Soarer's Choice

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Dainyl dismounted quickly and walked toward the patroller. After having flown for most of the day, he was unsteady, his legs protesting at the first few steps, but he continued until he reached the man, who wore a short-sleeved light gray uniform shirt with matching trousers. His belt was brown leather, and from it hung a truncheon.

  “Sir?” The local’s voice was uncertain, filled with a combination of curiosity and bewilderment.

  “I’m Marshal Dainyl, commander of the Myrmidons.”

  The patroller’s eyes widened as he took in the green-edged gold stars on Dainyl’s tunic collar. “Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir.”

  “Have you seen anyone from the regional alector’s grounds in the last few days?”

  The sense of bewilderment grew, even before the patroller replied. “No, sir. Haven’t seen anyone at all. We don’t see many alectors in town most days, anyway, except on market day, and then only one or two.”

  “Consider yourself fortunate,” Dainyl replied. “We’ll be using your post here for the next few days. It could be as long as a week.”

  “This post? Whatever you want, sir, but we barely have enough room for the ten of us.”

  “Do you have a wagon or cart here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We may need to borrow that as well.” Dainyl offered a smile. “What about the Cadmian Battalion? Where are they?”

  “They took over the old barracks at the mines.”

  “The copper mines? The ones to the southwest?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Marshal!”

  Dainyl turned to see Lyzetta gesturing to him, still mounted on her pteridon. “Excuse me,” he said to the patroller before hurrying back to the captain.

  “A group of insurgents are riding from the alector’s compound. They have a wagon with them. What are your orders, sir?”

  “That means they saw us, and they want supplies before we put them under attack, or they want us to think they want supplies. If it’s a trap, they’ll be carrying a weapon like a rifle, but it’s more like a small lightcannon.” Dainyl paused. “Here’s what we’ll do. Have one squad lift off immediately and circle high enough to be out of easy range, as if you’re observing them preparatory to an attack. While they’re doing that, the other squad will make a low pass, just above tree level coming in right inside the north tree line. I’ll lead with Alynt—”

  “Sir?”

  “I can hold heavier shields than anyone else. We’ll make a pass almost at tree height. That will make it hard for them to aim at us. If they have heavier weapons in the compound, they may not be able to depress them enough to hit us. But warn the first squad, the one climbing and circling, to be careful and stay well back. If they see anything dangerous or strange, they should break off.”

  “Yes, sir. If you’re taking the attack, I’ll have Undercaptain Resya follow you, and Buorl and I will rejoin squad one. I’ll keep them clear but visible.”

  “Good.” Dainyl hurried back toward Alynt, where he climbed back into the second seat and strapped himself into the harness. “We’re leading squad two. Wait for Captain Lyzetta and Buorl to lift off. Resya and the others will follow us. Once we’re airborne, head northeast, over the little hill there, and then stay low, right above the iliaki trees.”

  “Yes, sir. Is that what they’re called?”

  “It is. The leaves are knife-sharp.” Dainyl watched as the first two pteridons lifted off, then waited until they were high enough to be visible from the alector’s complex. “Now!”

  The pteridon eased into the air, rather than exploded, and barely cleared the hill, then dropped into level flight about thirty yards above the tallest of the iliaki trees.

  After they had covered a hundred yards, Dainyl called out, “A little more to the west. You can see them on the paved road down from the complex.”

  “Got them, sir.”

  The pteridon eased slightly to the left, barely banking at all before leveling out once more.

  Dainyl glanced back over his shoulder. Four other pteridons followed. “Skylances ready!”

  “Lance is ready, sir.”

  Dainyl could sense, rather than see, the townspeople looking up in the heat of the late afternoon as the five pteridons swept above the trees, in a triangular formation, their wide leathery blue wings beating evenly, heading northwest. Soupat proper was two vingts across, give or take a few hundred yards, and it seemed as though only moments passed before Alynt and Dainyl were leaving the trees behind and heading directly toward the small party of alectors in gray and green uniforms. Because they were a third of the way down the sloping slope to Soupat, the pteridon was flying toward them almost on the same level.

