XXXV
IN THE NORTH tower yard, Nylan glanced from the armaglass panels up at the sky, where gray clouds twisted in and out and back upon each other as they churned their way southward, bringing moisture from the northern ocean.
Behind him Huldran and Cessya ground more lavastone for the mortar needed to finish the southern wall of the bath-house and the archway in its center that would lead to the north tower door. As the powder rose into the air, the intermittent cold breeze blew some of the fine dust toward the engineer.
Kkkchewww!!! He rubbed his nose and looked at the two marines, working in their threadbare and tattered uniforms. Then he checked the connections on the power cables, and the power levels on the scrambled bank of firin cells he was using-twenty-four percent.
He lowered the goggles over his eyes.
Baaa . . . aaaa . . . The sound of the sheep drifted around the tower. Nylan hoped someone knew something about sheep, because he didn't. They gave wool, but how did one shear it? Or turn the fleece into thread or wool or whatever got woven into cloth? There was something about stripping the oil from the wool, too. Saryn or Gerlich probably could slaughter them and dress them, but how many did they want to kill-if any? And when?
What about the chickens? Kadran had them up in a narrow cut Nylan had made above the stables-a makeshift chicken coop. Would it be warm enough in the winter, or should they be in with the sheep or horses? Who would know? He couldn't attempt to resolve every problem, but he hoped someone else could figure out the sheep and the chickens.
He forced his thoughts back to the job at hand-cutting the armaglass to fit the window frames that Saryn and Ayrlyn had made.
Nylan studied the chalked lines on the scarred and once-transparent panels from the landers. If he cut carefully, and if his measurements were correct, he might have enough glass for eight windows-four for the great hall and the rest for the living quarters-one or two on each floor where people slept. In the coming winter, the tower would still be dark-they had no lamps and only the few candles.
His eyes flicked in the general direction of the second large cairn-and the eleven individual cairns. How could Ryba promise that Westwind would change history when two seasons had reduced their numbers by more than a third? Children? But how many?
"Stop it!" he told himself, lifting the powerhead.
Cessya and Huldran glanced up, and Nylan looked down at the armaglass, forcing himself to take a deep breath and concentrate on the cutting ahead.
He triggered the energy flow to the powerhead, and began his efforts to narrow the laser's focus even more. Unlike his efforts with stone or metal, the armaglass sliced quickly and easily, and Nylan soon looked on eight evenly sized pieces, each ready to fit into a frame.
After clicking off the power, he checked the cell-bank energy level-barely down at all. His eyes narrowed, and he looked at the armaglass sections, then pushed back the goggles and walked over to the frames. Each frame was complete, except for the top bar, so that the armaglass could be slipped into the grooves.
Still wearing the gauntlets, Nylan picked up a section and eased it into the frame. It stuck halfway down, but with some tugging and wiggling, he managed to push the glass all the way into the frame. Saryn and Ayrlyn could assemble and install the rest of the windows. Another problem resolved.
Then he looked back at the laser. Because he had used so little energy, he might even have some power to use for Gerlich's project, not that Gerlich had asked Nylan directly, beyond complaining about underpowered bows.
Nylan removed the fraying gauntlets and wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm. Cool breezes or not, using the laser left him hot and sweaty. After a swallow of water, he looked at the two smaller braces on the stone, along with the two long rods of composite beside them, then at the sketch that Saryn had drawn from memory.
Nylan studied the pair of braces once more, then pulled on the gauntlets and eased the goggles in place. The lenses were so scratched that he relied on his senses more than on his sight. All the equipment from the Winterlance was falling apart, overstrained and stressed from usage far heavier than ever planned for by Heaven's shipbuilders and the angels' suppliers.
Finally, he triggered the power to the laser. The composite sliced easily, and he quickly had the rough form he needed. Then he set that aside and began shaping the brace toward the ideal shape that Saryn had suggested.
The first long, slow pass with the laser left him with the metal too heavily bunched near the grip. After three passes, with the sweat streaming down his face and around his goggles, he had the shape he needed, leaving an open groove down what he thought of as the spine of the metal.
He cut the power flow and set the laser wand aside gently, removing the goggles and gauntlets and sitting on a building stone. There he wiped and blotted his face.
In the meadow to the east, the grass was browning more each day. The leaves of local deciduous trees, even those that seemed like oaks and had acorns, did not change color much. Half the leaves seemed to turn to a light gray and shrivel into almost thin strips clinging to the branches, while the other half dropped off. Why? He didn't know and might never.
