Antiagon Fire ip-7

by L. E. Modesitt Jr

  Neither did Quaeryt, and he had to admit to himself that it bothered him as well, but there were more than a few aspects to Antiago that were troubling-and they’d likely become even more troubling if he and Skarpa were successful in removing Aliaro and controlling Liantiago.

  58

  Southern Army found the small city of Barna both like and unlike Suemyran. Unlike Suemyran, Barna was split into two sections, one on each side of the Arnio River, a very modest and comparatively shallow watercourse, and had a much greater proportion of two-storied and large dwellings than did Suemyran, not to mention far more villas on the surrounding hills. Quaeryt did notice that none of the villas were located near stands of oil nut trees. As in Suemyran, the inhabitants made no protests upon the entry of Southern Army. The dwellings were finished in stucco of various off-white shades … but all, even those in the poorest quarters, were reasonably well maintained. The main streets were all paved, and the paving stones were in good repair.

  Once more Skarpa had commandeered the inns and the larger dwellings, and on Lundi evening, after all the troopers had been fed and the officers had eaten, while Telaryn squads patrolled the streets, he and Quaeryt sat in the gaming room in The Inn Bountiful, an expansive structure built as a rectangle around a central garden courtyard.

  “All the warehouses are empty,” Skarpa said. “They had to have moved everything days before we arrived.”

  “Nineteenth Regiment has gathered some from the storehouses of the villas out in the hills. They didn’t expect us to show up,” said Quaeryt.

  “I’d wager that they were quietly offended,” commented Skarpa.

  “They were. Very quietly though, as if to say that matters weren’t done that way.” As if regiments, even those of the Autarch, do not bother the stores of the Shahibs. “Most of them were still more than half empty…”

  “Most of the larger dwellings are empty, too. The owners departed well before we arrived, but the crafters and shopkeepers are still here.”

  “They’re the ones who fear that they’ll lose everything if they abandon their shops.”

  “Good thing we’re not staying here. If we were, we’d have to start foraging off the people,” Skarpa observed.

  “I wonder where they sent all the provisions in the city storehouses. We didn’t find many wagons accompanying that regiment.”

  “Back to Liantiago, I’d wager. They had to know that they might need them.”

  “They also had to know that the attack on us would fail.”

  “I don’t know that I believe that,” said Skarpa.

  “Did we capture any officers?”

  Skarpa frowned. “No … now that I think about it. Some squad leaders, and we found several undercaptains who were killed, but no senior officers.”

  “They didn’t use any Fire, and there wasn’t a catapult anywhere in sight. That, along with their performance, suggests barely trained men, as you pointed out. In turn, that means…”

  “They expected the assault to fail, and the officers knew it, and rode off,” finished Skarpa. “Then why make the attack at all?”

  “So the Autarch could see what casualties they could inflict without using their best troopers? To make us overconfident? To be able to tell the Shahibs and Shahibas that he was making every effort to stop the invaders?” Quaeryt shrugged. “Any answer we come up with is just a guess.” And even if we win-when we win-we still may never know.

  After discussing the plans for leaving Barna on the next morning, Quaeryt left the gaming chamber and waited in the back hall until he caught sight of the innkeeper. Mhario was a tall, thin, but muscular figure of a man with a lightly tanned face.

  “Innkeeper?”

  “Yes, Shahib Commander?”

  “Is not your inn, The Inn Bountiful, the most renowned in all of Barna?”

  “It is well regarded, Shahib.”

  “Do not some of the most influential people in the city dine here upon occasion?”

  “That has been known to happen.”

  “And have they not talked of many things?”

  “Many people talk of many things. That is true.”

  “Did some not talk about the fact that we might be occupying the city?”

  “I could not say, sir.”

  “How long did the Antiagon regiment stay in Barna before it marched out to fight?”

  “I could not say, Shahib. A few days, perhaps.”

  “Did any of the officers dine here?”

  “They may have. I cannot recall everyone who dines here, you understand.” The innkeeper smiled apologetically.

