Mage-Guard of Hamor (43 page)

“I didn't, not at first, but this morning…” Rahl went on to explain about the missing kaystone, then the riders in the rain. “…and they were headed this way. If they're riding in the rain…”

“Then someone definitely wants to slow or stop us.” Taryl nodded. “Could you tell how many?”

“No, ser. There was a large column, but I couldn't hold the image long.”

“I'm surprised that you could tell that much. Very few mages can use a glass, and even fewer ordermages. It takes a great deal of strength.” Taryl sighed. Loudly. “That brings up another point that we need to discuss. You still have this tendency not to understand your limitations. That failure could be fatal to you and costly to the rest of us as well.” The overcommander fingered his chin, then pursed his lips, before tilting his head.

Rahl had the feeling he wasn't going to like what Taryl was about to say. “I appreciated the warning about what you did to the road outside Lahenta.” Taryl shook his head. “Rahl, it's a good thing you have an orderly spirit, because you have this tendency to think up extremely nasty applications of order-skills, and you don't always complete the follow-up. I had a headache for the rest of the day after stabilizing the ground there.” There was another pause. “You know that over forty lancers and rebel troopers drowned in your order-quicksand, don't you? That's in addition to the ones you and Third Company killed.”

“I knew some had died,” Rahl admitted. How could he not? He'd felt the smothering deaths. “I thought I had stabilized the ground there.”

“You didn't get it all, and it was beginning to spread again. That is a problem when you start attempting to…adjust order-linkages, especially when you use all your strength all at once.”

Rahl couldn't help wincing at the mild-sounding reprimand. “I'm sorry.” Why was it that everything he did upset someone? Why couldn't he think well enough to get things done right on the first try? Besides, what real choice had he had?

“I won't tell you that it's all right,” Taryl said. “It turned out all right because I caught it. But what would have happened if I hadn't been there?”

“The rock would have limited it, but it would have been a mess, anyway.”

Taryl snorted. “Not that much of a limitation. We would have had a great southern swamp and more stun-lizards than arrows in Candar.”

Rahl kept his anger behind his shields. Finally, he spoke. “I understand the danger I created. I worried about it at the time. I didn't see any other way to save Third Company. Given my abilities, what would you have suggested?”

“Looking more closely at the terrain and not getting yourself into such a position. Once you were caught,” Taryl's voice softened, “your choices were limited. Looking ahead is one of the most difficult things for talented mages to learn, especially natural ordermages. You have such ability that you personally could escape almost any situation. Those under your care and command may not always be that fortunate.”

That Rahl already knew, and he wished Taryl hadn't reminded him.

“Your dispatch was not particularly explicit in describing how you destroyed the white wizard, but I did note a rather large area devoid of both order and chaos.” Taryl's voice remained mild. “It is likely to remain lifeless for generations. Exactly what did you do?”

“He was throwing so much chaos that I couldn't get close to him and still protect fifth squad,” Rahl said. “I got as close as I could, and then…well…I made up an order-bolt and threw it at him, at the same time that I threw the truncheon at him. It had a little order in it as well—”

“More than a little, I'm certain, given how you've been using it. What else did you do?”

“Pressed my shields against his and punched the order-bolt through.”

“I'm surprised you're still alive, given all the force you loosed.”

“I managed to hold my shields around the squad. All except two troopers,” Rahl amended. “Long enough, anyway.”

“Captain Drakeyt noted that your squad had to carry you back. He's rather impressed with you, but he thinks—and I concur—that you risk yourself too much.” Taryl's eyes bored into Rahl. “Do you think getting yourself killed will help anyone?”

“Ah…” Rahl had the feeling any answer was wrong.

“Do you ever want to see your healer again?”

Why was Taryl asking about Deybri?

The overcommander sighed again.

Rahl almost winced, even though he knew Taryl's gesture was as much for effect as real.

“Rahl…” Taryl's voice was low, gentle, and persuasive. “One of the secrets to winning a battle or a war is to make the other side overextend itself, always at a high cost, until it cannot recover. So far, only your incredible abilities have saved your neck, and your posterior. The closer we get to Nubyat, the more likely it is that you will face someone with equal strength as a mage and with far more experience. If you continue your almost-foolhardy ways, you will not survive. You need to harness your creativity in using order to somewhat more caution and greater foresight. Make them have to react to you rather than your having to react to them.”

“How would you have handled the situation coming into Lahenta, then, ser?” asked Rahl.

