Alector's Choice

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  The first sentry heard something, and turned. “That you, Juirstyn?”

  Mykel put the single shot through his forehead.

  “Stop the target practice!” came a call from Mykel’s left.

  Mykel coughed, loudly.

  “What’s the matter there, Visort?”

  Mykel made choking sounds, even as his eyes, ears, and senses tracked the oncoming squad leader. He assumed that the man was something like that.

  Scraping sounds and the clicking of small displaced rocks suggested that the squad leader was descending from a position slightly higher and to the west.

  Mykel just waited.

  As he did, another shot rang out from the ridge, followed by one from the far side of the rock pile.

  “Stop it! They’re firing to see if you’ll fire back so they can figure out where we are.” The man’s voice carried across the rocks, as though he were within yards, but Mykel still couldn’t see him.

  Another rock bounced past Mykel’s foot. A large figure appeared three yards or so upslope, sliding down the flat smooth surface toward Mykel. The Cadmian barely had to aim.

  The shock of the other’s death slammed through him and he took a half step backward, before catching himself, he’d sensed death before, at least recently, but he’d not felt a physical impact. He shook his head, trying to clear it.

  “What was that?”

  “Don’t know, squad leader went down to see Visort.”

  Mykel noted the general direction of the second voice and started to make his way up through the rocks. He was getting tired, and the actual operation hadn’t even begun.

  The last two sentries were less than ten yards apart, one at each end of a boulder that had split. The rear section had dropped, leaving the forward part as a near perfect stone revetment.

  Despite his care, his boot scraped on the rock as he moved into position behind and above the two.

  “That you, squad leader?” The nearer sentry turned his head, but not his rifle or his body.

  Mykel hated to shoot. He did. Then he hurried his shot at the second man, who whirled, looking around blindly.

  Mykel forced himself to concentrate on the last shot. Then he just stood there for several moments. There were no sounds, no voices, and no sense of any other rebels nearby.

  He reloaded, his fingers seeming stiff, but he managed, before he began to climb down the northwest side of the rock pile. When he reached the corner, where the defile started, he whistled, once.

  Two low whistles responded.

  He returned a triplet, and waited.

  After what seemed a good quarter of a glass, but was probably less, Jasakyt appeared, riding slowly, peering into the darkness, his face tight with apprehension. Mykel wanted to laugh, seeing the scout with a look that mirrored a belief he was about to be shot.

  “Jasakyt…” he hissed. “Just ahead on your left.”

  “Captain?”

  “Right here. Get the others. We don’t have as much time as I’d hoped.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The sky was beginning to show signs of silver gray to the east by the time all of Fifteenth Company had ridden irough the narrow defile and formed up behind a copse of rees below the southwest comer of the rock pile.

  “We’ll ride by squads around the back of the rocks. If no one challenges us, we’ll move into the edge of the trees and keep moving south toward the cookfires. We’ll walk the mounts as close as we can. If they give an alarm, or when I order a charge, we’ll ride to a firing line on the north side of the cookfires, then fire until they start to regroup. That’s when we’ll switch to sabres and use the trees.” Mykel looked across the squad leaders. “Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s head out. Silent riding.” According to any tactics manual or training Mykel had received, what he was doing was unsupported and dangerously foolish, but there was a time to follow standard tactics and a time not to. He hoped he was right in choosing the time not to.

  He and first squad rode close to half a vingt, around the ock pile, and another three hundred yards just inside the rees at the back edge of the forest, on the flat short of vhere the ground rose toward the rocky and sandy plateau above and to the west. The sky had lightened into the silvery gray that immediately preceded dawn.

  Then, from the trees, came a shout. “Cadmians! They’re lere! Cadmians!”

  “Forward!” Mykel urged the chestnut into a fast trot, as much as he dared while dodging trees and branches, angling out of the forest and pushing his mount into greater speed toward the northernmost of the cookfires.

