Antiagon Fire

61

On Lundi morning a thin mist drifted in from the west, suggesting to Quaeryt that an even heavier fog might be covering the ground to the west. Either way, with the mist or fog there was less chance for another cannon attack on Southern Army, and Skarpa seemed slightly less worried as he ordered his forces onto the road westward.

Once the order of march was established, with first company leading and Third Regiment riding immediately behind, Skarpa joined Quaeryt. “That was a decent homily last night.”

“Decent is a good word for it. It wasn’t one of my best. Kharllon thought it was good.”

“He talked to you?”

“Not for long. He delivered a not-so-veiled message … something along the lines that I was a dangerous man because I was persuasive and my views were … at variance … with those who were in power. He wasn’t that direct, but that was what he meant.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him that was why Rholan vanished … and tried to suggest that my interests lay in seeing all Lydar united under Bhayar. He agrees with that, but not with what he feels I want to come after that.”

“Did he say what he thought that might be?”

“No, and I didn’t ask him to explain. In turn, he refrained from more than generalities. That seemed best.” Quaeryt looked directly at Skarpa. “You have something on your mind, don’t you? That feeling that something might happen?”

“Not exactly. We’ve seen cannon, and we’ve seen troopers, but we haven’t seen musketeers or imagers or Antiagon Fire,” said Skarpa. “That worries me.”

“They might not have that many imagers … or some of their imagers might not have talents that suited to battle.” Quaeryt was thinking about Baelthm, whose value in battle was limited largely to self-protection and the ability to stop one or two enemy troopers.

“I can come up with reasons why we might not see imagers … but not Antiagon Fire. That’s what they’re known for. We even encountered it in Bovaria. Why not here?”

“There’s one possibility,” suggested Quaeryt. “We always ran into it when they had a fortified position with catapults behind walls. Or when they had regiments of troops.”

“That’s a thought. It doesn’t reassure me.” Skarpa shook his head.

“It doesn’t reassure me, either, but I don’t have any other ideas-except that we’ll probably run into it sooner or later.”

“That’s what I worry about.” After riding with Quaeryt for almost a glass, Skarpa left to brief the scouts, and then rode back along the column to see to each regimental commander.

As Quaeryt rode eastward, he studied the land as well as he could, but saw nothing but recently planted fields and shuttered cots-with occasional villas on more distant hills. Midday came and went, although Quaeryt couldn’t have told by the sun because the hazy high clouds had thickened enough to block any hint of its position.

Sometime close to first glass, Skarpa returned and reined in beside Quaeryt. “The scouts have found some tracks ahead, but there’s nothing heavy.”

“Like cannon?”

“No. A squad of riders, maybe a few more. It looks like they were scouting the road and the shoulders.”

“How far ahead?”

“A mille or so.”

“How recent are they?”

“Probably yesterday. Might have been the day before.”

“Do the tracks continue toward us?”

“No. They stop and retrace their way. That’s what the scouts report.”

Quaeryt tried to make out what lay ahead, but the combination of uncertain light diffusing through the high hazy clouds and the patches of mist made a clear view difficult. Still, he could see several low hills on each side of the road, rising above the recently planted fields between first company and the nearest hill. The closest hills were more like gentle rises on the north side of the road, with crests little more than twenty yards high, and the closest part of their bases were several hundred yards back from the edge of the road. All were wooded, but not with oil nut trees, and some of the woods extended almost into the fields.

“What are you thinking?” asked the submarshal.

“That sounds like ranging the road.”

“My thought as well. I’ve asked the scouts to check any tracks leaving the road, especially on the side lanes. I’m calling a halt to give everyone a rest while they do.”

That made sense to Quaeryt, because the column was on a section of road situated in the middle of rolling rises so low that the land around Southern Army seemed almost flat, and the scattered cots were shuttered tight, without a trace of smoke from the chimneys. The hills immediately ahead looked to be the beginning of the more rugged lands that surrounded Liantiago and the bay that held Westisle.

“The hills beyond those little ones could hide a lot,” added Skarpa.

