The courtyard looked to be so small that he ordered the column to halt just outside the gates and rode inside with Rakalt. Once inside, he dismounted, leaving the gray’s reins with the scout. He walked up the two steps and through the archway.
Once there, Alucius didn’t wait for a reaction, but used his Talent to pour authority at the two lancers standing guard duty just inside the narrow arch.
“I’m looking for Marshal Alyniat. Is he on the second level?”
“Ah…yes, sir. But…”
“Thank you.” Alucius reached the second level, a long marshaling hall. Groups of officers were gathered around tables. One was piled high with maps.
A quick study indicated that the only guarded door was halfway down the hall on the west side, and Alucius set out with a purposeful stride. He almost made it to the pair of guards before he was intercepted by a tall black-haired colonel.
“The marshal’s busy…Majer.”
“I’m certain he is, Colonel.” Alucius smiled pleasantly. “My name is Alucius. The Lord-Protector sent me here to provide special assistance to the marshal. I think you should usher me in.” Alucius projected friendly firmness, and some authority.
“I said he was busy.” Impatience colored the colonel’s words, and Alucius could tell the man was put off by the assumption of authority. “Field majers report to Colonel Hubar.”
“I’m not a field majer, Colonel,” Alucius said politely. “I was sent by the Lord-Protector to report to Marshal Alyniat for a special mission.” He showed the orders.
“He said he was not to be disturbed.” The colonel ignored the sheet.
“Colonel, why don’t you announce me, and we’ll see.” Alucius didn’t know what else to project. It had been a long ride, even the last part from Zalt, and he wasn’t thinking as well or as quickly as he should have been. And he could feel his blood beginning to boil at yet another insistent and overbearing colonel.
“Majer…we’re going to be under attack tomorrow, the next day at the latest.”
“That’s why you should announce me, Colonel.” Alucius was getting very tired of imperious colonels, but he told himself that they were probably tired of arrogant and pushy majers. “If you would, please?”
“Come back late this afternoon.”
“It won’t wait that long, Colonel. He needs to know that I’m here, and why. It won’t take long, but he should know.”
“I said later, Majer.”
Alucius touched the man’s lifethreads hard enough for the colonel to topple forward onto the hard stones. Then he looked at the two guards. “I’d appreciate it if you’d announce me.”
The two exchanged looks.
“Majer Alucius, from the Lord-Protector,” Alucius supplied. “Just say that. If he doesn’t want to see me, I’ll leave.”
“Ah…sir. Know you asked not to be disturbed, but there’s a Majer Alucius. Northern Guard, sir. Says he’s from the Lord-Protector.”
“Show him in.”
Alucius smiled, but he held his Talent ready as he stepped through the door that the surprised guard opened.
Amazingly, Alyniat was alone in the small chamber. He turned from the window and smiled. “Majer! I had hoped…What happened in Hyalt?”
“The prophet had five companies. We destroyed most of his men, but the revolt isn’t anymore. We set up a council of the older women and a few graybeards. Almost no one else was left. Then we set out for Southgate.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“Getting here, after we finished in Hyalt, was easy. Getting to see you wasn’t. I’ve pushed my way past two of your colonels. One wanted to shunt me and my forces—”
“Forces?”
“I’ve got three companies with me, but they’re for a special mission.”
Alyniat raised his eyebrows.
“Taking out the crystal spear-throwers.”
After a split second, the marshal began to laugh, shaking his head. “Only you…a majer…taking on colonels…”
Alucius smiled. “The Lord-Protector sent specific orders. I report only to you. If anything happens to you, I’m on equal footing with your successor.” Alucius extended the order sheet.
Alyniat read through the sheet and handed it back, nodding thoughtfully. “It doesn’t mention that mission.”
“Do you think that the Lord-Protector would put that in writing, or Marshal Frynkel? The level of authority…”
“Frynkel never did like paper trails…and under these circumstances…” Alyniat pursed his lips, then ran his thin fingers through his silvering blond hair. “How do you propose this mission?” The fingers of his left hand began to tap on the table, if intermittently.
“There are two of the spear-throwers, I’ve been told. It seemed to me that we’d try to deal with the one posing the most difficulty first. But…we just got here, and I’ve no idea of the tactical situation.”
“We’re stretched too thin. They’re coming down the high road from Fola.” Alyniat coughed, then cleared his throat. “They could attack as early as tomorrow, or wait for days. My best judgment is that they’ll attack either Sexdi or Septi. They haven’t waited long when they’ve attacked before.”
“They’ll have to move the spear-thrower into position. It’s heavy.”
“What do you know about it?” asked Alyniat.
“The projectiles are more like short spears, half a yard long, and made of a hard crystal. They can fire in any direction, but only in one direction at a time. They can turn it across a field so that it slices through everything in its path. It can dig through earthworks, and even thin stone walls. Those take time, though.”
“You’ve fought against them before.”
“Yes.”
“How do you propose to take something that fearsome out? If I might ask?”