“I would have scouted much farther ahead when it became apparent that the road was rising into a pass. Narrow passes where the defender holds the high ground are always harder on whoever has to attack uphill or defend from an uphill attack. If you had drawn up Third Company short of their entrapment, then they would have been faced with attacking you on a narrow road on level ground. Your superior mage-craft would have worked to your advantage because they would not have been able to surround you. You still could have used the same tactic with the chaos-ooze, but they would have had to cross it to attack you, and you could not have been attacked from behind.”

Taryl made it sound so easy.

“Now…I admit that it's not always that easy, but you're very bright, Rahl. You need to think in those terms. You need to ask how many ways could the rebels attack you at every point of your patrols and how you could best respond to each attack. If such an attack might inflict heavy losses, then you need to think of a better way to approach—or make very sure that there are no enemy forces anywhere close before you employ massive magery.”

“Yes, ser.”

Taryl smiled, almost fatherly. “It may seem as though I'm being hard on you, but I'm trying to get you to expand your thinking and the way in which you use your brains and your abilities because matters are going to get worse before they get better.”

Rahl understood that, but he still felt that Taryl had no idea what it had been like.

“One other thing, Rahl, before we get into what you'll be doing tomorrow…”

“Yes, ser?”

“Find yourself a staff or something longer than that patrol truncheon. I shouldn't have to tell you this. If you keep overusing your order-abilities, you're going to need it.” After the briefest of pauses, Taryl went on. “Now…tomorrow, I'll need you to see if you can pinpoint where those rebel troops are or at least from where they're coming….”

Rahl sat and listened intently as the overcommander explained in detail what he wanted. At the back of his mind, he still wondered why Taryl had referred to Deybri. Was it just to get through to him?

He forced his concentration back onto Taryl's words.

Early on threeday, just after dawn, Rahl took out the glass once more and tried to scree exactly where the nearest rebel troopers might be. All he could determine before his head began to pound and the light-headedness threatened to overwhelm him was that close to a battalion of heavy infantry was encamped in a small hamlet surrounded by grasslands in a flat area where the grass remained green.

While he and Drakeyt sat on a bundle of hay and ate rations and strips of left-over lamb, Rahl studied Drakeyt's maps to see if he could determine where the rebels might be. Following Taryl's implied advice about assuming the worst about the enemy's tactics and position, he thought that they might be about five kays south from Thalye, just south of where a line of hills had been sketched in on the map. Supposedly, there was a stretch of grassland beyond Thalye that separated the less populated inland parts of Merowey from the richer lands along the coast.

“I'd judge they're here.” Rahl pointed. “I'm not sure, but that's where it feels like.”

“It'd make sense, but that worries me because nothing's made much sense so far.” Drakeyt grinned.

“It still doesn't,” Rahl said. “They've only got a battalion there, and the ground is pretty open, not like that pass coming into Lahenta.”

“Maybe they're just trying to block Third Company. Three companies didn't stop us; so now they're trying five.”

Rahl still didn't like what he'd screed, and he could sense that Drakeyt didn't either. But he didn't know what else he could do but carry out Taryl's orders. He didn't see much point in tracking down Taryl just to report that he had a slightly better idea of where the rebels were, since he was partly guessing, anyway. The important thing was that Taryl knew about where they were and that they were headed toward Second Army.

Rahl stood, carefully folding the maps and handing them back to the captain. “I need to see the cooper before we head out. I'm hoping she can make me a replacement truncheon or something like it. I should have thought about that earlier.”

Drakeyt nodded. “There's always something. About the time you learn what you're doing, they promote you or transfer you, and you start all over.” He paused. “Then again, if you don't learn, you get relieved or killed.”

“You're so cheerful,” Rahl said dryly.

“Just realistic, Majer.”

Rahl saddled the gelding, then mounted. He rode northward toward the square with a damp wind at his back, under thick clouds that suggested rain. Rahl could order-sense that any rain that might fall would be light and would likely not last long. When he reached the square and the chandlery/cooperage, he reined up and dismounted, tied the gelding to the ancient wooden railing, and stepped up onto the narrow porch. He only knocked on the cooperage door once before Khelra opened it, holding it ajar.

“Yes, Majer?”

“I'd like to commission something from you, if you can do it.”

“You want some sort of barrel?”

“No. I'd like a wooden truncheon, a sort of staff with a hilt, a little longer than a sabre.” Rahl gestured to the empty scabbard at his belt. He'd left the patrol truncheon in his saddlebags. “One that would fit in here.”

“Out of oak or something sturdy?”

“Lorken would be best, dark oak next, oak after that.”

“Come on in. You need to sketch out what you want. We'll see if it's possible. Then we'll talk coins.” Khelra walked away from the door through the dim and unlit single room toward the cooper's workbench against the south wall. “When do you need it?”

