Imager’s Battalion

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

  “Just for that reason,” said Quaeryt. “In the early years it was probably hard for river reavers to get to flatboats who tied up here.”

  Skarpa nodded. “It’s a good spot to stop on the river, and the higher ground along the river goes for maybe eight milles. The map shows the marsh and the lake as just one long lake. Could be the place was an island in the river a long time back. Anyway, it’s here, and we can’t just go around it and leave an Antiagon regiment sitting here.”

  “They were sent here to stop us,” suggested Quaeryt. “They’ll have Antiagon Fire and who knows what else. They might even know that you’ve got imagers.”

  “That thought had occurred to me,” said Skarpa. “Do you have something in mind?”

  “Just that I’d rather not lose a lot of troopers this far from Variana.” Quaeryt paused. “Is there any way to get to those woods over there?”

  Skarpa smiled crookedly. “The marsh is filled with swamp lizards, some of them three, four yards in length, with teeth as long as a man’s hand. If you stay away from the water, you’ll be exposed, but it’s a bit far for their archers.”

  “Can you send scouts to see what the woods are like?”

  “I already have, but none of them have come back … and they should have by now. That means I’ll need to send a squad, because we don’t want to mount an attack and discover another regiment on our flank.”

  Left unsaid was the fact that the casualties would likely be high for a recon squad.

  A quint later, Quaeryt watched as a squad from Third Battalion rode across the lower part of the grassy slope, some fifteen or twenty yards above the reeds that marked the edge of the marsh. A few shafts flew from the stone ramparts, but fell short. Then, when the scouting squad was less than a hundred yards from the woods, scores of shafts flew out, and four riders slumped in their saddles immediately, and several others were hit. The squad turned and withdrew, not quite at a gallop, and not quickly enough to avoid having three other troopers take shafts.

  “I’d say that they’ve got two companies of archers there, maybe more,” observed Meinyt.

  “There is one way,” mused Skarpa. “We could do exactly what they want. Just do it at a time and in a way that they won’t expect.”

  “A night attack?” Meinyt frowned.

  “That or an attack well before dawn,” said Skarpa. “We’d have to make certain that there aren’t any pits in the road or on the shoulder or in the grass beside the road.” He looked to Quaeryt. “Could your imagers put smoke and pepper behind the stoneworks just before we attack. With that and in the dark…”

  “I’d have to get them within a few hundred yards. First company would need to be one of the lead companies.”

  “Why not all Fifth Battalion?” asked Meinyt. “The Khellans need to do their share.”

  “That might be best,” agreed Quaeryt.

  Skarpa nodded. “Once it’s dark, I’ll have men walk the road. They should be able to get within a few hundred yards before the Bovarians—or the Antiagons—start lofting shafts. They can mark any pits or traps with reeds.”

  “Getting the reeds might be a problem,” said Quaeryt.

  “There are enough along the part of the road we just traveled away from the swamp lizards,” replied Skarpa. “Once the pits are marked, we’ll wait a time, then form up silently—or as quietly as the troopers can—just out of range of bows and catapults…”

  After another half glass or so, Quaeryt returned to Fifth Battalion. First, he briefed Zhelan, Ghaelyn, and the imager undercaptains on what they could expect, with possible tactics with which they could respond. Then he summoned all the Khellan officers. Once they had gathered, he surveyed them, then began, in Bovarian.

  “There are likely two regiments at the top of the slope. One is Bovarian, the other Antiagon. The Antiagons may have their fire. They also have filled the woods to the west with archers. The idea behind their defense is to force us to take the road, and then pin us against the wall and the cliff … or to require us to make a direct attack on stone ramparts. It would take two to three days to withdraw and then make our way around the swamp and lake … and the western approach is almost as bad. The marsh and the lake to the west are filled with swamp lizards, and we don’t have boats.”

  Six pairs of dark eyes studied Quaeryt, along with those of Zhelan and the undercaptains.

