Imager’s Battalion (64 page)

Another volley, smaller than the first, ripped in the direction of Fifth Battalion. Quaeryt felt no impacts on his shields. He kept imaging darts. So did the other imagers, especially Voltyr, but that was one reason why Quaeryt had kept one of the stronger imagers fresh.

There were only a few musketeers who fired a third volley, and there was no fourth volley. Quaeryt saw some Bovarians crawling or scuttling back into the thick forest.

“Shaelyt! Image pepper and smoke across the whole area where the musketeers were.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Major Zhelan, forward!”

Zhelan moved up beside Quaeryt. “Sir?”

“We need to send a message back to the commander, telling him what happened and warning him that there might be a musketeer or two left.”

“You don’t want to send troopers in to clean them out?” Zhelan’s voice was level.

“I think we’ve put them to rout, and I’m not inclined to send troopers across uneven ground, maybe even with swampy spots, not to mention a wide ditch just to have them try to catch a few Bovarians in a thick forest that doesn’t look friendly to horses.” Quaeryt looked at Zhelan. “If I’m wrong, please tell me. I value your judgment.”

“Sir … you have to make the decision … but you wouldn’t catch many.” Zhelan paused. “You were busy, sir, but whatever you did at the beginning killed about half of them, ripped off arms and the like.”

Quaeryt winced. He had heard screams, but he’d only meant to remove the musketeers’ camouflage. “I didn’t realize.”

“That’s why any troopers might not find much.”

“We’ll leave it that way, but the commander needs to know.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it … and we can send out the scouts now.”

That was another thing Quaeryt had forgotten.

As he looked southward at the gash in the trees, Quaeryt swallowed again. He hadn’t done that kind of imaging before … and with any new imaging … there were often costs.
That one … you just didn’t expect.

He kept riding, looking for other ambush spots, although he doubted there would be another too close. Still …

69

That evening, after the three regiments and Fifth Battalion were settled in for the night in a small town that the locals called Byun, and the map showed as Reyks, Quaeryt had just finished a short session with the new imagers when Skarpa rode up. Quaeryt and the commander ended up on a small porch of a dwelling less than fifty yards from the south bank of the River Aluse.

“How are your imagers coming?” asked Skarpa.

“Each day, most of them are getting stronger, even Baelthm, not that he’ll ever have much strength. Some of the younger ones show great promise…” After reporting on the rest of Fifth Battalion, Quaeryt asked, “Is there anything else I should know?”

“We haven’t heard from the marshal since this morning’s dispatch. He was still about a half day behind us on Lundi. His scouts reported a regiment moving westward toward Variana. The Bovarians spurred their mounts and even made their foot trot to avoid Myskyl’s vanguard.”

“Have they experienced any musketeers?”

Skarpa frowned. “Come to think of it, I don’t think they’ve encountered any musket fire.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as strange?”

“It tells me that the Bovarians are targeting you and the imagers.”

“How did they know early enough to get the musketeers into position? Moving all those stands, the camouflage, the powder, the muskets—that’s not nearly so easy as moving a mounted company.”

“They must have spies.”

“Of some sort,” said Quaeryt blandly.

“You’d best leave it at that, right now, unless there’s proof,” cautioned Skarpa.

“I intend to, but I’ll keep it in mind.” Quaeryt paused. “There’s one other thing … cannon.”

“You mean that we haven’t seen any? We might at Variana or closer to it.”

“Why not now?”

“I’d guess that they don’t have that many, and most were probably around Ephra. They’re Namer-fired heavy. Muskets are easier to move, and you can get a more rapid fire from them.” Skarpa shrugged. “Those’d be my thoughts.”

Quaeryt still wondered. “Is there anything you have in mind for us tomorrow?”

“I still want Fifth Battalion in the van.” Skarpa stretched, then glanced toward his horse, tied to a sturdy, if slightly angled post just beside the path to the cot.

“We’ll be there.”

“Good.” The commander turned and made his way off the narrow porch, pausing beside the post, his eyes going to the River Aluse. “Don’t see why they build so close to the water.”

“They don’t have to drag a boat too far or carry water for hundreds of yards,” replied Quaeryt. “That gets tiring after a while. Besides, the land’s so flat here that they’d likely get flooded even if they were hundreds of yards away.”

