Imager’s Battalion (41 page)

Weapons and pikemen sprayed everywhere, and Quaeryt immediately shrank and unlinked his shields, trying to save his imaging strength as much as possible. Behind him, Ghaelyn’s men began to cut down the defenders. Before him, defenders on the far side of the roughly circular formation dropped their pikes and ran, unable to turn the long and unwieldy weapons in time to face a charge from the rear.

Quaeryt turned gradually, leading first company toward the mounted forces of the defenders, only to find that few of them remained, as second company had been joined by third and fourth companies, and all three were riding toward the town along the road that appeared to lead to the bridge over the River Aluse.

As he led first company after the three companies, letting the Khellans take the lead, from what Quaeryt could see, the streets and sidewalks of the town were empty, the windows largely shuttered, and not even a stray dog ran into or out of the narrow alleyways. He eased back his cap and blotted his forehead and his temples to keep the sweat from running into his eyes, aware once more of just how hot and damp Villerive was in midharvest.

Should we attack the defenders to the east from the rear? Or try to take the bridge?
The first made more immediate sense … except that if the Bovarians rushed reinforcements from the north, he’d rather fight them in the narrow confines coming off the bridge than chance having them evade Fifth Battalion and join the defenders. Failing to stop forces coming from the bridge would only increase the number of defenders arrayed against Skarpa and Meinyt.

He kept riding, glancing to one side and the other as well as ahead, where the remnants of the Bovarian cavalry fled the Khellans, making for the bridge that was less than a half mille away.

Quaeryt glanced toward the bridge over the River Aluse. The road they had followed had turned and angled into the main avenue that, in turn, ran straight into the bridge approachway. At a point just beyond the end of the approach and the beginning of the bridge proper, there was a stone wall three yards in height. Two heavy iron-bound gates, now open, afforded the only break in that gray stone barrier.

The fleeing Bovarians, both those mounted and those on foot, sprinted toward the gates, clearly hoping to get behind them and close them, in order to deny the Telaryn forces access to the bridge and the main part of Villerive.

You need to get to them before they can close the gates and escape—and block you from being able to reinforce the Telaryn forces when they attack.

Calkoran understood that, because the Khellans pressed their mounts up the approach to the bridge, cutting down Bovarian stragglers … but the gates were beginning to close as the Bovarians on the bridge obviously decided to leave the last of the fleeing defenders to the Khellan blades.

Quaeryt turned. “Voltyr! Image something to break the gates or keep them from closing!”

“Yes, sir!”

For a long moment the gates continued to close. Then, the gate on the right sagged and crashed forward onto the paving stones of the approach.

The Bovarians behind the gates abandoned their efforts to close the gates and tried to flee, but the Khellans were through the gates in moments, their blades flashing.

Quaeryt signaled first company to a halt. Adding another company to the melee on an already narrow bridge wouldn’t help matters. He watched in not quite dispassionate awe as the Khellans destroyed the few handfuls of Bovarians remaining. While a Khellan occasionally fell, that was seldom indeed, Quaeryt could see.

After the last of the Bovarians went down under the Khellan sabres, or jumped or dived off the side of the bridge into the dark waters below, the three companies re-formed, one—fourth company, Quaeryt could tell—remaining beyond the gate. Major Calkoran led the other two back through the gates and toward Quaeryt.

“Sir?” asked the older major.

“Hold the approach to the bridge against any Bovarians.”

“Yes, sir.”

“First company! Hold here!” Quaeryt rode back toward the gates and through them along the east side of the bridge, wide enough for three wagons abreast, with an iron railing about a yard and a half high on each side. As he passed Major Arion, Quaeryt glanced to the other side of the bridge, taking in the second set of iron gates there, gates that were now closed.

Yet, in the distance, both in front of him and behind him to the southeast, Quaeryt heard horns and bells, both imbued with a frantic urgency, and that spoke to Skarpa’s success—and that the Bovarian defenders were calling for reinforcements.

Quaeryt looked back, but saw—besides first, second, and third companies—no other riders or troopers on the approachway or the main avenue to the south. Fifth Battalion was alone. When he looked to the north end of the bridge, he saw that the gates there, gates that had been closed, were now opening.

