Chaos Balance
XXXIII
THEMPHI WALKED SLOWLY northward along the wall, his white boots gray, each step stirring ashes. Well ahead of him marched the peasants and a detachment of foot, each man bearing a pitch torch, each torch being applied to any trace of green that remained. After the torches came others, with once-sharp axes and mattocks. Behind Themphi followed teams of oxen with knife-edged but deep moldboard plows.
A rider in the green uniform and white sash of a Mirror Lancer rode across the field toward the wall and toward the white wizard.
“Ser wizard!” Jyncka's face was tight and pinched as the Mirror Lancer officer reined up.
Themphi stopped, glanced at the gray smoke that swirled everywhere in thin trails, then rubbed his forehead, trying to ease the throbbing in his temples. Slowly, he turned and looked up at the mounted officer. “Yes?”
“Forestnorth-you had me go there to enlist some of the younger peasants to help with pushing the forest back?”
“Yes,” said the white wizard, tiredly. “I did. Do not repeat what I told you. I know what I said.” He rubbed his forehead again, leaving ash smudges at his temples.
The officer moistened his lips. “There's no town, not now. Just forest, and the houses are already crumbling. We could not reach the wall. Some of the thickets, brambles now, are chest high.”
“The people?” asked the wizard, his voice wooden.
Jyncka shrugged, his eyes going to the yoked oxen that turned the soil behind the white wizard. “There are stun lizards, forest cats, snakes-I lost one lancer. I didn't see any bones. One peasant woman-she was an old crone. I caught her hobbling away-she said that the people fled. They wouldn't fight the forest.”
“Send men to ride the entire wall. Make sure they are the type that can remember and report what they have seen.”
“The entire wall?”
“The entire wall. All ninety-nine kays of each side. I do not wish to repeat myself.” Themphi started to lift his hands again, but stopped. “Take over here. Have them extinguish the torches, and return to Geliendra.”
“Ah . . . yes, ser wizard.”
“Don't you understand, Jyncka? We have not cleared an area half the size of Forestnorth, and we have a wizard and an apprentice, and fourscore men with torches and axes and mattocks and oxen and plows.” The wizard turned. “Fissar!”
The thin youth in white tunic and trousers smeared with dark gray scurried up. “Ser?”
“Get our mounts.”
“Yes, ser.”
Themphi looked back to Jyncka. “I want a report on how much the forest has expanded.”
“Would it not be faster-?”
“For me to use a glass?” Themphi laughed. “First, I am exhausted. Second, it takes time and energy to scree every cubit of the wall. I will use the glass once I have the reports from your men. Once I have regained some strength. Successful use of the white forces requires planning, not just spewing out power mindlessly. Some... even in power... have great difficulty understanding that.” He walked slowly away from the cracking stones of the white wall toward the distant corner of the field where Fissar was untethering two mounts.
After a moment, Jyncka urged the horse forward, toward the torches.