Mage-Guard of Hamor

XCII

Scouts! Halt!" Just before midmorning on twoday, Rahl's order boomed out from the low crest of the main road that led to the port city of Sastak. He had just reined up, taking in the long ridge ahead and to the left of the road.

He and Third Company had left the marshy lands surrounding the town of Taskyl immediately after morning muster, heading south. They didn't have that far to go, given that Taskyl lay less than ten kays due north of the outskirts of Sastak, and that he'd just passed the kaystone that indicated the edge of the city was but five kays farther to the south. Until just a few moments before, Rahl had not seen or sensed any rebels, although he and the scouts had discovered that, until two days before, the rebels had been commandeering rice from the warehouses in Taskyl as well as other provisions from the holders within fifteen kays of Sastak.

A kay or so to the south, the long ridge ran from the northeast to the southwest, its flattened top a good sixty cubits above the drained rice paddies that stretched along the eastern side of the road for almost two kays and ended directly below the ridge. A grassy slope less than two hundred cubits wide ran from the far side of the drainage ditch bordering the road up to the top of the ridge, a distance of perhaps four hundred cubits. Rahl estimated that the ridge extended a good kay from the top of the grassy approach to a similar slope on the southeastern end. A third of a kay to the southeast, Rahl could make out what clearly had been a narrow watercourse, where some of the exposed stone was damp.

He shook his head. Of course, the rebels had dammed the stream, doubtless from a spring. That might have been another reason for choosing that ridge.

What was of greater concern to him was the sense of hundreds, if not thousands, of rebels located on the ridgetop-that and the three-cubit-high stone-and-earth wall across the top of the grassy slope. He could also sense at least two chaos-mages near the earthworks. Yet the road below and northwest of the earthworks was not barricaded or blocked in any way, although a strong chaos-mage could certainly have splashed a firebolt on anyone using the road.

As he waited for Drakeyt to join him, Rahl surveyed the area to the west of the road, but so far as he could tell, it consisted mainly of scores of rice paddies, many of which had been planted and refilled, and all of which were separated by dikes anchored by trees of a kind whose leaves never shriveled into silver-gray for the winter. He thought he could see the glint of sunlight off the ocean ahead and to his right, but it might have been the sun reflecting off more rice paddies.

Before long, Drakeyt reined up beside Rahl. "I see that they're dug in up there, some of them anyway."

"Close to a thousand, but it could be more." Rahl pointed. "I'd guess that they can reinforce the position from the far end there. I'll have to ride along one of those paddy dikes to get close enough to see about that."

"You'll take a squad with you?"

"It might not be a bad idea. Could you send Quelsyn or a squad leader to look over the paddies to the west? We don't need to find that there's a hidden road there."

"Like Thalye?"

Rahl nodded.

"Lyrn's pretty solid, and he's familiar with wetland growing. I'll send out fifth squad." Drakeyt glanced back at the ridge. "What do you think about the earthworks, Majer?"

"They've fortified the approach, and probably the one at the other end, but it's not as strong as the barricades at Nubyat. Stronger than what they had at Selyma. The north side above the paddies is too steep for a horse and too exposed for troopers on foot-unless we could attack along the entire perimeter, and I don't think we have enough troopers for that, especially if they have more than a few chaos-mages."

"I don't like this," murmured the captain.

Rahl didn't either. They'd seen no opposition for nearly two eight-days, and now they faced a fortified position that didn't even block the main road into Sastak. To Rahl, that suggested great confidence by the rebels. Had the whole campaign just been designed to lure the Imperial forces to this particular battle, well out of the way? Was something else going on in another part of Hamor?

"After I look over the southeastern end of the ridge, I'll see what else is down there. I'd appreciate it if you'd find out what you can from any of the growers around-if you can find any."

"We'll see what we can do." Drakeyt paused. "I trust you'll be careful, Majer?"

"As I can," Rahl replied.

Rahl didn't have to wait long after Drakeyt rode back to the main body of Third Company before Dhosyn and first squad rode forward to join Rahl.

"Ser."

"I'll be leading the squad on one of those paths on top of the paddy dikes. We need to get far enough east to find out what the rebels have at the other end of that ridge."

"Yes, ser," replied the squad leader.

Rahl turned the gelding toward the dike that looked the widest and most solid, and that took him another two hundred cubits closer to the ridge before he could start eastward. He wasn't exactly comfortable leading Dhosyn and first squad in a single file along the top of the dike that paralleled the ridge. While the paddies held no obvious water, the exposed soil was clearly wet and muddy enough that a mount might well sink half a cubit into the mud-if not more.

As he rode, Rahl concentrated on picking up any signs of possible attackers or traps. While he kept checking, he neither sensed nor saw either. Nor were there any boot prints or hoof prints on the narrow pathway he followed. What he did pick up was the unmistakable fetid odor of waste or sewage, and he had the definite feeling that more than one kind of manure had been used over the years to fertilize the paddies.

The sun was warm, almost hot, and the combination of the stench and the heat left him sweating heavily and more than ready to leave the paddies behind when he suddenly experienced a chill-not a physical chill, but an order-chaos chill, the kind that came from the use of a screeing glass. After several moments, the chill passed over Rahl and the squad, suggesting that whoever was using the glass had not been looking for Rahl specifically, but for Imperial forces. Still…

Rahl kept riding and finally reached a wider area of ground where the dikes of four paddies intersected far enough eastward that he could see and sense the earthworks on the southeastern end of the ridge.

"Looks just the same, ser, doesn't it?" asked Dhosyn, who had moved his mount up beside Rahl's.

"They're almost identical in length, height, and construction." Rahl continued to study the approach. "There's a road to the base of the slope, and it looks to run straight south to the city and up to a flat space a half kay or so south of us." He wanted to take a deep breath, but decided against that as he eased the gelding onto another dike pathway, heading south. He didn't sense any rebels, and he needed to get closer.

He just hoped Lyrn hadn't run into any trouble in the paddies west of the main road.