Scepters (30 page)

“Better
to be moving, rather than sitting and waiting,” Feran said.

“I
feel better on the move, too, but I’d like to know more about where we’re
moving,” Alucius replied dryly.

“Even
when you do know, you really don’t.”

Feran
was probably right about that, too, reflected Alucius. So often, knowledge
could be an illusion, particularly if the knowledge wasn’t firsthand and
hard-won.

“I’ve
been thinking about the scouts,” Alucius said. “What if we just sent patrols
down the roads, maybe full squads as patrols?”

“You
don’t think they’d just pick them off?”

“Not
at first. They’d have to send out squads and patrol all the roads. I’d like to
learn more about this place.”

“If
what you have planned for today goes right, they might do that tomorrow.”

“Where?”
asked Alucius. “Even if they have two other camps and six companies, they don’t
know where we’ll be. If the lancers we fought the other day are any example, we’ll
do better at picking them off here and there. We’ll attack, then move back to
the way station and get refreshed and resupplied.” He should have adopted that
approach to begin with, but he’d never dealt with anything like the situation
in Hyalt before. Then again, he doubted anyone had.

He
looked at the hills to the northwest. The stump-covered and gullied ground
looked tired, with its intermittent low bushes and sparse grass. Even to his
Talent, it felt tired. Could land feel tired? According to what the soarer had
told him years before, whole worlds got tired, and the ifrits made that happen
more quickly. But how long did worlds last? Or did the worlds continue on as
lifeless lumps once the spirit of life was exhausted?

“You
look grim,” Feran observed, his voice cheerful. “We haven’t even seen anyone.
Isn’t that better than another skirmish right off?”

“I
was just thinking.”

“That
can be dangerous,” Feran said lightly.

Alucius
chuckled, then observed, “There weren’t any survivors. No one tried to escape.
I’ve never seen that.”

“Haven’t
either. Could just have been the way things happened there.”

“Could
be.”

“You
don’t sound convinced.”

“Are
you?”

Feran
shook his head.

Ahead,
the road began a long and gentle turn more to the south. To the west, beyond
the rolling hills, was another set of higher, redder, and drier hills, and in
the dim hazy distance, the peaks of the Coast Range, marking the old boundary
between Lanachrona and Madrien. To the east was a short flat stretch of meadow,
although the grass was also sparse, before the ground rose into juniper- and
cedar-sprinkled hills.

As
the companies rode southward, and as the sun crept over the hills to the east,
Alucius continued to study the road and the area to the east. After another two
vingts, the road turned due south, then angled sharply westward. As he neared
the curve, Alucius turned to Feran. “We’ll stop at the turn there.”

“Column,
halt! Pass it back!”

“Column
halt!”

Fifth
Company came to a halt, followed by Thirty-fifth and Twenty-eighth Companies.

“You’re
going to lead the squad, aren’t you?” asked Feran.

Alucius
had debated himself, back and forth, on whether he should lead the fire detail.
In the end, he’d decided he would do so. One reason was simple enough—if
necessary, he could use his Talent to touch off the powder. “I know it will
work, and they’re more likely to get back.” Alucius smiled. “If you thought I
was wrong, you’d say something.”

“I
don’t like it, but you’re probably right.” Feran snorted. “I’ve been worried
about this duty from the beginning, and I still am.”

“So
am I, but that’s another question. We’ll be as quick as we can.” Alucius turned
the gray. “Fifth squad forward!”

Nineteen
men rode forward along the edge of the narrow road, led by Zerdial. The
once-youthful-looking and thin squad leader was harder than when Alucius had
first made him a squad leader, and the thinness had become a tough angularity.
The squad leader reined up.

“Zerdial,
your squad set? With all the burn bags?”

“Yes,
sir.”

“Let’s
head out, then, along that trail until we reach that outcropping to the
southeast. One scout two hundred yards ahead.”

“Yes,
sir. Orlant, you take scout.”

Once
Orlant was past him, Alucius turned the gray off the road and along the narrow
trail following the scout. Zerdial and the rest of fifth squad followed.

