Soarer's Choice

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “That must be the ironworks,” he said to Culeyt, captain of Sixteenth Company, who rode beside him.

  “Sir?”

  “There’s a glow up ahead on the left.”

  “You must have better eyes than me, sir. I can’t make it out.”

  “It’s there.”

  From somewhere in the Cadmians riding behind them, Mykel caught the murmurs.

  “Majer sees stuff vingts before anyone else…”

  “…hears things, too,” came the unmistakable tone of a squad leader.

  There were no more murmurs for the moment.

  Another quarter glass of riding brought Mykel and the vanguard to where they could make out the rough outline of the town ahead. In the twilight, a haze enveloped the dwellings and buildings, a haze that almost glowed.

  Before long, the high road had become the main north–south avenue of Iron Stem, with modest dwellings and occasional shops fronting it. Most of the structures were of brick or stone, with split slate roofs, and all seemed modest. Ahead lay the town square, a stone-paved area empty except for the granite pedestal with the statue of the Duarches in the middle. On the south side was the town fountain, and two stone troughs for watering mounts and dray horses. The east side contained a cloth factor’s, adjoining a weaver’s. An old two-story inn dominated the west side. It had been constructed completely of brick and stone, which dated it back centuries, to the time before timbering had been permitted from the forests to the west and south of the town.

  On the north side of the square were four shops, side by side and seemingly identical, except that the shutters and doors had been painted differing colors, with each set of shutters matching that shop’s door. The colors might once have been bright, but even in the fading light of the day, it was clear that the soot and grit from the ironworks had grayed and dimmed them. Even the windowpanes looked gray. Although the inn had wide covered porches, supported by brick columns, not a single person stood outside. Even so, the windows on the main level were bright and cheery, but the clicking of hoofs on the stone echoed emptily across the square.

  As the battalion continued northward, the very air Mykel inhaled felt dry, thin, and each breath burned with the mixture of fine dust and smoke and vapor. By now, all the Cadmians could see the stone smokestacks and the high walls of the ironworks ahead and to the left of the high road, looming over the tiny dwellings between the main avenue and the works.

  A wide short stone way led from the high road to the works, and some fifty yards to the west of where Mykel rode was a loading yard. Late as it was, a crew was working the winches powering the crane that lifted the iron pigs onto one of the black transport wagons. Another winch and crane stood idle, and the iron pigs were stacked on the loading dock waiting to be loaded into a second empty wagon behind the first.

  The overseer shouted out orders, but the roaring of the furnaces drowned out the man’s orders. Hot and acrid air swirled around Mykel, mixing with the cool northeast breeze.

  Mykel pulled his gaze to the road ahead.

  Immediately north of the ironworks were shops and buildings so dingy that in the twilight Mykel could not determine what they might be. Farther along were small houses, little more than huts bathed in soot. The few curtains that did hang in windows, those that were lit by lamps inside the poor dwellings, looked to be various shades of gray.

  Even more to the north Mykel could make out the green spire of a Duarchy tower, supposedly beyond the Cadmian compound. “That’s where we’re headed.”

  “Mean-looking town, sir,” observed Culeyt.

  “Hard-looking town, that’s for sure.”

  Third Battalion covered another vingt and a half before reaching the Cadmian garrison, or compound, at the north end of the town, separated from any dwellings by a quarter vingt of open space. The walls hardly qualified as such, standing little more than two yards high, constructed of but a single course of stone in thickness. The main gates were only iron grills, and Mykel thought that they were rusted open. To the north was the green stone tower, its iron-bound door locked, as were those of all Duarchy towers. Mykel wondered, not for the first time, why such towers had been built all across Corus when they never seemed to be used.

  The single guard took one look at the riders and bolted for the small headquarters building that stood in front of a long and close to ram-shackle stone barracks.

  As he rode past the two-story barracks toward the stables, Mykel noted that some of the roof tiles were askew and others badly cracked. He had barely dismounted outside the stables when a short and muscular Cadmian officer hurried across the courtyard. Mykel turned, and the officer stopped, taking in the majer’s insignia.

