Imager’s Battalion

39

Dawn was already breaking before all the Telaryn companies, battalions, and regiments were re-formed, the wounded tended to, and the comparatively few Bovarian captives confined. Only then did Skarpa, Meinyt, and Quaeryt finally leave the battlefield southeast of Ralaes, but by then Zhelan and several other majors had commandeered the necessary quarters for the Telaryn forces. Even so, it was well past eighth glass on that cloudy Jeudi morning when the commander and two subcommanders met in a corner of the public room of the South River Inn, the largest of the three inns in the once-quiet town.

Skarpa sat down heavily and rubbed his forehead. Under his eyes were dark circles. Meinyt’s eyes were bloodshot, possibly from the imagers’ smoke and pepper, and his face was generally haggard. Quaeryt doubted that he looked any better.

“We lost nearly two hundred,” said Skarpa slowly, “and there might be another fifty that don’t make it. They lost more than four hundred, all told. It could have been better. It also could have been much worse.”

Quaeryt had to agree, much as he had worried about how things had gone the night before … and his own failure to realize that he’d trapped first company. As he considered that, his eyes scanned the public room, a space some eight yards wide and possibly twelve long, with four narrow windows across the front and four high windows across the back. All were open, but the room was still close because, even outside, there wasn’t the faintest trace of a breeze.

A round-faced woman with black hair in a bun and narrow-set eyes watched from the archway into the kitchen at the far side of the chamber. Two troopers guarded the front entrance to the public room, and Quaeryt had seen a squad stationed in the courtyard beyond the kitchen, as well as one on the front porch of the inn.

“It would have been if the imagers hadn’t taken out that second company of musketeers,” averred Meinyt, “the ones across that moat to the south. We’d have lost another hundred or so troopers, maybe more.”

“I’m glad we could, but…” Quaeryt paused. “We should have been nearer the front on the charge.”

“You’ll go mad if you keep guessing on what you could have done,” said Skarpa. “I planned the attack, and you both carried it out. We took the town, and they had more than twice the casualties we did. We’ve done better, but Namer-few others have done as well as we did last night against an entrenched position.”

“Why do you think they sacrificed two companies, maybe more, of musketeers?” asked Quaeryt. “I can see them losing the foot, but heavy cavalry and musketeers?”

“I don’t know,” replied Skarpa. “They had to know we’d capture at least some of the muskets. So far we’ve counted over two hundred. You two and your men killed over a hundred musketeers, and we captured some thirty, all wounded.”

“What about powder and ball?” demanded Meinyt.

“Half a dozen kegs of powder, and four hundred rounds.”

“Someone knew it was a sacrifice,” suggested Quaeryt.

“I don’t think the foot or the musketeers were told,” replied Skarpa. “There were wagons waiting on the west side of the hill. The ones who escaped took them.”

“How many wagons?” asked Meinyt skeptically.

“There was one left. The driver must have run off or been killed. The scouts said there were tracks left by five others.”

“So their commanders told the poor bastards to hold as long as they could and then to withdraw to the wagons. Just six wagons for close to seven or eight hundred men?” Meinyt snorted.

“The cavalry didn’t need wagons,” said Skarpa dryly.

“If they’d risk that many muskets, they must have more muskets and musketeers than Bhayar and Deucalon thought,” said Meinyt.

“Or someone realized that the musketeers aren’t as effective against us during the day,” suggested Skarpa.

“They aren’t that bright,” countered Meinyt.

“They were bright enough to slow us down.”

“Deucalon already did that,” said Meinyt. “Besides, you already said we’d need to stay here for several days until the northern army gets closer to Villerive.”

“The men need a day or so of rest at the least. I sent out patrols early. All the Bovarians have pulled back to Villerive. The defenses there make the earthworks here look like a bowling green. They also have large catapults.”

At a scraping-or scuffling-sound from across the public room, or perhaps beyond, Quaeryt looked away from Skarpa and toward the kitchen archway. The dark-haired woman no longer stood there.

Then four men appeared, moving quickly, each with a small crossbow aimed toward the three Telaryn officers. All four wore blue-gray Bovarian uniforms.

Quaeryt sprang to his feet, expanding his shields to cover the other two officers, then imaged iron darts into the chests of the attackers. Even so, all four loosed their bolts, all of which slammed into Quaeryt’s shields, driving him backward against his chair and the wall. He staggered, then finally managed to catch his balance and stand up.

“What…!?” Meinyt glanced from Quaeryt to the four figures on the floor by the archway, then at the two troopers who had sprinted across the room.

Quaeryt contracted his shields and hurried toward the archway.

“Sir?” protested one of the troopers.

Quaeryt ignored the man-as well as the throbbing headache that had arrived with his imaging-and dashed into the kitchen, where two other men held knives at the throats of the black-haired woman and a blond woman scarcely more than a girl.

“Stop right there!”

Quaeryt stopped, imaged the knives out of the hands of the two Bovarians, and then imaged them through the men’s boots and feet, pinning them to the floor.

The women jumped free, but the older woman shuddered as she looked at Quaeryt.

“Namer’s spawn!” swore the taller Bovarian.

“Pharsi bastard!”

No one had time to say anything else before a squad of Telaryn troopers burst into the kitchen.

The squad leader glanced to Quaeryt. “Are you all right, sir?”

“I’m fine.” What else can you say?

“Tie them up!” snapped the squad leader.

