Imager’s Battalion ip-6

by L. E. Modesitt

  He contracted his shields into a wedge extending perhaps a half yard on either side and urged the mare forward, riding past the edge of the revetment and inadvertently throwing several Bovarian defenders back into the trench behind the earthworks. He only could see the trench for an instant-and not much of it at that. But it appeared empty, as if the few handfuls of defenders were all that had held the position. He was past the first revetment too quickly to be sure, but that worried him. There should have been more defenders. Many more. And if the Bovarians had merely withdrawn … why would they have left any defenders at all?

  Unless the Bovarian commanders didn’t tell the poor bastards.

  He tried to catch a glimpse of the revetments on the slope to the south side of the river road, but between the darkness and the troopers of Fifth Regiment to his left, he could make out nothing at all. There might have been thousands of Bovarians or none at all.

  When, still on the shoulder of the road, he rode past the second revetment, some fifty yards farther uphill, and saw no troopers at all, he could only wonder what trap lay over the crest of the road … and what, if anything, he could do about it.

  Quaeryt and first company were less than a hundred yards from the top of the rise when he heard the thunder of muskets-one volley, then a second, and a third. No defenders issued from the last line of revetments before the slope flattened out onto level ground.

  In the dim light of a few lanterns hung on widely spaced posts and that of Artiema, Quaeryt could see that Meinyt had done exactly what he had said was necessary. He’d thrown his first battalion right at the musketeers-arrayed behind earthworks midway between waist-high and chest-high. The first troopers to actually reach the earthworks had tried to jump them, and some had succeeded. Others had left their mounts, or perhaps their mounts had been shot from under them, and climbed or vaulted over the earthen revetments.

  Then the Bovarian heavy cavalry had smashed into Meinyt’s right flank. In turn, from what Quaeryt could see, Fifth Regiment’s second battalion had hit the Bovarians on the flank and rear, and the Bovarians were being hacked down-but by the sheer numbers of Fifth Regiment, and the two Telaryn battalions were taking heavy casualties in the process.

  “Desyrk! Baelthm! Voltyr! Into the middle-just the middle-of the Bovarian armor, smoke and pepper! Hold here and do what you can!”

  Quaeryt turned in the saddle, trying to make sense out of the confusion in the dimness, looking from the north end of the hilltop ridge to the south.

  Another roll of thunder shook the hilltop, and Quaeryt rocked in his saddle as musket balls slammed into his shields-from the south. He struggled to widen his shields slightly, enough to cover the imagers. A flicker of red-orangish lights appeared some hundred yards away, but before he could say or do more, another volley ran out, and his shields again shivered, sending jolts of pain into his body, or so it seemed.

  He turned the mare. “Shaelyt! Threkhyl! After me, behind me!”

  How long it took him to get near to the second musket emplacement he couldn’t have said. But as he neared it, he could see a dark space between the musketeers and the mare. A pit moat, for the Namer’s sake. Frig!

  “Threkhyl! Image a bridge across this pit moat wide enough for a mount, and stay behind me!”

  Quaeryt half wondered if Threkhyl could-and would-do so, and was ready to turn the mare, but just before he started to do so, a flat white stone ramp appeared before Quaeryt, and he urged the mare forward onto the stone, hoping it would hold. The stone didn’t even shiver, and the next volley from the musketeers didn’t even strike his shields.

  Because you’re too close?

  Abruptly he realized he needed his staff and struggled to get it free of the leathers, barely getting it into position before he was at the end of the stone. He almost flew over the mare’s neck, but managed, somehow, to keep his seat as she jumped from the low rampart to which Threkhyl had linked the stone bridge. He came down among the second row of musketeers, staggered, to afford them a clean line of fire. His shields threw one musketeer and his stand to the side before Quaeryt managed to turn the mare back east and start down the line of Bovarians. Several saw him coming and tried to scramble out of the way.

  As he had done with the musketeers hidden behind false haystacks, he braced the staff against the front of the saddle and linked the shields to the saddle, trusting the girths held. He could only hope that Threkhyl and Shaelyt could use their sabres effectively, or follow him. He didn’t look back. There was no point whatsoever in doing that.