Skarpa looked toward into the rapidly purpling eastern sky, where the three-quarters-full disc of Erion hung well above the trees in the distance. The smaller moon’s shade was more like amber, but would turn its usual reddish tint once the sky darkened. “Might just be full when we reach Variana.” Then he looked to Quaeryt. “How did you know the musketeers were there?”

“I didn’t,” Quaeryt admitted. “I just knew that every time that there’s been a perfect place for an ambush by musketeers in the past few weeks … there has been. So when I saw all those trees and all that flat land and, most likely, a place where we couldn’t charge them without scores of horses breaking their legs, I thought it was more than likely.”

Skarpa nodded. “Said you’d make a good commander.”

“Only because I’m an imager.”

The commander shook his head. “Every man has his strengths. The best know how to use them. The worst don’t know what they are. It’s the ability to use your strengths that makes you a good officer.”

Quaeryt couldn’t help but think about all the small details he hadn’t known. “Is that why you assigned Zhelan?”

Skarpa laughed. “I didn’t assign him. Myskyl did. He’s feared you ever since Rescalyn’s death. So he gave you a senior junior officer who knew squad-level combat, procedures, and discipline and not much more. He hoped the two of you would bungle things. He didn’t understand that Zhelan knew what you didn’t. You’ve both learned from each other, and he could command a battalion now.”

“He already does,” said Quaeryt dryly.
Some of the time, if not more.

Skarpa shook his head. “You command. You delegate, but you still command. Don’t forget it.”

Although the last words were spoken as evenly as those which preceded them, Quaeryt recognized them as a command, not a suggestion. “I won’t.”

“We’re little more than sixty milles from Variana. How much opposition do you think we’ll face tomorrow or the next day?”

“Who knows? They’re not defending the way I would or you would. After today, I’d be a bit surprised, but not astonished, if we faced more than delaying attacks tomorrow. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we faced a stronger attack on Vendrei.” Quaeryt laughed softly. “And that probably means we’ll get a heavy attack tomorrow and delaying harassment on Vendrei.”

Skarpa smiled. “I still think you’re right about Kharst wanting to draw us in and crush us. The question is where … and how—in one blow or two.”

“And how the marshal will attempt to have us take the brunt of it,” added Quaeryt.

“How can you believe that of our most illustrious leader?”

“Ignorance, I suppose,” said Quaeryt dryly. “I must not know him well enough.”

“I won’t comment on that, but I will observe that he doesn’t know you well enough, and it’s best that way.” Skarpa untied his mount.

After the commander mounted and departed, Quaeryt walked around the section of Byun that held Fifth Battalion, checking with each company commander. He didn’t discover anything he didn’t already know, but as he was about to leave Arion, the major said quietly, in Bovarian, as always, “Had you been with us in Khel, the Bovarians would not have defeated us, outnumbered as we were. Their musketeers made the difference.”

“You didn’t mention this before.”

Arion offered a slightly embarrassed smile. “We have found that none who have not seen what the muskets could do would believe their power.”

“Lord Bhayar has worried about the muskets for some time. How many more do you think they have … waiting for us at Variana?”

Arion shrugged. “I cannot say. They had more than a thousand at Khelgror. You have destroyed almost half that many.”

But it’s been more than a few years since the battle of Khelgror, and Kharst has to have forged more muskets and trained more musketeers.

Quaeryt frowned, remembering the meeting he’d had in Solis with Bhayar more than a year before when Bhayar had been asking about whether imagers would be able to image musket parts with enough precision. Had he known about Quaeryt’s abilities then … and been probing?

Unless you ask, you’ll never know.
He smiled. Even if he did, he’d likely not get a conclusive answer, and it made little difference now … although the Bovarian muskets well might, especially if Kharst had more than a regiment and used the musketeers as a massed unit.

Still … from what he knew, muskets could not be cast, not yet, at least, but had to be forged, and that took time and trained armorer-smiths.

“Could we use the muskets you captured?” asked Arion.

“We have several hundred captured muskets, but we don’t have much of the proper powder nor musket balls…” Quaeryt shrugged. “I believe Lord Bhayar had men working on this, but he did not expect war with Bovaria to come quite so quickly.”

