Mage-Guard of Hamor

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Rahl didn’t even think, leaping after the rebel and striking with the long truncheon, reinforced with order and fury. The man died instantly, his skull crushed. For a long moment, Rahl just looked at his body, then turned back toward the girl. She was dead.

  He could feel his eyes burning. Then he swallowed. “We need to check the cot.” He stepped inside. Immediately, he could feel death. An older woman lay, half-naked, on a pallet. She might have been pretty once, but her throat had been slashed. Another archer lay dead beside her.

  Rahl swallowed, then turned and stepped out into the somewhat cleaner air outside, standing there silently. After a moment, he wiped the truncheon on the tunic of the man he’d killed. “Let’s root out the rest of them.”

  He remounted the gelding without another word and waited for the squad to re-form, then rode toward the next cot. The door was open, and there were tracks in the dust.

  Rahl could see a mere handful of men in maroon hurrying toward a shed. In moments, they had recovered their mounts and were galloping southward.

  “They saw what happened,” suggested Dhosyn.

  “They must have seen some of what we did before,” Rahl said.

  “Yes, ser, but it was the way you crushed the last one that broke them. You flattened the back of his head like a rotten gourd.”

  He had? Rahl frowned. He could have, given how angry he’d been.

  After a time, he took a long and deep breath. “We might as well see what lies ahead.” He turned the gelding back to the paved road.

  There was no sign of any more rebels in the small dwellings along the road leading into Nubyat. The streets were deserted, and all was so quiet that the echoes of hoofs on stone sounded more like quick hammerblows. The dwellings were all shuttered, and Rahl sensed many were empty.

  A movement to his right caught his eye, and he turned in the saddle. He found himself watching a scruffy black-and-brown hound easing into an alleyway.

  Slowly, the squads of Third Company rode the main side streets, coming back to the main avenue that the highway had become, all reporting no sign of rebels…or much of anything else. Before long, Rahl rode into a square, certainly a major square, because it had a central plaza and a pedestal bearing the statue of one of the emperors of Hamor. Rahl smiled. The statue was old, but the face could have been that of Emperor Mythalt.

  “We’ll wait here for the other companies to close up some.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Rahl looked around the square, much like any other square in Hamor, with an expansive inn on one side, a smaller across from it, and shops set around the open area. The main avenue entered on the northern side, but two equally wide avenues branched out on the far side, one angling northwest, most likely toward the harbor, and the other continuing southward.

  By midafternoon, Rahl and Third Company had reached the southern end of Nubyat, but instead of more olive orchards, there was an expanse of rough and grassy ground, through which the pavement ran, arcing back uphill to the west and up the side of the ridge-like promontory. The side of the road facing him was a sheer cliff, and it had clearly been smoothed with chaos-fire years if not centuries before, for it was so smooth that no one could have climbed it. Some hundred cubits uphill, at the point where the cliff-like side of the road was almost thirty cubits above the ground below, was a barricade across the road.

  “Hold up,” Rahl told Dhosyn.

  “First squad, halt!”

  Rahl studied the stone-and-timber barricade across the wide, paved road leading up to heights and the Administrator’s Residence and the walled High Command compound. He could see yet another barricade set in place a good half kay farther up the road from the first. Then he looked southward. Where the ridge turned inland, several kays away, it narrowed. Even from that distance, he could make out the earthworks across the narrowest point of the slope up from the valley. While he could not see the far side, another sheer cliff comprised the edge closest to him. That suggested that there were but two approaches to the rebel stronghold. It also suggested why Golyat had not attempted to defend the city proper all that strongly.

  At that moment, a hail of arrows lofted from behind the head-high stones of the barricade, arcing skyward, then angling back down toward Rahl and first squad.

  Rahl extended and angled his order shields, and the arrows clattered onto the stone pavement.

  Then another flight soared toward the squad.

  “To the rear, ride!” Rahl ordered. He was tired, and there was no sense trying to block arrows. They could wait for the rest of Second Army back out of arrow range.

