Cyador’s Heirs

LV

Over the course of the late morning and early afternoon, Lerial tries to rest, and does manage to eat, although he’s anything but fond of acorn bread, but the cheese, which has a sort of blue mold through it, makes the bread palatable. Since Altyrn does not summon him, slightly after the third glass of the afternoon, he makes his way back to the awning. The majer is not there. Lerial wonders where he might be, but since he cannot see him, he walks back to rejoin his company.

“Have you heard anything, ser?” asks Bhurl, the second squad leader, a square-faced and stolid former ranker.

“Nothing new. Have you?”

“Word is that fourth company came back in. They lost near-on half a squad to those fireballs. Good thing we left when we did.”

Lerial smiles. “We made a tactical withdrawal, and you’re right. It was a good thing we did.”

“Ah … yes, ser.”

Lerial can see that Bhurl is having trouble concealing a grin.

Lerial talks in turn to Fhentaar, the Lancer ranker who is third squad leader, and is about to make his way to fourth squad when he sees Altyrn striding toward him. He turns and meets the majer. “I heard that fourth company returned, ser.”

“They did. Kusyl was a bit more adventurous than I would have preferred. They took out almost an entire company. It cost them almost a full squad, half dead, and the other half burned or wounded. The archers didn’t take any casualties.”

Although the majer’s tone is level, Lerial gets the impression that Altyrn is relieved that the archer squad has suffered no casualties … and he doesn’t think that it’s because the archer rankers are women. “You have more plans for the archers?”

“Outnumbered six to one, shouldn’t we?” The majer’s words are sardonically biting.

Lerial feels stupid for asking the question, rhetorical as it was. “I should have asked what they are, ser. It’s obvious we need to reduce their numbers while risking our own forces as little as possible.”

Altyrn actually grins. “I knew what you meant. Neither your father nor Majer Phortyn would have stopped to think about what you meant, rather than what you said. Most senior officers don’t want to guess at meanings in battle. Some can’t.”

Six to one? That was more than twice what Lerial had estimated. “I couldn’t count them this morning, but there had to be more than twenty-five hundred.”

“It’s difficult to tell anywhere close to exact numbers,” Altyrn goes on, “but they’ve got close to eight battalions. That’s if the reports from the scouts are accurate.”

Battalions? Lerial has to think for a moment. “Do they have four or five companies to a battalion?”

“Five, usually. That’s what I’m basing the number of battalions on. They’re settling in for a methodical assault on the Verd. We have to keep them off-balance.”

“Using the archers as much as you can from where they can’t easily retaliate?”

“That’s the idea. They also know that’s what we’ll have to do. That’s why they’ve set up camp on hilltops surrounded by relatively open ground. Can you conceal a squad for half a glass?”

Lerial considers. “Most likely.” Then he adds, “except I can’t conceal any dust raised and left behind if they’re riding.”

This time, Altyrn frowns. After a moment, he says, “You’re good in the dark. Are you good enough to locate wagons from a distance?”

“From a kay away, maybe farther.”

“That should do. Come and see me in a glass, but have your fourth squad prepare for an evolution after full dark tonight.”

“Yes, ser.”

With that, the majer turns and heads in the direction of the small awning.

Lerial looks to the south. The Meroweyans are completing positions some two kays to the southwest, opposite the Verdyn position along a ridge that is more like a long hill. Although the largely flat crest of the ridge is a good twenty to thirty yards lower than where Altyrn’s forces are marshaled, between the two forces is a shallow valley more than a kay wide. For either force to attack the other directly will require an uphill advance.

Somehow, Lerial doesn’t see that happening, not immediately.

But the way they outnumber us … At the same time, after the majer’s explanations of how the larger three duchies distrust each other, Lerial can see why Casseon would prefer to lose as few armsmen as possible. That means outflanking us until we’re forced to retreat behind the trees. Then they’ll burn their way through in so many places that we’ll be spread too thin to stop them … unless the majer has a better plan.

Lerial then continues toward fourth squad, slowing as he sees Moraris talking with another Mirror Lancer that Lerial only recognizes by sight and not by name. He stops and slips behind a cart, extending his order sense and trying to hear what the two are saying and what may be passing between the two.

