Antiagon Fire

23

On Mardi morning Quaeryt rode south from Geusyn with Skarpa and the first battalion from Third Regiment. The two imager undercaptains who rode behind them and in front of the first squad of rankers were Voltyr and Threkhyl. Quaeryt had left the others in the town to practice imaging skills, but he wanted the two he planned to leave with Skarpa to see as much of the area as possible before he and the other imager undercaptains departed.

After seeing the dark circles under Vaelora’s eyes that morning, he’d also insisted that she remain at the inn and rest. The fact that she hadn’t protested showed how tired she was … and that worried Quaeryt. And you shouldn’t have kept her up so late. He winced at that thought and concentrated on studying the road and the terrain.

The road south from the town hugged the eastern shore of the river, close enough that Quaeryt could see the narrow towpath used to pull the flatboat ferries back to Geusyn. For the first mille or so, he saw no ferries, but several hundred yards later, they did pass a smaller craft drawn up on a mud flat adjoining the towpath. Two men were working on what Quaeryt thought was the tiller post. Neither looked up.

After riding another mille Quaeryt could see gray stone walls ahead, stretching for a good mille from the water’s edge to a rocky hill and partway up the hill. Across the river to the west, almost a mille away, there was a raised area, surrounded by reeds and swamp, on which perched an odd assortment of buildings and roofs. Below them was a harbor, but Quaeryt could only see two merchanters, both sloop-rigged, suggesting coastal traders … and no sign of either the Montagne or the Solis. Just ahead was a set of piers, most likely where ferries unloaded on the return trip from Ephra. A packed clay ramp led from the end of each empty pier up to the road.

“Battalion! Halt!” ordered Skarpa.

Quaeryt could see why. South of where they had halted the road turned into a narrow rutted track that looked not to have been traveled in years, although the lower growth flanking the track showed that at one time the road had been used more.

“Well … what do you think?” asked Skarpa, turning in the saddle toward Quaeryt.

“The walls ahead look to be some ten yards high, if not more, and solid. The Antiagons have fortifications back into the hills as far as I can see.”

“None of this makes sense.” Skarpa shook his head. “There’s never been a border wall you couldn’t march far enough to get around, except on an island. I can’t believe that wall extends all the way to the Sud Swamp. That’s some five hundred miles.”

“The ground isn’t that level, and it’s heavily wooded, at least near here. Do you want to cut a road more than a mille through it?”

“Isn’t that what imagers are for?” Skarpa grinned.

“Of course,” replied Quaeryt, “but Bovaria’s never had that many imagers.”

“Still…” Skarpa gestured to the west. “Ephra’s an island of solid land in the middle of a swamp. Why did the Bovarians build Ephra on the west side?”

“Where else could they have built it with access to the ocean that they wouldn’t have to worry about Antiago?” asked Quaeryt.

“But they have to get back upstream, some as far north as Laaryn.”

“Most of them don’t get back that way. They load the goods on ships at Ephra and sell the flatboats for lumber. Then they take the ferry to the east side, where they buy some horses. There are more than a few stables in Geusyn. They ride back north with small high value goods … probably in groups for safety.” Quaeryt gestured back upstream. “The piers down there are pretty solid, and the road toward Geusyn has been well traveled.”

“Do you really want to image a bridge across the river to Ephra?” asked Skarpa.

“I’m not sure that we could. You’d need a lot of piers, and trying to image them into water would be hard. If the river bottom is all mud, they’d just sink and keep on sinking. Ephra might be on solid ground and so is Kephria, but the channel between is pretty deep, and more than a mille wide. Besides, even if we could image that massive a bridge, we’d have to take Kephria to get that close to Ephra.”

“And I take it you don’t want to start another war right now.”

“I wouldn’t want to think about that, not until matters with Khel are settled.” One way or the other.

“You’d think about it … if it’s necessary. So would Bhayar,” said Skarpa.

“Any strong ruler considers everything,” temporized Quaeryt.

“Don’t see any sign of large ships over there, either.”

“No. They might be holding offshore, though. I’ll have to take a ferry later today and see if they already arrived and moved offshore. If I were captain of the Montagne, I wouldn’t want to be anchored for long that close to Kephria. Then, they might not have arrived yet.”

“I’d wager on that.”