“Very carefully,” Alucius replied. “To do it, it will have to be operating, and that means we’ll need to do some scouting to find out exactly where it is and will be. I’d guess it will be used to lead an assault.”
“Do you need all three companies?”
“Do you want me to take out the spear-thrower, sir?”
“Fair enough.” Alyniat lifted his thin blond eyebrows. “You mentioned some difficulty with colonels…What colonels and what difficulty? I should know.”
“Hubar was the first. He was difficult, but not impossible, not after I explained to him that…well…who I was and why he really shouldn’t get involved. I don’t know the second. Tall, with black hair. He was just outside here. Kept telling me that you weren’t to be disturbed. I offered to go away if he announced me and you told me to depart or come back or whatever. He wouldn’t announce me.”
“Do I want to know how you got announced?”
“He fainted and fell onto the stones. Might have broken his nose.”
“You didn’t touch him?”
“No, sir.” Not physically, Alucius qualified to himself.
The marshal shook his head. “You’re hard on our officers, Majer.”
“Just the stupid ones, sir. We don’t have time for that.”
“You don’t have time for that. We in southern Lanachrona need to put up with some of it, because if we eliminated them all right now we couldn’t fill their billets. They’re already complaining that I’ve elevated too many senior squad leaders to captain. It won’t help me, but it might help the marshals to come. Enough of that.”
Alyniat walked to the door, but did not open it. “Was Colonel Sarthat the one who tried to stop the majer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If he’s well enough, send him in.”
Several moments passed before the door opened and Sarthat walked in, holding a cloth to his nose, a very bloodied cloth. He did not look at Alucius.
“Sarthat.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Did you ask to see the majer’s orders?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“Every majer wants to
see you, sir. Everything is urgent…”
“How many are Northern Guard majers?” Alyniat paused. “I’ll make this very clear. As I am certain he told you, Majer Alucius is here on a special mission. His orders make him the equal of any officer here, except me. He is to be given every assistance, no matter what you feel personally. This is not because I am favoring him. If he succeeds, we will win. If he fails, it is likely he will be dead, as will many of our officers and men. In case you don’t recall, Majer Alucius is the one who defeated over a hundred companies of nomads and those Talent-pteridons in Deforya several years ago. He took command when the senior officers were killed, and he managed that with three companies. He got the Star of Honor for that. He just put down the rebellion in Hyalt with three companies. He’s used to doing the impossible. His methods are not suited to regular chains of command. Don’t make it harder on him. The Lord-Protector, Marshal Frynkel, and I all would take it amiss—if you lived that long.”
“Yes, sir.”
Alucius looked at the colonel, who was both chastened and furious beneath his frozen features. “I’m a herder, Colonel. I can sense every feeling you have before you can recognize it yourself. I don’t want your job. I don’t want your authority, and I didn’t really want to hurt you. I’ve ridden over a thousand vingts in the last two seasons, and I did it at the Lord-Protector’s personal request. I have no desire to remain in southern Lanachrona. I just want to do what I was sent to do so that I can go back to the Iron Valleys and not worry about the Regent of the Matrial.”
Some, but not all, of Sarthat’s rage subsided, followed by a sense that perhaps all was not lost. At least, that was how Alucius read him.
Alyniat cleared his throat. “Make sure that his companies have a bivouacking space, and feed and water for their mounts, and standard rations for the lancers.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s no mess here,” Alyniat added, “but officer’s rations are laid out before morning muster, and at the sixth glass of the afternoon.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You know Captain-colonel Omaryk?” asked the marshal.
“I’ve met him before, sir.”
“He’s in charge of intelligence…the third table in the hall. I’ll make sure he knows that you’ll be seeing him. When do you expect…?”
“Overcaptain Feran can handle billeting, sir. The sooner I know…”
Alyniat nodded. “You introduce the overcaptain to Colonel Sarthat, and by the time you get back, Omaryk will be expecting you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Majer…I expect a short verbal report in the morning, just after muster. Very short.”
“Yes, sir.” Alucius understood Alyniat’s last words, and the reasons for them.
He and Sarthat left the small chamber and walked silently to the south end of the marshaling hall, then down the steps and out to where the companies waited. Rakalt rode behind them, leading Alucius’s mount.
Feran had moved up to the front, his mount beside Jultyr’s.
“Colonel, this is Overcaptain Feran. Feran, the colonel will be working with us to arrange space, feed, and water, and whatever else he can. You’ll have to stand in for me. I’m expected to meet with Captain-colonel Omaryk.”
“Yes, sir.”
Alucius turned to Sarthat. “I apologize, Colonel, and I appreciate your aid and forbearance.”
“I understand, Majer. We’re fortunate to have you.”
As Alucius walked back to the main building of the fort, he understood all too well that Sarthat’s forbearance would vanish the moment Alucius was vulnerable in any way. With some people, that was always the way they operated. His legs hurt slightly as he made his way back up the stone steps and along the side of the hall, looking for Omaryk. It had been a long day, after many other long days. The captain-colonel was at the third table, but it was the third table from the north end.
