Imager’s Battalion (53 page)

He kept looking to his right, but the road and what remained of the ancient canal continued westward in a straight line along flat land that rose or fell by no more than a yard or two at most. After a mille, the fields ended, and to the right of the road and canal swale rose woods, not thick forests, but well-tended trees, spaced well apart. By then, even with the cool morning air, Quaeryt was blotting his forehead and readjusting his cap. Ahead, the woods ended, giving way to meadows or pasture, because the ground was green, and most crops, except beans and a few others, would have turned or shriveled by the last month in harvest.

When first company reached the end of the woods and Quaeryt was surprised to see that they were roughly two milles from Nordeau, and that there were no trees at all between where he rode and the walls. Nor were there any structures at all—not a one.

“Company! Halt!” Before proceeding, he wanted to take in what he saw.

The River Aluse curved back southwest, so that the low grassy swale that had once been a canal ended in a hillock at the river’s edge less than a half mille south of the gray stone walls of Nordeau. Quaeryt couldn’t help but believe that the low hill covered some sort of ruin. He’d studied the map again before setting out, and where the river curved, northeast of Nordeau, it also narrowed, suggesting a difficult passage for boats or barges. The fact that the Naedarans had built a canal more than twenty milles long indicated to Quaeryt that they’d had a reason for it, and that reason had to be trade. That raised questions that he needed to put aside while he concentrated on the problem at hand—how to get Skarpa’s forces inside the walls.

He saw no one on the road that ran straight toward the walls, and finally he gestured for the company to proceed.

The closer they drew to Nordeau, the more obvious it was that south Nordeau was a fortress that had been built to last. While Quaeryt looked in every direction as they moved toward the walls, no one emerged from the one set of gates he saw, the ones to which the ancient road led, as straight as a quarrel.

“Do you see anyone, Ghaelyn?”

“No, sir. Scouts haven’t signaled, either.”

At slightly more than a half mille from the closed ironbound gates, Quaeryt reined up. He could see another road, also gray and apparently paved, that led from the western side of the walls that arced around the city, but because of the curvature of the walls, he could not see the other set of gates. The walls held no banners, and he saw no defenders, but since there were embrasures at regular intervals in the walls, defenders could have been watching him and first company, and probably were. He did see wisps of smoke rising from chimneys beyond the walls, enough so that it was clear that Nordeau was not deserted.

But why aren’t there sentries on the walls? Why hasn’t anyone come out to challenge us?

After several moments, he shifted his weight in the saddle and turned to Ghaelyn. “Undercaptain … we’re going to ride closer, but I’m going to try something, and I want silent riding. Not a word. Tell the men to be ready to turn and ride back at a moment’s notice.”

“Yes, sir.”

While Ghaelyn rode back and conveyed the orders to all the squad leaders, Quaeryt slowly raised a concealment shield, trying to do so in a way that might give the impression that he and first company had slowly withdrawn.

The undercaptain returned and said, “Ready, sir.” His voice was low.

Quaeryt raised his arm, then lowered it, and urged the mare forward. He’d ridden several hundred yards when he realized that holding the concealment, even over the entire company, was scarcely noticeable. He concentrated on the low gray stone walls, which had to have been built by the Naedarans, because the workmanship was similar and because the stone matched so closely that of the ancient road. Yet the stones had not come from the canal, because they were larger and cut in an interlocking pattern that made them less susceptible to siege engines—or cannon.

When they were only a few hundred yards from the gate, Quaeryt raised his arm and reined up. From there, he could see some figures on the upper level of the wall, and guards watching the road from the slits in the guard towers flanking the gates. With the interlocking stones of the walls, at first glance, Quaeryt thought imaging away the gates looked more likely, but when he studied them closely, he could see that they had iron bands at top and bottom as well as a series of heavy diagonal bands. He’d never seen walls or gates like those. Yet the walls weren’t all that high, and siege engines could easily have been built to overtop the walls.

Except Antiagon Fire would make short work of siege towers.

But what about the walls …

They’re designed to resist imagers!

