Mage-Guard of Hamor

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  He shifted his weight in the saddle. At least he had begun to gain some skill at riding, and he had managed to stay in the saddle on the headlong charge to escape the flood. His eyes swept the countryside, now showing not only estates and smaller holdings, but bog meadows with workers in them, and a distillery here and there. It looked almost as orderly as Recluce, not that Deybri or the magisters would ever admit such.

  With all the days of sleeping in the open, Rahl had not been able to add to his letter to Deybri, although he did think about her…and dream. Dreaming of a distant healer seemed impossible. Stupid, some might say, but he could no more not dream of her than breathe. The magisters would never let him return to Nylan, no matter how accomplished an ordermage he became, and Deybri had already said—more than once, and firmly—how much she had hated being in Hamor.

  Rahl pushed his thoughts away from her and concentrated on the road.

  Several hundred cubits ahead, just before the road curved gradually to the right, the brush in front of a stretch of trees had grown up to almost shoulder height within ten cubits of the road, so high that Rahl lost sight of the first outriders. Beyond the trees was a stubbled field behind a rail fence. Absently, Rahl probed that area of high brush, but could sense nothing living, except small creatures—rodents and perhaps a jay or a traitor bird. He wondered if the brush had grown up over an old fence because there was some structure inside the brush but near the front. He shook his head. Just so long as there weren’t any rebels.

  Suddenly, the mount of one of the second outriders stumbled. The brush shuddered, and a hail of arrows or quarrels flashed across the road. A number struck the trooper and his mount—with enough force that the horse and rider went down.

  For a moment, Rahl just rode on, his mouth opening. Then he started to urge the gelding forward.

  “Rahl! Are there any rebels near?” demanded Drakeyt.

  “No.”

  “Then, hold up. You don’t want to set off another trap.”

  Rahl reined up, scanning the area with his order-senses again. The horse was screaming, and he had to concentrate. “There’s no one near.”

  “Company! Halt!” ordered Drakeyt. “Arms ready!”

  Rahl probed the brush, far more carefully. What he had thought was an old fence in the brush was more structured. He turned. “There’s something hidden in brush. I’m going to circle around behind it.”

  Drakeyt nodded. “Be careful.”

  Rahl eased the gelding onto the shoulder of the road for a time, then into the brush, easing his way forward. He could feel that the trooper was dead; his mount’s screams had died to a slowed and labored breathing. Rahl could sense that the horse would not last long.

  He could sense another section of what he had thought was fence…and another beyond that, and both concealed by high brush and grasses.

  “There are two others!” he called back.

  Two older troopers rode up to join him.

  “Can you show us where, sir?”

  Rahl explained exactly where the two were, and the troopers dismounted.

  In moments, after making sure no one was near the devices, they had sprung the traps, and then began to disassemble them, quickly, and with little interest in preserving them. Rahl moved closer and watched carefully.

  Drakeyt joined them, then turned to Quelsyn, who had also ridden up. “Have a detail bury Honyk, but give me the pouch with his personals.”

  “Yes, ser.” Quelsyn turned his mount back down the column, returning with three troopers, who eased the dead trooper away from his mount.

  Rahl turned his attention back to the two troopers who had disarmed the last two quarrel-throwers. While the two troopers worked quickly, it still took some time for them to remove all the sections of the devices. There had been three of the traps set in a row. The construction was simple enough—a counterweighted board on an axle of sorts with quarrels set in wooden tubes. The counterweight was held by a cord running in a pipe to a trigger plate buried a span under the road. If a horse or a heavy wagon pressed on the wooden plate, it was depressed and a sharpened piece of metal cut the cord, releasing the quarrels. Rahl could appreciate the engineering of the mechanisms, because it was simple, yet could have been built elsewhere. Installing it would not have taken that long for several men.

  “How did they keep it from being set off by locals?” asked Quelsyn, peering down at the hole in the ground where the first trigger plate had been.

  Rahl studied the wooden box that was the plate assembly, then nodded. “There’s a space here for an iron rod. They probably had a cord attached to it and pulled it out before we got here.”

