Darknesses

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  A rueful smile crossed Alucius’s lips. Killing the pteridons might be possible. He had monumental doubts about the practicality of the rest.

  67

  Alustre, Lustrea

  The sound of boots on the polished pink-gray granite floor came after Vestor had already been warned of the Praetor’s approach by the flashing crystal inset beside the metal mirror. By the time he heard the footsteps, the engineer had already replaced the quartz top to the sheltered workbench, concealing both mirror and crystals, and stepped around the tanks, where he waited for the Praetor, bathed in the hazy light of late summer streaming from one of the narrow-slit windows.

  Tyren stopped a yard short of Vestor.

  The engineer inclined his head. “Praetor Tyren.”

  “I have not heard much of late from you, Vestor. I thought I should visit you and hear from you yourself.” Tyren studied the engineer. “You have been working hard. Your face is pale, and your hair darker from lack of sun.” He nodded. “Yet you look stronger and healthier.”

  “My health is good, Praetor.” Vestor smiled politely. “I am enjoying both the tower quarters and the freedom you have provided me. I have put both to good use. We will have all the light-blades you require by spring, and you will have ten, I would judge, by the end of harvest.”

  Tyren frowned, ever so slightly, before nodding. “I had hoped that you might have found a way to produce the crystals more quickly.”

  “I can produce only so many at a time, Praetor, unless you wish me to train other engineers, and there appear to be few who have both Talent and the ability to be engineers.”

  Tyren laughed ruefully. “We have found none. There are few indeed with Talent in Lustrea in these times.”

  “There have been few in any time since the Cataclysm.”

  “So you have told me.”

  “I have not been idle. As you requested, I have worked upon the calculations and the materials necessary to produce a Table of the Recorders—a true Table. The Table cannot be located in Alustre, because there are no nodes here, nor anywhere nearby.”

  “Nodes?”

  “Beneath the surface of Corus run unseen webs of power. These webs hold the world together. For a Table to work—without exploding—the Table must be assembled in a locale where at least two lines of this power cross, and preferably where three are located.” Vestor gestured toward the map mounted in an oak frame and set upon a sturdy easel. With the gesture, he was easily able to avoid looking at the Praetor without seeming to do so. “I did decipher the ancient codes. Alustre, Elcien, and Ludar were once all set upon such nodes, but Alustre is no longer. There is a good possibility of such a node in or near Prosp.”

  “There are no other suitable locations?”

  “There might be one near Norda…or possibly Dulka,” Vestor replied, again looking squarely at the Praetor. “Those are the most likely locations.”

  “How long would it take you to determine such?”

  “It would take me longer to travel to each than to determine. No more than a few days in any place where you would like such a Table.”

  “But we would have to build a suitably strong building…would we not?”

  “It would not have to be terribly large, and the Table itself would need to be below ground, in order to lock into the nodes and flows.”

  Tyren nodded thoughtfully. “You have learned much, Vestor, and as your works come to fruition, you will continue to be rewarded.”

  “Thank you, Praetor.”

  “Is there anything else you have discovered? Anything that might augment the power of our legions?”

  “I may have discovered the keys to an ancient manual in your library that presents other weapons, possibly the secret of the Myrmidon’s skylances.”

  “The nomads already have those,” Tyren pointed out.

  “I beg your pardon, Praetor. They have skylances, but we destroyed half of them in that ill-fated battle. They may lose more—they may have already—when they attack Deforya or Lanachrona. They have skylances, but they cannot construct more of them.”

  Tyren laughed. “You are truly a wonder, Vestor. Truly. You build skylances, and I will build you a summer palace in the Acolian Hills—a small palace, but a palace.” He paused. “And remember. I have always kept my word.”

  “That I know, Praetor.” Vestor gestured to the crystal tanks. “Would you like to see the latest crystals?”

  The two men walked toward the tanks.

