Read Recluce 07 - Chaos Balance for Free Online

did make them sound good-if she'd just refrain from ever performing the song she'd composed about the mighty smith Nylan. That one, reflected the silver-haired man, was truly awful. He shifted his weight on the bench and took another sip of the cold water, glad that he'd had a chance to take a warm shower-warm for Westwind, anyway-before the evening meal. His self-designed water system had not frozen once during the winter, and all the recruits who had helped with the repairs were even gladder than he had been. They hadn't been so glad the previous fall when he'd insisted on greater cover for the water lines and a few other laborious details.
       Ayrlyn slipped back into the great room almost unnoticed until she stood at the hearth, her flame-red hair glinting with a light of its own. Istril eased up beside her.
       The two strummed a few chords, looked at each other, then began to sing.
     
       "On the Roof of the World, all covered with white,
       I took up my blade there, and I brought back the night.
       With a blade in each hand, there, and the stars at my boots,
       With the Legend in song, then, I set down my roots.
       The demons have claimed you, forever in light,
       But the darkness of order will put them to flight,
       Will break them in twain, soon, and return you your pride,
       For the Legend is kept by the blades at your side.
       The blades at your side, now, must always be bright,
       And the Legend we hold to is that of the right.
       For never will guards lose the heights of the sky,
       And never can Westwind this Legend deny . . .
       And never can Westwind this Legend deny. "
     
       “Good!” offered Ryba, amid the scattered applause. “Each time it gets better.”
       Nylan had to agree with that, although he knew that Ayrlyn had more than mixed feelings about creating songs to fuel a female militaristic culture. So did he, but given the reception they had gotten from the locals, there weren't many options, not on a planet where women had virtually no rights-at least anywhere the angels had heard of so far.
       At the same time, Nylan reflected, he had, in some ways, even fewer options. His guts tightened, reminding him that he was deceiving himself. In Candar, any man had some options. He swallowed, wondering why his growing mastery of the local order fields was accompanied by an equal vulnerability to the pain of death and increasing discomfort with deception and untruth. And by increasing uneasiness with Ryba, he reminded himself, an uneasiness compounded by his feelings of responsibility toward his children.
       Or is it a worry about the alternative? About having to face an unfamiliar outside world alone? He shook his head, again recognizing that there was something about the order fields that forced more self-examination, self-examination that was never exactly welcome.
       The smith's eyes went through the darkness, no barrier to any of the silver-haired guards, to study Daryn. The blond young man fidgeted ever so slightly on the bench beside Hryessa. Hryessa, one of the first refugees to Westwind, had developed into a first-class guard, a demon with a blade according to Saryn. Her eyes were rapt and fixed on Ayrlyn.
       “A ballad,” called Llyselle. “The Sybran one.”
       The redheaded healer readjusted the lutar, touching the tuning pegs and strumming the strings before she began.
     
       "When the snow drops on the stone
       When the wind song's all alone
       When the ice swords form in twain,
       Sing of the hearths where we've lain.
     
       "When the green tips break the snow,
       When the cold streams start to flow,
       When the snow hares turn to black
       Sing out to call our love back.
     
       "When the plains grass whispers gold
       When the red blooms flower bold,
       When the year's foals gallop long,
       Hold to the fall and our song. ..."
     
       The stillness was almost absolute in the hall, punctuated