“Then it will come to whether you and your imagers or Kharst’s musketeers will triumph.”

“And how badly we are outnumbered,” suggested Quaeryt.

“So long as you stand, we are not outnumbered.”

“No…” replied Quaeryt, with a slight smile, “so long as the imagers stand.”
Because either most of us will stand, or none of us will survive either Kharst or Myskyl, if not both.

“Some of the others are now more powerful. That I can see. But are they strong enough without you?”

“The young Pharsi imagers could be very strong. They’re already able to do more than I could do two years ago.”
Even if that was partly because you feared trying until you had no choice.

“They will support you. They will never surpass you.”

Quaeryt laughed, if softly. “You never know.”

Arion shook his head. “I do not know, but Erion does, and I can see his words.”

Quaeryt wasn’t about to argue about that. “I’ll leave it to him, then.”

Arion nodded. “As you should, sir.”

After Quaeryt left Arion and began to walk back toward the dwelling that held the imager undercaptains, he glanced at the eastern sky, where Erion was definitely taking on a clear reddish cast. Then he shook his head and laughed softly. For all the superstitions, in the end it came down to who accomplished what and how, not which moon hung overhead.
Didn’t it?

70

Despite Quaeryt’s worries, none of Skarpa’s forces encountered any opposition or even caught sight of any Bovarian forces on Meredi, nor on Jeudi morning … until ninth glass when the scouts rode back to report that a vast shallow lake covered the road ahead. Skarpa immediately called a halt, and Quaeryt and Fifth Battalion rode forward another two milles. There Quaeryt reined up and studied what lay before him.

Muddy water covered the road and the lower ground on each side, extending a half mille ahead and two hundred yards north to the raised bank of the River Aluse, but more than a mille to the south. Immediately before Quaeryt, the water was barely a few fingers deep, and he doubted that in the middle of the shallow lake created by the Bovarians the water was more than a yard or so deep, although it was difficult to tell under the high but comparatively thick gray clouds that had not reduced the harvest heat and only made the air seem stickier and damper.

There were no cots or buildings rising out of the muddy water, although Quaeryt could see wooden fences and a low hedgerow to the south, suggesting that the area might well have flooded often.
But you don’t know really how deep it is, not for certain, and you don’t know what else the water conceals.
After a moment a second thought occurred to him.
That couldn’t have happened with a Naedaran road. They kept their roads on higher ground.

There was something about the newly formed lake. He glanced to the north, then realized that the land covered by water was higher than the river itself. The water couldn’t have come directly from the river. He looked westward again, noting the gradual slope of the land upward in the distance.

He turned in the saddle. “Undercaptain Ghaelyn, if you’d send a request for Major Calkoran to join me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Undercaptain Voltyr, forward. Undercaptains Horan and Smaethyl as well.”

When all three faced him, he looked to Voltyr. “It’s likely that this lake was formed by some sort of breach in a stream or ditch to the south or west. I’m sending you with fourth company and Horan and Smaethyl to find and repair whatever was breached.”

“Yes, sir.”

Shortly, Calkoran rode up, and Quaeryt repeated his instructions in Bovarian, adding, “If you do encounter any large Bovarian forces, I’d appreciate prudence, Major, considering you have three regiments and a battalion behind you. I’d like to have you and your men have the satisfaction of helping take Variana.”

“Yes, sir.”

Once Calkoran and the three imager undercaptains had ridden back to second company, Threkhyl moved his mount forward, pushing Khalis’s mount to the side, in order to reach Quaeryt. “Sir? Why didn’t you send me?”

“Because I need you here to do a bigger job.”

The expression of puzzlement that was beginning to irritate Quaeryt more and more appeared on the older undercaptain’s face.

“Undercaptain … even once Undercaptain Voltyr and the others repair whatever caused this … overgrown puddle, the water isn’t going to vanish. It’s filled a big depression. Maybe it was once a lake. You and the others need to image a stone-paved top to the existing road, and you need to do it carefully and slowly, bit by bit. If you do it all at once, you’ll freeze the water, and you may well create ice between the old roadbed and what you create. By the time three regiments ride over it, the stone might crumble or break.”