Chapter 31
Dekhron, Iron Valleys
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The stocky man turned from the shelves of the library as the door opened and a white-haired man in black entered. "Tarolt."
"I see you are perusing the volumes again. For references to the scepters, I presume?"
"I thought that it would not hurt to look, as I could. I have completed my other assignments. Or what of them that I can do at the moment."
"The scepters might be helpful, Sensat, but they have already accomplished what was necessary a thousand years ago." Tarolt's voice was firm and cold.
"Are we sure that those tensions remain as necessary? Without the locators…"
"They do, else none of the Tables would have worked all these years. I have calibrated the new Table, and Trezun has rechecked the measurements. It is so. We do not need the scepters."
"There are still possible lamaials—Tyren in Alustre and the herder—and if they find the scepters…"
Tarolt silenced Sensat with a gesture. "The only one with any hint of true Talent about whom we need worry is the herder. He is on the way to Hyalt. Adarat has been warned that the northern officer with the dark gray hair is the lamaial. That will fire the believers even more, and the herder will have more than enough to handle, because he has not been in service for years and never in such a situation."
"But if he hears of the scepters…?"
"How would he even know about the scepters and what they are? Also, it is most unlikely that the ancient ones can support him there in Hyalt—or that they will try. Still, it would be good to uncover the scepters, but not at the expense of preparing for what must be." He looked hard at Sensat. "Just how much progress can you report on your primary duties?"
"Adarat has the Hyalt area organized and under firm control. There are already five companies of Cadmians in training. The believers of the True Duarchy have been told that a northerner is being sent against them, a lamaial who will kill them to stop the return of the One Who Is and the peace of the Duarchy to come. They have been assured that they are the chosen ones to restore the Duarchy and to destroy all who would oppose them in returning hope to Corns," offered the pale-faced and stocky man in the maroon tunic. "Adarat has also sent weapons to Syan as well, but we have fewer believers there."
"Whose fault is that?" asked Tarolt.
"There are few of us yet here. All this has taken some considerable planning and effort, since there are no longer Tables in Tempre and Hyalt… and since we have not yet been able to reactivate the one in Soupat. It will be much easier when one more translation is complete."
"It is always easier with more Efrans, but full translations are still difficult and risky… and few on Efra wish to take that risk. Too few, and they do not understand the greater dangers. Like all those in comfort, they do not wish to understand. But… that was why you agreed and why you were translated here," replied Tarolt. "To assist as required to create the unrest and chaos that will make a new Duarchy seem paradise by comparison. And to facilitate the events necessary to rebuild the grid. Never forget that."
"Yes, fieldmaster."
"Tarolt… always Tarolt."
Sensat swallowed before replying. "Yes, Tarolt."
Chapter 32
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Two and a half days had passed since the four officers and the two horse companies had left Borlan and taken the eternastone road south to Krost. Although it was early afternoon, a gray overcast blocked the sun and had since midmorning. There was no wind, leaving a sullen feel to the day, one that, to Alucius, promised little good. Yet, what could happen now? The two companies rode southward through low, rolling hills with prosperous steads on each side and occasional small towns. There was almost no possibility of encountering hostile lancers, not when the nearest forces were those of the Regent more than three hundred vingts to the west—as an eagle might fly—and twice that by even the high roads.
Then, from nowhere, a crimson emptiness flared through Alucius's wristguard. He glanced down involuntarily. Wendra? What had happened?
But the guard remained warm and gave no other indication.
He frowned and studied the road ahead of him. He tried to use his Talent to probe the wristguard's crystal, yet all it revealed was that Wendra was alive and healthy—all it could reveal. He could only take that as a sign that she and Alendra were well.
Suddenly, Alucius found himself almost shivering, yet he wasn't really cold. He was wearing nightsilk undergarments and a riding jacket, and it wasn't winter, but harvest. Harvest was warm in Lanachrona, even on an overcast day, especially without any wind.