  “Have the prices of goods gone up recently, the things you buy for the inn and the public room?”

  “I could not…” The innkeeper paused, as if realizing that what seemed to be a standard reply was hardly credible. “They have not so far. I fear that they will, from inquiries I have made.”

  “When did you find out about the Autarch’s decision to strip the warehouses here and send all the provisions to Liantiago?”

  “Honored Shahib … I know nothing of that.”

  “Surely, you must have heard something.” Quaeryt projected friendliness and concern.

  “All I know, honored sir, is that provisions will be hard to come by.”

  For all that Quaeryt tried over the next quint, even with image projection, to obtain more information, in the end, he knew little more than he had after the first few questions.

  So he made his way out to the stables, where he looked over where the mare was stabled, checking her manger and her feed bag, just hoping that one of the stable boys or the ostler would show up. Before long, one did, a boy who couldn’t have been much older than ten.

  “Nice mare, she is, sir.”

  “She’s a good mount, and she’s been more than good to me.” Quaeryt offered a copper. “I’d appreciate it if you’d see to her properly.”

  “Yes, sir.” The copper vanished. The urchin-like boy pushed back raggedly cut hair and grinned.

  “You must have stabled a few mounts belonging to the officers of that regiment that passed through here.”

  “Nhallio wouldn’t let me. He wanted their coin.” The stable boy shook his head. “They didn’t give him any. Hard men they were.”

  “Sometimes, the officers who get power too young are the hardest.”

  “None of the ones who came here were young. All of ’em older than you, sir.”

  “I imagine innkeeper Mhario was most polite to them.”

  “Had to be. He sent the girls off when he heard they were coming. Bessya almost didn’t make it. She had to hide in the loft. Should have seen her shake when she snuck out. Mhario told me to stay out of sight.”

  “You did, I hope.”

  “Right that I did.”

  “Did you see them loading provisions?”

  “Nah … the nearest storehouse is down on the river, two blocks over. Jaeklo said they took everything, even the old mule.”

  “They say where it was all going?”

  “Nope…” After a moment the boy added, “They all took the west road, though. No place else to go but Liantiago. The drivers were real teamsters, too. Not troopers.”

  “The officers say anything about fighting or the like?”

  “Not so as I could hear.” The youth frowned. “One of ’em said something was a bloody waste. Couldn’t hear what. Another … he said there’d be a lot of dead heroes.” There was a pause. “There were, weren’t there?”

  “The troopers they sent against us weren’t very good. They shouldn’t have been fighting.” Quaeryt shook his head, then handed over another copper. “Keep them safe.”

  “That I will, sir.”

  Then the boy slipped away into the dimness.

  Quaeryt smiled, sadly, then gave the mare a solid pat, before turning and making his way from the stable.

  He would have liked to have written to Vaelora, or even better to have received a missive from her, but there was little point i
n using troopers as dispatch riders … at least not until Liantiago was securely in Telaryn hands. Will it ever be?

  He pushed that thought away as he walked across the side courtyard back to the inn.

  59

  Meredi dawned hazy, and by midmorning thick gray clouds rolled in from the west, promising the first rain since before Southern Army had taken Kephria. By noon a warm but light drizzle was falling, but the rain’s warmth seemed to vanish when the droplets struck men, mounts, or the road and the ground, creating a knee-high mist and a dampish chill that settled over the land, cloaking the sheep that had earlier seemed ubiquitous … if always at a goodly distance from the stone-paved road that stretched westward through the endless low rolling hills.

  “Looks like this will last for days,” observed Zhelan, who rode beside Quaeryt while Skarpa was headed back along the column to check with his regimental commanders. “Reminds me of the fall in Cheva. The mist and rain would come in right after harvest and stay until it snowed. Sometimes, the mist turned to an ice fog and stayed.”

  “You make it sound pretty dismal,” said Quaeryt.

