“Our rifles have not proved adequate against some of the strange flying creatures, I have to admit.”
Dainyl understood that. Some Talent creatures were barely susceptible to skylances. “There will not be many of those. There may not be any, but if there are, the casualties will be light, so long as your men are spread somewhat.”
“That’s what we did before, but…with large numbers…”
“They’re far more likely to go for the pteridons and Myrmidons,” Dainyl added. “They would tend to be drawn to them.”
The majer nodded.
How much did Mykel understand? Too much, Dainyl feared, yet he might well need the majer in Tempre—or even later. For that reason alone, it would be better for the majer to undertake the Tempre mission. If he remained in Hyalt, Fhentyl would certainly notice. “Oh…if you would tell Captain Rhystan, Myrmidon Captain Fhentyl will be in command of the Myrmidons remaining here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How soon can you have your companies on the road to Tempre?”
“In three glasses, sir, but I’d prefer to leave at dawn tomorrow. That will allow men and mounts some rest and better organization of supplies, and duties.”
“Dawn tomorrow, Majer. I will be in touch with you before you reach Tempre, with more detailed instructions. If, by some chance, I do not, stop at the last way station outside Tempre on the high road and wait for further orders. Do you have any questions?”
“How long should we plan to be away from sources of supply?”
“The ride to Hyalt and four days beyond.”
“Ammunition. Should we split what we have evenly between companies? Or will one force require more?”
“An even split.” Dainyl suspected he could get resupplies to Tempre far faster than to Hyalt.
“Is there anything out of the ordinary that we should know?”
“I suspect you already know, but any forces in black and silver are not to be trusted, nor allowed to approach.”
“I had thought so, sir, but I appreciate the clarification.”
After a moment of silence, Dainyl was the one to nod. “Good fortune, Majer.” He turned and walked back to the waiting pteridon, mounting quickly.
Lift off…
The pteridon was airborne, circling up to rejoin first squad. Dainyl glanced to the southwest. Still five pteridons circling, and no sense of building lifeforce that suggested more lightcannon use.
70
Mykel watched the pteridon rise into the late-mid-afternoon sky. Two things had caught his attention. First, for the first time since he had known the submarshal, the Myrmidon was riding a pteridon as the flier. Mykel wasn’t certain what that meant, but he had the feeling it wasn’t good. Second, one phrase used by the submarshal had caught his attention—that the compound was held by rebels who opposed “the Duarch.” Duarch—singular. Was there a war between Duarches erupting? With weapons like lightcannon and skylances, he sincerely hoped not, that it was only a minor rebellion, the equivalent of unruly Reillies or Squawts—or, at the worst, like the arrogant seltyrs of Dramur. Unfortunately, he was getting the feeling it was worse than that.
He turned slowly, looking for Bhoral and finally spotting the battalion senior squad leader. “Have all the companies re-form on this side of the ridge and remount, and the officers report to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
A quarter of a glass passed before Mykel looked across the faces of the officers. Only Loryalt was missing, because Seventeenth Company had taken the quarry and new compound duties. “We’ve been given new orders, directly from the Submarshal of Myrmidons. Third Battalion and the two Hyalt companies will be re-formed into two forces. I will be in charge of one, and Captain Rhystan the other….” He went on to providean outline of the situation, concluding with, “Since we will be rotating companies on the picket line, for the remainder of today, and until relieved at Captain Rhystan’s discretion, Thirteenth Company will assume the picket and interdiction responsibilities. You will send messengers to report regularly. Are you clear on your duties, Undercaptain Dyarth?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The remaining companies of Third Battalion and the two Hyalt companies will form up and return to the garrison. Sixteenth Company will lead. Officers, dismissed to your companies.”
“Yes, sir.”
While Rhystan mustered Sixteenth Company, Mykel recovered both his mount and the ammunition belt that, he suspected, he would need far more in Tempre than he had thus far in Hyalt.
Less than half a glass later, with the sun well past midafternoon, three companies of Third Battalion and the two Hyalt companies rode back toward the high road on their way back to the garrison. Mykel rode beside Rhystan.
“It’s a war between alectors, isn’t it, sir?” the captain asked after a time.
“The submarshal hasn’t said, only that there are rebels, but that’s what it looks like.”
“We could get squeezed badly if both sides have weapons like those skylances,” Rhystan pointed out.
“That’s true.” Mykel shifted his weight in the saddle. His back remained sore, with occasional jolts of pain through it.
“Do you have any idea which side is to be preferred?” asked the captain.
“Not really. All I know is that the submarshal is in charge of putting down this group and that he’s been foursquare and honorable—and that he had had enough sense to put Dohark in charge in Dramur and that he saved my ass when Vaclyn wanted to do me in.” Not to mention saving me from a wound that should have killed me.
“Funny when an alector is better to you than your own superiors. It makes me wonder what he wants.”
“I’ve asked myself that question more than once, Rhystan. I still don’t have a good answer. One thing is clear. The submarshal doesn’t suffer fools or deception. He can look right through you and tell if you’re leaving something out or deceiving him. Don’t even think about trying it.”