  Drakeyt looked at Rahl. “That means someone is just ahead of us, watching us.”

  Rahl nodded. It also meant that whoever it was knew there might be a mage-guard with the company because they remained out of his range of order-sensing.

  “It’s another way of trying to slow us down. Now…we’ll have to be even more careful.”

  “If we’re looking for things like these,” Rahl said, “I’d better be farther ahead, at least with the second outriders.”

  “That will make you more of a target,” Drakeyt pointed out.

  Rahl offered a grin he didn’t feel. “Everyone’s a target, sooner or later. I won’t do the company much good if I’m not where I can sense things.”

  “Try not to get yourself killed,” Drakeyt replied. “I’d hate to explain it to your overcommander.”

  Rahl nodded.

  The captain turned to the older troopers who had disarmed the quarrel-throwers. “Just bust up that crap and toss it into the forest, except for the quarrels. They might come in useful. We’ve got a town or two to scout.”

  A town or two or more, and who knew how many more devices and traps? Rahl let his order-senses range over the quarrel-throwers again, trying to get a better feel for them.

  XXXVIII

  For the remainder of sixday, Rahl rode forward of the main column with the outriders, but a good quarter kay behind the scouts. The road had turned so that its general heading was due southwest, but they encountered only a few local carts and riders, and Rahl detected nothing suspicious. The half squads sent to ask local holders about rebels and armed men reported back that none of the locals had seen either. Rahl accompanied one of the groups, and the holders were indeed telling the truth. The lack of local observation bothered Rahl, but he didn’t know what he could do about it except be vigilant. Once again, he’d failed to do something, and once again, it was because no one had told him what to look for. He was beginning to think that no one ever thought about telling others anything of value. Rather, they just came up with vague platitudes and thought they were being helpful. He snorted quietly.

  The weather remained chill, but they’d been fortunate because they’d encountered no more rain, and Rahl could not sense any great amount of water in the air. That was encouraging for the next few days, at least. They had not sent any more troopers as messengers, nor had they received any messages from the submarshal’s forces. The way matters were going, Third Company would reach Dawhut a good eightday before the submarshal—if not longer.

  By sevenday, the rugged and rocky hills had gradually given way to lower, gentler, and more rounded rises, with a mixture of hardwood trees, meadows, and fields, although the tilled ground was winter-fallow. Rahl continued to keep pace with the outriders, checking everything that he could for possible traps or ambushes. He was riding beside Alrydd, an older and graying trooper.

  “Still seems strange, begging your pardon, ser, to have a mage-captain riding with an outrider.” Alrydd did not look at Rahl as he spoke, his eyes traversing the road and the areas on each side.

  “Seems strange to be riding here, Alrydd.” Rahl paused, then asked, “How long have you been a trooper?”

  “Near on twelve years, ser. Was a butcher’s apprentice in Sylpa. Figured being a trooper couldn’t be any bloodier, and it’d get me out of consorting to the render
er’s daughter.”

  “Did it?”

  “Aye, yes, and that I never regretted.”

  Rahl could sense there were other regrets, but did not press. “I was a scrivener, and trying to avoid being consorted to a young woman led from one thing to another, and I ended up a trader’s clerk in Swartheld, and then a mage-clerk in Luba.”

  “Women, ser…when you’re with ’em, you can’t do without ’em, except when you wish you could and can’t.”

  Rahl wasn’t certain he followed that line of thinking, but he laughed softly. “They can be a puzzle.” Absently, he reached up and massaged the back of his neck, with his left hand. His head was already aching, and it was only midafternoon.

  A low stone wall, no more than waist high, formed a neat border around a small orchard ahead on the left side of the road. With the almost-furled gray of winter leaves, Rahl couldn’t tell the type of fruit trees, except that they weren’t pearapple or apple.

  He stiffened. Was there a hint of chaos there? He reined up the gelding and said to Alrydd, “Hold up.”

  The trooper complied without speaking.