  “Stand by to fire…fire!”

  The blue skylance beam flashed toward the lead rider, who had turned his mount before Alynt fired, and missed by less than a yard. The blue beams from the other pteridons flared among and around the refugee Myrmidons.

  Alynt fired again, almost on top of the party.

  “Break left! Now!”

  As the pteridon banked southward and down, the thin line of blue-green from the wagon behind the three riders confirmed Dainyl’s suspicion that the “food sortie” had been an attempt at a lure.

  “Hard right and come up over the slope from the west!” Not for the first time since he’d been promoted out of flight status, Dainyl heartily wished he were the one doing the flying. “Be ready to fire as soon as you clear the crest!”

  Alynt didn’t waste time replying, but complied.

  Another light-rifle beam flared toward them, slamming into Dainyl’s shields, and jolting him back in the harness, but the shields held—at least long enough for Alynt to drop below the rocky ridge to the southwest.

  Dainyl took a deep breath. He couldn’t absorb or deflect more than another one of the light-rifle shots…if that.

  Alynt brought the pteridon back around to the north, then dropped even lower so that they appeared from the west, behind the refugee alectors. One of the other Seventh Company Myrmidons had incinerated the small rear guard.

  Alynt shifted his lance, getting off two blasts from the skylance and taking down the remaining two riders slightly ahead of the wagon.

  “Fire on the wagon! Now!” With the wagon and the two-horse team less than fifty yards away to the left—and the alector’s compound a good five hundred yards up the road—Dainyl wanted to finish off the diversionary—or lure—force and get the Myrmidons back to the patroller post.

  As Alynt triggered the lance, Dainyl used his Talent, in an effort to funnel that force into a needle point—not at the alector who held the light-rifle, but at the weapon itself.

  A gout of flame erupted from where the wagon had been, with enough force to throw the pteridon to the right.

  “Return to base! Return to base!” Dainyl didn’t know who would hear it, but it was more than time to clear the area.

  At that instant, a line of deep greenish blue flared above Dainyl—clearly the heaviest lightcannon he’d ever encountered, with so much power that he could feel it sucking lifeforce—from somewhere—and shaking the air. His shields, strong as they might be for an alector, would shatter in instants under that kind of focused lifeforce.

  “Lower! As low as you can keep us without hitting anything!” he yelled at Alynt. “Straight south and circle the town back to the patroller station.”

  The Myrmidon said nothing, but the pteridon dropped even closer to the rocky and sandy ground, then angled even farther westward to drop behind a ridge that Dainyl realized was actually half rock and half sand dune.

  Dainyl looked back, squinting to block out the orangish glare from the sun setting behind the southernmost peaks of the Coast Range. He could see three pteridons following them, but not the fourth. Although the road descending from the alector’s complex was dotted with wide black splotches, he had no idea which splotch represented what, except that he was fairly certain that the large one in the center was what remained
of the wagon, the horses, and the alector with the light-rifle. Whether the fourth pteridon was taking another route or had been a casualty he wouldn’t know until the two squads returned and landed at the patroller station.

  Once Alynt landed, Dainyl scanned the sky, now turning into the purpled dark green of twilight. He saw no pteridons at all and could only hope that Lyzetta had seen the massive beam of the green-blue lightcannon and ordered first squad well away from the weapon.

  Rather than wait, hoping Lyzetta would indeed bring first squad back safely, Dainyl strode past the patroller barracks and began to climb the low hill. He wanted another look at the alector’s complex.

  He reached the hilltop, mostly rock, with red sandstone boulders scattered about, and a kind of dried thornweed in the few places where there was even a semblance of sandy soil. From there he studied, as well as he could in the fading light, what lay across Soupat from him.

  Abruptly, he sensed Talent, and turned, taking a deep breath as he saw the first pteridon sweep in from the southeast and settle down. Then another followed. When they all had landed, there were eight on the ground—Lyzetta’s pteridon, and three remaining from first squad joining the four from second squad.