It also meant that the walls had stone foundations all the way down to bedrock, and that Nordeau had been built in a place where there was bedrock near the surface. All of that indicated strongly that the only ways for Telaryn forces to enter Nordeau were either over the walls with some sort of ramps or through the gates—assuming the Bovarians didn’t have their own imagers.

Quaeryt didn’t like the idea of using the gates, because the towers surrounded the gates, and in such confined spaces it would be difficult, if not impossible, to shield troopers from boiling oil or Antiagon Fire.

After a time of studying the walls, Quaeryt turned his mount to the southwest, toward a narrow path that seemed to circle the walls, gesturing for the rest of first company to follow him. He kept looking toward the gates, but they did not open, and no Bovarian troopers appeared.

After riding another half mille, Quaeryt could see the second gate and the road leading from it. The southwest gate was closed and guarded in the same fashion as the southeast gate. The road from the southwest gate was stone paved and indeed wider than the ancient way that led to the southeast gate, but Quaeryt could see that it was not nearly so level as the older road, although it did parallel in a general way the River Aluse.

The newer road had to have been built by the Bovarians, but why had they built a road from Nordeau to Variana on the south side of the river when they had not done so anywhere else along the River Aluse, and when Villerive was larger than Nordeau with presumably more trade and commerce? Was there a similar road on the north side of the river?

He shook his head. From where he was there was no way to tell.

After more study, he turned the mare and the company and rode along a path that gradually carried them both away from the stone walls and back to the ancient road—though browning high grass and some low bushes, but not a single tree. The fact that he saw no trees—and no sign of any having been cut down—also concerned him. Was the entire plain that stretched away from the walls somehow paved under the dirt so that trees would not grow? But he’d seen trees grow through the tiniest gaps in stone.

Everything he saw raised more questions.

As he rode back toward the village to report to Skarpa, he thought over his earlier conclusions and decided he’d been too hasty. Defenses and walls usually reflected what the builders knew, not what they faced. Most likely, the Naedarans had built the way that they had because they had had trained imagers, not because they were defending against them.
That also might explain their decline … if they lost too many imagers or didn’t continue to train and support them.

In turn, that raised more questions about what he planned … and how he needed to approach Bhayar about his thoughts and plans.

57

On Samedi morning just before seventh glass, the three regiments and Fifth Battalion drew up facing the walls of Nordeau. The sun hung barely above the trees to the east of the plain extending out from the gray walls, and the browning knee-high grass was heavy with dew under a crystal clear sky. The air was neither cool nor warm, but felt thick to Quaeryt as he watched Ghaelyn ride forward toward the southeast gate under the blue-bordered white parley flag.

Skarpa hadn’t been especially pleased with Quaeryt’s report on the defenses of Nordeau on Vendrei afternoon, but he’d agreed to the plan of attack Quaeryt proposed. After that agreement, Quaeryt had briefed the imager undercaptains, and then Zhelan and the company officers on what each company was to do.

On Samedi, the first step was simple enough, to send forward Ghaelyn to request the surrender of Nordeau. Neither Skarpa nor Quaeryt expected that the Bovarians would even consider surrender, but Quaeryt had insisted that Skarpa make the offer.

“Why?” Skarpa had asked. “They won’t consider it. You know that.”

“I do.”

“Then…?”

“Because I want to be able to try to soothe my conscience,” replied Quaeryt.

Skarpa had merely nodded sadly.

Skarpa and Quaeryt were right. The Bovarians refused to surrender. But they didn’t try to kill poor Ghaelyn, for which Quaeryt was most thankful, recalling as he did how the hill holders of Tilbor had dealt with troopers carrying the request for their surrender. The Bovarians had just laughed and, from the gate towers, showered the undercaptain with ridicule.

Once Ghaelyn had returned, the Telaryn forces moved forward, slowly. Fifth Battalion, led by Quaeryt with Baelthm beside him, took the old road toward the southeast gate. Eleventh Regiment, positioned some six hundred yards to the south and west of Fifth Battalion, rode through the knee-high browning grass toward a point on the walls some four hundred yards southwest of the southeast gate towers. Near the front ranks rode Voltyr and Smaethyl.