Another quarter vingt went by, and the wristguard revealed nothing else. Then Fifth Company followed Eighth Company through a road cut made ages earlier. Even the walls were of eternastone, rising a good three yards above Alucius's head at the point where the roadbed was in the center of the ridge. As Alucius neared the southern end of the cut, he glanced over his shoulder, noting that the ridge, unlike the other hills, seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see, both to the northwest and to the southeast.
As the road shoulders dropped level with the road itself, another crimson emptiness, far more overwhelming, washed over and around him, and not from his wristguard. This was a Talent-sensed void—the same emptiness that he had felt on the high road back from Dereka. He turned to Feran, riding beside him. "Order ready rifles."
Feran started, but only for a moment, before replying, "Yes, sir," then turned to Egyl. "Ready rifles! Pass it back."
"Ah… yes, sir. Ready rifles. Fifth Company! Ready rifles!"
Alucius then added, "If you'd order your four best marksmen up here."
"Egyl…" Feran began.
"Waris, Makyr, Solsyt, Tonak, forward!"
"Put two of them on each shoulder, about three yards ahead of us." Alucius had no idea what exactly was coming, but it had the feel of a reddish purple Talent, all too much like the wild pteridons, and he wasn't about to wait to see what it might be. If nothing showed up, he'd pass it off as a drill. He didn't think they'd be that fortunate. He infused the cartridges in his own rifles with darkness, then did the same to those in the loops in his belt. He waited to say more until the four lancers rode up.
"I'd like you four to take a position ahead of the company. Be prepared to fire, at my direct command."
"Yes, sir."
"Two on each side," Feran added.
"Yes, sir."
As the four rode past Alucius, Feran, and Egyl, Alucius reached out with his Talent and began to infuse the cartridges in each of their rifles with the same kind of darkness that he had used.
The chill and unseen red-purple darkness became more and more oppressive as the company continued southward. Alucius felt as though an unseen avalanche was building behind the gray clouds above, a sweep of something ready to crash down upon them. Yet… what more could he do? Tell the marshal that they were facing a danger he could not describe, could not identify, and could not even explain?
All he could do was to ready his first rifle and slowly infuse the cartridges of the lancers in the first squad with darkness. More than that he could not do, except study the skies ahead and the terrain beside the high road as he rode. Even so, he felt shaky after drawing on so much darkness.
They had ridden only a few hundred yards farther when the entire sky flashed purple—but only to Alucius's Talent, and then on both sides of the eternastone road the sky shivered, with lines of black lightning flashing down and then vanishing. To the east Alucius took in ten creatures from a nightmare—or from wherever the ifrits came. Each was more than four times the size of a draft horse, with massive shoulders, a long triangular horn, and scales that shimmered purple. The oversized mouths boasted crystal fangs a yard long.
"Friggin' monsters!"
"Sow's belly!"
"… same as back then…"
Alucius glanced to the west, where another set of identical creatures had appeared, then swung up his o
wn rifle. "Fifth Company! Halt! Out oblique and hold! Prepare to fire. Fire!"
"Fifth Company! Out oblique and hold! Fire at will!" echoed Feran and Egyl.
Aiming to the east, because that grouping of Talent-creatures seemed closer, Alucius put his first shot through the forehead of the horned creature in the middle. As the creature collapsed with a thud that shook the ground, then flared into a column of flame, another lithe creature sprang from behind the monster. The second looked vaguely like a dustcat, except that it was a shimmering black, and far swifter—and with longer fangs and claws.
Alucius's second shot missed the black dustcat, and the third only struck it in the hindquarters, but it flailed forward, hissing, until a shot from someone else turned it into a small blue-flame pyre.
The remaining horned Talent-beasts—or wild sandoxes—lowered their heads and rumbled forward, their bulk sending vibrations through the ground itself. Alucius fired the last shot in his first rifle at the foremost of the sandoxes, bringing it down as bluish flames erupted from the wound, but from behind the fallen sandox sprang a pair of the black dustcats.
