Princeps

71

Third Battalion-and some three hundred Bovarian captives-reached the gates of North Post just before seventh glass on Lundi night. Zhelan had reported eleven deaths and twenty-two wounded, three seriously. In both the battalion and in Quaeryt’s command men and mounts were exhausted, and none of the imager undercaptains looked particularly pleased. That might have been partly due to the fact that they’d missed the evening meal and had to rely on travel rations of dried meat, hard cheese, and harder biscuits.

The first officer to reach Meinyt and Quaeryt was Major Fhaen. “Commander Skarpa is at the main post. He departed as soon as he received your dispatch, Major. He left word that you were in command in his absence, Subcommander.”

With the hope that you don’t do anything stupid. “Thank you. Has there been anything happening across the river since he left?”

“No, sir.”

“Do we have word of any attacks elsewhere?” Quaeryt pressed.

“Not yet, sir.”

“Once we dismount and deal with mounts and gear, I’ll be on the upper west wall, checking the river, if anyone needs to find me.”

“Yes, sir.”

In less than a quint Quaeryt and Meinyt were looking out from the old stone ramparts at the river, seemingly peaceful under the orangish light of the setting sun.

“What’s the weakest point of the defenses of Ferravyl?” Quaeryt finally asked.

“Where we are here is the weakest point. If the Bovarians cross the river to the north, and get beyond where we stopped them, there are a score of ways to attack the city. Three regiments couldn’t cover the ways they could come. Doesn’t make sense that they sent two weak battalions.”

Quaeryt frowned. “Maybe that’s not the right question. What is the key to holding Ferravyl…” He stopped. “No. That’s not right, either. What does Kharst want? Really want? He wants unfettered use of the Aluse all the way to the sea. If he gets it, in time he can dominate Telaryn. What keeps him from that?”

“The Narrows Bridge,” replied Meinyt.

Quaeryt had never seen the bridge, only heard and read about it. “How narrow is the river there?”

“Can’t be much more than fifty yards in the channel. Maybe another twenty or so on each side in the shallows, but the water there is barely head-high. Swift, though.”

“How many spans?”

“Four, as I recall. But you can’t take a boat under the end ones. Well … maybe a shallow draft flatboat or a small rowboat.”

Quaeryt looked back toward the Ferrean River without really seeing it. “Skarpa and Deucalon have likely already thought of this, but why did the Bovarians use flimsy copies of barges, if they were just going to sit at the piers at Cleblois? Why weren’t there plenty of real barges around? Especially if they weren’t going to be damaged?”

Meinyt frowned, but did not answer.

“I’d guess,” Quaeryt said slowly, “that’s because they have another use for those barges, and one that’s far more destructive.”

“They’re going to fill them with powder and iron and send them against the Narrows Bridge? To try to take out the bridge?”

“All they need is to take out enough that it would take months to rebuild the center part, and then they’ll bring all their forces across the Vyl and take all the Telaryn lands on the south side of the span. Without the bridge, Lord Bhayar would have problems getting his men across the river, especially under fire, and it would be impossible to rebuild it if the Bovarians held the south side. Commander Skarpa and Marshal Deucalon likely know that, but I wonder if they’ve thought about the barges. It wouldn’t hurt to send a dispatch off immediately.”

“No, sir, it wouldn’t.” Meinyt looked to the stone steps down to the courtyard, as if suggesting that Quaeryt ought to draft the message immediately.

“Still … I can’t help but ask why the Bovarians haven’t already put that into action.”

“I’m no strategist,” offered Meinyt, “but I know one thing.”

Quaeryt waited.

“Too many marshals either attack too soon or wait too long. When you attack matters most. They may be waiting to hear what happened with us in the north, instead of using those barges now.”

“Let’s hope so.” Quaeryt turned and hurried down the steps to the courtyard and then across to the building holding the commander’s study.

There, he immediately drafted a message and dispatched it. Then he returned to the west wall, alone, and studied the river again, thinking.

What could he and the imagers do against barges loaded with explosives?

The immediate answer to the question was to image something flaming into the explosives.

But can you even do that, especially when great imaging effort creates chill and ice? He paused. There’s only one way to find out.

He turned to face the river, about to image a flaming wick in oil. He did not, as another thought occurred to him. If he tried to image a lit candle or a wick into a bag of powder or a cannon shell, wouldn’t the powder just suffocate the flame? Even before it could touch off the powder?

