Soarer's Choice

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  He smiled ruefully. That didn’t mean it would happen to him. He wasn’t exactly the center of the world for either the ancients or the alectors. “Sometimes those things happen. We’re on high ground here.”

  “What about the Reillies? It’s been over a glass. It doesn’t take that long to cover four vingts.”

  “Except at a very slow walk,” Mykel pointed out.

  “Majer, sir!”

  Mykel turned, raising his left arm and watching as one of the scouts rode toward him, up the narrow space between where Seventeenth and Fifteenth Companies were drawn up. The Cadmians were all dismounted, but still in a loose formation by squads.

  Coroden reined up. “Sir, the Reillies and the Squawts…they all just stopped. Couldn’t be more than a vingt from us. One of their leaders rode out in front, and jumped and stood on his saddle. He was wearing green, all green. Even his face was painted green.”

  “Are they still there?”

  “Yes, sir. They’ve been there for nearly half a glass. That was when I’d left. It looks like they’re all praying, but they’ve got their blades out, or the captain might have been tempted to ask to attack.”

  Mykel didn’t like that at all, especially not with the rumbling in the ground, and the Talent he’d felt before dawn—not when the soarers had suggested they didn’t care much for Cadmians who acted as hunting dogs for alectors. “Tell him to hold. He’s not to attack except if he’s attacked. Otherwise, he’s to follow the battle plan, unless I send other orders.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have him send word if or when the Reillies start to move again.”

  Coroden nodded, then turned his mount back down the slope, heading toward the back lane that paralleled the Borlan road.

  “Praying to their gods?” asked Fabrytal.

  “Goddesses,” replied Mykel. “If they’re green, they have to be praying to the ancients.”

  “Are the ancients all women?”

  “I don’t think anyone knows for certain.” Mykel pulled out his water bottle and took a swallow, thinking. He’d never seen a male ancient.

  The entire mass of hill riders had stopped dead—less than a vingt from Mykel’s Cadmians and less than two from the Borlan bridge. And they hadn’t disbanded. They hadn’t made camp. They just prayed and waited. For what?

  For a sign from the ancients? For the ancients to attack and destroy the Cadmians?

  Another glass came and went, without either a messenger or any sign of the Reillies and Squawts. The light breeze that had blown out of the northeast died away. So still was the air that, despite the chill, the day felt far warmer than it actually was.

  “Majer!”

  Mykel turned and caught sight of Coroden riding hard from the back lane and across the winter-browned grass of the slope up toward him.

  “They’re moving, sir,” the scout reported, even before fully reining in his mount and coming to a stop short of the majer. “They didn’t even look at the side lane. They’re pouring down the Borlan road, sir. The captain’s waiting for them to all get past before he follows, but there’s got to be close to two thousand of them.”

  “Thank you. Tell him to follow more closely. He’s to attack as soon as he hears us begin to fire.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Go.” Mykel gestured with his good arm. “Be careful on the ride back.”

  Coroden turned his mount and headed back down the slope.

  “Third Battalion! Mount up!” Mykel half jumped, half climbed up into the saddle of the roan, an awkward but effective mounting for a man with a single usable arm.

  “Mount up!” The command echoed across the slope of the knoll.

  While the three companies were forming up, Mykel rode to the top of the knoll and looked to the northwest, but he did not see any sign of the Reillies and Squawts. Uneasily, he rode back down on the east side, toward his men, but only far enough that he could still watch the road without being silhouetted against the sky.

  As the companies finished mounting and re-forming, the ground began to shiver, and then to rumble. The high haze in the silver-green sky became even more silvery. Mykel sensed violent pulses of brilliant amber-green energy flowing somewhere in the ground, not beneath him, but both to the north and south. What were the soarers doing?

  Fabrytal rode forward toward Mykel. “Fifteenth Company, mounted and ready, sir.”

  “Thirteenth Company…”

  “Seventeenth Company…”

  The three undercaptains looked at Mykel.

