Antiagon Fire (62 page)

“Almost wasn’t an implication,” growled Horan. “Begging your pardon, sir, but Commander Kharllon makes the most ornery jackass I ever had look reasonable. Except he does it with greasy words.”

Quaeryt decided not to address that. “Did you run into problems with the wall?”

“Couldn’t do a thing with the wall at first, not until I imaged a bunch of dirt on the end of it next to the hill. Felt like someone was shielding it. Just guessed where he was standing and dropped big rocks on him. Needed some help from Voltyr to finish the cut through the hill.”

“Threkhyl and Lhandor had some difficulty at the other end, too.” If Aliaro had even stronger imagers in Liantiago, Horan’s suggestion about undermining the walls, perhaps below the shields of those imagers, might be the only way to deal with fortifications.
You’ll just have to see.
“Did you ever see the imager? They wear white uniforms with maroon cuffs.”

Voltyr nodded, as if that confirmed a suspicion. “Four … well … sort of. The two on the wall … their shields held for a bit … so they were only half buried.”

“Or stoned,” said Horan, with a hoarse laugh.

“That makes four, plus their apprentices,” said Quaeryt. He turned and gestured. “Undercaptains! On me! Khalis, bring Elsior, too.” He waited for a time, until all the undercaptains were facing him, mounted in a semicircle.

“All of you did well. Extraordinarily well. This is the first full battle we’ve had where there were other imagers. Four from what we can tell, all with apprentices.” Quaeryt gestured toward the captive. “Elsior is the only one who survived. He wasn’t that well treated, and he didn’t kill himself like some of the others who seemed to think we’re evil ancients from history.” He looked to Khalis. “Has he said anything about that.”

“No, sir. Not about that.”

“We’ll go over that later.” From the way Khalis had phrased his answer, Quaeryt could sense that he had more to say, but not before the other undercaptains. “Now … we all had difficulty dealing with the imagers we faced. It’s likely that those defending Liantiago will be at least as strong, if not stronger, and we may not be able to overcome their defenses so easily. I’ll be talking with each of you individually to learn exactly how you dealt with the imagers here, and to go over possible other ways of dealing with them.” He paused. “Is there anything any of you think we all should know?”

Voltyr cleared his throat. “Some of the men working the catapults were chained to them. That was where we were.”

“We saw the same thing in the middle of the wall and at the west end,” Quaeryt replied. “It may happen again, but we can’t afford to leave the catapults alone.”

“No, sir,” agreed Voltyr. “I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t like what I’m seeing here in Antiago.”

Khalis, Horan, and Lhandor nodded. So did Baelthm, if almost surreptitiously, while Threkhyl snorted.

“Anything else?”

“Do you know what the submarshal has in mind?”

“He said he’d let us know shortly.” Quaeryt offered a rueful smile. “Try and rest a bit, and drink some more watered ale or lager and get something to eat. I’ll start going over things with Undercaptain Voltyr.”

Almost a glass passed before Quaeryt finished talking to all the undercaptains except for Khalis, whom he’d saved for last. While all could supply details to what Quaeryt had seen and deduced, none supplied any real additional information about the Antiagon imagers or the tactics and strategy adopted by the defenders.

Quaeryt couldn’t help but wonder what Khalis might have found out in talking to the captive apprentice imager. “What have you learned from Elsior?”

“He does speak Bovarian … or Antiagon, I guess you’d call it, as well as Pharsi, but his accent is so strong that it’s hard to understand. For me, Pharsi is easier. He’s also scared of you. He hasn’t taken his eyes off you the whole time.”

“Most of you could do what I did—that he saw, anyway.”

“I told him that. I even imaged an iron loop to prove it. That upset him, but not as much as you did.”

“What else?”

“You were right about one apprentice to each master. They’re assigned to a master when they’re fourteen.”

“Do they learn from other masters?”

“Not often. Sometimes, if there’s a skill one master has that the others don’t, they’ll let him teach a few other apprentices, but not all.”

“Just so the knowledge of that skill doesn’t disappear,” said Quaeryt. “How long has Elsior been an apprentice?”

“Less than a year.”

“Does he know how many imagers there are in Liantiago?”

