Antiagon Fire (25 page)

“You don’t know how strong the Antiagon defenses are … or how much the local High Holders were paying him in tariffs. You’ve told me how much in golds elveweed brings. What if all the High Holders along the Lohan Hills, from here to the Sud Swamp, have interests in elveweed … and their own armies?”

“There can’t be that many.”

“There could be enough.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Quaeryt asserted. “Kharst raised a huge army against us. Less than ten years ago, he did the same and took over Khel. Surely, he could have lopped off a chunk of Antiago, the part with Kephria in it, and fortified it.”

“Kharst didn’t have many imagers, and Aliaro does. At least, he’s supposed to. The Autarch also has Antiagon Fire. You’ve told me what damage that could have done if it hadn’t have been for you and the imagers. When Kharst attacked Ferravyl, he had no idea that you and the imagers even existed. Have you forgotten that?”

Quaeryt had. He laughed. “I’ve been thinking about what Kharst and his commanders knew after the war started, not before. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“And if the High Holders here were paying higher tariffs…” added Vaelora.

“And other High Holders and marshals wanted lands in Telaryn…” Quaeryt nodded. “I suppose it makes sense in a strange way.”

“Dearest … things are never as direct as one might think.”

Quaeryt smiled. Vaelora might not know all he did about life beyond a capital city or a palace, but she’d seen and heard far more than he had about what went on around a ruler. “I forgot to tell you. We’re going to eat with Skarpa and the regiment commanders and subcommanders in one of the plaques rooms.”

“I thought we might. He hasn’t had much of a chance to sit and talk to any of you.”

“And you,” Quaeryt added.

“If I know you, you’ve been making inquiries. What did you find out?”

“Nothing that pleases me,” he admitted.

“Why don’t you tell me while you wash up?”

Recognizing the gentle double command, he grinned. “As you wish, my lady.”

“I do, indeed…” She smiled. “Later … dearest.”

He began to explain what he had learned.

Before that long, he finished washing up, and they walked down the creaky narrow stairs to the large plaques room, where Skarpa was waiting outside.

“The others are already inside, even Commander Kharllon.”

“Of course,” replied Quaeryt lightly.
He wouldn’t want to slight Vaelora.

“If you would lead the way, Quaeryt, and if you would accompany me, Lady?”

Quaeryt understood. He was junior, but Skarpa could afford neither to place himself above Bhayar’s sister, nor himself below her.

All the regimental commanders stood as Quaeryt entered, followed by Skarpa and Vaelora.

The large circular table was set for eleven, with the three vacant places facing the door. Vaelora sat on Skarpa’s left, with Quaeryt on his right. Kharllon was located beside Vaelora, and Paedn beside Quaeryt.

Once everyone was seated, and the two trooper servers had filled all the goblets, Skarpa raised his and offered the toast. “To our safe arrival in Geusyn and to the effective accomplishment of the tasks ahead.”

“To arrival and accomplishment,” replied Quaeryt, leading the response, then taking but the smallest sip of the wine, a pungent red.

Kharllon turned toward Vaelora, asking, “How have you found the journey so far, Lady?”

“Far easier than riding across Telaryn,” replied Vaelora.

Quaeryt refrained from smiling and turned to Paedn, the older subcommander to his right, as the two troopers began to serve, beginning with Vaelora and Skarpa. “What strikes you about southern Bovaria?”

“It’s poor.”

“What else?”

“It shouldn’t be. Good rivers, good land.” The balding subcommander absently brushed back a wispy lock of blond hair, his fingers not quite twiddling with the stem of a goblet still nearly as full as when it had been poured for the first toast.

“Why do you think that is? That it’s so poor?”

“No one cares. Not the High Holders. Not the rex.”

“Things should get better under Bhayar, then.”

“It takes time. People don’t change. Their children sometimes do.”

While Quaeryt could overhear some of the conversation between Vaelora and Kharllon, who was being politely most solicitous of Lord Bhayar’s sister, he quickly gave up trying to make sense of those phrases, since it was a strain to converse with the clearly laconic Paedn.

“What did you think about a holder’s men attacking that cart?”

“What cart?”

Quaeryt went on to explain.

Paedn nodded when Quaeryt finished, then said, “Elveweed’s more profitable than anything else. The High Holder will only hear your men attacked them. That will make getting allegiance harder.”

