Scepters (33 page)

“Have
you seen anything that would prove this?”

“I
know what I know, and the prophet Adarat knows what is and what will be.”

Alucius
tried a few more questions, but the answers were invariably the same. Adarat was
the prophet, and Adarat knew what was to be. Finally, he looked to the lancers
standing five yards away, beside the rail fence. “Take him back to his stead.
Let him go, but make sure you take care of yourselves.”

“Yes,
sir.”

The
holder did not look back as he was led away under the low clouds that had
promised rain and delivered but an occasional drizzle.

“Even
the lancers of the Matrial weren’t that bad,” mused Alucius.

“Coming
from you, sir,” Feran replied, “that doesn’t make me feel especially good.”

Alucius
walked slowly to the gray, untethered his mount from the rail fence, and
remounted. He looked to Feran. “I don’t think we’ll get more answers, but we
ought to try a few more holders, or their wives.”

The
overcaptain nodded.

Another
two glasses later, after getting almost identical answers from two holders and
the widow of a third, Alucius brought his force to a halt while he composed a
message to Marshal Frynkel, one that summarized events so far, emphasizing the
fanaticism of the rebels. Then he dispatched Hikal, along with two other
lancers, northward to the last way station, from where the dispatch riders
could take it to Tempre and the marshal. He told the three to remain at the way
station until the force returned or until he sent orders, since he had no idea
where his force might be in a few days.

Then,
after seeing the three off, he ordered his force westward and then northwest,
along the road he had mapped out earlier.

Feran,
riding beside Alucius, cleared his throat.

Alucius
turned in the saddle.

“I
have bad feelings about this,” Feran said slowly. “Especially when you send off
messengers like that.”

“That
makes two of us.” Alucius looked down the road, angling northwest away from
Hyalt. “We’ll avoid Hyalt itself for now. Then we’ll find another hilltop
campsite for tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll locate the other rebel camp.” Alucius
couldn’t bring himself to call them Cadmians, no matter what they called
themselves. “Then, we’ll see what we can work out to get rid of them both. I
want to find out about the other camp or camps first, but I’d like to take down
the Temple of the True Duarchy, and this Adarat, before we even try to deal
with the town.”

Feran
nodded. “That makes sense.”

It
made sense to Alucius as well, but whether it was the right tactic was another
question.

In
the warm, damp, and dark air, Alucius was stretched out on his bedroll, not
under it. He was tired, but not sleepy. Or not sleepy enough to drift off when
lying on relatively hard ground. The cedar- and juniper-branch ends under the
bedroll helped, but not really enough, not with all the thoughts going through
his head.

Setting
up another camp hadn’t been that difficult, and the hilltop was more defensible
than the others from which he had to choose. That was good and necessary, given
that they were in the hills less than ten vingts to the west-southwest of
Hyalt, although the hillsides were rocky and rugged. Yet, after encountering
the one messenger patrol, they had seen no more rebels, and he had sensed
nearby none of the purple-linked Talent he had felt from the rebel encampment
to the north and west.

Adarat
had to be an ifrit, or strongly influenced or linked to them. Could ifrits be
killed with Talent-darkened bullets, the way the Talent-creatures could be? Or
could they only be destroyed in the way he had killed the Recorder and the
engineer, through direct use of Talent energy from Alucius himself? Should he
just attack the first camp? Or should he finish finding out what he could about
all the camps and rebels? Why were the ifrits trying to establish a foothold in
Hyalt? What role did the Regent of the Matrial play? How many more of the
Talent-influenced lancers were there? What had really happened in Hyalt so that
no one left? What was it about whatever Talent Adarat had used that left the
rebels and stead holders still believing in the True Duarchy? Did that kind of
Talent-use change what people believed forever?

The
questions going through his mind seemed endless, and then he thought about
Wendra. She had to be fine; the wristguard would have let him know if she were
not.

Finally,
forcing himself to recognize that he had answers for neither worries nor
questions that evening, he closed his eyes.

His
sleep was restless.

“Sir?”