Before him, the four marksmen fired deliberately, and one of the dust-cats exploded in the same bluish flames, but the remaining dustcat streaked toward Tonak with incredible speed. Somehow, the lancer managed to get off a shot at point-blank range, but so close that for a moment he appeared enveloped in blue flame.
"Eighth Company! Forward!"
As the Southern Guards tried to ride away from the attack, three of the horned sandoxes swept through the rear squad. Bodies flew in all directions, each encased in blue flames.
Because he could do nothing for the Southern Guards without firing directly into them, Alucius switched rifles and looked westward, targeting another of the wild sandoxes, then the dustcat that followed the fall of the massive beast. He paused for an instant to squeeze more darkness into the cartridges of the rifle Waris carried as the lancer reloaded, then raised his second rifle to aim at the nearest beast. While the shot struck, and bluish flames issued from the beast's shoulder, it swerved and stumbled toward the last rank of Eighth Company, exploding in a gout of flame that engulfed two Southern Guards.
Alucius fired at another of the beasts—and hit it. A blast of blue flame washed toward the left side of Fifth Company's first squad. While Alucius could feel the heat, the flames died short of the lancers. He targeted two more of the cats, but it took three shots to get the second.
"Watch the cats!" Alucius ordered, trying to infuse the cartridges of the marksmen and of the lancers around him with blackness as he reloaded the second rifle.
Another horned beast flared into blue flame, just at the edge of the eternastone, but at the rear of Eighth Company.
Alucius snapped off another shot and was rewarded with another blue explosion. Then he concentrated on three cats that streaked toward first squad.
The last one skidded to a halt less than a yard from the western edge of the road, flaring into a sudden blue flame. Even before those flames died away, more of the black cat-creatures appeared, striking the column from all angles, coming in low and slashing at the legs of mounts and men.
Alucius forced himself to concentrate on two things—his own shooting and supplying darkness to the cartridges of those around him. In time—how long it was Alucius didn't know—he shot the last cat, then lowered his rifle.
For all the chaos and the slashing attacks, there were fewer bodies strewn on the shoulder of the highway and amid the column than Alucius had feared—at least among Fifth Company. He looked ahead and could see charred bodies of both Southern Guards and their mounts, perhaps as many as two full squads along a half-vingt stretch of eternastone.
Alucius surveyed the fields on both sides of the road. In places, the wooden rail fences had been burned through, and in others merely broken. There was no sign of any of the creatures, save for large patches of burned ground and the black smoke that rose in thin trails from the seared ground on both sides of the eternastone road.
"Have Egyl find out our casualties and report back," Alucius told Feran. "I'm sure the marshal will want to know—when we catch up to them."
"Egyl?"
"He's already headed back, sir," called Elbard.
"Thank you." Feran looked at Alucius and said in a lower voice, "This was worse than coming out of Deforya."
Alucius nodded, his face bleak. "More of the sandoxes, and I've never seen anything quite like those cats."
"Quite like?" Feran's eyebrows lifted.
"They looked like jet-black dustcats." Alucius forced himself to reload both rifles, overriding the trembling in his fingers. Only then did he holster the rifles and take a long swallow from his water bottle. He realized that he felt light-headed… and very tired. He pushed the tiredness away.
"I'd hoped that all we'd have to deal with would be angry peasants and religious zealots," Feran said, "not more Talent-creatures from the time of the Duarchy."
"The marshal said they wanted to bring back the True Duarchy," Alucius said. "I hope these weren't what they had in mind."
Feran snorted. "People don't know when they're well-off." After a moment, he added, "You don't really think this had anything to do with the rebellion in Hyalt?"
"I don't know. I don't know how it could, but they've got priests of some sort, and Aellyan Edyss found a way to call up pteridons. Maybe these rebels could too…" Alucius shrugged, turning in the saddle to look back northward along the road. He could see Egyl riding toward them.
