Scepters

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  He scrambled sideways, pulling himself along the rope and away from the center of the temple roof, trying to bound over the stones crumbling beneath him as more and more of the roof stones of the temple cracked and began to crumble even under his boots.

  He could feel Waris and Rakalt trying to reel in the rope.

  Then something smashed into his shoulder, and blackness rolled over him.

  68

  North of Iron Stem, Iron Valleys

  In early afternoon, the three sat around the kitchen table, ignoring the chill wind that whipped around the stone walls of the stead dwelling, trying to rattle the snug-shuttered windows and tight-fitted doors. The gale-force winds of the first full storm of fall battered the walls, as they had since the middle of the night before. Warmth radiated from the iron stove.

  Wendra stiffened, her face paling. “Oh…”

  “You’re too early,” Lucenda said. “I told you about riding—”

  “It’s not that. I’m fine. Alucius…he’s hurt.”

  Both Royalt and Lucenda looked hard at Wendra.

  “It was like a fall…it wasn’t Talent…he’s alive…”

  “He’s too good a rider to fall,” Royalt said, “not unless he was shot, and you’d feel that.”

  “They could have shot his mount from under him,” Lucenda pointed out.

  For a time, no one spoke.

  “He’s alive…he feels stronger…but he’s still hurt. He’s badly hurt.” Wendra’s lips tightened. “He can’t do this alone. He can’t. How can I help when I’m five hundred vingts away?”

  “You’re helping him by being the herder,” Royalt said slowly. “He won’t have anything to come back to without you.”

  “He has you,” Wendra said slowly, the pallor in her face lifting.

  Royalt shook his head. “There’s only the two of you—you and Alucius—who can handle those new Talent-beasts. They’d turn me into blue flame before I’d have two shots off, and not one of my shots’d do a thing. Without you, Alucius wouldn’t have anything.”

  For the first time, Wendra’s eyes misted. She blotted them. “It’s not what you think. It’s not. I’m trapped. If I go to him, he could lose the stead, and that’s almost everything for him. In a way, then, I’d lose him. If I don’t, I could also lose him.”

  Royalt nodded slowly.

  Wendra looked at her husband’s grandsire for a time. Finally, she smiled wearily, a crooked expression, and lifted the mug before her to her lips.

  69

  Alucius opened his eyes. He could see stars. Had he been hit that hard? With what? His entire back felt numb, but without the sharpness of a specific wound. He thought he was lying on some sort of pallet, but he wasn’t sure. He squinted. There were stars against darkness…and the half disc of Selena. He was lying on the ground, hard ground, and it was night.

  “Don’t move,” said a voice.

  “I’m…not. What happened?”

  “The whole cave…exploded, and it just fell away from under you, sir. We thought you’d gone with the cave.”

  Alucius could make out the lancer’s face, but not well enough in the dim light to put a name to it. Or had he been hurt worse, somehow, and he couldn’t remember names and faces?

  “How is he?” came another voice—Feran’s.

  “I’m not so bad as you think,” Alucius replied.

  “That’s still bad,” retorted Feran, moving into Alucius’s sight.

  “Why am I out here?”

  “We didn’t want to move you. Besides, the barracks are like a hog pen. Never saw such filth.”

  That didn’t surprise Alucius. Under the prophet’s Talent-spell, many of the enslaved lancers had shown little initiative.

  Feran bent down to study Alucius. “Good thing you and Waris worked out the rope, except that you were dangling there in the middle of nothing and a bunch of rock bounced down and hit you. A couple were a lot bigger than you are. Waris and Rakalt did their best, but they had a hard time getting you down. We lost a bunch of lancers to stone shrapnel when that temple blew. The whole front exploded, sent stone everywhere.”

  “How many did we lose?”

  “All told…thirty or so. About half came from Fifth Company and half from Thirty-fifth. There aren’t enough rebels left to fill a squad. We figured there must have been at least fifty inside there.”

