Mage-Guard of Hamor

LXXIII

On fiveday, Rahl and Drakeyt were up well before first light. Rahl had not slept all that well again, although sleeping in an actual bed, lumpy as the horsehair mattress had been, had been better than a bedroll on the ground.

Taryl's orders had not been appalling in their detail, but in their lack of such. They had consisted of little more than one line:

Take the far western flank and attack with all force and magery possible short of exhaustion and foolhardiness.

"Those orders are just a way to keep Commander Shuchyl from taking control. That's all," Drakeyt had said.

That much had been obvious to Rahl, but what sort of magery could he do that would be effective and not totally exhaust him? He could protect himself, if he didn't do much else, but that wasn't an attack, exactly. The ooze-magery might work against the stone redoubt on the easternmost hill, but the rebels were too scattered along the hills west of where the main road cut through them. He couldn't throw more than one or two order-bolts, and that wouldn't be nearly enough.

Drakeyt looked from where he stood beside his mount outside the boarding house. "Ready, Majer?"

"As ready as I'm likely to be, Captain."

Drakeyt grinned and swung himself up into the saddle with an easy grace that Rahl admired. "Then let's see if Quelsyn has everyone mustered."

The senior squad leader was waiting at the front of the formation. "Third Company, ready to ride, ser."

"Very well, Quelsyn, we'll move to the avenue and toward the bridge."

"Yes, ser."

"Company! Forward!"

Obviously, the various company senior squad leaders kept in touch with each other, because Third Company reached the avenue just as Eighteenth Company passed. Third Company swung in behind, and both halted on the wide main street, Eighteenth Company just short of the causeway approaching the bridge.

Just before the first orange light of the sun seeped out of the east, Eighteenth Company rode onto the arching stone bridge over the Awhut River, then across it and along the avenue that would become the main highway to Dawhut and Kysha once it neared the hills north of Selyma that held the rebel positions. Third Company followed.

The northern portion of Selyma was shuttered and appeared deserted, although Rahl could sense locals hidden in various buildings and dwellings. An unseen miasma of fear hovered over the town, and the impacts of iron horseshoes on the stone pavement were as sharp as the blows of a hammer nailing shut a cheap plank coffin.

Ahead of Eighteenth Company, Rahl could sense some riders, possibly rebel officers, hurrying northward from Selyma in the direction of the two defensive positions.

Just what could he do? That question kept coming back to nag at Rahl as he rode northward and as the orangish light of dawn faded into a cold and clear day under a green-blue sky-the first clear one in more than an eightday.

Before long, he could see their objective all too clearly. The back sides of the hills to the north of Selyma and west of the main road were a welter of earthworks and tents and lean-tos, as opposed to the more orderly stone revetments crowning the top of the hills to the east of the road. Lancers and troopers swarmed across the upper part of both hills, and light glinted off the weapons and armor of the lancers.

Another question struck Rahl. Why had Taryl specified that Third Company take the western flank? Was there something about the western end of the hills? He studied the slope of the hills, then nodded.

"Quarter turn, left!" ordered Drakeyt.

Third Company came to a halt on the flat a good half kay from where the winter-bedraggled grass began to rise. From the south side, the hills looked more like a gentle ridge, and far easier to ride up than the approach from the other side. To Rahl's right, the flat began to fill with the companies of the Fifth Regiment.

On the hillside, the defenders assembled as well, and a chaos-firebolt arced down toward the center of the Imperial forces, splattering on the flattened grass several hundred cubits short of the middle of the regiment. Rahl watched, keeping his personal shields tight, and waited.

Before long another firebolt soared southward.

Rahl reached out with his order-senses and nudged it downward so that it, too, splattered short of the Imperial troopers.

At that, two firebolts flared toward Rahl.

He found those easier to divert because he didn't have to extend himself.

Another and stronger firebolt followed, and diverting it took a bit more effort from Rahl. Then, for the moment, there were no more chaos-firebolts as two companies of lancers formed up, clearly aimed at Third Company.

