Antiagon Fire (10 page)

“The furnishings are adequate, and the bed is wide enough for two. There is a small space barely a yard square in the corner of the bedchamber for bathing.”

Had Vaelora’s glance at Quaeryt been a quarrel, he would have perished on the spot. Instead, he grinned. “My dear … it matters little, since the accommodations are what we have and are far better than most we have endured in past travels.” He paused just slightly before adding, “But they look to be quite comfortable. I did make sure that there were enough quilts and blankets.”

“I’m sure
you
will need them.” Vaelora sniffed.

Two quints later, Quaeryt and Vaelora rode past the squad serving as the vanguard and reined up at the lower pier where the canal boat was tied up.

“It’s gorgeous.” Vaelora looked at Quaeryt accusingly.

The canal boat was indeed striking, with a well-oiled and glistening oak hull and superstructure. The main cabin structure occupied fifteen yards, perhaps slightly more, with the flat roof of the cabin rising less than two yards above what would have been the main deck, if the forward deck had extended from stem to stern. The short front crew deck extended less than three yards from the rounded bow to where the main cabin began, and the steering deck aft of the cabin was closer to a yard and a half in length.

Quaeryt dismounted, handing the mare’s reins to one of the rankers, and then stepped back to Vaelora’s mount, holding out a hand for her to dismount. “Lord Bhayar’s orders,” he said solemnly, before grinning.

Vaelora shook her head in a short gesture, but she did take Quaeryt’s hand as she dismounted.

Quaeryt escorted her to their transportation and quarters for the next weeks. On the starboard side of the canal boat, some seven yards aft of the stem, was a set of narrow doors, swung open to reveal a set of steps down into the main cabin. At the bottom of the steps, to the right, or forward, was another narrow pocket door, leading into the cabin that was the bedchamber.

Vaelora moved carefully down the narrow steps and into the sleeping cabin, taking in the paneled walls and the built-in bed, with the headboard against the bulkhead set between the two narrow and angled windows. Beneath the windows were built-in cabinets.

“For travel, this is well appointed,” Vaelora said. “There’s little space for clothing, though.”

“There are large drawers under the bed,” replied Quaeryt.
They likely won’t hold everything you brought, though.
“Let’s move into the salon, so the rankers can carry our gear into the sleeping cabin.” He stepped back out of the smaller cabin, almost tripping as the boot heel of his bad left leg caught the edge of the bottom step. He caught himself smoothly and pivoted into the salon.

The salon was paneled in goldenwood, and had wide windows that could be blocked by folding shutters, but those windows only began at what would have been the deck level. A small writing desk stood in the starboard aft corner, with a lamp on a brass mount above it. A space slightly starboard of the middle of the salon was occupied by a narrow oblong goldenwood table with chairs for eight, clearly more for officials or officers to meet than for regular dining. In the forward port corner was a comfortable armchair, with a pair of lamps above it. A second armchair was set next to and aft of the first.

“Everything’s aboard, sir,” announced the squad leader from the salon entry.

“If you’d tell Major Zhelan to give the word to the boatman to get under way.”

“Yes, sir.”

As the squad leader vaulted up the steps, Vaelora turned to Quaeryt. “What will you do now?”

“Sit with you and watch the canal go by for half a glass—until we join up with Skarpa and the regiments.”

9

The next four days were uneventful, with cool but not immoderate weather, and no rain and no problems with the canal or the towpath. Quaeryt had just dressed and finished eating an overcooked cheese omelet and bread with bitter peach preserves on Vendrei morning, perhaps two quints before the army and the canal boat were due to head out, when someone rapped on the side door of the boat.

“That doesn’t sound good.” Across from him at the narrow table in the salon, Vaelora lowered her mug of tea, tea that was lukewarm at best, Quaeryt knew.

He just shook his head, stood and walked across the salon and up the narrow steps, then pushed open the doors and stepped out onto the stone coping on the top of the canal wall. The vertical gap between the boat deck and the coping seemed larger than the night before.

