Imager’s Battalion ip-6

by L. E. Modesitt

  “Weren’t there struggles in all that time?”

  “There were arguments. Some of them lasted years. And there are stories. Some even say that the lost ones come from a clan in the western part of the Montagnes D’Glace, and that they were lost when they went to take up arms against those below the mountains. Erion threw a mountain from the sky and sealed the way from their valley. Only those wise enough to know when to use arms were able to leave the valley. The price for leaving was to bear the mark of Erion.”

  “The mark of Erion?” prompted Quaeryt, suspecting all too well what Arion would say.

  “You bear it, though you do not flaunt it. Hair almost as white as the ice, and a reminder that the worship of physical perfection is vanity.” An ironic smile crossed the major’s lips. “A form of Naming, if you will, for those who follow the Nameless.”

  “You follow Erion and Artiema?” asked Quaeryt.

  “I would say that we believe that they are manifestations of the one who cannot be named. Calling that one the Nameless is another way of Naming.”

  Quaeryt nodded. “I’ve often pondered that.”

  “That does not surprise me, Subcommander.” Arion paused. “Why did you turn the Bovarians over to the growers?”

  “Because the Bovarian troopers destroyed the crops of those people. I thought they should decide.”

  “What if they fear Rex Kharst so much that they release them?”

  “That is their choice. To do otherwise would tell the local people that Lord Bhayar would merely be another ruler like Kharst.”

  “How do you know he will not?”

  “I think I know him well enough to say that he will not.”

  “How well does he know you?”

  “Well enough to allow his sister to wed me.”

  Arion smiled softly. “He thinks to bind you. In the end, you will bind him because you cannot escape who you are. He is trapped, and he knows it not. He cannot conquer Lydar without you…”

  “You give me far too much credit.”

  The Pharsi officer shook his head. “You are a lost one, and the hand of Erion. If Lord Bhayar rejects or destroys you, he destroys himself. He may not know that, but it is so. Did not his sister seek you out?”

  “She wrote me,” Quaeryt admitted. “How did you know that?”

  “I saw her.” Arion smiled. “Actually, I heard she rode to find you when you had fallen, and I made certain I saw her. She did not see me. She has the sight.”

  Quaeryt frowned. How can he know that?

  “My grandmere had the sight, and there is a way, a certain … I cannot describe it, but your wife is the only woman beside my grandmere I have ever seen who is like that.” The major sighed softly. “Grandmere saw the Red Death. She warned the High Council against trade with Bovarian merchanters, but the coastal clans sought the Bovarian golds. Golds always speak louder than sight or wisdom.”

  “I’ve seen that more than once.”

  “That is good that you have. You will see it again … and again.”

  “Then how does wisdom prevail?” countered Quaeryt.

  “Only when those who are wise know when to use force and what force to use.”

  Does it always come down to that? Brute force? Except … did it have to be brute force? Was there a way to apply force without the devastation of a battle such as that at Ferravyl?

  He was still pondering that when he realized that Arion had slipped away, back into the gloom of the shed.

  As Quaeryt stood in the dimness of a rainy twilight fading into a cold, wet, and dark night, he couldn’t help but wonder: For all your unbelief in the Nameless, in any deity, how can you know whether you chart your own course? And, for all your thought, whether it is truly the right course.

  11

  Quaeryt did not sleep well on Jeudi night, and not because of the damp and the crowded conditions in the shed he shared with others. The conversation with Major Arion had disturbed him more than he would have believed.

  It wasn’t that Arion had predicted victory. He hadn’t. He’d as much as said that Bhayar would fail without Quaeryt, but that didn’t mean Bhayar would succeed, either. By implication, Arion’s words declared that Quaeryt was a tool and would not accomplish what he wanted by himself. Quaeryt had known that. It was the major’s preternatural knowing that had disconcerted Quaeryt. And yet, from the bearing and the reactions of the other two Khellan majors, it seemed clear to Quaeryt that Arion had not told them. Why not?