  68

  In the gray light before the dawn of a Duadi morning, Alucius glanced around the courtyard of Lancer Prime Post, now almost entirely filled with troopers, most in the red tunics of Deforya. His eyes centered on Twenty-first Company. They had been fortunate. The company still had ninety troopers. Feran’s Fifth Company was down to around eighty, as were Third Company and Eleventh Company. Twenty-third Company had been so badly mangled by the pteridons that Draspyr had reorganized its fifty-two survivors into three squads under a senior squad leader reporting directly to the majer.

  The air in the courtyard was hot and still, a courtyard filled with the sounds of mounts breathing, sometimes heavily, the creaking of leather, and voices shouting reports and orders. With his nightsilk undergarments and the herders’ vest under his tunic, Alucius felt far hotter than he would have liked, but they had saved his life more than once, and he could always drink more water. He glanced down at the water bottles, then back up, waiting for riding orders.

  The first ten Deforyan companies had already wheeled and were riding out of the open gates, headed southward on the main street.

  “Twenty-first Company!” called out Majer Draspyr from where he was mounted beside the stone platform where the Deforyan adjutant was calling out the orders.

  “Ready to ride,” Alucius replied.

  “You’re next, Overcaptain.”

  Alucius nodded to Longyl.

  “Twenty-first Company! To the rear…”

  Once the company emerged from the gates, as they turned southward and away from the Landarch’s palace and the center of Dereka, Alucius glanced to the north. There the streets looked no different than before, early as it was, with a handful of shopkeepers and larger handfuls of beggars and a few others. Those who were out were not even looking, except with passing glances, at all the horsemen, as if no one knew or cared that thousands of nomads were massing to the south or that fewer thousands of Deforyan Lancers and Northern Guards were massing to meet them.

  Longyl followed the overcaptain’s glance. “You’d think they’d go somewhere. At least to their homes. Or take the high road east, anywhere away from here.”

  “Where would they go? They wouldn’t be welcomed by any of the landowners. They might even get shot. There’s no water, except for what the aqueduct brings, and that doesn’t go any farther east from here.”

  “If…and I know it’s a wager of the sort too high for odds, sir, but if we get through this, I can’t help thinking I’ll be glad to get back to the Iron Valleys, even under the Lord-Protector.”

  Alucius didn’t much care for the Lord-Protector, but then, he hadn’t cared much for the Council that had sold out the Iron Valleys to the Lord-Protector. He certainly didn’t care for what he’d seen of those who ruled Deforya, and the evil behind the Matrial’s rule had been so palpable that he still found it hard to believe that such evil had governed such a prosperous land and, in its own way, a land that had tried so hard to treat people fairly.

  “I’ll be glad to get home, too,” was what Alucius said. “Our task is to find a way to make it possible.” That was looking to be every bit as hard as Alucius had feared it would be.

  As they continued to ride southward, a light wind began to blow at Alucius’s back, cool for late summer, and just enough to lift the worst of the stagnant hot air within Dereka.

  After another quarter of a glass, the column of riders turned and headed east-northeast along a narrower road that formed an arc between the south road and the high roa
d that led eastward toward the Northern Pass, some two hundred vingts farther northeast. From the sketchy briefing he had received earlier, Alucius understood that the nomads had established themselves some ten vingts to the southeast of Dereka, along one of the few streams south of the city. Scouts had been watching every move. With the arrival of four pteridons late in the afternoon on the day before, even the Deforyan officers had conceded that the beasts existed. But just as Feran had predicted, according to Majer Draspyr, they had expressed polite doubt that as many as ten or eleven had attacked Black Ridge.

  The majer had said little to the Northern Guard officers about his briefing, but he had said it with clipped words, and even those without Talent had sensed his frustration and anger.

  As he rode along the ring road, Alucius reached out with his Talent, but could gain little in the way of impressions because so many lifewebs swirled around him so closely, and because the nomads were at least several vingts away, if not farther. To his right, the knee-high green-tinged golden grass of late summer extended a good two or three vingts to the horizon, the top of a long rise to the southeast.

