Scholar: A Novel in the Imager Portfolio (64 page)

“I’m certain Commander Pulaskyr can flatten Vurlaent’s hold. After that, the others will likely capitulate.”

“I trust that will be so. That will give us the winter to rebuild. Without the threat of the hill holders, we’ll pick up more rankers. We might pick up a few deserters as well.”

“More than a few, I’d wager. Enough to add another full battalion.”

“It would be helpful if they were archers. We’ll need another two companies by then.”

Quaeryt stood in the space beside the massive hearth for more than a glass, but the rest of the conversation with Commander Myskyl and those with other officers all dealt with the conduct of the campaign. Finally, behind his concealment shield, he slipped away and out of the hold house that held little of value that could have been moved. He found a shaded space behind a large juniper at the south end of the dwelling, where he released the concealment, then headed back to find the officers of Sixth Battalion.

Again … what he’d heard wasn’t totally conclusive, but it was more than suggestive, especially the words about archers, because archers were supposedly only good in pitched battles. For what pitched battles was Rescalyn planning?

It took him almost half a glass to find Gauswn, whose company was located in an outlying sheep shed that no longer held sheep—only pungent odors that made it clear that the ovine presence had been most recent.

“Sir?” asked the undercaptain on seeing Quaeryt approach.

“The governor has requested that you and I conduct services this evening, much the way we did at Boralieu.”

“Yes, sir.”

“By the way, Cyrethyn speaks most highly of you. I’m not certain he doesn’t think you should be a chorister.”

“No, sir. I couldn’t think up things the way either of you do.”

“That just comes with practice and experience in life.”

“I think it takes more than that, sir.”

Quaeryt wasn’t about to argue on that point and said, “You know the openings, the invocation … the confession…”

“Yes, sir.”

“I think we should skip the offertory.”

Gauswn nodded.

In less than a quint, the two had completed the arrangements and organization for the evening services. After that, Quaeryt found a quiet spot in the rear and very rustic herb and vegetable gardens to think about a homily that was true to the precepts of the Nameless and also “appropriate,” as Rescalyn had put it. He didn’t like being put in the position of delivering homilies under the auspices of a deity of whose existence he was most uncertain, and especially doing so in the middle of what was turning into a very bloody campaign. Yet … refusing to do so helped no one, including the rankers who were the ones shedding most of the blood. It also wouldn’t help him or Lord Bhayar or his goals for scholars and eventually imagers—goals he thought were worthwhile.

But doesn’t everyone with a mission believe their goals are worthwhile? Doesn’t Rescalyn?

He knew the answers to those questions, and they didn’t offer much comfort.

All too soon the rest of the afternoon and supper passed, and Quaeryt and Gauswn stood on the flat space north of the hold house, facing several hundred men and officers. Gauswn handled the invocation and confession, and skipped the offertory, then turned to Quaeryt.

“Under the Nameless … all evenings are good,” Quaeryt began. “But we all know that some are better than others.” He’d hoped the dryness of the way he delivered those words would get at least a few smiles … and he saw some. “We’ve all been through some long days lately, and there might be a few questions about how it all came to this. Well … I can’t claim any insight into what the Nameless might think, but I have seen, now and again, as have most of you, what happens when people, even rulers, think that they don’t have to abide by the laws and rules of a land … when they think they’re above those rules. In an important way, acting as though you’re above the laws is no different from Naming. It’s just another way of claiming that you’re better than anyone else.…”

Quaeryt paused and gestured toward the hold house. “Holder Saentaryn didn’t want to pay his tariffs like other holders. He stole coal from other holders and killed hardworking miners … and what was his reward for his Naming? Who will remember his name or his evil … or even any good he may have done? I can’t say whether it’s exactly the will of the Nameless, but those who attempt to exalt their names through evil and greed and reaching beyond their true abilities … well … all too often, it doesn’t go well for them.

