Imager’s Battalion

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

  “Yes, sir.”

  The ride to the tumbled-down barn was fruitless. Although there were tracks around the collapsed structure, the Bovarians had hurried off.

  Quaeryt studied the horizon in all directions. He didn’t see any more smoke, but all that meant was that they’d stopped some burning for at least a while. Still, there couldn’t be that many Bovarians around, could there?

  Two glasses later, with first company returned to the main body, Quaeryt rode to report to Skarpa.

  “I see the locals didn’t come out to thank you,” observed the commander dryly as Quaeryt rode up beside him.

  “I didn’t think they would.”

  “How many did you capture?”

  “We didn’t,” Quaeryt said. “Some fled. Of the rest, those we didn’t kill outright in the fighting were all wounded, and I left them with the locals.”

  “They may not fare well…”

  “That’s their problem. I don’t like troopers who burn the crops of their own people, and it’s only fair that I left them with their own people.”

  Skarpa’s mouth opened, then closed.

  “You might talk to the Pharsi officers about how Kharst took Khel. Or think about the fact that as soon as Kharst found out that Extela had been devastated by an eruption he was massing troops for an attack on Ferravyl.”

  “Aren’t you acting like him?” asked Skarpa.

  “No. I kept my troopers from touching or hurting the locals, and I did my best to save their crops. But when troopers don’t even care for their own people, and when they kill anyone who doesn’t immediately surrender, I tend to lose patience.”

  “Do you think the Bovarian people will understand that difference?”

  Quaeryt smiled tiredly. “I think it will become clear before long.” At least you hope so. But he was all too conscious that such might well not be the case.

  10

  The two regiments and Quaeryt’s battalion made good progress on the rest of Meredi, despite the narrow rough road. They ran across only one other area where the crops had been torched—apparently even before the fires Quaeryt had attempted to prevent, because the fields farther west were black, without a trace of smoke or embers. Other than that, they saw no more signs of Bovarians.

  Jeudi morning was cooler, and thick clouds rolled out of the north. By late afternoon a cold deluge poured down, with no sign of letting up anytime soon. The regiments took what shelter they could, split between three hamlets each some five milles apart along the river. Quaeryt and Fifth Battalion made an encampment in the smallest hamlet, making do with several sheds, and a few tents and waterproofs used as slanted awnings.

  Once he had inspected all the shelters, and checked once more with Zhelan and all the company officers, he went back and found Major Arion, where he had last seen him, standing by the doorway to a shed, looking out into the rain.

  Although the Pharsi officer was the youngest of the Khellan majors, he was likely several years older than Quaeryt. “Sir?”

  “Major Zhael mentioned the High Council. Khel was the only land in Lydar that was not governed by a hereditary ruler. How did the Council come to be? Do you know?”

  Arion smiled. “I have heard the tales. Does anyone know how true they are?”

  “Tales are better than ignorance. Tell me about the Council. Then tell me the tales. Besides, what else are we going to do right now?”

  “Why do you wish to know?”

  “There are many reasons. One is simply that it may be part of my heritage, and I know little about Khel, and nothing about the High Council.”

  Arion looked out into the rain again, but began to speak. “Once, every city in Khel was governed by a clan, and the elders of the clan met and made decisions. Unlike Bovaria, many of the elders were women…”

  From what he’d seen so far of Pharsi women, that scarcely surprised Quaeryt.

  “But the cities and even the towns grew. There were soon two or three or four clans in a town, and some clans were of herders, and others of crafters, and still others of growers, and each clan wanted its needs to come first. So the elders in Khelgror, for it was the first, formed a council for the city and the lands around it, and each year, the head of a different clan headed the local council. Then came a time when one region felt its needs were more important than another. The head councilors of each region decided that they would form a council from all the chief councilors in Khel. Each year the councilor from a different region would head that council. They called it the High Council. The High Councils lasted longer than there has been a rex in Bovaria or a lord in Telaryn.” Arion shrugged, but did not look at Quaeryt.

  “Weren’t there struggles in all that time?”

  “There were arguments. Some of them lasted years. And there are stories. Some even say that the lost ones come from a clan in the western part of the Montagnes D’Glace, and that they were lost when they went to take up arms against those below the mountains. Erion threw a mountain from the sky and sealed the way from their valley. Only those wise enough to know when to use arms were able to leave the valley. The price for leaving was to bear the mark of Erion.”

  “The mark of Erion?” prompted Quaeryt, suspecting all too well what Arion would say.

  “You bear it, though you do not flaunt it. Hair almost as white as the ice, and a reminder that the worship of physical perfection is vanity.” An ironic smile crossed the major’s lips. “A form of Naming, if you will, for those who follow the Nameless.”

  “You follow Erion and Artiema?” asked Quaeryt.

  “I would say that we believe that they are manifestations of the one who cannot be named. Calling that one the Nameless is another way of Naming.”

  Quaeryt nodded. “I’ve often pondered that.”

  “That does not surprise me, Subcommander.” Arion paused. “Why did you turn the Bovarians over to the growers?”

  “Because the Bovarian troopers destroyed the crops of those people. I thought they should decide.”