“… any spare shafts?”

“… if I did, Moraris, wouldn’t be trading ’em to you, not after-”

“I made it up to you, didn’t I?”

“Not until … you know … What about the undercaptain? Green as he looks?”

“Green? Some ways. Stiff … like all young officers … scary, too. Part ordermage, and he’d take you and me apart with a blade.”

“… until he’s against someone out to kill him…”

The stocky Moraris shakes his head. “Talked to Juist. Undercaptain’s already killed a raider who charged him, even before he was a Lancer. This morning … fireballs falling all around us … kept his head, got us out…”

“An undercaptain you like … that’s something…”

“Don’t know about like … know it’s not good to cross him … not because of his da, either…”

“… keep that in mind…”

“About those shafts…”

“Not on your life or mine…” The other Lancer turns away.

Lerial waits a moment, then slips from behind the cart and continues toward the acting squad leader.

Moraris turns and starts, as if he hadn’t expected Lerial. “Ser?”

“I saw you talking to…?”

“Saetaln … he’s got second squad under Shaskyn, I mean, acting undercaptain Shaskyn.”

Although Lerial doesn’t recall anything about Saetaln, Shaskyn is a senior ranker who had been a squad leader, but demoted a season back for questioning a captain’s order. When Lerial had asked why Altyrn had selected him as an acting undercaptain of fifth company, the majer had just said that the offended captain was Akyael, an officer Lerial has never heard of, and said that Shaskyn was good in a fight, and that, one way or another, it wouldn’t matter.

Lerial nods and says, “Undercaptain Shaskyn is supposed to be good in a fight.”

“Angel-flamed good, ser.” Moraris starts to go on, but abruptly closes his mouth. “The past won’t matter if we all do well here,” Lerial replies. “I wanted to let you know that the majer has something special planned for you, me, and fourth squad after dark this evening. I don’t know the details yet, but I wanted you to know.”

“We don’t have that many shafts left, ser … six for each archer.”

“I’ll let him know that when I meet with him.” If we have to we can take shafts from the first three squads. “How are things going otherwise?”

“They rode well this morning. Good shots, too. Head archer is really good.” Moraris’s smile is a little too warm.

Lerial decides he will have to watch that and says, “The majer wants hands off any Verdyn women, archers or not.”

“Yes, ser. They are good archers.”

“Far better than I’d be with a bow.” Lerial smiles pleasantly. “I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

“Yes, ser.”

Lerial can sense Moraris’s eyes on his back as he turns. He still wonders what the squad leader was going to trade to get extra shafts for his squad. He can’t fault Moraris’s interest in keeping his squad fully armed, but …

At fourth glass Lerial makes his way to the awning. The majer is not there. So Lerial waits, glancing around, especially toward the southwest. A few moments later, Altyrn rides up, accompanied by one of the Verdyn rankers, dismounts, and hands the reins to the ranker, who rides away, leading the majer’s mount.

“I’ve been checking the Meroweyan positions and how they line up against us and against the woods.” Altyrn walks over under the awning, but does not sit down behind the table.

“What I need for you and your archers to do is to create a number of fires amid their supply wagons. Those wagons are still mostly on the west end of the ridge. That’s because it’s close to the road. They’re worried about rain … as if it’s going to rain any time soon. It’s not looking to be cloudy tonight, and that will make it easier for them to see you. But if we wait until it’s dark and cloudy, we’ll still be waiting when Casseon’s men charge over us. That’s why I asked about concealing one squad.” The majer pauses. “You can’t throw firebolts, can you?”

“No, ser.”

“I didn’t think so, but it never hurts to ask.” He looks at Lerial. “Do you know why?”

“Because sometimes you think something is so, based on what you believe, but it’s not, and you won’t find out if you don’t ask.”

“Exactly. Now … since you can’t throw firebolts, your archers will. You’ll need to get close enough to put fire arrows into the wagons and everything around them.”

