Behind them, the advance slowed.
“They’ll go to the sides and through the swamp,” Drakeyt predicted.
After several moments, individual riders, then squads began to leave the old concealed causeway and make their way through the marsh and pooled stagnant water.
Rahl swallowed as the ugly snout of a small stun-lizard appeared. The nearest rider and mount toppled sideways. Rahl could sense other creatures as well, although he could not see them, all moving through the waters toward the troopers trapped on the road, as well as those trying to continue the attack.
One rebel squad had figured that swimming their mounts through the clearer water might be safer, and that group was already within a few hundred cubits of solid ground. “Over there!” Rahl pointed to Drakeyt.
“First squad! Take the rebels swimming their mounts on the south side!”
“First squad! Forward!” ordered Roryt.
The troopers took station less than fifty cubits from the edge of the swampy area, waiting for the rebels to break free of the water and treacherous ground. Roryt obviously didn’t want to lose men to the swamp, a decision Rahl thought most wise, especially after seeing the stun-lizards.
The first group of three rebels saw the waiting Imperials and tried to angle their way southwest—back toward the rebel forces. None of them made it.
Another pair tried to swim their mounts farther away from first squad, but one rider and his mount vanished, and the survivor and his mount lurched out and were picked off by one of Roryt’s troopers.
Even so, Rahl could see scores of riders in the water, far more than the creatures and muck of the swamp would be able to stop.
“We’ve got heavy infantry breaking our way from the main rebel force,” Drakeyt said. “You take first and fifth squads and hold the ones coming out of the swamp. We’ll cover your back.”
Rahl glanced at the swamp, then toward the rebel forces riding northward from the main body of the insurgents. “You’d better take everyone except first squad.”
“I’ll accept that recommendation.” Drakeyt’s voice was dry. “Second, third, fourth, and fifth squads. Wheel to the south! On me!”
Rahl turned the gelding toward the section of the swamp to the north of where the ancient road emerged. Before he had ridden fifty cubits, eight troopers from first squad had joined him.
“We’ll get ’em, ser!”
They had their sabres out, and, belatedly, Rahl drew the truncheon. In some fashion, for a moment, it caught and twisted the light, and it almost seemed as though a spear of darkness flashed from it toward the rebel trooper struggling to get his mount clear of the swamp.
The trooper spurred his mount forward, trying to escape Rahl, but a clump of thornvine blocked the rebel’s way, and he wheeled his mount back toward Rahl, swinging his sabre wildly. Rahl disarmed him with a single blow, then dropped him out of the saddle with a second stroke.
After that, Rahl just found himself trying to disarm or incapacitate any rebel around. He knew there were other troopers from fifth squad around him, somewhere, but none even seemed to get close enough for him to verify that, and it was all he could do, it seemed, just to hold his own against the seemingly endless number of rebels riding out of the swamp.
Sometime around late midmorning—that was what Rahl thought—another set of trumpet calls echoed from somewhere, and there were even more rebels, coming from everywhere.
Rahl managed to call up a last bit of order and give some infusion to the truncheon as he thrust, parried, cut, and just plain slashed.
Then came yet another trumpet call, this one sounding almost panicky, and in moments, or so it seemed, Rahl was sagging in the saddle, alone. He looked around and found himself less than fifty cubits from the edge of the swamp, but somewhat farther southwest along its edge than where he had attacked the first rebel.
Everywhere there were bodies of troopers—mostly rebel troopers—and some were alive, moaning.
Rahl just sat there in the saddle, his sight blurred with sparks and longer flashes of pain searing through his eyes, and most of his muscles aching and so exhausted he felt like he had a hard time breathing.
“Majer…ser?”
He turned in the saddle. The trooper who had reined up wore the sash of a courier. “Yes?”
“The overcommander requests your presence, ser. If you’d follow me…”
Rahl could sense almost nothing in terms of order or chaos, but there was a reserve in the trooper’s voice. “Oh…of course.”
