Treachery's Tools

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Wouldn’t be surprised if it cost them close to a battalion.”

  “So they might outnumber us by only two to one?”

  “It’s better than before.” Cyran took another swallow of lager. “This isn’t bad. Not after a while.”

  “No lager’s that bad if you drink enough … until any lager’s too much.”

  “Probably ought to stop. Namer-damned rebels … never saw so many bodies, so much blood. Don’t think any of the others ever did, either.” Cyran forced a grin. “Good thing it’s your turn tomorrow, Alastar.”

  “I told you I had a feeling.”

  “I know. I hate it when you have those feelings.”

  “So do I.” Alastar stood. “You need some sleep. I know I do, and I haven’t had anywhere near the day you’ve had.”

  “That’s not a bad idea. Not at all.” Cyran stood slowly. “I feel as old as you.”

  “I’m not that much older than you. Just five years.”

  “That’s what a fight like that will do.”

  As Cyran walked away, Alastar stood there, looking to the bloody orb of Erion, hanging just over the trees on the east side of the river. Hunter’s moon … or killing moon?

  He shook his head. He did need sleep.

  44

  By sixth glass on Jeudi morning, Alastar and Cyran were once more in the command tent with Maurek and Wilkorn.

  “We need to hit them quickly,” insisted Maurek. “Keep them off-balance. Make them feel that it’s not safe for them to stay that long in Caluse. If you could strike in the town itself, while they’re regrouping…”

  “We could certainly use concealments around the town, but we’ll need some support, and there are only a few roads and lanes that lead into Caluse. I can’t imagine that the rebels are going to leave them unguarded after yesterday. We could easily get close to any guard forces, but we’d likely end up in a battle with them, especially if they decide to stand their ground.”

  “Yesterday I had some of the scouts looking. They’ve found some back lanes that join the main road west from Caluse less than a mille from the town. That’s less than half a mille from one of their encampments.”

  “How did they get so close without trouble?” asked Alastar.

  “Not much difference in uniforms except for the armbands. We picked up a score or so of them along the way. I thought they might be useful.”

  The offhanded way Maurek mentioned the armbands impressed Alastar. “How many extra milles will we have to ride?”

  “Not that many. You can take the same lane where you replaced the bridge and stay on it until just past the point where you fought the first skirmish, and if you ride across one bean field, you can get on decent lanes that will take you there.” Maurek pointed to the map. “Here is where you fought. Now … if you go this way…”

  Alastar saw the possibilities. Still … “Those lanes are narrow. If we get trapped—”

  “My best scouts looked into that. There’s no easy way to get a large force to those lanes, except by the ways you’re going. If you send scouts ahead, you can just withdraw if they see a large force. Once you’re in the territory they patrol … well … we’ve got enough armbands for the lead squad. You’ve said that they only have a few imagers. Are they going to waste one on a side lane when they need to worry about the river road and the larger ways?”

  Alastar had to admit that Maurek had a point there. “Are there cannon at that encampment?”

  “There are, but they can’t bring cannon to bear that quickly,” Wilkorn said.

  “That wasn’t why I asked. I still don’t see the point of risking imagers just to kill even another company’s worth of rebel troopers. If we can destroy even some of their powder and cannon … that’s very much another matter.”

  “You’d have to get much closer…”

  “We’d need fewer troopers and fewer imagers. A squad at most,” suggested Alastar. “And the armbands would be most useful.”

  Maurek frowned.

  “We won’t get close enough to do what we need to do with a larger force.”

  “He’s right about that,” added Wilkorn.

  “When do you want to leave?”

  “The sooner the better.”

  “You’ll have a squad in two to three quints, if not a little sooner,” said Wilkorn, a faint smile on his lips.

  Once Alastar and Cyran were away from the command tent, Cyran looked to Alastar, “Are you sure I shouldn’t be doing this?”

  “No, but Maurek’s right. This is something that needs to be done quickly, before someone realizes it can be done … and I’ve been successful at doing this before. You could do it … tomorrow or the next day.”

  “What if the rebels have thought about the possibility?”

  “It’s unlikely. Even if Bettaur is on their side, he wasn’t privy to it when we did this the last time.”

  Cyran smiled. “That’s true. He was in a detention cell or under watch.”

  “Who in the first group has the strongest shields and can hold them the longest?”

  “Arion and Seliora. She’s not quite as good as some of the others with darts and the like, but her shields are at the level of Maitre D’Esprit. Arion’s strong all-around.”

  “Then I’ll take them … and lots of lager.”

  It was a quint before seventh glass when Alastar, Arion, and Seliora headed out, accompanied by the squad from Fifth Company led by Remaylt. While Alastar hadn’t requested Remaylt’s squad, that decision made sense, since the troopers had worked with the imagers before and knew about concealments and shields.

  They covered the mille to the dirt lane in little more than a quint, then headed south. When they reached the bridge that the imagers had built, Alastar turned to Remaylt, riding beside him. “From here on, we’ll be riding under a concealment, the way we did at High Holder Laevoryn’s. That’s why there’s no point in sending scouts ahead. You might want to pass that back. We’ll rein up while you do.” Alastar eased the gray to a halt.

