Antiagon Fire ip-7

by L. E. Modesitt Jr

  Even before the troopers turned toward the Southern Army troopers, from nowhere came another series of blows on Quaeryt’s shields, again powerful enough to push him back in the saddle. Quaeryt had no idea from where they had come, but the sooner his troopers were close to the Antiagons, the harder it would be for Antiagon imagers to attack the Telaryn troopers.

  Behind him, he heard Alazyn’s command. “First battalion on the commander. Second to the right on me!”

  Whatever imaging Baelthm did was sufficient, because the launching arm of the nearer catapult sagged, and a fire grenade exploded as the arm fell, with crimson-yellow-green flames oozing down the framework.

  Quaeryt imaged a few handfuls of red-hot iron fragments into what looked to be the magazine for the catapult. In instants, flames roared up the catapult, and Antiagon troopers raced away from the flaming structure.

  Another blast of something washed over his shields, and this time, Quaeryt attempted to image it back from wherever it had come.

  Another wave of flame flared to Quaeryt’s left, from narrow embrasures in the middle level of the western road tower … followed by a quick gust of cool air.

  Quaeryt braced for another imaging attack … but there was none.

  Ahead, the flames from the burning catapult or from the midsection of the tower didn’t deter many of the defenders, who resolutely turned to face Quaeryt and first company. That resolution helped them little when his shields, loosely anchored to the mare and the other mounts of first company, thrust the defenders facing Quaeryt to one side or the other, unbalanced, and easy targets for Zhelan and his men.

  A group of archers stood on the parapet of the wall ahead, beginning to fire shafts into the riders well behind Quaeryt.

  Quaeryt imaged iron darts across the archers, and most of them went down. A flash of light momentarily blinded him so that all he could do was hold his seat as the mare charged forward through more defenders.

  When his vision cleared, he found that the troopers of first company, and Khalis and Baelthm, had caught up with him, and that most of the nearby defenders were falling back, if not outright fleeing.

  Farther ahead on the parapets stood another group of archers, whose shafts arched toward him and first company, but before most of them could release another shaft, iron darts were penetrating their necks.

  Quaeryt glanced to Khalis, whose face was momentarily locked in concentration before relaxing slightly. “Good job!”

  “We don’t need casualties behind us, sir.”

  No, we don’t. Quaeryt nodded, then scanned the area. Another catapult was turning toward the attackers. He imaged away the rear support and directed the fire grenade downward into the areas below. He must have missed the wood or the magazine, because nothing happened, except for the fact that the crew immediately fled. He looked farther to the west-southwest, concentrating on the next catapult, but not before the weapon had released another fire grenade. All Quaeryt could do was to image it onto the Antiagon troopers on the wall farther from him and first company … and ignore the flames and agony as he kept riding through the thinning ranks of the defenders and strewing them sideways and into the sabres of the lead ranks of first company.

  Before that long, there were no defenders-and no working catapults-remaining close to first company, except the wounded and the dead, but he could see a mass of them farther to the southwest, still resisting Skarpa’s attack through a gap in the wall-a gap that only looked to be some twenty yards wide.

  “First company! First battalion! Forward!” Once more Quaeryt urged the mare forward, hoping that a rear attack on the Antiagons might break the will of the defenders ferociously blocking the Telaryn advance through the gap in the white stone wall.

  As he rode forward, he imaged away the supports on the nearest catapult ahead, and then the one after that, but at the same time, he couldn’t help but think that either Threkhyl or Lhandor should have done some imaging ahead of Third Regiment, anything to put a gap in the defenders. But maybe they couldn’t.

  Only the last few ranks of the defenders attempting to stop Third Regiment’s advance saw or heard the approach of first company and Nineteenth Regiment’s first battalion, even though a squad leader on the wall was shouting and gesturing-until Quaeryt cut him down with an imaged iron dart.

  More flashes of light across Quaeryt’s eyes persuaded him to reduce his shields and just concentrate on the area around him-especially in case there was another Antiagon imager around.

