Heritage of Cyador (saga of recluce Book 18)

by Modesitt, L. E. , Jr.

  Frig! Lerial raises a concealment around himself and urges the gelding toward the middle of the wall. Far too late, he can see the plan of attack on the part of the Heldyans. He just hopes he can reach a point where his archers can see him and take his orders, because there isn’t time to send an order around the walls and through the south gate.

  The boats seem to move almost as fast as he and the gelding do. At least, when he reins up just short of the midwall tower, the boatmen are throwing out anchors, slowing and then halting the shielded flatboats holding the Heldyan archers.

  “Lancer archers!” Lerial releases the concealment and uses order to amplify his voice. At least he hopes it does. “Target the Heldyan archers offshore!”

  He has barely finished the command when arrows arch from the shielded flatboats toward the wall. Then … moments later, just as Mirror Lancer shafts begin to fly at the Heldyan archers, a chaos-blast arcs from one of the boats amid the flatboats holding the archers.

  Lerial snaps a triple five-line order-coil out to redirect the chaos back at the Heldyan white wizard, but the wizard’s shields hold, and the redirected chaos-bolt slams into the water on the west side of the boat, raising a cloud of steam.

  At the same time, Lerial can sense something well beneath the water and the ground, which begins to shake. Then, just to the south of him, less than ten yards away, the masonry of the wall begins to shake … then sags, before dropping into a pile of rubble perhaps a yard high, if that, as if the earth or rock beneath has been removed and the wall dropped into the gap. With the collapse come yells and screams as the handful of archers on that section of the wall are thrown in one direction or the other.

  An earth-mage? Or one who can use chaos below ground?

  Another chaos-bolt arcs toward the wall, and Lerial redirects it. Again, the wizard’s shields hold, and more steam rises. With it come screams from the boats, and Lerial realizes that steam and boiling water must have splashed some of the Heldyans.

  Another earth rumble shakes Lerial, and a second section of wall crumbles, to the south of the first, throwing more Lancer archers back into Lubana or forward onto the lane. The first of the second wave of boats grounds just south of the gap in the estate wall, and shield-bearing armsmen with bright blades jump from the square prow of the flatboat.

  For a moment, Lerial just watches, trying to think what he can do that will not cause more harm to the remaining archers and lancers of Eleventh Company.

  He can’t raise lightnings, not out of water.

  Think!

  Steam? Lots of steam? He concentrates on breaking apart the wood of the flatboats, separating order and chaos within the wood of the flatboat grounded near the wall. Then the one that holds the chaos-wizard—and possibly the earth-wizard. As he can feel the buildup of chaos-order separation, he creates a momentarily larger shield, hoping it will hold just long enough.

  WHUUUMPT!

  The force of the explosion, despite his shields, nearly rips him out of his saddle, and a wave of heat washes around him. His own shields contract tightly, and he can barely hold them, and the knife to which they are linked feels as though it is burning through its leather sheath and searing his hip.

  He forces himself forward in the saddle, but can see nothing through the mist that seems everywhere. His order-chaos senses reveal nothing, either.

  Then, slowly, a cooler wind blows from the south, and he begins to be able to make out the tangled mess in the river. Of the eight flatboats with armsmen, there is no sign of three. Behind them are two hulks, one half-buried in the river mud, the second turning in the current. Lerial can finally sense some things, those within a hundred yards or so, but he can only locate three of the shield-ringed boats, and they are already moving with the current well out into the river, as are the last three boats with armsmen.

  Lerial continues to watch for several moments, realizing to his horror that the flatboats that survived his efforts are joining those that had abandoned the attack on the south end of the hunting park and another group of flatboats … and look to be moving toward the city piers at Luba.

  He glances around, then sees a ranker riding toward him from Eighth Company, clearly sent by the resourceful Fheldar. He only has to wait a few moments.

  “Ser?”

  “Tell the senior squad leader to have Eighth Company join me. We’re headed to Luba with Twenty-third Company.”