  A good three hundred rankers were gathered, either in lines at the cookfires or standing or sitting. Others were still laying on their bedrolls and blankets. At the sight of the mounted Cadmians, rebels in blue scrambled for weapons and for cover.

  “Fifteenth Company! Firing line!”

  Mykel reined up and took aim at a man dressed in blue and silver, wearing something similar to what Seltyr Ubarjyr had worn. He fired, and the seltyr dropped. He turned his rifle on a captain and fired again.

  He had dropped more than five bluecoats and reloaded once before the rebels began to return fire with more than scattered shots—and those faded away quickly. He surveyed the space around the cookfires, taking in the bodies lying at so many odd angles, and swallowed. Now what? The rebels had melted into the trees.

  Only a fraction of a glass had passed, or so it seemed, but the angled rays of the early-morning sun sifted through the tops of the giant pines.

  Mykel caught sight of mounted rebels to the southeast. “Sabres! Fifteenth Company! Forward!”

  Pressing the attack seemed less dangerous than trying to withdraw through a forest he did not know, and going back through the defile would take too long and allow the rebels to regroup and fire at Fifteenth Company when the Cadmians would be in a position where they could not return fire effectively.

  While he did not know how much of Fifteenth Company followed his lead, he could hear the hoofbeats and sense riders behind him, and several moving up abreast of him, if separated by the pines.

  Mykel had his sabre at the ready as the chestnut carried him toward the middle of a single squad of rebels. Several had rifles up. Mykel ducked as shots whispered past him.

  Then he was among the rebels, slashing the shoulder of a too young ranker, then parrying a thrust from an older rebel.

  “South! To the cliffs! South!”

  ‘To the cliffs… to the cliffs!“

  The surviving bluecoats spurred their mounts up the gradual slope to the southwest and away from Fifteenth Company, now spread in the trees. Mykel didn’t like that, and realized he’d pushed too much.

  “Fifteenth Company! Reform! Reform!”

  The company hadn’t been that scattered, because he had his men back in squads in less than a quarter glass, and they were following the fleeing rebels. When they came out of the trees at the top of the gradual slope, there were other bluecoats riding slowly southward, less than a hundred yards away.

  “Full firing line!” Mykel ordered.

  He waited only until his men were in a rough semblance of a firing line. “Fire at will!”

  After the first shots, the rebel laggards began to spur their mounts. Even so, another ten or fifteen rebels went down before those fleeing vanished into the welter of boulders, although Mykel could see dust and sand rising in various places.

  “Cease fire!”

  At the top of the slope, as he reloaded, Mykel studied the area before him more closely, a sandy plateau, with boulders and long and short rocky ridges rearing up everywhere. The ridges were as short as ten yards, but in length some seemed to stretch for a hundred. A few of the boulders were as small as his foot. Most standing alone were larger than a peasant’s cot, and one to his right was as large as a seltyr’s villa.

  Should he follow the rebels?

  A shadow flashed over him, and he glanced up. Two pteridons circled ove
rhead. One bore two riders, the other but a single Myrmidon.

  A skylance flared down, then another.

  “By squads!” Mykel ordered. “Toward the cliffs! Measured pace! No quarter! Third squad on me!”

  “First squad! Toward the cliffs…”

  “Second squad…”

  “Third squad! On the captain!”

  “Fourth squad…”

  Mykel followed the tracks of the rebels rather than trying to navigate a new path. That way, he hoped, he could avoid pitfalls in the sandy soil. For the first several hundred yards, that also meant riding around fallen mounts and men.

  He glanced to the southwest, where another line of blue fire lashed down from one of the pteridons. Mykel could sense a wave of deaths.

  From the sand and dust, he could see that the remaining rebels—those that had fled the forest—were gathering under a rocky point jutting out from the cliffs, as if to make a stand.

  Mykel couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. Gathering was the worst possible tactic against Myrmidons and their skylances. They had to know that. So why were they doing it?

  He glanced upward, looking for the pteridons, but they had circled back around.