Rahl watched as the lancers dressed their lines, and he tried to see and sense a path that would take the company through the lancers and to the oval earthworks that held at least one mage and presumably the senior officers commanding the rebel forces. Then he edged the gelding over beside Drakeyt.

"Yes, Majer?"

"Captain, can you form the company into a five-front column behind me once the lancers start to charge down at us?"

The slightest hint of a frown crossed the brow of the older officer. "That's possible."

"Then do it. The closer everyone is to me, the less danger they face to begin with. We're going to meet their charge with one of our own, and we'll be heading through them for the center of their forces-that earthworks oval in the middle of the hillcrest there." Rahl did not wait for a reply, but rode the gelding into position right in front of third squad.

Once there, he turned in the saddle. "Shemal, we're going to break the lancers and split the rebels. The captain will be giving the orders once the lancers charge. Keep your squad as close to me as you can until we're through the lancers. They'll take fewer casualties that way."

The squad leader moistened his lips but his voice was steady. "Yes, ser."

Rahl let his senses pick up the few murmurs behind him.

"… majer's going to break the lancers open… like to see that…"

"… according to Clynet… you don't want to see him like that…"

"… close to him… but not too close…"

The rebel lancers continued to dress their lines. Then a series of trumpet triplets rang out, and the lancers began to move, slowly, but gaining speed as they moved down the rise.

Rahl turned in Drakeyt's direction and raised his truncheon, then called out, "Third Squad! On me!" He urged the gelding forward.

After the slightest hesitation, Shemal echoed the command. "Forward! On the majer!"

While the squad leader might have hesitated, the troopers did not, surging forward and tightening almost into a wedge behind Rahl.

Rahl began to expand his personal shields, slowly, and carefully; and then, at the last moment before the two forces met, Rahl anchored the expanded shield to the mounts of Third Company, so that the shield was a knife-edged wedge pushed forward by the mass of a score of mounts.

Lancers and lances sprayed away from Rahl and third squad.

Just when Third Company broke through the third line of lancers, a firebolt splashed across the shield directly in front of Rahl, momentarily blinding him, but he managed to hold the shield for a moment longer, before letting it collapse just to protect him. Even so, he felt slightly lightheaded, but he urged the gelding along the ridgeline toward the earthworks at the center of the rebel forces.

As he had anticipated, Third Company's charge had caught the rebels off guard, and troopers were trying to turn their mounts to deal with an enemy that had burst through their flank and was already behind the majority of the rebel troopers.

Orders rang out from below on both sides of the hill, and Imperial troopers charged uphill.

Rahl could sense the confusion and consternation among the rebels. He hoped it lasted for a while longer.

A half score of rebel troopers swerved toward Rahl and third squad. Rahl didn't slow the gelding in the slightest, but angled to the left, then back to the right, using the motion to amplify the cut of the truncheon. The rebel sagged back in his saddle, unable to recover when a trooper behind Rahl struck with his sabre.

Less than a hundred cubits ahead was the edge of the rebel command earthworks, and standing at the edge, by an opening in the heaped turf and earth stood a white wizard, lifting his arm and pointing toward third squad.

Rahl charged the white mage, expanding his shields just as he neared the wizard, trying to throw the firebolt back at the wizard. The shields enfolded the chaos-flame and did just that, flinging it back, but it sheeted around the wizard and into the earthworks, leaving him untouched.

Rahl could sense deaths, maybe a score or more, but he concentrated on putting order into his truncheon as he rode past the wizard and struck downward. The blow was only glancing, but the order pressed by Rahl shattered the mage's shield. Then the white wizard died, his chaos overwhelmed by order.

After that, Rahl turned the gelding and just tried to do as much damage with the truncheon as he could while staying alive and trusting that the rest of the Imperial forces would continue their attacks and reach him and Third Company.

After following third squad with the rest of the company, Drakeyt had organized the squads into a half circle, backed against the earthworks. Rahl had barely guided Third Company over to the eastern edge of the formation when a wave of mounted troopers rushed them.

Rahl settled in to what he hoped was a routine of parries, slides, blocks, and thrusts.

Below him, he could sense the Imperial forces moving toward them, but more slowly than he would have liked, because more and more Third Company troopers were suffering wounds, and more than a handful had already died.

