Alector's Choice

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Pretty much, sir,” said Jasakyt.

  Mykel handed the stick to him. “Add what you saw.”

  “There’s a gated entrance on the main road. Here, tfaybe, five or six guards.” Jasakyt used the stick to add lines in the road dirt and dust. “The estate is back almost a ringt along a lane lined with trees. Fields, or meadows, on both sides. Real open.”

  “Is there any area with cover?”

  “All the grounds behind the villa and buildings are casaran orchards. They run to those hills to the south,” said Dhozynt. “More than a vingt. Easy to ride through the trees, it’s not easy to see from the villa there.”

  “Behind the orchards?”

  “There’s a lane, comes off the main road, leads to a hamlet to the west.” Dhozynt took the stick from the other scout and added the lane.

  “How close are the orchards to the outbuildings?”

  “A hundred yards. Best as I could tell, they’ve got the mounts here, southwest of the main buildings, some in a orral, and some on tielines. They got barracks like sheds here, and some tents next to them. Bunch of them were playing some sort of game over here. That’s why I couldn’t jet any closer,” Dhozynt said.

  “Could we come down between the trees in the orchard behind the stable sheds?”

  Dhozynt cocked his head. “Might not be seen that way.”

  Mykel looked at the squad leaders. “Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll take that back lane. Squads one and two will get as close as we can. If there’s anyone playing that game, we’ll ride up and take them down. If not, we’ll take out as many mounts as we can—just until they come running. We’ll stand just long enough to get in some good shots, and then we’ll ride back up between the trees. Squads three, four, and five will be spread in firing lines in the trees. I’ll drop off with squad three, and we’ll hit anyone that’s coming, then withdraw. If no one comes after us at all, we’ll withdraw to the lane. If anything looks wrong, and I give the order to withdraw—that’s where we’ll re-form. There are two objectives. The first is to kill as many of them as we can without losing men. The second is to make them think we’re everywhere.”

  “Shooting unarmed men… mounts… that won’t go down well with some of the men.”

  “Squad leaders,” Mykel said firmly. “You might ask some of the survivors of Seventeenth Company how they feel about that. You’d also best remind each of your rankers that these are the same men who shot shackled and unarmed prisoners. The bluecoats will get a better chance than they gave those prisoners.”

  “They did?” asked Vhanyr.

  “Why don’t you answer that, Chyndylt?” suggested Mykel.

  “They shot eight prisoners, dead. We lost four men,” said Chyndylt.

  The other three squad leaders looked at each other.

  “We’re going after troopers, not helpless prisoners,” Mykel said firmly. “They’ve already wiped out most of Seventeenth Company, and they’ve attacked us. Remember, they started this.” That wasn’t totally true, but the seltyrs had started most of the skirmishes and battles, including the one at Stylan Estate. “Get the word to your men. We’ll ride out in a tenth of a glass.”

  After the squad leaders moved back toward their squads, Mykel turned to the scouts. “Jasakyt? Is there any way to avoid riding by the gate?”

  “Yes, sir. Thought you might ask about that. Take another half vingt, but there are two lanes and a short ride across a field…”

  Mykel committed the directions to memory, but added, “You’ll lead the way.”

  “Yes sir. Figured that, too.”

  Another glass passed, quietly, as Fifteenth Company fol-owed the scouts down the southeast road and circled away Tom Fynhaven Estate, only to return to the lane bordering the casaran orchards on the south.

  “Company! Halt!” Mykel ordered. “First and second squads, follow me. Stand by.” He rode back along the column until he reached third squad, where Bhoral rode with Dhyndylt.

  “Bhoral, fifth squad will hold just short of the lane. I want you to ride back to Vhanyr, and explain that. Hold here with them. You’ll need to reform the squads as they leave the orchard, so that we can move out immediately. We’ll head west on the lane.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Chyndylt, third squad will take position a hundred yards south of first and second squads in a double staggered firing line abreast in the trees…” Mykel then rode back to Dravadyl and explained what he wanted from fourth squad.