  But when he neared the end of the second line of musketeers, he slowed the mare enough to turn her back to where she was just behind the front line. From there he could see that Threkhyl had gone the other way and was applying his sabre to the musketeers he could reach. While some clearly managed to scramble away, the effect was the same, in that by the time Quaeryt neared the far end of the first line he had to ease the mare to the side to avoid plowing into Threkhyl.

  “Hold up! They’re all gone!”

  “So they are!” Threkhyl offered a booming laugh. “Stopped those bastards, we did.”

  Quaeryt looked around again, but was relieved to see Shaelyt coming up to join them, his sabre also at the ready. Quaeryt looked back to the north, where more Telaryn horsemen poured onto the hilltop, but re-formed almost immediately.

  Quaeryt realized that no one was left fighting near him and that most of the sounds issued from wounded men and mounts. He looked back at Threkhyl’s bridge, knowing he didn’t want to have the mare jump up on it again, but from what he could see, the dry moat completely surrounded what had been the musketeers’ position.

  “All right,” he muttered under his breath, bringing the mare around in a circle to the back of the redoubt, where he heard moans from the moat. He ignored them and urged the mare forward.

  The mare had far less a problem with the low jump onto the bridge than did Quaeryt, who found himself, again, slightly off balance, but righted himself in the saddle and then reined her up a good ten yards beyond the dry moat. He looked around, but the only fighting going on was at the north end of the ridge, where Meinyt’s Fifth Regiment had surrounded the remaining Bovarian heavy cavalry, and there was little he or the imagers or Fifth Battalion could do.

  So Quaeryt waited for the other two imagers, taking a quick breath of relief as Threkhyl and Shaelyt joined him. They continued to wait perhaps half a quint, Quaeryt holding personal shields around all three, hoping he could keep doing so until the fighting was clearly over.

  Finally, Ghaelyn and a squad from first company rode toward him. The three imagers with the undercaptain looked unharmed.

  Quaeryt could feel some of the tightness within loosen. Thank the Nameless you didn’t lose any more imagers.

  “You all right, sir?” asked Ghaelyn, looking at Quaeryt’s shoulder.

  Quaeryt glanced down at the dark stain, not that he could tell what color it was in the dimness lit but faintly by Artiema and a few remaining lanterns to the west. He flexed his shoulder. “I’m fine.” You think. “How about first company?”

  “Not near so bad as it looked-”

  Before Ghaelyn could say more, a trumpet blared out, followed by a powerful voice-Skarpa’s.

  “Subcommanders! Report!”

  Quaeryt had no idea what to report and looked to Ghaelyn.

  “Two dead, five wounded, none seriously.”

  Only two dead … in this mess?

  “Fifth Regiment took the worst of it, sir.”

  Zhelan reined up beside Ghaelyn. “No casualties in second, third, and fourth companies.” He offered a crooked smile. “I think the Khellans were almost disappointed.”

  Quaeryt suspected that Meinyt would be happy to have had the “disappointed” Khellan officers and their men in the position of his first battalion, but said nothing except, “Thank you, Major, Undercaptain.”

  Then he rode toward where he had heard Skarpa’s voice.

  As he reined up, h
e heard Meinyt reporting.

  “About eighty dead in First Battalion. No count on the casualties. Thirty dead in Second Battalion.” After a pause he added, “Rather not take the lead in going after the others … sir.”

  Quaeryt winced silently at those words. For Meinyt to say that suggested the total of his wounded was even greater than those killed.

  “There aren’t any others,” Skarpa said. “There’s no sign of any other Bovarians.”

  “They just left a company or so of foot, those Namer-cursed musketeers, and two companies of heavy cavalry?”

  “It looks that way. While you were finishing them off, I sent a company into Ralaes. The locals we rousted out say everyone else pulled out right after dark.”

  As Quaeryt looked past Skarpa and back toward the center of the hilltop … and the carnage there, Quaeryt could see that, in a sense, all his fears had been realized. The Bovarians had indeed planned-and executed, if not as well as they had hoped-a trap with cavalry and muskets. They’d also effectively sacrificed several companies of their own foot to bait, or at least disguise, the trap.

