To Conquer Chaos Read Free Page B

flying, generally singing by companies to keep the pace up.
    It was a considerable change, Yanderman reflected, to be going out in the cold grey dawn with ten horsemen who all knew what had happened to Ampier yesterday. They were sensible and courageous men—but, after all, he himself had compared the situation facing them with a leakage of nightmare into the waking world, and a nightmare can reduce the bravest man to cold sweating.
    No matter for that now, though. The problem was simply to get ahead to the first possible village on the edge of the barrenland, and to hope against hope that it was something more than a cluster of mud huts full of apathetic peasants. What Yanderman wanted to see was a decent little town where people stood up for themselves against the terrors—of whatever kind—that strayed out of the barrenland. That would be the best kind of tonic for the worrying soldiers.
    They rode easily, but without dawdling. After the showers of yesterday the day was fine, though not very warm before the sun climbed well into the sky. Against the wishes of the medical staff Yanderman had got details of Ampier’s route from him last night before turning in. That had proved to be far-sighted, for according to this morning’s report the man’s wound had indeed been infected with the curious green mould and had started to gangrene already.
    Which wouldn’t make the troops any less nervous, Yanderman thought bitterly.
    As the miles went by, though, and there was no sign of anything stranger than country lacking people to cultivate it, they relaxed. Yanderman kept the line strung out in couples twenty paces apart, as a matter of routine precaution, but he raised no objection when the men changed places with one another for the sake of conversation. He himself rode with his chief lieutenant, Stadham, a man promoted late in life from the ranks, and who in fact commanded the company of which Yanderman was nominally senior officer. Yanderman was no kind of a soldier, though for the purpose of the expedition he was a member of the general staff. He was a man with an inquisitive mind, who wanted to know about the same things as intrigued Duke Paul. Since the Duke was in a position to investigate, Yanderman served him willingly.
    A little before noon Yanderman looked about him at the landscape. He felt a quickening of his heart and a tightness seemed to close around his temples. Gesturing to Stadham, he gave a curt order.
    “Call ’em in. This matches the description of the place Ampier got to, and the elapsed time is just about right.”
    They were earlier here than the scout had been, of course; the fact that he would have ridden rather faster was cancelled out by the greater distance he had had to cover from the line of march.
    Stadham reached for the little brass horn hanging at his saddlebow and sounded the three shrill blasts which were the signal to regroup and confer. Yanderman shaded his eyes and stared at the terrain ahead. There was that suggestive wavering of the air—rising, perhaps, off desert-bare ground …
    He checked that line of thought and turned to address his companions, now assembled in a semicircle facing him.
    “From the description Ampier gave me, we’re almost at the limit of the trip he made. In other words, by the time we breast the next rise we should be in clear sight of the famous and legendary barrenland.”
    A couple of his men exchanged glances. One might have given an imperceptible shudder; at any rate his horse moved nervously and tossed its head.
    “It’s come to my notice,” Yanderman went on steadily, “that some of our men have been getting—ah—second thoughts now they know the barrenland really exists. They’ve been buying charms from Granny Jassy, for instance, thinking she can sell them good luck as easily as—as a measure of beer. Well!”
    He straightened sharply in his saddle and slapped his open palm on his thigh.
    “Well, I don’t care what you do with your