Scepters (35 page)

“After
them!” ordered Deotyr.

Alucius
wheeled the gray as Twenty-eighth Company rode in pursuit of the fleeing rebels.
Should he countermand the order? How?

From
the slight ridge on the side of the road, Alucius looked northward, watching as
Twenty-eighth Company closed on the rebels, feeling that something was not
right.

Why
were they fleeing, when they had never done so before?

The
rebels neared the road cut made by the ancient road through the low rolling
hill. There, Alucius saw a low line of what appeared to be packed clay that ran
from one side of the road to the other, and the road behind the clay appeared
to be shiny. Something splashed from the hoofs of the mounts of the retreating
rebel riders.

At
that instant, he
knew
. He forced himself to ignore
the bullets from the south, and concentrated on extending a thin golden green
line of fire northward, toward the liquid in the road cut. His thinnest of
lines of Talent-fire touched the liquid held behind the miniature dikes at the
same moment that the leading riders of Twenty-eighth Company crossed the first
one.

Whhhssst
! A flare of flame erupted from the eternastones,
bathing at least half the rebels in flames, turning them and their mounts into
living torches. The first three or four ranks of Twenty-eighth Company’s first
squad also flared into flame.

Alucius’s
guts twisted. But there was little more he could do, not after Deotyr had
ordered the charge.

He
twisted in the saddle, looking south, but with the fiery gout to the north, the
remaining rebels turned their mounts and fled, pell-mell, south.

“Fifth
Company! Thirty-fifth Company! Re-form! Forward!” Alucius urged the gray
forward and onto the road, riding northward quickly.

Deotyr
had re-formed Twenty-eighth Company, well back from the wall of flame.

The
few remaining rebel lancers rode eastward along the ridge. They were already a
vingt away when Alucius neared Twenty-eighth Company. His Talent sensed no one
nearby besides his own force—no one living. Both a single glance and his senses
told him that there was enough of the oil or whatever it was to turn the dead
mounts and men into little more than ashes, and the fire might well continue
for at least a glass.

He
could feel his entire body beginning to shake, and his eyesight blurring. He
forced himself to steady his hands as he fumbled out the water bottle and
drank, then unwrapped some travel bread for a quick bite. What else could he
have done? He didn’t know any way to have stopped the conflagration, and if he’d
simply waited, he might have lost all of Twenty-eighth Company. Why hadn’t he
seen what was coming more clearly?

He
shook his head. He’d known something was wrong. He never would have ordered the
charge, but, as Feran had said, he couldn’t be everywhere. No one else could
have dealt with the pteridons.

His
hands were still shaking as he took another bite of travel bread. Was his
shakiness his reaction to the flame trap? Or was it overuse of Talent? Had he
used that much Talent? He decided that it had taken more effort than he had
realized to extend his Talent to fire the oil or whatever had been used to
create the deadly flames. But his decision to use Talent still troubled him,
much as he could see no other alternative.

By
the time he finally reached Twenty-eighth Company, the blurred vision and the
shaking had subsided. Alucius kept his face impassive as he reined up close to
Deotyr.

The
captain’s countenance was ashen.

“Captain?”
Yes, sir…

“Casualties?”

“Twelve
men dead, sir, three others burned, two wounded.”

Before
Deotyr could say any more, Alucius spoke. “I don’t recall ordering a charge.
But what is done is done. We’ll talk about it later.” Alucius dared not say
more, not with the rage seething inside him at Deotyr’s stupidity.

“Yes,
sir.”

“Finish
forming up. We’ll have to circle the road cut on the west. We’ll probably have
trouble with the wagons. Pick a detail to help with them.” Alucius glanced at
the low flames still flickering from the road cut ahead. He could feel the
heat. As he turned to head back to check with Jultyr and Feran, he just wished
he could turn away from the stench of burned flesh.

Alucius
rode back southward, both to meet with Jultyr and to avoid saying anything he
would later regret.