  After perhaps half a quint, the remaining defenders caught between Third and Nineteenth Regiments began to break. Then … in what seemed moments, most were gone, and Quaeryt gestured and ordered, “Company! Halt!” That was to avoid riding into the advancing riders from Third Regiment.

  “Sir! There!” shouted Khalis, pointing to the wall and an unroofed space that had chest-high walls on each side but was unwalled on the side away from the main wall.

  Quaeryt jerked his head around. Two figures stood there, one apparently an officer and the other an older gray-haired man in a white jacket and maroon cuffs. To one side, lying on the parapet stones, was another white-jacketed figure.

  The sharp-faced officer whirled toward the older man in the white jacket and the maroon cuffs, his blade clearly aimed at the man’s neck. Quaeryt imaged the blade from the hilt. The officer looked stunned, but only for a moment as an iron dart from Khalis caught him on the back of the neck.

  The older man glanced from the falling officer in the general direction of Quaeryt, his eyes widening, although he appeared not to be looking at the commander or Khalis. Then a gold disk appeared in his hand … and he swayed. He mouthed several words-words that, to Quaeryt, might have been “never to the ancients”-before he pitched forward onto the stone, and then toppled off the parapet to the stone pavement that extended several yards back from the base of the wall.

  Before Quaeryt could say anything or ride forward, two massive explosions, one right after the other, filled the air, clearly coming from somewhere north of the eastern end of the wall. Quaeryt turned in the saddle, but all he could see were two pillars of thick smoke. Powder bags or cannonballs … or both? He stood in the stirrups, looking back to the northeast, trying to see what had happened there, but from what he could determine, the fighting around the wall had ended there as well and since no troopers in maroon were headed toward them, and the uniforms he could see were greenish, that meant that Kharllon had been successful … and that the fighting had ended possibly even sooner than it had for Nineteenth and Third Regiments. That suggested that either Volytr or Horan had torched the cannon emplacements, and that Kharllon would find a way to inflate his success, sooner or later. In any case, Fourteenth and Fourth Regiments looked to be in control, and he’d find out soon enough what had happened.

  “What was that?” asked Khalis, easing his mount up beside Quaeryt.

  “Let’s hope it was Voltyr setting off Antiagon powder.”

  “No … the two fighting on the wall here, and the one who jumped off.”

  “He didn’t jump. He was an imager. He imaged the gold to kill himself.”

  “You can do that?”

  “You can.” Quaeryt didn’t remind Khalis that he’d pointed that out months before. “That’s why imaging golds is dangerous.”

  “But why did he do it?”

  Quaeryt shook his head. “The officer didn’t want him taken captive, and he apparently didn’t want it, either.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Quaeryt was all too afraid that it did. He looked around for Zhelan, finally spotting the major some twenty yards away, giving orders to a squad leader. While he waited for Zhelan to finish, he decided to repeat a few things to Khalis. “Gold is one of the heaviest metals and one of the hardest to image…”

  When Zhelan had finished, Quaeryt cut short his impromptu homily and rode over and reined up short of the major.

  “Sir?”

  “If there are any captives wearin
g white uniforms with maroon cuffs, I want to see them immediately. But have the men be careful with them. Some might be imagers.”

  The major’s eyebrows lifted.

  “That’s a guess on my part, but one of the imagers was wearing that kind of uniform.” Quaeryt gestured back toward the body on the stone pavement. “He killed himself, rather than let himself be captured.”

  Zhelan shook his head.

  “I won’t keep you. I imagine the submarshal will be here before long.” Quaeryt nodded and eased the mare back to where Khalis and Baelthm waited, easing out his water bottle and hoping that the watered lager would help his throbbing head and various aches he hadn’t realized that he had.

  He still wondered why Threkhyl hadn’t been able to image a larger gap in the Antiagon stonework.

