Imager’s Battalion

58

The south side of Nordeau was quiet by the first glass of the afternoon, with patrols riding the stone streets, the sound of hooves clattering off the stone buildings, the echoes reverberating with a hollow sound that offered at least one hint why the old section of the city was a less favored place for domicile and business. Two companies, rotated every two glasses, were guarding the bridge, with a battalion ready to reinforce them at a moment’s notice, should the Bovarians start to extend the bridge from the isle fort.

Quaeryt had arranged for the imager undercaptains and company officers to be billeted in one of the handful of inns-Stone’s Rest-and quartered the rest of the battalion in both the inn and various buildings nearby. He determined that all the inns and taverns south of the River Aluse catered almost entirely to travelers and traders. Once again, he’d also discovered that the locals didn’t seen to care who was in charge, so long as they weren’t hurt and they received some recompense, not that they’d get all that much.

Then, he slipped into the public room of the Stone’s Rest, with a concealment shield, to see what he could overhear from the imagers who were seated or half slumped around a long table. The rest of the chamber was empty, except for a serving girl.

Horan held his head in his hands, massaging his forehead.

“It’s not that bad,” muttered Smaethyl.

“… speak for yourself…” replied the older imager. “Head like to split.”

“What did you do? Threkhyl did the ramp.”

“Who’d you think was imaging iron darts when we went down over the wall? All that iron hurts. Don’t see how the subcommander does it…” Horan raised his head and looked at Lhandor. “Not another word about his being a son of Erion…”

Lhandor and Khalis exchanged glances, but neither spoke.

“Not so easy, is it?” offered Baelthm.

“You didn’t have to do anything, just stick with the subcommander,” said Threkhyl, nursing an ale.

“Keepin’ up with him isn’t easy … Took down those gates like they were rotten wood, kept the battalion casualties real low…”

“How low?” asked Voltyr.

“Maybe ten dead, thirty wounded, and he took ’em through a whole two companies of pikemen, scattered ’em like leaves before the wind … not counting the archers and the foot.”

“How the frig does he do it?” asked Smaethyl. “Never heard of an imager that powerful.”

“You wouldn’t except in war,” answered Voltyr. “That’s because he’s married to Lord Bhayar’s sister. He’s serious about trying to make things better for imagers. That’s why, every battle, he does everything he can. He didn’t have to do it. He was a scholar assistant to Bhayar in Solis. No one even knew he was an imager. He could have stayed there safe and out of danger.”

“He just wants power,” said Threkhyl.

Shaelyt shook his head. “He might be made a commander. He’ll never hold a rank higher than that. He knows that. Rulers and their ministers don’t trust imagers.”

“Why’s he do it, then?” asked Horan.

“He told you,” said Desyrk tiredly. “Bhayar’s the only ruler in the frigging world who’ll give imagers even half a break. That’s because some of his family was Pharsi, they say.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” declared Threkhyl.

“Sure it does,” retorted Desyrk. “He’s married. If he doesn’t make things better for us, and all imagers, what will happen to his children and his children’s children once he’s gone?”

“Sounds like you like him.” Threkhyl snorted.

“You’d be a fool to like him. But you’d be an idiot not to respect him and support him. He’s the only hope we’ve got. You don’t think so, talk to the Khellans.”

“Didn’t know you talked Pharsi.”

“I don’t. The officers talk Bovarian, and my ma did. He’s their only hope, too.”

None of the undercaptains replied, as if Desyrk’s words had quieted everyone.

Only hope? Quaeryt winced. Then he slipped away and went back to the stable. From there, with a squad from third company, he rode back to the bridge approach, where he took his time studying the isle fort. The fort had been placed, as had the city, at a point where the river was narrower and deeper and where it had cut through higher ground so that both sides of the city rested on low bluffs. As Quaeryt had thought, the fort’s walls merged a yard or two above the water with the gray mass of stone that was the isle. As he looked to the north side of the river, he noted that the area below and to both sides of the north span was walled in the ubiquitous gray stone, but beyond the walls, both to the east and west, the low bluff was composed of a reddish stone. Quaeryt moved to where the stone wall on the west side of the bridge approach ended and looked west and down. On the south side as well, beyond the gray stone facing below and to the sides of the stonework supporting the approach, the rock of the bluff was red.

