Corean Chronicles 3 - Scepters

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  "Sir… Waris says there's no one on this ridge below. He also says that you'd better take it slow down the path."

  "Thank you. We will." Alucius turned. "Single file! Silent riding, Follow me!"

  He turned the gray off the ring road and down onto the steep and narrow path that wound northward, a path difficult enough to travel in the light. But that was why he was riding first, Alucius told himself. Still, traveling the path in the darkness, under only the light of the stars and the tiny half-disc of Asterta, was safer than waiting on the ring road and facing the spear-thrower.

  Half a glass passed, and Alucius had traveled only less than a third of the way down the path to where the ridge flattened, and where the lancers could move more quickly to the southwest and the ancient black lava ledge that would conceal them from the Matrites once the sky lightened. He forced himself to be patient and keep moving.

  Another half glass passed, and Alucius could sense the Matrite forces and the wagons on the ridge to the south, but they seemed to be moving more slowly than he had anticipated. He allowed himself the hope that moving their heavy equipment upslope, even up a gentle dirt road, had proved more time-consuming than the Matrite commanders had calculated. He could also sense the heavy wagon, the one carrying the spear-thrower, and behind it the wagons carrying the sand that fed it. All four wagons were below where Alucius intended to place his own forces.

  The faintest tinge of gray was coloring the sky above the ring road when the last of Thirty-fifth Company's lancers rode into position behind the ledge. Alucius let himself heave a sigh of relief. At the very least, the companies were shielded from direct fire from the crystal spear-thrower, and the Matrites were only slightly uphill of his men, if on the adjoining ridge. His men would have to sweep down another two hundred yards to reach the swale that connected the two ridges, but farther down there was no cover for them.

  Alucius dismounted and handed the gray's reins to Dhaget, then turned and looked up at Feran, who lay in a notch in the lava, from where he could view the adjoining ridge. "You'll have to watch the crystal spear-thrower. No one moves until you're satisfied that it's disabled."

  "I think I can manage that."

  "Good." With one rifle in hand, Alucius walked downslope a good hundred yards, still behind the lava.

  There, half concealed by Talent, and half by his own dark uniform, Alucius climbed over the now-much-lower lava and dropped to the hard ground on the other side. Keeping low, he tried to move down into the gully and back upward. He was sweating heavily and panting by the time he pulled himself over the rim of the gully on the south side. He felt like anyone could have heard him a vingt away, but there were neither Matrite foot or lancers within a hundred yards.

  He forced himself to pause and let his breathing subside before he began to move in a crouch uphill through the lightening darkness and toward where the heavy wagon had stopped. He could sense that a group of engineers had gathered around the wagon and begun to dig into the hillside, as if to level the wagon somewhat.

  How close would he have to get to use his Talent? Was the weapon powered up enough so that he could?

  He let his Talent range toward the device.

  The weapon was inert… dead… unpowered, and Alucius could not bring enough Talent force or lifeforce to do anything to the assemblage of wires and crystals and other components that he had neither words nor knowledge to describe.

  Below him, he could hear a voice.

  "There's a Talent-wielder somewhere up here."

  Alucius's lips tightened. He should have expected a Matrite Talent-officer. He should have, especially protecting the spear-thrower.

  "Aim to your right more. Just sweep the area."

  In the darkness, Alucius scrambled toward the edge of the gully, dropping into a ditchlike depression just short of a far deeper drop-off.

  Shots pierced the predawn gray, and he could sense the bullets a fraction of a yard above his head. Lying there, with more bullets passing above him, he extended a Talent-probe downhill, seeking the brighter lifethread of the Talent officer.

  She was riding uphill in his direction, with a small squad, calling out instructions. Those instructions were far too accurate.

  Alucius would have preferred to use his rifle, but the Matrite shots were so close that lifting his head could have been fatal. Doing nothing was also likely to be fatal before very long.

