grass, soil, and woodsmoke.

"Can you set those buildings on fire, Master Mage?" he asks Terek.

"This grass is damp, ser."

"The buildings?" hisses Sillek.

"Yes, ser, but I'd have to get closer, much closer. They've cut away all the grass-"

"Burned it, I think," corrects Sillek. "You can see in the dark, can't you? Mages are supposed to be able to do that."

"In the dark? You want us to do this in the dark?"

"As I told Koric, I'm not a slave to an outmoded code of honor, Master Chief Wizard. That bastard Ildyrom disregarded honor and traditional boundaries when he seized the grasslands west of Clynya and built this fort to hold them. Honor says I should send my armsmen against a bunch of mongrel scum to have them killed? Frig honor. I intend to get the grasslands back without killing my men."

Terek shifts his weight from one knee to the other in the high damp grass, all too aware he does not wear the hip-length boots that Sillek does.

"When it gets dark, Koric and a handful of the best will escort you and the two other wizards down as far as you need to go. I want everything in that fort to burn-everything."

"But they'll flee."

"Of course." Sillek smiles. "I've thought of that, too. Now, let's get back and get ready." He glances to the darkening western horizon, then back to the thin lines of smoke coming up from the wooden huts behind the earthen walls.

Terek shivers, but follows the lord as the two creep back through the grasses, hoping that the sentries in the fort can see nothing but grass waving in the evening breeze. ". . . all this sneaking ..." Terek mumbles to himself. "Do you want to ride up front in a charge to take that fort, Master Wizard?" asks Sillek, still easing through the damp grasses in a crouch, grasses that bend and then spray Terek with the rain that has coated them. Terek wipes his forehead. "No, ser."

"Then stop complaining. I'm a lot more interested in winning than in being a dead hero, and, from what I've seen, so are you,"

When they reach the low hill that shelters the Lornian forces, Sillek straightens and massages his back.

Koric waits and listens as Lord Sillek explains.

"... won't be too much longer before it's dark enough for you to start, Koric."

"Yes, ser."

Sillek touches his arm and lowers his voice. "Who else can I trust to ensure these ... wizards ... do as they're supposed to? I can't spare a score of horse or the archers."

"I understand, ser. I'll do my duty."

Both Sillek and Koric understand the words that Koric does not speak. But I don't have to like it.

"I know," Sillek says. "Just remember. It's the results that count." He studies the almost-dark sky and the stars that have appeared. "You'd better get started."

Koric nods.

Sillek wipes what moisture he can from his leathers, and boots, before mounting and beginning his instructions to the horse troopers.

As the skies continue to clear, and the white firepoints of the stars blink across the grasslands, Koric leads the three wizards through the grass. Watch fires glimmer at the four corners of the fort, spilling light into the darkness.

Another group from Lornth circles behind the wizards, heading for the ford in the West Fork. The dozen men bear longbows and filled quivers.

Farther from the Jeranyi redoubt, sheltered by the slope of the land and the, chest-high grass, Lord Sillek and his horse wait, then he nods, and, almost silently, the troopers begin their roundabout ride to the south side of the road that leads from the ford to the fort.

The grass bends and whispers, showering Hissl with droplets. He wipes his face and follows, at a crouch, Koric and the chief wizard.

"Keep down," hisses Koric. "You mages get us discovered, and you'll spend the next season in cold iron, if the Jeranyi don't catch us, and do it first."