“So would I, but I still need to find out.” Quaeryt gestured toward the walls ahead of them to the south. “Do you want to ride farther and get a better look at Aliaro’s defenses?”

“We might as well, but we need to be careful. I can’t believe that they don’t have cannon. Catapults with Antiagon Fire, too. No sign of either, though.” Skarpa raised his arm, then ordered, “Forward!”

Over the next quint, Quaeryt kept an eye out, looking for gouges in the ground, broken trees or limbs, or other signs of cannon having been fired, but even when Skarpa called a halt, what had been a road had become an overgrown wilderness, and Quaeryt had to strain to see such signs-and they were years old.

“No one’s even tried to come through here,” snorted Skarpa after they’d reined up a good three hundred yards short of the walls, where the underbrush effectively made the road impassable. “Not in years. Hard to believe.”

“Kharst didn’t want to deal with the walls. He attacked Aliaro the way the Bovarians prefer. He came down the river, probably in darkness, and used imagers to set fire to the port. That way, all he lost was the force that set the fire.” And got rid of the imagers as well, no doubt.

“Be a struggle to bring cannon down here, too,” said Skarpa.

“If you have to deal with Aliaro, it might just be easier to have Threkhyl punch a big gap in the walls here.”

“It might at that. Don’t know as it will come to that, though. Those walls would show that Aliaro just wants to be left alone.”

“So long as he can control the Gulf and the ports here,” replied Quaeryt. “I can see why Kharst wanted Ferravyl, though. And Khel.”

“His factors and traders couldn’t cart goods from Bovaria across the hills and the western coastal mountains to ship from places like Eshtora and Ouestan.”

“He could have cared less about that. He just wanted the tariff golds from the merchants shipping from those ports, and if he gained control of the Aluse all the way to Solis, then that would have made things easier for most of the merchants, traders, and High Holders in Bovaria.”

“You know … when you talk like that, I’m glad I’m just a soldier.”

“I’m glad you are, too, especially when I think about Deucalon and Myskyl. I hope Myskyl has a long hard winter in the north of Bovaria.”

“He’ll find a way not to get that far before the snows hit.”

“You’re probably right about that. Let’s hope it’s a ways from Variana, though.”

Skarpa looked back at the Antiagon walls. “Don’t even see anyone up there. There’s probably some poor ranker posted there who’s filled his britches seeing a battalion down here on the road. First one in years, I’d wager.” He shook his head. “Might as well head back.”

Quaeryt nodded, even as his eyes scanned the massive walls that stretched eastward to the rocky hill a good mille away, then turned his mount and accompanied Skarpa as the battalion reversed its order and began the ride back to Geusyn. He kept looking out at the river, and finally caught sight of a ferry angling its way toward Ephra, but that was the only craft he saw.

For a time, neither officer spoke.

“Have to say that, at times, I had my doubts about Chayar and then young Bhayar,” mused Skarpa.

Quaeryt didn’t mention that he’d had a few as well. “And now?”

“The more I see of other places in Lydar … well, let’s just say I’m glad to be serving under him.”

Quaeryt understood that, although he’d known it for years. He just hoped the Khellans would … and that he could convince them of that. If you can ever get there.

The road back to Geusyn was without riders until they were within a half mille of the dwellings on the south side of the town.

Vaelora was standing on the front porch of the River Inn when Quaeryt returned just after ninth glass. Even before he stepped up onto the porch he could see that the circles under her eyes were not so dark as they had been.

“You’re looking better. The rest helped.”

“What did you find out?”

“That things are worse than we thought…” He went on to explain, ending by, “That’s why I need to take the next ferry to Ephra.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Ephra isn’t a healthy place. Everyone I’ve talked to says so. It’s dirty and filled with sicknesses, and I intend to stay only long enough to find out what I need to know.”

“You’re going. Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because you’ll be safer here.”

“I’ll be safe with you.”

“I can’t protect you from sickness and flux. You know that.”

“You’re making me sound unreasonable! I’m not. I can ride as well as you can, and there’s no reason-”

“Vaelora … did you look in the mirror this morning? You have to be careful for two people, not just yourself … and your brother told me to remind you of that.”

Vaelora made a face. “You’d better not say that too often.”

“I hope I don’t have to. I don’t mind saying that I don’t want to go, and I don’t want to stay any longer than I have to.”

“You’d better not.”

“I won’t.” Quaeryt held back a sigh of relief.