“What?”
Alucius shook his head, then sat up in his bedroll. He couldn’t have slept that
long. He looked through the darkness at the face of the lancer standing a yard
away, his herder’s nightsight telling him that the sentry was Noer. “What is
it?”

“The
prisoner killed himself.”

“How?”
Alucius stiffened. “He was still tied up, wasn’t he?”

The
young lancer grimaced. “Yes, sir. Hands behind his back. Guess he found a rock
with a sharp edge. Just kept sawing at his wrists when no one was looking.
Blood everywhere. Never made a sound. Don’t know how he did it.”

Alucius
shivered. How on earth could a man do that? Why on earth? Because he still
believed in the prophet? Or because he realized that he’d been deceived and had
lost everything?

Alucius
didn’t feel as though he’d slept at all when he finally rose before dawn on
Novdi morning. He’d had the wall dream again, with the same ifritlike stone
walls closing in on him, with no doors and windows. Once more, he’d awakened in
the middle of the night, sweating, and it had taken him a while to cool off and
get back to sleep—and to push away the sense of being walled in by his own
actions. Now, every part of his body felt stiff and sore, or so it seemed as he
rose and stretched, his eyes taking in the campsite, where most lancers still
slumbered.

He
looked up. The clouds and drizzle of the previous day had been replaced with a
thin fog, but he could see a clear sky above the low-lying whiteness that
drifted in patches around and over the hilltop camp. He had barely gotten
himself together when a call echoed through the white-fogged gray of the
moments before dawn.

“Rebels
on the road!”

“Companies
form up! In ranks! On foot!” Alucius bellowed. “South facing!”

He
found Feran less than ten yards away. “Have Fifth Company take the center. Put
them in kneeling or prone positions. We’ll take fewer shots that way.”

“Yes,
sir.”

Alucius
could tell Feran agreed with that, and he merely added, “I’ll try to find
Deotyr and Jultyr. If you see them first, convey my orders.”

“Yes,
sir.”

Alucius
found both captains heading toward him, and he relayed the same orders, ending
with, “Twenty-eighth Company take the west flank, Thirty-fifth the east. And
tell your men to keep down and make every shot count.”

“Yes,
sir.”

As
the three companies formed up, Alucius took a position in the center of the
formation that followed the curve of the hill. He had both his rifles with him
and his ammunition belt.

For
almost a quarter of a glass, there were no sounds from the road. Then, a
handful of shots echoed through the thin fog. Alucius heard a bullet smash into
a juniper slightly uphill and five yards to his right. He couldn’t say that he
was surprised that the rebels were trying to use the fog as cover for an
attack, but he didn’t understand the comparatively few shots being fired. His
Talent-senses indicated that at least a company of rebels was moving uphill
through the fog, still mounted, but the fog was thicker along the lower-lying
road, and while Alucius could sense the attackers, he could not see them. He
was just thankful that he had ordered the sentries be stationed even farther
away from the campsite than he had in the past.

He
wondered. Were other rebels sneaking up on other sides of the campsite?

His
Talent-senses showed nothing, except for the force moving uphill toward them.
He held his first rifle ready, because his ears could hear the sounds of hoofs
on soil below, seemingly magnified by the fog.

“Prepare
to fire!” he ordered.

“Prepare
to fire!”

Less
than fifty yards below him, the first maroon-clad lancer trotted his mount out
of the patchy fog, in a place where the whiteness had thinned.

“Fire
at will!”

Alucius
squeezed off his first shot, and the lancer dropped, knocked from his saddle by
the force of the bullet from the herder’s heavy rifle.

Along
the line, there were other scattered shots, but not many, and then, for another
quarter glass, there was comparative silence across the hillside. Alucius could
sense the rebels below, holding a rough line in a fog that was slowly thinning
under a sun that had finally risen. After taking the lull as a chance to
reload, Alucius looked skyward. Above, he could see patches of silver-green
sky, patches that were becoming more frequent.

Alucius
sensed movement below.

“Prepare
to fire!” The command was unnecessary, technically, but he used it as a
warning.