  “Closer to a hundred and fifty—and their prophet. He’s dead. I killed him.” Alucius wasn’t about to say how. “That’s when the place blew. Somehow, he’d Talent-linked himself to a bunch of powder, and when he died, it set off the powder. Could have been something else, but I don’t know what.” That was what Alucius had thought, but there wasn’t any way to prove that—or disprove it—not that he knew, and it didn’t matter. The effect had been the same. Despite the explosion of the temple, Alucius had to wonder about Adarat. The prophet had been either too strong or too weak, but with the pain that ebbed and flowed through and around him, Alucius lost track of why he’d thought that.

  “Nasty bastard to the end,” said Feran.

  Alucius wiggled his fingers. They were slightly numb, but they moved. He tried the same with his toes. He lifted his left arm. It was sore, but it also moved. He tried his right arm. A wall of fire and pain slammed into him, and he barely managed to lower it, rather than let it fall onto the ground, which he knew would have hurt even worse. “I’m pretty sore…don’t think anything’s broken…”

  “How would you know?”

  Rather than answer immediately, Alucius used his Talent to look at himself, bit by bit. Finally, his eyes met Feran’s. “Nothing’s broken. Everything’s bruised on my back side and on my right. Need to roll over. Need some help.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “All the weight on the bruises doesn’t help.”

  “The pressure might keep it from hurting more.”

  “Help me roll over. To the left…”

  Feran knelt beside Alucius.

  As Feran helped him turn, another wall of pain slammed into Alucius, worse than the first. When he woke again, lying on his stomach, Feran was sitting on the ground, watching.

  “I told you, Majer.”

  Alucius wanted to laugh. “You…did…”

  “You’re not going anywhere real fast, even if nothing’s broken.”

  “I can feel that, but I heal fast. In a week, I’ll be able to ride.”

  “Do you think we should wait a week?”

  “No…” Alucius paused. “Without the prophet around, you could handle the other camp.”

  “You’re sure that there’s not another Talent-wielder?”

  “I haven’t seen any signs of one, but if there is…we can wait.”

  “Just the same to you, sir, I’d like to finish off these rebels before something else happens. I’ll take Twenty-eighth Company with Fifth tomorrow, and half of Thirty-fifth, and we’ll finish off the other camp. Without their prophet, it’ll be a slaughter job. Unless you’ve got any objections.”

  Alucius thought. He knew that Feran wanted his approval, possibly because the older officer didn’t believe that Alucius was not more severely injured. “Scout it first. Then, if you still think so…go ahead. Without the prophet, they might surrender, but you’ll have to be careful. Shoot first, if you’ve got any questions.” He wasn’t feeling all that charitable, not lying on whatever he was, and he had a great deal less sympathy for the people of Hyalt than when he had first arrived in the area. He still hadn’t figured out exactly who or what the prophet had been, except that he hadn’t been an ifrit—exactly—but he’d been more than merely influenced.

  Alucius was finding it hard to keep his eyes open, and that sort of speculation and deduction would have to wait.

  Feran said something, but the words slipped away as a grayish darkness crept over Alucius.

  70

  When Alucius struggled into awareness once again, it was morning, or he thought it was. He lay on a pallet in a small room, his hea
d propped up slightly with folded blankets. A lancer sat on a stool, his face not quite bored, but impassive from long glasses of inactivity. The lower part of the lancer’s right tunic sleeve had been cut away, and he wore a heavy dressing on his forearm.

  “How…long?” Alucius managed, his voice raspy. His head throbbed. In fact, almost his entire body throbbed.

  “Yes, sir…Ah…it’s Quattri…around midafternoon.” The man stood and hurried toward the pallet, extending a water bottle, left-handed, with a slight awkwardness. “It’s your water bottle, sir. The overcaptain said you needed to drink as much as you could.”

  Alucius managed to reach across his body with his left hand and take the water bottle. He only spilled a small amount on his face as he drank.