  He extended the Talent-probe toward the officer, seeking the lifethread nodes. Her main node was unprotected, and he twisted. An unseen spray of brown and green was followed by the fall of her lifeless body from the saddle.

  "Talent-wielder got her!"

  "Keep shooting!"

  "Where? There's no one anywhere."

  "Got to be somewhere!"

  A sheet of bullets passed overhead. Alucius resisted the urge to fire back and, keeping on the precarious edge of the gully, began to crawl, then scramble uphill. Going in a half crawl, half crouch was hard on his legs, his feet, and his lungs, and he kept having to stop to catch his breath. The rifle felt like a long, heavy weight. The sky was turning from deep black green to dark silver green by the time Alucius had scrabbled his way uphill another three hundred yards.

  He tried once more with his Talent to explore the spear-thrower, but it was still depowered. He was also stretching to reach it with his Talent.

  The small squad that had been with the Talent officer had begun to move forward toward a point just below where Alucius had almost been shot, but they were moving too carefully, he thought, to be able to track him before he got into position to do something about the crystal spear-thrower.

  He kept moving, making another fifty yards, so that he was at the edge of the gully, flat on his stomach on a slope that was steep enough that he would slide down into a fifty-yard drop if he moved incautiously or lost his footholds. Although his Talent was supposed to be shielding him from view from below, he felt horribly exposed.

  The sense of a crack echoed around him, and he could feel the energy building from the spear-thrower, which was positioned only a half vingt below the ring road, with its discharge formulator pointed at the road itself.

  "There they are!"

  A single trumpet blast echoed across the ridge from the ring road, and a company of Southern Guards appeared and charged downhill.

  Alucius winced. He hadn't even begun to try to work out how to deal with the weapon. A nimbus of pinkish energy flared up around the spear-thrower, followed by a humming that quickly rose to a high-pitched whine and abruptly stopped. With the end of the whining, miniature crystalline spears formed a yard beyond the crystal muzzle of the device, then flashed outward so quickly that sunbeams seemed to radiate from the weapon rather than crystal projectiles. The deadly spray struck the center of the oncoming lancers, disintegrating them into a pinkish spray.

  Alucius forced himself to ignore the wave of death and concentrate on the weapon itself, extending a Talent-probe. The probe was repelled from the nimbus of unseen pinkish light, repelled by the strength of that light. Alucius forced himself to probe around the weapon; but the only place where the shield did not extend was that point where the spears seemed to form before they were accelerated outward.

  He turned his probe and extended it behind the formation point.

  The shock of raw power slammed back through his probe with such force that Alucius had to release the probe and concentrate on keeping his balance to avoid slipping, then sliding, to the drop-off below him.

  His shield wavered in the effort.

  "There's someone up there!"

  He managed to get his balance back and recover the Talent shield.

  "Where?"

  "Up there, below the machine on the side."

  Another wave of Southern Guards vanished in pinkish spray, and their deaths washed across Alucius. He swallowed and tried to get his concentration back.

  What about using the rifle, wrapping lifeforce around the bullets?

  He crawled up
ward and forward until he could just ease the rifle over the edge of the rim of the gully. Then he focused on infusing the bullets with lifeforce. He aimed at the spear-thrower, narrowing his concentration, and squeezed the trigger, once, twice, three times.

  A brief flare of energy flashed from the side of the spear-thrower with each impact, but there was no sense that even one of the bullets had had any real effect on the Matrite weapon.

  A line of bullets plowed into the rim of the gully less than five yards below him.

  What could Alucius do? The soarers said that everything had nodes. Could he find something like a node in the weapon, something that would undo a key part?

  He extended his Talent probe again, this time keeping it flexible.

  There were no nodes—not like those of people or ifrits. But there were hard diamondlike glittering Talentlike points that rotated around the point where the spears were formed. Alurius tried to slow them in their rotation, but that was like trying to halt a huge iron wagon wheel headed downhill. If he hung on, he'd be crushed.

  What if he pushed it faster?