You had to have Voltyr destroy the gate on this end. Idiot!
Unfortunately, what was done was done.

Even through that narrow, if widening aperture, he could see hundreds, if not thousands, of armed Bovarians lined up as far as his eyes could see, ready to storm across the bridge. Quaeryt had no idea where Skarpa and Meinyt were, but he doubted, fierce as the Khellans were, and comparatively narrow as the bridge was, that less than four hundred troopers could hold off thousands, not without severe losses, and not for that long.

“Imagers! On me!” Except he didn’t have time to wait on them.

He rode forward until he was less than fifty yards from the oncoming Bovarian foot, led, of course, by three rows of pikes. There, he reined up and concentrated on linking to the river below—there had to be warmth there, after such a long hot summer and harvest! He also concentrated on linking and drawing from the advancing mass of blue-gray clad Bovarian soldiers, all of them.

Then he pictured a stone wall to the north of the one holding the gates that had just opened to the flood of Bovarian troopers, a solid gray stone wall at the edge of the bluff to the west of the bridge, across the bridge and then at the edge of the east bluff.

A blinding flash of light seared across him, followed by a chill that cut through his body like a thousand knives. Then came thunder, and hail that slammed into his body, no longer protected by his personal shields, shields that had somehow vanished. His muscles felt like watery jelly, yet he could see, surprisingly, if barely, through a splitting headache and searing flashes of light that stabbed into his eyes like daggers.

When he could finally straighten up, hail and ice flowed off him and his uniform and down off the mare’s coat. The roadway of the bridge was also white with ice and hail. Slowly, he looked toward the north end of the bridge.

Beginning less than twenty yards from him, at least two hundred ice-covered troopers lay scattered and frozen on the bridge between him and the open gates. Beyond the gates were more ice-covered bodies, frozen where they stood, wedged and welded together in ice. Farther to the north was a featureless gray stone wall running along the river bluff and across the point where the approach ended and the bridge proper began. Quaeryt wondered yet how many more ice-covered bodies lay sprawled beyond the wall he had imaged.

Then he shook his head—and was rewarded with an even more intense flash of pain, so much so that he couldn’t see for a moment. He turned in the saddle … slowly. “Arion! Get your men to that gate, and get it closed.” He looked at Shaelyt and Voltyr who were riding slowly toward him. “You two need to image beams and bars in place on this side once they get those gates there closed. Follow Arion’s men!”

“Yes, sir.”

Quaeryt just watched, squinting and massaging his forehead with one hand, while the fourth company rankers moved bodies and forced the gates shut and while the two imagers created brackets and beams to keep them shut.

Then he turned to Arion, whose eyes remained wide. “Major?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You and your men are to make sure that no one gets past those gates.”

“Yes, sir.” Although Arion’s voice was firm, his eyes flicked to the bodies and the walls.

“Once the bodies aren’t frozen, you’ll need to have them cleared from the bridge.” Quaeryt paused. “I’d appreciate it if they weren’t thrown in the river. Thank you.”

Arion nodded.

Slowly, Quaeryt rode back across the bridge, followed by Shaelyt and Voltyr. When he reached first company, he saw that Threkhyl was in the saddle, but pale as ice, as were Desyrk and Baelthm.

“All imagers … please eat and drink something.” After a moment he reached for his own water bottle and began to sip the watered lager, hoping that his guts would settle down. He doubted he would even have been in the saddle if he hadn’t had the presence of mind to link his imaging to the warmth of the river.

Almost a glass passed before riders appeared coming from the south on the main avenue to the bridge. They wore the green of Telaryn.

Quaeryt continued to wait, slowly eating the hard biscuits he’d taken from the inn that morning.

In time, Skarpa rode forward and reined up. “Even from here I can see there’s another wall on the north side of the bridge, and ice formed around the bridge piers … and probably on the river earlier.” Skarpa’s voice was half sardonic and half dry.

“There was some ice,” Quaeryt admitted.

“Why the wall?”

“Fifth Battalion wasn’t ready to face two regiments or more of Bovarians.” Quaeryt paused. “I suppose there are fewer than that now.”

“They’re frozen?” Skarpa’s voice held little surprise.

Quaeryt nodded.