  “Captain Hamylt, sir. I’m the senior officer left here, commanding Nineteenth Company and what’s left of Fourth Battalion.”

  “Majer Mykel, Third Battalion. We’ve been ordered here by the Marshal of Myrmidons.”

  “Yes, sir. Ah…”

  “We’ve come directly from Hyalt. Once we get the men squared away, Captain, I suggest we meet and discuss what’s happened here, and what the marshal intends. If you’d also notify the cooks. In the mess in around a glass?”

  “Yes, sir. Majer Hersiod’s quarters—they were his—they’re at the end of the barracks on the upper level on the north side. The other officers…well, there are two bunks to each junior’s room.”

  “Good.” Mykel gestured. “Bhoral?”

  The battalion senior squad leader eased his mount forward.

  “Captain, this is Bhoral, the battalion senior squad leader. If you would introduce him to whoever is in charge of billeting…”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mykel led the roan into the stable and took the first open stall that had an officer’s mark on the post beside it. He finished grooming the roan and, gear on his shoulder, was checking how many of the mounts were double-stalled when Bhoral reappeared.

  “Majer…there aren’t enough bunks, or pallets. We’ll have to double up…some of the men will have to use bedrolls,” Bhoral said.

  “There’s no help for it. Tell the company officers, and do the best you can.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mykel’s next stop was the main mess. The local cooks might have been unhappy with preparing a second meal for over four hundred hungry troopers, but they had managed.

  Mykel made his way back to the kitchen area and located the head cook. “I wanted to thank you. This is one of the few hot meals the men have had in days.”

  “Yes, sir…if we’d had more notice…it’s dried mutton and sauce and potatoes.”

  “I’m sure they’re happy to get a decent hot meal.”

  From the kitchen Mykel headed to the officers’ mess, a narrow room with two tables. Three of Third Battalion’s officers had arrived—Fabrytal, Culeyt, and Loryalt.

  Hamylt was waiting, standing in the corner. “Majer.”

  “Let’s step outside,” Mykel suggested.

  “I’ve been using the majer’s study, sir. It’s not far.”

  “That will be fine.” Mykel followed Hamylt across the short stretch of paved courtyard between the mess hall and the headquarters building and then down a narrow corridor.

  Hamylt lit a single lamp in a wall sconce, then turned. “Yes, sir?”

  “Just so we’re perfectly clear,” Mykel said quietly, handing a copy of his orders to the captain, “I’d like you to read these.” He remained standing, watching with his sight and senses.

  Captain Hamylt paused after the first paragraph, then kept reading. Finally, he looked up. “The marshal is very clear. You’re in command of all Cadmians. Wasn’t he the submarshal, sir?”

  “He was, but after the operations in Tempre and Hyalt he became marshal. Some alectors rebelled. The marshal, two Myrmidon companies, and Third Battalion destroyed them. The Myrmidons took care of Hyalt. We took care of Tempre.”

  “Against alectors, sir?”

  “Against most of a battalion of mounted ri
fles created by the regional alector, and against somewhere around forty alectors with lightcutters. We killed two-thirds of the mounted rifles and the rest scattered. The alectors attacked later. We lost two squads. They lost everyone.” That was true, if slightly misleading. Mykel could sense both apprehension and caution from Hamylt. “Now…tell me exactly what happened…and what you’ve done since.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve been here since late spring. Majer Hersiod had to discipline the garrison here. The iron miners had shut down the mines. Then coal miners joined them. They said conditions in the mines were killing too many miners. The undercaptain said he wasn’t about to shoot miners, not until he had orders from the High Alector of Engineering or whoever was in charge of the mines. The majer—he disagreed. I didn’t see what happened between the two of them, but there was some sort of argument, and the undercaptain walked out. The majer sent troops after him, and they brought him back, and there was a court-martial. The undercaptain was found guilty of five charges.”