"Majer… you know I never liked it when you said things like that the last time you had an impossible assignment."
"I know, Feran. I don't like having those thoughts, either. But why would anyone bring Talent-creatures against us in the middle of Lanachrona? If the Regent could summon those, I'm certain she'd use them against our forces actually in Madrien."
"Same thing'd be true of the Deforyan Council or the Praetor," Feran pointed out.
Alucius did not mention the other possibility—that the ifrits were to blame—because he couldn't prove that they even existed, let alone that they had sent the creatures against the two companies. Yet that possibility was as likely as the priests of the True Duarchy having unleashed the beasts.
Egyl reined up. "Sir, Majer… we lost four men in fifth squad at the rear, and two others in second squad. Ten men with burns, but it looks like they'll be all right."
"Mounts?" asked Feran. "Supply wagons?"
"They didn't go after the wagons, and anytime they got one of our men, they got the mount, too."
"Do what you can, and let me know when we're ready to ride on," Feran said.
"Won't be long, sir. There's… well… not much left if one of those things got a man. Just a greasy black patch."
Alucius looked forward again, southward along the road. Eighth Company appeared to have halted about a vingt south of Fifth Company and was regrouping. As he watched, he could see a rider moving away from the rear of the Southern Guard column and northward toward Fifth Company.
"I think I'll ride forward and see the marshal," Alucius told Feran. "Once you've got things settled, have Fifth Company rejoin Eighth."
"Yes, sir." Feran offered a ragged grin. "Better you than me meeting with the marshal, sir."
"Thank you," Alucius replied dryly, easing the gelding forward.
As Alucius rode southward, he ate some travel bread, and that helped with the dizziness. He also counted more than twenty charred patches on the stones and the roadside, but, as had been the case with the night-sheep killed by the Talent-pteridons, the corpses had vanished or burned away.
Some of the Southern Guards glanced at him as he rode past them toward the front of the column, but they were silent, almost as if stunned.
"Marshal, sir," Alucius said, reining up two yards short of the senior officer.
"Majer." Frynkel nodded, paused for a moment, before asking, "What were your losses?"
"Six men dead, ten burned, but not badly."
"Eighth Company lost almost thirty, most in the last two squads." The marshal's eyes fixed on Alucius. "You didn't have your men charge those creatures. Why not?"
"We'd already found that didn't work. On the way back from Deforya. It was in my report, sir. If they touch a lancer, he usually bursts into flame. It's not a good idea to get too close. They're also faster than a mount. Massed fire works better." Alucius waited.
"I thought it might be something like that." Frynkel tightened his lips. "Have your force rejoin us. I'll debrief you tonight at the way station at Ghetyr."
"Yes, sir." Alucius turned the gray back northward and rode on the eastern edge of the stone pavement, past Eighth Company and toward Fifth. He was not looking forward to discussing the attack with the marshal. Not at all. And he still worried about Wendra, and why there had been a flash just before the Talent-creatures had appeared around him.
Chapter 33
North of Iron Stem, Iron Valleys
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Wendra reined up at the top of a low rise. The hazy clouds overhead cut off most of the heat from the afternoon sun, but since there was no wind, she had left her herder's jacket open. To the west, still almost fifteen vingts away, was the base of the Aerial Plateau. The top of the Plateau was lost in hazy clouds.
Cloudy weather, especially stormy weather, often encouraged greater sandwolf stalking of the nightsheep, but usually light clouds did not. Still, Wendra continued to study the gradual slope below her, and especially the wash farther to the southeast.
Most of the flock was but fifty yards downslope from where she viewed the nightsheep. Somewhat farther to the north were three young nightrams that sparred with each other, not for dominance, but for practice for the time when they would fight in earnest, unless stopped by Wendra or Royalt. After making sure that the sparring was only that, Wendra turned and studied the slope to her right where a handful of older ewes grazed and moved slowly toward the main body of the flock.
Corean Chronicles 3 - Scepters Page 13