“Ser … we’re already short on arrows-”

The majer holds up his hand. “You don’t need to waste good war arrows. Send some rankers to the third supply wagon. We’ve got fire arrows there. They’re easier and faster to make because we don’t need barbed iron heads. We’ve also got some oil bottles. The archers will have to share, and your squad leader will need to make sure they’re distributed so that every archer can get to one quickly…” Altyrn continues with his instructions, but when he finishes he asks, “Any questions?”

“How much do you want me to risk the archers?”

“As little as possible, but we need to have enough fire arrows hitting things to get them to burn. The faster they can release shafts the less likely any mages can stop you. I also don’t want to explain to your father how you ignored caution and became a dead hero.” Altyrn offers a grim smile. “Remember, one of the ways to be successful in war is to make your enemies make all the gallant but useless sacrifices…”

Gallant but useless sacrifices … Lerial wants to keep that in mind.

“… should be as dark as it’s going to get by eighth glass…”

In the middle of the majer’s explanation, Lerial realizes something he should have picked up earlier. “Ser…?”

“Yes?” Altyrn’s voice carries mild exasperation.

“To get close enough, I think we’ll need to move under concealment. I can sense where I am, but no one else can. I need two long, long lengths of rope or really strong cord. That way-”

“I understand. How long? You think twenty yards?”

“At least twenty. Twenty-five might be better.”

“I’ll have it at the supply wagon later. Now…”

Once the majer has finished explaining, Lerial heads back to find Moraris.

The squad leader has an apprehensive expression as Lerial joins him. “Ser?”

“We’re going to make a night attack on the wagons marshaled near the west end of the Meroweyan position. With fire arrows. We won’t need any more war arrows. You’re to take the archers to the third supply wagon and draw special arrows and oil. Let me know if they don’t have enough iron and flints.” Lerial takes a deep breath. “They’re going to have to trust me again, because they won’t be able to see for a good part of the approach if I conceal us from their sentries and scouts. If I don’t, we won’t be able to get close enough to do what we need to do … not without taking a lot of casualties…”

“Ser … best we talk with the head archer. She’ll have to instruct the others.”

Of course. Once more, Lerial feels stupid, and even stupider for not recalling the name of the head archer-which he ought to know.

“Begging your pardon, ser, but I told Alaynara to stand by. Figured we might need her thoughts.”

“We do.” Lerial decides to say as little as possible.

The squad leader motions, and a short and squarish woman walks away from the women of fourth squad. She has broad shoulders, reddish brown hair cut squarely a digit or so above the back of her uniform tunic, a lightly freckled face, and a nose slightly too small. Lerial suspects she is among the older rankers, possibly older even than Korlyn, but not as old as Bhurl.

“Ser?” Her voice is neither high nor low.

“We need to talk over the approach to the Meroweyan camp,” Lerial says. “I’d thought that you could loft arrows-they’ll be fire arrows-up the slope and down onto their supply wagons. You’ll have to be mounted. How close do we need to get?”

“Uphill … not that much of a slope…” Alaynara tilts her head slightly. “We could do two hundred, but closer is better. First volley will be a guess. Fire arrows, though, they’ll let us see the range better than war arrows…”

As she talks, Lerial mentally revises some of what he has planned. When she finishes, he says. “The other thing is that to get close enough, we’re going to have to ride under a concealment … the blackness I used at the ambush this morning.”

“How will we know where to go?”

“I’d thought to use cord from rider to rider. I can tell where to go, but I can’t be calling out directions.”

The head archer nods. “Ought to work. Can’t be that much worse than night riding in the deep Verd.”

When he finishes with Moraris and Alaynara, Lerial walks to the west end of the Lancer positions and begins to study the Meroweyan positions. He especially notes where there are large clumps of bushes, few as those are. After a time, he returns to second company, checking the tie-line near the woods where the mounts are tethered. That arrangement and the fact that the supply wagons have not been unloaded suggests to Lerial that Altyrn thinks that they may have to withdraw on very short notice. It’s not a comforting observation.

Lerial forces himself to eat when dinner is ready-ghano hash between dry acorn bread slices, washed down with either water or greenberry … or the combination of the two that Lerial can get down. After obtaining lengths of cordage from the supply wagon, and turning them over to Moraris, he forces himself to take his time getting ready, and he offers last-moment orders to Moraris about a third before eighth glass.