“Now … it’s easy to look at someone in power, especially one who has fallen from power or someone evil, and say they deserve what happens, but we can fall into that trap in our day-to-day life, to justify weighted bones in gaming with a comrade who’s not quite so sharp … or just tired, or to bet more than he can cover … or even … you all know the little tricks that those who don’t care enough about their comrades can come up with. But there’s a problem with this sort of little Naming, just as there is with big Naming. In fights and battles, we all need each other. If any of you have been shorting your comrades, one way or another, can you be certain they’ll make every effort to protect your back? Even if they’re honorable, and almost everyone is, will that worry hamper you when things get tight?…” Quaeryt went on to strengthen those points, trying to stress how the values of the Nameless strengthened the regiment and benefited each and every man and officer.

After the benediction, Rescalyn appeared and walked toward Quaeryt. “Most appropriate, scholar. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

As the rest of the men and officers slipped away, Gauswn turned to Quaeryt. “I still say you’d make an excellent chorister, sir.”

“Thank you … but I think both the Nameless and I would be happier if I weren’t, Undercaptain. I have too many doubts to be a good chorister, much as I believe in the values for which the Nameless stands.”

“We all have doubts, sir. What matters is what we do, given those doubts.”

Quaeryt couldn’t have agreed more, but he worried a great deal about whether his own actions met those standards … and whether they would in the days and weeks ahead.

84

The regiment left the smoking ruins of Saentaryn’s holding slightly before sunrise on Lundi. Everything that could not be used or transported immediately had been put to the torch or otherwise destroyed shortly after dawn. While there were no attacks on the column during the morning, scouts did report seeing mounted figures in the trees by late in the afternoon.

“Why no attacks now?” Quaeryt had asked.

“Those who are Saentaryn’s see no point. Not now. Those who serve others are saving every man to defend the hold,” replied Skarpa.

And every woman and youth.
Quaeryt kept that thought to himself.

For whatever reason, either that expressed by Skarpa, or for some other, there were no attacks on the regiment during the ride. The column drew up and camped on a flat less than two milles from the approach to Demotyl’s holding, presumably the same flat that Myskyl and Rescalyn had discussed the day before. That night, there were no attacks, either, although scouts verified that there was activity at the holding, and a gathering of forces there.

Well before true dawn, the regiment moved through a misty fog that was almost a drizzle toward the heights to the east of Demotyl’s holding. Unlike at Waerfyl’s hold, all the buildings were of stone, with split-slate roofs, and there was a low wall on the south edge of the flat ridge on which the structures were set, a wall overlooking terraced fields that had been harvested days or weeks earlier.

As the Sixth Battalion drew up in the trees in the center of the wedge, a good half mille from the main hold house, and positioned so that the battalion didn’t have to deal with the southern wall, Quaeryt glanced upward at the thickening clouds, barely visible through the drizzling mist. He shook his head.

“You’re asking why now, scholar?” Meinyt offered a crooked grin. “Because the rain will really come down later, and everything will be slop for days. The governor wants to take the place before it does and hole up there while things dry out.”

“… and we’ll get the holes, and he’ll dry out,” came a murmur from the ranks behind.

Meinyt glanced back sharply, if but for a moment. There were no more comments, low-voiced or otherwise.

The attack began with two squads from another battalion—Quaeryt didn’t know which—riding to one of the outlying barns and breaking down the doors and loosing the horses that had been herded inside. But no one emerged from any of the buildings.

“They’re going to play turtle,” predicted Meinyt. “It’ll cost them dear.”

No matter what they do, it will cost them dearly.
Quaeryt did not voice the thought.

For a time, the only sounds were those of horses, the air so chill that their breath was sometimes a hot fog that drifted upward from their nostrils before dissipating. Then a team pulled in an engineers’ wagon, and the engineers unloaded various lengths of wood and other items. Before long, they had positioned a bombard less than a hundred yards from the north end of the main hold building. Shortly, the weapon began to hurl moderate-sized boulders, no more than two or three stones in weight, at the shuttered upper window. Not all hit the shutters, and those that didn’t merely bounced off the thick stone walls, but after a half glass or so, the shutters were gone and the narrow window gaped open. Then came the crocks of flaming bitumen.