  He lent his strength to try to hurry the diamond nodes.

  Suddenly, the tiniest thread trailed from one diamond node, and Alucius grasped it with his probe and began to pull it. The node unraveled, and the following node shifted, as if to try to take the place of the first, and additional smaller threads appeared.

  Alucius could suddenly feel the discharge formulator, hard and impervious crystal, begin to sag, as if melting. He used his probe to tug at more and more of the threads.

  Then… a surge of power, seemingly rising from everywhere, poured into the spear-thrower.

  Alucius dropped his probe and concentrated on forming a greenish Talent-shield around himself, barely getting it over himself when a roar of flame and force exploded from the spear-thrower.

  Metal and crystal exploded everywhere, and in all directions, scything outward.

  So much death followed the destruction of the weapon that for several long moments, Alucius was numb, deaf, blind. He just lay under his shields, waiting for the patter of metal and crystal rain to stop.

  Then he began to inch his body upward and over the top edge of the gully.

  "Companies! Forward!" came Feran's order from below on the adjoining ridge.

  Slowly, Alucius stood and surveyed the flat ridge before him. The explosion had scythed crystal and death through the Matrite force and through the few remaining Southern Guards who had attempted to attack the spear-thrower before Alucius could disable it. He had to swallow hard to keep from retching. Everywhere were small gobbets of things—flesh, wood, metal, brush, dirt, and all were pinkish. He looked down. There was even a pinkish film on his own boots.

  The destruction had created a circle only a vingt or so in diameter, and there were still two companies or more of Matrites lower on the ridge. Feran's charge had caught them while they were still stunned by the devastation.

  Rifle in hand, Alucius began to walk down the ridge.

  He'd covered about two hundred yards when three riders appeared leading his gray. Dhaget was in the lead, and Alucius was more than glad to see him.

  "Sir! Thought you might like a mount!"

  Alucius swung into the saddle, but by the time he had ridden down toward the fighting, the few surviving Matrites had pulled clear and were riding southward hard. A sense of more regret and anger washed over him. He wished he'd been able to be part of the attack, to wield his sabre somehow, tired as he was. But the Matrites had retreated so quickly that pursuing would have been stupidity. Besides, there was still another spear-thrower to destroy.

  Feran had ordered a recall, and the three companies re-formed as Alucius neared. Alucius reined up short of the overcaptain.

  Feran looked at Alucius. Alucius knew he was a sight, black skull mask still in place, with smears of blood and other things across his uniform. Jultyr and Deotyr rode up within moments. All three officers looked at Alucius.

  "Sir, we engaged and broke off as ordered. Fifth Company, three dead, five wounded."

  "Sir, Thirty-fifth Company, ten dead, eight wounded."

  "Twenty-eighth Company, seven dead, six wounded."

  "Thank you. We'll ride straight up to the ring road, banners ahead."

  "Banners forward, column, forward!"

  Feran rode up beside Alucius. "How did you manage to escape that?"

  "I was hanging over the side of the gully when it exploded."

  "I won't ask about the rest, Colonel."

  "You don't want to know," Alucius said tiredly. Belatedly, he realized that he hadn't fired a single shot from his rifle at any of the Matrites—just three useless shots at the spear-thrower.

  "I learned that a long time ago. How many Matrite companies were there up there?"

  "Three… could have been four. There was a Southern Guard company, too. Most of them had been killed before…" Alucius shook his head, reaching down to take the rifle out and reload it. He should have done that sooner.

  Again, behind him, he could hear the murmurs.

  "… walked out of that…"

  "… blood all over him… none of it his…"

  Except, Alucius thought, I'm responsible for all the blood.

  Chapter 88

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  Even before they had reached the top of the ridge and the ring road, Alucius sent Roncar ahead to the main road fort to report the total destruction of one crystal spear-thrower and three Matrite companies. He'd also worried off the skull mask and slipped it inside his tunic. At the top of the ridge and the edge of the ring road, a Southern Guard squad leader rode forward from the handful of lancers that remained from his company.