  “Sir?” Loryalt finally asked. “Is that the Reillies?”

  “No.” Mykel shook his head. “It’s the ancients.”

  The three officers exchanged glances.

  A roaring, rushing sound filled the air, coming from the south and east. Mykel turned the roan toward the bluffs overlooking the river. He could sense water, knew it was crashing downstream, but his mouth still dropped open when spray spewed up the side of the bluffs to the south, turning into a thick fog. Even from half a vingt away, Mykel could feel that the water was warm—even hot.

  “Sir!” shouted Fabrytal. “Here they come.”

  Mykel turned the roan. The river would have to wait.

  A mass of mounts and men rode down the road, and then rode away from it, aimed directly at the knolls behind which the Cadmians waited.

  “Battalion forward. Re-form just below the top! Staggered firing lines!”

  “Battalion forward…”

  After initially riding forward of the battalion, Mykel turned back and reined up on the crest of the knoll, letting the Cadmians ride past him. The three companies slipped into the positions Mykel had planned.

  By that time, the Reillies were less than a half vingt to the west. There was no strategy, no flanking maneuvering, no attempt at a cross fire—just a swarm of hill riders with green-painted faces riding full speed toward the Cadmians.

  Mykel waited until the foremost of the hill riders were less than a hundred yards away. “Open fire! Fire at will!” He glanced to the south in the direction of the Vedra. A thick fog rose over the river, and some of it had begun to roll northward. The line of fog was high enough to be seen above the tops of the trees and the bluffs, and followed the course of the river.

  He forced his concentration back to the flat below and to the east of the knoll.

  Already, scores of Reillies were dead and dying, and yet the flow of riders went over and around the fallen.

  From their slight elevation on the upper section of the knoll, the Cadmians continued to fire down on the flat. Occasionally, Mykel could feel a Cadmian fall, but few of the Reillies and Squawts were using rifles. Most were carrying their overlarge blades. Some of the blades dripped green as well.

  Mykel glanced to the northwest, catching sight of maroon and gray uniforms—Fourteenth Company riding toward the Reillies and Squawts. Even as the shots from Culeyt’s men began to rip into the rear of the attackers, not a one turned. All of them pressed forward.

  The charge had begun to slacken, if less than fifty yards from the base of the knoll, as more and more riders were slowed by fallen riders and mounts.

  Then, a group of close to fifty riders coalesced at the base of the knoll, right in the center, and redoubled their efforts, riding straight uphill toward Fifteenth Company—and Mykel.

  “Fire! At the center!” ordered Fabrytal, standing in the stirrups at the front of the company.

  Seeing the undercaptain so openly ordering his company, Mykel winced.

  The concentrated fire from Fifteenth Company reduced the number of riders in the oncoming advance charge to less than half those who had started up the slope, but there were still fifteen or twenty who neared the front line more than forty yards ahead of the main body.

  Fabrytal’s sabre flashed—once, twice, perhaps again—before he was surrounded.

  The first lines of Fifteenth Company struck back, and the rest of the Reillies went down, one way or another.

  “Dr
ess those lines!” Senior Squad Leader Chyndylt’s voice penetrated the chaos, and Fifteenth Company responded.

  While the continued fire from Third Battalion had taken its toll on the attackers, they still rode forward.

  Mykel calculated the distances and the speeds, noting how the attackers were bunched in the middle, then called out his own orders, boosting them with his Talent. “Fifteenth Company! Rifles away! To sabre! To sabre! Seventeenth Company! Thirteenth Company! Keep firing!” To offer the example to Fifteenth Company, he raised his own sabre, if left-handed. After a moment, he shouted, Talent amplifying it, “Fifteenth Company! Charge!”

  “Charge!” echoed Chyndylt.

  Clearly, the Reillies had not expected the Cadmians, with their smaller sabres, to charge, but those smaller sabres could be—and were—far more deadly in confined quarters, with riders and mounts pressing on all sides.