  The lancer watched.

  Alucius eased his hand holding the water bottle down until it rested on the pallet beside his leg. “I’ll keep it for a bit.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did Overcaptain Feran head out this morning?”

  “Yes, sir. He left two squads and those of us wounded. And the wagons.”

  “Were there any rebels left alive?”

  “Seven of ’em, sir. That’s all. Were more, but a some of ’em did crazy things, like slitting their wrists or cutting their own throats. The rest…well, the overcaptain had ’em tied up so as they wouldn’t hurt themselves. Said once you were better, you’d be wanting to talk to them.”

  Alucius glanced around the room. Moving his head intensified the throbbing that had started to fade after he drank the water.

  The lancer followed his eyes. “This was the cleanest place around. Only had to move junk out and swept it down good. The rest of ’em…well, everyone’d rather sleep outside.”

  “Has anything else strange happened?”

  The wounded man cocked his head. “No, sir. I mean, no more rebels, and the weather hasn’t changed much, maybe a bit windier.” He paused. “Castav…he did say that all the new growth of the thornbushes was turnin’ black, suddenlike…maybe tried to grow back too soon. Said he’d never seen bushes turn so quick.”

  Alucius had a good idea why that was happening. That growth had been forced, and with Adarat’s death, there was nothing to bind the life force into the thornbushes. He lifted the water bottle slowly and drank some more.

  He hated being hurt, not being able to be in complete charge of his body.

  Then why do you keep doing things where it’s likely to happen? asked a voice inside his skull.

  Because the alternatives seemed worse, he answered himself. The problem was that he was using that response too much. All too much.

  71

  By midday on Quinti, Feran had still not returned. From what Alucius could see through the open shutters of the single window, the sky was only slightly hazy, and there was little wind. That he could feel even from his pallet. He had been able to use the makeshift chamber pot, thankfully, and eat some bread and cheese, and move, if slowly. But he worried about the missing forces. Had there been another Talent-wielder? Or a better-trained force in Hyalt?

  Alucius kept fretting and stewing.

  When his latest lancer aide and guard left for a moment, after Alucius had assured him that he would be fine alone for just a few moments, Alucius struggled into a sitting position on the side of the pallet, then levered himself along it until he was close enough to reach his clothes and boots. Donning the trousers wasn’t that hard, but even the first boot was an effort. He’d just managed to get the second one on when the lancer stepped through the doorless arch.

  “Sir!”

  “I’ll go mad if I lie here any longer,” Alucius said. “Can you help me with the tunic?”

  “But…sir…”

  “Just help me with the tunic.”

  The right arm had to go first, because he didn’t have much of a range of motion without feeling close to excruciating pain, and his forehead was damp with sweat by the time he walked slowly from the room and outside. He spotted a bench against the side of the barracks, less than fifty feet away. Walking the fifty feet felt as though it took as much effort as running ten times that would have if he had been healthy.

  Several lancers turned and watched.

  “…see why…say he’s tough…hurt…no one else’d be alive. A day and he’s walkin’…”

  “…not real steady…”

  “…you’d be flat…mountain fell on him, and he’s walking…You try that.”

  “…survived…so?”

  “…he went in there…hundred and fifty lancers in there, and their prophet…don’t know how he did it, but he killed ’em all…How many commanders you know do that? They’d send us and get us all killed…”

  That might be, reflected Alucius, but I’m beginning to understand what Frynkel said about leading from the front. How many more times could he do it and survive?

  He settled onto the bench, his back against the plank wall, and waited. He just hoped he didn’t have to wait all that long, and that his forces would return without too many casualties.

  His thoughts drifted back to Adarat, the prophet. The man hadn’t been like any human Talent-wielder Alucius had encountered and hadn’t seemed to know what he was doing, but he was stronger than any of the Matrial’s Talent-officers. Yet he’d been totally unaware of the vulnerability of his lifethread—and that hadn’t been like any of the ifrits. What exactly had created Adarat? The thought that the ifrits could create—or change—someone into an Adarat—that worried Alucius.

