Fall of Angels (The Saga of Recluce #6)(54)

Nylan caught the question Siret whispered to Ayrlyn as he climbed into the saddle of the old bay.

"A little formality, that's all," Ayrlyn answered Siret in a dry tone.

After settling himself into the saddle, Nylan gingerly flicked the reins of the bay and followed Berlis and Istril toward the descending ridge road. As he bounced along, he wondered why he'd insisted on going to the brickworks. Was he worried that the brigands had found it and damaged it? Or because he had to do something after looking so stupid?

Belatedly recalling Ryba's admonition, he tried to sense beyond the trail that was still not a road, for all the travel between the clayworks and the tower. Slowly, he caught up with the marines.

"I'll go first," suggested Istril, "then the engineer."

Nylan started to object, then shut his mouth. If anything went wrong, with only three of them, it didn't really matter where he rode. Besides, given all the dead brigands, why would any who had survived stick around?

"Hate this frigging place," said Siret, now riding behind Nylan. "Everyone out to kill us, just because we're women."

"They seem to want to kill me and Gerlich as well," Nylan answered. "And Merlin might have had something to say about it. They don't seem to like any strangers."

"You're different, ser." Siret's voice held less anger. "The men here . .. they're not human."

"Even Narliat?"

"He's the same as the rest. He's just scared stiff of us, especially the captain, the second, and you, ser. Especially you, ser."

Why him? Ryba was far deadlier than Nylan. Why, Nylan couldn't hit someone with a slug-thrower at nearly point-blank range.

The three rode down from the next rise in the rising and falling trail, and when Nylan glanced back, he saw only the sky, the plateau rocks, and the trees. Istril had opened more distance between them, and her head swung from side to side, her head cocked almost as though she were trying to listen for trouble or even sniff it out.

Nylan tried to follow her example, looking, sensing ...

They continued down the winding trail, nearly silently, when a vague sense of unease drifted, as if on the wind, toward Nylan. He squinted, and looked toward the tall evergreens to the left, but the silence was absolute. That bothered him. All he could smell was the scent of pine, of fir.

But there was something . .. somewhere .. .

"Ser!" cried Siret.

Even before her words, Nylan had seen the flicker of motion to the left of the trail. As he yelled "Istril!" he turned in the saddle and drew and threw his blade toward the man who had stepped clear of the thick underbrush and leveled the bow at the slender marine who led the three angels.

In a fashion similar to working the ship's power net and the laser, Nylan smoothed the air flow around the spinning blade, extending its range, and somehow ensuring that the point struck first.

"Uhhh!" The brigand crumpled.

Nylan rode toward the forest, sending his senses into the trees, but felt no others nearby. Siret had ridden up beside him, her slug-thrower out in one hand. Istril had wheeled her horse, ducking low against her mount's back as she rode up.

Before the engineer and Siret reached the bandit, the figure convulsed, and a wave of whiteness flared across Nylan. He shivered and barely hung on to the saddle as the power of the death he had created washed over him.

"Ser? Are you all right?" Istril reined her mount up beside Nylan.

"He's fine," affirmed Siret.

"Fine . . . now," said Nylan after drawing a deep breath, trying not to shake as he forced himself out of the reflex step-up that he hadn't even realized that he had triggered. He took another deep breath and glanced down at the dead brigand's young face-another man barely out of youth, looking for all the world almost like the one he had stripped farther up the mountain. Brothers? Or did a lot of dead bearded young men just look alike? He took another slow deep breath, wishing he had something to eat or drink.

Why all the bandits? Surely, the word was out that it was dangerous to take on the angels up in the mountains?

"You stopped him. He was going to shoot me, wasn't he?" asked Istril.

"Yes."

"Frigging right," added Siret, the deep green eyes cold.

"How did you know he was here?" asked Istril, adding belatedly, "Ser?"

"I just sort of felt that someone was here." Nylan dismounted and eased his blade from the bandit's chest, then wiped it clean before replacing it in the scabbard that the blade did not really fit. "And I couldn't reach him. Gerlich was right. We need longer-range weapons."

Istril studied him and pointed. "You have your sidearm."

Nylan swallowed. "I guess I really didn't think. So I threw the blade. I hoped it would distract him, anyway."

His head throbbed with the lie. He'd hoped to kill the bandit, plain and simple, and instinctively he'd known that he couldn't have with the slug-thrower. He'd always been a lousy shot. So he added, "I hoped it would kill him, but I wasn't sure I could do it. Not with a pistol." With his uttering of the truth, the sharp throbbing in his skull faded into a dull ache. The engineer rubbed his forehead. What was happening to him? Throwing blades on a low-tech planet, getting headaches from lies, forging blades with magic-or the equivalent, knowing that he could kill with a blade and not a sidearm. Was he dreaming? Was he dead?