While there was certainly no way to tell, Quaeryt had a definite feeling that the isle was not at all natural and that it had been imaged in place, just to support the fort.

For the next two glasses he rode through the streets, looking at everything with great care. Skarpa had been right about the general absence of marks on the stone walls. Even the pavement had only the faintest of grooves worn by wagon wheels. Finally, he returned to the Stone’s Rest, where he stabled the mare, and then searched out the proprietor and found him just outside the kitchen that served the public room.

“Yes, sir, and what might I do for you?” replied the innkeeper, a youngish man for owning or running an inn, since he was not too many years older than Quaeryt.

“Answer a few questions. That’s all for now.”

The innkeeper frowned slightly. “As I can.”

Quaeryt glimpsed a narrow-faced woman with strawberry-blond hair pulled into a bun watching before she slipped into the kitchen. “Why are there so many empty buildings here?”

“This is the old trading quarter, sir. The larger traders have their warehouses on the north side. Once there was more trade on both sides, but that was afore Lord Bhayar started tariffing the river traders going beyond Ferravyl. Leastwise, that’s what my father says.”

“Is he an innkeeper, too?”

“That’d be the family trade. He runs the Black Goose north of the river.”

“It’s the more prosperous inn?”

“More so than here, but … we do well enough.”

“This part of Nordeau seems very old, yet the stones seem new…”

“Always been like that, sir.”

“Who built it?”

The innkeeper shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, sir. Some say the old ones did, years and years back.”

“The old ones?”

“The ones who came before … from Chelaes or thereabouts. I wouldn’t know. My great-great-grandsire came here came from Tuuryl. This was his first inn. Grandsire built the Black Goose before I was born.”

While the man was polite, Quaeryt realized that he avoided looking quite directly at him. “Did the troopers from the barracks frequent your public room?”

The innkeeper chuckled. “Hadn’t a been for them, might have closed down years ago.” He paused. “You did say we could charge your men for the second ale or lager, didn’t you? And all after that?”

“I did indeed. Or for any ale or lager they want when you’re not serving them breakfast or dinner. No more than two coppers for the ordinary. Three for the special.”

“Fair enough, sir.”

Quaeryt suspected that what the man meant was that it was fair enough under the circumstances. “Have there been any more or any fewer troopers here in the last weeks?”

“I couldn’t say, one way or another, sir. Looked to be the same to me.”

“Did anyone tell you that we were marching on the city?”

“No one said anything … except … well, a few days ago, one of the traders I knew took everything he could and headed north … told me Rex Kharst’s forces were losing and pulling back … said we’d be wise to do as he was.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“The inns are all we have. Besides, my sire … he said that you’d let the inns be, leastwise those in Villerive.”

Quaeryt asked more questions, but it was clear that the innkeeper knew little beyond what he had already said. Finally, Quaeryt smiled and said, “Thank you. I appreciate your time.”

The innkeeper nodded. “Pleased to have been of help, sir. If you would excuse me…”

“Of course.”

Quaeryt waited until the innkeeper turned. After glancing around for a moment and seeing no one near, he raised a concealment shield and slipped after the man. Quaeryt stopped just outside the archway to the kitchen, because the innkeeper was on the other side talking to the woman Quaeryt had observed earlier.

“… did he want, Shajan?”

“… asked questions about the old quarter here and the Bovarian troops … lots of them…”

“… why would he? He looks like one of them…”

“… can’t be. He’s a Telaryn officer … maybe more than that … what I’ve overheard…”

“Still looks like an old one … yellow-white hair … those eyes…”

Old one … is that the same as a lost one?

“… how would you know?… no paintings of them…”

“… I’ve heard tell…”

“… don’t upset him … the way things are … we’ll survive…”

“… won’t … but you deal with him…”

Quaeryt shook his head and moved away, still holding the concealment. He needed to check with Zhelan about the billeting and feeding for Fifth Battalion.