  “Yes, ser!” The ranker turns and heads back south, but he has to pick his way around the rubble of the fallen wall. Lerial rides south just enough to reach the collapsed section of the wall, where he reins up.

  “Undercaptain!” He boosts his voice, although it turns out that he does not need to because Strauxyn is already riding forward.

  “Yes, ser?”

  “Hold this position as well as you can. The Heldyans are attacking farther downstream.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Lerial turns the gelding and then gallops toward the northeast tower. He reins up short of Kusyl. “The Heldyans are heading for the piers. Take Twenty-third Company and stop them. Eighth Company is coming, but we won’t reach the piers in time if we wait for them. But … don’t…”

  “Don’t strain the mounts?” asks the undercaptain with a grin.

  “Exactly.”

  “We’ll take care of the bastards.”

  Lerial watches as Kusyl and his three squads ride north, knowing that the boats and Twenty-third Company will arrive at close to the same time. Eighth Company takes a bit longer than Lerial would have liked to reach him, because the company can get through the rubble of the fallen wall only single-file. From what he can sense, Ascaar is engaged in trying to repulse the Heldyan landing north of Luba proper, a landing likely designed just to keep the Afritan forces from blocking the coming attack on the town itself.

  Lerial rides forward to meet Fheldar. “Send a messenger to the main dwelling. Have him report that the Heldyans are attacking Luba proper and that two of our companies are responding.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Lerial realizes he should have done that earlier, but by the time he’d thought of it, he had no one to send. “We need to move to back up Kusyl. Have the squads re-form on the move.”

  It takes less than a quarter glass before Eighth Company nears the southernmost pier. Even before that, Lerial can sense that two factors have helped his outnumbered Twenty-third Company contain the attackers. First, the stone riverwall and the dredged area north and south of the piers have kept the flatboats from grounding, and has required them to try to anchor to keep from going farther downstream. Second, climbing out of the boats onto the river wall and the piers has slowed the formation of the shield wall and pikes. Clearly, Kusyl used lances to repulse and slow the shieldmen before the Heldyans could position their pikes.

  Even so, Kusyl and his men are giving ground to a widening shield wall and the pikemen behind the shields as they push off the pier and onto the river road.

  Lerial does not hesitate, but again separates order and chaos, this time targeting sections of the flatboats below the waterline.

  FHWHUSSSH!!!

  Geysers of superheated water erupt, and steam and hot mist cover the more than thirty flatboats in and around the Luban piers, jammed so close that they almost form a continuous surface. The screams are mercifully short. Lerial winces as the silver-gray mist of multiple deaths flows shoreward and across him, a mist that only a mage or wizard—or a healer—could sense.

  “Eighth Company! Halt!” Lerial order-boosts his voice. “Twenty-third Company! Withdraw! Withdraw now!”

  The moment that Kusyl’s men effect a separation of more than ten yards, Lerial acts, although he can only create a small line of order-chaos separations along the river road. Still, separating the underlying chaos and order in the stone is far easier than doing so in wood surrounded by water. The lightnings that crisscross the area are enough to take out or injure perhaps half of the Heldyans, and leave pikes and shields strewn here and th
ere.

  “Lancers! Charge!”

  Lerial, sabre out, leads Eighth Company into an attack from the south, although he holds back just enough to let the points of the lances of the first rank strike the shields before he reaches them. One of the shieldmen pushed off balance by a lance tries to thrust his shield, but Lerial lets the gelding turn the shield, and then slashes a backcut across the man’s neck. Then he is among footmen with small shields and blades. After that, he loses track of exactly what he does with the sabre, except that his head throbs more and more with each use of the blade.

  A quarter of a glass later, he has trouble seeing, between the flashes of light in his eyes and the throbbing in his head, but by then almost all of the disoriented Heldyans are either dead, disarmed, or surrendering. Lerial just takes a position on the river road, flanked by two rankers, doubtless detailed by Fheldar, and watches as the two companies round up the few handfuls of able-bodied captives. For a stretch of over a hundred yards the paved road is cracked and crazed with black lines, and more than a hundred bodies lie scattered, all wearing the bluish-gray and black of Heldya.