  He wasn’t looking forward-at all-toward the battle for Villerive.

  As he thought that, he found an ironic smile on his face. No intelligent officer looks forward to these kinds of battles.

  39

  Dawn was already breaking before all the Telaryn companies, battalions, and regiments were re-formed, the wounded tended to, and the comparatively few Bovarian captives confined. Only then did Skarpa, Meinyt, and Quaeryt finally leave the battlefield southeast of Ralaes, but by then Zhelan and several other majors had commandeered the necessary quarters for the Telaryn forces. Even so, it was well past eighth glass on that cloudy Jeudi morning when the commander and two subcommanders met in a corner of the public room of the South River Inn, the largest of the three inns in the once-quiet town.

  Skarpa sat down heavily and rubbed his forehead. Under his eyes were dark circles. Meinyt’s eyes were bloodshot, possibly from the imagers’ smoke and pepper, and his face was generally haggard. Quaeryt doubted that he looked any better.

  “We lost nearly two hundred,” said Skarpa slowly, “and there might be another fifty that don’t make it. They lost more than four hundred, all told. It could have been better. It also could have been much worse.”

  Quaeryt had to agree, much as he had worried about how things had gone the night before … and his own failure to realize that he’d trapped first company. As he considered that, his eyes scanned the public room, a space some eight yards wide and possibly twelve long, with four narrow windows across the front and four high windows across the back. All were open, but the room was still close because, even outside, there wasn’t the faintest trace of a breeze.

  A round-faced woman with black hair in a bun and narrow-set eyes watched from the archway into the kitchen at the far side of the chamber. Two troopers guarded the front entrance to the public room, and Quaeryt had seen a squad stationed in the courtyard beyond the kitchen, as well as one on the front porch of the inn.

  “It would have been if the imagers hadn’t taken out that second company of musketeers,” averred Meinyt, “the ones across that moat to the south. We’d have lost another hundred or so troopers, maybe more.”

  “I’m glad we could, but…” Quaeryt paused. “We should have been nearer the front on the charge.”

  “You’ll go mad if you keep guessing on what you could have done,” said Skarpa. “I planned the attack, and you both carried it out. We took the town, and they had more than twice the casualties we did. We’ve done better, but Namer-few others have done as well as we did last night against an entrenched position.”

  “Why do you think they sacrificed two companies, maybe more, of musketeers?” asked Quaeryt. “I can see them losing the foot, but heavy cavalry and musketeers?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Skarpa. “They had to know we’d capture at least some of the muskets. So far we’ve counted over two hundred. You two and your men killed over a hundred musketeers, and we captured some thirty, all wounded.”

  “What about powder and ball?” demanded Meinyt.

  “Half a dozen kegs of powder, and four hundred rounds.”

  “Someone knew it was a sacrifice,” suggested Quaeryt.

  “I don’t think the foot or the musketeers were told,” replied Skarpa. “There were wagons waiting on the west side of the hill. The ones who escaped took them.”

  “How many wagons?” asked Meinyt skeptically.

  “There was one left. The driver must have run off or been killed. The scouts said there were tracks left by five others.”

  “So their commanders told the poor bastards to hold as long as they could and then to withdraw to the wagons. Just six wagons for close to seven or eight hundred men?” Meinyt snorted.

  “The cavalry didn’t need wagons,” said Skarpa dryly.

  “If they’d risk that many muskets, they must have more muskets and musketeers than Bhayar and Deucalon thought,” said Meinyt.

  “Or someone realized that the musketeers aren’t as effective against us during the day,” suggested Skarpa.

  “They aren’t that bright,” countered Meinyt.

  “They were bright enough to slow us down.”

  “Deucalon already did that,” said Meinyt. “Besides, you already said we’d need to stay here for several days until the northern army gets closer to Villerive.”

  “The men need a day or so of rest at the least. I sent out patrols early. All the Bovarians have pulled back to Villerive. The defenses there make the earthworks here look like a bowling green. They also have large catapults.”

