Antiagon Fire ip-7

by L. E. Modesitt Jr

As first company led the way up the wide boulevard, the only sounds that Quaeryt heard were those of hooves on stone and the low susurration of muted voices.

  Every street, lane, and alley they passed was silent and empty under the clear sky and early morning sun. No rainstorms to help, and we’re more than a half mille from the harbor, but there haven’t been that many storms since we’ve been in Antiago. That wasn’t surprising, given the land’s reputation for being hot, dry, and sunny.

  Quaeryt noticed several other things. All the ways, from boulevard to streets to lanes to alleys, were paved … and all the buildings looked to be about the same age and constructed in the same style. Because that’s what the autarchs wanted? Or because this entire part of Liantiago was destroyed and rebuilt? Both? Either way it suggested very strong local control … and a great deal of imaging.

  When they were less than two blocks from the Square of the Autarch, the one- and two-story stone dwellings and shops gave way to taller and more ornate private dwellings, clearly with central courtyards-most likely for Shahibs or wealthy factors, if not both, and possibly for high functionaries at the palace.

  Quaeryt glanced toward the palace-an imposing white stone structure, with walls within walls, beginning with the low stone wall around the square. Behind that was the recently imaged mid-square wall, a good hundred yards back from the outer wall and another hundred forward of the palace walls, four yards high, with catapults behind the second wall. Then there was the palace wall proper, more than thirty yards high and running all the way around the palace, which in turn rose another forty yards above the walls with six towers, each at a point on the hexagonal main building within the hexagonal walls.

  Quaeryt quickly returned his attention to the immediate tasks at hand. He could see men scrambling into position on the scores of catapults behind the higher walls in the middle of the square, walls whose whiteness confirmed that they had been recently imaged into place on the level stone surface of Autarch’s Square, a stone plaza some three quarters of a mille on a side, without a single fountain, statue, or other ornamentation-a different kind of declaration of power, Quaeryt felt.

  “Voltyr … take down the center part of the square wall … but so that it doesn’t block our advance. And stand ready to open the gaps for the other two regiments.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  No sooner had the first ranks ridden through the gap in the outer square wall than a fire grenade, and then another, arched from behind the mid-square wall, toward first company. Quaeryt imaged them back toward the catapults, but the first grenade started to explode, and then turned to ice pellets that showered harmlessly on the white paving stones of the square. The second grenade just vanished.

  They know as much as you do … and likely more. We need to keep them busy, then.

  “Threkhyl and Horan! Start to work on taking down those catapults.”

  Immediately two catapults sagged, and then two more.

  Quaeryt imaged a flurry of red-hot iron needles into the areas where he thought the catapult magazines of fire grenades would be.

  Not only did he feel resistance, but nothing happened.

  He couldn’t say he was totally surprised.

  One of the catapults suddenly was surrounded with an icy mist, but a third one exploded into fragments.

  “Got the bastard anyway!” Threkhyl’s voice held satisfaction and determination.

  “Voltyr! Open the other gaps!” ordered Quaeryt, knowing that he needed to keep the Antiagon imagers concentrating on the attackers.

  This time, as the vanguards of the flanking regiments moved into the square, arrows arched from somewhere, not toward first company, but toward Fourteenth Regiment and Third Regiment.

  Quaeryt managed to block the first flights with short, broad shields, trying not to use too much energy, yet understanding all too clearly that, somehow, the Antiagon imagers knew where the Telaryn imagers were.

  Two more catapults went down with explosions, and another collapsed in a shower of ice.

  For a long instant … the entire square was silent.

  Then … a shower of flame-not merely a few score fire grenades-but a huge curtain of flame, a vast expanse of Antiagon Fire that turned the very sky crimson-yellow-green, arched down toward the Telaryn forces.

  “Shields!” ordered Quaeryt.