  Dainyl started down the hill.

  Losing two pteridons within the first glass or so of arriving in Soupat wasn’t exactly what he had planned, but if he’d counted correctly, the Ifryn refugees had lost more than ten Myrmidons and one light-rifle, and he’d managed to keep them from leaving the compound in large numbers—he hoped.

  Lyzetta was waiting for him beside her pteridon.

  “What was that greenish blue beam, some new form of lightcannon?” she asked.

  “I suspect it’s something they brought with them from Acorus. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone hadn’t raided an arsenal of forbidden weapons.” How things had changed, reflected Dainyl. Until the past year, there had been no weapon on Acorus that could destroy a pteridon. Then, Rhelyn—or more probably High Alector Ruvryn’s engineers—had come up with the lightcannon used at Hyalt, which had taken out pteridons from both Seventh and Fifth Companies. Now, the insurgent Myrmidons had something that made both the Myrmidons’ skylances and Rhelyn’s weapons look childlike in comparison.

  Of equal, if not greater, concern to Dainyl was the ravenous use of lifeforce by the weapon. If the battle for Soupat lasted longer than a few days, the impact on Acorus would be great enough that the world would be able to support far fewer alectors. A few weeks, and…who knew?

  “You don’t think it was used on Ifryn?”

  “Ifryn would already have used all of its lifeforce, and the Master Scepter would have been—” Dainyl broke off his words and shook his head.

  “What?”

  “It’s only a guess, but Ifryn was supposed to have lasted years longer than it has. There have been two revolts against the Archon, from what I’ve heard, and they were put down savagely.”

  “You think they used this…lightcannon?”

  “I don’t know, but it would explain a lot.”

  “What do we do about it?” asked Lyzetta. “We’ve already lost one pteridon and flier to it, and you lost one to the smaller weapon. That lightcannon will destroy anything it hits. The only advantage we have is that they don’t seem to be able to use it often.”

  “From where they have it, they can’t fire it too low, not unless they move it, and that would allow us to use the strategy we’d already planned.” He smiled grimly. “I have an idea.”

  48

  Sometime before muster on Octdi morning, Mykel managed to get himself propped up in the quarters bed, although it took him some time because each movement of his upper body sent waves of agony through him so great that he felt light-headed. He moved slowly, not because of the pain, but because he couldn’t see the point in fainting and falling on the floor. That wouldn’t help his healing in the slightest. He supposed he should have slept longer, but the intermittent burning in his shoulder had made that more than a little difficult.

  He couldn’t see his shoulder, but he did use his Talent-senses for a moment to study the wound, not that he understood what they showed him. He had to stop almost immediately because he could feel himself getting weaker, even with that minimal effort. He did try to wiggle the fingers on his right hand, and they did move. That was somewhat encouraging.

  There was a perfunctory knock on the quarters door before a ranker appeared with a tray. “Sir…you hungry?”

  “I think I could manage something, thank you.”

  “Here you go, sir.” The ranker—Mykel finally recalled his name, Einsyl—eased the tray down in front of Mykel.

  Mykel was surprised by the egg toast, perfectly golden brown, the fried apples, and particularly by the small pitcher of berry syrup, accompanied by two mugs, one of cider and one of ale. He doubted he’d ever had a more appetizing breakfast prepared by Cadmian cooks. “Thank you, Einsyl…and thank the cooks for me. It might be a day or two before I can do it personally.”

  “Yes, sir. I will, sir.” Einsyl inclined his head, then backed out of the quarters.

  Eating left-handed, balancing a tray on his lap, was awkward, but Mykel had to admit he felt better after he finished. He drank both the cider and the ale. The liquids, especially, seemed to help the light-headedness.

  Outside the window, he could hear morning muster, and what he did hear convinced him that the entire battalion, less scouts or a few others, remained in Iron Stem.