“I appreciate that word of wisdom.” Rhystan’s chuckle was close to grim.
“There’s something else. The submarshal emphasized that we were not to allow the rebel alectors to approach closer than fifty yards under any circumstances, and that if we could not kill them or drive them off, we were to withdraw. He wanted me to make that point directly to you.”
“You’ve made it. They must have some sort of weapon or power that is deadly that close. Good thing to know, I guess.”
“How good, I wonder.”
“Do you know what you’ll be doing in Tempre? Or how long you’ll be there?”
“Not really. He said that he wanted to cut off any possibility of supplies from there.”
“We could just block the roads without sending companies up there.”
“It’s where the closest other regional alector is,” Mykel said. “I’m wondering if he’s talking more about things like those lightcannon. We couldn’t stop those on the road.”
“He wants to get control of them before they get into action?” Rhystan frowned. “But if those are around, why haven’t we seen them before?”
Mykel was silent for several moments, thinking. The submarshal had been flying a pteridon alone when he had returned from the brief fight or skirmish, and he had been carrying the skylance.
“Sir?”
“I don’t think I ever told you, Rhystan,” Mykel began slowly, trying to gather his thoughts. “Last harvest, before we got sent to Dramur, I was taking the sandox coach back from Faitel to Northa. One of the ancienteers appeared and fired a crossbow bolt at an alector. The bolt bounced off his clothes—the shiny ones they all wear, at least in public—but he was staggered. In Dramur, the submarshal broke some bones when he fell off the pteridon, but the other two Myrmidons were killed. The other thing was that Dohark told me about a officer he once knew who used a barrel of gunpowder to blow up some Squawts—I think it was Squawts—and he got accidentally flamed by a Myrmidon…”
“Accidentally?”
“Doh
ark didn’t think it was an accident, either. Now…on quarry duty, it took combined fire to bring down those strange creatures…”
“I don’t think I see where you’re going.”
“Why don’t we have rifles with larger barrels and bigger shells? Why are the only really powerful weapons on Corus linked to the pteridons?”
“Frig!” The expletive was low and muttered.
“You see? The Myrmidons have the only weapons that can kill an alector—or they did until someone invented or took those lightcannon out of storage.”
“They’ve been hiding that for years.”
“And I’d suggest you don’t say much about it, or we might suffer the same fate as that captain Dohark told me about.”
“This is getting much worse than Dramur.”
“I’m not so sure,” countered Mykel. “We haven’t lost nearly so many men or officers.”
“No yet, but Dramur didn’t start out that badly, either.”
Rhystan was right about that, Mykel had to admit.
“There’s one other thing,” Mykel ventured.
“Just one?”
“The new compound. You’ll have to keep watch on Troral and the mastercrafters. And don’t let Troral deliver those blankets. He’ll try as soon as I’m gone.”
“He’s the kind that gives factors a bad name.”
“I’d rather deal with him than the seltyrs. So would you.”
“That’s like deciding between Reillies and Squawts.”
Mykel glanced ahead. The high road was still a good vingt ahead to the east.
“Which companies will you take, sir?”
“I’ll leave you Fourteenth Company, Thirteenth Company, and First Hyalt. Culeyt and Fourteenth Company and your Sixteenth Company are solid. Bhoral will stay with you as battalion senior squad leader. I’ll take Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and the Second Hyalt.”
“You’re certain?”
“I can do some training on the way,” Mykel replied. “If anything happens here, you’ll need two solid companies. Cismyr isn’t bad, and Dyarth will follow any orders you give. Just make them clear.”
Rhystan laughed.
“We’ll leave at dawn tomorrow. It will take that long to sort out the provisions and the ammunition. We will take most of the wagons, and you’ll have to arrange with Troral for more supplies. I’ll have to write up some sort of authorization for you to draw against the letters of credit, and we’ll have to go over that later, before I leave.”
There were more than a few matters that had to be resolved. Mykel was just glad that he’d made efforts to keep Rhystan informed. At the moment, he wished he’d done more. He also had to wonder about two other nagging matters. Why did the submarshal insist on Mykel’s being the one to command the force going to Tempre? Because he knew Mykel was effective against alectors? Or for some reason even less favorable to Mykel?
And why was Rachyla in Tempre? Was that coincidence?
Mykel didn’t believe in coincidence, especially since most coincidences he’d encountered turned out for the worse. But he didn’t have a better answer…not yet.
71
Mykel had tried to lie down and rest once he’d worked out the arrangements for splitting Third Battalion. By then, it was a good three glasses past sunset. For all the strain of the past several days and his own lack of sleep, with the pain in his back, he couldn’t even doze. He’d never slept all that well on his stomach, and he couldn’t help worrying about the days to come. Just what exactly did the submarshal want from him and the Cadmians? Why was he having them ride away from where the rebels were? Or was there yet another rebel force in Tempre? Finally, he pulled his boots back on and picked up his rifle.
The courtyard was quiet, and Mykel avoided the quiet bones game in the southwest corner, making his way through the darkness to the west gate.