He urged the gelding forward beside the courier’s mount and rode slowly westward toward where the center of the battle must have been. There was no sign of any rebels, except those lying on the ground, mostly dead or dying, around which the gelding picked his way. The light breeze carried the iron-copper odor of blood everywhere. Even swallowing the last drops from his water bottle did not remove the taste from his mouth.
What had happened? He glanced at the courier, who did not quite meet his eyes. “We were isolated. All of a sudden, the rebels were scrambling to get away.”
“You didn’t see, ser?”
“No. Third Company was fighting off a bunch of rebel attacks. I didn’t have time to look anywhere.”
“The captain said…” The courier did not finish his statement.
“Is he all right? I didn’t see him. Captain Drakeyt, I mean.”
“He had a few gashes, ser. He said he’d be fine.”
“What happened?”
“It was all planned. When all the rebels were pushing us back toward the town, Marshal Bynra and First Army hit them from behind. He came around on that old back road. We had the rebels trapped on all sides. Not all that many escaped.”
Rahl glanced across the grassland battlefield, seeing as if for the first time all the downed men and mounts, and knowing, as order-depleted as he was, that he was sensing but a fraction of the devastation. Yet it threatened to overwhelm him. He closed his eyes for a moment, but that didn’t help.
As he followed the courier, another question crossed Rahl’s mind. Why had he seen no chaos-bolts, and no evidence of chaos use by the rebels? The only magery he had seen or sensed had been that used by Taryl and himself.
“There’s the overcommander, ser,” offered the courier. “If you’d excuse me…there are some dispatches.”
“You’re excused…and thank you.”
The courier nodded and eased his mount away, as if in relief.
What had Rahl done? Had he failed that badly? Did everyone know it? He looked up.
Taryl was still a good fifty cubits from Rahl, but he said something to the senior officers beside him, then rode away from them, slowly making his way toward Rahl, finally reining up.
Rahl did so as well. “You requested my presence, ser?”
“I’m glad to see that you came through this.” A faintly ironic smile touched Taryl’s lips.
Rahl could see the blackness under the older mage’s eyes, eyes that were so bloodshot that they looked pink. “So am I, ser. Things were…somewhat in doubt where we were for some time.”
“That was true for all of Second Army. You and Third Company did remarkably well. We’ll discuss things tomorrow, after you’ve had some rest. Convey my appreciation to Captain Drakeyt. You have mine as well.” Each of Taryl’s words was slow and almost deliberate.
“Yes, ser. I will. Thank you.” Rahl realized that Taryl was as exhausted as he was, if not more so.
“Get some rest, Rahl.”
“Yes, ser. Perhaps…you should too, ser, as you can.”
Taryl nodded, then turned his mount back toward the senior officers.
Rahl began to ride back toward Third Company, Taryl’s words still going slowly through his mind. Remarkably well? They’d bottled up an entire battalion and destroyed most of it, and all Taryl had to say was that they’d done remarkably well? Hard as it was for him even to keep his eyes open, Rahl had the feeling that, again, he had not acted as he should have�
��or perhaps that he had acted as Taryl expected, and that had disappointed the older mage.
Rahl turned and rode back to where he thought Third Company had been, looking one way and another before he finally made out Drakeyt, watching as troopers from Third Company recovered weapons and gear and checked for wounded amid the fallen and the dead.
The captain glanced up as Rahl reined the gelding to a halt.
“The overcommander summoned me,” Rahl began. “He asked me to convey his thanks and appreciation for all that you and Third Company did. He said you did remarkably well.”
“His thanks and appreciation…We lost another twenty-five men,” Drakeyt said slowly. “Seven of them were in first squad. One of them was Roryt. He was a fine squad leader.”
“I’m sorry. I did…what I could.” What else could Rahl say? He’d used all the order-skills he’d had long before the battle was over, and they’d helped, but they hadn’t been enough.
