Scion of Cyador

XLVIII

Ahead of the column of lancers is a long, low rise that leads to the next of the endless valleys in the southwestern reaches of the Grass Hills. The drizzle of the previous day has been replaced with a clear green-blue sky and a chill breeze out of the north that reflects the season. Lorn touches the fully charged firelance in the holder before his right knee, just to ensure it remains charged for the task ahead. They should be nearing the raider force, but the scouts have not seen anything yet.

As he straightens, he looks to his left at Captain Emsahl. “How have you been facing the barbarians?” Lorn asks. “How wide a front?”

“Four-abreast.”

“Staggered or in columns?”

“Usually in columns.”

“When it’s right, we’ll try a staggered approach that’s five-abreast, and I’d like each lancer in the second and fourth lines with his mount’s nose almost to the rump of the lancers in the first and third lines. I want them to use the shortest firelance bursts they can. If they don’t hit a raider, then they need to aim again.”

Emsahl frowns.

“I know…they’re used to swinging the lance…but if they swing lances now, they won’t have any chaos left in their lances by the end of this patrol.” Lorn smiles ruefully. “And they’ll say that they’ll be dead so that it won’t matter.”

Emsahl laughs, the ironic sound of one veteran to another.

“Tell them to try it on the first burst,” Lorn suggests. “Then they can swing the lance, but try to do it in bursts.”

“That…that they might try…especially if I tell them that anyone who exhausts his lance before the battle is over will be in the first rank for the rest of the season.”

Both officers look up as a scout rides up from the trail on the right side of the column, then turns his mount toward them.

Lorn keeps riding as the messenger guides his mount around and up beside the sub-majer.

“You were right, ser. Barbarians…they be entering the valley ahead. Eightscore, mayhap nine-,” says the scout. “They carry the large blades in their shoulder harnesses, and blades like sabres at their waist.”

Eightscore-and Lorn has tenscore Mirror Lancers in all of Inividra. He smiles. “How are they riding. What sort of column?”

“Two-abreast, ser. Must run back near-on a quarter-kay. They be riding slow-like, real steady.”

Lorn nods to the lancer scout. “Fall in behind us for a bit.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Let’s try something.” Lorn smiles grimly at Emsahl. “They don’t know we’re sending out two companies together yet.”

“No, ser.”

“Quytyl and I will lead Fifth Company over the ridge-the way the scout came. There’s a woods along the other side….scrub oaks, but enough for cover…”

Emsahl frowns. “There be that, as I recall, but…”

“I have good maps,” Lorn says quickly. “We’ll sweep out of the oaks as they come by and hit them on the run with the firelances. Then we’ll come charging back along the road. You have Third Company lined up on the upper slope right about there…” Lorn gestures toward the right side of the slope ahead. “First, people forget to look up, and even if they do, they have to come uphill.”

Emsahl nods. “That might work.”

“If they have scouts, you’ll have to make sure they don’t escape to warn them.” Lorn shrugs. “And if the ones we attack don’t follow, we don’t lose anyone because we’ll only come close enough to be in lance range. We’re bound to kill or wound some of them. If they do follow, your men will be steady enough to get more, and the hill will allow you to charge down if you have to.”

That gets a second nod from the veteran. “Might get ’em mad enough to ride hard.”

“Let’s hope so. You set up your men, and I’ll take care of Fifth Company.”

“Yes, ser.”

Lorn rides back along the column to Quytyl. Several lancers watch carefully as he passes.

“…got that look…. barbarians somewhere near…”

“…hope he’s as good as they say…”

Quytyl looks up from talking with his senior squad leader, Yusaet, as the undercaptain sees Lorn approach.

“Ser.” The undercaptain bows his head.

Yusaet starts to rein back his mount.

Lorn gestures for him to remain. “I need both of you and your other squad leader, Undercaptain. There’s a column of barbarians entering the next valley. We’re going to attack and set up an ambush. Call in your squad leaders.”

“I’ll get Syldn,” Yusaet offers, and eases his mount away.

“Halt the company. We won’t be taking the road much farther anyway.”

“Fifth Company! Halt! Column halt!” Quytyl raises his arm.

As the lancers rein up, the painfully-thin undercaptain again turns to Lorn and asks, “How many?”

“Eightscore, maybe nine-.”

“Yes, ser.” Despite his affirmation, the undercaptain’s eyes carry much doubt.

“Don’t worry, Quytyl. That’s my task. Yours is to get your company where it kills barbarians.”

Yusaet returns with Syldn, the junior squad leader, and Lorn motions them into a mounted semicircle facing him on the road, and begins to explain once more, ending with, “…we don’t want anyone to slow down or use a sabre. Use quick bursts on the lances, and then ride like the black angels were chasing you…just over the hill. Then we’ll re-form five-abreast blocking the road.”

