Imager’s Battalion (20 page)

Quaeryt could sense the silent protest that they were all tired. He smiled and went on. “I know you’re tired, but one of the things that makes you better and stronger is trying things when you’re rested, but still tired. If you’ll recall, every one of you has gotten more accomplished each time you’ve stretched yourself. Now … once the engineers have the catapult working, they’re going to fling pots toward the woods over there. We’ll walk downhill before they start. Each of you, in turn, will image something into one of those pots with enough force to break it. The idea is to break it before it passes over the wall.” He paused and studied the faces. “Tell me why, Undercaptain Threkhyl.”

“So it won’t get to our troops.”

“That’s half right. What’s the other half, Shaelyt?”

“If we do it quick enough, it might explode on their own men?”

“Exactly. And if we can do that, they might not be so eager to try using it. Either way…” His words got nods from Desyrk, Voltyr, and Shaelyt, and he turned back to the engineer rankers. “How long before you’ll be ready to start?”

“Half a quint, sir, if nothing breaks. Might be a bit longer.”

“We’ll be walking down the slope, but we’ll be away from the trees. Give me a hail when you’re ready. When I tell you to start, I want you to send off six, but not in regular intervals. Vary the time between each.”

“Yes, sir. We might have to try a few first.”

“That’s fine.”

Quaeryt motioned to the undercaptains, then walked to the end of the stone wall, around the still warmish pile of charred wood and other items that had been pushed or shoved there, then past a matted and trampled area of grass and brush, and around a long earthen mound that had likely been a staked pit dug to protect the corner of the stonework, but which had clearly been turned into a burial mound. Something rustled, and he turned to see what he thought was a rat, scurrying into deeper grass.
Scavengers always are quick to show up, even among the animals.
He kept walking.

Fifty yards below the end of the stone wall and some twenty yards from where the woods began, Quaeryt stopped and waited for the undercaptains to join him. “We’ll start here. Once the engineers signal they’re ready, I’ll call out which of you I want to try to destroy the pot coming off the catapult. Try to get it before it crosses the wall, but don’t stop trying until you do.”

“Yes, sir.”

Not all the imagers murmured affirmation, but Quaeryt ignored that.

Almost a full quint passed, along with several objects flung toward the woods, before one of the rankers peered over the wall and called down, “We’re ready, sir!”

“Begin launching!”

Quaeryt pointed. “Akoryt!”

He’d barely gotten the name out when a dark pot flew over the wall toward the woods.

Akoryt never did manage to image anything into it.

“Shaelyt!”

The youngest undercaptain managed to hit the pot some thirty yards from the wall.

“Baelthm!”

Surprisingly, Baelthm imaged something into the jar almost when it crossed the stone rampart, but whatever it was happened to be so small that the jar just broke in two and both halves flew into the woods.

“Good aim,” called Quaeryt, “but you’ll need something a little bigger. Desyrk!”

Desyrk exploded his pot just before it reached the woods.

“Threkhyl!”

Not surprisingly, Threkhyl destroyed a larger pot less than five yards from the ramparts, with little more than small fragments remaining and cascading down.

“Good!”

“Voltyr!”

Voltyr was almost as accurate as Baelthm, but more forceful, so that some of the shards actually dropped onto the stone of the rampart.

“Excellent!” Quaeryt paused, then said, “We’ll try another round here, and then we’ll move downhill.”

During the second round, Quaeryt imaged a rough shard of hot iron into the pot meant for Akoryt when it was almost over the trees, so that it looked like it had hit a tree. That was because he wanted to see if he could do it himself.

Then they walked downhill another fifty yards and repeated the exercise. After that, they retreated another fifty yards. All in all, by the time Quaeryt had finished with the exercises, he and the undercaptains were exhausted and dripping sweat. He’d had to remove his cap several times and blot his forehead to keep the sweat out of his eyes. He was as tired as they were because he’d imaged objects into the pots the imagers had been unable to destroy at the moment they were about to strike the trees. At the end, when they were more than three hundred yards downhill, that meant he was imaging three times as often as Threkhyl, Shaelyt, and Voltyr. Although he’d had to send one of the engineer rankers back for more crockery and other objects, Quaeryt wasn’t displeased with the results. Even Baelthm had managed to destroy pots up to a distance of a hundred yards.