“We were supposed to let them get away with it?”

Paedn laughed, just a short soft bark. “No. It just works that way.”

“It’s always that way,” interjected Skarpa from Quaeryt’s left. “Sometimes, the more you try to help people, the more they blame you.”

Paedn nodded.

“The whole matter is disturbing,” Skarpa added. “Either the High Holders don’t have control of their armsmen, or they don’t care about the people around Geusyn. Either way…”

“It’s not good,” said Paedn.

The fowl casserole provided by the River Inn was adequate and filling. The rest of the dinner conversation was pleasant and polite, and Quaeryt learned little more than he’d already learned from previous meetings of the regimental commanders. He was more than ready to go upstairs with Vaelora when the meal was over, but neither spoke until they were alone in their chamber and he had imaged the lamp on the narrow writing table into light.

“What did Kharllon have to say?” asked Quaeryt.

“He was most charming,” replied Vaelora. “He’s intelligent and knowledgeable. I did ask him what he thought of Rholan. He said that Rholan was likely a scoundrel who lacked golds and talent with anything other than words. So he turned to selling faith as a way to make his living.”

“Did you ask him what he thought of scholars, then?”

“I did.” Vaelora grinned. “He said the best were useful, the worst only misguided. I didn’t press him on that. I think he actually believes what he said.”

“Anything else? Of import?”

“He doesn’t much care for Skarpa, but respects his skills. He didn’t say it that way. It was more like, ‘Lord Bhayar needs the best commanders he can find in times like these.’”

“And the implication is that it’s unfortunate, but necessary.”

“Something like that … all unsaid.”

“Did he mention Deucalon or Myskyl?”

“No. He did say your forces would have had a more difficult time fighting your way up the Aluse if the Bovarians had had better marshals. For that, he was most grateful. He also conceded the same was true of the Bovarian leaders the Northern Army faced as well.”

“An interesting way of putting it,” mused Quaeryt.

“He did mention how strange it was that the Bovarians didn’t use cannon against you until you were close to Variana.”

“It only seems strange. Cannon are heavy. They’re hard to transport, and you’ve seen how bad the Bovarian roads are. Kharst doesn’t have much of a fleet, either, so the Bovarians haven’t that many cannoneers with experience. Kharst was saving those to defend Variana.” Quaeryt yawned.

“You’re tired.”

“Not that tired.”

“You…” Vaelora shook her head.

“A man who has a beautiful and loving wife likes to appreciate her.”

“You’ve made that quite clear … dearest.” But she did smile … warmly.

23

On Mardi morning Quaeryt rode south from Geusyn with Skarpa and the first battalion from Third Regiment. The two imager undercaptains who rode behind them and in front of the first squad of rankers were Voltyr and Threkhyl. Quaeryt had left the others in the town to practice imaging skills, but he wanted the two he planned to leave with Skarpa to see as much of the area as possible before he and the other imager undercaptains departed.

After seeing the dark circles under Vaelora’s eyes that morning, he’d also insisted that she remain at the inn and rest. The fact that she hadn’t protested showed how tired she was … and that worried Quaeryt.
And you shouldn’t have kept her up so late.
He winced at that thought and concentrated on studying the road and the terrain.

The road south from the town hugged the eastern shore of the river, close enough that Quaeryt could see the narrow towpath used to pull the flatboat ferries back to Geusyn. For the first mille or so, he saw no ferries, but several hundred yards later, they did pass a smaller craft drawn up on a mud flat adjoining the towpath. Two men were working on what Quaeryt thought was the tiller post. Neither looked up.

After riding another mille Quaeryt could see gray stone walls ahead, stretching for a good mille from the water’s edge to a rocky hill and partway up the hill. Across the river to the west, almost a mille away, there was a raised area, surrounded by reeds and swamp, on which perched an odd assortment of buildings and roofs. Below them was a harbor, but Quaeryt could only see two merchanters, both sloop-rigged, suggesting coastal traders … and no sign of either the
Montagne
or the
Solis.
Just ahead was a set of piers, most likely where ferries unloaded on the return trip from Ephra. A packed clay ramp led from the end of each empty pier up to the road.

“Battalion! Halt!” ordered Skarpa.