  65

  As Quaeryt waited for reports from Alazyn and Zhelan, he surveyed the battlefield, trying to determine exactly what the Antiagon strategy had been, yet so far as he could determine, the Antiagon commander had apparently decided that a strong stone wall, imagers, and Antiagon Fire and cannon could turn away Southern Army. And they could have, except for our imaging. Was that what had happened to the Naedarans? That they lost, one way or another, enough imagers that they could no longer maintain their power? Can you make that point, convincingly enough, to Bhayar?

  Alazyn rode toward Quaeryt and reined up, putting an end to Quaeryt’s reflections and concerns.

  “How bad was it?” asked Quaeryt.

  “Not so bad as it could have been. A hundred twenty dead, two hundred seventy one wounded, and we’ll likely lose half of them-third company in fourth battalion got hit with three fire grenades at once.”

  Quaeryt winced. Fourth battalion had turned to the northeast after going through the gap in the wall, and there hadn’t been any imagers to bring down those catapults. You only have so many imagers, he reminded himself.

  “Could have been worse, except one of the imagers with Fourteenth Regiment brought down the other catapults.”

  “Voltyr, most likely. Were there many casualties after that?”

  “Not for us. Some of the foot regiments lost men until the Fourteenth Regiment got the cannon.”

  “Are there many prisoners?”

  Alazyn shook his head. “There were two kinds of Antiagon troopers. Some fought well, and most of them died. The others fled well, and it didn’t make sense to chase after them. We didn’t pick up many mounts, either. Most of their troopers were foot. No musketeers, though.”

  “We haven’t seen one musketeer here.”

  “Wonder what the Antiagons have against them?” asked Alazyn.

  Quaeryt had no idea, even though he’d puzzled over the lack of musketeers earlier. “It can’t be that they don’t know how.”

  “We don’t have many, either,” Alazyn pointed out.

  “Lord Bhayar decided against fielding musketeers for several reasons. First, they slow down most regiments. Second, they weren’t much good in Tilbor. And third, each musket has to be forged separately because the barrels burst if they’re cast, and forging enough muskets to make a difference would have reduced the number of regiments he could have raised.” Quaeryt was actually guessing at the third reason, but Bhayar had talked about the first two, even before he’d sent Quaeryt to Tilbor.

  “Won’t always be like that,” suggested Alazyn.

  “No,” said Quaeryt with a laugh. “That’s why we have to get Lydar unified now.”

  “Do you really think we can do it?”

  “I think we have to try.” Quaeryt paused. “Don’t you?”

  After a moment the subcommander nodded. “If you don’t need more from me, sir…”

  “Go…” said Quaeryt.

  No sooner had Alazyn ridden away than Zhelan rode up, accompanied by a squad. Riding beside him, rather thoroughly wrapped in chains, was an Antiagon trooper-or rather, Quaeryt suspected from the white jacket and the youthful face, an apprentice imager, with a large bruise across his forehead.

  “I sent squads up and down the wall, sir,” said Zhelan after he reined up. “They found seven bodies wearing those white uniforms. Four were older men, and three were much younger. There was one youngster in white. He’d been knocked out, and we wrapped him in chains before he woke.”

  “Where did you find chains?”

  “Around the catapults. They must have chained slaves to them.”

  The more Quaeryt found out about Antiago, the less he liked what he was discovering.

  The major gestured. “He won’t talk to us.”

  Quaeryt turned in the saddle, and image-projected his voice. “Undercaptain Khalis!” Then he looked back to Zhelan. “We’ll see what we can do.”

  Khalis immediately rode over from where he had been waiting with first squad. As he reined up, the black-haired youth in the white jacket with the maroon cuffs looked at Quaeryt. His eyes widened as he took in Quaeryt’s silver white hair and eyebrows. Then he shuddered, but the shudder passed, and his eyes came to rest on Khalis. An expression, half puzzled, half quizzical, crossed his honey-shaded face.

  “Talk to him,” murmured Quaeryt.

  Although Quaeryt had not directed Khalis to speak in Pharsi, the undercaptain did so.

  The Antiagon imager’s face expressed surprise, but he did reply, if in only a few words.