"Ser?" asked Huldran as she carried a stone past him and toward the slowly rising southern wall. "What's that?"
"A bow . . . maybe."
"You'll get it right."
Nylan wasn't sure about that, but he put the goggles back on, and then pulled his hands into the gauntlets. After measuring the composite rod, he triggered the laser, trimmed the rod more, and then started to mold the metal around the rod.
EEEssssssTTTIThe would-be bow exploded into burning sparkles, and Nylan threw it into a stone-walled corner. He backed away quickly and set down the wand as quickly as he could so that he could beat out the smoldering fabric on his upper arm. As he did, he thanked the high command for insisting on flame-retardant uniforms.
He took off the goggles and studied the ragged and now burned and holed right sleeve. A section of his biceps was faintly reddened, but he could feel just warmth, not the pain of a burn.
With that, he watched as his protobow collapsed into a puddled mass of metal and melted composite. What had happened? He knew iron-based alloys could burn, but the laser hadn't been that hot.
He glanced upward. Overhead, the gray clouds continued to twist back and forth on each other, but not even a sprinkle had fallen on the Roof of the World, let alone lightning. On the other side of the tower, a procession of marines conveyed the last of everything remotely usable from the landers into the tower. Another group was systematically finishing the stripping of the lander shells and storing what could be used for future building or raw materials in the first lander, which had been dragged up next to the bathhouse wall. The second lander shell was at the foot of the narrow canyon where Nylan had quarried his stone, partly filled with cut and dried grasses for winter feed for the horses. Drying racks, made of evergreen limbs, ranged across the spaces below the ridge rocks.
Nylan glanced back at the cooling mess of metal. Beside him stood Huldran, just looking.
"Fireworks, yet?" asked Ryba from behind him. "How did you two manage that?"
"I haven't figured that out yet, but I was trying to form metal around a composite core-"
"The gray stuff-cormclit?" Nylan nodded.
"It's pretty heat-resistant in a directional way-that's why it's used as a hull backing," pointed out the marshal.
"Oh, frig . . ." The engineer shook his head. Next time, he'd have to cut the composite so that the heat-reflective side was to the inside of the groove. It made a stupid kind of sense, although he couldn't have given the explanation a good physicist could have.
"I take it you figured it out?" asked Ryba. "You have that look that says you're so stupid not to have realized it from the beginning." She paused. "No one else would ever figure out your mistakes if you weren't so upset about them." She laughed briefly. "What were you trying this time?"
"Another weapon."
Huldran eased away from the two. "Need to set these stones, ser, Marshal, before the mortar locks up."
"Go ahead," said Nylan.
"We'll need every new weapon we can get," Ryba said.
"We're about out of slug-thrower shells?" asked Nylan.
"Maybe fifty, seventy-five rounds left in personal weapons, about the same for the two rifles. That's not enough." She shrugged. "What were you trying to make?"
"One of those endurasteel composite bows."
"We could use some, but where did you get the idea?"
"Gerlich was muttering the other morning about the lack of accuracy and range with the native bows."
"He always mutters-when he's around."
Thunder rumbled across the skies, echoing back from Freyja, and fat raindrops began to fall.
"Excuse me. I need to get the laser under cover." Nylan began to disassemble the equipment. First the powerhead and cable went back to the fifth-level storage space-into an area half built into the central stone pedestal-then the meters, and finally, the firin cells themselves. Ryba helped him carry the cell assembly. After that he set the cooled and melted puddle of metal and composite in a corner of the uncompleted bathhouse. He might be able to use the mess in some fashion later . .. and he might not.
Then, through the scattered but big raindrops, he and Ryba walked up to the emergency generator, spinning in the fall wind. It too was failing, bearings squeaking, and power surging, but it still put power into the firin cell attached to the charger. Both charger and cell were protected by a framework of fir limbs covered with alternating layers of cannibalized lander tiles held in place with heavy stones.
"Still charging." Nylan carefully replaced the covering.
"You've made the power last longer than anyone thought possible," Ryba said.
Looking downhill at the tower, Nylan answered, "There's more to do, a lot more."
"There always will be, but Dyliess will appreciate it all. All of the guards will."
At the clop of hooves, both turned toward the narrow trail from the ridge, where Istril rode toward the front gate to the black tower.
"Trouble?" asked the engineer.