  He has to squint to make out what has happened to the north, but it appears, again, that the Heldyans have withdrawn, since the flatboats are all in the river away from the shore. Either that or they have abandoned their armsmen, but Lerial feels that is unlikely, although he could not prove that, and, at the moment, he cannot order-sense farther than a score of yards.

  In time, Fheldar and Kusyl approach and rein up. Kusyl gestures to the senior squad leader.

  “Ser,” reports Fheldar, “two dead, five wounded. That doesn’t include the archers in Third Squad. What about the prisoners?”

  “We’ll march them back to Lubana. The arms-commander can decide what to do with them.” Lerial looks to Kusyl.

  “Three dead, eight wounded.”

  “Very well handled, both of you.”

  Kusyl glances down at the black marks and cracks in the paving. “The duke may have a few repairs to make.”

  “Better his repairs than our rankers.” Lerial clears his throat. “Get the prisoners moving. We don’t want to stay here. Oh … and send another messenger to the arms-commander or Commander Sammyl. Inform him that we’re returning with Heldyan prisoners.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Lerial hopes that the Afritan forces have fared better, or at least not too much worse, but he has doubts about that. He also worries about the purpose of the attacks. If they weren’t that serious about attacking, why attack at all? Except … the Heldyans had seemed most intent on attacking Luba proper. Why? To show weakness in Afrit? Or to make sure that Rhamuel has to keep forces in the south?

  Before he turns the gelding, he takes a last look at the remaining Heldyan flatboats, all continuing downstream.

  XII

  Once the Eighth and Twenty-third Companies enter the grounds at Lubana, and Lerial’s recovering order-senses tell him that there are no other Heldyan forces near, he immediately rides to where Strauxyn’s Eleventh Company waits.

  “Ser! No other attacks here,” Strauxyn immediately reports.

  “Casualties?”

  “We lost three archers, and had five wounded when the wall collapsed. Eighth Company’s Third Squad lost two and had four wounded.”

  Ten men dead, and twenty-two wounded. That is the most Mirror Lancers lost on a single day in more than five years. And those numbers will seem like nothing if Afrit and Cigoerne end up in a full war with Heldya.

  “The wounded?”

  “One likely won’t make it; the others should.”

  Lerial understands—some will not make it without healing aid. “Where are they?”

  “In one of the tents in our area, ser.”

  “Thank you.”

  Lerial is turning his mount from Strauxyn to return to the tent area where Eighth and Twenty-third Companies are returning when he sees Commander Sammyl riding toward him. He looks back to the undercaptain. “Wait for a moment, until I see what the commander has to say.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Lerial reins up once and waits.

  The commander rides within two yards of Lerial before halting. “I don’t believe you had orders to attack the Heldyans, Overcaptain, especially at Luba.” Sammyl’s voice is even. “It also might be difficult to explain the damage to the wall to the duke.”

  Lerial forces a smile. “It would have been harder to explain the loss of the entire wall. A Heldyan earth-mage was starting to demolish all the stonework when we stopped him. Nor would I have wished to explain to either Duke Atroyan or my sire why we did nothing when the Heldyans were about to attack and destroy the center of Luba. Since I received no orders, I did what I thought necessary.”

  “The arms-commander would like to speak to you.”

  “Where?”

  “In his study.”

  “I’ll be there shortly.”

  “He did say as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll be there shortly, Commander.” Lerial’s eyes are cold as he looks directly at the commander.

  “I would hope so, Lord Lerial.” Sammyl turns his mount.

  Once Sammyl is well away, Lerial says to Strauxyn, “I’ll be with the wounded. Have your men remain here, but stand down for now.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Lerial rides to the Cigoernean tent area, knowing he does not have enough strength to heal twenty-two men. Still … there may be some he can tend enough so that he can do more later, when he is stronger. He recalls, belatedly, the loaf in his saddlebags and takes it out, beginning to eat dry mouthful after mouthful and taking swigs of watered lager from his water bottle when necessary. By the time he reaches the tents holding the wounded, he feels somewhat better, and the flashes across his eyes have almost ceased. The throbbing in his skull is muted, but definitely remains.