  “What if they fear Rex Kharst so much that they release them?”

  “That is their choice. To do otherwise would tell the local people that Lord Bhayar would merely be another ruler like Kharst.”

  “How do you know he will not?”

  “I think I know him well enough to say that he will not.”

  “How well does he know you?”

  “Well enough to allow his sister to wed me.”

  Arion smiled softly. “He thinks to bind you. In the end, you will bind him because you cannot escape who you are. He is trapped, and he knows it not. He cannot conquer Lydar without you…”

  “You give me far too much credit.”

  The Pharsi officer shook his head. “You are a lost one, and the hand of Erion. If Lord Bhayar rejects or destroys you, he destroys himself. He may not know that, but it is so. Did not his sister seek you out?”

  “She wrote me,” Quaeryt admitted. “How did you know that?”

  “I saw her.” Arion smiled. “Actually, I heard she rode to find you when you had fallen, and I made certain I saw her. She did not see me. She has the sight.”

  Quaeryt frowned. How can he know that?

  “My grandmere had the sight, and there is a way, a certain … I cannot describe it, but your wife is the only woman beside my grandmere I have ever seen who is like that.” The major sighed softly. “Grandmere saw the Red Death. She warned the High Council against trade with Bovarian merchanters, but the coastal clans sought the Bovarian golds. Golds always speak louder than sight or wisdom.”

  “I’ve seen that more than once.”

  “That is good that you have. You will see it again … and again.”

  “Then how does wisdom prevail?” countered Quaeryt.

  “Only when those who are wise know when to use force and what force to use.”

  Does it always come down to that? Brute force? Except … did it have to be brute force? Was there a way to apply force without the devastation of a battle
such as that at Ferravyl?

  He was still pondering that when he realized that Arion had slipped away, back into the gloom of the shed.

  As Quaeryt stood in the dimness of a rainy twilight fading into a cold, wet, and dark night, he couldn’t help but wonder: For all your unbelief in the Nameless, in any deity, how can you know whether you chart your own course? And, for all your thought, whether it is truly the right course.

  11

  Quaeryt did not sleep well on Jeudi night, and not because of the damp and the crowded conditions in the shed he shared with others. The conversation with Major Arion had disturbed him more than he would have believed.

  It wasn’t that Arion had predicted victory. He hadn’t. He’d as much as said that Bhayar would fail without Quaeryt, but that didn’t mean Bhayar would succeed, either. By implication, Arion’s words declared that Quaeryt was a tool and would not accomplish what he wanted by himself. Quaeryt had known that. It was the major’s preternatural knowing that had disconcerted Quaeryt. And yet, from the bearing and the reactions of the other two Khellan majors, it seemed clear to Quaeryt that Arion had not told them. Why not?

  Quaeryt didn’t have an answer for that question. Nor did he feel comfortable asking Arion, although he could not have said why, and he didn’t want to press the matter until he could figure out the reason for his own unease.

  While the skies were clearing on Vendrei morning, mud was everywhere, and getting the wagons on the road took an extra glass. The air was cooler than the day before, but Quaeryt had no doubts that by afternoon it would be even steamier than on Jeudi.

  Because Fifth Battalion had no engineers and needed fewer supplies than a regiment, it had fewer wagons, and those wagons carried little beside spare sabres and food. Before long Quaeryt and Zhelan were at the head of the slow-moving column, behind the outriders and a vanguard of one company from Third Regiment. Quaeryt rode on one side of Skarpa, Zhelan on the other, with the imager undercaptains directly behind them.

  They had covered two milles, and the road looked to be getting firmer when a scout came riding around the curve in the road ahead, making straight for Skarpa.

  Even before he reached the commander, he called out, “Sir, there’s a barge coming downriver. It looks to be filled with Bovarian troopers.”

  “How many?”

  “Two squads of foot, it looks like, sir. They’re packed in tight.” The trooper pulled up beside Zhelan and looked across at Skarpa.

  “Do they look to be seeking a landing nearby?”

  “I wouldn’t think so, sir. They’re keeping well to the middle of the river.”

  Skarpa turned to Quaeryt. “They want to land a force behind us to cause trouble and force us to leave men behind … or slow us down.”

  “We’ll see what we can do.” Quaeryt glanced to his right, but the road had turned southward around a low hill covered with trees and brush, and immediately behind them was a wide stretch of swampy ground between the road and the river. “We’ll have to ride back east to get closer to the water.” Quaeryt turned in the saddle. “Imagers! On me. Single file. We’re riding back east.” He guided the mare onto the shoulder of the road. While her hooves sank somewhat into the wet ground, the shoulder wasn’t as sloppy as the road itself, although it certainly would have been had the entire battalion been riding there.

  As he rode, he glanced back and spoke. “There’s a barge filled with Bovarian troops. We need to get to where we can sink it. Pass it back.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Voltyr, riding directly behind Quaeryt as they headed back past the companies of Fifth Battalion.