“What you could?” Drakeyt laughed, a sound that was cold and bitter.
Rahl wanted to shrink away.
“You don’t know, do you, Majer?”
“Know what?” Rahl could feel the flatness in his voice.
“You and first squad—mostly you—broke a battalion. I sent a trooper out to count. Around where you were fighting, there were fifty men down. Fifty. Some are still alive. None of them will ever fight again. You can see it in their eyes. At the end, rebels were turning and riding back into the swamp.”
“Why?” Rahl didn’t understand. He just knew he was almost ready to fall out of the saddle, and everything hurt. He’d been lucky because the rebels hadn’t been able to attack all at once. He’d just picked them off in ones and twos while they were trying to recover from swimming through the swamp.
“Majer…” Drakeyt’s voice softened. “You need some rest and some food. You’ve done enough.”
“Third Company did it,” Rahl said. “I didn’t know what was going on or who was coming from where. I just tried to disable as many rebels as I could.” Fifty? That didn’t seem possible. Not with a truncheon, even the one Khelra had made. “I just helped the squad as well as I could.” It probably hadn’t been enough, but the battle had told him one thing—he didn’t have enough experience.
“Sylarn!” Drakeyt called out. “The majer’s about to fall out of his saddle. He could use an escort to the bivouac area—we’ve got that end cottage.”
“Yes, ser.” The trooper who rode up was thin and wiry, and blood was splashed across his lower sleeves.
Rahl looked down. There was blood everywhere on him.
“Ser…this way.”
Rahl turned the gelding.
LXI
Gray light seeped under Rahl’s eyelids. That was the way it felt. He was lying on his back, and everything hurt. His head still ached, and there were flashes across his eyes, but they only stung rather than knifed into his skull. Yet he had the feeling that, if he opened his eyes and moved, all those aches and pains would get much worse.
At the same time, he did need to get up—for all too many reasons.
Slowly, he opened his eyes. The pain flashes across his eyes intensified, but not by as much as he feared. He was lying near the stone wall, his bedroll on a pallet. The morning light told him that he had slept for most of the afternoon after the battle and through the night. No wonder he was sore.
Rahl didn’t remember laying out his bedroll on the floor of the small cot. In fact, he didn’t remember much at all after turning to follow the trooper away from the carnage of the battle.
There were voices outside, low voices, and he began to listen.
“…you want to wake him?”
“…commander told the captain, and he told you…”
“…doesn’t matter…scared the living sowshit outa me, and I knew he was on our side…closest thing I ever saw to a black demon, closest I ever want to see…”
“Squad leader said he killed more ’n sixty…”
“Rebs were throwing themselves into the swamp…couple of them won’t ever think right again…”
Rahl swallowed. He’d done that? He couldn’t have done that. He didn’t even know how to do something like that. He started to shake his head, and a lance of pain slammed from his eyes through the back of his skull. His eyes watered so much that he could not see for several moments. Then, ever so slowly, he rolled onto his side. After a long pause, he levered himself up and staggered to a stool, next to a table. On the table was a clay mug, and it had ale in it. Beside it was a small oval loaf of bread.
Rahl forced himself to study the ale and bread with his order-senses. Both were good, and he needed no more encouragement to take a swallow of the ale and break off a corner of the stale bread. It still tasted welcome.
He’d eaten all the bread and drunk most of the ale when a trooper rapped on the side of the door and stepped into the cot. “Ser?”
“I’m awake.” Rahl smiled. “I think.”
“The overcommander would like to see you, Majer, at your convenience. He’s at the first big barn to the west of here.”
At his convenience? Either Rahl had acquitted himself far worse than he thought, or Taryl was feeling more generous than he had after the battle. Rahl could only hope that it was the latter. “It will be a few moments. Thank you.”
It was probably more than a few moments before he found a bucket of water and cleaned up as well as he could, including sponging off as much of the blood as he could from his uniform, then trying to blot his sleeves and trousers half-dry.