  Even with the wristguard’s warm pulse that told him Wendra was healthy, he couldn’t help worrying about Wendra and Alendra, and whether he could finish with the rebellion and return to Iron Stem before Alendra was born.

  For all the worries, he must have dozed off for a time, because he awakened to the sound of hoofs on the hard dirt. He had to hope that the riders were his force, because he was in no shape to lift or use a rifle, and there wasn’t one handy for him to use even if he had been able to shoot.

  Feran rode in at the head of Fifth Company, his eyes scanning the handful of wounded lancers who were watching. His eyes took in Alucius, and he rode over toward the majer. “As soon as I get them settled, I’ll be back. We didn’t take any casualties, but there’s a lot of work ahead.”

  “When you have time,” Alucius replied. As the lancers rode by, he watched. A number looked at him, and several, including Bakka and Waris, nodded.

  Almost half a glass passed before Feran reappeared, walking quickly from the direction of the stables. He stopped several yards short of Alucius and surveyed his commander.

  “You shouldn’t be up,” Feran observed. “I’ve seen corpses left in the sun for a week looking better. Sir and Majer.”

  “It wasn’t doing me any good to lie on that pallet and fret. What happened?”

  “Not much. They had a few sentries, but they just stood there. We killed maybe fifty rebels before we realized that they weren’t fighting and before I could order a stop to the shooting. That was the problem. Half of their lancers…they’d follow a direct order…but otherwise…they’d just stand there.” Feran shook his head. “Maybe fifty…quarter of those left, they’d already killed themselves when we got there. Some just died, not a mark on ’em.”

  Alucius thought he understood the reason for Feran’s delay in returning. “What did you do?”

  “What could I do? No point in shooting them. Sent Thirty-fifth Company into Hyalt. Had Jultyr be real cautious. He didn’t need to be. The place is a mess. Mostly woman and girls, small boys. They all look hungry. We put the rebel lancers who were left into saddles and rode ’em into town. Turned them over to the women, and told the women that they were in charge. A couple seemed to understand.”

  “We’ll have to help them get better organized,” Alucius said.

  “I figured that.” Feran shook his head. “Town’ll never be the same. Not for years.”

  “Maybe. The women did all right in Madrien. We’ll just have to see if we
can get them started. Make sure that they tear down those roadblocks, and maybe do some beginning training for a patrol of some sort to keep order.”

  “Who’s going to be a problem?” asked Feran.

  “Outsiders,” Alucius said. “We’ll also have to make sure our own men don’t take advantage of them…the women.”

  Feran lifted his eyebrows. “After this?”

  “After this,” Alucius said, “if our men abuse the women, the Lord-Protector will be in the position of not only having ordered us to butcher the men, but to abuse and rape the women. Do any of your men want to be called the rapists of the north? How long do you think we’d last in the south of Lanachrona with that kind of reputation? And even if we could ride back to the Iron Valleys because all the Southern Guards are tied up with the Regent…do you want to risk it? What will happen to that stipend you’ve been struggling for?”

  “I’m not sure…one or two…” Feran offered.

  “One or two we can survive, if there aren’t any more. Make it really simple. First, it’s wrong. Rebels or not, they’re our people. Second, we killed all the guilty ones. Hurting the women is just punishing them again for what their husbands and sons did, and they’re going to suffer enough for years. Third…if I discover another man who does anything from this moment on, I’ll kill him personally, weak as I am. And if any officer doesn’t enforce this, I’ll send him back to the Lord-Protector with a recommendation for discharge or worse.”

  “That won’t help the Lord-Protector all that much,” Feran pointed out.

  “Probably not,” Alucius replied. “But I’d like to keep our lancers as lancers, not barbarians. My orders are more for their good than for the poor bastards left in Hyalt.”

  “You don’t think we’re done after we finish here?”