  The Reillie and Squawt riders broke off, despite shouts and orders from somewhere.

  “Fifteenth Company! Withdraw and re-form! Withdraw and re-form!”

  Mykel was relieved to see that most of the company did ride back up the slope, already littered with bodies.

  From the west, Fourteenth Company continued to rake the Reillies with rifle fire, but the warleaders or priests in the front seemed ignorant of or indifferent to those losses as the much diminished mass of hill riders regrouped into a rough series of lines and once more charged toward the bulk of Third Battalion.

  Another concentration of Reillie riders formed a wedge aimed at Mykel. In between the grunts, and the screams of men and mounts, the continuing rifle fire from Fourteenth Company, he could hear the shouts of the attackers.

  “To the priest-killer…”

  “For Kladyl!”

  At those words, Mykel did his best to gather and strengthen his Talent shields around him, but he remained behind the center of Fifteenth Company.

  From beyond the swirl of attackers and Cadmians below him, Mykel could sense a focus of Talent somehow being directed at him, and he raised his sabre, if left-handed, trying to infuse it with what Talent he could. As he did, a line of greenish flame arced toward him, a crossbow bolt coated in Talent.

  Amber-green flared before Mykel, and he rocked slightly in the saddle at the impact of bolt and sabre. His eyes still watering from the last Talent impact, he tried to get a clearer view of the battle beside and below him.

  Thirteenth and Seventeenth Companies remained on the fringes of the attack, but Loryalt had angled his lines downhill on the north side to give his men clearer shots at the Reillie center. Mykel did not see Dyarth, but Thirteenth Company also continued to fire telling shots into the mass of hill riders.

  He took a quick look at his sabre, but it seemed undamaged by the Talent-bolt, if slightly discolored.

  A loud shrieking series of yells presaged another charge up the hill at Fifteenth Company. This onslaught was formed like a blunt wedge, and Mykel had a good idea why. When the attackers reached the first line of Fifteenth Company, nearly half had gone down wounded or killed, but they had shielded the older and more seasoned Reillies who spurred their mounts through the center of third squad, striving to reach Mykel.

  “The priest-killer!”

  “Avenge Kladyl!”

  Much as his instinct was to charge down toward them, Mykel did not, instead, waiting, rebuilding his Talent shields. A squad of Fifteenth Company angled southward, trying to cut off the Reillies who were cutting their way through the center of the company, but a handful of Reillies surged past them before the squad intercepted those following.

  Only when those few riders were within a handful of yards did Mykel urge the roan forward, waiting until he was almost upon the four riders to do his best to stiffen those shields.

  The combination of his shields and momentum were enough to un-horse two of the riders and push the others away, where they were cut down by the near rankers of Fifteenth Company.

  Mykel reined up. Although there were less than half of the attackers left, he wasn’t about to go charging into them.

  He could sense another blaze of green Talent being readied, centered on yet another group of riders who appeared, riding from the northwest side of the mass of Reillies, led by two men clad totally in green, their faces painted green as well. A faint green aura surrounded them.

  “Aim for the greenies! Aim for the greenies!” Loryalt’s voice bellowed forth across the hillside.

  The renewed fire from Seventeenth Company cut down close to a third of the attackers within moments.

  Mykel had the feeling that all the Reillies and Squawts below had stopped—and were watching—as if all those in the world around him had decided to hold their collective breaths. Except that they hadn’t stopped. The remaining attackers had re-formed around the green priests, and the entire body was aimed at the northern edge of Fifteenth Company.

  Seventeenth Company had swung southward.

  “Charge!” ordered Loryalt.

  Mykel could see that the Cadmians would not be able to cut off the leading section of the attackers. He turned the roan and reined up. Holding tight to his shields, he did what he had winced to see Fabrytal do. He stood in the stirrups, trying to anchor himself and the roan to the very ground, and to whatever lay beneath it, trying to drive pylons of Talent to bedrock.