Due south of the curved walls of Nordeau, Third Regiment rode toward the southernmost point of the wall, and close to Skarpa rode Threkhyl, Desyrk, and Horan. Farther to the west, aiming at a point on the walls equidistant between the target of Third Regiment and the southwestern gate, was Fifth Regiment, without any imager undercaptains. Taking the newer road toward the southwest gate was a battalion detached from Fifth Regiment, with the major in command accompanied by Shaelyt, Lhandor, and Khalis.

Quaeryt would have liked to have had imagers with each attack formation, but he didn’t have enough for that, and he was asking a great deal of them. At the same time, they needed to see what it was like when their lives and those of others depended on themselves, and not on Quaeryt. Some of them, he suspected, hadn’t even realized how much he had shielded them.

Even when the Telaryn formations had reached a point two hundred yards from the walls, the defenders had made no moves and launched neither arrows nor Antiagon Fire.

Then … dark shafts rose from behind the walls and angled down toward the attackers. There weren’t that many shafts targeted at each regiment and battalion, one of the reasons why Skarpa and Quaeryt had decided on the spread approach that they had adopted.

Quaeryt only had to raise and expand his shields for an instant so that the shafts dropped into the grass and road ahead of Fifth Battalion. From what he could tell, the other imagers had shielded most of the troops, with Lhandor, Khalis, and Shaelyt providing some coverage for Fifth Regiment as well as for the battalion they accompanied.

As the arrows were shunted away, a horn signal sounded from Third Regiment, and all the riders urged their mounts forward at a quick trot—because Skarpa had determined that the archers were behind the walls and not firing from the scattered slits and embrasures. That meant that the closer the attacking troopers were to the walls, the harder it would be for the archers to target the Telaryn forces, all the better for the attacker since the imagers couldn’t provide shielding and do what else they needed to accomplish next.

Because Quaeryt had studied the gates, he
thought
he could bring down those in front of him without too much strain, not that he intended to lead Fifth Battalion through them unless absolutely necessary. He’d also gone over the details of the gates with Shaelyt, suggesting the points of attack for the southwest gate.

As he rode forward on the ancient road, Quaeryt contracted his shields, to cover just the front of the column, then concentrated on removing a line of wood and metal from the outer edge of the gates. A flash of fire-pain lanced through his eyes, then dissipated so quickly that his eyes watered but for a moment. When he blinked again, he saw that the gates had dropped perhaps a third of a yard. There was the thinnest sliver of light on the left side, between what remained of the edge of the gate and the recessed stone that had held the ironbound wood in place. He concentrated once more, this time across the bottom, trying to angle what he imaged away.

The fire-pain lasted longer, and for another moment or two he could not see, but he did hear a muffled crash, and when his eyes cleared, the gates lay almost flat on the gray stone. As Skarpa’s scouts had reported, though, behind the gate was an iron portcullis, already lowered into place.

Quaeryt grabbed for his water bottle, then took a long swallow of the lager before recorking the bottle and slipping it back into the leather holder. Another attempt at image-cutting the iron of the portcullis followed, based on what he’d studied of such construction.

The third flash of fire-pain was no greater than the second, suggesting that the gates themselves had contained far more iron that he’d thought, and the portcullis crashed forward.

Quaeryt’s eyes flicked from the seemingly open southeast gate toward Eleventh Regiment and then toward the walls before them, drawn by a flash of light.

A narrow stone ramp, barely wide enough for two mounts stirrup-to-stirrup, stretched some fifteen yards from the ground to the top of the wall, and the troopers of Eleventh Regiment were riding straight toward it. Quaeryt could only hope that Voltyr and Smaethyl had been as successful at creating a ramp on the far side.

An even brighter flash of light flared from the south, but Quaeryt could only see the base of the ramp imaged by Threkhyl and Horan, and it appeared far wider and lower than the one imaged by Voltyr and Smaethyl. Quaeryt could not see anything near the southwest gate, and could only hope that the Pharsi imagers were able to create another entry to Nordeau. What he also did not see were defenders near the fallen gate or on or near the ramp up to the walls that was closest to Fifth Battalion.