  “I’ve told them that was likely, but I’ll let them know.”

  While Remaylt rode back along the lane, talking to the troopers, Alastar turned in the saddle. “Seliora, Arion, I’d like you two to alternate holding a concealment over the entire group from here on.”

  Seliora nodded. “I’ll start.”

  “Alternate every quint or so.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Once Remaylt returned, Alastar eased the gelding forward and across the stone bridge. He kept checking the road and the creeping clingweed on each side of the lane, but it appeared few horses had passed since his last withdrawal along the lane. He noted that while standing water in the fields had dropped more, the two sites that he’d originally picked for ambushes still looked usable for those purposes.

  Before that long they reached the point where the river and the river road angled slightly more to the southeast, while the lane kept heading south. He slowed the gelding as they came to the crest of the next rise in the lane, but when he reached the top, he could see no sign of rebel troopers on the stretch leading to the hamlet. Nor did he see any on the side lane between the hedgerows. The blackened remains of the apple orchard where the rebels had hidden were far more obvious.

  As he rode down the rise, Alastar had to look carefully before he spotted the bean field they would cross to get on a lane more than a hundred yards to the east. At least, you hope that’s the right bean field.

  The slight breeze out of the southwest carried a slight odor of wood smoke and burned wood, suggesting that there still might be embers smoldering in some of the blackened trees. When they passed the orchard, Alastar had a better idea why the fire had burned so hot. The trees had been old, if not ancient.

  He tensed some as they neared the hill behind which the rebel reinforcements had hidden, but there was no one there—except a gray-haired woman who looked toward the road in a puzzled fashion, and then hurried westward toward the nearest cot.

&nbs
p; Finally, Alastar spied the corner of the stone wall that marked the end of the lane he was seeking. He turned the gray off the lane and tried to pick the widest space between the rows of bean plants. Even so he could see that the gelding’s legs were causing some damage to the immature beans. Immature? He glanced over to Remaylt, riding down the open row beyond his.

  “Isn’t this late for beans?”

  “Those are bush beans. They plant two, maybe three crops a year.”

  Another thing you didn’t know.

  At the end of the field, Alastar turned south along a small irrigation ditch until he reached the overgrown beginning of a lane that was more like a dirt path. For the first hundred yards, brush and dead branches lined the way, leaving only enough room for a single horse. Then the overgrown lane joined another that angled southeast. At that point, Alastar reined up and turned to Remaylt. “Time to put on the armbands. Seliora, Arion, and I will hold concealments just for ourselves.”

  “Yes, sir. Armbands in place!”

  Once the troopers all had their crimson and red armbands in position, Alastar led the way, passing through another set of orchards, before the lane turned southwest to curve around a large stock pond, although Alastar only saw five cattle grazing on the too-short grass. From the stoop of a cot on the east side of the pond, a dog barked, almost continuously, until a man yelled something.

  More than a glass passed as Alastar and the squad navigated the twisting lane, overgrown and barely passible in more than a few places. He could see why Maurek thought it might be useful.

  At some time past ninth glass, Alastar reined up less than fifty yards from the road west from Caluse in a space shaded by tall trees, elms, he thought. He adjusted his visor cap and blotted his forehead. The day had become hot, more like summer than late harvest. “Have something to drink. We’ll wait a bit and then ease forward.”

  After taking several long swallows of lager, Alastar began to watch the road. A squad of riders in trooper green with black and crimson armbands rode past, heading west. Then a farm wagon pulled by a single donkey passed the entrance to the lane, heading east toward Caluse.

  Two more troopers rode by, messengers from their sashes.

  Alastar turned to the squad leader. “Remaylt, you and the squad are going to have to wait here with Seliora. There are too many riders and wagons for us to bring a full squad, even with the armbands. Someone would ask about that large a group once we got to the encampment.”

  Remaylt looked to protest.

  “There’s no help for it. If something happens to us, Seliora can get you back safely, but we fully plan to return with you. I’m not exactly eager to attempt the impossible.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Seliora … you know what to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Arion, we might as well get on with this. Keep your concealment large enough so that you can see me.”

  “Yes, sir.” Alastar raised his own concealment and then eased the gray forward, keeping to the edge of the lane. When he reached the end of the lane and the edge of the main road, he slowed, then reined up as four troopers rode past heading east.

  The troopers didn’t even look in their direction.

  “Now,” Alastar said in a low voice, walking his mount out and across to the south side of the road where he turned eastward, riding practically on the shoulder. He’d ridden little more than three hundred yards when he saw the black and crimson ensign flying from the portico of the large two-story dwelling—almost a mansion—on the west side of the encampment, overlooking the sea of tents that stretched back from the south side of the west road. He couldn’t help but smile. Of course, Ryentar would take the best dwelling he could find. Should you see if he’s there?

  Reluctantly, he shook his head. Ryentar was as much a figurehead as anything else, just another tool used by Ryel, and removing him wouldn’t solve the problem of all the other High Holders or the army and its artillery. Just as removing most of the High Council didn’t help.

  “Sir…” murmured Arion.