  Quaeryt didn’t have an answer for that question. Nor did he feel comfortable asking Arion, although he could not have said why, and he didn’t want to press the matter until he could figure out the reason for his own unease.

  While the skies were clearing on Vendrei morning, mud was everywhere, and getting the wagons on the road took an extra glass. The air was cooler than the day before, but Quaeryt had no doubts that by afternoon it would be even steamier than on Jeudi.

  Because Fifth Battalion had no engineers and needed fewer supplies than a regiment, it had fewer wagons, and those wagons carried little beside spare sabres and food. Before long Quaeryt and Zhelan were at the head of the slow-moving column, behind the outriders and a vanguard of one company from Third Regiment. Quaeryt rode on one side of Skarpa, Zhelan on the other, with the imager undercaptains directly behind them.

  They had covered two milles, and the road looked to be getting firmer when a scout came riding around the curve in the road ahead, making straight for Skarpa.

  Even before he reached the commander, he called out, “Sir, there’s a barge coming downriver. It looks to be filled with Bovarian troopers.”

  “How many?”

  “Two squads of foot, it looks like, sir. They’re packed in tight.” The trooper pulled up beside Zhelan and looked across at Skarpa.

  “Do they look to be seeking a landing nearby?”

  “I wouldn’t think so, sir. They’re keeping well to the middle of the river.”

  Skarpa turned to Quaeryt. “They want to land a force behind us to cause trouble and force us to leave men behind … or slow us down.”

  “We’ll see what we can do.” Quaeryt glanced to his right, but the road had turned southward around a low hill covered with trees and brush, and immediately behind them was a wide stretch of swampy ground between the road and the river. “We’ll have to ride back east to get closer to the water.” Quaeryt turned in the saddle. “Imagers! On me. Single file. We’re riding back east.” He guided the mare onto the shoulder of the road. While her hooves sank somewhat into the wet ground, the shoulder wasn’t as sloppy as the road itself, although it certainly would have been had the entire battalion been riding there.

  As he rode, he glanced back and spoke. “There’s a barge filled with Bovarian troops. We need to get to where we can sink it. Pass it back.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Voltyr, riding directly behind Quaeryt as they headed back past the companies of Fifth Battalion.

  “We’re headed to sink a barge filled with Bovarian troopers…”

  The grassy slope that Quaeryt recalled was farther east than he’d thought, because he rode for close to a quint before he saw it, and another half quint before he reined up, moving past the troopers of Fifth Regiment, headed westward, who glanced curiously at the imagers who joined Quaeryt on the grassy and muddy patch barely large enough for all seven of them.

  Quaeryt scanned the river for several moments before he caught sight of the craft, still upstream of where he was, but by only a hundred yards, if that. The river stretched perhaps seventy yards from shore to shore, and the single craft near the middle wasn’t a barge, but more like a flatboat, except that what would have been the stem on a ship was flat across the front, but angled forward like a ship’s prow. For grounding where there aren’t wharves? It also had a pilothouse in the rear with a long sweep rudder extending from the stern.

  “Threkhyl! Forward!” Quaeryt ordered.

  The ginger-haired undercaptain pulled his mount up b
eside Quaeryt.

  “We need some holes in the front hull of the barge. Now.”

  “Front hull?”

  “It’s got a flat front. More water will go in a hole there.”

  Threkhyl concentrated.

  “Shaelyt, Voltytr! Holes in the side hull! Desyrk, Akoryt! You two as well.”

  Quaeryt also imaged what he hoped was a large gap in the front of the boat, then watched.

  For several moments nothing happened, then a man in gray, likely a crewman rather than a trooper, threw a bucket toward the troopers packed in the forward part of the barge. The tillerman leaned forward through the opening in the pilothouse and yelled something, pointing toward the imagers.