  After that, he returned to first squad. “Follow me. Quiet riding.” He turned the chestnut through the opening in the low stone wall, a wall low enough that a mount could jump, if necessary, and headed northward. The rows of casaran trees were well tended, and the spaces just wide enough for a rider. Occasionally, Mykel had to duck his head. Once he had to ride back to position fourth squad, but Chyndylt had no trouble with third squad.

  Less than a quarter glass had passed when he reined up, close to thirty yards back from the end of the orchard. He had to duck to see through the last trees, toward the outbuildings and the villa beyond.

  No one was on the field where Jasakyt had reported seeing men playing a game. Several bluecoats lounged against the corral. None even looked in the direction of the orchard. Mykel could see others walking or standing near the tan-nish tents short of the barracks. He turned to Gendsyr. “We’ll move in fast, come to a firing line, and take out anyone who’s standing there. If no one else shows up, shoot a few of the mounts.”

  “Sir?” asked Gendsyr, his voice low.

  “We need to get them stirred up so they’ll come out in a hurry. Pass the word,” Mykel said, in a low voice. “When I start to fire, everyone does, and if their men and a lot of mounts don’t go down, then some of our men will die. It’s that simple.” Mykel lifted his rifle, waiting for Gendsyr to pass the word. He didn’t want to shoot the horses. It wasn’t their fault, but facing possibly as many as fifteen companies in the days and weeks ahead he had to do something to cut down the odds—any way he could. Besides, the horses were wealth as well, and it wouldn’t hurt to bleed the seltyrs in every way possible.

  “Ready, sir?” Gendsyr finally said, easing his mount up near Mykel.

  Mykel nodded. “Forward!”

  He urged the chestnut through the last thirty yards of the casaran orchard, then across the open space toward the corral, the tielines, and the space between the tents and shed barracks.

  As he reined up less than twenty yards from a startled bluecoat, he ordered, “Squads! Firing line on me! Fire!” His rifle came up.

  The stunned bluecoat looked up. Mykel forced himself to im and will the bullet home.

  Crack!

  The trooper’s death stabbed at him, and he pushed it way, aiming at a second bluecoat.

  Shouts and yells began to rise, but troopers still peered out of the tents, and several streamed out into the open, hearing but undertones. After a few shots, screams came rom the tethered mounts as well as those in the corral. Two or three handfuls of bluecoats finally came rushing out of the stables and sheds. Perhaps half had weapons in hand, but looked dazed.

  Mykel kept firing, as coolly as he could, then reloaded, absently, he realized that he’d seen none of the officers or quad leaders. With that thought, he looked toward the ilia.

  Two men in what looked to be dress uniforms—one in green and one in blue—were running toward the barracks nd stables. One held a rifle.

  Mykel shifted his aim to the one with the rifle, then consentrated and squeezed the trigger. The captain went down face first. The second officer threw himself to the ground and rolled sideways.

  A horn sounded, and more bluecoats appeared. A number had made it to the stable sheds. Mykel smiled.

  “First, second squads!” he ordered, “Withdraw! Withdraw!” His eyes swept the area as he wheeled the chestnut, from what he could tell, twenty bodies lay sprawled across he area, perhaps more.

  Now… if some of them followed…

  A hundr
ed yards into the orchard, Mykel reined up and pulled the chestnut beside a casaran tree, one adjacent to the one behind which Chyndylt remained, mounted. The remainder of first and second squads rode past, not pell-mell, but at a quick trot, under control. Dust roiled up and around the trees, and Mykel stifled a cough.

  The third squad leader shot an inquiring look to the captain. Mykel nodded, then pointed.

  Before that long, a thin line of riders in blue appeared, moving at a quick walk.

  Mykel waited until they were less than twenty yards away before he ordered, “Open fire! Fire at will!”

  More bodies fell, and the riders turned and fell back.

  “Third squad, withdraw!”

  Mykel rode back toward the lane, but slowed as he neared fourth squad. “Dravadyl! Fourth squad! Withdraw and reform! Withdraw and reform.” Whatever the bluecoats did, they weren’t going to ride blindly any farther into the orchard. Fifteenth Company had done what it could for the day.