  He eases into the first tent, where those lancers trained as field healers are splinting bones and cleaning wounds. He walks toward the first five men, all with broken legs or arms, or both, splinted earlier, indicating that they were among the archers under whom the wall collapsed. He stops beside the fourth man, touching his shoulder lightly, and easing the smallest bit of order into a small pocket of wound chaos deep inside his leg bone. With luck …

  “That’s a bad pair of breaks, lancer, but you’ll be fine.”

  The next three men have various breaks, one in his foot, another of his forearm, and the third of his collarbone, but those breaks are clean. He forces a cheerful smile as he nears the last archer. Even from yards away, he can sense there is nothing he can do. The man is moaning softly, likely because he has not the breath to scream. His chest is partly crushed, and bloody spittle oozes from his mouth. Lerial touches his forearm lightly, then moves on.

  He can only offer some healing to three more of the recently arrived wounded before his vision blurs and he begins to feel weak. After that he walks to the gelding, where he takes several swallows of watered lager before mounting and riding toward the duke’s country house, still accompanied by two Eighth Company rankers. Ignoring protocol, he reins up at the main entrance and dismounts, handing the gelding’s reins to one of the rankers.

  His steps are slow as he walks to the center door.

  One of the Afritan Guards, in a crimson dress uniform, steps forward. “Ser…”

  Lerial looks at the ranker, who steps back, then walks to the door and opens it. Once inside, he makes his way to Rhamuel’s study.

  The guard posted there opens the study door. “He’s expecting you, ser.”

  “Thank you.” Lerial walks into the immaculate study, belatedly aware of the streaks of blood on the sleeves of his uniform jacket and on his green trousers.

  Rhamuel stands from where he has been seated at the conference table, on which is a single map. Belatedly, both Valatyr and Sammyl stand as well. The arms-commander says quietly, “I’ll send for you when I’m done.”

  Valatyr nods to Rhamuel, then moves toward Lerial, nodding and
offering a quick smile as he passes. Sammyl does not move.

  “Later, Commander,” Rhamuel says quietly.

  Sammyl stiffens, then nods, and walks swiftly from the study, not only avoiding Lerial, but not even looking in Lerial’s direction.

  Rhamuel gestures to the table, then reseats himself.

  Lerial as much as sinks into the chair as seats himself.

  “Commander Sammyl observed that you appeared reluctant to hasten here.” Rhamuel’s voice is pleasant.

  “I needed to check on my wounded,” Lerial replies.

  “You and your family are most assiduous in that.”

  “It is necessary. We need as many officers and rankers as possible. We have far fewer people than any other duchy in Hamor.”

  “I thought that might be the case. I told my orderly to bring some lager and biscuits once you arrived. While we wait for them, I won’t ask questions. I will tell you what seems to have happened. You doubtless know some of it.” A crooked smile appears and then vanishes. “The first attackers landed on a spur of land south of the hunting park. They formed behind a shield wall, advanced some, repulsed an attack by Subcommander Drusyn’s halberdmen, then withdrew. The second attack went past Lubana and landed downstream and north of Luba. The Heldyans had several companies on the road before Subcommander Ascaar’s forces arrived and were able to push them back to the river, but they fought hard and withdrew largely in good order. You presumably know about the third and fourth attacks.”

  Rhamuel motions, and a ranker moves from the study door to the conference table, setting a silver tray between Lerial and the arms-commander. On it are a single beaker, a pitcher, and a platter of what look to be butter biscuits. The ranker immediately bows and departs.

  “Please help yourself.”

  Lerial does, if not before using his order-senses to check the pitcher and the platter for the chaos that might reveal poison or the like, first half filling the beaker and taking a long swallow, and then taking a biscuit and eating it. He takes a second welcome swallow of lager and looks at Rhamuel. “I was aware of the third and fourth attacks.”