  Quaeryt held his shields ready, but none of the troopers lifted a bow. Instead, the flatboat-like craft slowly turned toward the north bank of the river, if sluggishly.

  The closer the barge got to the bank, the lower and lower in the water it appeared to be. Then … some fifteen yards from the swampy area that formed the bank, it lurched to a stop.

  “What was that?” asked one of the imagers.

  Quaeryt didn’t immediately recognize the voice, but thought it might have been Akoryt. “Sandbank or mud bar. It didn’t hit that hard, and that’s going to be a problem for them.”

  “Sir?” asked Shaelyt.

  “It hit at an angle. It’s still sinking, but the current’s going to swing the stern downstream and back toward the deeper water. It might pull it off the sandbar, and then they’ll be sinking in deeper water.”

  Bovarians began to scramble out of the barge as the stern swung outward and toward the middle of the river. Those closest to the swampy area moved a yard or two, their feet on the bar, then stepped into deeper water, most of them flailing and not expecting the sudden change in water depth. Quaeryt couldn’t help but wince as he saw that most of the troopers could not swim.

  Then the current pulled the flatboat, now totally awash, back toward the center of the Aluse River. More troopers jumped off the apparently sinking craft.

  Quaeryt wanted to shake his head. If they had just hung on to the boat, awash as it was, they likely could have lasted until it eventually grounded. Belatedly, he realized that there were too many troopers for all of them to do that, but even the last ones ignored the pilot who was clearly trying to tell them to stay with the boat.

  Quaeryt turned away. “Form up. We need to catch up with the battalion.”

  “You’re going to let them drown, sir?” asked Baelthm.

  “What would you suggest?” asked Quaeryt. “We can’t do anything from here. What’s left of the boat is floating downstream faster than we can ride. Even if we could help, should we? They wanted to attack us from the rear. If they had, we would have had to stop them, and that would have meant killing some, if not all of them. For now, some can swim and will survive.”

  “It seems … wrong … sir.”

  “What is the difference between killing Bovarians directly by imaging ice rain and sinking their boat?”

  Baelthm was silent.

  “We are at war, Undercaptain, and they attacked us. They even burned the crops of their own people.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Quaeryt could tell that Baelthm was not convinced, but he only said, “I’d like you to think about it. If you still have questions, we’ll talk later.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Quaeryt turned the mare. “Forward!”

  12

  For another three days, Skarpa led the southern army westward. At one point, the river road ended at a swamp, and it took most of Samedi for Fifth Battalion and the regiments to make their way through marshy ground, fields, and along paths barely wide enough for a single rider before they reached another section of road … that lasted for ten milles before they had to detour yet again, a delay made longer by the need to replace the axle of a wagon that collapsed at the narrowest part of the path they followed when they tried to get around a section of the road washed out years before and never repaired.

  The imagers were of little help, because none of them had any experience with wagons, and imaging, Quaeryt was reminded, required a knowledge of what needed to be imaged … or a great deal of time and experimentation. In a bitter sort of way, Quaeryt realized that he knew far more about how bridges were constructed than he did about wagons and axles.

  Unfortunately, there was enough of the clayey soil in the rugged area they crossed on Samedi and Solayi to create mud, so that his boots and his trousers below the knees were mud-spattered, as were the lower quarters of all the horses.

  Given the sorry state of men and mounts, Skarpa did not call on Quaeryt to conduct services for the Nameless on Solayi evening, but after locating a rocky and sandy area on the edge of the river, he had the regiments and Quaeryt’s battalion clean up themselves, their mounts, and their equipment.

  Lundi dawned slightly cooler and drier, and the condition of the south river road improved as well, so that there were only occasional patches of mud.

  “The road’s better because we’re nearing Rivecote Sud,” said Skarpa, riding beside Quaeryt.

  “I still wonder why Kharst let the roads get so bad.”

  Skarpa shrugged.