As
Alucius neared the older captain, Jultyr studied Alucius’s face before
speaking. For a moment, Jultyr did not speak. Then he said, “One man dead, sir.
One man wounded, sir. Looks to recover.”

“Thank
you. You handled your company well, Captain.”

“Thank
you, sir.”

“Majer!”
called another voice—that of Feran.

Alucius
turned his mount and waited for Feran to join them.

“Just
two men wounded. One took a shot to the shoulder,” Feran reported. “The other
took a bullet in the calf.”

“Fifth
Company did well,” Alucius said. “As always.” He could feel some of the anger
subsiding. “Twenty-eighth Company lost twelve men, had five wounded.” His words
came out flat.

“Lucky
that the rebels set that fire too early,” observed Jultyr.

“They
probably didn’t plan it that way.” Feran looked hard at Alucius.

Alucius
knew Feran understood, and he merely replied, “I wish they’d been even earlier.
Twenty-eighth’s first squad didn’t deserve that.”

“Captain
Deotyr? “ asked Feran.

“He
may have gotten singed, but he was just far enough back.”

“What
was that stuff? Do you know, sir?” asked Jultyr.

“Some
kind of oil, maybe the kind that you can find in pitch ponds. It was dark and
shiny, but not too thick. Their mounts splashed some of it before it caught
fire.” Alucius gestured to the road ahead and the low rise. “We’ll have to ride
around. I told Captain Deotyr to form a detail to help with the wagons.”

“Ah…
the men… ?”

“It’s
still burning. There won’t be anything left but ashes. There’s not much we can
do.”

Jultyr
shook his head. “What a horrible… way to go.”

Alucius
agreed, but he wasn’t sure that any way to die was good, notwithstanding all
the legends of glorious heroism. Dead was dead.

In
the dim light of early evening, Alucius and Deotyr stood at the edge of the
camp, little more than rows of lancers and bedrolls on a low rise twenty-some
vingts north of Hyalt and less than half a vingt to the west of the high road.
All the campsite had to recommend itself was a creek with cold and clear water
that ran along the bottom of the swale to the north of the rise, and the slight
elevation of the low hill—and the fact that men and mounts needed the rest and
that there had been nothing better in vingts.

In
the eastern sky, halfway to the zenith, was the small green disc of Asterta.
That the moon of misery shone down on Deotyr and Alurius was entirely
appropriate, although the dark-haired young captain was obviously unaware of
that coincidence as he shifted his weight from one boot to the other.

“I
said that we would discuss the events of the afternoon later. I did not say
that we would dismiss them.” Alucius kept his voice mild. “Why did you order
the charge? “

“They
had thrown down their rifles, and they were retreating in disorder, sir. It
seemed like the best tactic.”

“Did
I tell you to engage them?”

“No,
sir.”

“Did
you hear me relay orders to Overcaptain Feran granting him the leeway to engage
the rebels?”

“Yes,
sir.”

“Did
I give you similar orders?”

“Ah…
no, sir.”

“But
I didn’t forbid you to order a charge, either,” Alucius pointed out. “That’s
the first lesson, Captain. Discretion always rests with the company commander,
but so does responsibility for the use of that discretion. If you choose to
ignore orders, and there may be a
very
few times
that you should, or if you decide to take an initiative, you should have a very
good reason for doing so. You should have a definite plan for what you intend
to do, and you should understand the situation in which you find yourself.”
Alucius paused only briefly. “Explain to me why you thought charging this
particular fleeing enemy was a good tactic.”

There
was a long silence.

“Come,
Captain… if you did not have a good reason when you ordered the charge, and if
you cannot come up with a good reason after having thought about it all
afternoon… why exactly did you give that order?”

“I
just… well, sir, it felt like the thing to do. I can’t explain why.”

Alucius
nodded slowly. “I’ve done that myself. But there’s a problem with that. If you
can’t explain why you did what you did, even afterward, then you didn’t have a
good reason. Now… consider this. We’ve fought the rebels a number of times.
Before this afternoon, have they ever retreated?”

“No,
sir.”