“We’ll ride west as a two-abreast column, and then, just before we’re opposite the target we’ll stop and pay out the cord so that each file can keep position. We’ll head south, still east of the road. I’m going to take us beside several areas that have clumps of bushes until we’re at a point where I’ll raise a concealment. Once we get in range, I’ll drop the concealment. When the archers can see the stars, I’ll give the command to dip the arrows and then strike their flints and light them. Then they keep dipping and firing them until they’re out of fire arrows … or if there’s a charge headed our way. That’s when we turn and leave as fast as we can.”

“No concealment on the way back, ser?” asks Moraris.

“There’s no reason for that. If they have white wizards, they’ll sense where we are from the concealment … once they know we’re there. And the fire arrows will give away our initial position anyway. They likely won’t be looking with chaos senses all the time before we get there. That’s too tiring.” That’s what your experience says. What if theirs is different? “If they sense us earlier, we’ll just have to break off the attack.”

Finally … fourth squad sets out westward, parallel to both lines, with Lerial at the head of one file, and Moraris at the head of the other.

When they’re opposite their target, Lerial turns the squad and starts south before calling a halt and giving the order, “Pay out the cord to each file.”

While he waits for the guiding cord to reach the last ranker in each file, Lerial again tries to sense, without reaching out, whether the Meroweyan white wizards are showing any sign of having discovered them. So far, they are not moving, nor are they doing anything different. Then, too, they could be watching to see if you get closer, or waiting until you do.

Lerial is finding that he doesn’t like to try to guess what his enemies are doing, even as he knows he must … and that he must get better at it … so that he is not guessing, but anticipating. Like with the sabre.

“Guide cords in place, ser,” Moraris says quietly.

“Squad. Forward.”

After they have ridden downhill and south, then across part of the small valley, but before they reach the middle, Lerial can sense the supply wagons. Without probing, recalling his lessons with Saltaryn, he tries just to gain an impression of where there might be ordermages or white wizards. There are two, possibly three, white wizards in the middle of the Meroweyan positions, and several farther to the south, although he cannot locate the wizards to the south, most likely because they are beyond his ability to discern clearly. Fourth squad continues at a measured pace, first, because it is quieter, and also safer in the darkness, and second, because slower movements are not as likely to be noticed at a distance by sentries.

Lerial also directs the squad from clump to clump of bushes, in ways that do not markedly extend the distance they must cover, in order to convey the impression that the riders are a scouting party … if they are noticed. But with about half a kay remaining to the area from which he wants the archers to loft the fire arrows he says, “Concealment coming. Pass it back. Quietly.”

After several moments, he raises the concealment, then makes another effort to try to determine whether the chaos mages might have detected anything. He can sense no changes. He almost feels like holding his breath in the darkness that is far darker than a starry night as he leads the column across the remainder of the flat area and then starts up the gradual slope toward their target.

When they near the area he and Altyrn had picked out, Lerial realizes that they cannot go exactly where he had hoped. Because, even his senses are telling him that the ground ahead is far too uneven to ride across. Yet … they are possibly thirty, perhaps even fifty, yards short of where he would like to be, a good hundred and fifty yards from the supply wagons. He lifts the concealment.

“We’re fifty yards farther out. Pass it back.”

Lerial waits for Moraris to report.

“Fourth squad, ready, ser.”

“Strike and light,” Lerial orders, hoping that is an accurate order. He has no idea what the proper order might be, but his words seem to have the desired effect because small balls of light appear along the line of archers.

“First volley!” he finally orders, then watches as the arrows arch up and over the crest, trying to follow them with his senses. While a few strike the wagons, most fall slightly short. “Head archer! Most are about ten yards short.”

“Ten yards more. Ready for volley.”

“Second volley!”

Most of the arrows are in the right range, but many still miss the wagons. One wagon seems to be catching fire, from what Lerial can sense. “That’s a good range. Stand by for third volley.”

“Ready for volley.”

“Third volley!”

This time a few more shafts stick.

“Stand by for fourth volley.”

“Ready.”

“Fourth volley!”