  Rahl could still see the terror in the girl’s eyes. He had the feeling he might always.

  LXXVIII

  In the early morning light of twoday, under a green-blue sky tinted with a light haze, Rahl and Drakeyt once more studied the barricades blocking the road up to the Administrator’s Residence. Neither officer was mounted, given their orders, nor was Third Company, but all the lancers held the reins to their horses and were ready to mount, if necessary. Behind the two barricades across the road were hundreds of rebels, if not more, and the road provided an easy route from above for reinforcements to reach the defenders. Third Company was stationed on the south wing of the regiment, for “contingency duty.” The fog of the previous day had lifted when a warmer wind off the ocean had blown in, and a light ocean breeze still blew.

  Taryl’s instructions to the two officers on oneday night had been succinct. “You and Third Company are assigned to Fifth Regiment under Commander Shuchyl. Fifth Regiment is being tasked with the attack on the fortified road on the north side of the promontory. In practice, it is unlikely that you will be able to make much headway there. The real purpose is to keep the rebel force bottled up while the main body of First and Second Army attacks the more accessible slope to the south. Third Company is not to take part in the attacks, except in cases where either the battle would be lost or where you can clearly break the enemy and gain the top of the promontory.”

  After the overcommander had finished, he had dismissed Drakeyt and added a few words to Rahl. “You are not to attempt to protect the entire regiment, no matter what happens. The rebels have more mages, and in short order they will just wear you down. Use your magery only for significant tactical advantage. Significant, Rahl. Significant.”

  As he continued to ponder what he might do that Taryl would consider significant, Rahl looked back over the Imperial forces. Fifth Regiment was drawn up a good half kay below the first barricade across the road, well out of easy arrow or crossbow range, and had been since dawn.

  “It’d be stupid to charge that barricade,” Drakeyt observed, making conversation, because both men had already concluded that. “Wonder what the commander will do.”

  “He didn’t tell you?” asked Rahl.

  “We’re directly under the overcommander, remember, Majer?”

  Rahl concealed a wince. Shuchyl had barely talked to either officer, only confirming that Third Company was there to keep mages and others from escaping in the event that the rebels did break. “I imagine you talked to some of the other officers.”

  Drakeyt grinned. “The commander has a few tricks in his saddlebags. They might work.”

  “Such as?”

  “He gathered all those crossbows—the oversized ones. He also has some small ballistas, and he’s got some fast little wagons that carry siege ladders.”

  “Because they don’t use cammabark or powder?” Rahl was still attempting to determine what he could do that might be effective in dealing with the rebel position. There was little use in trying to undermine the road by turning the underlying soil to ooze, because there was no soil. The road had been cut out of solid rock, and even trying to weaken those order bonds in the smallest of areas would exhaust Rahl without doing much to help Fifth Regiment. Taryl had forbidden him to use massive shields, except to prevent a disaster, and throwing order-bolts was only useful against chaos-mages. Besides, that would leave
him too weak to do anything else. Charging the barricade behind his shields would have been equally futile against who knew how many mages and that many troopers. All the other order-skills he had mastered seemed useless in the situation before him.

  “He’s also gathered several wagons of thoroughly dried dung.” Drakeyt was the one to frown.

  Rahl had to think about that for a moment, then he nodded. “It’s waste ordered in a way by animals, and some of it burns.”

  “No one I ever knew really got hurt by flying crap.”

  A trumpet call Rahl did not recognize rang out from the rear of Fifth Regiment.

  An entire company of archers moved forward, raised their bows, and began to release shafts, lofting them over the barricade wall, if barely. Flashes of chaos-flame flicked out, but only where the arrows were heaviest. As the archers kept loosing their shafts, Rahl began to feel the injuries from behind the wall—not all that many, but some. Then, there was a death, and another.

  The archers retreated just before a return volley flew from the rebel forces. Even so, several of the Imperial archers were wounded. Rahl thought one was killed.

