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he was not ill? Yet I feel much discomfort in saying such.
You say it, my daughter.
I feel it. As I felt it when Fornal suggested to Relyn that he could claim
the ironwoods.
Fornal said that?
Zeldyan nodded. Did you not know? Gethen cleared his throat, lifted his
goblet, sipped, set it down. Finally, he spoke. Where are your angels now?
I do not know. I will not yet give up hope, not while Lornth stands.
Zeldyan sipped from the goblet she had refilled but once.
You have greater faith than I, my daughter.
Faith? I know little of faith these days. I know people. Lady Ellindyja
will die prating of empty honor. Fornal will use a blade at the slightest
pretext. You will use arms, but only if all else fails. And the angels, they
will keep their word, or die. If they can, the angels will return. The
candles flickered in the momentary breeze that flitted through the open
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window, bringing the sour smell of Rohrn, a town that had seen better days.
If they can& Gethen said.
We have not lost that from which we would not recover.
Not yet, but the white demons are like locusts, or like a grass fire,
charring everything before them. The gray of Gethen s hair glinted in the dim
and flickering light that shifted as the candle flames wavered in the gentle
and cool breeze from the open window. If your angels do not return& we will
fight as we can& as we can&
They will return. Zeldyan s fingers tightened on the goblet, and her eyes
went to the partly open door. They will return&
CXXXIV
A COOL WIND brushed his face, and Nylan shivered. Shivered? In the middle of
southern Lornth? He shivered again.
You must drink. You are burning, said a voice.
Burning? Whose voice?
Images of chaos-fire, order bounds, and the screams of dying men and horses
swirled through his skull. Force& force& always force.
& force& he murmured. Was it Ayrlyn who talked to him through the
darkness? Ayrlyn, who had always been there for him? No-she had been swept
under the blackness with him. Ryba? The dark marshal?
Drink.
A water bottle was pressed to his lips, and he drank, slowly, through
cracked lips and a dry mouth, finally sensing that Sylenia held the bottle.
Nylan opened his eyes, then shut them quickly as lights strobed through the
darkness. Propped up against something- packs or blankets-he continued to sip
the water Sylenia offered him. Even closed, his eyes twitched with the
flickers of light, as though individual powerfluxes flashed through them.
Unlike the mass of pain that had flowed through him after battles before, he
felt more exhausted than threshed or beaten. An acridity came with the evening
breeze, an acridity that carried the odor of burned grass and rock- and
charred flesh. Nylan swallowed the bile at the back of his throat.
Ayrlyn? he finally asked.
I m awake, came a tired voice out of the light-strobed darkness. Better
than you, but not much. We may have overdone it.
Overdone if? Probably. Don t I overdo everything?
Stop it, said Ayrlyn wearily. We didn t have much choice, and we did it
together.
It is terrible, Sylenia said into the darkness. All around, nothing
lives. Nothing moves.
Weryl? Nylan croaked.
He cried, but he sleeps. He is innocent, like my Acora was.
All children were innocent, supposedly. Weryl was, that Nylan knew, but the
engineer had to wonder about people like Ryba and Gerlich and Fornal. He knew
better, but he found it hard to believe they had ever been innocent. He could
hear Sylenia moving, carrying the bottle toward the redhead.
You, healer, must also drink again.
Thank you, Ayrlyn said, after a time.
Sylenia returned the water bottle to Nylan. Again.
The engineer drank, more easily the second time, even as questions flitted
through his mind.
How much time did they have? Would the Cyadorans turn all their forces
against Ayrlyn or him? Or did they think the two angels had perished? Either
way, also, the Cyadorans would continue to march northward. Of that he was
certain. He and Ayrlyn had to do something. But what?
Even as he attempted to consider the problem, he could feel his eyes
getting heavier, closing, against his unspoken protests.
Finally, in the gray before dawn, Nylan pried his eyes open, relieved that
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he did not experience the shooting, flickering light-strobes of the night
before. Carefully, deliberately, he sat up in the stillness, an unnatural
stillness without even the chirp of insects or the rustle of grass. His mouth
was dry again, and filled with the taste of ashes, a taste that matched the
gray of the dawn. His head throbbed with a dull aching, and his shoulders and
back were sore and stiff. The skin of his face simultaneously itched and hurt
and felt crusty.
His hands trembled as he fumbled for his boots, boots that Sylenia had
pulled off. He certainly hadn t been able to do that. Then he managed to reach
the water bottle and take a long swallow.
Ayrlyn rolled over on her bedroll, and he waited, taking another sip of
water, as she struggled to sit up.
Good morning.
Wiped out& and you re.still cheerful, she grumbled, shifting her weight
cautiously, clearly as stiff as he was.
He extended the water to her, watched as she put the bottle to her lips and
drank.
You two, said Sylenia, rolling over, sitting up, and pulling on her
boots. Stinks here. Will for a long time.
Nylan looked beyond Sylenia and Ayrlyn, toward the east and the orange glow
that was the almost-rising sun. Thin trails of smoke rose from one part of the
scorched hillside. The four mounts, on a tieline that Sylenia had set up,
grazed almost disconsolately on the sparse clumps of brown and green grass
near the charred border between their sanctuary and the ashes beyond.
Will it be safe to leave? asked Sylenia. Once we eat?
Yes, Nylan answered. If more armsmen don t come.
Good.
Ayrlyn frowned.
What? he asked.
You re older, Ayrlyn said. It s not the hair, either.
He turned his head and looked at her, deliberately. Her hair was still
flame-red, but there were lines around her eyes, and darkness within and
beneath them. Her skin was blistered in places, ready to peel. So are you.
She took another swallow from the water bottle. We ve got to figure out
how to handle this better.
Any ideas? he asked.
No, but after we eat and feel better, we re going to sit here and play
with it, until you and I understand, because next time we try without
understanding, we ll be old and gray or dead or both.
Oooo. Weryl stretched on his small bedroll, thrusting out arms and legs.
He feels better than we do, I ll bet, offered Nylan. That wouldn t be
hard. Ayrlyn stretched and leaned toward her boots. Ohhhh.
The engineer eased himself to his feet and lumbered the few cubits to the
provisions packs that Sylenia had unloaded. There he bent laboriously, his
knees and back creaking, extracted the heavy squash bread, and hacked off
several slices. One he proffered to Ayrlyn, once she had her boots on. She
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