  Maybe the tactic wasn’t so stupid. Could it be that there was some angle to the rock or a protected area there?

  Mykel certainly didn’t want to assault a natural stone fortress, but he couldn’t see more than a hundred yards ahead. He didn’t sense anyone that close, but he slowed the chestnut to a walk. “Measured walk! Measured walk!”

  They weren’t going to catch the rebels immediately, and the base of the cliff where the rebels were looked to be less than a vingt away, although it was hard to tell with the fine sandy dust raised and the long shadows cast by the early-morning light.

  Mykel had ridden less than a hundred yards farther when the profusion of low rocky ridges and boulders ended, and a flat expanse of low sandy hills replaced the rocks. Half a vingt away, the rebels were reforming with their backs directly to the low cliffs.

  “Fifteenth Company! Halt! All squads! Halt!”

  Something was happening on the rocky point above where the rebels gathered. There was a greenish cast to the air just above the point. The green intensified, growing into a glowing greenish sphere. Side by side in the center of the sphere were two of the winged soarers.

  Fhe lead pteridon ignored the sphere, and Mykel took an trawn breath, sensing power still rising in or from the lere until it began to glow more brightly, almost as if terta had appeared over the plateau in all her green glory,‘t Mykel could feel no heat.

  “Fifteenth Company! Stand fast!” He didn’t want anyone tting any closer to the soarers, especially with the Myrmidons closing on them. “Stand fast!” repeated Bhoral.

  A line of blue flame flared from the skylance of the first yrmidon, angling down toward the gathered rebels. Mykel winced, waiting for the eruption of flame and the hundreds of deaths. Instead, the blue flame flared and then curved backward, turning and twisting back toward the myrmidon’s lance. A line of green flashed and joined the blue flame, and the lance of blue and green tore through the myrmidon and into the pteridon. “Oh…”

  The pteridon’s wings folded inward, and like a duck shot midair, it seemed to cartwheel downward in an arc toward the massed rebels.

  A squad of bluecoats bolted from the right side of those gathered beneath the red walled cliff. They rode hard, galloping to the northwest, sandy dust rising from the hoofs of their mounts. None of the other bluecoats moved, seemingly frozen in place.

  The injured pteridon struck the cliff twenty yards above the remaining mass of rebels. Blue flame exploded out from the impact, spraying across the rebels below. The few screams of mounts and men were brief, and most came from the stragglers of those galloping northward. Those closer never had a chance to react. The heat from the impact blast washed over Fifteenth jmpany like that of a forge fire in a gale, but subsided almost instantly.

  Mykel’s eyes flicked back to the soarer’s green sphere. It had paled and remained so for several moments before beginning to regain its intensity. Only a single soarer remained within the sphere, although Mykel could not have said when the other had vanished.

  The second pteridon turned toward the sphere and the soarer within. A line of blue flame flashed toward the single soarer.

  Once more the flame did not reach its intended target, but twisted back, turning into a mixture of green and blue before striking, then knifing through the forward Myrmidon and into the chest of the second pteridon. The pteridon’s wings bent upward and back as the pteridon nosed down and began to drop, more swiftly, toward the southwest of Fifteenth Company.

  The remaining soarer and the green sphere had vanished.

  One of the Myrmidons separated from the falling creature, and Mykel watched—fascinated—because he could sense something happening. Was it the Submarshal? Whoever it was, whatever it was, he fell far more slowly, in an arc that carried him toward the rocks to Mykel’s right.

  “Third squad! On me!” Mykel turned the chestnut and urged him into a fast walk.

  Barely had he done so when another explosion of blue flame flared from the cliffs to the southwest, the heat washing once more over the Cadmians, then dissipating.

  Mykel glanced up once more. The Myrmidon was tumbling, end over end, but falling far more slowly than he should have been. Even so, he was falling, and disappeared behind a long ridge of rock a good hundred yards ahead of Mykel and third squad.

  Mykel had covered another twenty yards when he could sense someone ahead. “Rifles ready!” He had his own weapon up even before he finished speaking.