He glanced at the bombard at the end of the wall, then walked down to the armory.

“Sir?” asked the duty squad leader.

“Do you have any cannon powder here?”

“Not any I’d want to use, sir. The bombards haven’t been fired in years. The marshal said we have to keep some powder on hand.” The squad leader shook his head.

“I need a bit for the imagers. A small bag to begin with.”

“Sir…?”

“If you please, Squad Leader. If something happens, it’s my fault, not yours.”

The squad leader looked to the young ranker standing in the archway. The young man swallowed. “I heard that, sir. Please be careful.”

The squad leader did not quite sigh. “This way, then, sir, and watch your step.”

Quaeryt followed the bearded and grizzled armorer back through the shop, past grindstones and workbenches to a narrow stone staircase with an ironbound door at the bottom. When he reached the bottom, the squad leader lifted a key ring from his belt and inserted a large key, then turned it. The door did open smoothly, revealing a largely empty magazine chamber lit entirely by green glass prisms set in the ceiling and funneling light from the floor above, providing but limited faint illumination, since there were but few lamps lit.

The squad leader picked up a cloth bag from a wall peg and walked to the back of the magazine where stood two kegs. He eased open the end of the nearer keg with a wooden wedge and a wooden mallet, then used a wooden scoop to ladle the power into the bag.

“That be enough, sir?”

“That will be just about what I need.”

“It isn’t clumping. Ought to be all right if you take care.”

“Thank you.”

After the armorer closed the keg and they retraced their steps to the upper level, with the bag of powder in hand, Quaeryt left the armory. He walked across the main courtyard and then to the north, heading for the narrow auxiliary courtyard where he’d conducted some of the earlier imager training.

He glanced to the wall, noting that the trees were still there barely visible against the stars. Never had the time to get around to dealing with them. That was like so much of his life recently.

When he reached the narrow courtyard, he set the bag of powder gently down on a dry paving stone, and then stepped several paces away. First, he concentrated on imaging a tiny piece of iron, a quarter the size of a gold piece, making it red-hot. The small chunk of iron appeared, and Quaeryt lowered his fingers almost to touching the metal. He could definitely feel the heat.

Leaving the iron on the stone pavement, he retrieved the bag of powder and walked down to the north end of the courtyard, where he carefully poured out a small pile of powder. Then, taking the bag with him, he walked back more than thirty yards. Since the powder wasn’t confined, if the red-hot iron did ignite the power, it should burn, but not explode violently.

He concentrated on imaging another red-hot piece of iron, this time into the middle of the small pile of cannon powder.

Almost instantly, a flash appeared, higher than Quaeryt expected, followed by a haze of smoke, barely visible in the light of the stars and little else.

Good thing you were careful.

Quaeryt then picked up the powder bag and walked back to the north end of the courtyard. Avoiding the place where he’d placed the first pile of powder, he poured out a smaller pile of powder and then retreated with the powder bag, setting it down on the stone pavement again and stepping away from it before he began to image. The second time, he imaged a piece of red-hot iron the thickness of a knitting needle, but less than half the width of a fingernail.

Again, the powder flared, and the acrid smell of burned powder drifted toward Quaeryt.

The third time he tried with an even smaller piece, and while that also ignited the powder, he had the feeling that the smaller needle-like section was about as small as would work reliably. A fourth attempt with an even smaller needle-like piece failed, but a fifth attempt with just a slightly larger needle piece did not.

But was that because of the way you felt?

He shook his head. One way or the other, most, if not all, of the undercaptains should be able to image the amount of iron required.

But can they do it and have it red-hot?

He didn’t have an answer to that question.

He imaged a larger piece of red-hot iron into the remaining powder, which he left in the bag. The powder burned, but the flash did not seem that much different from the earlier efforts.

In the darkness of a cloudless sky, lit but dimly by partial crescents of both Artiema and Erion, he collected several of the small pieces of iron he had used to flash the powder, then made his way back toward his quarters, worrying about whether the Bovarians would attempt to destroy the Narrows Bridge that night. Then he smiled wryly. It might happen in the early morning, but it wouldn’t happen at night, not when there wasn’t enough light to guide such barges against the bridge piers.

Still … he hoped Meinyt was right and that the Bovarians were being too cautious.