"I don't think so. She wasn't riding that fast."
They had almost reached the south side of the tower before the triangle gong rang. Clang! Clang!
"Those traders are back, Marshal," called Istril as she rode from the causeway toward Nylan and Ryba. "The first ones."
"Skiodra," Nylan recalled.
"He's the one. He's got nearly a score of men, and eight wagons."
"I told you we needed weapons," said Ryba dryly.
Nylan shrugged.
"Get a dozen marines," ordered Ryba, looking at Istril, "fully armed. Have the rifles stationed to sweep them if we need it."
"Gerlich is out hunting," pointed out Istril, "with half a squad."
"Get who you can." Ryba turned to Nylan. "You, too. You did so well last time that you can handle the trading."
Nylan shrugged, then headed to the washing area of the stream. He wished the bathhouse were completed. Then he laughed. The tower had gone more quickly than anyone could have anticipated, far more quickly, and he was still worrying, except it was about showers, and laundry tubs, and more jakes.
Ryba headed toward the stables. "I'll have a mount waiting for you."
"Thank you. I won't be too long."
After a quick wash and shave, with the attendant cuts, a return to the tower, and a change into his other shipsuit, he donned the slug-thrower he hoped he didn't have to use, and the black blade he had infused with black flux order. Then he walked down the stone steps, past the aroma of baking bread, and out the front gate of the tower.
As Ryba had promised, a mount was waiting, its reins held by Istril.
"They just left, ser, at a walk."
"Can we catch them by walking a bit faster?" asked Nylan. The not - quite - swaybacked gray whickered softly as he mounted.
"I think so." Istril grinned.
Nylan and the silver-haired marine with the warm smile joined the other eleven marines and Ryba halfway down the ridge toward the spot where the traders, dressed in the same quilted jackets and cloaks, waited by a single cart that flew a trading banner. Two were on foot before the cart, the remainder mounted behind the cart.
Skiodra, still the biggest man among the traders and wearing in his shoulder harness an even bigger broadsword than the long blade Gerlich usually bore in similar fashion, stepped forward. "I am Skiodra, and I have returned." His Old Anglorat did not seem so thick, but Nylan wondered if that were merely his growing familiarity with the local tongue.
"Greetings, trader," answered Ryba, still mounted. Her eyes did not leave his, and after a moment, the trader bowed.
"Greetings, Marshal of the angels. We bring more supplies. Have you blades to trade?"
"These are better," said Ryba. "We will bring them down shortly. What do you have to offer?"
"Are we sure they are angels?" interrupted the bushy-haired and full-bearded trader behind Skiodra.
Skiodra waited, enough so that Nylan understood the ploy.
"If you wish to join those under that cairn there," suggested the engineer quietly, pointing to the heaped rocks that covered the slain bandits, "you may certainly test the strength of your beliefs." He dismounted and handed the reins to Istril. Then he walked forward, slowly drawing his blade, the one he had kept because it was even darker than the others and seemed to hold darkness within its smooth luster, and extended it sideways and slowly. "You might also wish to touch this blade if you doubt." He smiled, knowing that he had bound some of the strange flux energy within the blade.
The blond reached for the blade, but his fingers never touched the black metal. Instead, he stepped back, his face pale.
Nylan extended the side of the blade toward Skiodra. "Perhaps..."
"No. My friend spoke too hastily."
As before, the first cart-the one with the banner this time-was filled with barrels.
"Shall we start with the wheat flour?" asked Skiodra. "I have the finest of flours from the fertile plains of Gallos, even better than the flour of Certis, and closer and fresher."
"And doubtless unnecessarily costly, for all that trouble, trader."
"It is good flour."
"I am sure it is," agreed Nylan, "but why should we pay for a few days' freshness when we will be storing it and not using it until seasons from now?"
"I had forgotten-until now-that, mage or not, you came from a long and distinguished line of usurers," responded Skiodra. "As I told you once, my friend, and I will accord you that courtesy, it is far from costless to travel the Westhorns. This is good flour, the best flour, and that freshness means that you can store it longer, far, far longer... at a silver and three coppers a barrel, I am offering you what few could find."
Nylan tried not to sigh. Was every trading session going to be like the first? "And fewer still could afford," he responded as smoothly as he could. "Granting you the freshness, still five coppers would more than recompense your travel."