The sun hung low over the buildings on the west side of Caernyn by the time Quaeryt and the imagers started back up the hill toward the town.

As they neared the edge of Caernyn, Quaeryt could hear Desyrk whispering to Shaelyt.

“How does he know all this … must be more than an imager…”

“You’d have to ask him,” replied Shaelyt in a low voice, “but the lost ones always know things that no others know.”

“… these lost ones so powerful…” added Threkhyl in a louder voice, “… why aren’t they the lords and rulers?”

“… part of the curse Erion laid on them … to be powerful and wise enough to rule … and never be able to do so…”

Quaeryt almost stumbled as he heard those words.
Why hadn’t Shaelyt told him that?
After a moment he smiled. The young undercaptain just had, because he’d spoken more clearly and loud enough for Quaeryt to hear. Then Quaeryt frowned. Had Shaelyt created that myth on the spot … and if he hadn’t, why hadn’t he told Quaeryt earlier?

At the moment it didn’t matter, but he did need to talk to Shaelyt about it. He also needed to work in some sort of training about shields for Shaelyt and Voltyr.

23

Quaeryt knew that he needed to visit the High Holders in the area, but after working with the imager undercaptains on Lundi afternoon, it was far too late to set out. Instead, he arranged for fourth company to accompany him and the imagers on Mardi. Then he made inquiries of shopkeepers and others along the main street of Caernyn to find out more about the local holders, discovering that there was only one located close to the town itself, three milles west on the higher ground that he still thought might have once been an island in the River Aluse.

High Holder Haeryn owned and controlled the river docks below the town, situated at the south end of comparatively deep waters that amounted to a bay of sorts, sheltered by two points of higher ground that did not look entirely natural to Quaeryt, much as the locals assured him that the river harbor had not changed much in generations. Haeryn also owned the taproom and the two inns nearest to the river docks, as well as two large warehouses on the higher ground above the docks. Quaeryt suspected the High Holder owned far more than that, but more indirectly.

Although Quaeryt had planned to leave comparatively early on Mardi morning to visit Haeryn, at breakfast Skarpa asked Meinyt and Quaeryt to meet with him at eighth glass. Quaeryt made arrangements for fourth company to stand down until further notice, and then talked with each of the company commanders in turn while he was waiting to meet with Skarpa.

Both Meinyt and Quaeryt were at the near-empty public room of the River Inn a half quint before eighth glass. Skarpa arrived just after they did.

“I didn’t have a chance to read through the dispatch and orders from Marshal Deucalon. I’d received them just before breakfast.” Skarpa shook his head. “He sent ten pages of instructions and cautions.” Then he motioned to a circular table in the middle of the room. Once the three were seated, he continued. “They’re barely past a point opposite Roule. I don’t know what’s taking them so long, because they haven’t fought anything much. Just a few companies here and there, but they’ve been trying to stop crop-burning. That can take time, according to Deucalon, because he doesn’t have imagers.”

Quaeryt didn’t hide the wince.

“You disagree, Subcommander?”

“The troopers did more than the imagers to stop the burning we encountered. Imagers can’t do everything he thinks they can.”

“I don’t think I’ll mention that to the marshal. They’re also having problems getting supplies. Apparently, there aren’t that many large factors or High Holders near the river on the north side, and most of the factors already sold their stores to the Bovarian forces who attacked Ferravyl. That means we’re supposed to stay here until we get further word. We’re also to report our supply situation in the next few days.”

Skarpa turned to Quaeryt. “Didn’t you tell me your imagers can remove locks?”

“If the iron of the hasps isn’t too thick,” replied Quaeryt cautiously.

“Good. We’ve got all these warehouses along the river, and some of them might have supplies we can use. No one seems to know where the owners are.” Skarpa snorted. “I’d rather not break down the doors because then we can’t secure them. I’ll have a squad of quartermasters ready for you after we finish, and you and your imagers can open the warehouses.”

“I’d thought to visit the nearest High Holder, to see about supplies there as well.”