  With a smile Quaeryt wasn’t certain he felt, he went on. “So we’re going to do what they expect in a way they don’t expect, and Fifth Battalion will be among the lead forces. After dark, scouts will walk and creep up the road and mark any pits or traps…” He went on to explain the details of the planned attack.

  When he finished he asked, “Is that clear?”

  Major Calkoran nodded politely, then asked, “Do you wish us to give quarter?”

  Quaeryt responded, “If someone has fallen or is too badly wounded to fight, leave them. Do not pursue those who flee—unless Major Zhelan or I give the order to do so. Our task is to defeat those who oppose us and take the town, not to slaughter the helpless.” He smiled. “This is not kindness on my part, or that of the commander. Slaughtering those wounded who cannot defend themselves wastes strength and takes time. We need to defeat and scatter them so they cannot re-form those who might delay us on our way to take Variana and to destroy Rex Kharst.”

  “Then we must make every blow count,” replied Calkoran.

  Quaeryt understood what he meant, but there was little help for that. Still, with the Khellan companies attacking first, he doubted they would find many of the enemy helpless or already wounded. “Any other questions?”

  Calkoran looked to the Khellan majors and captains and said something in Pharsi. They all nodded. Then he turned back to Quaeryt. “No, sir.”

  “Then rest your men. We will not attack until shortly after eighth glass.”

  Once the Khellans had left, Quaeryt motioned to Shaelyt, then waited until the undercaptain stepped up to him. “What did he say to them?”

  Shaelyt smiled. “His Pharsi is a little different, but I think he said, ‘Do not waste your efforts on the cowards and the weak. To avenge Khel, we must first destroy the strong.’”

  Quaeryt couldn’t disagree with that.

  20

  For Quaeryt, the glasses between the time he briefed his officers and sunset seemed to drag by endlessly. The local forces remained behind their stoneworks, barely glimpsed so that it was not obvious how many troops there might be, and after the use of archers, Skarpa, Meinyt, and Quaeryt had to assume that they were well trained.

  Skarpa did not send out the scouts with reeds until full dark, close to eighth glass. By then, Quaeryt had slipped away from Fifth Battalion and raised a personal concealment shield to walk up along the side of the road, just far enough so that he could watch the scouts. If the Bovarians saw the scouts, their sentries or lookouts gave no indication, or none that he could see or hear.

  That bothered Quaeryt. What if they’ve already anticipated a night attack? What would they do?

  Unfortunately, he had too many ideas of what might come. So he watched the scouts and where they placed the reeds. That placement confirmed his suspicions, because there were no reeds closer than four yards to the road, and none at all on the river side. That indicated, as Skarpa had surmised, the defense strategy was to funnel attackers onto the road, with a possible bombardment of Antiagon Fire … and there was no way to tell if the attacks, countermeasures, and defenses Quaeryt had planned for the imagers would work.

  Once the scouts moved beyond what he could see in the dim light, Quaeryt walked back to where Fifth Battalion waited, lifting the concealment before he was close enough so that anyone might see him reappear, and waited with Zhelan and the imagers.

  Another glass passed before the scouts returned, and Quaeryt formed up Fifth company, as silently as possible. First company led the way for Fifth Battalion, with the imagers riding the right flank of the company, on the shoulder of the road, esc
orted by half a squad from first company. Quaeryt led the imagers, riding almost even with the front rank of first company. The plan of attack was simple enough—to get enough riders high enough on the slope to be above the stone walls so that they could swing and ride down from behind, trapping the defenders between their walls and their other defenses.

  In the stillness of the night, with both Artiema and Erion less than a quarter full, the sound of hooves on the road echoed like thunder in Quaeryt’s ears, although he kept telling himself that the mounts were walking slowly and that the sound was nowhere near that loud. It couldn’t have been, because first company reached a point on the road less than three hundred yards below the walls, without any outcry or action from the defenders.

  Then, Quaeryt thought he heard … something. Out of caution—and fear—he extended his shields across the front rank of first company. Barely had he done so when he felt an impact, followed by a wave of heat and flame as a fire grenade flared across the shields. As he watched, some of the crimson-greenish-yellow fire splashed over the top of his shields and spilled onto riders in the third rank, turning several into instant torches, even as the other riders moved away, helpless to do anything.