The gelding was tied outside, but had clearly been brushed and saddled for him. He looked around, seeing two troopers—from fifth squad, he thought. “If you two are the ones who took care of my mount, I’d like to thank you. If not, please pass my thanks to whoever did.”
“Ah…yes, ser.”
“Thank you. Could one of you tell Captain Drakeyt that I’ve been summoned by the overcommander and that I’ll be back as soon as I can?”
“Yes, ser.”
“Thank you.” Rahl managed not to wince as he swung up into the saddle.
As he rode slowly away from the cot and the two troopers, he couldn’t resist using what little order-strength had returned to catch what they were saying.
“…just be glad he’s on our side…”
“Where did he come from?”
“Word is that he was a laborer in Luba ’cause he offended some powerful mage-guard who took all his memories. The majer got ’em back, and now he’ll tear down every stone in Nubyat to set things right ’cause that mage-guard is one of Golyat’s mages…”
“Might, too, if he keeps on like yesterday…”
Even as he smiled at the fanciful tale, Rahl wanted to yell out in protest that it wasn’t true, not even in poetic terms. Yet he feared that disavowing it would only result in the troopers’ coming up with something even more fantastic.
There were more than a few mounts tied around the large barn, as well as most of the army’s supply wagons, or so it seemed. Rahl finally ended up tying the gelding to a fence post nearby. Then he walked into the barn. Rows and rows of injured men lay on pallets.
Rahl almost staggered at the amount of collective wound chaos. He glanced around. He ought to do something, but there were so many wounded…so many.
Finally, he moved toward a group of lancers who seemed to have thrust injuries of some sorts. None were looking his way, not until he appeared.
Rahl let his senses range over the first man, who had taken a lance through a shoulder, or so it seemed. There was a pocket of wound chaos deep inside, but it was not large. “Hold still, trooper.”
The trooper looked up, his eyes widening.
Rahl let what order he could neutralize the wound chaos, then moved to the next man. His entire insides were reddish white. Rahl managed to keep his face pleasant, but there was no way he could do anything. The injuries and chaos were even worse than those of the sailor whose lungs had been steam-burned in Nyla
n. All Rahl did was project warmth and comfort. “Take care.”
He managed to help, he thought, five men before he began to get extremely light-headed, and he turned away, looking to find Taryl.
“What were you doing there? Do you have—”
As Rahl turned to face the undercaptain, the young officer stepped back. “I’m sorry, ser.”
“I was just trying to help some of them,” Rahl said. “I was summoned by the overcommander.”
“Yes, ser.” The undercaptain eased back from Rahl. “He’s down there.”
“Thank you.” Rahl stepped away. Again, he could hear murmurs, but whether they were from the wounded or from some of the officers who had joined the undercaptain, he couldn’t tell.
“…one they’re calling the black demon…”
“…seems young for a majer…”
“…not when you see his eyes…”
His eyes? Was there something wrong with them? Rahl frowned, but kept walking toward the half-open plank door pointed out by the undercaptain.
Taryl was in a small room Rahl guessed might once have been a tack room. The overcommander was standing over a makeshift plank table on which were spread maps.
“Ser? You said to see you today.”
“Greetings, Rahl.”
Rahl could see the deep black pits under Taryl’s bloodshot eyes. “Begging your pardon, ser, but did you get any rest?”
“Some, not enough. There’s never enough time.” Taryl coughed, then took a sip from the mug on the side of the plank table. “There are all the wounded, too.”
“I know. I did what I could for some of them. When I’m stronger, I’ll try more.”
“That’s commendable, but don’t exhaust yourself. You’ll need to be at full strength in the eightdays ahead.” Taryl shook his head. “I might seem cold, but healing won’t do much for dealing with Golyat, and that’s where we—and you—have to put most of our efforts.”
Rahl understood that. He didn’t have to like it.
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