Princeps ip-5

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Probably headed to or from Amyal,” said Skarpa, interrupting Quaeryt’s thoughts. “That’s the next town of any size. Could you tell what he was carrying?”

  “No, sir. With those archers, I didn’t see any point in getting too close. He was headed toward us, though.”

  “Shouldn’t take that long if he’s got spares. If he’s that heavy, he ought to be carrying spares.” Skarpa frowned. “That’s the Myal River. It’s the last river of any size entering the Aluse between here and Ferravyl.”

  Quaeryt cleared his throat. “Perhaps…”

  “If you want to, be my guest.” Skarpa turned in the saddle and gestured to Alusyk, commanding Third Battalion’s fourth company. “Captain, take a few men and accompany Scholar Quaeryt to see if you can get these wagons moving.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  In moments, Quaeryt was riding beside the captain, with six troopers trailing them, half wondering why he had volunteered-except that there was something about the broken wagon that bothered him. His hand brushed the half-staff in the leathers, but he hoped he wouldn’t need it.

  The road angled more northward, away from the river, for almost half a mille before turning west again along what amounted to a levee on the north side of a series of marshes. The ground farther to the north of the road was low and swampy, and held what looked to be rice fields. After another quarter of a mille, they came to the end of the line of wagons.

  “Captain, sir,” called the first teamster they neared, the last one in line, with a fully loaded wagon, its contents covered with an oilcloth tarp, sacks of grain or something similar Quaeryt guessed. “Can you get them moving? I’ve been sitting here nigh on two quints, awaitin’ for ’em to move.”

  “We’ll see what we can do,” answered Alusyk, guiding his mount to the north shoulder of the road in order to pass the waiting wagons and teams.

  Quaeryt eased the mare behind the captain, and the other troopers followed him. A large farm wagon, piled high with hay from the previous fall’s harvest, was the first in line, just short of the stone approach to the bridge.

  The bridge over the Amyal wasn’t quite what Quaeryt expected. It was a two-span structure, the spans joining in the middle, where it was supported by a stone pylon rising out of the murky river water. The spans were composed of heavy planks over timbers stretching from the stone approaches to the central pylon. Each span looked to be some ten yards long. As the scout had reported, a large high-sided and enclosed battered black wagon rested in the center of the bridge, almost directly over the center pylon.

  Alusyk rode to the end of the bridge and reined up, then called out, “You need some help there?”

  “I’ve sent two of my men back to Amyal for what we need.” The man who spoke was broad-shouldered, almost massive, blond, and clean-shaven. “We’re not moving until then.”

  “You’re blocking the road in both directions,” pointed out Alusyk politely.

  “So?”

  “So … these teamsters and the regiment need to get across the bridge.”

  “A little waiting won’t hurt anyone.”

  Quaeryt was getting a very bad feeling about the placement of the wagon and the attitude of the man-who looked to be more of a mercenary type than a teamster. He eased the mare closer to Alusyk and murmured, “Stay here. Keep him talking. I’ll start talking. If I yell ‘charge,’ send the others after me.”

  For a moment, a look of puzzlement crossed the captain’s face. “Are you sure?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Very sure. I’m just a scholar.”

  After another moment, Alusyk looked to the blond man. “Waiting is going to hurt these teamsters, and the commander won’t be happy. That might end up hurting you, too. Why don’t you just let us help you off the bridge?”

  Quaeryt urged the mare forward as well, trying to use his knees and as little movement of the reins as possible while concentrating on strengthening his shields. “Let me help you. Surely, a poor scholar without weapons is no threat to you or your cargo.”

  “Now … don’t you crowd me, scholar. Be better if you didn’t.”

  “It might be better if you let us help you. If that regiment commander finds you’re blocking his way…”

  Quaeryt could see the two archers nocking their shafts, and he urged the mare forward. “Charge!”

  The two archers fired shafts, and nocked and fired again. Quaeryt could feel one and then the other shaft impacting his shields, but he kept riding. The archers loosed more shafts, some of which hit Quaeryt’s shields, and then they and the blond man scrambled off the wagon and dove off the side of the bridge. A moment later another man that Quaeryt hadn’t seen dove off the bridge as well. All four began to swim downstream.