Quaeryt nodded, his eyes on the nearer hills.

“We’ll have to see what the scouts find. I’ll let you know.” With that, Skarpa rode off.

Quaeryt gathered Zhelan, Ghaelyn, and the imager undercaptains at the side of the road.

“We have problems ahead, Commander?” asked Zhelan.

“We might,” Quaeryt admitted. “There are Antiagon tracks up ahead.”

“Be hard to see in places with all that fog,” added Ghaelyn, first company’s undercaptain.

“We could be facing anything,” said Quaeryt. “Or nothing. But we’re getting close to Liantiago, and it’s been several days since we’ve been attacked. I think cannon are unlikely because they’re heavy, and we haven’t seen enough tracks, not yet, for there to be too many troopers. To my way of thinking, that means we just might be hit with Antiagon Fire next. If that’s so, it will come from the hills. I’ll be posting imager undercaptains with each of the five squads of first company, and I’ll give the order for shields at the first sign of an attack.” Quaeryt looked at the undercaptains, especially at Threkhyl, before continuing. “If any of you see anything coming before I do, raise your shields and call out the attack. If there is an attack, they may wait until the first part of the company has passed.” He paused. “Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Quaeryt turned to Zhelan and Ghaelyn. “If we get attacked by Antiagon Fire, the men need to stay close to their imager-unless the attack takes him out. That’s because the imagers can shield against the Fire. So you need to have your squad leaders watch the undercaptains.”

“Yes, sir.”

Quaeryt continued with the details for another half quint, including assigning each undercaptain to a squad. Even so, he and first company had to wait another three quints before Skarpa again returned to inform Quaeryt.

“There are tracks up all the hills, but they don’t lead anywhere. They just end a hundred yards or so upslope and into the woods … like they rode up and decided that the hill wasn’t suitable for what they had in mind.” Skarpa shook his head. “I still don’t like it.”

“You think that they started with the hills the farthest from Liantiago and then worked back toward the city.”

“It looks that way.”

“But you’re not convinced?”

“No, but we can’t ride up every hill from here to Liantiago, either. Not unless we intend to take a season to get there.”

“Where exactly do the tracks coming toward us end?” asked Quaeryt.

“Up ahead … do you see where that sty over the low stone wall is?”

“That’s what, a half mille from the first of the hills?”

“About that,” Skarpa confirmed. “Do you think they’ve measured out to that point?”

“Not necessarily, but after that point, I’m going to be worrying and very careful.”

“Good. I’ll let you and first company remain as the vanguard.”

“And you’ll drop back with Third Regiment?”

“Of course.”

“I do so appreciate your confidence … and don’t tell me that this whole campaign was my idea. I could scarcely forget it.”

Skarpa grinned, then said, “I won’t.”

“Thank you.” Quaeryt shook his head ruefully, then watched as Skarpa turned his mount and rode back to Third Regiment. “Company! Mount up!” Once his men were mounted, he gave the order, “Forward!”

Beside him, Zhelan turned in the saddle and relayed the order.

Although he watched closely after they passed the sty on the stone wall, Quaeryt did not actually extend his personal shields to cover those around him and first squad until they were some four hundred yards from the first hill. At a hundred yards, he gave the order for shields, and he kept studying the first hill as they rode past it, gauging the distance-some hundred yards between its base and the edge of the road. Then he looked to the second and smaller one ahead, just slightly farther from the road.

As they rode closer and then passed the second hill … nothing happened.

Quaeryt looked ahead to the taller and somewhat more rugged hills that separated the rolling fields from lower lands around Liantiago.

“Fire grenade! Fire grenade!” came the call from somewhere behind Quaeryt.

He jerked his head around in time to see a splash of crimson-green-yellow flame rebounding from someone’s shields-Lhandor’s, he thought-and then there were splashes of flame everywhere, the heat intense despite the shields.