"Five coppers! Five? You would destroy me," declared Skiodra. "With your black blades, do you think that you can eat metal in the cold of winter? Or your soldiers, will they not grow thin on cold iron? A generous man am I, and for a silver and two I will prove that generosity."
Ryba's eyes appeared to look at neither Skiodra or Nylan, but remained on the blond trader.
"Such generosity would quickly bring you dinner on plates of gold and silver. At six coppers a barrel, you would be feeding your mounts sweetcakes." Nylan smiled broadly to signify his amusement.
"Sweetcakes? More likely maize husks begged from gleaning fields. A silver and one... not a copper less!" Skiodra looked toward the roiling clouds. "May the devils from the skies show you my good faith."
"Your faith, that I believe," answered Nylan. "It is your price that not even a spendthrift second son would swallow. Seven coppers."
"I said you were a mage. Oh, I said that, and blades like black lightning you may forge, but your father could not have been a mere usurer, but an usurer to usurers. You would have my horses grub stubble from peasants' fields. Even to give you a gift to start trading, at a silver a barrel, I would have to sell not only my daughter, but my son."
"At eight coppers a barrel, because I would reward your efforts to climb here, you would still have golden chains for your daughter."
"I could not sell a single barrel at nine coppers," protested Skiodra.
"How about eleven barrels for a gold?" Nylan's fingers slipped over the hilt of his blade as he sensed the growing chaos and tension in the big guard next to Skiodra and keyed in the reflex boost he had always worried about using, even on the Winterlance 's neuronet.
"Done, even though you will ruin me, Mage."
Ryba looked sideways, and the blade of the blond trader flickered-but not as fast as Nylan's, which flashed like a stroke of black lightning through shoulder and armor.
The blond trader's dead eyes were frozen open in surprise, and Ryba's blade rested against Skiodra's throat, as Nylan removed and cleaned his own blade, fighting against the throbbing and aching that battered his skull, both from the chaos of death and the agony of forced reflexes. Would every death hurt that much? Or would it get worse?
"This sort of thing isn't good for a trader," Nylan remarked conversationally. "People might get the wrong idea. We might think that you really wanted to rob us." He squinted, trying to fight off the pain.
"I did not know . . ." Skiodra looked toward the dozen armed men with bared blades who edged their mounts toward the mounted guards of Westwind.
"Let us just say that you did not," said Ryba. "You might tell your men to sheathe their blades. Could any of them have stopped the mage?"
"No." Skiodra looked toward his men. "The angels mean well, I think, and it might be best if you put your blades away."
About half did.
"Who wants a blade right through his chest?" asked Ryba with a smile.
A single man charged, and Ryba's left hand flickered. The dark-bearded man slumped across the horse's mane with the throwing blade through his chest, and his mount reared. The body slid into the dust.
The dozen mounted angels eased forward, each bearing an unsheathed and dark blade Nylan had forged.
Skiodra looked at the grim faces of the women, and the blades. The other five men sheathed their blades slowly, though their hands remained on their hilts.
"This really isn't very friendly, Skiodra," said Nylan. "Have you seen that your men all moved first, and they're all dead?"
Skiodra swallowed, eyes glancing at Ryba's blade, back at his neck.
"Doesn't that tell you something?" pursued Nylan. "Now ... do you want to trade for your goods, or do you want us to slaughter you and take them?"
"How do I know-"
"Stuff it!" snapped Ryba. "We would prefer to trade, and you know it. You'd prefer to steal, and we know it."
A pasty cast crossed Skiodra's face.
"So we'll trade, and if you try anything nasty, we'll just kill you," concluded Ryba. "I thought you agreed to nine coppers a barrel for the flour."
"Yes, Marshal of angels."
As Ryba lowered her blade, Skiodra mopped his forehead.
"What else do you have to offer?"
Skiodra forced a grin under his pale and sweating brow. "I might ask the same of you, Mage."
"How about two dozen of the finest blades produced west of the Westhorns, directly, more or less, from a place called Carpa. Of course," Nylan said lightly, "I expect that five of them would pay for everything in your carts with a few golds to spare."
"I slandered your father, Mage. You had to be whelped from a white witch and sired by the patron angel of usurers." Skiodra shrugged. "I cannot blame you for trying to get the best price, but your idea of fairness would have ruined Lestmerk, and he could get blood from stones and water from the sands of the Stone Hills."
"Now that we have that understood," laughed Nylan, doing his best to ignore his continuing headache, "what do you offer from the remaining carts?"