For
the first several hundred yards the trail was almost flat. Then it swung south
between two cedars and angled back east, up the side of the hill in a gradual
climb. Although Orlant was well forward, Alucius scanned the trail in front as
well as the sparse woods on all sides. For the first half glass, he could
detect almost nothing except some grayjays and rodents. As they neared the top
of the first rise, through the trees, Alucius could see a thin trail of smoke
to the east against the early-morning sky, beyond an even steeper line of
hills.

The
squad drew up at the ridge crest, with Orlant and another scout posted out from
the squad, while Alucius spent several moments checking his maps and studying
the two narrow trails. Then he nodded. “The left one. It should bring us up on
the north side of the camp, and if Waris’s reports were right, we could come
out on a low bluff.”

The
trail wound down, then back up and farther to the north before turning back to
the southeast. To cover perhaps a vingt as an eagle flew took close to three
vingts on the trail, and it was late midmorning when they stopped again.

To
the south beyond the thicker junipers where Alucius had ordered the stop and
just over the ridgeline above them, Alucius could sense both people and
something
that was similar to an ifrit, but wasn’t, a
vague dark purpleness. What could be like an ifrit, but not? He decided that
question could wait. As he scanned with his Talent, he looked at the maps once
more, not that he needed them, but he wasn’t about to explain that he didn’t.
He raised his eyes to Zerdial.

“The
camp is almost due south, over that ridge. We’ll ride up through the trees and
stop just short of the top. Then I’ll move forward and study the layout quickly
and come back with instructions on who will use their burn bags where.”

“Yes,
sir.” Zerdial turned in the saddle. “Follow the majer, and keep it quiet.”

Alucius
eased the gray from behind the junipers and started up the uneven slope. He
reined up about twenty yards from the crest. There he dismounted and handed the
gray’s reins to Orlant. Carrying one rifle, he made his way up the slope,
moving sideways as well, until he reached the crest at a point just behind an
ancient cedar. Keeping low, he eased up behind the cedar’s trunk and studied
what lay below.

Several
grayjays squawked, but then flew westward.

The
camp was almost exactly the way that Waris had described it—or rather, Waris
had described it accurately. Alucius studied the lines of vegetation and the
trees and spiky thorns particularly. All but one area could be reached from
cover, and the wind was from the west, which should fan the flames downhill
into the areas of dry spiky thornbush. Alucius set down his rifle and took out
the map, marking the spots for each two-man team.

Then
he spent more time using his Talent. He could detect no one in the heights
above the camp—not a single patrol or sentry. That suggested a lack of solid
military training, or something else. The darkish purple that was visible only
to Talent seemed to be centered in the cave area that was to his right and
farther south, but there was a thin miasma over the entire camp. For Alucius,
that was as good as an announcement that the ifrits were involved. It was also
useless as an explanation of anything to anyone else. He couldn’t exactly
explain the evil behind beings that no one else had seen and no one else alive
could explain—except for Wendra and the ifrits and their allies and servants.

Finally,
he slipped back down to the waiting squad.

“Gather
round.” As the squad circled around Alucius, he began. “We’re just to the north
of the camp, and it’s below us, set against a curve in the bluffs. Each of you
is to fuse your burn bags and place them so that the areas of brush and thorn
catch fire. That will take away part of their defenses so that we can attack
later from more points. It might also keep them guessing. Once you get things
burning, return to the juniper grove down below here. We’ll reassemble there.
Anyone who’s not back in a glass will have to find his own way back. Is that
understood? Now… I’ll explain to each team where your targets are…” Using the
map and his own study of the camp, he described each target area to each
two-man team. When he was finished, he looked at Zerdial. “Let’s go.”

He
remounted the gray and rode eastward, keeping below the crest of the ridge but
still scanning with his Talent. He picked up more rodents, including tree-rats,
and the grayjays, and several larger animals—a mountain cat, he thought, and
several deer—but no sentries or patrols. That absence continued to worry him.