  “It was. That was when I joined up. Late fall when I was seventeen. I told my father I couldn’t take another cold damp year. He said I’d take it and like it. I walked off and joined the old Ninth Regiment-that was one place I knew he couldn’t get me.”

  “Did he try?”

  “No idea. We rode off to deal with Tilbor, and I never went back.”

  “You didn’t write?”

  “Wasn’t much point in it. What would I have said? That I didn’t miss the beatings? Or Ma crying when she didn’t think anyone saw? Besides, he couldn’t read. She couldn’t either. I barely knew my letters. Learned more when I saw that those who could read and write got promoted.”

  “Those who could read and write and fight?” suggested Quaeryt.

  “Anyone can fight. Fighting smarter is harder-”

  Crumptt! The shoulder of the road ahead of Quaeryt exploded, and gobbets of mud and wet grass struck his shields and splattered everywhere.

  The mist and drizzle were just heavy enough that at the moment Quaeryt had no idea from where the Antiagons were firing, only that it had to be from somewhere to the east of Southern Army, and most likely not too far from the road.

  “First company! Left! On me!” Quaeryt had no reason to head left, but that decision was as much as because the last time he’d led first company to the right. He urged the mare off the pavement and across the shoulder, through a shallow stretch of water that had pooled in a depression below the shoulder, and then up onto the grassy expanse that stretched southward for a good half mille.

  Another explosion-this one on the south side of the road and less than ten yards east of the middle of first company-sprayed more mud, dirt, gravel, and debris across the troopers-and Quaeryt’s shields and those of the imager undercaptains-he hoped. The next cannonball exploded well behind first company, but when Quaeryt glanced back, it seemed as though the entire road and the road shoulders as well were a mass of explosions.

  He looked to the east and could make out, just barely, what he thought was a flash of orange from a distant hilltop, possibly a good mille or more away. He could see that there was no way that he and first company could reach the gun emplacement through the rain and over wet ground with any speed, not before the heavy bombardment wreaked havoc on Southern Army. The warm drizzle had made the ground even softer and more treacherous than a colder rain might have.

  Behind him, more explosions wracked the road, and he could hear men yelling, and the screams of at least one horse.

  Warm rain … heat. Do you dare? The whole invasion was your idea. How can you not try?

  Trying to draw strength and warmth from the rain and the clouds, Quaeryt concentrated on sending thousands of tiny red-hot iron needles to the area where he had seen the drizzle-cloaked cannon smoke.

  Instantly he was cloaked in ice, cold and so imprisoning that he could not breathe. He tried to escape and found that neither his arms nor his legs could move. Nor could he move anything else, no matter how hard he tried. Then, just as suddenly, the ice shattered, and he rocked forward in the saddle gasping for breath.

  Two thunderclaps rocked him-one a distant explosion and the other a white hammering slashing impact that rocked his skull, then slashed his vision into tattered shards before another hammer pummeled him into darkness.

  When the darkness lifted, Quaeryt was lying on his back, shivering, even though someone had wrapped a blanket around him.

  “Sir … can you see me?”

  Quaeryt blinked, trying to make out who was speaking. Finally, he saw a face. “Khalis … that you?”

  “Yes, sir. Can you sit up and drink? It’ll be cold, but it will help.”

  “Yes … I think…” Quaeryt managed, with the undercaptain’s help, to get to a sitting position, but his hands were shaking so much that Khalis had to help him hold the water bottle as he sat on a second blanket. After several swallows, his vision began to clear, but the shaking continued, despite his riding jacket and the blanket around him. From where he sat, he could see, intermittently, that a light dusting of snow covered the ground for almost half a mille. Beyond that, the ground was brown and wet. The clouds overhead looked lighter in color, but those farther east were still thick and gray.

  “The cannon … did … get them…?”

  “Yes, sir. The whole hilltop exploded.” There was a slight pause. “It was more than a mille away. You imaged hot iron that far?”

  “I … tried.”