  While Khalis and Lhandor created a wedge-shaped shield over the center of Southern Army, the near-curtain of Antiagon Fire cascaded down each side of the shield, growing and building with intensity enough that Quaeryt could sense that that immense concentration of heat could easily incinerate the troopers on each side of first company and Nineteenth Regiment, as well as those in Fourteenth Regiment and Third Regiment.

  Heat! Of course. With that much heat so close, Quaeryt didn’t even have to draw that much from the Antiagon forces, as he concentrated on imaging away rock and soil from under the entire palace, from well below where the shields of the Antiagon imagers were anchored and locked, yet he did extend a thread of imaging to the harbor … just in case. Even as he concentrated and hurried, he made, from well below where the shields of the Antiagon imagers were anchored and locked, a huge empty space, imaging the material that had been there into the air above the rear of the palace. Even as he concentrated and hurried, he made certain that he imaged away more rock from under the rear of the palace complex than from the front so that when it all collapsed the rubble would largely tumble away from the Telaryn forces.

  “Hold shields!”

  The ground trembled … then shook … and a huge groaning drowned out everything.

  Behind the high hexagonal walls, the palace shivered, and the tall towers began to shake, and then collapse … except that the entire palace complex shuddered, sagged, and then dropped from sight-just as a small mountain of soil, gravel, and stones cascaded from the sky into the depression from which not even the top of the palace walls protruded.

  The stone paving under the mare’s hooves shook and trembled, and the trembling got worse. From the corners of his eyes, even as Quaeryt tried to hold shields to protect first company, he could see buildings in the distance trembling and shaking.

  Gale force winds whipped toward him, so cold that ice pellets dropped everywhere, but he still tried to hold his shields …

  … until a wall of whiteness, so cold he could do nothing … toppled from nowhere onto him … and froze him in burning ice.

  67

  The first thing Quaeryt saw when his eyes opened was white … white everywhere. He was covered in blankets and shivering, so much so that he couldn’t focus his eyes on anything.

  “Sir…?”

  “I’m … alive … I think.” His entire body ached, and he couldn’t stop shivering. “What happened?”

  “Submarshal Skarpa says the city is ours. The part of it that’s left after all the shaking.”

  “Left?” Quaeryt shivered so violently he couldn’t say more.

  “You need to drink some watered lager, sir … anything.” Khalis rose from the chair beside the bed and guided a mug to Quaeryt’s lips, holding it steady against his shivering.

  Quaeryt could only take small sips, but after a time the worst of the shivering stopped, as did most of the twitching in his eyes. The throbbing in his head did not subside.

  Despite the white walls of the bedchamber where he lay, the light coming through the windows was muted and gloomy. “What glass…?”

  “It’s just past the third glass of the afternoon, sir. It’s darker than you’d expect. Most of the city was covered in fog, yesterday and most of today. The sun’s finally burning it off. That’s because of all the ice that coated the ruins and the square.”

  “What day is it?”

  “Jeudi afternoon, sir.”

  Two days … better than the last time … you hope.

  “You need to drink more, sir.”

  Quaeryt didn’t object, and he wasn’t shaking so much when he finished another series of swallows rather tha
n sips.

  “Don’t try to get up, sir,” said Khalis as he set the mug on the table beside the wide bed. “I’ll be right back. Commander Skarpa wanted to know when you were awake.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” said Quaeryt dryly. He had the feeling that his head might fall off if he even tried to stand … if his legs didn’t collapse first.

  As Khalis left, Quaeryt turned his head and looked toward the window. Ruins and shaking? Beyond was a garden, although he could see that beyond an ornamental tree he did not recognize there was a wall … and there were cracks and gaps in the mortar between the stones. There were also cracks in the plaster finish of the outside wall of the bedchamber.

  But why would imaging a pit beneath the palace cause ruins elsewhere? He frowned, before recalling that the paving stones of the Autarch’s Square had been shaking so hard that the mare had struggled to keep her footing. But why?

  He turned his head and closed his eyes, but the flashes of light that interrupted his vision were even more disconcerting against the closed lids, and he opened them again, just as Khalis returned to the bedchamber.