Zhelan stood waiting. “I’m sorry to bother you, sir. The submarshal’s scouts have reported a breach in the canal some five milles ahead. The canal’s dry there, and the boats from the west are all backed up at the next locks. Those are at Eluthyn…”

Quaeryt nodded, then glanced at the hazy early morning sky. He saw no sign of rain. He looked to the west and the water level in the canal in front of the boat. While it was lower, the canal was not empty. Still, if they couldn’t fix the breach, he supposed that they didn’t have to take the canal boat to get to Khelgror. He’d rather not do that, because Vaelora would have to ride a great deal more, especially on the way back.

“The local canalman managed to close one of the emergency gates near the east end of the breach,” Zhelan went on, “and the lock at Eluthyn keeps the water from there from draining, but there are more than twenty boats lined up to the west, bringing harvest grain to Variana. Submarshal Skarpa says that all the boats on the canal will be stopped before long.”

Quaeryt took a deep breath. “That’s all we need … people short of bread just at the beginning of winter.”
And Bhayar won’t be happy if he finds out you didn’t solve the problem.
“Are the imagers ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’d like to bring Alazyn’s engineer as well. He might be able to help in telling us how best we can repair the breach. How did it happen?”

“Heavy rains four days ago, the canalman said, but the berm side of the canal didn’t give way until yesterday.”

“I can be with you in a quint or so.”

“You don’t need to hurry that much, sir. It’ll take longer than that before everyone’s ready to mount up.”

Quaeryt had another thought, one he should have had first. “I’ll need to meet with the submarshal before we head out.”

“I thought you might, sir. He said he’d be here in a few moments.”

Quaeryt didn’t have to wait long for the submarshal. Skarpa arrived within moments of the time that Zhelan had left to inform the undercaptains and engineers.

“You know I’d hoped we could reach Eluthyn by last night,” began Skarpa.

“I know, but it was better to stop than settling nine regiments on the town in darkness.”

Skarpa cleared his throat. “With all the delay … it might be best to march ahead today to Eluthyn. It’s only seven miles. That way we’d have more time to arrange for supplies and quarters. It would also give the mounts and men at least a day’s rest…”

Quaeryt grinned. “You scarcely need my approval for that. Except you’re suggesting that Eleventh and Nineteenth Regiments accompany Southern Army as well.”

“It would rest them more as well.”

“By all means. First company and Vaelora and I will have to stay with the boats, though, and I’ll need the imager undercaptains and the engineers to deal with the breach in the canal.”

“I’m not comfortable with just one company. I’d thought to have two companies from my forces remain here as well.”

Almost half a glass passed before Quaeryt, the imagers, first company, and Captain Neusyn from the Nineteenth Regiment engineers rode west, leaving the regiments, the canal boats—and Vaelora—temporarily behind.

It was well past eighth glass when Quaeryt and Neusyn reined up and dismounted on the towpath on the north side of the empty canal, a good five hundred yards east of the leaking emergency water gates, and several hundred yards from the nearest canal post building.

Quaeryt looked at the south side of the canal, the so-called berm side, where the stone walls were backed by the spoil dug from the canal itself. The stone blocks had collapsed into a rough heap. He turned to Captain Neusyn. “Didn’t something besides rain have to cause this?”

“Almost looks like someone blasted the underburden away, so that the water leached out and eroded the support under the lowest course of stones until they collapsed.” Neusyn frowned. “But that … I need to look at it more closely.”

Quaeryt looked skeptically at the muddy bottom of the canal.

“Better to cross through the mud,” said Neusyn. “I wouldn’t want to walk across that emergency gate.” He gestured vaguely with the iron-tipped staff he carried. “It’s barely holding, and if it goes, the water will widen the breach and drain more of the canal.”

Quaeryt could see that, but he didn’t like it. He and the engineer had to walk almost a hundred yards farther west until they reached a set of stone steps that allowed a short jump down to the mud of the canal bottom. Quaeryt’s boots sank into the mud not quite to midcalf, and dark globs of mud sprayed up onto his trousers. He wasn’t terribly happy as he made his way through the mud after the engineer, trying not to spray more of the smelly mud on himself.