  “You think they’ll attack right off?” asked Longyl.

  “They can’t wait too long,” Alucius replied. “There’s nothing to forage off to the south, except grass for their mounts, and there aren’t that many places where they can get enough water for that horde. Besides, they’ve got the pteridons and far more warriors than we have troopers, and nothing’s stopped them so far.”

  “We slowed them down. Killed a bunch.”

  “We’re going to have to kill more than that,” Alucius pointed out.

  “Too bad we don’t have rain. That might keep those beasts away,” Longyl said. “If the clouds were low.”

  “We haven’t seen any rain in a season,” Alucius replied with a laugh. “I’m not expecting any now. Besides, they’d just wait. We’re not about to attack a force that big.”

  He broke off the conversation as he noted that the companies ahead were stopping and wheeling into position perpendicular to the ring road, being positioned by a Deforyan majer. “Twenty-first Company…prepare to wheel to position!”

  “Twenty-first Company…” Longyl echoed.

  As the sun seeped over the grasslands to the east, the Deforyan Lancers and the Northern Guards—and what remained of the one company of the Southern Guard—were drawn up along the central arc of the ring road on the southeast side of Dereka. Facing endless waves of grass, they were positioned directly between the nomad camp and the city, and on the road that could take them swiftly either farther east or farther south, should the nomads decide to attack from another direction. Each squad in Twenty-first Company was arrayed four deep and five across—except that it was more like five across and three deep with a few behind the third rank in most cases. Farther back were five Deforyan companies, deployed to be able to fill in any gaps or to support against a more directed attack.

  Alucius looked to his left, where, fifty yards to the northeast, Feran was mounted before Fifth Company. Beyond Feran was the majer, and beyond him, Heald, then Koryt. To Alucius’s right was a Deforyan overcaptain and captain he did not know, and then, another fifty yards to the southwest, another set of officers. The pattern continued for farther than he could distinguish any individual officers. From what Alucius could tell, the Northern Guard companies were about four companies to the north of the center of the formation.

  Alucius wondered if the nomads would sweep out of the rising sun, but another half glass passed, and the sun climbed, and there was still no sign of any riders anywhere to the south and east.

  More time passed, and the light breeze died away, leaving an oppressive calm. Alucius ordered a break, by squads, to allow his men to stretch their legs and move around.

  A single trooper rode along the front of the defense force. “Nomads sighted! All companies into position! Nomads sighted…”

  “Twenty-first Company! Ready to ride!”

  Alucius looked to the southeast once more. He waited less than a tenth of a glass when, for a moment, it appeared as though a shadow had been cast over the grassy rise to the southeast, because darkness crept across the golden grass. But there were no clouds in the silver-green sky, and the darkness was the mass of nomad riders, moving deliberately toward the defenders.

  “Check your rifles!” Alucius ordered.

  Even before they neared the Deforyans, Alucius could see that the nomad riders were not riding forward as a line, but as a massive wedge aimed at the center of the Deforyan line, although the trailing edges of the wedge clearly overlapped both ends of the Deforyan formation.

  “Lot of targets,” observed Longyl.

  “More than I’d like,” Alucius replied.

  With less than a vingt between the forces, the nomads slowed, then halted.

  Alucius had a good idea why they had halted, and he watched, again waiting.

  Four black shapes rose into the sky, from behind the rise over which the advancing mass of nomad riders had ridden. The pteridons circled higher into the sky and turned northwest, aimed directly toward the center of the Deforyan formation.

  Unlike the attacks on Black Ridge, as the nomads rode closer, the pteridons also flew ever closer, but they did not swoop, but remained higher. Alucius wondered. Would they attack at the last moment? Why were they so high, and in the center? Because they had learned that only a few of the defenders could hurt them?