“By tonight, or tomorrow morning at the latest.” Rahl followed her.

“That figures.” She stopped at the bench. “What happened to the one you had?”

“It got destroyed in a fight with a white wizard.”

Khelra just nodded. Behind the expression, there was little surprise, as if fighting with a white wizard were the most normal thing in the world. “That why you don't you use a blade like the others?”

Rahl shook his head. “I can't. I'm an ordermage. I know how to handle a blade, but using it for long would make me unable to do much of anything.”

“All ordermages like that?”

“Some can't even pick up a blade without getting sick,” Rahl said.

“So you just kill them with magery and use your big stick to hold off attackers?”

Rahl smiled, sadly, before he replied, but he saw no point in lying. “No. I've killed men both ways. It's just a different kind of weapon.”

“Leastwise you're honest about it.” She handed him a piece of charcoal. “Rough it out on the board here.”

“Can you use those barrel hoops to bind it below the hilt and at the striking end?”

“I can. Won't be as strong as forged iron.”

“It'll be stronger than unbound wood.”

She nodded, then watched as Rahl loosened the scabbard from his belt, setting it on the wood and using it as a rough guide as he sketched the truncheon he had in mind.

“Good hand. Could have been an artist.”

“I was a scrivener once.”

“They still have those?”

“In places.” Rahl finished the sketch. “This is a guide. You know woods better than I ever will. Just do your best and make it so it will fit in the scabbard.”

“Might have some old oak that would do. More work that way.”

“How much?”

“Be at least two silvers.”

“I can afford that. Can you crosshatch the hilt or something to give a better grip?”

The cooper smiled. “I'll find a way.”

“Thank you.”

“Don't thank me, Majer. You're paying good silvers for it.”

“I'll check with you tonight.”

“Be fine.” The cooper did not leave her bench but watched as Rahl left.

He could sense that she was not angry, but vaguely pleased, and somewhat puzzled, but about what he could not sense.

Once outside, before he mounted, he recovered the patrol truncheon from his saddlebags and tucked it inside his riding jacket because Khelra had his scabbard, not that the standard truncheon had fit that well in the scabbard Taryl had provided for the riding truncheon.

Third Company was mustering on the damp dirt to the west of the barn as Rahl rode up and eased the gelding to a halt beside Drakeyt.

“That didn't take long. She can do it?”

“She says she can. Whatever she does will be better than having nothing.” Rahl had the feeling it would be far better than just a staff with a hilt, given the underlying pride in the young cooper.

“True enough. You're taking fourth and five squads?”

“That what the overcommander suggested.” Taryl's orders had been simple. He wanted Rahl and Third Company to check the old road and make sure that whatever side roads or lanes ran from it to the main road were shown on the maps or added to them, and that there were no rebel forces positioned to use such roads. One squad was also detailed to make another sweep of the main road all the way to Thalye. “You're handling the main road?”

“I haven't been that way. It might be good to see where we're headed next before the rebels get there.”

“If they do. Maybe the ones I found are just a vanguard and waiting for a larger force to join them.”

“Look who's cheerful now.”

Rahl just shook his head wryly, then waited for the muster reports from the squad leaders to Drakeyt.

Rahl's squads had no more left Lahenta and turned westward on the side road that led to the old road between Kysha and Nubyat than a faint drizzle began to drift from the clouds overhead, damp and cold, and more chilling than some snow Rahl had felt. The chill and the rain might have been what kept holders and others inside, especially since it was what passed for winter in that part of Merowey, and there was no pressing need for field work. Or they might just be avoiding the Imperial troopers.

Abruptly, Rahl could feel that someone was watching him, yet he could sense no one nearby. He continued to ride along the lane leading to the old road, scanning the woodlots and the meadows, as well as the winter-tilled fields. He still saw nothing, and could sense only animals and the occasional steadholders and their families. Then, as suddenly as the feeling had come, it vanished.

That incident left him feeling most uneasy.

He tried to keep Taryl's advice in mind, checking the roads, the lanes, the wooded areas, and speculating on how he would respond to an attack from various points, not that he sensed any rebels—or even any riders—anywhere.

Slightly after noon, the same sense of being watched struck him again, coming from nowhere. How could anyone do that?

He tightened his order shields, and the feeling vanished.

As it did, he had a sickening sense that he had done the wrong thing. He had been watched, but not by someone nearby, but someone using a glass, just as he had done that morning. Whoever it was could not watch for long, but he had let them know he could sense it, and that gave whoever it was more knowledge of Rahl and his abilities.

He took a deep breath. Once more, he'd learned something because he really hadn't thought about it. He had to wonder when he might end up paying for that mistake…and how.