Skarpa glanced beyond Quaeryt to where fourth company rankers were piling corpses on a wagon that they’d found somewhere. “Two regiments less, I’d wager … or close enough. The marshal won’t be pleased, especially since the bridge is blocked.”

“When Threkhyl and the other imagers have recovered and the northern army holds Villerive, the imagers can create an opening in the wall.”

Skarpa chuckled.

“You hold all the southern part now?” asked Quaeryt.

“After you cut through the west part, the Bovarians lost heart. They didn’t expect you to just wipe out chunks of their earthworks and ride through them. Or to take out their catapults and spill their own Antiagon Fire on them. We tried to avoid the catapults, but we lost a good hundred troopers to the fire…”

Catapults … there was something about catapults, but Quaeryt couldn’t think of what it might be.

“… The Bovarians also didn’t expect you to wipe out so many defenders so quickly. Or turn their reinforcements into icy corpses. You keep this up, Subcommander, and…” Skarpa shook his head.

“What?”

“No matter what they’ve said about Kharst, before long, they’ll fear Bhayar more than they ever did their rex.”

“I don’t see why. Over the years he’s slaughtered more than we ever could.”

“The numbers of dead matter less than the manner of their death.”

Quaeryt was all too afraid that Skarpa was right. Yet, again, what else could he and the imagers have done?

“I’ll be sending a boat with a courier to the marshal informing him that we hold the south side and the bridge.”

“Do you think the Bovarians will withdraw now?” asked Quaeryt.

“Do you?”

Quaeryt shook his head. “Not from what we’ve learned about Kharst.”

“I don’t think so, either. I need to get that courier off. I’ll leave it to you and Fifth Battalion to hold the bridge for now. Third and Fifth Regiments will finish up with the defenders and take positions just south of the bridge.”

“Yes, sir.”

Skarpa turned and rode off the bridge, his mount’s hooves clicking dully on the gray paving stones.

Quaeryt looked back to the north. The ice had vanished. Most of the bodies remained.

44

More than two glasses had passed, and Quaeryt had moved the undercaptains—and himself—to the Bluff Point, an old inn just west of the approach to the bridge—where he’d made sure that everyone was fed and resting. At close to the second glass of the afternoon, the supply wagons arrived, with gear. Shortly afterward, Skarpa returned, and he and Quaeryt met in the plaque room of the inn. Quaeryt had decided that the closer they came to Variana, the more likely inns were to have plaque rooms, although the innkeeper couldn’t tell him why.

“Have the Bovarians tried to climb that wall you put up?” asked Skarpa.

“Arion reported that one or two looked over, but no one has tried to climb it or reclaim the bodies.” Quaeryt took a deep breath, then used his right hand to massage his forehead, trying to ease the pain and pressure there. Even the creaking of the old stairs outside the room seemed to worsen the headache. “When it gets later in the day, we’ll unbar the old gate at that end and pull out the bodies. We’ll need to do that before we’re ready to do whatever the marshal wants.”

“He wants us to attack this afternoon. Then he’ll move against the city.”

Quaeryt laughed, roughly and not humorously, but broke it off as light knives flashed across his vision. “He’ll have to wait until tomorrow if he wants any imaging. Two glasses ago, I had two imagers who couldn’t see, one who kept puking his guts out, and the other three of us who couldn’t have imaged a false copper right now.”

“And now?” asked Skarpa.

“I have five imagers who might manage a false copper and one who might be able to image a single silver.” Quaeryt took another swallow of the too-bitter lager from the mug he’d brought with him, hoping that would help him regain some strength.

“He won’t like hearing that.”

“I’m sure he won’t. How many regiments did the Bovarians have here on the south side? Not on the bridge. On the south side?”

“The Bovarian officers who survived claim they had four regiments. I’d say three and a half at most. We’ve got half a regiment in captives, mostly wounded, and maybe another five or six hundred escaped.” Skarpa paused. “I know where you’re going. We’ve taken out another four and a half regiments, and lost almost a battalion in casualties. The marshal won’t see it that way. He wants to hit them now.”

“After dawdling up the river for a month?” Quaeryt shook his head. “I won’t send Fifth Battalion into battle without imagers, not when we’re not threatened.”