“Not exactly. The Autarch never lets them meet as a group. He’s only seen eleven masters that he knows about.”

“If that’s all Aliaro has, that means he’s got about as many left as we have.”
Maybe not even as many, but that’s hardly likely.

“Begging your pardon, sir, but shouldn’t he have more?”

“I’d be surprised if he doesn’t have more, but not too many more. There aren’t many imagers born, and Telaryn is twice the size of Antiago and probably has four or five times the people, if not more. Also, there are more imagers born to those of Pharsi ancestry, and I don’t think there are that many Pharsi in Antiago … at least not outside the capital. Did you find out anything more about the defenses or what the imagers might do in Liantiago?”

“He said he doesn’t know, except that the walls around the palace are high and thick and that the stone has been hardened over the years. They kept him away from the imagers who are assigned to the palace…”

“The imagers they sent out here were the ones they trusted least?”

“I don’t know,” replied Khalis. “He didn’t say anything like that.”

“Are there other walls or defenses in Liantiago? Besides those around the palace?”

“No … he said that the city has no walls except around the palace. Some of the villas of the wealthy Shahibs have walls, though.”

Another half glass passed before Quaeryt finished talking to Khalis—and having him ask more questions of Elsior—but he didn’t learn much more. That didn’t surprise him.

66

In the end, on Meredi afternoon, after the battle over the wall across the road into Liantiago, Skarpa had Southern Army advance into the western edge of the city proper, where his forces took over two adjoining walled villas that provided some barriers to the attacks he and Quaeryt anticipated, but which never occurred.

Quaeryt took a small room on the main level of the small villa, but while he slept soundly, he woke just before dawn with a jolt. He washed and dressed quickly, conferred briefly with Zhelan, told the imager undercaptains to get ready to move out, and then went looking for Skarpa. He found the submarshal in the study of the larger villa, studying a map laid out on a whitewood conference table that matched the elegantly carved desk, the chairs upholstered in a green velvet, and the settee before the built-in whitewood bookcases. Each corner of the map was weighted down with a leatherbound book, one of which looked older, to Quaeryt, than anything he’d seen in the scholarium in Solis, reminding him, again, that he really needed to replace the book he’d borrowed and lost in the shipwreck, although the replacement would have to be with a different volume, since he doubted that another copy of the one he had lost existed.

“What are you thinking?” asked Skarpa.

“About a lost book.” Quaeryt shook his head. “It’s a long story. Some other time. And you?”

“I’m worried,” Skarpa said bluntly, brushing back hair that seemed grayer than Quaeryt recalled.

“Why?”

“Because the scouts haven’t discovered a single barrier on the avenue leading north to the palace. There are no troopers anywhere in sight in the city, and every house and shop between us and the palace is shuttered and abandoned. We settled in here last evening, and by midnight, everyone was gone. There hasn’t been a single Antiagon scout seen, and there’s no sign of any troopers anywhere but inside the walls of the palace complex.”

“What about the rest of the city?”

“We haven’t checked more than a mille or two, except toward the harbor. Everything’s closed and shuttered, but there are traces of people farther away, just not within a mille or so of the palace.”

“You’re suggesting that Aliaro has weapons that will destroy this entire quarter of Liantiago … and us with it. And that someone warned the people … or they know that.”

Skarpa barked a laugh. “He must have said he does, and maybe he does. The thing is … the scouts also reported that no one has left the palace complex, and there are more walls and more catapults behind those walls this morning.”

“So he had imagers building walls last night, and that means he has imagers to spare…” Quaeryt paused. “It all could be a bluff.”

“He hasn’t sent us a warning or anything like that. That’s one thing that makes me think it’s anything but a bluff.”

Quaeryt nodded. “He didn’t send any messages when he shelled Ephra after Rex Kharst attacked the harbor at Kephria.”

Skarpa stood and gestured at the map before him on the table. “The scouts—and my own eyes—tell me that the map is accurate. Accurate enough for us, anyway.” He pointed. “The palace is in the center of this square. It’s called the Square of the Autarch.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”

“I didn’t think it would. By the way, each side is about fifteen hundred yards long. There is a low wall, two yards high, around the square. Where there were gates there’s now solid stone. The north wall of the square is fifty yards from a sheer cliff, and the hill is sculpted to be hard to climb. Looks like one of the autarchs had imagers carve the hill that way. It’s too far from the palace for archers and too close for cannon, even if we had them.”

