The White Order (The Saga of Recluce #8)(26)

Another series of notes rose across the afternoon, and a company of lancers rode over the hill, moving at what seemed to Cerryl to be a fast trot. But he wouldn't have known one gait from another, except a walk from a full gallop.

His eyes went back to the single horse and rider.

The rider gestured toward them. “You two. One of you-you have it-you must help!” He spurred his mount, and the horse took another dozen steps, and then his leg seemed to give way. The rider half-fell, half-flung himself clear and staggered into a heap in the dusty road.

“Cerryl-there be trouble,” murmured Dylert. “Help me close the mill door, quick-like.”

Cerryl turned and ran to the door, pushing while Dylert pulled. When the long sliding door had but a cubit left to close, Dylert gestured to Cerryl. “Cerryl! Hurry and close the door on the finish barn, and stay inside! Be making sure you stay there. Understand?”

“Yes, ser.” Cerryl nodded and ran down the causeway to the finish lumber barn. He glanced over his shoulder.

The rider was rising to his feet, glancing back at the oncoming lancers.

Cerryl rugged the finish barn door, smaller than the one at the mill, until it was nearly closed, before slipping inside. His eyes went to the mill, its door closed, and then back to what he could see of the road, but all he could see was the rider, turning back toward the mill, drawing a blade.

The youth's lips tightened, and he pulled on the door, sliding it closed-almost. He left a sliver of space between the massive doorpost timber and the door itself, so little that no one could have seen without being right at the door. Then he watched, squinting through his peephole.

The dusty rider half-walked, half-staggered uphill, moving determinedly toward the mill, carrying a shimmering blade. His eyes flicked uphill, and Cerryl almost felt as though the rider sought him.

The man drew closer to the mill, less than two hundred cubits from where Cerryl hunched behind the door. He wore a belt scabbard, not a shoulder harness the way the demon women had or the way mercenaries supposedly did. His sleeveless tunic was stained and streaked with dust and dirt, as was the once-fine silk shirt beneath it, and even at a distance, Cerryl could see-or sense-that the fugitive's face was flushed and that a faint white glow surrounded him-like it cloaked the books from Cerryl's father.

The fugitive's eyes raked across the buildings and fixed on the finish barn. Abruptly, he turned as the drumming of hoofs rose again, nearer, and a score of lancers appeared, but a hundred cubits or so downhill from the single man.

All the lancers wore the cyan livery of Lydiar, except for the man riding beside the lancer officer who led the troop. The exception was a figure dressed entirely in white-a white mage.

Cerryl shivered but kept watching.

The lancer officer gestured, and the lancers reined up. Three lancers, bearing bows already strung, rode to the front of the column and drew arrows from their quivers with a fluidity that bespoke long practice.

The fugitive squared himself to face the archers. He raised a hand, and a small ball of fire arched from his fingertips toward the lancers.

Cerryl held his breath as the fire flared toward the Lydian lancers, yet none moved.

The white mage nodded, and simultaneously the fireball splattered I into fragments that fell short of the riders. A tuft of brown grass burst ! into flame, and then ashes.

For a moment, the shoulders of the blond man in the travel-stained clothes slumped; then he straightened and drew his blade, raising it to the late afternoon sun. The metal glistened as though it held the fires of the sun, even after he had lowered it to chest height. He faced the lancers, neither stepping back nor forward.

The lancer officer snapped an order, and the archers released their nocked arrows.

The fugitive's blade seemed to flash, and he stood untouched, two broken arrows lying by his feet, both somehow charred and snapped.

The lancer officer glanced at the white wizard. This time, the wizard raised his hand, and a larger fireball flared toward the blond man.

Once more the golden-fired blade flashed, and fragments of fire spewed around the fugitive. Cerryl could see a black slash across the back of the man's left arm. The man was breathing heavily but continued to hold his strange blade in the guard position.

Another firebolt flashed from the white wizard, parried by the blond man, and yet another firebolt. After the third firebolt, the fugitive barely could raise the sword.

Cerryl missed the order from the lancer officer, but arrows flew toward the blond man. The first arrow took the fugitive in the arm. A second missed, as did a third as he threw himself to the side, but his leg slipped on the gravel of the road.

As he fell, the man hurled the blade. It flashed white and gold as it spun hilt over point and into the low brush at the end of the meadow by the road.

Two firebolts flashed from the hands of the white wizard in succession, exploding over the body of the fallen man and rising into a pillar of flame.

When the fires receded, all that remained was an irregular star of blackened ground-no body, no ashes, just an odd-shaped star of soot. Soot and the odor of burned meat.

Cerryl leaned against the doorpost and swallowed hard to keep from gagging. By the time he had regained full control, the drumming of hoofbeats had died away, and the lane was empty. Even the dust over the road to Lydiar had begun to settle.

He slowly pushed the barn door open enough to slip out. Then he studied the lane and the road. The lancers-and the white mage-had indeed left on their return to Lydiar.