  “We’re headed to sink a barge filled with Bovarian troopers…”

  The grassy slope that Quaeryt recalled was farther east than he’d thought, because he rode for close to a quint before he saw it, and another half quint before he reined up, moving past the troopers of Fifth Regiment, headed westward, who glanced curiously at the imagers who joined Quaeryt on the grassy and muddy patch barely large enough for all seven of them.

  Quaeryt scanned the river for several moments before he caught sight of the craft, still upstream of where he was, but by only a hundred yards, if that. The river stretched perhaps seventy yards from shore to shore, and the single craft near the middle wasn’t a barge, but more like a flatboat, except that what would have been the stem on a ship was flat across the front, but angled forward like a ship’s prow. For grounding where there aren’t wharves? It also had a pilothouse in the rear with a long sweep rudder extending from the stern.

  “Threkhyl! Forward!” Quaeryt ordered.

  The ginger-haired undercaptain pulled his mount up beside Quaeryt.

  “We need some holes in the front hull of the barge. Now.”

  “Front hull?”

  “It’s got a flat front. More water will go in a hole there.”

  Threkhyl concentrated.

  “Shaelyt, Voltytr! Holes in the side hull! Desyrk, Akoryt! You two as well.”

  Quaeryt also imaged what he hoped was a large gap in the front of the boat, then watched.

  For several moments nothing happened, then a man in gray, likely a crewman rather than a trooper, threw a bucket toward the troopers packed in the forward part of the barge. The tillerman leaned forward through the opening in the pilothouse and yelled something, pointing toward the imagers.

  Quaeryt held his shields ready, but none of the troopers lifted a bow. Instead, the flatboat-like craft slowly turned toward the north bank of the river, if sluggishly.

  The closer the barge got to the bank, the lower and lower in the water it appeared to be. Then … some fifteen yards from the swampy area that formed the bank, it lurched to a stop.

  “What was that?” asked one of the imagers.

  Quaeryt didn’t immediately recognize the voice, but thought it might have been Akoryt. “Sandbank or mud bar. It didn’t hit that hard, and that’s going to be a problem for them.”

  “Sir?” asked Shaelyt.

  “It hit at an angle. It’s still sinking, but the current’s going to swing the stern downstream and back toward the deeper water. It might pull it off the sandbar, and then they’ll be sinking in deeper water.”

  Bovarians began to scramble out of the barge as the stern swung outward and toward the middle of the river. Those closest to the swampy area moved a yard or two, their feet on the bar, then stepped into deeper water, most of them flailing and not expecting the sudden change in water depth. Quaeryt couldn’t help but wince as he saw that most of the troopers could not swim.

  Then the current pulled the flatboat, now totally awash, back toward the center of the Aluse River. More troopers jumped off the apparently sinking craft.

  Quaeryt wanted to shake his head. If they had just hung on to the boat, awash as it was, they likely could have lasted until it eventually grounded. Belatedly, he realized that there were too many troopers for all of them to do that, but even the last ones ignored the pilot who was clearly trying to tell them to stay with the boat.

  Quaeryt turned away. “Form up. We need to catch up with the battalion.”

  “You’re going to let them drown, sir?” asked Baelthm.

  “What would you suggest?” asked Quaeryt. “We can’t do anything from here. What’s left of the boat is floating downstream faster than we can ride. Even if we could help, should we? They wanted to attack us from the rear. If they had, we would have had to stop them, and that would have meant killing some, if not all of them. For now, some can swim and will survive.”

  “It seems … wrong … sir.”

  “What is the difference between killing Bovarians directly by imaging ice rain and sinking their boat?”

  Baelthm was silent.

  “We are at war, Undercaptain, and they attacked us. They even burned the crops of their own people.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Quaeryt could tell that Baelthm was not convinced, but he only said, “I’d like you to think about it. If you still have questions, we’ll ta
lk later.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Quaeryt turned the mare. “Forward!”

  12

  For another three days, Skarpa led the southern army westward. At one point, the river road ended at a swamp, and it took most of Samedi for Fifth Battalion and the regiments to make their way through marshy ground, fields, and along paths barely wide enough for a single rider before they reached another section of road … that lasted for ten milles before they had to detour yet again, a delay made longer by the need to replace the axle of a wagon that collapsed at the narrowest part of the path they followed when they tried to get around a section of the road washed out years before and never repaired.

  The imagers were of little help, because none of them had any experience with wagons, and imaging, Quaeryt was reminded, required a knowledge of what needed to be imaged … or a great deal of time and experimentation. In a bitter sort of way, Quaeryt realized that he knew far more about how bridges were constructed than he did about wagons and axles.

  Unfortunately, there was enough of the clayey soil in the rugged area they crossed on Samedi and Solayi to create mud, so that his boots and his trousers below the knees were mud-spattered, as were the lower quarters of all the horses.

  Given the sorry state of men and mounts, Skarpa did not call on Quaeryt to conduct services for the Nameless on Solayi evening, but after locating a rocky and sandy area on the edge of the river, he had the regiments and Quaeryt’s battalion clean up themselves, their mounts, and their equipment.

  Lundi dawned slightly cooler and drier, and the condition of the south river road improved as well, so that there were only occasional patches of mud.