Alucius
had given himself the farthest and the trickiest assignment, the one to the
east, just above the broadest section of spiky thorn—but the area most
vulnerable to an attack by lancers if there were no thorns. It was also the
closest to the camp, and the one area most likely to have patrols.

A
good vingt to the east and south, Alucius reined up below the ridge-line,
although it was more of a plateau running to a drop-off holding the spiky
thorns than a ridge. From what he could see and sense, the only guard was one
stationed at the end of the palisade running out from the gate at the narrow
east road entrance.

Alucius
dismounted and tied the gray to the only tree nearby, a bent juniper. He took
the three burn bags from behind the saddle and slung them over his shoulder.
Then, rifle in hand, and moving in a low crouch, he eased along the gentle
slope toward the drop-off. He crawled the last few yards until he was stretched
behind a low bush. From there, he looked at the spiky thorn below. It was
farther away than he had realized, a good fifty yards to the south of the base
of the low bluff, and the area was open and exposed enough that to drop down
the two-yard irregular rocky and sandy slope, then move close enough to make
sure that the spiky thorn caught fire, would leave him totally exposed to the
sentry—and anyone else who might be alerted.

The
sentry was not especially alert, but he did scan the area where Alucius lay.

Alucius
looked westward and uphill, watching.

One
thin trail of smoke appeared, then another. Shortly, there was a third.

“Fire!”
The call was faint, but Alucius could make it out.

He
lifted his rifle and waited.

Finally,
the guard turned to look to the west, moving enough away from the wooden
pillars of his sentry box so that Alucius had a clear shot. At that distance,
it took him two shots, but with the yelling from the camp, no one noticed—for
the moment—the sentry slump out of sight.

At
that instant, Alucius left the rifle and scuttled over the edge of the
drop-off, scrambling down the sandy and rocky slope, then ran toward the wall
of spiky thorn.

Striker
in hand, he lit the fuse of the first burn bag and hurled it to the south. The
second went straight in front of him, to the southwest, and the third flew to
the west-southwest. He paused for a moment, using his Talent, but he could feel
that all three bags were burning fiercely. He also sensed no one nearby.

He
ran back toward the bluff, scrabbling up the slope, grabbed his rifle, then
hurried across the near flat until he reached his mount. A quick glance to the
west showed that more fires were appearing around the rebel camp. From the
south, Alucius could hear a bell clanging as he untied the gray and mounted.

He
rode back westward at a quick walk. There was a wind, light and out of the
southeast. Alucius wasn’t sure what, if any, effect the wind would have, but he
could see the smoke welling up from the south in more and more places, and the
air around him began to smell smoky as well.

As
he neared the rendezvous point, Alucius began to sense other men coming from
the south. They had to have been climbing straight up from the camp below, but
near the rendezvous point, that climb was close to a hundred yards of
near-vertical face.

“Zerdial!
Is everyone here?” Yes, sir!

Alucius
almost ordered them to depart. Instead, realizing that a half squad or so of
rebels had reached the top of the bluff and that those rebels were almost at
the ridgeline, he snapped. “Oblique firing line to the south! Now!”

Despite
the irregular command, fifth squad formed up.

“Rifles
ready!”

Alucius
watched the ridgetop until, within moments, nine men in maroon charged over the
top on foot and down toward fifth squad, raising their rifles as they ran.

“Fire
at will!”

Twenty
rifles fired almost as one. Four men dropped where they stood. Two others,
blood streaming across faces and tunics, staggered forward. Three others
sprinted toward the lancers as if nothing could touch them, shooting wildly.
Fifth squad continued to fire.

Alucius
held his own fire, looking to the ridgeline. Two more armsmen in maroon
appeared, and they too hurried downslope, both of them headed directly toward
Alucius.

Alucius
lifted his own rifle, aimed, and fired. The bullet struck the first of the
remaining two armsmen in the forehead, and he pitched forward onto the trail.
Alucius hit the second man in the shoulder, but the rebel still tried to aim
his weapon at Alucius until Alucius’s third shot silenced him.