“Prepare
to fire!” The echoes of the officers’ repetitions had barely died away when
rebel lancers and their mounts burst out of the fog below. Most did not seem to
be using rifles, but charged uphill swinging blades of various lengths.

The
rifles of the defenders
cracked
and even thundered,
and rebel after rebel went down, as did many of the mounts. Alucius fired
methodically, going through the first rifle, then the second. The attackers
thinned. He reloaded one rifle quickly and barely managed to get off two shots
at near-point-blank range at a rebel who was less than ten yards away.
Somewhere below, a man was moaning, and to the west a horse screamed. At least,
it sounded like a wounded horse.

Alucius
swallowed. He waited, and kept waiting, but not another rebel lancer appeared.

Slowly,
he used his Talent to scan the hillside. He could sense some badly wounded
figures, but none mounted.

“Hold
your positions!” he ordered.

The
time passed, and the fog continued to thin rapidly until, a half a glass later,
only wisps remained, not enough to conceal the carnage of fallen men and mounts
below.

“Fifth
Company, take cover and advance! Five yards at a time!”

He
knew the caution was not necessary, but there was no other way to convey to the
lancers that the hillside contained no further danger.

A
glass later, Alucius was checking the gray and his gear, ready to mount. He
heard a mount approaching and turned.

Egyl
reined up short of Alucius, followed by Feran.

“Yes,
Egyl?”

“We
did a quick search of the bodies, sir, like you ordered.”

“What
did you find?”

“Sir…
a lot of those lancers were either barely more than boys or they were
graybeards. Most of them didn’t have rifles, and the blades were mostly old and
of all sorts. Their tunics hardly matched, up close.”

“The
rebels in the other attacks weren’t like that, were they?” asked Alucius,
although he already knew the answer. No, sir.

“You
think this was some sort of feint?”

Egyl
glanced downhill. “Don’t know what to think, sir.”

“Thank
you,” Alucius said. “We’ll be leaving shortly.”

“Yes,
sir. I’ll tell the men.”

Feran
remained, waiting until Egyl had ridden out of easy earshot. “Do you think we’ve
worn them down to that few?”

“No,
but I couldn’t say why,” Alucius admitted. “They were sent against us for a
reason, but I can’t figure out why. What worries me most about this prophet is
that he’s willing to have hundreds of lancers slaughtered for whatever his
goals are. Anyone who does that…”

“Maybe
that
is his goal,” Feran suggested.

“To
have us create so much carnage that it undermines the Lord-Protectors rule?”

“Can
you think of another reason?”

The
only ones Alucius could think of were even worse. “We’d better get moving.”

Nothing
was going the way he’d thought it might, and yet… what else could he have done?
Even rusty blades and the few mismatched rifles would have killed all too many
of his lancers had he done nothing. And retreating without fighting would have
undermined the Lord-Protector’s rule and authority even more than the carnage
Alucius found himself creating.

Salaan, Lanachrona

Tarolt
ana the angular Recorder sat on opposite sides of the circular table. A pitcher
of clear liquid rested on a silver tray halfway between them.

The
Recorder took a sip of the liquid, setting down the crystal goblet. “I miss
Efra. Even more than the towers against the golden sky, or the perfumes of
summer, I miss the food. It was an art in itself, firetails marinated in the
liqueurs of Serela and stuffed with dauflin, grilled to perfection so that each
bite melted…”

“There
is much to miss… but even more that will vanish if we do not succeed. As
always, we must create a new and greater Efra.”

The
Recorder nodded somberly.

“What
does the Table show of the events in Hyalt, Trezun?” asked Tarolt, after a
silence.

Trezun
fingered the base of the goblet, purple eyes burning out of his pale white
face. “Adarat has taken the shadow most successfully… or, I should say, the
shadow has taken him most successfully. He has maneuvered the majer into an impossible
position, and one in which, even if Majer Alucius succeeds in subduing the ‘revolt,’
the Lord-Protector’s authority will be undermined greatly, and he will be
regarded as a barbarous butcher.”