A glass or so later, after he’d finished with the major, as Quaeryt was waiting to enter the public room of the inn, a squad leader hurried up to him. “Subcommander … Commander Skarpa has called a meeting of all the subcommanders at sixth glass at the Traders’ Bowl.”

“Thank you. I’ll be there.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Once the squad leader had left the small front hall of the inn, Quaeryt permitted himself a sardonic smile, wondering what Deucalon’s reaction to Skarpa’s dispatch had been.

After he finished eating with the company officers and the undercaptains-a subdued affair, possibly because the imagers had little to say, and because Quaeryt could only tell the company officers that he’d heard nothing yet-he headed out for the Traders’ Bowl, the larger inn where Skarpa had made his headquarters.

As Quaeryt walked along the stone-paved way, carrying shields, despite a certain strain, he made a point of taking in every building and discovered that every one was built of gray stone, giving the quarter a cold and forboding appearance despite the warm damp air of harvest.

The Traders’ Bowl looked as though it might have once housed a wealthy family because the stone window frames were far larger than most of those he’d seen in Nordeau so far. When Quaeryt stepped inside, he saw a Telaryn ranker standing in the entry hall, a large foyer with niches in the walls, possibly designed for statues or the like, but devoid of ornamentation, possibly most recently removed, thought Quaeryt.

“Sir, the others are here, the first door back on the left,” said the ranker.

“Thank you.” Quaeryt walked swiftly to the door, opened it, stepped inside, and closed it behind himself.

Skarpa, Meinyt, and Khaern sat around a table in a small chamber across a wide hallway from the public room, but one that did not strike Quaeryt as originally intended as a plaques room, not given the arched ceiling with carved moldings that had later been whitewashed, although the circular table and the worn round-backed chairs proclaimed that plaques gaming had been its latest use. Skarpa motioned to the chair across from him.

Quaeryt took it and waited.

“Earlier this afternoon, I got a dispatch from the marshal. He had no problems with our not being able to cross the river today. In fact, he does not wish us to attack the isle fort and cross into the northern part of Nordeau until early on Lundi.”

“You mean he’s still a day away?” asked Meinyt sardonically.

“He did not convey when he and his forces would arrive.”

“Mardi, most likely.”

Skarpa looked sharply at Meinyt.

“He’s right, you know?” Khaern said.

“That may be,” replied Skarpa, “but he is the marshal, and it’s best to stick to the facts in officers’ meetings.” He went on. “Otherwise, we might be too free with our opinions in meetings with other commanders, and I do believe that you three are the most junior subcommanders, and I know I’m the most junior commander.” He softened his words with a faint smile.

Quaeryt had his doubts about whether he’d ever be included in such a meeting, at least voluntarily, by Deucalon.

“The isle fort isn’t that big,” Skarpa went on, looking at Quaeryt. “Once your imagers put a span over to it, I’d wager the Bovarians abandon it.”

“They might slip out of it tonight,” suggested Meinyt.

“That’s possible. If they don’t know it yet, they’ll find out soon that we’ve got imagers that can create a span,” added Skarpa.

“Why didn’t they know before?” asked Khaern.

“They likely knew we had some imagers, but the only time they built a bridge was at Ferravyl,” replied Skarpa, “and none of the Bovarian troopers or officers who saw it survived.”

“Still…” pressed Khaern.

“If you hadn’t seen it,” asked Meinyt, “would you have believed it?”

Khaern laughed softly. “Probably not.”

“Getting across a narrow span to the far side … that could be a problem,” said Skarpa.

“We might be able to image a wider span, maybe even two,” suggested Quaeryt. “The undercaptains will get another day to rest up. That will help.” He didn’t mention that there would likely be more than a few Bovarian casualties if the Bovarians massed troopers on and around the northern bridge approach.

“Good. If they have more pikemen in those narrow streets, that could be a problem…”

Quaeryt listened and gave the best answers and suggestions he could. By the time the meeting was over, less than two quints later, his head was aching even more and his eyes burning, and he was ready to walk back to the Stone’s Rest and get some sleep.