  Crack! The shot was close.

  Catching sight of a figure in blue behind a low boulder, i fired. The man dropped.

  More shots came from behind the rock ridge.

  “Third squad! Drop back and take cover!” Mykel

  Couldn’t see losing a squad—or even several men—at a time when the majority of the rebels had been destroyed.

  He guided the chestnut back behind one of the larger boulders, finding Chyndylt and his mount coming around the other side.

  “Fancy seeing you here, sir,” offered the squad leader.

  “You too.” As he flashed a grin to Chyndylt, Mykel juld sense a faint purpleness farther to the west, to the right of where the rebels seemed to be. Was that purpleness a Myrmidon? Could it be the Submarshal?

  Crack! Another bullet smashed into the boulder behind which he had taken cover.

  “Chyndylt, keep the men under cover, but keep them firing at those rebels. I think the Myrmidon colonel’s still live, but he’s out to the north of where they are.”

  “Must be hurt, or we’d know it. He’d use that weapon of his.”

  Mykel dismounted. “I’m going to circle around.” He reached up and handed the chestnut’s reins to the squad sader.

  “Yes sir.” Chyndylt sounded doubtful.

  “If he survives, would you want to be a captain who left him out there?”

  “No sir. I see what you mean.”

  “Just keep the squad firing enough to occupy the bluecoats.”

  “We can do that, sir.”

  Mykel moved to the right side of the boulder, then crouched before he peered around it. The rock ridge that sheltered the rebels was high enough that they would have more trouble aiming at a man on foot.

  He dashed across the five yard space to the next rock, one less than a yard and a half high, but enough shelter for a man. More shots peppered the area, most of them high and ricocheting off the taller ridges behind him.

  The next dash was a shade longer, but the cover was higher, and longer.

  As he moved to the northwest, more and more outcroppings blocked the rebels from getting a clear view of him. He could sense the purplish pinkness that had to be the colonel, and felt that he was getting closer, but he was also getting a sense that there were others nearby.

  Ahead, behind another series of more jumble
d boulders, he heard voices.

  “Just shoot him. Too big to move him.”

  “If he’d wake up… we could use him to get out of here. Won’t do us much good dead.”

  “Won’t do us any good alive…”

  Mykel inched forward, peering around the base of an eroded chunk of reddish sandstone, trying to move more into a better position without being seen. Three rebels stood over the prone figure of the Myrmidon Submarshal, who had apparently dragged himself into a half sitting, half lying position against the rocks before losing consciousness. Mykel could see that the Submarshal’s right arm and left leg were bent at angles suggesting they were broken. If they were not, then alectors’ bones were very different from landers‘, and Mykel doubted that. He was amazed that the alector had been able to move at all.

  “Need to get the others over here,” said one of the rebels.

  That was the last thing Mykel needed.

  He raised the rifle, aiming and firing.

  The speaker dropped, and both the other rebels whirled.

  Mykel fired twice more. The others fell where they stood.

  He listened, and tried to sense whether there were other rebels nearby. He didn’t hear anything, except rifles exchanging fire to the south and sensed no one. After several noments, he eased around the boulder and moved toward the Submarshal.

  Crack!

  The impact on his left shoulder spun Mykel around and to the ground.

  Several more shots went overhead.

  Mykel’s left side was a mass of fire. He still held the rifle in his right hand, but doubted he could aim it that well. He might be able to prop it to get a shot in the general direction of someone. Why hadn’t he sensed the other rebel? Had he been too worried about the Submarshal?

  He had to scrabble, slowly easing himself into a position cropped against the rocks. He could see the blood welling across his tunic.

  “… Certain dangers… to commanding from the front, Captain…” The Submarshal’s voice was labored.

  Mykel glanced toward the alector. He could hear the Crunch of boots on the sandy ground, and he doubted those boots belonged to a Cadmian. He levered the rifle up, across his knees in at least the right direction—he hoped.