  Khalis spoke again, and the Antiagon studied Quaeryt, then looked away.

  “Ask him about why that officer tried to kill the older imager here,” prompted Quaeryt.

  Khalis spoke again in Pharsi, and the younger imager replied.

  “He says that the life of any imager or apprentice who tries to leave Aliaro’s service is forfeit. So is that of all members of their family.”

  “So why is he alive?”

  Khalis spoke again and listened. “He’s not a very good imager, and he’s an orphan. He was assigned to the most difficult master.”

  “So he actually learned something?” Quaeryt let a little sardonicism permeate his voice.

  Khalis offered a faint smile before speaking once more.

  “He believes so, but you would have to judge.”

  “Not at the moment. Right now, we’ll need to restrain him, but he doesn’t need to be wrapped in chains.” Quaeryt rode closer to the young imager and unwound some of the chains around his arm and right hand, then concentrated on imaging an iron wristband with an attached shackle, and then imaged one of the lengths of chain to the shackle. Lights flashed before his eyes, and he felt light-headed by the time he finished.

  The Antiagon apprentice paled and began to shake. Finally, he spoke to Khalis.

  “What did he say?” Quaeryt paused, then took another swallow of the watered lager.

  “That you have proved to be his master, and the chain is unnecessary.”

  That didn’t make sense to Quaeryt. At least one of the Antiagon imagers had been able to create iron darts and direct them at first company.

  “Only the masters can image iron like that,” added Khalis.

  “Do you think you can handle him?” asked Quaeryt. “I’d like to see if we could eventually use him.”

  “I can see,” replied Khalis. “Right now, he’s just scared.”

  “Try to keep him respectful and worried without making him piss himself.” Quaeryt glanced up to see Threkhyl and Lhandor riding toward him. “What’s his name?”

  When Khalis asked, the response was “Elsior.”

  “Just wait over there. I need to talk to Threkhyl and Lhandor.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Khalis.

  “Will you need anything more, sir?” asked Zhelan quietly, as if not wishing to interrupt, but wanting to call attention to his other duties.

  “I’m sorry to have kept you, Major. Not at the moment.”

  As Zhelan rode off, Quaeryt waited until the two arriving imagers reined up before speaking. “Threkhyl … you seemed to have trouble imaging a wide gap in the wall. What happened?”

  “That
was as wide as we could make it, sir.” Threkhyl’s tone was almost belligerent. “Took the two of us.”

  Lhandor looked to Quaeryt. “I had to drop the concealment early to help Threkhyl. It was like there was metal or something inside the stone. Then, all of a sudden it was gone.”

  An imager, trying to use shields to protect the wall? Quaeryt frowned, then asked, “Could it have been shielded somehow?”

  Lhandor tilted his head slightly, as if considering. “It might have been. I’ve never tried to image through someone’s shields. It might have been easier after we broke through, but … well … I couldn’t image more.”

  Threkhyl shook his head. “Me neither.”

  “Against shields, you did well.” Quaeryt saw Skarpa riding toward him. “We need to talk about this later, but I need to discuss some matters with the submarshal. Don’t forget to drink a lot of watered ale or lager and eat some biscuits. That will help you recover your strength. If you’d join Khalis and his friend over there. He can fill you in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Quaeryt managed another swallow of watered lager and a few bites of a hard biscuit before Skarpa arrived, escorted by a half squad from Third Regiment, all of whom reined up well away from the two senior officers.

  “It was a good thing you could attack the rear here,” said Skarpa. “The gap in the wall wasn’t wide enough to get enough troopers through quickly enough. When you attacked from the rear, a lot of them panicked, and we could break through.”

  “I’m just glad I saw it in time,” replied Quaeryt.

  “You’re good about that.” Skarpa paused. “They had more than five regiments here…”

  “And several master imagers and apprentices, from what we’ve discovered.”

  “One junior imager for each senior one?”

  “I’d guess so … at least in the field. We captured one…” Quaeryt went on to explain what had happened. “… and for the moment, he’s over there with Khalis.”