"I will show you, provided you bring down those blades."
"I'd say to bring ten," Nylan suggested to Ryba, "just so that the honorable Skiodra has a choice. And some of the breastplates, maybe."
Skiodra frowned, and Nylan translated roughly. "I suggested that the marshal bring a double handful to allow you a choice."
"Mage . . . you alone must be the patron of usurers."
Nylan shrugged. "Since you are the patron of ambitious traders, I'd say we could work out a fair trade."
Skiodra laughed, but the sweat beaded on his forehead, and Nylan wondered why. Did he seem that formidable?
Cessya turned her mount back up the ridge, presumably to bring down the cart and some of the blades captured from Relyn's forces.
In the end, Ryba and Nylan looked upon nearly thirty barrels of flours-maize, wheat, and barley; five bolts of gray woolen cloth; one bolt of a red and blue plaid; four barrels of dried fruit; two kegs of a cooking oil from something called oilpods; three axes; two saws; and enough other assorted goods to fill a wagon-plus one of Skiodra's carts, the oldest and most rickety. He'd even managed to get a barrel and a small-keg of feed corn that might help the chickens through the winter.
The guards remained mounted until the trader's entourage was well along the road toward Lornth. Then, as half the women began to load the two carts, Nylan mounted and eased the gray up beside Ryba.
"This whole business is a little strange," he observed. "You notice that Skiodra didn't show up until after you made hash of young Relyn's forces. And this Lord Sillek-he's the son of the lord you killed in the first battle-he's offered land and a title for our destruction, enough that this young hothead-Relyn, I mean-was willing to take the chance."
"It's not all that strange," answered Ryba. "Skiodra wanted to see if we'd been hurt, and how badly. If we were weak, then he'd attack. Since he found us strong, he'll sell the information to someone. Lord Sillek, I suppose."
"Something like that," Nylan agreed. His eyes covered the goods that had cost eight blades and some breastplates. "We still have some coins."
. "The flour and fruit will help, but it's going to be a long winter," Ryba said quietly, "even if we can get some more from those traders that Ayrlyn has been working with near ... what is it? ... Clarta, Carpa? The economics are the hard part-in war or peace, I suppose." As the last of Skiodra's riders disappeared beyond the ridge, she turned her mount uphill.
Nylan rode beside her, still bouncing in his saddle, wondering if he would ever learn to ride as smoothly as the others. "Do you think we can make this work economically? Westwind, I mean?"
"I already have," said Ryba slowly, "thanks to Skiodra and young Relyn."
"You don't sound happy. Is that another vision?"
"Not exactly. But the pieces I've already seen make more sense." Ryba shifted her weight in the saddle and turned to face Nylan. "Look how many bandits there are. Trading has to be dangerous. Westwind will patrol the roads across this section of the mountains-what are they called?"
"The Westhorns."
"And we'll charge for it. I think the sheep will make it."
"But that's trading lives for coin ..." said Nylan. "More or less."
"Yes, it is. So is everything in a primitive culture. Have you a better answer? Can we grow enough up here to support even the few we have left? And if we could, could we keep it without fighting?"
"No," admitted Nylan.
"If they want to die by the sword, we'll live by having sharper and faster blades. Thanks to you, smith of the angels." Ryba did not look at Nylan as she rode past the sentry point where Berlis and Siret, and their rifles, had surveyed the trading.
Nylan could feel Siret's green eyes on him, and he nodded and smiled to the pregnant marine briefly.
"Smith of the angels?"
"For better or worse, that's your legacy, Nylan." Ryba kept riding, crossing the ridge crest and turning the roan toward the canyon that served as a corral until the stables could be completed.
"And yours? Or do I want to know?"
"Ryba, of the swift ships of Heaven. Ryba, one of the founders of Westwind and the Legend. Blessed and cursed throughout the history to come, I suspect. Don't ask more, Nylan."
"Why not?"
"Because I won't tell. Not even you. Not Dyliess, when her time comes. It hurts too much."
"You can tell me."
"No. If I tell, then you-nobody-will act the same, and we might not survive. I can't risk that, not with all the prices everyone's already paid. And will. And will keep paying." She kept riding.
Nylan looked toward the tower, and then at Ryba's dark hair and the dark hilts of her blades. Ryba of the swift ships of Heaven. Ryba, the founder of the guards of Westwind and the Legend. He swallowed, but he urged the gray to keep pace with the roan.