From the Forest by L. E. Modesitt Jr

Author:L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

LII

At the morning mess on sixday, Alyiakal ends up sitting in pleasant conversation with Ghrennan, Nyell, and Dhenaal. About the only thing interesting he learns is that Commander Dahlvor and the Third Magus have not yet left Geliendra, which means that Alyiakal needs to be careful.

After breakfast, Alyiakal returns to his room, where he dons his light riding jacket because there’s a cool wind out of the northeast. Then he makes his way to the south gates out of the post and walks a good half kay west before he reaches the west wall of the post. He continues for several long blocks before turning north toward the Great Forest. While he has to walk several kays farther than if he’d used the north gates, he doesn’t want any Mirror Lancers, especially officers, observing him walking straight from the post to the wall, and with the Third Magus still around, using a concealment while inside the post walls wouldn’t be a good idea.

The farther north he walks, the smaller and less well-kept the various dwellings he passes are, but that makes a certain sense, given that some Forest creatures do occasionally cross the wall. After almost a kay and a half, he leaves the scattered ragtag dwellings behind and enters an area of small plots and fields, divided by a mixture of fences and hedgerows. He continues north until he nears the wall, where he stops under a tree and studies what lies before him.

Farther to the northwest, woodlots and larger fields parallel the Forest and the white sunstone wall that stretches for ninety-nine kays. The ground between the sunstone road and the wall that it parallels is bare earth, blackened in places by firelances used on shoots or plants or aimed at Forest creatures. At the moment, he sees no lancers on the road, and certainly no wagons or carts, given that few growers would risk themselves or their horses or donkeys to the possibility of an attack.

Alyiakal extends his senses to the wall only about a hundred yards away. Since he can neither see nor sense anyone, he raises a concealment and begins to walk through the calf-high grass that stretches to the edge of the road.

He has almost reached the road when he hears hoofs on the sunstone and senses a pair of dispatch riders coming from the northwest, possibly from Westend. Alyiakal halts and waits. The riders pass within ten yards, but don’t slow. Once they are well past, Alyiakal crosses the road at a deliberate pace. He’s not about to run. While he may be concealed, any puffs of dust or tracks he may leave are not.

He continues until he stands a yard or so away from the base of the wall, realizing that it has been more than six years since he has been this close to the Great Forest. He feels the looming power of order and chaos beyond the wall, and the comparatively thin curtain of separate flows of order and chaos that run from ward to ward, flows created by the chaos towers located at thirty-three-kay intervals.

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