  Two wagons covered with a framework of leather soaked in water and pushed by troopers shielded largely by the framework trundled forward from the Imperial line, down the road, and then up toward the barricade. At the same time, the Imperial archers returned and began to loose their shafts once more. The rebels retaliated, and the air was filled with missiles.

  The wagons moved slowly forward. As they did, a trooper in each wagon and behind the leather framework kept dipping a bucket into a half barrel and throwing water over the leather. Rahl could sense some kind of crude mechanism in the wagon bed as well.

  The wagons were within a hundred cubits of the wall before a firebolt arched from behind the barricade and splattered squarely on the leather framework of the right wagon. While chaos-fire dribbled across the framework, it did not catch fire, and the trooper with the bucket scooped and threw water even more quickly.

  “They must have soaked the leather in ink or something,” Drakeyt said.

  “Ink?”

  “Iron-gall ink, and they probably added more iron. It soaks into the leather, and with all the water, it makes it harder for chaos-fire to burn it. For a while.”

  Rahl had never heard of that, but whatever it was that Shuchyl’s engineers had come up with, it was working—for the moment.

  No sooner had Rahl thought that than the rebel chaos-mages changed their tactics. A firebolt splattered on the stone just in front of the right wagon, but it guttered out short of the wheels. So did the next one.

  The troopers working the left wagon eased it closer to the stone cliff face overlooking the road, but kept moving forward.

  Another firebolt exploded just under the front wheels and axle of the right wagon. Flames licked upward. Immediately, all the troopers turned and sprinted away. The entire wagon erupted in a gout of flame, with smaller globs of flame exploding away from the column of fire. One glob of flame enveloped two of the fleeing troopers, turning them into moving torches. The flame had to have held both chaos and whatever liquid the engineers had used, because the two torches flared into ashes and dust instantly.

  That did not deter the troopers pushing the other wagon, who had propelled that conveyance close enough to the barricade wall that the firebolts of the chaos-mages were only occasionally striking the pavement. A trooper yanked a lever, and bladders of all sizes and shapes cascaded toward the wall. Most cleared it, although one or two splattered on the rough stones. The troopers who had been pushing the wagon sprinted back away from the barricade, trying to stay close to the shelter of the sheer rock of the cliff face overlooking the road, but the rebels seemed almost to ignore them, perhaps because the Imperial archers launched another attack.

  The chaos-mages attempted to block the most concentrated flights—all of which were aimed directly behind where the bladders had struck. Falling arrows, bits of chaos-flame…and a section of wall, as well as the area behind it, flared into flame.

  Rahl winced, even as he admired Shuchyl’s success in getting the rebels to light off the flammable oils.

  A series of four notes on the trumpet sounded, and a company of troopers rode forward. With them were several tall and light wagons. The charge was directed at a point immediately to the left of the center of the wall, where the flames had died away, leaving a wide area of blackened stone.

  Just before the first line of mounted troopers reached the wall, a point of light flared—so brightly that Rahl could see nothing. Each eye felt like it had been pierced by an enormous needle. He blinked and rubbed his eyes gently.

  Slowly, his vision returned, although stars danced across what he could see.

  The charge had been stopped, and mounts milled below the wall. Firebolts dropped into the mix of troopers, and waves of chaos and death swept past Rahl.

  Another trumpet signal rang out, and the troopers withdrew, leaving the bodies of both men and mounts strewn before the barricade.

  Rahl glanced up. According to the sun it was approaching midmorning. Had it been that long?

  “Any ideas, Majer?” Drakeyt’s voice was low, concerned.

  “Not yet. Anything I could do wouldn’t be much help. Not here.” At least, not anything that he’d been able to think up since the night before.

  Drakeyt nodded.

  For a time, the area between the two forces remained empty except for remnants of burned wagons, mounts, and men, but Rahl knew that would not last. He could sense movement behind the barricade, as well as activity at the rear of Fifth Regiment. Before that long, another set of wagons trundled forward from the Imperial side.