Once Neusyn reached the far side of the canal, he stopped short of the hole in the bottom of the canal that extended to the south and all the way through where the stone walls and the stone and earth berm beyond had been. There, only a long pile of cut stones lay toppled and half buried in muck and mud. After studying the toppled stones for several moments, the engineer captain walked around the stones, prodding them and the area around them with the iron-tipped staff. He shook his head as the staff revealed a length of bone, then another.

“The stories were true, it would seem,” said Quaeryt. “That looks like a human bone.”

“There are others over there at the other side of the gap … just short of where the wall is sagging,” said Neusyn.

Quaeryt looked in the direction the staff pointed. He couldn’t be certain, but he thought there were enough bones there to account for several bodies.

“The clay preserved them for a time,” added the engineer. “But bad engineering tells in the end.”

“What was so bad about it?” asked Quaeryt.

“Do you see these white chalky flakes and grains?”

The white fragments that Neusyn pointed out obviously meant something, but what that might be Quaeryt had no idea. So he just nodded.

“They’re gypsum.”

That didn’t explain any more to Quaeryt. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“It dissolves when there’s a lot of water around it. When they built the canal, after they laid the stone walls and mortared the stones in place, they sealed the bottom of the canal itself with clay. That’s usually enough to keep seepage to a minimum, but if anything happens…”

“The rain couldn’t have done that in a few days, then?”

“No. It’s been sinking for years. You can see the way the canal walls have sunk. Might have been the runoff from the berm funneled down there, or maybe even rodent holes…”

Quaeryt looked at the stone courses. From what he could see, the stones had sagged in various ways for more than fifty yards on each side of the gap in the wall and berm.

“… wouldn’t be that obvious with water in the canal, but now…”

“So … what will it take to put it right?” asked Quaeryt.

“The footings under the stone courses need to be replaced, with solid stone, if we can find any. The part of the canal bottom that’s been eroded needs to be replaced with solid fill, with at least half a yard of good clay on the top, and then the stones reset and mortared. A good half yard of clay on the outside of the south wall, and the same on the bottom of the canal where it’s been washed away. Stone rip-rap or backing on the outside before the berm is replaced…”

“All right. Let’s go back. You explain that carefully to the imagers, and we’ll get to work.”

“Can they…?”

“That’s what they’re here for. This can’t be any harder than what they’ve done before, and they’ll be doing it without having an enemy attack them while they’re working.”

As the two waded through the mud to the north side of the canal and then climbed up to the towpath, Quaeryt couldn’t help but think about the bodies buried under the walls.
But you’ve killed far more men than this canal did … and for what?
He didn’t have an answer to his own question … only a hope that the deaths might lead to a more peaceful and united Lydar.
Does that hope justify what you’ve done?

Quaeryt pushed those questions into the back of his mind and gathered the undercaptains, listening as the engineer had explained what was necessary.

Then Quaeryt turned to the imagers. “Horan … image those stones in the breach, the pile of muddy ones in that hole in the bottom of the canal, onto the berm. That’s the flat raised part beyond the wall. Put the stones, say, fifty yards west of the westernmost part of the breach.”

“Yes, sir.”

Once those stones had been moved, Quaeryt turned to Desyrk. “If you would begin to image away the muck in the breach, in small amounts so that no load tires you too much.”

Desyrk nodded, then began to concentrate. Bit by bit, the muck began to vanish. After less than a quint, the first riders of the Southern Army began to ride past, along the towpath and the ground to the north of the canal.

After a quint Quaeryt said, “You stop for now. Smaethyl, you take over with the muck.”

As he could, Quaeryt alternated between imagers, but it was past the first glass of the afternoon before they finished cleaning out the breach. By then Skarpa’s forces and Quaeryt’s two regiments had all passed and were, Quaeryt hoped, settling into Eluthyn.

When he was satisfied with the cleanup and removal, Quaeryt summoned the engineer.

Neusyn looked at the gaping gash where, two glasses before, there had been a breach, uneven courses of stone, toppled stones and muck. “That would have taken at least several days with all my men.”

“Imagers do offer some advantages.” Quaeryt glanced over at the undercaptains, all of them sweating somewhat despite the cool breeze out of the northwest, then at the gash. After several moments, he turned to the engineer. “You need a stone footing, don’t you?”