“Let’s see what we’ve got here in town first.”

Quaeryt nodded.

“Here are our instructions, and I’ve been told to read the first part word for word to you two.” Skarpa smiled. “It appears that Marshal Deucalon is aware that you both have creative ways of interpreting general orders.”

Meinyt did not roll his eyes, but he might as well have, given the brief expression that crossed his face.

Skarpa ignored it and cleared his throat. “‘The mission of this campaign is to bring Bovaria into a union with Telaryn. The mission is not to ravage, pillage, or otherwise destroy the lands, the buildings, or the people of these lands, except when and where they offer armed resistance. Force against those not wearing the uniforms of either Bovaria or Antiago should be used only as a last resort, and such use should be appropriate to the situation at hand…’”

Reading the remaining three pages of “instructions” took another quint, most of it wasted, Quaeryt thought, since the message was what he’d already told his officers and men.

After that, Quaeryt and the imager undercaptains followed the quartermaster squad to the warehouses. The two warehouses belonging to Haeryn were locked—and empty. So was the one belonging to the river factors’ guild. A smaller warehouse, belonging to a factor from Nordeau, held not quite a hundred barrels of flour, dried meats, and some dried fruit.

By the time Quaeryt and the imagers finished with the locks at the four warehouses on the river, it was close to two quints before the first glass of the afternoon. Another quint passed before Quaeryt rode out along the road west of Caernyn accompanied by Shaelyt, Akoryt, Baelthm … and Major Arion and fourth company.

“This High Holder … he will not be at his holding,” offered Arion in accented Bovarian.

“It’s likely he won’t be,” agreed Quaeryt.

“Then will you take what we need for supplies?”

“We will have to see,” replied Quaeryt. “It might be that there is nothing to purchase or take. I can’t imagine he has vast lands, or that they produce much.”

“The High Holders of Bovaria always have much.”

“True … but the battalion can’t eat golds or silvers.”

At the dryness of Quaeryt’s tone, Arion laughed.

Before that long, the battalion reined up short of the pair of stone pillars that marked the entrance to Haeryn’s holding. Each pillar supported an iron gate, chained shut in the middle. A stone wall, less than two yards high, ran some fifteen yards from each gate pillar, parallel to the road, ending just short of a hedgerow.

Quaeryt turned in the saddle. “Akoryt, if you’d come forward and image away the hasp of that ugly lock…”

“Yes, sir.”

Quaeryt thought he saw a flash of … something … in the undercaptain’s normally flat brown eyes, but he just watched as Akoryt eased his mount to a halt just short of the gates. After several moments, while the undercaptain concentrated, the body of the lock dropped away from the hasp.

“Are we to replace the lock once we leave, sir?”

“That would be best,” replied Quaeryt.

Akoryt dismounted and lifted the hasp clear of the chains, then unwound the chains and picked up the lower part of the lock. By the time he’d finished, two Khellan rankers had dismounted and began to open the gates.

“Forward!” ordered Quaeryt.

The outriders led the way along the white gravel drive running straight from the gates to the columned portico in the center of the white stone structure that dominated a low rise surrounded on all sides by lawns and gardens. When Quaeryt reached the portico, less than half a mille from the gates, he could see that every window was shuttered. Two decorative iron outer doors were locked across the entry to the hold house whose two wings each stretched some fifty yards from the center of the building, not quite a miniature palace, but far more than a mere mansion.

Quaeryt hadn’t seen any recent tracks on the drive, and the stone steps up to the covered portico were dusty and without any trace of footprints. While he suspected the outbuildings would be locked—and empty, based on what they had found in Caernyn, he turned the mare and led the company along the drive on the west side of the hold house. Every building was locked and shuttered, even the stable, and the two other dwellings on the property were also locked and shuttered.

The almost-eroded deep ruts outside the structure that looked to be a storehouse suggested that it had been emptied weeks earlier. Even so, Quaeryt had Baelthm sever the storehouse lock, but a search of the building revealed only a few barrels of odd provisions—pickles, and several spoiled—from the odor—barrels of dried fruit.

Investigation of the other buildings and the hold house confirmed that there were no supplies to be had anywhere on the holding.