Rahl kept the truncheon moving, although he wasn't certain how he'd managed it, until, as so often seemed to be the case, abruptly the remaining rebels melted away, and he was slumped in his saddle, looking downhill at more fallen men and mounts than he'd ever seen, all too aware of the vast combined emptiness of thousands of deaths.

He just sat there in his saddle, breathing hard, then finally sheathing the truncheon and reminding himself to take several swallows from the water bottle. He glanced at the sun, nearly at midday.

Had the battle taken that long?

Then he turned and rode toward Drakeyt.

"Congratulations, Majer."

"That belongs to you and your men, Captain." Rahl could understand the barely concealed bitterness.

"We lost another eighteen men, and sixteen more are wounded. Three of them might not make it."

"I wish it could have been otherwise." Rahl still didn't see what else he could have done.

"Majer."

Rahl turned to see Taryl reined up some twenty cubits away. He eased the gelding toward the overcommander, careful to avoid several bodies and a dead horse. The odor of blood and worse was growing stronger under the midday sun, even with the cool breeze out of the north. He reined up short of Taryl. "Ser."

"I believe my orders suggested something less foolhardy." Taryl's voice was steady.

Rahl detected no edge or anger.

"You ordered maximum force, ser. I did the best I could."

The overcommander nodded. "You did what was necessary." He turned in the saddle toward Drakeyt, who had reined up somewhat farther away. "Captain, you and your men fought well; they fought gallantly and effectively. Their losses also saved hundreds, if not thousands, of casualties. I know that such heavy losses are hard for a company commander, but I wanted you to know what you accomplished."

Drakeyt glanced at Rahl. "It was the majer's plan, ser. I-"

"You and your men bled to make it work. A plan is only as good as those who carry it out. I will be recommending gallantry bonuses for the entire company, including payment to any widows. My deepest appreciation, Captain. Thank you."

"Our duty to the Emperor, ser."

"For which he is most grateful." After a moment, Taryl turned to Rahl, but said nothing until Drakeyt had eased his mount away.

"How many casualties today in Third Company, Rahl?"

"Eighteen dead, sixteen wounded, ser."

"You killed every one of them, you know."

For a moment, Rahl couldn't believe what Taryl had said. He just looked at the older mage-guard.

"If you had held back and just let matters develop as they did during the last battle, Third Company might have lost five men, maybe ten." Taryl paused. "By the way, before we go farther, what you did was right. But… do you know why I'm making this point?"

"To show that everything has a cost?"

"That's true enough, but you already knew. It's more than just that." Taryl coughed several times, then cleared his throat before continuing. "Use of great magery always has disproportionate costs at the time and place where it is used. That's true of all good weapons as well-they concentrate force. You concentrated force in the way in which you combined magery and Third Company. The cost on the enemy was terrible, but so was the cost for Third Company." Taryl waited, as if for a response.

Rahl tried to think, but he felt so tired. Finally, he spoke… slowly. "Is that another way of… pointing out that I shouldn't use magery except as a last resort, when nothing else will work?"

"That's often true, but not always. Don't get bound by inflexible rules. That's where both your former magisters on Recluce and the whites of Fairhaven always get into trouble. Each situation must be judged on its own. Rules are a useful guideline and generally should be heeded, but blindly following them eventually and inevitably leads to disaster."

"Always judge each situation on its own?"

"That's true, but then, there's always the temptation to justify what you want to do as opposed to what should be done. The more power you attain, Rahl, the greater that temptation. Never forget that."

"No, ser."

"You need some food and rest, because I'll need your help for what comes next. There's no point in killing any more of their troopers and wasting ours. Not here."

"Ser?"

"We didn't attack the other hill. That's where the senior commanders are. We have it surrounded. I have something else in mind, but we need some rest, and I'll need your help. Just follow me for now."

"Yes, ser." Especially after what Taryl had just told him, Rahl couldn't help wondering just what else Taryl had in mind, but he knew the over-commander wouldn't say. Rahl just let the gelding follow Taryl's gray.