  Mykel could see how that could have happened with Hersiod. “What was the sentence?”

  “Death, sir. By firing squad.”

  “He didn’t send the sentence to the colonel for review?”

  “He didn’t have to, sir. He said Iron Stem was a combat zone.”

  That was certainly true now…but at the time, there had been no combat, only miners who refused to work. “Were the miners armed?”

  Hamylt offered a puzzled frown. “No, sir. Except with shovels and picks, that sort of thing.”

  “All right. How did Fourth Battalion lose half its men?”

  “It wasn’t like that, sir. Except for the last…I wouldn’t call it a battle, except I guess it was…except for that, we lost a man here and a man there, but it happened almost every time there was a patrol.”

  “What were you patrolling for, or against?”

  “The local herders, the ones who live within five vingts of town, they started losing livestock, cows and sheep, to the wolves. Some call them ice-wolves, and some say they’re sandwolves, but whatever they are, they’re nasty beasts. Close to three yards long, and they can run down a mount at a full gallop. They’ve got teeth like crystal knives a span long and sharper than a razor. Unless you get a bullet in their brain, maybe two, nothing seems to stop them.”

  “When do they attack?”

  “Anytime, but mostly in the day, because the herders lock up their stock at night. We’d send out a squad and end up losing a scout or a flanker…no ranker wanted to ride those positions…”

  As Hamylt continued, Mykel listened. He hoped he could learn enough to piece together what had really happened.

  “…and last month…that was when the majer got word that the miners had gathered in the hills north of the mines…decided that he’d put a stop to it all. Took the whole battalion out…except there weren’t just miners there…a bunch of Squawts and Reillies and when the shooting started, the sandwolves showed up and then the sander things…”

  “Sander things?”

  “They’re creatures that look like a clay figure of a man made by a child. You can hardly see their eyes, and their skin is colored like tan sand, and it sparkles. They touch anything, and it dies, just like that. There were even things with wings that glowed green and flew, some of the men said. I never saw one, but…” Hamylt shrugged. “Anyway…what with one thing and another, we lost over two hundred rankers right there…killed a third of the miners, I heard, but once the majer went down, I tried to hold things together and get what was left of the battalion out of there.”

  “What have you done since then?”

  “Mainly routine patrols against the sandwolves. The miners went back to work, those that were still alive.”

  “Just like that?” asked Mykel.

  “Seems strange,” admitted Hamylt, “but that’s the way it is, and I’m not one to go stir up trouble after all that’s happened.”

  Mykel knew he was tired, especially after the long ride from Dekhron, and he should have had more questions, but he needed to think things over. He nodded. “It is strange, and we’ll talk more later after I’ve had a chance to go over matters. Thank you.”

  “Yes, sir. Will that be all, sir?”

  “For now, Captain. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll have my gear out of here before muster tomorrow.”

  “I’d appreciate that.” Mykel smiled politely.

  After he left Hamylt, Mykel crossed the dusty paving stones to the barracks building and quietly climbed the outside stairs to the officers’ quarters in the upper level, quarters that Majer Hersiod had occupied not so long ago.

  From the paved area below, he heard voices, and he listened from back in the shadows.

  “Third Battalion? Majer Mykel? They sent the Dagger? May the ancients save us…”

  Mykel smiled sadly at the juxtaposition of the terms. The ancients were the reason he was called the Dagger.

  24

  Early on Octdi, right after morning muster, Mykel took over the study used by Hersiod and then Hamylt. He ordered Hamylt to continue what he’d been doing with his patrols for the next day. Then he began to study the maps of the area to get a better sense of where the events related by Hamylt had taken place. Mykel wasn’t about to send any of Third Battalion’s companies off anywhere until he had a better grasp of the situation. Once he finished looking at the maps and reports, such as they were, he wanted to look over the records of the court-martial—although he had his doubts about their accuracy.

  A glass later, he’d finished with the maps and was halfway through the reports.

