“Then … the majer says you will suffer the consequences.”
“So will he and all his men.” The undercaptain glances at the small but thickening cloud that has gathered partly above him and mainly over the center of the rise to the north of where Eighth Company has reined up, arms ready.
Abruptly, the Afritan armsman turns and rides back to the massed formation.
The undercaptain waits.
“Ser…?” ventures the senior squad leader.
“Have the squads hold their positions. I’ll give the order if we need to attack.”
“Yes, ser.”
While the senior squad leader relays the order, the undercaptain concentrates, extending his order-senses and beginning to create order-lines as parallel as he can make them to the dancing chaos within the small thundercloud overhead, a cloud that darkens moment by moment as raindrops begin to fall across the top of the rise.
A trumpet triplet sounds, and the Afritan battalion starts forward at a fast walk. Carefully and precisely, the undercaptain eases apart order and chaos in both the air above the advancing Afritans and in the ground below them. The Afritan riders break into a canter as they pass the faded green boundary post.
As he senses, with what he thinks of as brilliant light, the interplay between a deeper level of order and chaos, an interplay within all things, the undercaptain begins to separate small bits of order and chaos in the ground under the mounted mass of Afritan riders. Seemingly just before, but in fact, a calculated time before that point where his separations would unleash massive power, he limits the separation, and creates a quadruple ten-line order coil with the power going into a shielded circle around the Afritans.
HSSSST!!!!
Lightnings flare from ground and sky in a pattern that crisscrosses men and their mounts, galvanizes blades with such force that they are ripped from the hands of men who do not even feel their death. Thunder with the force of mighty winds slams into everything within that fiery circle, and the charred fragments of men and mounts are thrown to the ground, consumed almost totally by flame, and then covered with fine ash that is all that remains of the browned grass of harvest.
The undercaptain shudders in his saddle as a wave of silver gray flows over him, a wave unseen by any but him. His eyes blur, and tears stream down his cheeks. His head feels as though it is being pounded with a wooden mallet. He squints, enough to sharpen his blurred vision so that he can make out what lies before him on the top of the rise.
All that remains of a battalion of mounted Afritan armsmen is a circle of ash and blackened ground some two hundred yards across.
The senior squad leader gapes, then looks to the undercaptain, his mouth open, but wordless.
“The skies and storms favor Cigoerne,” says the officer. After a long silence, he adds, “Have Second Squad continue the patrol. The other squads will return to our camp. We need to tell the people of Ensenla that it is safe to reclaim what they can from their old town. They’re entitled to it. They’ve little enough left to their names.”
“Yes, ser.”
The rain is already beginning to let up as the undercaptain and the bulk of Eighth Company begin their return to the temporary camp and post in Ensenla, a post that the undercaptain knows full well will soon become a large and permanent base for protecting the northern border of the duchy.
I
Lerial looks up from the half-written report before him, thinking, Saltaryn, if you only knew how all your efforts to improve my writing with precise statements are being corroded by the requirements of being post captain. Then he concentrates on the words he has just written.
… the Afritan Guard continues to patrol the top of the ridge one kay north of Ensenla. They occasionally stray across the marked boundary. They do not stay on the south side of the boundary for long, and they refrain from crossing when a Mirror Lancer force larger or roughly equivalent to the Afritan force is present …
He shakes his head. They’re not quite taunting us, but what can you do? At the same time, he worries about what he writes, because he had earlier sensed, not that much after dawn, a number of riders leaving the Afritan Guard post to the north, and now he waits for his scouts to return and report.
Lerial glances from the dispatch he is writing, the required summary of Eighth and Eleventh Companies’ evolutions and other events occurring over the previous eightday, to the dispatch he had received two eightdays earlier.
From: Jhalet, Commander, Mirror Lancers
To: Lerial, Captain, Ensenla Post
Date: Third Twoday of Winter, 593 A.F.
Subject: Border Patrols