  Surprisingly, to Rahl, only a few firebolts flew toward the wagons, but more than a few arrows did, and a number carried flaming tips, dipped in pitch or some similar substance. The arrows had even less effect than the firebolts had—until the wagons neared the barricade and several rebels stood near the top of the barricade and hurled what looked to be cloth soaked in oil and wrapped around a chunk of firewood under the nearer wagon.

  That wagon began to burn, but the Imperial archers cut down most of the exposed rebels as another wave of troopers appeared, riding hard for the barricade.

  This time the troopers who rode forward all had makeshift patches over one eye. Rahl nodded to himself. Crude, but effective. Theoretically, the chaos-mage who had loosed the first blinding flash could wait for a moment, then deliver another, but the amount of chaos required, from what Rahl had felt, made it most unlikely that any chaos-mage could do that often or in quick succession. It was also unlikely that more than one chaos-mage had that talent.

  Rahl almost shook his head. How did he know that? Maybe the brilliant light flash was something from Fairhaven, where all the white wizards could do it.

  There was a light flash, but far weaker, so much so that Rahl’s vision returned almost immediately, and the mounted troopers rode to the wall, dragging the light scaling wagons into position.

  Chaos-bolts flared down toward the Imperial forces surging toward the barricade, then died away. Rahl could sense a chill, and whiteness ran across the front of the lower-road barricade, then began to flow down the stones, turning into liquidlike fire moving from the barricade wall to the pavement, then toward the attacking troopers.

  The flowing chaos licked at the forelegs of the mounts, then engulfed both the first line of horses and riders. The screams of men and mounts were lost in the roar of flames flaring skyward.

  Rahl swallowed. He’d never seen anything like that. Nor smelled it, as the sickly-sweet nauseating odor of burned flesh settled around him and Third Company.

  “Frig!” muttered Dhosyn from where he sat on his mount behind Rahl and Drakeyt.

  Still, Rahl could feel the chaos ebbing.

  Another wave of troopers rode forward, and this time there were only a few weak chaos-bolts, and a handful of arrows. Scaling ladders unfolded from the light wagons, and t
roopers began to climb up and over the barricade.

  For a time, intermittent waves of death flowed down and across Rahl.

  Then the rebel survivors broke and sprinted or hobbled back up the road, scrambling up and over the second barricade, set a good three hundred cubits farther up the road, a road that was but twenty cubits wide. The second barricade wasn’t any higher than the first, but there was a ledge cut into the cliffside above the barricade and slightly behind it, also with a low wall, and on that ledge were both archers and chaos-mages, Rahl sensed.

  Again, a kind of quiet fell across the contested area.

  Rahl checked the sun, its white light diluted not only by the high haze, but by the smoke that had risen from all the fires and chaos-burning, and was surprised—again—to find that it was later than he would have believed, almost midafternoon. Bodies were everywhere, more than several hundred, Rahl thought, possibly close to a thousand. Given the nature of the fight so far, he doubted that there were many wounded.

  Shuchyl did not even consider attacking the second barricade immediately. Instead, two shielded wagons moved up to the first barricade, and figures in brown and khaki—engineers—began to use bars and picks to remove the stones in the middle of the barricade.

  Rahl took the time to walk back to where one of the first squad’s troopers held his mount and extracted some of his travel rations from his saddlebags. As he ate, and drank from his water bottle, he kept looking at the barricade where the engineers moved stones. He had to wonder at the danger involved, but Shuchyl had judged that the chaos-mages were so worn down that they did not want to try to pick off engineers behind stone by trying to throw chaos-bolts hundreds of cubits. Even so, Rahl was concerned, but the rebels did not even attempt more than scattered flights of arrows, few of which hit anywhere near the engineers, and the sun had dropped noticeably lower in the afternoon sky by the time there was a breach in the barricade ten cubits wide.

  That suggested to Rahl that the rebels definitely had limited manpower—or that their defense consisted of efforts to bleed the Imperial forces down without losing many of their own troops. Yet, if that had been the case, why had they fought at Selyma as they had?