  “Sir?” Bhoral knocked on the side of the open study door. “There’s someone to see you. Gosyt says he’s one of the big landholders north of Iron Stem.”

  That was another complication Mykel didn’t need. “I’ll see him. Do I need to come out?”

  “Ah…no, sir.”

  Even before Bhoral finished speaking, a tall lander appeared.

  “How kind of you to condescend to see me, Majer.”

  Mykel stood slowly and looked hard at the holder, a man a good ten years older than Mykel, about the same height, but more heavily muscled, and with a tanned, weathered, and clean-shaven face.

  After a long moment of silence, Mykel replied coolly, “I don’t condescend, and I don’t care much for it from others.” He gestured to the chair in front of the writing desk, then sat without waiting for a response from the holder. “I’m Majer Mykel. I didn’t get your name.”

  “Croyalt.” The holder sat easily in the chair.

  “What can I do for you, Croyalt?” Mykel managed to sound pleasant, although he could sense anger from the holder.

  “You can take your troopers and leave. Everything here was just fine until you Cadmians arrived.”

  “That’s a pleasant thought,” replied Mykel. “But as I understand it, the additional Cadmians weren’t sent here until after someone cut sections of forest against the Code, and some of the miners used explosives to collapse one of the shafts in the coal mines.”

  “That didn’t have anything to do with the herders and holders. That was between the alectors and the miners and the local building crafters.”

  Mykel offered a puzzled expression. “I’m not certain I understand what your point is, Holder Croyalt. There were two significant violations of the Code before Fourth Battalion was sent, and yet you claim that there were no troubles.”

  “The marshal sent some Myrmidons, and before long, everything was under control. It was after they left.”

  “What happened then?”

  “The iron miners—the malcontents—they said that it was easier to top the hills than to tunnel, and they claimed miners had died because of that. The coal miners said that the lower tunnels were unsafe. All the miners refused to work. The local Cadmian officer claimed he wasn’t going to shoot men for that.”

  “So he was replaced by Majer Hersiod?”

  “That basta
rd Hersiod came in, trumped up some sort of trial, and executed the undercaptain for some charge and then sent the two squad leaders who objected to his actions off to the mines as malcontents.”

  Mykel managed to avoid wincing.

  “Then he threatened to take over the stead of any outholder who objected.”

  “Outholders are those farther from Iron Stem?”

  “More than ten vingts. So we all avoided Iron Stem much as we could.” Croyalt snorted. “Soon as Hersiod gets himself killed, we get another Cadmian battalion.”

  “How did he manage to lose so many men?”

  “Stupidity. Those little rifles you Cadmians use aren’t that effective against sandwolves, and if you don’t have a lot of men firing at them…”

  Mykel managed to keep his expression pleasant. Croyalt was implying that the outholders not only had rifles, which was generally against the Code, but that their weapons had far more stopping power. “Did Hersiod know you’d developed bigger bore rifles?”

  “How would he? He never listened to anyone.”

  “Does anyone use them except outholders?”

  Croyalt frowned. “There’s no reason for anyone else to.”

  “I can see that.” Mykel nodded. “How long have you had to deal with the sandwolves?”

  “They’ve been here as long as there have been outholders. Seems like there have been more this year and last, but we don’t really keep count.”

  “Majer Hersiod reported that they were attacking livestock of the local holders and that they were a new threat in the area closer to Iron Stem. Was he mistaken about that, too?”

  Croyalt tilted his head. “That might be true. Usually the sandwolves avoid people, unless they can catch them alone.” He grinned. “Could also be that they found Cadmian patrols easy pickings.”

  “Do you know how Hersiod lost so many men against the miners?”

  “He didn’t. Murderous bastard killed more than half the ones that were gathered out on the hill. They were just having a meeting. All the killing drew the sandwolves and the sanders…” He shook his head. “Don’t want to mess with sanders. Don’t see many, but you see one, and you head the other way. If you want to stay alive, anyway. They’ll chase livestock, but not people.”