  Mykel rode to the lane, then stood in the stirrups. “Bhoral! Forward! I’ll check the rear!”

  “Fifteenth Company! Forward.”

  Once he was certain all his men had cleared the orchard, he rode at the rear for a good vingt and a half until it appeared likely that the bluecoats—or their hosts—were not on their tail. Then he checked with each squad leader as he rode forward toward the van.

  He finally pulled his mount in beside Bhoral. “We got between thirty and forty. We lost one man, two wounded. Neither too serious.”

  “One dead, two wounded,” Bhoral said, his voice flat.

  “Let’s ride ahead a bit,” Mykel said quietly. “Alone.”

  The captain didn’t say anything until they were well away from first squad. “You don’t like what we’re doing, Bhoral.” Mykel paused. “Do you?”

  “I can’t say as I do, sir.”

  “There are somewhere between eight and fifteen companies of men armed with Cadmian rifles in the eastern part of Dramur. Right now, they’re not well organized. Their men really aren’t used to fighting, not with real bullets, and they haven’t figured out that if they massed everyone and swept down toward the compound, we’d have real trouble.”

  “The Myrmidons—”

  “They’ve been gone for a solid week, and we have no idea when they’ll be back. Or if they’ll be back.” Mykel paused. “Bhoral… just how do you think the seltyrs got hold of over a thousand Cadmian rifles?”

  “Sir?”

  “Either the Myrmidons got betrayed by other alectors, or we got betrayed by the Myrmidons. Take your pick.”

  For a long moment, the senior squad leader was silent.

  “Either way, we can’t count on much support. It might come tomorrow. It might come next week. It might not come.”

  “You’ve known this?”

  “Only since last night,” Mykel temporized. He didn’t know it for certain, and he’d suspected it for longer, but Bhoral had to understand, or the company wouldn’t be worth a frigging lame mount over the days ahead. “I don’t want the men knowing all that. If anyone asks, tell them that the Myrmidons have big problems elsewhere. That much is certainly true, and that’s why we were sent, and why we don’t have any pteridon support right now, and why we can’t count on it.”

  “Put that way, sir, I don’t suppose we have much choice.”

  “No. We don’t.” Not any choice that Mykel could see, at least. If the seltyrs ever got organized, Third Battalion was dead. Mykel’s task was to keep them from getting organized. Any way he could.

  74

  Dainyl’s lessons in Lytema began right after breakfast on Decdi when he followed Asulet down the steps from the upper level and then inward from the Council Chamber through yet another square arch. They walked a hundred yards down a stone corridor until they reached a wall on which was a relief sculpture that was also a mural, the brilliant and varied colors shimmering forth from the stone itself, rather than having been painted over the marble. Yet the wall appeared to have been carved from a single block of stone, with no lines that revealed joints.

  Twenty Myrmidons flew in formation, each of the enforcers of justice seated upon his blue-winged pteridon, each pteridon flying below high clouds, and each Myrmidon carrying a blue metal skylance. From each lance, a ray of blue light flared down upon the ranks of an army drawn up upon the grasslands, the yellow-blue flames created by those rays consuming the soldiers of that massive army.

  “The mural is marvelous,” observed Dainyl, “although I’m surprised to see it here. There were a few such battles as those upon Ifryn, but not here.”

  “Tradition is always valuable, and a visual representation always outlasts the stories.”

  “That is so.” Yet Dainyl could not help but wonder what someone might read into the mural in years to come.

  “Lyterna is also called the Vault of the Ages—for many reasons.” Asulet turned, and a section of the wall silently swung back, revealing a passageway.

  “Lead on, Submarshal.”

  Dainyl stepped through the oblong opening a yard and a half wide and three high, followed by the older alector. Once the two had passed, the stones closed behind them, silently, massive as they were, and the two walked in dimness lit only by intermittent light-torches mounted on the walls.

  Dainyl could feel grit under his boots. “Not a great deal of maintenance here lately,” he observed, still puzzling over what might lie ahead—and how it related to his dispatch to Lyterna by the Highest.

