Princeps

75

By the seventh glass on Vendrei morning, Third Regiment was riding back northward on the river road. Skarpa had left the most seriously wounded in the only small town, barely more than a large hamlet, commandeering what passed for an inn to take care of those men for whom travel would be a death sentence. At the rear of the column marched 150 Bovarians, half of whom were wounded. Just behind the company acting as vanguard rode Quaeryt and Skarpa, with the imager undercaptains and Quaeryt’s command immediately following.

Quaeryt had felt tired most of the previous afternoon, but after even the passage of a few glasses and more than a little watered lager, he’d been left with only a vague headache. When he had awakened on Vendrei, even after sleeping on straw in a barn, he’d felt remarkably fit. That in itself surprised him, but he wasn’t about to question his good fortune.

Like Jeudi, Vendrei had dawned hot and sticky, but as he rode he could see clouds to the northwest, and usually clouds foretold cooler weather.

Cooler … and wetter … and then hotter and stickier in summertime.

After a time Skarpa turned in the saddle. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, again, Quaeryt, just how you managed to get an entire battalion so close to the Bovarians yesterday without them noticing. I asked Major Meinyt, and all he’d say was that he was too busy following orders to notice that.” Skarpa looked hard at Quaeryt.

“We took the back lane, just as your scouts said. I asked Major Meinyt if he could move into a line of attack from a four abreast formation. He asked for five abreast. I agreed. When we reached the part of the lane close to the back of the hill, I ordered silent riding, and the men were very good. The Bovarians started yelling that they could hear us, but they didn’t immediately form up. By the time they realized how close we were, most of them couldn’t get prepared enough.”

“That sounds like what some of Meinyt’s captains said.” Skarpa frowned. “Several of the captives kept saying that you and Third Battalion appeared from nowhere.”

“It certainly didn’t seem like nowhere to me. I was worried the whole time we were riding up toward them.” And that had certainly been true enough, reflected Quaeryt.

“Then there was…” Skarpa shook his head. “There are some things a commander just shouldn’t look into too closely, I suppose. It’s just that, around you, that gets hard to do. I think Gauswn had the right idea. He thought you had a special relationship with the Nameless.”

“You know that I’m not even certain that the Nameless exists. How can I have a special relationship with a being whose existence I doubt?”

“What you believe doesn’t matter. Gauswn pointed that out to me before he left the regiment. You’re the one who turned him from a good officer into a chorister, you know?”

“He always wanted to be one. He was a good officer, but he’s already a better chorister.”

“The same could be said about you. You’re a good scholar, but you’re a better officer.”

Quaeryt was the one to shake his head.

“You do things that are impossible, and the men follow you.”

“They only look impossible. No one else is stupid enough to try them, and sooner or later, I’m going to attempt something that is truly impossible … and men will be hurt and die.” In retrospect, politically some of what he’d attempted in Extela had also been impossible … and he and Vaelora had paid the consequences.

“You worry about that, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s also the mark of a good officer. Good officers always push their officers and men beyond what seems possible, but they never stop worrying about the costs to those they lead. Sometimes, they push too far. It happens. But I’ve seen, and heard, about how many more men are lost through excessive caution. If you lead a regiment through three hard-fought battles and push through to victory, and lose a third of your force, ministers in the capital will claim you’re a terrible commander. Yet they’ll praise a commander who only loses a hundred or so men in ten smaller battles, and never realize that he’s lost half his force. Lord Chayar understood that. I can only hope his son does as well.”

“We’ll see, won’t we?” Do you really know? His replacing you in Extela doesn’t fit what Skarpa would like, but political battles aren’t the same as military ones. That he’d discovered as governor. But will there be other political constraints that will cause the same kinds of problems in the end?

Quaeryt didn’t have an answer to his own question. Only time and events would answer it. “Bhayar said that the Bovarians had at least six regiments around Ferravyl. Does anyone really know?”

“We fought half a regiment up north and two down here. Seems to me that Kharst wouldn’t have sent two up the Vyl with only four left to try to take the city. I’d wager on eight.”

Quaeryt nodded. “So would I.”

“And I’d not be surprised if we don’t see them right soon, late this afternoon, certainly by tomorrow. They’d want to attack before we got back and before Bhayar gets all the other troops from the east.”

“How many more has he called in?”

“I don’t know. Deucalon and Myksyl wouldn’t say. If he stripped all the garrisons, I’d judge another eight regiments. Maybe ten. They say he started building regiments as soon as he left Tilbor at Year-Turn.”

That was something Quaeryt hadn’t heard.

“Right now … we need to worry about dealing with the Bovarians with what we’ve got.”

Quaeryt couldn’t argue with that, either.