  “The submarshal will be here shortly, sir.”

  “What about first company? All the undercaptains?”

  “We’re all fine … well, except for bruises and cuts, little things like that.”

  “From all the shaking?”

  “And the falling buildings everywhere.”

  Falling buildings? Why … Quaeryt didn’t question what Khalis had clearly experienced, but why would the impact of the palace on whatever lay below the hole he’d imaged have caused so much shaking that it toppled buildings farther away than around the square?

  Behind Khalis, the door opened, and Skarpa stepped through.

  Khalis inclined his head and departed, closing the chamber door behind himself.

  Skarpa walked over to the bed and looked down at Quaeryt. “You look like hogshit, Quaeryt.”

  “I don’t think I feel quite that bad.” Almost, but not quite.

  “Good. I’d tell you that you need to stop doing this, but I don’t think there’s any place left in Lydar that will need your way of dealing with things.” Skarpa snorted. “There’s not even much left of the north side of the city. It’s a good thing that most of our forces were on or near the square. Whatever you did brought down most of the buildings. Good thing most of the locals had fled, too. The problem was that not enough of them left.” He paused. “What exactly did you do besides create a big hole and drop the palace into it?”

  “That’s all…” Quaeryt coughed, and the paroxysm sent waves of pain through his entire body. For several moments he couldn’t move or see.

  The submarshal waited.

  Finally, Quaeryt could speak and see again, if in flashes. “I … just imaged a hole under the palace and all the rocks and sand and gravel and stone up above it, and … let it all fall.”

  “The entire city was shaking for a time, might have been a good half glass, give or take a quint. No one was keeping track.”

  “Casualties…?” Quaeryt ventured.

  “We lost over a thousand to stray Antiagon Fire, flying rubble and falling houses … most of them were in Fhaasn’s Twenty-sixth Foot. They weren’t even on the boulevard around the Autarch’s Square when everything came apart. They got hit hard when the big dwellings on the south end of the square came down.” Skarpa looked at Quaeryt. “As for the Antiagons … maybe two hundred of the troopers near the mid-square wall survived. No one in the palace complex … no imagers, so far as we can tell.”

  “The rest of the city?”

  “Who knows? At least three or four hundred people were killed, maybe more than a thousand. Could have been more. Several thousand were likely hurt.”

  “You declare yourself regional governor?”

  “Acting regional governor. Even Kharllon agreed to that. He’s been pretty quiet. I’ve already gotten a handful of letters from some Shahibs, pledging allegiance to Bhayar. Appears that you scared them a bit.”

  “More … than I intended,” Quaeryt admitted. “I still don’t understand why the whole city shook.”

  “I wouldn’t pretend to know. But in some places closer to the square it was pretty bad. There was a school … children of factors and Shahibs … the whole thing came apart…” Skarpa shook his head. “One of your undercaptains broke down and sobbed … something about one of the little girls being like his own daughter…”

  “Do you know who that was?”

  “I didn’t see it. Zhelan told me. He didn’t say who. I was a little occupied.”

  Baelthm, Horan, or maybe Threkhyl. The others can’t have had children. Not yet, anyway. “What else should I know?”

  Skarpa offered a shrug. “We’re still getting control of the city.”

  Quaeryt wanted to frown, but he felt tired … so tired. Skarpa was hiding something from him, he was certain. “The imagers … are they…”

  “They’re all fine … except for bruises and the like.” Skarpa’s tone was firm and assured. “You need more rest. We’ll talk later.”

  Quaeryt wanted to say more, to ask what Skarpa was hiding, but the flashes across his eyes were coming more often, and they hurt more … and then the white darkness rose around him again.

  68

  Quaeryt dozed and woke, and dozed and woke all through Jeudi night, but when he finally opened his eyes sometime after dawn on Vendrei morning, his thoughts weren’t so jumbled. The flashes across his eyes had almost vanished, and the throbbing in his head was down to a dull ache. Unfortunately, that diminution of acute pain made him aware of soreness in his right thigh and upper arm, both of which were heavily bruised. He was also strong enough to prop himself up and reach for the mug of watered lager and slowly drink it. He’d almost finished it when Khalis appeared.