  That worried Quaeryt, and he reined up short of the lead dray horse in the team, then turned to Alusyk as he neared. “We need to drag the wagon off the bridge and do it quickly. As quickly as possible.”

  “That will likely break the wheel and splinter the axle. That might damage the goods. I’d like to know what’s in the wagon. He didn’t want us any too close.”

  So would I. “That’s the merchant’s problem. We need the bridge clear. We can check the goods once the bridge is open.”

  One of the teamsters in the first waiting wagon volunteered to help, by taking the traces of the damaged wagon. Several others came forward, and with extra ropes and three other horses, they managed to drag the wagon with the working front wheels and two collapsed rear ones forward over the bridge whose timbers flexed more than Quaeryt would have liked and down onto the east side and then onto the shoulder.

  “Unfasten the horses from the traces,” Alusyk ordered the four troopers who had helped move the wagon. The other five held the mounts, including Quaeryt’s mare.

  Quaeryt looked from the wagon downstream toward where the Myal joined the Aluse, but he saw no sign of the swimmers. Then he looked back toward the wagon.

  The captain walked around to the back of the wagon and opened the loading door. He looked inside. “They were carrying elveweed. I think it is anyway. Probably coming from the marshes around the Sud Swamp. The so-called spice factors in Ruile harvest it and sell it where they can.”

  Quaeryt wondered if some of the elveweed had been destined for Hyleor in Extela.

  “Why would they try to stand up against us when they knew a regiment was coming?” asked Alusyk. “Just for elveweed.”

  “There are golds in elveweed,” said Quaeryt dryly.

  “Smells like something burned here.” Alusyk bent over and lifted a bundle of the elveweed. He sneezed, once and then again. “Something under here … a steel plate.”

  “Get out of there. Run!” Quaeryt turned and sprinted toward the bridge.

  WHUMPP!

  Quaeryt felt himself being flung toward the river. Then he felt nothing.

  * * *

  Out of the darkness … there was dampness on his face. Quaeryt realized he was lying on his back looking up at scattered gray and white clouds. Between two of the clouds, he saw the partial disc of Artiema, barely visible in the bright sky. A trooper who had been kneeling beside him with a damp cloth in his hand rose and stepped back.

  “Scholar … can you hear me?”

  Quaeryt recognized Skarpa’s voice, and he turned his head. Waves of dizziness washed over him, but receded. “I can hear you. See you, too.” After a moment, he asked, “What about Alusyk? The others?”

  “How are you?” asked Skarpa.

  Quaeryt wiggled his fingers. They all seemed to move. So did his toes. He moved his arms, then his legs, then rolled onto his side. He felt dull throbbing in places all over his body, but everything seemed to work as he slowly worked himself to a sitting position. “I don’t think anything’s broken. I ache all over.” He paused. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Alusyk’s dead. The wagon exploded. Something from the explosion crushed his skull. Two of the troopers are dead, and one has a broken leg. Another has gash
es. Most of the blast went down. Dug a big crater in the shoulder of the road, and cracked the paving stones on that side.”

  “That’s what it was supposed to do.”

  “Do what?”

  “Blast through the center of the bridge and destroy or damage the center pylon so that it would take time to replace … or for us to find another way over the river.”

  “How did you know?” asked Skarpa. “Why didn’t you warn the others sooner?”

  “I didn’t know. Not exactly. There were too many things that didn’t feel right. I couldn’t figure out why a wheel would break exactly in the middle of the bridge … or the archers … but when Alusyk said it smelled like something burned and there was a steel plate … Then I knew and I yelled for him to run. I’d wondered about all of the teamsters swimming away, too … How many teamsters swim?” Quaeryt slowly stood. “You said something about this being the last large river between here and Ferravyl, but that means it’s the closest to Bovaria. The elveweed was for show, to explain the extra guards.”

  “That means Kharst is about to mount an attack … if he hasn’t already.”

  Quaeryt thought about nodding, then, given the way he felt, decided against any such motion and said, “I’d wager on it.”