  “There’s something about that orchard, or the wall in front of it.” Rahl eased the gelding forward, but slowly, extending his order-senses.

  The grass and weeds in front of the stone wall appeared and felt undisturbed, and so did the orchard, but an area a good ten or fifteen cubits wide behind the stone wall, on the end farthest north and closest to Rahl, had clearly been touched by chaos, if faintly.

  “There’s something here!” he called back. “Pass the word to the captain.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Rahl inspected more closely, but still from a good ten cubits away. Loosely covered with leaves and grasses was an oblong two cubits in width and four cubits in height or depth. He guessed that it was similar to the earlier arrow traps.

  He shifted his attention back to the road itself, trying to discover what mechanism the rebels had devised to set it off. There was a wide and flat space in the middle of the road, dustier than the area around it, and without any tracks across it. That had to be the cutter plate that severed the trip rope.

  He turned in the saddle as the same pair of older troopers who had disassembled the first trap appeared. “The quarrel plate is behind the wall. It’s fairly large.” He gestured. “The spring plate is there. You can see the outline in the road. The rod is still in place. I wouldn’t fiddle with it until you disarm the quarrel trap.”

  “No, ser. We wouldn’t want to be doing that.”

  Rahl offered no more direction, but continued to watch as the two went to work.

  What the troopers finally lifted clear of the ground between the trees and the walls was a wooden throwing plate with tubes for sixty-four quarrels, and all the tubes were filled. Once they had the plate uncovered and clear of the weighted throwing links, Rahl could sense chaos around the plate more strongly.

  “There’s a paste smeared on the tips,” said one of the troopers.

  “Poison, most likely,” added Drakeyt, who had ridden up shortly before the two troopers had eased the throwing plate away from the mechanism.

  Rahl almost nodded. “Why would they use poison on the quarrels?”

  “To kill more of us.” Drakeyt’s words were dryly sardonic.

  “No. The poison would still only kill a few more troopers than the quarrels without poison, but it takes more time and effort, and it’s more dangerous for whoever’s assembling the device.”

  “And it’s likely to make the troopers more angry,” Drakeyt added. “You’re suggesting that these traps aren’t being set by regular troopers or officers. They’re either trying to save their troopers for actual battle, or they have something else in mind.”

  “Or both.” Rahl had no idea what other idea might be behind the actions of the mages and crafters—it had to be a combination of both—who were setting the traps.

  “That sort of treachery doesn’t speak well of Golyat or those supporting him. Mythalt’s been a good emperor, as emperors go,” replied Drakeyt. “Why would anyone want to support someone who would poison everyday troopers? It says they don’t think much of the rank and file.”

  “Or they think that poisoned quarrels will make the men less determined in battle.”

  Drakeyt shook his head. “Word about the poison gets around, and most of the troopers won’t want to give quarter—especially to rebel officers.”

  Rahl thought it might just show the arrogance of the rebel mage-guards—and that they were the ones who felt they were above rules, decency, and being accountable for what they did. His lips quirked. They were—until or unless the Imperial forces and mage-guards defeated them.

  Drakeyt turned in the saddle to the two troopers breaking up the quarrel-throwing trap. “Wrap up the poisoned quarrels. We’ll want to give them to the submarshal when they join forces with us.”

  Whenever that might be, Rahl thought.

  Then the captain looked at Rahl. “From here on in toward Dawhut, we’d better check every stead and structure near the road, and all of the side lanes or roads with tracks.”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Rahl replied. For many reasons.

  XXXIX

  On eightday and oneday, Drakeyt put his stepped-up surveillance and scouting plan into effect. On eightday, Third Company only traveled twelve kays across the low and rolling hills, scarcely more than low rises between ever-more-extensive bog meadows and the steads on the edge of each. A number of the bog meadows looked more like mining pits, stepped downward into darkness.

  Oneday was a repetition of eightday, and they still found no sign of rebels, and no one who had seen any or any tracks or other traces. By late afternoon, they had begun to encounter carts and wagons heaped with bog meadow turf creaking southwest on the road.