  “How are you feeling, sir?”

  “Much better.” Quaeryt wasn’t even tempted to reply with something along the lines of he couldn’t have felt much worse. He had felt worse, much worse. “How did I get so bruised, Khalis? Did I get knocked off my mount?”

  “Ah … not exactly, sir.”

  “What happened, then?”

  “All that shaking … it caused gaps in the paving stones, and your mare, her forelegs got crushed in between two stones. She tried not to go down … but she did. So did you.”

  Quaeryt winced. The mare had carried him all the way across Lydar … and then to have her brought down by his acts … and paving stones …

  “I’m sorry, sir. That was just the way it was.”

  “Those things happen. I just wish…” He shook his head. “You told me the undercaptains were all right, if bruised.” He paused. “What about the rest of first company?”

  “There were some broken arms and legs, the major said-from horses and men going down. No one was killed that I heard.”

  “I need to talk to the submarshal.” Quaeryt slowly swung his legs over the side of the bed and put his feet on the stone floor. “Do I have a uniform somewhere?”

  “Yes, sir … but…”

  “I need to find the submarshal.”

  “He’s in the study…”

  “I’ll get dressed and find him.” Skarpa won’t tell you anything if you’re still lying in a bed and looking helpless.

  After dressing, if slowly, Quaeryt did have to sit on the edge of the bed and drink more of the watered lager, as well as slowly chew a too-hard biscuit. Then he rose. “Point me in the right direction, Undercaptain.”

  “I’ll show you, sir. It’s only down the hall.”

  Quaeryt didn’t argue with that, but rose slowly and followed the young Pharsi undercaptain through the door and then through what looked to be a lady’s study to a wide tiled hallway.

  Two doors down stood a pair of troopers, but neither said a word as Khalis opened the door and announced, “Submarshal, Commander Quaeryt to see you.”

  Quaeryt didn’t wait for an acknowledgment, but walked in and took one of the
whitewood chairs opposite the table desk, trying not to sink into it. His legs were feeling weaker than he would have liked. The door closed behind him.

  Skarpa looked up from the papers and maps surrounding him. “You’re up early.”

  “What weren’t you telling me yesterday?” Quaeryt demanded.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know exactly what I mean. You were hiding something. What is it?”

  The submarshal sighed, deeply, and his brow furrowed. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t notice.”

  “I did. What didn’t you tell me?”

  “We found out early yesterday that when Aliaro heard about what we did at Kephria he sent three warships and some imagers north.”

  Vaelora … with only half a regiment to support her, and not a single imager! “Where did you find that out?”

  “From the assistant harbormaster.” Skarpa paused. “It might not be that bad.”

  “How could it not be that bad?” demanded Quaeryt.

  “When he found out we were marching on Liantiago several days after that, Aliaro sent a fast schooner or ketch after them. The harbormaster didn’t know why, but I’d wager it was to recall them to defend Liantiago.”

  “That wouldn’t have stopped them from leveling and burning what was left of Kephria,” Quaeryt pointed out.

  “The schooner might have traveled faster.”

  “Not that much faster. The Antiagon warships are all built for speed. Have you seen the Montagne? Or the Solis? Are there any other ships either here or in Westisle?”

  “No one’s seen either. There is a large schooner in Westisle. I had the captain sail it here.”

  “Put me on that ship … I can recover on the trip.”

  “I thought you’d say that,” replied Skarpa wryly. “What about Liantiago? What if those imagers return and you’re gone?”

  “Voltyr and Threkhyl can provide any imaging you need. Have them watch the harbor and sink any Antiagon ship that tries to enter the port. They can do that. It’s hard enough to image over water. I imagine it’s even harder if you’re in it or under it. As regional governor, you’ll need some imagers anyway, and I planned on leaving them.”