  Fire from the Cadmians to the south redoubled, ripping into the body of Reillies and Squawts for several moments, then died away as Seventeenth Company’s rankers hurled themselves into the northern flank of the attackers.

  The riders leading the green priests had fallen, leaving the priests alone and isolated from the remainder of the Reillies.

  Still, they charged forward up the gentle slope toward Mykel, their mounts moving apart so that they would strike at him with their green-stained blades simultaneously, one from each side.

  At least one bullet struck the one on the left, but he barely winced as he readied his oversized blade.

  Mykel Talent-reached for greenness…for strength.

  Both blades slashed toward Mykel.

  Just before both touched the edge of his shields, Mykel grasped, with his Talent, something, an extra bit of Talent, a sense of amber-green. His shields flared, and the blades rebounded, and exploded into lengths of burning molten iron. In instants, both priests were human torches, and both they and their mounts were flung sideways from Mykel, tumbling into heaps that flamed skyward.

  A wailing groan rose from the remaining attackers.

  Mykel dropped back into his saddle, breathing heavily and watching as the Reillies and Squawts broke, as what had seemed a single immovable mass fragmented…and then dissolved. Riders turned their mounts back toward the northwest, to the west, anywhere there appeared to be no Cadmians.

  “Third Battalion! Hold! Hold position! Fourteenth Company! Hold!” Mykel tried to project the last order through his clearly weakened and waning Talent.

  There was nothing more to be gained by chasing the survivors down, not when they were scattering as individuals fleeing for their lives. The Cadmians wouldn’t catch that many, and butchering fleeing riders, many of whom were little more than youths, would only sow unnecessary hatred. The Reillies and Squawts had been decimated enough to weaken them for a generation, if not longer, and that was enough for Mykel. The slope and the flat below were littered with the bodies of men, women, boys, and girls, hundreds of them, if not more than a thousand.

  Equally important, the Cadmians had taken enough losses already, and there was little point in adding to them.

  But the feeling of greenness persisted, and Mykel was aware that the Cadmians near him, indeed all of the survivors of Third Battalion, were turning to him. The haze of greenish light intensified.

  Then, hovering beside Mykel, was a soarer. Sadness radiated from her, a sorrow that enveloped him in melancholy.

  The towers have fallen. Ludar and Elcien and Faitel are no more.

  “No more?” Mykel realized his words sounded inane. “H
ow? What did you do?”

  We did what needed to be done. The Ifrits are no more. The future is yours.

  His? Landers? What was he supposed to do?

  Go to Tempre. A wry undertone shaded the sadness behind her words.

  “Tempre?”

  But the soarer had vanished.

  The air was still, and then the silence vanished, and Mykel could hear the sounds of the aftermath of a bloody battle—moaning men, wounded mounts, cries for help. He could smell blood and death. Dumbly, clumsily, he sheathed the sabre he still held, the muscles in his left arm protesting and threatening to cramp if he did not do so.

  He glanced around. Rankers were staring at him, many openmouthed. Others looked to their comrades, questioningly. Mykel suspected that not all the men had been able to see the soarer, but more than a few had.

  Loryalt was the first officer to reach Mykel. “Sir…are you all right?” There was an awkward pause. “What was that? Was it really an ancient?”

  “It was. She…said that the…alectors are gone.” Mykel had a hard time saying that, but he could not deny the sadness or the truth that had accompanied her words.

  “They’re gone.” Loryalt’s tone was between incredulity and disbelief.

  “That’s what she said.” Mykel gestured southward toward the steaming fog that still rose from the Vedra. “They boiled the entire river. I’d hate to think what else they did.” He straightened in the saddle. He needed some time to think. “I’m all right. How is Seventeenth Company?”

  “Eight dead, seven wounded, sir.”

  “Have your men reclaim what they can from the fallen in ammunition and rifles and blades. We’ll need every shell we can find.”