  “Are you able to ride, or should I have one of the wagons pick you up?”

  “I’ll ride.” Quaeryt knew from experience that riding was easier than bouncing on a hard wooden wagon seat. “What about the teamsters?”

  “I told the ones that were still here to cross the bridge and wait at the next turnout.” Skarpa turned and strode toward his mount.

  Quaeryt followed, his steps far less vigorous as he made his way to where a trooper held the mare.

  63

  Despite Skarpa’s misgivings, Third Tilboran Regiment approached the east side of Ferravyl just before second glass on Meredi. By then, Quaeryt’s dizziness had subsided, but his stiffness and soreness remained, so much so that he felt like a creaky old man whenever he mounted or dismounted, although he did his best not to show his discomfort. As they neared the city, and as small mean steads gave way to crowded huts and houses, Quaeryt found the air hazy and his eyes burning ever so slightly.

  A major Quaeryt didn’t recognize was waiting with a squad of troopers on the river side of a set of ancient stone posts flanking the point where the stone-paved highway narrowed into the brick pavement of the city.

  “Commander Skarpa!”

  Skarpa did not halt the column, but motioned for the major to ride up beside him.

  “Major Lewyn, sir. I’m attached to Fourth Telaryn, detailed to Marshal Deucalon’s staff. You and Subcommander Scholar Quaeryt are to join Lord Bhayar immediately at headquarters. Your regiment has been assigned to North Post…”

  Quaeryt missed a few words as he considered what the major had said. Subcommander Scholar Quaeryt … What does Bhayar have in mind for you?

  “… and would like you to have your men proceed there immediately. You’ll rejoin them within a glass or two. Lord Bhayar wanted me to convey that as well.”

  “The beginning of the north river road isn’t that far from the main post,” Skarpa said. “Why didn’t you just wait there?”

  “I was ordered out here so that you wouldn’t have to be away from the regiment for long, sir. The Bovarians could attack at any time.”

  Skarpa turned in the saddle. “Major Meinyt to the fore! Pass it back!”

  Quaeryt almost smiled. Meinyt was only riding a few yards behind them, at the head of Third Battalion, and within moments, the grizzled major pulled up beside Skarpa, easing between the commander and Major Lewyn, as if the headquarters major were insignificant.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Major Meinyt, you’re acting commander until my return.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lewyn glanced from Meinyt and back to Skarpa, but said nothing as Meinyt dropped back slightly, allowing Skarpa and Quaeryt to move out at a fast trot, leaving Major Lewyn and his troopers momentarily behind.

  Lewyn had to urge his mount almost to a canter to catch up. “I didn’t expect … You didn’t give any instructions…”

  “You said time was important, Major. You wonder why I said nothing more,” said Skarpa. “Because I don’t have to. Meinyt knows what to do. All my battalion leaders do.”

  “Yes, sir.” Lewyn looked forward.

  Skarpa turned toward Quaeryt and raised his eyebrows.

  Quaeryt managed not to laugh, instead asking, “How many posts are there around Ferravyl?”

  “The main post on the point, the South Post crossing the river and the bridge, and the North Post. There are smaller posts farther up the Vyl and the Ferrean.”

  From the maps he’d seen and from what he had read, Quaeryt knew that the two tributaries that joined the Aluse at Ferravyl were far smaller than either the Ruil or the Telexan, and he wondered why the border with Bovaria had developed that far west. Had it just been the way the rivers ran or that the previous rulers of Bovaria had been occupied more in dealing with Khel and Antiago … or the warlike nature of the Yaran rulers of Telaryn?

  Quaeryt hadn’t ridden more than another half mille before he found that the air smelled and even tasted metallic and the burning in his eyes was not an annoyance but uncomfortable enough that they were tearing. He knew that Ferravyl was a mill city, with the ironworks built by Chayar on the northeast side, along a canal constructed for just that purpose, and that both coal and ore came down the Ferrean on barges from the north. What he hadn’t expected was that the air would be so foul, far worse than the rotten stenches off the harbor flats in Solis at low tide in midsummer. At least the rotten air in Solis hadn’t burned his eyes and throat.

