Soarers Choice (33 page)

“Could
you tell if there were other Reillies or Squawts around?” asked Mykel.

“Was
still pretty dark in the trees, sir, but I don’t think so. More than a hundred
yards away, and you could hear birds, and there weren’t any other tracks at the
e.g.
of the woods. Also, the cots between them and
the town had their shutters open, and fires in their chimneys.”

“Sounds
like a lure, some kind of trap,” opined Culeyt.

“We’ll
act as if we don’t know they’re there,” said Mykel. “If they’re setting up
snipers in the woods, we won’t see anyone, and we’ll withdraw if they start
firing. If they’re partly formed up, then they’ll fire some and back off,
trying to pull us into the woods again. I think we can turn things on them in
that case. We’ll go to staggered firing lines and rake them. They’ll either
charge or retreat. If they retreat, no one is to follow them. Let them go.
We’ll get them another way.” His eyes moved from officer to officer. “Is that
clear?”

“Yes,
sir.” The response was murmured, but not resentful.

“Good.
Go get your companies formed up. We’ll move out in half a glass.” Mykel started
to follow the others, but the innkeeper stepped up.

“Majer...
there is the matter of settling ...”

“We
agreed on the golds,” Mykel stated. “I don’t carry them with me. No officer
does. I’ll have them sent to whatever factor here in Wesrigg you name.”

“They’ll
take a cut.”

“No.
They get paid for the service. If they try to take more, send me a note, and
I’ll take care of it.”

“Sir
... you say that...”

“Innkeeper
... with a battalion of Cadmians this close to Wesrigg, it won’t be a problem.
If it is, then the factor is a Code-breaker, and you should know how the
Duarches and the Cadmians feel about that.”

The
innkeeper stepped back. “I’ll be taking your word on that, sir, and thank you.”

The
man was less than totally pleased, but not angry. That would have to do.

Rhystan
was waiting as Mykel stepped out of the ancient Red Ox and into the stable
yard. “Do you think the Reillies will still be there?”

“I’d
guess that they will. If they hadn’t wished to be seen, they wouldn’t have
been.”

“But
why are they being so obvious?”

“I
wish I knew.” Under the long slanting rays of a sun that had barely cleared the
trees on the low rolling hills to the east of Wesrigg, his eyes took in the
slumped roof line of the stable, sagging like a sway-backed mare. “The only
thing that makes sense is the losses that Fourth Battalion took. Somehow, they
think that, if they can do the same to us, the Duarches will back off on
strictly enforcing the Code.”

“So
they can log every old tree for timber and burn the rest for charcoal?” Rhystan
snorted. “I’ve seen what they’ve done on their steads. That’s why they have to
move so often. They wear out the land.”

“They
don’t like outsiders telling them what to do.” Mykel laughed. “None of us do.”

“There’s
a difference...” Rhystan began, then shook his head.

“There
is. You know it, and so do I, but how do you explain it? Anyone who doesn’t
understand before you start talking won’t agree when you’re done.”

“I
suppose that’s another reason why I’m still a Cadmian,” Rhystan said.

Mykel
hadn’t thought of it in those terms, but he realized he would have said the same
thing a year before. Now ... after discovering his Talent, having listened to
ancient soarers — and Rachyla — he wasn’t so sure.

He
eased those thoughts aside as he stepped into the stable to check his gear and
saddle the roan.

Slightly
more than a half glass passed before the battalion was formed up on the main
street between the inns and the muster reported to Mykel, long enough that the
sun, shining through clear air, had warmed the air so that his breath no longer
created a white cloud when he spoke. “Third Battalion! Forward!”

Mykel
rode with the vanguard and Undercaptain Fabrytal, only a quarter vingt back of
the scouts, close enough that Mykel could order them back once the Reillies
were spotted — if they were still there.

As
Culeyt’s scout had reported, a score of Reillies waited on the low hill east of
Wesrigg and south of the high road. They had ridden around the area enough that
they had packed down or scraped away most of the snow.

“Scouts
back!” he ordered. “Third Battalion, rifles ready.”