“Sir?”
“I’m going out.” Mykel walked out past the sentry stationed in the archway of the west gate of the old garrison and started up the slope to the jumble of redstone and rock. The only sounds were those of his boots and the intermittent sounds of insects. The full green disc of Asterta shone down from almost directly overhead, while Selena showed but the thinnest crescent in the eastern sky, barely above the horizon.
Mykel appreciated the cooler night air—cooler only in comparison to the stifling heat of the late afternoon—but his eyes strayed to the west, although he could see no lights. Still, at sunset a squad of pteridons had still been circling the area around the regional alector’s compound.
He came to a halt short of the most rugged section of the hilltop, then half-sat, half-leaned on a redstone boulder that still retained some warmth. He set the rifle across the stone. Letting his thoughts and senses drift, he attempted to gather some feeling as to whether one of the soarers might be nearby. All he could sense was a distant blackness, something that lay beneath the hillside, with apparently less substance than mist, yet which radiated east and west deep beneath the surface of the hill.
There was no sign of one of the ancients.
His fingers dropped to his belt. After a moment, he removed the dagger of the ancients, both from his belt and from its sheath. He considered it, both with his eyes and with his expanded senses. The amber-green “feel” was more golden than the aura he knew he radiated. Could he emulate that feel, use it to call an ancient soarer? Did he want to? More to the point, could he afford not to?
He concentrated on creating a point of light, one that was indeed amber-green.
Nothing happened.
He studied the dagger once more and tried again—with no success.
Could he strengthen the aura around the dagger? Would that work?
This time, he tried to extend his aura to the dagger. That failed as well.
What would work? For a time, he thought. He had been successful in willing his shots to strike their targets. What if he merely willed—in the same way—the dagger to glow?
Drawing on the feelings he had when he used a rifle, he willed the dagger to glow, to send a pulse of green.
A momentary, brilliant, flash appeared—one that he sensed, but did not see.
Mykel tried to relax, to capture the sense of what he had done. He tried once more. This time the pulse was slightly longer.
How did one summon an ancient?
The soarer appeared so abruptly that he barely managed not to jump or grab for the rifle. She hovered in the air between him and the garrison, suspended in an amber-green spherical haze, her wings iridescent, and barely moving. Yet bright as that haze seemed to Mykel, he knew the sentry saw nothing.
You do not need the dagger.
“You might not. I seem to.”
It is a material…talisman. Nothing more. You would do better to work within yourself. The dagger will become…a crutch now. What did you intend with your…signal?
“To seek information.”
The soarer did not reply.
“Do you know what those creatures are that have attacked us? The flying ones?”
They are incomplete and damaged beings fleeing the dying world of the Ifrits. Their being is not strong enough to survive the long journey between worlds. The feeling behind the unspoken words was close to dismissive.
Mykel moistened his lips. “Ifrits? What are Ifrits? Are all the alectors Ifrits?”
There are Ifrits and Ifrits. There are those born here, and those who were not. As they are now, none belong here. They believe they do.
The alectors came from another world? “How did they get here? Why don’t they belong?”
Observe them. You will see.
“You said I didn’t need a talisman. How can I do what you do?”
You cannot. You can only do what you can. That should suffice. A clear sense of a laugh followed the words.
“But how?” Mykel’s sense of frustration filled the two words.
In turn, the soarer conveyed wordless puzzlement.
“How?”
; You do not see.
“No! I can only see my own aura, my own being, and the auras of others, if I am close, and I can, I think, place a little of myself in the bullets of my rifle.”
That will kill the creatures and the Ifrits. Using too much will kill you. Lifeforce must rebuild unless you draw from the web.
“The web?” Every time he thought he had an answer, or a piece of one, something else came up that he didn’t understand.
The soarer extended a delicate hand, not quite touching his shoulder.
Abruptly, Mykel was surrounded by lines of color—thin lines, faint lines, strong lines, all somehow separate and yet tied together. The brightest—thin and golden—ran from the soarer into the hillside itself, to the darkness he had sensed below.
Observe yourself.
From his own body extended a deep but glowing green thread, more like a cord compared to the soarer’s thread, that arched into the sky to the northeast.
Your cord could link to the world anywhere, but you have not learned how. That is what you must master. If not, the Ifrits will destroy you.
“You and the alectors—the Ifrits—are enemies, aren’t you?”
So are you their enemy. All who would preserve this world are their enemies.
“What did you have to do with Rachyla?”
Another expression of puzzlement.
“The woman who might be like me.”
We did nothing. If she is like you, the forces within you will determine what will be.
“What forces?”
Enough. You asked, and we have answered. Do not seek us again until you have mastered yourself and become one linked to the world where you are, and not where you were born.
The night around Mykel was dark again—except for the faint glow from the dagger, and the stronger glow from himself. The threads had all vanished.
The dagger—a talisman. Merely a symbol or a charm? No, it was more than that. Perhaps a reminder or a hint…or a crutch in the beginning, and one he needed to do without according to her. And Rachyla…the soarer had no answers there, either.
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