Quaeryt took several moments to study the map. “The gardens are all in the rear of the palace it looks like.”

“There are at least three separate gardens, all separated by walls three to four yards high. With all the ponds and pools and walls, trying to get to the palace from the rear…”

“Wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“What would be a good idea?” Skarpa looked at Quaeryt.

“Not trying to attack the palace at all, but getting close enough to bring it down on Aliaro’s crown.”

“What if he’s not there?”

“Where else would he be? Your scouts haven’t seen any large bodies of men leaving. The harbor’s been empty for the last two days, and they couldn’t have pulled out everyone who’s in the palace. The earlier battles showed that they can’t match us on open ground or in the field. So they’re going to concentrate their forces and make us come to them. I told you earlier. They know that until we take Liantiago, we haven’t won.”

“Aliaro could have fled,” Skarpa pointed out.

“It won’t make any difference. Once the palace is destroyed, so is his authority. But that’s why he’ll be there.”

“I don’t see that.”

“Think about it. Everywhere we’ve been there’s been little or no local control. Everyone defers to either the Autarch or their Shahib, out of fear of their power. Everything’s referred to Liantiago. That’s where the decisions are made. What happens if the palace is gone and Southern Army holds Liantiago?”

“Everything falls apart.”

“Exactly. Aliaro has to know that. So do his ministers or advisors. He can’t leave, because if he does, and they defeat us, they’ll know that they don’t need him. If he does, and we take the palace, his life is forfeit anywhere he goes, and everyone will be looking for him. So he can’t leave, and he won’t let them leave.”

“You make it sound like, win or lose, we’ve got problems.”

“The problems are much less if we win—when we win. As Bhayar’s regional governor, you replace Aliaro, and life goes on—with more than a few changes, although you’ll have to make them gradually, just like Rescalyn did in Tilbor.”

“Regional governor? Aren’t you assuming a lot?”

“You really think Bhayar will give up Antiago? He’ll have to let you be governor for a while, and promote you to marshal. That way, you get a generous stipend. If he really wants to replace you, though, he’ll probably give you a small high holding in an out-of-the-way place. If he did any less, he’d face trouble from the other senior officers.”

“We can talk about your dreams for me after we deal with Aliaro,” replied Skarpa dryly. “How do you propose that we bring down the palace?”

“By not letting Aliaro know that’s our intention.” Quaeryt went on to explain what he had in mind.

When he had finished, Skarpa nodded slowly, then asked, “Will it work?”

“I think it will … but until we try it, who knows? What I do know is that we have to get the Antiagon imagers involved from the beginning, and the imager undercaptains have to be able to handle them … at least for a little while. That’s why we’ll use three columns, and why I want the approaches by Fourteenth and Third Regiments to lag the initial attack by first company and Nineteenth Regiment.”

Skarpa looked squarely at Quaeryt. “Answer me honestly. Do you really think we should attack? Why?”

“From a tactical point of view, I can’t think of a single good reason to attack—except that I don’t know anything else that will work. And after seeing what I’ve seen just so far, I’d find it hard to live with myself if we walked away. I also think that trying to get out of here without getting rid of Aliaro and his imagers would be almost as bad as fighting and losing.”

Skarpa nodded slowly. “I have the same feelings. Just looking at the palace complex tells me that.” He took the books off the corners of the map and rolled it up. “Now we just have to brief the senior officers … and ignore Kharllon’s unbelieving expression when I tell him that we’re going to attack the most fortified stronghold in all Lydar without cannon, siege engines, and with only a handful of imagers when the other side has as many troopers, scores of catapults, archers, and likely twice as many imagers. Except I’ll leave all that out.” Skarpa snorted. “Good thing I believe you.”

Let’s just hope you can deliver.
In the back of Quaeryt’s mind was the fear that someday he wouldn’t be able to deliver.
Except that already happened. You couldn’t deliver Khel, and that’s why you’re here.
After a moment, he had another thought.
A perfect example of tripling an already risky wager.