Quaeryt waited until the two were restrained before walking toward the taller Bovarian. “How did you get in?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Quaeryt smiled, then image-wrapped a shield around the man’s head, so tightly that the Bovarian couldn’t breathe. “I don’t like assassins. I especially don’t like assassins who threaten to slit the throats of their own people.” As the man struggled, trying to gasp for air, Quaeryt looked to the black-haired woman. “Do you know?”

Her hand shaking, she pointed to a narrow door, slightly ajar. “They must have come up from the cellars. They didn’t come in from the courtyard.”

“Who let them in there?”

“The innkeeper, no doubt,” said Skarpa from the archway into the public room. “The men caught him trying to sneak away.”

Quaeryt turned back to the taller Bovarian, who was turning a dark red, and lifted the shield. “You are a prisoner, and you will be civil.” He image-projected absolute authority, although he had the feeling it was overlaid with rage.

The man whitened, then crumpled.

“We were just following orders!” insisted the remaining Bovarian. “We were!”

Quaeryt didn’t doubt that, either, not from what he’d heard and observed in the last year. He turned to Skarpa. “Perhaps you should have someone talk to these two. You can always summon me if you have to.”

“In addition to being a good commander, Major Falossn is excellent at interrogation.” Skarpa looked to the troopers. “Make sure those bonds are secure before you remove the knives.”

The blond girl looked down, then stared at the knives, each pinning a boot and foot to the wide plank floor. What color had remained in her face drained away.

“If the subcommander hadn’t done that,” Skarpa said mildly. “You’d be dead.”

The black-haired woman continued to stare at Quaeryt, but said not a word.

After making certain that the two remaining assassins were on their way to Major Falossn, Skarpa and Quaeryt turned to head back to the public room.

As he moved to the archway, he caught a few words murmured by the older woman. “… black coney and ancient Pharsi lord … worst of all…”

Quaeryt managed not to break step.

Once he and Skarpa were in the public room, Meinyt walked back from the main entrance, where he’d apparently been directing the removal of the dead would-be assassins. He looked at Quaeryt with a half-humorous smile. “I thought so, but you’ve been very careful.”

“I didn’t have a choice here,” Quaeryt said dryly. Then he laughed ironically. “Actually, if I weren’t so tired, I probably could have misdirected the crossbow bolts, caused them to slip, and various other mishaps to occur.” He took a deep breath. “I was too tired to think straight or do anything else.”

“Why…?”

“Why haven’t I done more at times?” Quaeryt followed Skarpa’s example, sitting down in one of the chairs at another table. “Because I’ve usually done everything I can.” Not always, but usually. “It takes strength, and the ability to see. When I get near my limits, I can’t even see. I can barely stay in the saddle. It’s a different kind of fighting, but it takes a lot of effort.”

“That’s when you’ve gotten hurt or wounded, isn’t it?” Meinyt’s voice was low as he eased into the adjoining chair.

Quaeryt nodded. “I’ve also had to protect the undercaptains until they can learn better how to protect themselves.”

“Since it’s in the open, between us, anyway,” said Skarpa, sounding not at all surprised, “who else knows?”

“The only one who knows besides the undercaptains and you two, so far as I know, is Lord Bhayar. Myskyl suspects something. Others may as well. It’s been hard to disguise it and still be effective.”

Skarpa nodded, then grinned. “Well … since Lord Bhayar knows, he’ll obviously have told Deucalon and Myskyl. So we don’t need to report anything.”

Meinyt grinned as well. “I think you’re right about that, sir.”

“Far be it from me to disobey a superior,” added Quaeryt.

“What about the men?” asked Meinyt.

“Don’t make a fuss about it. If an officer says anything, just tell him that the imagers need an imager to lead them, as if it’s absolutely normal.” Skarpa turned to Quaeryt. “There are already rumors, and you couldn’t keep it hidden much longer anyway.”

Quaeryt nodded. That will cause other problems, but there will always be problems.

A trooper appeared with three mugs of lager, setting them on the table. “We tapped a new keg, sirs, and we had the women drink some first.”

“Thank you,” said Skarpa.

Quaeryt just nodded and reached for his lager, immediately taking a slow but long swallow, hoping it would ease the pain behind his eyes. It had been a long day already.

“There’s another question,” offered Meinyt. “How did they know we’d be here? They had to have been there since sometime last night.”

Skarpa laughed. “We’ve been predictable. All they had to do is ask what we did in any town we’ve taken. We haven’t commandeered houses in the larger towns, and this is the best inn. Where else would we be?”

“So they sent scouts back?”

“Spies. They couldn’t have gone in uniform. They probably just left people behind, men who were from the area and posing as deserters who didn’t want to get caught by either us or Kharst. People would certainly believe that. They know how brutal Kharst can be. Then those men would pass on the information. Right now, there’s not much we can do about it-except check the cellars and closets of every public house we go into first.”

“But…” Meinyt shook his head. “I suppose they’re everywhere.”

“I’d be very surprised if they weren’t,” replied Skarpa. “We’ll never know. If we hold this part of Bovaria, and we will, they’ll become deserters in truth, and we won’t know the difference. Even if we discover some of them, we certainly can’t hang them unless they break laws in some other way, because we’ll never know if they were truly deserters or truly spies.”

Just another aspect of war you hadn’t considered. But Quaeryt understood exactly what Skarpa meant. To most people, deserters were those who didn’t want to fight or who opposed Kharst. While some might think them cowards, and while desertion was a hanging offense, for Bhayar to have ordered them executed for effectively supporting Telaryn would have seemed cruel and hypocritical. Besides, most people would likely be wary of them for the rest of their lives.

He took another swallow of lager, better than most he’d had since leaving Nordruil more than a month before. He thought his headache was easing.