To the east just below Sixth Battalion, another bombard attacked the center lower window. As the bitumen crocks began to fly at that open window, two things happened. Cold rain began to pelt down, and every door in the holding opened—side doors, barn doors, cellar doors—and armed figures swarmed toward the bombards. The engineers retreated in full run, and the horn sounded the charge.

Once more, Quaeryt followed Meinyt, his staff out and ready, as Sixth Battalion crossed the open ground from the trees and swept toward the defenders.

The holders had a definite strategy, because they came at the cavalry in pairs, one man with a long spear or something resembling a pike, and the other with a shorter blade or ax, with each pair targeting a given horseman.

“Beware the pikes! ’Ware the pikes!” came an order, but at least one or two leading riders ended up with their mounts brought down, and several horses screamed.

Quaeryt saw an opening and guided the mare between a pair of holders concentrating on another rider, then turned her, and slammed the staff into the pikeman’s head. He realized that, for a moment, he had an advantage in being partly behind the pikes. He kept moving sideways and trying to strike or otherwise upset each man with the long spear or pike, and he managed to upset or incapacitate five or so before he saw three pikemen ahead bracing their weapons against him.

He couldn’t stop the mare fast enough, and he momentarily extended his shields, hoping he could hold them. For an instant, he felt as though he’d been impaled in two places, but the pain passed, if leaving him light-headed in doing so, and he eased the mare around, trying to rejoin the company.

Another youth lunged at the mare, and Quaeryt knocked him aside. The mare struck him in passing, and he went down under another horse. Quaeryt kept moving, knowing that standing still was an invitation for the mare to be gutted and him to be trapped under her or dragged off and having his throat cut. He tried to keep the staff in play as well, so that anyone near him couldn’t determine where he might strike. He couldn’t get too close to the main building; it was now engulfed in flames.

Already, men and mounts were slipping in the mud, and the battle had deteriorated into what amounted to hand-to-hand fighting, where the mounted soldiers had an advantage because four hoofs had better footing than two boots in the slop that seemed to be everywhere. But as soon as battalions had wiped out one group of defenders, more appeared from somewhere.

Quaeryt couldn’t help but wonder if some of the defenders had come from those who had fled Waerfyl’s hold, but it didn’t matter where they came from, only that they were cut down or rendered out of combat.

How long the fighting lasted, Quaeryt had no idea, because the icy rain and clouds blocked the sun and turned everything into mud covering mud, but … after a long time, Quaeryt discovered the only figures around him were other Telaryn riders. After another interval, the horn sounded, out of tune, signaling a recall to re-form by squad and company.

Again … while there were more than a few bodies, there weren’t so many as Quaeryt felt there had been all around him. Did a battle—a skirmish—do that to judgment—make it seem like there were more enemies than there were?

As he pondered that, Quaeryt kept looking for Sixth Battalion, finding the companies in one of the livestock wintering barns. While it wasn’t all that warm, Quaeryt was more than glad to be out of the cold rain and mud and in a dry covered space. His fingers were so numb that it took an effort to let go of the staff and dismount.

“We’re just fortunate that we’re not in Eighth Battalion,” said Meinyt, looking back out through the wide doors of the barn into the mixture of rain and snow that fell even more heavily. “They were held in reserve. They got ordered to round up all the horses they loosed earlier. They’ll take casualties from the holders in the woods, and they’ll freeze their asses to their saddles before the afternoon’s over.”

“… might end up with the bloody flux,” muttered someone from farther back in the shed.

“Not likely,” said the captain sharply. “Not if you take care of yourselves.”

“Yes, sir.”

Meinyt walked his mount past each of the remaining rankers. Although Quaeryt couldn’t tell for certain, he had the feeling that the captain had lost more than a squad in the fight to take the hold, although “taking” it wasn’t exactly what had happened because, despite the snow and rain, the main building had turned into a conflagration that was still burning, if not nearly so fiercely as earlier.

Skarpa returned from wherever he’d been in the large wintering barn and stopped by Quaeryt, who was doing his best to remove the cold and near-frozen mud from the mare.