Alucius stepped toward the older officer.
“Ah…the warrior-leader.” As Alucius recalled him, Captain-colonel Omaryk still had freckles and a long narrow face. The red hair was thinning and washed with silver, and there were dark circles under his eyes.
“Just a majer, sir.”
“You were never just anything, Majer. Technically, with those orders, you’re probably a breveted sub-marshal. Now…what do you need to know?”
“Where the closest spear-thrower is…how many sand wagons are following it, if there are easy places to get sand near where you think they’ll station it for the attack here…I’m sure you’ve thought all that out.”
“I have, as best I could. Only you and the marshal have asked.” Omaryk nodded thoughtfully. “Will nightsilk protect you against the spears?”
“Against one or two…it might, but they’re fired with such force and so quickly that you don’t usually get hit with one or two. The impacts would probably end up breaking every bone in my body.”
Omaryk spread out a small map. “The last position we could see, and the scouts had to use a long-glass for it, the wagons were ten vingts north. They’d stopped at the dry creek here…”
“Sand. I didn’t see any just to the north.”
“We don’t know of any. Now…there are three knolls where they would have a clear line of fire at the fort and the defenses…”
Despite his tiredness and his doubts about the Matrites being obliging enough to attack where the Southern Guard forces were, Alucius forced himself to follow every word Omaryk spoke, and to relate mentally each position to the map.
85
On Quinti, Alucius was up before dawn, riding along the ring road on the far side of the coast road gap and fortifications. He rode alone because he wanted a better feeling for the land, the emplacements, and even for any sense of Talent. He also rode by himself because he had felt so hemmed in by everything, by so many lancers and officers all around, by the situation, and by the feeling that he was being pushed toward something whether he wanted to go or not. He laughed softly. He’d chosen to be pushed, even if he’d had little real choice. Perhaps that was what upset him—the feeling that even his choices were constricted so tightly that they weren’t really choices, but a matter of picking the lesser evil.
The first thing he felt as he rode out was a sense of deadness underneath the land. The land he saw, the grasses, the animals—their lifeforces were much the same as anywhere, but somewhere, around two to three yards beneath the surface, there was little life, as if it had once been wiped away. Whatever had happened had taken place a long time ago, certainly at least at the time of the Cataclysm, if not before.
He rode slowly looking toward the north and the northwest, but he saw little except for the land and what lay upon it and the Lanachronan patrols and sentries. Someone must have passed some word about the Northern Guards, because while guards scrutinized him, not a one challenged him. Nowhere did he sense any form of Talent, nor the lifethreads of large numbers of lancers—except where the Lanachronan forces were posted along the ring road. The ring road itself remained stone-paved as it slowly arced to the southwest, but less than two vingts to the west-southwest of where it intersected the coastal high road, it narrowed from roughly eight yards to slightly less than six.
Alucius continued to worry about the unspoken Lanachronan assumption that the Matrites would attack the fortified points on the ring road. In some ways, that made sense—if the Matrite goal was to reduce the fortifications and destroy the Lanachronan forces. If Alucius had been designing the attack, he would have simply bypassed the fortifications, taken the city, then attacked from inside the ring road. The crystal spear-throwers were only marginally useful against heavy stone, but highly effective against everything else.
On the other hand, he reflected, the spear-throwers were so heavy that they had to be moved on solid surfaces, and he doubted that they could be pulled up any steep incline. That meant that they would either use the high road or find a good side road that would allow them to move to a posit
ion where the ring road was low in comparison to the surrounding land.
Four vingts to the east of the coast road intersection he found a likely possibility. The ring road had been cut across a long ridge that angled northwest, descending on a gradual angle from the ring road. There were steep gullies on either side of the ridge until it was more than a vingt away from the ring road. At the road itself, those gullies had been filled in to create both a wall and a support for the road. The base of the ridge was three vingts to the northwest, and only a few hundred yards across a flat expanse separated the lower end of the ridge from a narrow dirt road that looked to angle off the coastal high road several vingts to the north.
The whole distance could be covered at night, and by the time the Matrites were discovered, unless sentries were posted down the ridge, they could hold the ring road. If they used one of the spear-throwers to isolate the Lanachronan forces, they could send forces to take Southgate bit by bit, and eventually force either a Lanachronan pullout and retreat or the destruction of most of the Lanachronan forces.
Alucius spent almost half a glass studying the ridge, determining how his forces might flank a possible assault in a way that would offer minimal exposure to the spear-thrower.
On the way back, he stopped on the west side of the high road from the main road fort. For a time, he looked down at the heavy stone walls and iron-timbered gates that felt ancient and had to have been constructed centuries before, if not even earlier. After studying the fortifications, he doubted that the gates and walls would see any action.
Then he rode down the connecting ring road segment, across the high road, and up the eastern traverse to the main road fort, where he tied the gray outside and made his way inside and up the stairs to the marshaling hall and to the door to Marshal Alyniat’s small study.
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