  “Do you think they’ll use the cable ferry to send troopers across to stop us?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. They might not even know we’re here, but I don’t think we’ll be that fortunate.” Skarpa laughed. “I’m not even sure how we managed to get here.”

  “We haven’t seen any new signs of Bovarians or their scouts,” Quaeryt said.

  “That only means they haven’t left tracks where we could see them. Even if they didn’t send out scouts, some of the locals might have passed on word.”

  “Or some of the troopers who survived the flatboat sinking.”

  “Someone did. One way or another. We’ll likely run into some opposition before long.”

  Quaeryt glanced at the fields on the south side of the road. While the cots and outbuildings were less ramshackle than those he’d seen on the two previous days, they were still placed comparatively far apart, and there were places where the only thing that seemed to grow was a big-leafed ground cover that swallowed everything. Or was the plant so hardy that it was the biggest problem for the locals? “It should be a while yet. The cots are so far apart that I can’t believe we’re that close to even a village of any size.”

  “I wouldn’t think so … but, with Bovarians, how would we know?”

  Are people that different? Quaeryt did not voice the thought.

  By the time they had ridden another glass, the cots and barns were larger and closer together, and looked more prosperous, some even with brick and mortar walls and slate roofs. The scouts returned and reported that the outskirts of the town were less than two milles away. They also had observed a force blocking the road just outside the town.

  Skarpa called a halt and ordered the troopers to arms, then sent out more scouts in all directions. “Doesn’t make sense to put a small force on the road outside of the town.”

  “Are they trying to delay us?”

  “Might be. They also might be trying to use the cable ferry to bring over more troops.”

  “Or destroying it to keep us from using it,” suggested Quaeryt. “Could we advance slowly, while you have Fifth Regiment circle the town and move in from the southwest?”

  “That was my thought. I’m waiting for Meinyt.”

  Scarcely had Skarpa finished speaking than Meinyt rode up the shoulder of the still-narrow road and reined up facing the commander. “Sir?”

  “I have a mission for you.”

  “You want us to circle and attack from the west?”

  “See if you can take the cable ferry. Before they cut the cables, if you can.”

  “Yes, sir. Is there anything else?”

  “Try not to make a mess of the town or the people, but don’t hazard your troops.”

  “We’ll do what we can.” Meinyt nod
ded. “Anything else?”

  “No. You know what to do.” As Meinyt rode off, Skarpa turned to Quaeryt. “Let’s start our deliberate advance.”

  A half mille later, after rounding a curve in the river road, Quaeryt and Skarpa were at the end of a gentle slope. Three-fifths of the way up a slope covered in low bushes, grass, and patches of dirt were the Bovarians, a ragtag force arrayed behind a makeshift line of pikes embedded in the small earthen berms that had to have been hastily piled up across the road and for some fifty yards on either side-until they reached stands of trees and brush. In the center was a company or so of regular Bovarian troopers, or at least men wearing those uniforms. On either side were men and even youths in gray shirts with bows and spears. Quaeryt even saw several ancient halberds. Another fifth of a mille behind them were several houses, and a row of shops.

  “This could be a slaughter,” said Skarpa, “unless they’ve got another force hidden.”

  “What do the scouts say?”

  “They’ve circled the town. They can’t find any sign of any other forces.”

  “There have to be other tricks that they have in mind,” offered Quaeryt.

  “My thought as well. They want us to attack. There’s straw all across the ground, and most likely pits with stakes concealed there.” Skarpa smiled ironically. “Or they want us to think that there are.”

  “What if we don’t attack? What if we stand off and shoot arrows into them?”

  “We’ve only got one squad of archers,” said Skarpa. “Almost all of Bhayar’s archers are on the other side of the river. Can you and the imagers do something?”

  Quaeryt studied the berms and the pikes embedded in them. There was nothing there that could burn, and he really didn’t want to fire the buildings behind the defenders. “We could probably kill a few at a distance, but not enough to make a difference.”

  “Could you do anything to make them less able to fight?”