  “I’m considering our options. I’d wager that the cannon will be close to the road and on higher ground. There will be more wagons or limbers and horses nearby. Can you see anything like that?”

  “Not from here.”

  The two continued to ride at a pace faster than that of wagons so that no one would run into them. While there were sentries outside the mansion, they were posted at the gates some ten yards back from the road, and neither looked in the direction the two imagers, possibly because there was enough noise from the encampment that began less than thirty yards from the low stone wall separating the dwelling’s gardens from what had been fields on the east side. As Alastar passed the stone wall, he looked back again. Several men, possibly officers, stood under an awning on a rear terrace of the large dwelling.

  He frowned. Perhaps … just perhaps … He looked at the rows of tents, then glimpsed a line of wagons. That was likely where the powder might be. Then he looked more toward the east end of the encampment. There were plenty of tents there, but he didn’t see all that many troopers. In fact, he didn’t see any—except a few posted along the front row of tents, those nearest the road. The west end of the encampment, however, was thronging with troopers. He wanted to shrug. He couldn’t do anything about troopers who were out on maneuvers or whatever.

  Turning his attention back to the western end of the encampment, he said to Arion. “The wagons … on the right … let’s move closer.”

  At that moment a trooper ran across the path, slamming into the gray’s withers. “Watch it, trooper!” snapped Alastar, hoping the voice of command would startle the man enough that he wouldn’t catch the slight differences between imager grays and the trooper grayish green, or the imager’s visor cap and an officer’s visor cap.

  “Oh … sorry, sir.”

  “Get on with where you were headed.”

  “Yes, sir.” The trooper fled.

  Alastar almost let out a sigh of relief and continued on, trying to foresee others who might run into them, but the grounds were crowded. “Blurring shields,” he finally said. Another risk, but necessary. He could hope that the troopers would just see an image of two officers riding through the area.

  The first line of wagons were clearly supply wagons, but to their right were cannon limbers and beyond them, neatly lined up in rows, were what looked to be twenty cannon. Too much metal to easily destroy them. His eyes continued to search for the power stocks, finally locating a set of wagons surrounded by sandbags, some fifty yards away, with a good ten troopers stationed there, all with rifles at the ready. He thought he saw boxes that could hold shells.

  “Can you image hot iron into those boxes of shells and the general area, from where we are now? And hold your shields?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m going to do something else first. Then when I tell you, image white-hot iron everywhere you can.” While trying to draw on the powder stocks farther uphill, Alastar imaged an imitation of an oversized cannon shell into the room immediately behind the terrace of the mansion—with a white-hot iron splinter going into the charge. Then he ordered, “Hot iron into the power stocks and cannon.”

  Even before he finished speaking, an explosion from the mansion shredded the upper rear wall and the awning. Alastar saw one figure flung outward over the terrace railing. Belatedly, he began to image hot iron. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then his shields were hammered, and hammered again … and again.

  His ears were ringing with the sound of explosions that seemed to keep occurring.

  “We … need … to get out of here.”

  “Yes, sir … don’t think I have any shields left.”

  “I don’t, either.” Alastar immediately turned the gray and urged him into a fast trot, as if he were headed toward the mansion.

  Arion followed.

  Shells continued to explode behind them, and Alastar thought he glimpsed flames as well. All around t
hem, a welter of shouts and orders filled the air. Not totally surprisingly, amid the chaos, they reached the lane without being noticed. He could still hear intermittent explosions, seemingly coming from the direction of the rebel encampment.

  Alastar dropped the blurring concealment as they neared Remaylt.

  The squad leader gaped for a moment. “Maitre … sir? Is that you?”

  Alastar wondered if he truly looked that disheveled. “Who else would it be? We’re back. We left a mess. Let’s go. We need to get away from here before the rebels recover and start looking.”

  “Yes, sir. Squad! To the rear. If you’d move to the front, sir?”

  Alastar nodded. “Seliora?”

  “Yes, Maitre?”

  “You’re the only imager here who can raise protective shields. We got a little too close to the powder.”

  “A little too close? Both of you—your grays are singed. Some of your hair, too.”

  Alastar hadn’t noticed.

  But on the long ride back, he noticed the odor of burned hair more and more. He also worried about the fact that even more than a glass later, as they passed the burned orchard, he still could not hold the slightest of shields for more than a few moments, even after drinking most of the dark lager from his water bottles.

  The odor of burned hair still filled his nostrils when, another glass later, he reined up with the other imagers and dismounted to see Cyran hurrying toward him.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Do I look that bad?”

  “Tired. You smell a little like burned hair and cloth.” The Maitre D’Esprit glanced at the gray. “Or it might be your horse.”

  “Both. I am tired. Exhausted. Arion probably is as well, and we’re a little singed. I think we set off most of the powder and even some of their cannon shells. Maybe more than that. Seliora had to shield Arion and me on the way back.”

  “You’re sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m in one piece, without wounds. I’m tired and sore, and I need to report to Wilkorn. You should come with me.”

  Cyran motioned. “Dylert! The Maitre needs to meet with the marshal. If you would take care of his horse.”