  “Charge!” ordered Quaeryt, and Zhelan immediately echoed the order.

  “Watch the walls!” Quaeryt urged the mare forward, trying to hold his shields to protect the front rank for at least a time. “Image pepper and smoke!” Since he could not see much except the outline of the walls, not with the Antiagon Fire burning a few yards away and the darkness beyond, he could only hope that the undercaptains’ imaging would have some effect.

  A fire grenade burst into flame just short of the charging riders. One mount reared, and several others piled into it, but most of the squad managed to avoid the column of fire.

  Another grenade rebounded from Quaeryt’s shields, flaring into flame as it slid toward the left shoulder of the road, where it ignited grass and brush. Quaeryt felt as though that fire had burned his face.

  Still another grenade arched overhead, heading farther downslope, trailing flames, then exploded above the lead company of Fifth Regiment, with lines of fire falling across the troopers. A second, and a third followed, with more globs of sticky fire raining down on the troopers. Despite the screams of horses being burned, and the jostling to avoid the patches of Antiagon Fire, both regiments moved up the road swiftly.

  Quaeryt reined up near the top of the rise, bringing the imagers to a halt against the stone wall at the edge of the bluff and letting first company and the rest of the battalion swing toward the stone walls. As they thundered past, he stood in the stirrups, looking to the walls and trying to locate the catapults, but he could see no frameworks or timber structures, suggesting the catapults were comparatively small.

  A handful of defenders rushed forward with pikes. Quaeryt glanced back, then concentrated on imaging the contents of the last grenade back against the defenders. Only about half flared up, but that was enough to unsettle the others. But as they fell back, more pikemen rushed forward to try to halt the oncoming troopers.

  Then, in the light of the Antiagon Fire that he had imaged against the pikemen, behind them he saw a figure with a framework and a sling-pouch—what he thought was a one-man trebuchet, or something like it. As the sling-catapult arm went back, Quaeryt imaged away part of the wooden arm, and the sling-pouch swung sideways, and Antiagon Fire flared along the wide trench behind the stone wall, and toward the pikemen.

  “More pepper and smoke!” ordered Quaeryt.

  Even he spoke, he heard the muffled thwump even before he saw a larger dark globe arc from a larger catapult through the air and strike the shoulder of the road more than a hundred yards downhill from where he watched, then explode into a ball of mixed crimson and yellow-green flames, an incandescence whose heat he could feel from more than a hundred yards away.

  What can you do to stop that?

  Almost without thinking, he imaged that mass of fire back onto the pikemen—except a good half of it vanished as he did, and there was a loud sizzling and a welter of steam rose around the remaining pikemen.

  Why—He didn’t bother to complete the thought. He knew why. All the effort it had taken to image the Antiagon Fire back uphill had created ice around it and the ice had dropped on the edges of the fire.

  Another fire grenade slammed against Quaeryt’s shields, and he could feel his control slipping. He contracted them to protect himself, feeling guilty as he did, glancing back in the direction of the sloping meadow and stone walls.

  One trooper, trying to escape another fireball, rode off the road and across the grass toward the stone wall. His mount appeared to stumble, and then a gout of flame rose from the concealed pit, immersing man and mount in greenish yellow flames with crimson overshades.

  From somewhere in the direction of the town, he heard a horn, and then several squads of men, perhaps a company of cavalry, plunged down the road toward Quaeryt and the troopers of Third Regiment who were pressing past him and toward the stone walls.

  “Fourth company! On me! To the right!”

  Quaeryt didn’t recognize the officer’s voice, but appreciated the speed and decisiveness of his action.

  Even so, close to a squad of Bovarian riders broke past fourth company and rode down the narrow strip between the road and the wall, galloping toward the imagers at full speed.

  Although some of the rankers in Third Regiment saw them, Quaeryt realized they wouldn’t react in time. “Imagers! Attack from the town. Image pepper!”