“Did
you ask yourself
why
they were retreating? They didn’t
just turn and break. They turned just before reaching the company, and they
were ordered to retreat by the sound of a horn. That signal alone should have
told you that the action was planned.”

“Did
you see that, sir?”

“As
soon as I heard that horn signal, I knew that whatever they were doing was
planned, but I was too far away to countermand your orders, Captain. I thought
that trying to do so from a distance could have created even greater confusion
and left the company scattered and even more vulnerable.” Alucius let the
silence drag out for a time. “You were extremely fortunate to have lost only
twelve men. Had they set that oil on fire a few moments later, most of
Twenty-eighth Company would have died.” Alucius did not hammer home the point
that Deotyr would have been among the dead. Nor did he voice his own regrets
that his own options had been constricted by his own limitations. “You need to
know what your own company can do. You also have to be aware of what your enemy
has done, what he can do, and what he might do.”

“Yes,
sir.” Deotyr’s look at Alucius was almost accusing, as if Alucius were
responsible.

Alucius
was
responsible. He hadn’t given Deotyr clear enough
orders, or orders that could not have been misunderstood. Yet, in one respect,
he shouldn’t have had to give such orders. In another, he should have known
that Deotyr was too inexperienced. But it was better not to say that. And, in
the end, for whatever happened Alucius would be the one held responsible.

“Captain.
I could have given you orders to stand fast no matter what happened. And what
would have happened if another company of rebels had appeared? Or if one of
those pteridons had crashed into the ammunition wagon and set it on fire? Every
order is a balance. If I make the order too firm, that can be as deadly as
making it too general.”

“Pteridons?”

“The
Fifth and Thirty-fifth Companies were attacked by them, along with the rebels.
That’s why I moved southward. When they’re fatally wounded, they explode in
nasty bluish flames. You might ask Jultyr about them. Fifth and Thirty-fifth
Companies had as many casualties from them as from the rebel lancers.”

Alucius
still had no idea why the pteridons had appeared when they did, or why there
had been so few that afternoon, compared to the larger numbers on the previous
occasions. He wished he knew if other forces or herders had been attacked, but
he had an uneasy feeling that there had been few, if any, such attacks where
he—or perhaps Wendra—had not been present. But he had a hard time believing
that someone would send such beasts after someone as insignificant as he was.

Deotyr
frowned.

Alucius
wrenched his thoughts away from the Talent-creatures and spoke slowly. “We all
have to learn, and we all learn different lessons, and sometimes the only way
to learn is painful.” That he knew all too well. “You’ll remember this. It
might be difficult to forget it. Just get into the habit of asking yourself why
the enemy is doing something. Or why I do things the way I do. And you can ask
me afterward why I did it. You learn from this, and you’ll be a better officer.
Every good lancer force rests on the quality of its officers, and quality comes
from training and learning and improving.” Alucius offered a smile, one he
hoped was both encouraging and slightly sad. “Neither one of us can undo what’s
been done. We can only learn from it and go on.”

Against
the whispers and murmurs of the conversations of the camp, almost like a
harvest wind, Deotyr was silent for a time before speaking. “Sir… is all… I
mean… the rebels…”

Alucius
laughed gently. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Most other forces I’ve
fought against have much more able lancers, but you could stop them. These
rebels will keep riding until they’re dead in the saddle. It’s the first time
we’ve gotten low on ammunition with so few casualties, but that’s why we’re
moving back to resupply. Without more ammunition, we can’t mount an attack on
their bases.”

After
the afternoon’s attack, Alucius was even more convinced of the necessity of
that resupply—and it wouldn’t hurt for him to rethink things once more. He
almost laughed out loud at his caution. Did command do that to once-impetuous
young officers?

Tempre, Lanachrona

The
gray morning light did little to brighten the Lord-Protector’s study or the
faces of the three men seated within it.

Marshal
Alyniat sat at one corner of the dark oak table desk, the fingers of his left
hand quietly drumming on the wood, while Frynkel sat at the other corner. A
single dispatch lay on the polished desktop where the Lord-Protector had set
it.