With the mist that rose from the fields, it took Quaeryt several moments to make out from where the fire grenades were being launched-from the second and lower hill slightly farther from the road. Then it took him more time to make out several of the dark objects being catapulted out of the trees-and he began to image them back to where he thought the catapults were, one after the other. Some exploded in flight, and others vanished …

In that time he obviously missed some grenades because lines of the crimson-greenish-yellow flames continued to explode against imager shields-at least Quaeryt hoped that happened to be the case.

He kept trying to intercept and redirect more of the grenades-and then they stopped. A wave of crimson-greenish-yellow flame rose from an entire section of the lower hill where Quaeryt thought the Antiagon catapults were. Only then did he call a halt to the company and re-form the troopers, ready to make a sweep of the hill, if necessary.

As they watched, in perhaps half a quint, an oval of woods vanished in flame-and not a single Antiagon fled the woods at the base of the hill, not from what he could see.

Quaeryt turned to Zhelan. “How badly were we hurt?”

“You and the imagers kept most of the men from severe burns. A few in fifth squad have splotches in various places. Nothing more.”

That was a relief of sorts, but he knew that some of the fire grenades had likely impacted Third Regiment.

“Here comes the submarshal,” said Zhelan quietly.

Quaeryt turned in the saddle and watched as Skarpa rode over and reined up beside him.

“Why didn’t everything go up in flames, the way the cannon emplacement did?” asked the submarshal.

“These are hardwoods,” said Quaeryt. “Maybe they’re harder to burn, or the Antiagon Fire might have consumed everything so quickly that it didn’t have a chance to spread. It’s also been cooler and damper.” He shrugged. “Other than that … I just don’t know.”

Skarpa laughed. “You don’t like to admit you don’t know, do you?”

“How did you ever guess that?” replied Quaeryt dryly.

“I have watched you upon occasion.”

“Once the fire up there dies out totally, I’d like to take a look,” said Quaeryt.

“You think you can find out something after everything’s burned out?”

“I’d like to look. Besides, I don’t think it would hurt to have the scouts really look over the next few milles before we proceed.”

“I’ve already dispatched them.”

“Thank you.”

It was more than a glass later before Quaeryt and Skarpa rode through the still-smoldering woods on the south side of the hill, accompanied by a squad from Third Regiment. When they reined up at the edge of the cleared area, Quaeryt could see the charred and collapsed remnants of four catapults.

“Shouldn’t they have burned to nothing?” asked Skarpa.

“I’d have thought so, but…” Quaeryt looked more closely across the clearing. He thought he could make out the forms of at least ten bodies. His eyes went to the charred framework of the first catapult, then to the second and finally to the third and fourth. All had been burned and partly collapsed in the same fashion.

“What is it?” asked Skarpa.

“You were asking about imagers, remember? These catapults were imaged, I’m fairly sure. I’m guessing that they brought one of them out here, along with some imagers, and used the one as a model for the others. They were imaged out of some kind of wood that’s resistant to fire. They likely imaged the Antiagon Fire grenades into being as well.”

“Could your imagers-”

“Not without knowing what’s inside of them. You might recall that imaging even something as simple as a wheel takes observation and knowledge.”

“I still … if they can do that…”

“I’ve been able to try different forms of imaging for a little more than a year. From what I can tell, the autarchs have been using imagers for a lot longer.”

Skarpa sighed. “I suppose that’s true, but…”

“I know. The more we find out, the more there is to find out.”

“I still don’t see how the scouts missed their tracks,” said Skarpa. “And we didn’t see any traces on the way up, either.”

“If they had an imager with them, he could have imaged away all sign of tracks, and even imaged an extra tree or some underbrush in place.” Or he could have used concealment shields, but Quaeryt wasn’t about to admit that possibility publicly, especially not if word might get to Kharllon and Meurn.

When they finally headed back down toward the main road, Quaeryt asked, “What sort of casualties did we take-besides those in first company?”

“Less than fifty, mostly in Third Regiment, and most of those were in the first company.”

Quaeryt feared that some of those might well have resulted from grenades deflected from fifth squad, but that was unavoidable, and the casualties would have been far higher without first company and the imagers leading the way.