  He hoped that they would react quickly, but suspected most wouldn’t be able to change their focus fast enough, and that some were probably already exhausted. He urged the mare forward, widening his shields slightly.

  The three leading Bovarians raised blades, markedly longer than Telaryn sabres, and spurred toward him.

  Quaeryt aimed the mare between two of them, then let the shields knock them aside. One mount veered into the one closest to the stone wall and that horse crashed into the stone. The remaining Bovarians slashed at Quaeryt, and while he could feel the impact of every blow on his shields, they held. Then he found himself in a small open space short of Third Regiment’s fourth company, in the process of cutting down and routing the Bovarians.

  He turned the mare back toward the imager undercaptains, then reined up. The Telaryn troopers had followed him—or enough had—that the Bovarians who had charged the imagers were either wounded or dead. From what he could tell, the Telaryn forces had overrun the stone walls, at least to the extent that no more fireballs had appeared.

  After a time, he eased the mare along the wall back toward the undercaptains. Once he returned, he stopped and studied them. Akoryt was slumped over the neck of his mount. But the others were more upright in their saddles, although Shaelyt looked to be shivering … or shuddering.

  Sweat dripped from under the visor cap, through his hair, and down Quaeryt’s brow, while tiny flashes of light flickered across his vision. After another glance around, he pulled out his water bottle and took several swallows of watered lager. Several swallows later, the light flashes subsided, but did not entirely vanish.

  Should you have continued the charge with the battalion? Even though he knew he’d been able to do more from where he placed the imagers, letting Zhelan lead them had bothered him, much as he knew that the major was far better trained in that than he was, and that he’d survived by imaging skill and not skill in leadership or arms. He was also aware that he was getting tired, and that any more imaging might not be possible.

  His eyes scanned the slope and stone walls once more.

  The night had taken on a muted lurid light, with patches of Antiagon Fire still burning here and there, and other fires that had spread through the drier vegetation. The various kinds of smoke billowed and swirled in an unpleasant and acrid mixture.

  Quaeryt’s head ached so much that he could barely see. His eyes burned from the smoke, and his guts were churning from the odor o
f burned flesh. Through tearing eyes, he tried to make out the walls, but in the gloom from all the dying embers, he could make out little, except that it was clear that the Bovarians and Antiagons had broken and were fleeing … and that there was little more that he could do for the moment.

  Several defenders fled downhill. In the dim light, Quaeryt saw one man flail and then disappear into a hidden pit. With all the sound of horses, riders, and weapons, he couldn’t hear if the Bovarian cried out.

  “Sir?” asked Voltyr, moving his mount up past the leading rank of the squad protecting the imagers. “Do we need to do anything more?”

  Can any of you? Quaeryt didn’t ask that. He turned. “Not now. I hope not. We’ll see.” He glanced at the fires and the smoke and stifled a cough. Was there any way he could project small shields away from him—to stop the fire grenades right after they were launched, so that they would explode then and shower fire on the Antiagons? Should he have thought of that earlier?

  It wouldn’t have mattered. You’d have to see them much earlier than you could in the dark. He shook his head. You need to teach some of the imagers about shields. At least, Voltyr and Shaelyt … and the others later. Some of them might have noticed the way the fire hadn’t struck him, but in the darkness, they couldn’t have been certain, and he doubted that they’d been looking at him all the time, not in a battle. Still … that was another problem.

  He took a deep breath.

  He was still watching the last of what appeared to have degenerated into a slaughter two quints later when Zhelan rode back out of the heavier smoke that surrounded the stone walls.

  The major reined up. “Sir … the area is ours. Those defenders who remain are dead or in no way able to fight.”

  “What did it cost?” asked Quaeryt. “Do you know yet?”

  “No, sir, but it looks worse than it was. Ghaelyn reports he lost ten men and has five wounded. The Khellans … they don’t know yet.”

  “You did better than I hoped, leading the attack.” Ghaelyn’s casualties didn’t sound too bad, not when he’d been the first to reach the defenders, but Quaeryt worried about exactly why the Khellans didn’t know. Hunting down fleeing Bovarians?