  "Sir?" The squad leader's eyes took in the insignia and the blood streaks across Alucius's uniform. "Colonel, sir?"

  "Yes?"

  "Do you have any orders for us, sir? Majer Storynst and Captain Chelopyr… they got taken out by that spear-thrower… most of the companies, too." His eyes narrowed. "You were the one walking across the ridge, sir? "

  "I was the one," Alucius replied hurriedly, taking in the no more than two squads remaining from what had to have been two companies. "For right now, you'd better patrol this area. You see that road down there? That offers the Matrites easy access to the ring road. We need to be heading east to deal with the other spear-thrower, and someone needs to make sure that they don't change their position and try this approach again. I'll let the marshal know that you're here. What company?"

  "Seventeenth and Nineteenth, sir. What's left of them."

  "If you see any sign of more Matrite forces, send a messenger to the marshal."

  "Yes, sir."

  As he finished speaking, Alucius could feel his body shaking all over. Once his force had all reached the ring road and formed up in a column heading eastward, he managed a long swallow from his water bottle and began to eat some hard travel bread, followed by some salted almonds they had gotten from the quartermaster.

  They'd traveled less than a vingt when Alucius could see another body of riders moving toward them at a quick trot. By then he'd eaten and drunk enough that most of the shakiness had subsided.

  "Banners forward!"

  Before long, Alucius was reined up opposite another colonel.

  "The Matrites are attacking on the south ends of the ring road, both east and west," said the captain-colonel, a man Alucius had seen at officers' call but had not met. "Are you sure, sir, that you should be headed east?"

  Alucius fixed the other with silver-gray eyes that turned metal-hard. "We've been fighting since well before dawn, Colonel. We've destroyed one of the crystal spear-throwers, and we're riding toward the other one to see what we can do before it slaughters most of the Lanachronan forces on the east side of Southgate."

  For the first time, the older colonel's eyes took in the blood and gore on the Northern Guard uniforms. His eyes did not quite meet those of Alucius. "Ah… yes, sir."

  "Two Southern Guard compan
ies attacked the spear-thrower prematurely, before we could take it out. There are fewer than two squads left. They've mounted a patrol there, to watch for any other Matrite companies. You can obtain the details from them, if you'd like. The longer we delay, the more Southern Guards will die. Good day, Colonel."

  " Good day, sir."

  Alucius moved to the right side of the road. "Single file, until we pass!"

  "Single file."

  Neither Feran nor Alucius spoke until they were past the four companies of Southern Guards.

  "Idiots…" Alucius finally muttered. "Told Alyniat that they wouldn't do a frontal assault. Told him we shouldn't do any against the spear-throwers. No wonder they're losing what they'd held."

  "It makes you wonder," Feran returned. "You still think supporting the Lord-Protector is that good an idea?"

  "Good? No. Better than all the alternatives? Yes."

  "You're being so optimistic again, Colonel." Feran's voice dripped irony.

  "I have to be. The Regent has figured out how to power those silver torques, and that's worse than anything in Lanachrona."

  "If only those idiot traders in Dekhron had been willing to spend a few thousand more golds five years ago… I'd wager that they still don't understand."

  "You'd win. Most of them are dead, one way or another."

  "Figures." Feran snorted. "Left us alive with a mess to clean up."

  They rode on for a vingt and a half before seeing another force ahead, seemingly smaller than the first, but also hurrying southward.

  An overcaptain rode forward, took one look at Alucius and inclined his head. "Permission to pass, single file, sir?"

  "Permission granted, overcaptain," Alucius replied.

  Alucius kept track as the two sets of lancers passed each other, and from what he saw, the overcaptain had two companies with him.

  Over the next two vingts, they saw no more Southern Guards, except for the scattered handfuls on ring road patrol. By the time Alucius and his forces neared the coastal high road, it was still early morning.