  People in Ferravyl were used to riders in a hurry, because they scattered out of the way, unlike those in Extela, or to a lesser extent, in Solis or Nacliano. Even while riding through the center of the city, Quaeryt gained the impression that Ferravyl was a mean town, worn down for all of its prosperity, where even the brick walls of an inn under construction off the pier square looked soot-smudged for all that masons were working on the walls as Quaeryt passed.

  The smoke and haze were almost gone in the area around the main post, perhaps because it was located on a low bluff jutting out from where the Ferrean joined the Aluse, a point of land that Quaeryt suspected was being whittled away year by year by the rivers, and because a solid breeze blew out of the northwest.

  While Quaeryt had anticipated that the main post would be filled with troopers, especially given its four-yard-high stone walls, and even thicker siege walls on the three sides facing the two rivers, that was not obviously the case, because he initially saw only a few handfuls of rankers scattered around the stone-paved courtyard. Then he realized that the walls extended farther to the west, through a second gateway into a far larger courtyard, filled with troopers. Even so, the unrelieved grayness of paving, walls, and slate roofs created a mood of something close to grim isolated resolution.

  The major reined up outside the large central structure dominating the front courtyard, three stories with a small tower extending another five yards above the west end. “Lord Bhayar is waiting within.”

  Quaeryt had his doubts about that. Bhayar had never waited on anyone, not in his experience.

  After dismounting and handing the reins of their mounts to one of Lewyn’s troopers, Skarpa and Quaeryt walked up two stone steps and through the weathered ironbound oak door and into a small rectangular hall with a large desk manned by two squad leaders.

  One immediately jumped up. “Commander Skarpa? Subcommander Quaeryt? This way, sirs, if you would. Submarshal Myskyl was hoping you wouldn’t be long, and I’ll send a messenger to tell Lord Bhayar you’ve arrived.”

  That overwhelming deference and politeness chilled Quaeryt all the way through, and it must have bothered Skarpa as well, because when Quaeryt looked to Skarpa as they followed the graying squad leader down the narrow hallway, the commander nodded sl
owly.

  The squad leader stopped at one door and rapped on it. “They’re here, sir.”

  “Take them to the conference room. I’ll be right there.”

  “This way, if you would, sirs.”

  The conference room was three doors down and on the other side of the hallway and contained a long table with six chairs on a side and one at the far end. Only the chair at the far end had arms.

  The squad leader stood by the door, as if to say something, when Myskyl, wearing the single stars of a submarshal on his collars, hurried in, pausing just to nod to the squad leader, who stepped out without closing the door.

  Myskyl looked the same as ever, gray-haired, with the faint scars across his left cheek and jaw that Quaeryt recalled. He also carried what appeared to be a rolled map. “Commander, Subcommander … welcome to Ferravyl.” Myskyl did not look at Quaeryt, but kept his eyes on Skarpa. “Lord Bhayar will be here momentarily. How was your trip from Extela?”

  “Uneventful until the Bovarian spies tried to destroy the bridge over the Myal,” said Skarpa.

  “Yes … yes. Good job in stopping them.”

  “That wasn’t my doing. Subcommander Quaeryt and Captain Alusyk took care of that. As I noted in the report I sent along with our estimate of arrival.” Skarpa’s voice was cool, yet gruff.

  “Yes. Subcommander Quaeryt is quite resourceful. He always has been.” Myskyl glanced toward the door of the conference chamber. He quickly looked back to Skarpa.

  “Unlike some officers, sir,” Skarpa said, “he does not avoid danger if he deems it necessary to accomplish the task at hand.”

  “Many have reported that, Commander.” Myskyl’s voice was even, not quite flat, and he continued to avoid looking in Quaeryt’s direction.

  Quaeryt heard quick bootsteps on the stone floor of the corridor outside, and then a wiry man with slightly disheveled brownish black hair, wearing the green uniform of a Telaryn officer, if without insignia, stepped into the conference room and closed the door behind himself. Bhayar’s dark blue eyes rested on Myskyl momentarily, then moved to Skarpa, and then to Quaeryt.