Lerial can sense the chaos building-somewhere to the south and east of him-but there is nothing he can do but wait … and hope he has the ability to divert whatever chaos force is aimed at fourth squad. While the arrows are having an effect, they really need at least one more volley.

The fifth volley goes, and Lerial is about to order the sixth, knowing there are only enough arrows for seven full volleys, when a firebolt flares directly toward him.

Even though he is as ready as he can be, it takes a huge effort to drop the chaos-fire short of fourth squad, more so than angling it away, but he hopes the flare of power will momentarily keep the white wizard from seeing or determining whether his effort was successful.

“Sixth volley!”

As soon as the fire arrows are away, he orders, “Turn and withdraw! On the double!” He turns the gelding, noticing that some of the archers are glancing toward the hilltop. “Withdraw! Now!”

“Forward to the rear!” orders Moraris, urging his mount forward toward the end of the column that has become the van.

The squad starts downhill, but Lerial remains at the back. He tries a quick sensing of the wagons and gets the impression that as many as six may be in flames. Men are scurrying and pulling other wagons away. At least, that is the impression he gets-along with that feeling of building chaos.

The next firebolt is bigger than the previous one, but it arches down toward Lerial, almost as if the wizard intends to drop it right on him.

Lerial concentrates-this time with a terribly fine-lined twenty-strand order loop-and the firebolt strikes the hillside less than thirty yards behind the gelding. Heat hotter than an oven washes over Lerial, then dissipates.

“Captain?” comes a call from Moraris.

“I’m fine. Keep riding! There might be more fireballs.”

No sooner are the words out of Lerial’s mouth than he can sense more chaos building somewhere behind him, and he wonders if he can divert the next chaos-blast … and still function.

The third bolt is more whitish red, somehow nastier feeling.

Lerial doubts that he can survive another twenty-line diversion pattern, and he tries two linked ten-line patterns. His mouth opens as the firebolt just disintegrates in midair with streamers of reddish-white flames almost dribbling from the star-sprinkled night sky.

Over the next three or four hundred yards, he can sense no more chaos-fire concentration, but, once more, Lerial’s head aches, and tiny flashes of light erratically distort his vision. He keeps looking back, but there are no more firebolts, and once they are close to a kay away from the Meroweyan lines, he begins to breathe more easily. As fourth squad begins riding up the slope on the north side of the valley, back to the Lancer camp, Lerial realizes that, despite the evening chill, he is sweating and soaked, and his entire body is shaking. Just from diverting three firebolts? Three?

But then, he’d only managed two the last time.

He takes another look back across the valley. The flames have died down, but there are still some reddish-orange points of light and an overall fire glow. He almost smiles, until he thinks about how many white wizards the Meroweyans have … and the fact that at least one of them had known exactly where he had been.

He just wishes he could figure out a way to divert all that power in the chaos-bolts back to the wizards who are throwing it-or at least back at the Meroweyan camp. You’ll have to think about that. Except … to do that, he needs to work with wizard chaos, and that tends to be difficult when, if he fails, he’s likely to be incinerated on the spot.

Lerial is so exhausted by the time that he and fourth squad return that he really doesn’t want to do anything but collapse into sleep, but he needs to report to Altyrn. After unsaddling and grooming the gelding, quickly and not well, he makes his way to find the majer.

Altyrn is standing beside the awning tent, talking to Juist and Kusyl. Rather than interrupt, Lerial waits until they leave to step forward. “Ser?”

“I could see the fire from here. Did you take any casualties?”

“No, ser.”

“Good. Were there any problems or anything I should know immediately?”

“No problems, but they do have at least four white wizards, chaos mages.”

“I saw the firebolts. How far do you think the farthest one went?”

“A kay at most.”

Altyrn nods and then looks closely at Lerial in the dim light. “Get some sleep. You can tell me the rest in the morning. Early.”

“Yes, ser. Is there a problem?”

“Not unless you have one. I need to work out some things with fifth and sixth company.”

“No problems, ser.” Lerial nods and departs, wondering if and how he has disappointed the majer. He stifles a yawn.

He can worry about that in the morning … and he knows he will.