  Shortly afterward, Rhystan entered the quarters. “You look better this morning, Majer.” He smiled wryly. “You’re only as pale as an alector, rather than a corpse.”

  “You’re cheerful this morning. Have the Squawts and Reillies picked their new battleleader and left the hills to wreak vengeance on me and all Cadmians?”

  “No word on that.” Rhystan bent down and took the breakfast tray, setting it on the small writing desk, then sat on the stool beside the bed. “They’re still having their big meeting. We have another problem.”

  That didn’t surprise Mykel. He only wondered what the new problem might be. “What is it?”

  “I think it’s your absence.”

  That did surprise Mykel. “My absence?”

  “In the last day or so, the attacks by sandwolves and the other predators have been increasing around Iron Stem. It’s almost as if they know you’re not there. The head of the outholders was here last night…”

  “Croyalt?” asked Mykel.

  “Right. He said not to lose men fighting them and let the inholders take their losses. The big danger was the Reillies.”

  “That’s easy for him to say,” Mykel replied. As he recalled, Croyalt hadn’t said anything about the Reillies. He’d told Mykel to leave well enough alone, and to depart from Iron Stem, if he could. “Did he say any more about the Reillies?”

  “He said that they knew how to call the sanders…but he didn’t say who these sanders were.”

  Mykel realized, belatedly, how that tied to the Reillies. “They’re the other predators, the ones that look like little stone men. They’re very hard to kill. The Reillies probably called them up when Hersiod took on the miners.”

  “Why is it that the more I hear about Iron Stem the less I want to be here?”

  “Because you’re a sensible Cadmian, and nothing sensible is going on here,” Mykel replied. “None of it makes sense. The outholders want the inholders to lose their livestock. The inholders hate the outholders. The people in the town hate the ironworks, but want every coin they can get from it. No one likes the dreamdust, but they don’t seem to do anything about it. Hersiod’s sent here to protect people, and he immediately kills hundreds. The alectors want more iron and coal, yet they seem to be going out of their way to antagonize everyone who might help them produce it. At the time they need it most, for whatever reason, the weather turns bad, and the rivers run high and flood out the loading piers in Dekhron.” Mykel took a slow deep breath. “There’s probably more that I don’t
know.”

  “That’s enough.”

  “What about the ironworks and the mines? Any new problems there?”

  “No problems there at the moment, not that anyone’s brought to my attention.”

  “On the patrols where the sandwolves and sanders show up…concentrated fire is the answer, and they shouldn’t corner the sanders—the small sandy figures.”

  “Makes sense. Anything else?” asked Rhystan.

  “If I think of anything, I’ll let you know.”

  “Take it easy, Majer. You need to rest and let that shoulder heal.”

  Mykel remembered what he’d wanted to ask. “Did the healer ever say what was on that bolt?”

  “No, sir.” Rhystan offered a wry smile. “She did say that no one ever lived after they’d been wounded with one with grooves like that on it.”

  “Good fortune. There’s always a first time.”

  “Yes, sir.” Rhystan’s tone was polite, but barely short of openly disbelieving.

  Mykel laughed. He couldn’t help it, and the pain from the laughing didn’t stop him—just shortened how long he laughed.

  “I’ll tell the men you’re doing much better.”

  “I’ll be up in a day or so.”

  “Don’t push it, sir.” Rhystan nodded and slipped out of the quarters.

  Mykel forced himself to lie back against the pillows. He didn’t like the idea that the sandwolves and the other predators might know about him. He couldn’t believe that they could sense that, but he could easily believe that the soarers might know, and that suggested that they were behind those attacks. What he didn’t know and couldn’t understand was why. The one soarer had once told him that the Cadmians—he started to shake his head, but the jabbing pain from his shoulder halted the gesture uncompleted—not the Cadmians, but he, personally, was an ally of the soarers against the alectors. What was happening suggested that the soarers didn’t like what the Cadmians were doing. But why? How could he find out?

  Mykel had no answers, not yet.