  Ahead Rahl could see another of the old kaystones. Not until he had ridden within a dozen cubits could he make out the name and distance: Fhydala–5 k. As worn as the letters were on this, the “new” road, he had to wonder how much older the “old” road was.

  The still and cold air carried a pungent odor. Rahl sniffed once, then again. He had no idea what the scent was. Even the gelding snorted slightly, and Rahl could sense he didn’t care for the odor much, either. “Alrydd? Do you know what that smell is?”

  “Can’t say that I know, ser. I’d be guessing that it’s from the stills. Feromyl said that was one of the reasons he left years back.”

  That made sense to Rahl, and, if that were so, he could see why Feromyl, whoever he was, had left Fhydala.

  He rode past several oblong small lakes with dark water in them, appearing as though they had once been bog meadows that had been excavated until there was no more turf to be removed, then had filled with rainwater and seepage. After climbing another low rise, he could see the town ahead. Grayish smoke seeped from two tall brick chimneys, one almost immediately to the left of the road ahead and one more than a kay to the right. The one to the left was part of a neatly maintained brick structure. Rahl couldn’t make out the structures around the chimney to the right, but he gained the impression that the structures were older and not as well managed.

  Drakeyt rode forward and joined Rahl. “We’ll ride into the town, and if they seem welcoming, and you don’t sense anything, we’ll find quarters for the men. We’ll run patrols around here tomorrow and stay tomorrow night before we move on. The last eightday has been hard on the troopers and their mounts. I’m just glad you didn’t find any more traps today.”

  “So am I,” replied Rahl, “but I have the feeling that today was just a respite. What do you know about the town?”

  “About as much as you do.” Drakeyt laughed. “The scouts didn’t see anything unusual. Did you?”

  “Some of those bog meadows to the northeast looked like mining pits,” Rahl said.

  “They dry the best of the turf and use it to flavor the Vyrna. The rest they burn as fuel for their stoves and homes and the stills, of cou
rse.”

  “What will they do when it’s all burned?”

  “Dig it from somewhere else, I suppose,” replied Drakeyt.

  “Some have been abandoned for years. The ones that have become ponds don’t look that good.”

  “That’s their problem.”

  Rahl nodded, but he had to wonder. The vegetation around the bog-meadow ponds had looked sparse and weedy, anything but healthy, and the smoke from the distilleries wasn’t exactly the most pleasant odor he’d ever inhaled.

  As Third Company rode into Fhydala, Rahl concentrated on sensing anything out of the ordinary, but the folk on the road and the lanes only exhibited feelings and expressions ranging from matter-of-fact acceptance to mild surprise. Rahl could detect no signs of chaos beyond those normal for any town or hamlet.

  When Third Company reined up in the town square, both Rahl and Drakeyt were pleased to see that there were actually two inns in Fhydala, on opposite sides of the square. The larger inn’s signboard depicted a squarish building constructed of what looked to be enormous bricks or brown stones. The letters beneath the simple image read The Turf Inn.

  “The Turf Inn?” Rahl wondered aloud.

  “That’s an old, old name,” Drakeyt replied. “Centuries back, some of the poor folks built their huts from turf bricks. It’s a way of saying it’s an honest and modest place.”

  The smaller inn was narrower, and its signboard proclaimed it as The Red Coach. Both were without patrons, and both innkeepers were more than pleased to accept the script offered by Drakeyt for use of the rooms and the stables and sheds.

  With all the arrangements for feed and food, and inspections of makeshift quarters, it was well past dark before Drakeyt and Rahl were finished with those details. After grooming the gelding and leaving the stable, Rahl went to the small upper-level room he had to himself—next to the one shared by three squad leaders. There was no shower in the Turf Inn, or any inn so far—but Rahl used two pitchers of water to wash up, and on his way down to meet Drakeyt in the inn’s public room arranged for one of his uniforms to be washed and pressed. The captain had already settled at a corner table in the public room in the Turf Inn—and the troopers had already left after having been fed, leaving the two officers alone. A slightly smoky fire burned in the hearth as a thin servingwoman appeared.