  “You succeeded, sir. The scouts reported that there’s nothing left except shattered bronze … and ashes. They couldn’t get too close.”

  “They put the cannon … in another oil nut tree orchard?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Quaeryt frowned. “How long has it been?”

  “Sir?”

  “Since the Antiagons started shelling us.”

  “Two glasses or so.”

  Two glasses? Quaeryt sat there for several moments without speaking.

  “You might drink some more lager, sir.”

  Quaeryt did.

  He finally stopped shaking and was able to stand when Skarpa rode up from whatever he had been doing, dismounted, and walked over to Quaeryt.

  He’s been totaling the casualties, no doubt. Quaeryt waited.

  “It’s good to see you on your feet, Commander. Even if you look as white as deep winter ice.”

  “I’m glad to be on my feet.”

  “You know I don’t like it when the only thing that saves us from huge losses is something you do that almost kills you.” Skarpa looked at Quaeryt. “Someday, you’ll do too much.”

  “It didn’t kill me.”

  “It would have if Zhelan hadn’t smashed you out of that ice coffin you created for yourself … and then kept you from falling out of the saddle.” The submarshal gave a nod to Zhelan, who had edged closer to the three.

  Quaeryt didn’t want to dwell on his idiocy in getting himself frozen in ice. “Were there any Antiagon troopers that attacked?”

  “No. We didn’t see any, and the scouts haven’t found any tracks. This time they were relying on cannon. They had the entire road ranged, it looks like.”

  “How many did we lose?” Quaeryt found he was holding his breath.

  “A hundred and fifty outright, another sixty, seventy with wounds.”

  Quaeryt let his breath out slowly. “That’s all?”

  “That was all they had time for. You took them out of action in a fraction of a quint. At the rate they were firing they might have had twenty cannon. They could have taken out an entire regiment before long.” Skarpa paused. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

  “Nothing seems to be broken. I’m sore all over, and it’s hard to see, but that’s happened before.”

  Skarpa looked to Khalis. “Try to keep him from doing anything else for a while.”

  “Yes, sir.”


  After Skarpa had mounted and ridden off, Quaeryt looked to Zhelan. “Thank you. I know I wouldn’t be here-”

  “Lots of men wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t done what you did.”

  “How bad was it for first company?”

  “Four men in third squad have shrapnel wounds.”

  “How serious?”

  “Cuts and bruises except for one. A rock broke his arm. It’s shattered. He’ll likely lose it.”

  Quaeryt couldn’t help but wince, but the wince brought on another wave of pain so agonizing that he couldn’t see for a time.

  “You need to be careful for a while, sir,” interjected Khalis.

  “That’s … clear.”

  “The scouts have located some villas a few milles ahead. We’ll be taking quarters there until the weather clears.”

  That was fine with Quaeryt.

  Later, as he rode slowly eastward, he wondered why the ice hadn’t happened before. He hadn’t been encased in ice at Ferravyl or at the battle at Variana. Except you made an effort to hold shields against it both times. This time, he’d been so worried about the casualties to Southern Army that he hadn’t even thought about strengthening his shields. Anything you do without thinking it through … He didn’t need to finish the thought.

  60

  The drizzle turned into freezing rain on Jeudi and was gone by Vendrei morning, when Southern Army resumed its progress toward Liantiago under a cool sun and clear skies. By that afternoon, it was clear that everyone knew the Telaryn forces were coming. Every village and town along the road was largely deserted, with barred doors and shutters fastened tight.

  By Samedi morning much of Quaeryt’s soreness had subsided, and he only had a faint headache, but he was still wearing his riding jacket fastened shut because he still felt chill, even in full sunlight that was as warm as fall in Tilbor. As he rode through seemingly empty hamlet after hamlet, town after town, Quaeryt couldn’t help but wonder why the people closer to Liantiago seemed more worried or concerned than those farther away had been. Or is it because they’re more worried about Aliaro and the Shahibs than about Southern Army? Then again, his thoughts along that line might just be wishful thinking, but how could he tell?