Free The Order War by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Page A

smith.”
    “Simple?” Justen’s eyes darted to the wall and the interlocking black-iron circles that formed an image of the sunrise over the Eastern Ocean.
    “When will you leave?” asked his mother.
    “That hasn’t been decided.”
    “I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” Gunnar said, tugging at his chin.
    “Most adventures aren’t. I think Justen’s saying he doesn’t have much choice,” Cirlin said.
    Justen chewed another mouthful of the warm, dark bread and cherry conserve, enjoying the taste before answering. “I don’t have to go. No one could make me go, but I don’t feel right about saying no. I can’t quite say why.”
    “What do you think, Gunnar? Not in your heart, but considering your sense of order.” Cirlin held her mug in both callused hands, letting the warm vapor drift across her face.
    Gunnar frowned before answering. “I trust Justen’s feelings. I don’t like his going to Sarronnyn. The whole business reeks of more than normal chaos.”
    “If there’s much chaos at all there, that’s a problem,” added Horas.
    Cirlin lifted her mug and drank slowly before lowering it. “It could be a problem for everyone in Recluce.”
    Silence dropped across the table.
    “Can you really catch the rain?” asked Gunnar, turning to Elisabet.
    “Yes, I can.” Elisabet laughed. “But I get tired soon. There’s so much rain. I don’t know how you do it.”
    “I don’t, silly little sister. I—”
    “I’m not silly.” Elisabet looked at her father. “Is there another surprise?”
    “I can’t keep anything a secret, I guess, not with four Order Wizards around this place. I had hoped you might be coming.” Horas grinned at his sons. “So I baked a couple of cherry-pearapple pies.”
    Justen had to smile in return, trying not to think about engineering and Sarronnyn and the chaos that awaited him, looking at the golden-brown crust of the pie Elisabet set before her father.

XV
    Stones here and there had tumbled from the wall of the ancient causeway, but the structure across the gap from the Roof of the World to the ridgeline leading down toward Suthya and Sarronnyn remained sound enough that even the heavy steps of the Iron Guard neither shook it nor displaced another stone.
    With its gray uniforms, gray banners trimmed in crimson, dark-gray boots, dark-hilted weapons in gray scabbards, the Iron Guard of Fairhaven marched northwest down the causeway. Behind the gray assemblage waved the crimson-trimmed white banners of the White Company, crackling in the chill winds that whipped off the snow-covered peaks encircling the high plateau and the rebuilt citadel once called Westwind.
    Like a gray-headed white snake, the column wound lower.
    In the narrow defile leading to Sarronnyn, behind heaped lines of stone and under blue-and-cream banners, waited groups of women and a few men.
    No parley flags were offered or sought as the Fairhaven forces reached the rock-strewn narrow valley, where patches of snow and ice huddled on the north side of each boulder.
    The wind howled, and the Iron Guard marched forward.
    “Archers! Fire!” A wave of iron-shafted missles arced into the blue-green sky and dropped into the long column.
    “Shields up!” The small iron shields of the gray-clad warriors rose. Men fell, those in gray mostly silent, those in white screaming as the iron shafts burned through them.
    A dull rumbling echoed down the valley. A spray of boulders bounced toward the gray figures.
    Hsssttt…hssstttt… From behind the Guard, fireboltslanced up the rocky walls. White rock dust sprayed down like rain.
    Soldiers in gray, white, and blue coughed.
    “Archers…”
    “Shields…”
    Hssstttt…
    Soldiers continued to cough and die. Some screamed—either Whites struck with iron arrows, or Sarronnese burned with firebolts when their positions were overrun and they were forced from behind their stone barricades.
    The cold wind whipped the fine white rock dust across the valley long