  There were no commands from the Deforyan marshals…no orders.

  Alucius could see that the wedge would strike the center well before the trailing edges would near Twenty-first Company.

  “Twenty-first Company, left oblique! Prepare to fire! First volley as single target! First volley as single target!”

  “Fifth Company, take oblique on Twenty-first Company! Prepare to fire!”

  Alucius could feel the ground thunder as the nomads changed from a fast walk into a full gallop toward the center of the line. He watched the distance narrow. At what he judged to be a hundred and fifty yards, he gave the order. “Twenty-first Company! Open fire!”

  “Fifth Company! Open fire!”

  The first volley tore into the side of the nomad wedge, and scores of nomads went down. The second volley was almost as well-timed, and equally effective. While the third and fourth shots from the company appeared equally effective, the differing rates of individual fire resulted in an almost continuous stream of fire.

  Despite the casualties, the nomads kept coming, and the wings of the wedge were now less than a hundred yards from Alucius.

  “Twenty-first Company! Re-form! Tight formation! Re-form!” Alucius quickly reloaded then slipped the rifle he had used into the holder. Both were loaded, if he had a chance to use them again.

  “Fifth Company! Re-form!”

  Alucius glanced up, briefly to see one of the pteridons circling well to the west of the battle, then drop rapidly and swoop toward the center of the Deforyan line from the rear, blue flame blazing. Then he had to concentrate on the oncoming nomads. He pulled out his sabre.

  “Twenty-first Company! Charge!”

  The tight formation was a smaller wedge, with Alucius at the point of the wedge. Sabre out, he concentrated on both the nomads and creating the image that his company was larger, and more deadly than anything the nomads had seen.

  The first nomad nearing Alucius turned straight toward him. Alucius didn’t turn Wildebeast, not until the very last moment, when he twisted in the saddle and struck. The nomad had tried the same thing, but hadn’t expected the turn to the left, and took a slash across his left shoulder and throat.

  After that Alucius let Wildebeast and his training work for him, concentrating only on keeping moving. His left arm felt like lead, and he had the feeling there were bruises everywhere under the nightsilk undergarments.

  Then, abruptly, he was riding across open grassland.

  He glanced back. Most of Twenty-first Company had broken through the wing of the nom
ads, and the nomads had continued onward. The tight spacing of the troopers had worked. Twenty-first Company was behind the main nomad formation.

  “Twenty-first Company. To the rear and hold.” The hold was just to make sure everyone re-formed in place, ready to head back toward the fight. “Forward, fast trot!”

  Alucius glanced to his right. Fifth Company had also managed to break through, although it looked as though they had suffered more casualties.

  As the two Northern Guard companies rode northward—back toward the center of the battle, Alucius could see what Aellyan Edyss had planned. The Deforyans had thrown all the reserves into the center. That had broken the force of the nomad charge—or rather the nomads had let it break their force—because they had completely encircled the majority of the defenders, with the clear intent of killing them all. And now, the pteridons were swooping into the center of the battle, and blue flames were consuming Deforyan lancers by the score. The closeness of the battle limited where pteridons could strike, but the pattern was deadly. The pteridons were hitting the middle of the Deforyan, where the lancers could scarcely move, and the nomads on the outside were cutting down those who tried to flee from the fires of the skylances.

  As he rode, Alucius looked to his left, finally locating Longyl, easing Wildebeast toward the senior squad leader. “We’re going to wheel to a line fifty yards short of them and stop. Then we’re going to shoot as many of them as we can.”

  Longyl nodded, almost grimly.

  About a hundred yards short of the ill-defined rear of the nomad force, Alucius called out his orders. “Twenty-first Company! Wheel to firing line and halt! To a firing line and halt!”

  The line was uneven, but spaced.

  “Rifles ready! Prepare to fire. Open fire!”

  Alucius aimed the heavy rifle and fired…again and again. Then he reloaded.