From
their languid demeanor, to Mykel it was clear that the Reillies wanted to
provoke the Cadmians into pursuing them into the woods, and that
i.e.
had probably been strengthened by seeing Mykel’s
impetuousness of the previous day.

He
eased the roan forward slightly, then took out his rifle, checking it once
more.

The
Reillies were still a good five hundred yards ahead, roughly sixty yards to the
south of the shoulder of the road. They began to form into a rough line so that
they approximated a formation by the time Mykel was some three hundred yards
from them.

The
first shot came from the insurgents when the Cadmians were little more than a
hundred yards away.

“Third
Battalion! Halt! Staggered firing lines! Stand by to fire. Fire at will!” As
Mykel finished the command, he lifted his own rifle and fired once, willing the
bullet home, targeting the Reillie whose mount was slightly forward of the
others. The man sagged in the saddle, then fell. Mykel fired once more, then
again. until he emptied his magazine. Then he reloaded, and fired again.

The
Reillies picked up the pace of their firing, but the years of training Mykel
had insisted on began to show as more and more Reillies fell. Mykel finished
the second magazine and quickly reloaded, but before he could fire, the
Reillies rode back into the woods, at an angle to the southeast.

“Cease
fire! Cease fire!”

Mykel
could sense the line of snipers to the east along the south side of the high
road.

“Third
Battalion, to the rear, ride!”

Mykel
brought the battalion to a halt a half vingt west, in front of the snow-covered
fields and meadows of a smaller holder, an area where it would be hard for
anyone to approach without being immediately obvious from a distance. “Captain
Rhystan!”

While
Rhystan rode to meet him, Mykel used his Talent to try to get a better sense of
where the insurgents might be. Rhystan reined up. “Yes, Majer?”

“I’m
putting you in charge of the battalion, and I’d like your steadiest squad to
accompany me. They have snipers in the woods. I’m going to use their tactics
against them. We’ll ride back, but stop short of where they were. I’ll pick
them off, starting with the closest, one at a time.”

“I
believe, sir, that I mentioned my reservations about the commanding officer
going off alone ...”

“I’m
not going that far. I don’t intend to go more than five or ten yards into the
trees, if that. Your squad will be just inside the trees, just to the west of
where I am. From what I can tell, there’s a larger body another vingt east, but
I don’t intend to get too close to them. There’s no one deeper in the trees
behind the first three or four snipers. The entire battalion will be on the
road, a half vingt or so behind the squad supporting me.”

Rhystan
waited.

“If
we take out the snipers for the first vingt, then the battalion can move
eastward, following the squad with me. If there’s any sign of a massed attack,
I’ll ride back to the squad, and we’ll rejoin you and the battalion.”

“You’re
trying to get them to attack?”

“I
want them off-balance. If I can create the impression that we can beat them in
the woods, they’ll be far less likely to try too many ambushes on Hamylt. Or
... they’ll offer a pitched battle, and we won’t have to spend days or weeks
dealing with them.”

“They
lose too many, and they’ll back off, sir, and we’ll still do that.”

“That
could be.” Mykel smiled coldly. “Then we’ll have to pick them off one at a
time.”

“I
have to point out, sir, that you’re running an unnecessary risk.”

“Your
point is taken, Rhystan. I’ll try to be very careful, and I’ll stay close to
your squad. Which squad?”

“Second
squad, sir. They’re ready.”

“We
might as well start, then.”

Rhystan
raised his hand, and second squad eased out of the column and along the
shoulder of the road, hard-packed gravel better than many of the back roads in
Corns. The squad reined up short of the two officers.

“We’re
going to ride to the
e.g.
of the trees,” Mykel said.
“I’ll be barely into the trees, but I want you thirty yards back of me, right
at the
e.g.
of the trees. You’re to keep an eye out
for other Reillies while I’m looking for snipers.”

Mykel
turned to Rhystan. “I’d like the column back about two hundred yards from
second squad. That way, no one’s really in range of more than one sniper at a
time, if that.”

Rhystan
nodded.