  “We do what we can. This section is a museum, open only to those with a need to know. Museums, especially those that are hidden, are seldom high in the allocating of resources.”

  At the end of a marble walled passage—the stones there also without seams—the two emerged in a vast hall. Dainyl glanced up at the smooth stone ceiling twenty yards above.

  The older alector cleared his throat, then spoke. “Each of these recesses holds something of value, of one sort or another, frozen, in more ways than one, through time. You should study each, and take your time in doing so. The first you will recognize.”

  Dainyl turned his attention to the right wall, unadorned blue-tinged marble, within which were set at regular intervals a series of recesses, each roughly ten yards wide. Each recess was a yard deep and ended in a flat sheet of what appeared to be blue crystal. The crystal rose ten yards, but the space between the top of the crystal and the ceiling was empty.

  Sensing the other’s expectation, Dainyl moved forward until he stood before the flat crystal. The crystal had looked far darker when he had been standing back, but closer, it was almost clear, and but lightly shaded with the merest hint of blue. Farther back in the solid blue crystalline mist, embedded within it, was a shape—that of a pteridon, its blue leathery wings folded back, its long cruel blue crystal beak slightly parted, as if it had just landed. The blue crystal eyes also glittered and held that dark sentience common to all pteridons. Set just below the thick neck and above the shoulders that anchored the wings was the saddle of a Myrmidon.

  “One of the first pteridons? How have you been able to preserve it? It looks so lifelike.”

  “It is one of the first. It is as alive as any of those on Acorus.”

  “It’s alive?”

  “Very much so. The crystals beneath each recess interact with the lifefields to suspend them. Very simple, but it took much work. They’ll be the last things to fail if it comes to that.”

  Dainyl bowed his head in respect. “My deepest apologies, Most Highest.”

  “I’m not a Highest. Never was. Just a biologist trying to get things to work out… and they have.” The older alector smiled. “Mostly, anyway.”

  “If you turned them off… ?”

  “They would be ready to fly. It would take a few days to charge the lance.”

  Dainyl shook his head. He had certainly not expected this in Lyterna. “Are these set aside for an emergency? Because no more can be created?”

  “Exactly. Outside of L
yterna, the only alectors who know of them are the high alectors and the Marshal and Submar-shal of Myrmidons.”

  “Are there any more?”

  “Just these twenty. That should be more than enough.”

  Asulet moved farther back, passing the other recesses with pteridons. “Farther along, past the pteridons, each recess holds something from the past, each from farther back in time.”

  When Asulet finally stopped and gestured, Dainyl stepped forward until he once more stood just short of the flat crystal. There, Dainyl studied the shambling apelike figure, caught in midstride. “Was that what the indigens looked like after the seedings?”

  “That is one of the first indigens. I preserved him myself.”

  “Like the pteridons, if you turned the crystals off… ?”

  “The poor thing would be frightened and try to run.” Asulet sniffed. “Timid sorts, really. Took years to breed in more aggressiveness. We needed that to get the expansion and the ability to herd. Cattle, very important sources of methane. They came from the aurochs, the cattle did.”

  “If… you turned the crystals off, could you turn them back on?”

  “Oh, yes. Several times. Once or twice we have had to replace things. The switches are Talent hidden, on the right.”

  Dainyl extended his Talent and let it sweep over the hidden controls, verifying what Asulet had said.

  “Now here, this is what the grasslands looked like just before we released the indigens.”

  Before looking at the next recess, Dainyl turned to the older alector. “How… how did you… could you… ?”

  “In essence, we mixed together the smallest components—parts of cells, if you will—taken from ourselves, from samples of steers on Ifryn, and from one of the life forms existing here. We kept at it until it worked. It was hard on us, and harder on the brood mothers.”

  “Brood mothers?”

  “Ulasya was one of them. Those condemned on Ifyrn were allowed a second chance here. For her services, she has every comfort Lyterna has to offer. She is a server by choice. She says that she can meet people that way.”