Quaeryt could see why. South of where they had halted the road turned into a narrow rutted track that looked not to have been traveled in years, although the lower growth flanking the track showed that at one time the road had been used more.

“Well … what do you think?” asked Skarpa, turning in the saddle toward Quaeryt.

“The walls ahead look to be some ten yards high, if not more, and solid. The Antiagons have fortifications back into the hills as far as I can see.”

“None of this makes sense.” Skarpa shook his head. “There’s never been a border wall you couldn’t march far enough to get around, except on an island. I can’t believe that wall extends all the way to the Sud Swamp. That’s some five hundred miles.”

“The ground isn’t that level, and it’s heavily wooded, at least near here. Do you want to cut a road more than a mille through it?”

“Isn’t that what imagers are for?” Skarpa grinned.

“Of course,” replied Quaeryt, “but Bovaria’s never had that many imagers.”

“Still…” Skarpa gestured to the west. “Ephra’s an island of solid land in the middle of a swamp. Why did the Bovarians build Ephra on the west side?”

“Where else could they have built it with access to the ocean that they wouldn’t have to worry about Antiago?” asked Quaeryt.

“But they have to get back upstream, some as far north as Laaryn.”

“Most of them don’t get back that way. They load the goods on ships at Ephra and sell the flatboats for lumber. Then they take the ferry to the east side, where they buy some horses. There are more than a few stables in Geusyn. They ride back north with small high value goods … probably in groups for safety.” Quaeryt gestured back upstream. “The piers down there are pretty solid, and the road toward Geusyn has been well traveled.”

“Do you really want to image a bridge across the river to Ephra?” asked Skarpa.

“I’m not sure that we could. You’d need a lot of piers, and trying to image them into water would be hard. If the river bottom is all mud, they’d just sink and keep on sinking. Ephra might be on solid ground and so is Kephria, but the channel between is pretty deep, and more than a mille wide. Besides, even if we could image that massive a bridge, we’d have to take Kephria to get that close to Ephra.”

“And I take it you don’t want to start another war right now.”

“I wouldn’t want to think about that, not until matters with Khel are settled.”
One way or the other.

“You’d think about it … if it’s necessary. So would Bhayar,” said Skarpa.

“Any strong ruler considers everything,” temporized Quaeryt.

“Don’t see any sign of large ships over there, either.”

“No. They might be holding offshore, though. I’ll have to take a ferry later today and see if they already arrived and moved offshore. If I were captain of the
Montagne,
I wouldn’t want to be anchored for long that close to Kephria. Then, they might not have arrived yet.”

“I’d wager on that.”

“So would I, but I still need to find out.” Quaeryt gestured toward the walls ahead of them to the south. “Do you want to ride farther and get a better look at Aliaro’s defenses?”

“We might as well, but we need to be careful. I can’t believe that they don’t have cannon. Catapults with Antiagon Fire, too. No sign of either, though.” Skarpa raised his arm, then ordered, “Forward!”

Over the next quint, Quaeryt kept an eye out, looking for gouges in the ground, broken trees or limbs, or other signs of cannon having been fired, but even when Skarpa called a halt, what had been a road had become an overgrown wilderness, and Quaeryt had to strain to see such signs—and they were years old.

“No one’s even tried to come through here,” snorted Skarpa after they’d reined up a good three hundred yards short of the walls, where the underbrush effectively made the road impassable. “Not in years. Hard to believe.”

“Kharst didn’t want to deal with the walls. He attacked Aliaro the way the Bovarians prefer. He came down the river, probably in darkness, and used imagers to set fire to the port. That way, all he lost was the force that set the fire.”
And got rid of the imagers as well, no doubt.

“Be a struggle to bring cannon down here, too,” said Skarpa.

“If you have to deal with Aliaro, it might just be easier to have Threkhyl punch a big gap in the walls here.”

“It might at that. Don’t know as it will come to that, though. Those walls would show that Aliaro just wants to be left alone.”

“So long as he can control the Gulf and the ports here,” replied Quaeryt. “I can see why Kharst wanted Ferravyl, though. And Khel.”

“His factors and traders couldn’t cart goods from Bovaria across the hills and the western coastal mountains to ship from places like Eshtora and Ouestan.”