“We
might as well get started.” Mykel realized he’d repeated himself, but there was
no help for that. He turned the roan southward, angling toward the trees,
moving at a slow walk, his Talent-senses extended.

For
the first hundred yards along the tree line, he could sense nothing except
Sixteenth Company’s second squad behind him. Then, perhaps forty yards ahead
through the trees, was a Reillie. Feeling the man’s nervousness, Mykel halted
the roan behind one of the wider-trunked pine trees. He spent several moments
using his Talent to scan the area somewhat farther into the trees before he
rode, slowly, forward and to his right.

The
Reillie kept looking, turning his head from side to side, but not that far to
the rear, as Mykel eased the roan slowly closer, raising his rifle.

Crack.

At
the sound of the old fallen branch snapping under the hoof of the roan, the
Reillie jerked around. He barely had half lifted his rifle when Mykel’s shot
went through his forehead.

The
sound of the single shot echoed through the trees, then faded.

Mykel
continued onward, slowly, moving somewhat to the north and nearer the road so
that Rhystan’s men could see him, at least intermittently.

The
next Reillie sniper was closer to the road, directly ahead, and Mykel reined
up, lifting his rifle, then leaning slightly to his left and firing.

After
the single shot reverberated through the morning, a cascade of powdery snow
slithered off a fir branch and down across Mykel’s neck. He couldn’t help
wincing at the jolt from the cold down his back.

Slowly,
he eased the roan forward.

Almost
a glass passed, and he killed three more Reillie snipers. Ahead, he could sense
a larger grouping of riders, still several hundred yards away to the southeast,
and farther back into the heavier woods, if up a gentle slope. Mykel doubted
that it would be wise to proceed much farther, and he was disappointed, and
concerned, that there had been little reaction to his removal of the snipers.
But then, did the Reillies really even know what he had done? All they had
heard had been occasional shots.

Mykel
eased the roan to a halt, right behind the trunk of a giant pine. He realized
that an uneasy feeling had been building, and that there was an area ahead and
to his right where he could sense nothing ... nothing at all. Could it be the doing
of one of the soarers or their predatory creatures?

Or
was it a Reillie with Talents like his own?

He
didn’t want to move until he had some
i.e.
what he
was facing, yet he knew that remaining where he was left him somewhat exposed,
and he didn’t like either possibility.

The
faintest of sounds brought his head around, and he tried to strengthen his
shields, but two shots hammered at them, throwing him back, and then something
slammed through them, aided by the greenish feel of Talent. The missile — a crossbow
quarrel — had struck his left shoulder, practically yanking him out of the
saddle.

The
Reillie stepped from behind a fir less than ten yards away and deliberately
lifted a rifle. Mykel managed to grab his rifle with his left hand and fire
first, awkwardly and one-armed, willing the bullet straight into the tree
directly behind the Reillie, since he had doubts about using Talent
successfully directly on the Reillie.

The
insurgent pitched forward, a look of astonishment frozen on his face. Mykel
fumbled his rifle back into the case and turned the roan back toward second
squad. He could feel blood oozing out around the quarrel, and a dull throbbing.

The
thirty yards of riding felt like three hundred.

“It’s
the majer...”

“Something
got him.”

“It’s
a frigging iron quarrel.”

Mykel
was feeling lightheaded by the time he reached the vanguard of the battalion.
He was looking for Rhystan when he could feel himself lurching in the saddle.
He tried to grasp the roan’s mane...

Dainyl
slept well for the first part of the night, restlessly for the early morning
glasses, and rose well before dawn. Even after taking his time to wash up,
dress, and walk through the chill morning to the Hall of Justice, carrying a
small amount of gear in a kit bag, it was still well before sunrise when he
stepped onto the Table and dropped through its mirrored surface into the
purpleness of the translation tube.

As
he Talent-linked with the blue locator that was Tempre, he was aware that he no
longer even felt the chill of the tube and that he sensed fewer of the purplish
streaks and flashes than he had the evening before.

In
the distance that might be immediately outside the tube or a continent away, he
could still feel the amber-green that he had once thought to be a chain of
massive Talent links.