“Will we have time, ser?” questions Yusaet.

“We’ll have time, because Third Company will be on the hillside, waiting for the raiders after we ride by.” Or so Lorn hopes.

He motions to the trail that winds up the slope and turns the bay gelding toward it.

“Follow the majer!” Quytyl orders.

“Up the trail, after the officers!”

As Lorn leads the Fifth Company, he cannot help but wonder if he will ever survive to be a full majer, but he pushes the thought away, glancing back to his left to watch as Emsahl moves his lancers along the road to set up the ambush.

The gelding steps sideways, jolting Lorn, and he is forced to concentrate on the goat path that he has chosen. While he thinks they are headed where his maps show they can mount a flying attack, screeing from a distance and riding over rough hillsides are not the same thing. Not at all.

The company winds its way up along the trail taken by the scout, and Lorn worries about the slow progress through the creosote bushes. When they near the ridgeline, and the first scattered scrub oaks, he listens, and tries to use his chaos-senses to detect any thing before them, but the ridge area remains quiet.

The scrub oaks-some of their leaves red and ready to drop, the rest showing signs of winter-gray-cover the top of the ridge, beginning near the top of the goat path that the lancers follow. Once they are on the side, Lorn leads the company along the ridgeline until he finds the streambed he has seen in the glass, and they follow that dry stream downhill another kay.

The scrub oaks are thinning, and the road is in sight-no more than half a kay away across the browning grass-but not the raiders. Despite a trip that has seemed interminably long to Lorn, Fifth Company appears to have reached the end of the valley before the raiders.

Lorn holds up his arm and reins up where they remain slightly higher than the narrow trail that is perhaps a half a kay downhill. The lancers are shielded by the scrub oaks, so much so that only the portion of the road leading south and to Lorn’s left is visible. Slowly, the lancers halt.

The sub-majer turns to Quytyl. “Have them re-form two-abreast. We’ll wait until the barbarians have ridden just past us.” He pauses, then adds, “And tell the men to be quiet.”

Quytyl eases his mount back and offers orders in a low voice. Shortly, he returns, reining up beside Lorn. Slowly, the murmurs die away, and the only sounds are those of the breeze ruffling drying leaves on the oaks and whispering through the knee-high grass around the low trees. An occasional whuffing comes from one mount or another.

The breeze picks up, and then dies away, and still the lancers wait.

Then there is the faintest of sounds, and Lorn watches as two scouts-or what pass for such-ride past the scrub oaks, continuing southwest without looking back, and starting up the slope toward the low pass beyond which are stationed Emsahl and his Third Company.

The lancers wait once more, until the muffled sound of hoofs and voices rises over the sounds of the light wind, and the few insect and bird calls.

As Lorn’s scout had said, the barbarians ride two-abreast, and their voices are loud in the midday air.

Quytyl touches Lorn’s arm.

Lorn shakes his head and murmurs, “Not quite yet.” He wants the barbarians far enough ahead so that his lancers can rake the column with firelances, but not so far that they run the risk of being cut off.

Then he raises his arm, and drops it, hissing, “Now!”

As he has instructed, and not totally expected, the lancers begin to ride past the scrub oaks, and down the slope, picking up speed. He hears a horse scream, and fears he has already lost a man, but even so, the barbarians do not turn, not until Lorn is within two hundred cubits, and the surprise stretched across their bearded faces holds for yet another fifty cubits.

Lorn aims the firelance, not with sight, but with chaos.

Hssst! Hst! Hsst! Two of the three bursts strike raiders, and one tumbles from his saddle immediately.

Lorn tries again. Hsst! Hst!

Because he has to turn the gelding to stay on the road, and to avoid the rougher ground on the far side, he is not certain about the results, as his mount carries him past the head of the column. Behind him, he can hear other firelance bursts, and he risks a quick glance over his shoulder once he has the gelding running on the road.

So far as he can see, most all his men are still riding, and the barbarians are riding after them, if not so quickly as Lorn would like.

“Keep them moving!” he snaps at Quytyl.

“Keep moving!”

With the dust rising everywhere and the hissing snaps of firelances dying away, Lorn has no idea how successful his hit-and-run attack has been, beyond the three or four raiders he knows he personally wounded or killed. He glances back over his shoulder once more, then slows the gelding as it is clear, despite the settling dust, that there is a growing separation between the barbarians and the lancers.

Rather than stop just beyond the rise in the road, as he had planned, Lorn does not rein up until he is several hundred cubits beyond, nearly a third of a kay.

“Re-form on me! Re-form-five-abreast.”

“Re-form on the majer!” Quytyl’s voice joins Lorn’s.

With the jostling and confusion, Lorn fears that the five-abreast rank will not be in place when the barbarians arrive. Again, Lorn’s worries are unfounded, for the lancers are formed, and even the mounts’ breathing has settled down before he sees even the dust on the road from the approaching riders.