  At a scraping-or scuffling-sound from across the public room, or perhaps beyond, Quaeryt looked away from Skarpa and toward the kitchen archway. The dark-haired woman no longer stood there.

  Then four men appeared, moving quickly, each with a small crossbow aimed toward the three Telaryn officers. All four wore blue-gray Bovarian uniforms.

  Quaeryt sprang to his feet, expanding his shields to cover the other two officers, then imaged iron darts into the chests of the attackers. Even so, all four loosed their bolts, all of which slammed into Quaeryt’s shields, driving him backward against his chair and the wall. He staggered, then finally managed to catch his balance and stand up.

  “What…!?” Meinyt glanced from Quaeryt to the four figures on the floor by the archway, then at the two troopers who had sprinted across the room.

  Quaeryt contracted his shields and hurried toward the archway.

  “Sir?” protested one of the troopers.

  Quaeryt ignored the man-as well as the throbbing headache that had arrived with his imaging-and dashed into the kitchen, where two other men held knives at the throats of the black-haired woman and a blond woman scarcely more than a girl.

  “Stop right there!”

  Quaeryt stopped, imaged the knives out of the hands of the two Bovarians, and then imaged them through the men’s boots and feet, pinning them to the floor.

  The women jumped free, but the older woman shuddered as she looked at Quaeryt.

  “Namer’s spawn!” swore the taller Bovarian.

  “Pharsi bastard!”

  No one had time to say anything else before a squad of Telaryn troopers burst into the kitchen.

  The squad leader glanced to Quaeryt. “Are you all right, sir?”

  “I’m fine.” What else can you say?

  “Tie them up!” snapped the squad leader.

  Quaeryt waited until the two were restrained before walking toward the taller Bovarian. “How did you get in?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  Quaeryt smiled, then image-wrapped a shield around the man’s head, so tightly that the Bovarian couldn’t breathe. “I don’t like assassins. I especially don’t like assassins who threaten to slit the throats of their own people.” As the man struggled, trying to gasp for air, Quaeryt looked to the black-haired woman. “Do you know?”

 
; Her hand shaking, she pointed to a narrow door, slightly ajar. “They must have come up from the cellars. They didn’t come in from the courtyard.”

  “Who let them in there?”

  “The innkeeper, no doubt,” said Skarpa from the archway into the public room. “The men caught him trying to sneak away.”

  Quaeryt turned back to the taller Bovarian, who was turning a dark red, and lifted the shield. “You are a prisoner, and you will be civil.” He image-projected absolute authority, although he had the feeling it was overlaid with rage.

  The man whitened, then crumpled.

  “We were just following orders!” insisted the remaining Bovarian. “We were!”

  Quaeryt didn’t doubt that, either, not from what he’d heard and observed in the last year. He turned to Skarpa. “Perhaps you should have someone talk to these two. You can always summon me if you have to.”

  “In addition to being a good commander, Major Falossn is excellent at interrogation.” Skarpa looked to the troopers. “Make sure those bonds are secure before you remove the knives.”

  The blond girl looked down, then stared at the knives, each pinning a boot and foot to the wide plank floor. What color had remained in her face drained away.

  “If the subcommander hadn’t done that,” Skarpa said mildly. “You’d be dead.”

  The black-haired woman continued to stare at Quaeryt, but said not a word.

  After making certain that the two remaining assassins were on their way to Major Falossn, Skarpa and Quaeryt turned to head back to the public room.

  As he moved to the archway, he caught a few words murmured by the older woman. “… black coney and ancient Pharsi lord … worst of all…”

  Quaeryt managed not to break step.

  Once he and Skarpa were in the public room, Meinyt walked back from the main entrance, where he’d apparently been directing the removal of the dead would-be assassins. He looked at Quaeryt with a half-humorous smile. “I thought so, but you’ve been very careful.”

  “I didn’t have a choice here,” Quaeryt said dryly. Then he laughed ironically. “Actually, if I weren’t so tired, I probably could have misdirected the crossbow bolts, caused them to slip, and various other mishaps to occur.” He took a deep breath. “I was too tired to think straight or do anything else.”