The barbarians do reach the crest of the hill.

“Discharge at will!” commands Emsahl, his voice drifting to Lorn on the light breeze. “Discharge at will.”

Firelance bolts hsst from the right, down into the blade-wielding warriors, but the raiders have re-formed into a wall across and beside the road more like eight-abreast-and that will clearly reduce the impact of the Third Company’s firelance crossfire.

“Charge!” Lorn raises his firelance, then lowers it, urging the big white gelding forward. He forces himself to wait on discharging his own firelance until he is within fifty cubits of the raiders, some of whom have turned eastward and are starting to charge uphill.

Hsst! Hssst!

Then Lorn is far too close to use the lance, and he struggles with the sabre even as he uses the lance more like a shield-a most unwieldy one.

In time, he finds that he has surged through the barbarians, somehow, and he wheels the gelding, then stops. Several raiders, their backs to him, are surging toward a lone lancer, whose lance has been wrenched free.

Lorn lifts his own firelance. Hsst! Hsst! Hsst!

Barely has he released the third bolt when a pair of raiders with their barlike blades are riding down on him.

Hhstt! Without thinking, Lorn throws a Magi’i firebolt at the first, and swings up his Brystan sabre to parry/slide the big blade of the other away.

Dust, blades on blades, and scattered firelance bolts fill the afternoon, and Lorn circles the field, picking off raider after raider, trying to avoid getting involved in direct group melees.

At some point, there are no more raiders-except for a score or more who have scattered and ride downhill and northward, back toward Jerans.

Lorn sits on the gelding. He has been cut somewhere on his scalp-blood runs down his cheek. His arms ache, and there is blood splattered everywhere on his uniform. He looks dumbly around.

“Fifth Company, first squad! Re-form on me!” Yusaet’s voice rings through the slowly settling dust, as, following his example, do the voices of other squad leaders.

Lorn’s head throbs, and the knives that have become too familiar stab through his eyes, so that they water and burn. He stiffens in the saddle as he makes out the blurry figure of a bearded officer riding slowly toward him.

“You all right, Majer?” asks Emsahl.

“Right as anyone after…something like this.”

Another officer rides slowly toward them. Quytyl has his left arm strapped to him, and his face is white.

“How are you?” Lorn asks.

“Arm’s broken…I’d guess. Fine…other than that.” The undercaptain forces a smile. “Bastard broke my lance and arm. He forgot I had a sabre.”

“How did we do?” Lorn asks Emsahl.

“We didn’t lose many-maybe not even a halfscore. Fifth Company lost more.”

Lorn looks to Quytyl. “Three-quarter score, last count, ser. Another halfscore wounded, but most’ll ride again.”

“Need to see to things.” Emsahl nods to Lorn and turns his mount.

So does Quytyl.

Lorn rides slowly to the crest of the hill, looking northward, but the barbarians are halfway through the valley, well past the scrub oaks from which Lorn had attacked.

By late afternoon, the column rides slowly southeast, back toward Inividra. Lorn hears a few voices, but they pass over and around him.

“…mean bastard…the majer…saw him kill half score anyway-behind, front…”

“…didn’t even stop when they came different…”

“…never seen an officer…killer like that…”

Lorn holds in a sigh. The killer, the butcher…is that all he is good for?

“Ser?” asks Emsahl, riding to his left.

“Yes.” Lorn’s voice is hoarse and tired.

“They didn’t come like you thought.”

“No. Things never work quite the way you think. Someone has been thinking about firelances,” Lorn admits. “That’s why we had to come back and charge. I’d thought we could hold a line, but it wouldn’t have worked.”

“You did it so fast.”

“We had to,” Lorn points out.

“Most wouldn’t have acted so quick.” Emsahl pauses. “That why the commander wants you on the patrols?”

“It’s one reason, I’d like to think, but he didn’t tell me.”

“We killed almost eightscore, ser, and I had the company gather the blades they could. Some Brystan sabres there, and a bunch of the big ones from Hamor, like you said.”

“I was afraid of that,” Lorn replies.

“Put them on the captured mounts,” Emsahl continues. “We got another twoscore of those.” He laughs. “Peasants are going to find some plow and cart horses.”

“They’ll never know how costly those beasts are. They probably won’t care, either.” Lorn laughs, once.

Emsahl is silent as they ride southward, back toward Inividra.

Lorn still wonders. A score of the barbarians did escape, despite his efforts, and his forces still lost almost a score themselves-one a casualty of a rodent hole on the first charge from behind the scrub oaks. His comparative success may mean larger and larger forces on both sides. The glass will tell-the glass he cannot reveal-but he can only hope that it will take time before the barbarians react that way.

He will also need to figure a counter to their new use of the broad front-one that will cost him even fewer lancers.

The weary sub-majer takes a deep breath.