Mage-Guard of Hamor (68 page)

“He has little love for the rebels. He'll back whatever he thinks will end the revolt quickly,” offered Deybri.

“Commander Pioll?”

“He is very reserved, but loyal…”

After a time, Taryl yawned. “I need some sleep, and so do you two. You can stay here, but don't talk too late.” He stood.

So did Rahl and Deybri.

Taryl closed the door on his way out.

Rahl turned to Deybri.

“Not…not yet.” She smiled nervously in the lamplight. “Uncle Thorl…he told me when I left Nylan that I was taking a great risk. He said he loved and respected me for that because one seldom found great love or happiness or achievement without risk.” Deybri's golden brown eyes caught Rahl's. “He didn't tell me that it could hurt so much. I knew it could, but knowing isn't the same as feeling. What if you don't come back?”

Rahl choked back the first thought that came to mind—that if he didn't come back, he didn't come back. Instead, he said, “We wouldn't have had even this if you hadn't come.”

“I want more than this.” Her words were quiet, but the intensity behind them burned through Rahl. “I want you. I want you, and me, and our child, but I can't and won't raise our child—your child—by myself….”

“You're saying that I'd better survive.”

“You can do more than that. You have to.” Her words held hope—over a buried desperation.

Rahl stepped forward and enfolded her in his arms, then kissed her gently.

Her fingers dug into his back, so tightly was she holding to him.

“I'll be back, and you won't have to worry.”

“How can I not worry? Even Taryl's worried.”

“You can tell?”

“Not with his shields, but from the way he looks, the way he forced himself to eat at dinner.”

“He worries about everything.” Rahl kissed her again, gently. They had so little time, and yet…he had to respect her wishes and her feelings. He had to act as if there would be a future, when, for the first time, he truly had doubts.

Rahl, Drakeyt, and Third Company joined up with Taryl's headquarters company just at dawn and began the ride to Sastak. Rahl thought he could sense Deybri somewhere behind him, but where, he could not have said.

“What do you think we should expect?” asked Drakeyt.

“More magery, more chaos-bolts, and high casualties.” Rahl glanced up at the sky, now a deep green-blue with a touch of a silvery haze ahead to the south. “They want to destroy us, and we have to destroy them.”

“Like always,” snorted Drakeyt. “Someone's not happy that he doesn't have what he wants and thinks he should have. So he'll kill thousands trying to get it, and if he succeeds, he's a great conqueror and hero….”

“Of course,” replied Rahl. “The ones who win are the ones who hire the scriveners and the printers, and they're not interested in the facts, just in what they believe to be true.”

“Do you think what anyone believes to be true is indeed true?”

“Seldom, if at all.”

“It sounds like you don't believe in truth, Majer.”

Rahl had to think for a time as they rode. He certainly believed that one had the choice between telling the truth or a falsehood, but he had trouble with the whole idea of “truth.” The magisters of Land's End had an idea of what truth was. So did the magisters in Nylan, as did Taryl and what he believed about the
Mage-Guard Manual.
Doubtless, Golyat had his own ideas of truth, and so did the Emperor, but how many of them would agree on what the “truth” was? If the rain fell, and Rahl said it fell, that was truthful, and all the magisters, and rulers, and mage-guards would agree on that. But was it “truthful” for Taryl to say that the Imperial forces had no choice but to attack the rebels on the ridge? Taryl hadn't said that, only that it was the only feasible option, but Commander Hyksyn had disagreed. Had his thoughts not been scrambled, he would have agreed, burying his doubts.

“You're being pretty quiet,” suggested Drakeyt.

Rahl forced a laugh. “I was thinking about truth and not getting anywhere with those thoughts.”

“Thinking too much isn't good for a trooper. The secret of being a good officer is knowing how much to think and when. When you're an undercaptain, it doesn't matter what you think; no one will listen. As a captain, the only thinking they want is on how best to carry out your orders.” Drakeyt paused, then went on. “I suppose that's true of senior officers as well.”

Rahl merely nodded.

As they rode closer to Sastak the sun rose over the drained rice paddies to the east and the low rises that were barely hills. The water-filled paddies to the west shimmered bluish in the long morning light. By the time Rahl could see the ridge that lay between the Imperial forces and the town, he could also sense a massing of men and of chaos, although the chaos seemed to be greatest at each end of the ridge, just above the grassy slopes leading up to the rebel earthworks.

The number of rebel troops seemed to be far greater than that of the Imperial troops moving into position. Based on what Taryl had said, it seemed likely that many were effectively conscripts and not so well trained, but poorly trained conscripts could be used effectively to weaken mages and overwhelm archers.

The bulk of the Second Army—under Taryl—formed up along the road to the north of the western end of the ridge, while First Army under Commander Muyr moved into position near the eastern end of the ridge. Third Company took a position on the right flank, forward of the headquarters company, and then received orders to stand down.

Rahl could sense the controlled and muted chaos-forces of the two Triads somewhere behind him, probably under the two canopies used by Taryl. The air was still, warm, and heavy, so that, early as it was, Rahl was already sweating as he stood beside the gelding, waiting, as were all the troopers in Third Company. He took a long swallow from his water bottle, then corked it, and replaced it in its holder.

Beside him, Drakeyt murmured, “We wait too long, and we'll all sweat down to nothing.”

“It could be that's what Golyat hopes.” Rahl doubted that, but Drakeyt had wanted some sort of response. It was far more likely that the rebels would follow the same strategy as always: Let the Imperial forces make the first moves and then try to carve away the Imperial forces until they could no longer press the attack. Once that happened, the rebels would try to use superior numbers and chaos-magery to annihilate the Imperials.

A series of trumpet triplets ordered the first charge, and a company of troopers rode up the slope at a measured pace, spreading apart as they advanced. They continued to close on the earthworks. When the leading riders were less than three hundred cubits from the earth and stone ramparts, arrows began to sleet down, and the troopers immediately turned their mounts.

From what Rahl could tell, only a handful of the troopers had been wounded, with one death, but the advance had achieved part of one of Taryl's goals because it had cost the defenders hundreds of shafts.

Before long a second set of trumpet signals rang out, another company of troopers began to ride upward toward the earthworks. This time, the rebels did not offer a hail of arrows, but scattered shafts clearly aimed at individual troopers. Those missed, and the troopers continued up the slope. Rahl noticed that, attached behind the saddles of the second ranks of the troopers were bladders of some sort, filled with liquid. The bladders weren't likely to be seen from behind the earthworks.

The front ranks of the Imperial riders slowed just slightly, enough for the second wave of riders to catch up to the first, then both charged toward the earthworks. As they did, the riders with the bladders produced devices that looked like a cross between a forked branch and a child's catapult, and Rahl could sense the tiny points of chaos that had to be burning fuses. The bladders arced toward the earthworks. Many felt short, but more than a score slammed into or over the earthworks. Almost instantly, bluish orange flames rose from the point of impact.

Thin screams quickly died away.

“Sticky oil!” Drakeyt shook his head. “Nasty stuff, burns hot, then pops out in globules and sticks to everything and keeps burning. Still, they only landed a half score or so.”

The bladders that had fallen short also burst into flame, incinerating the grass and creating a shifting smoky veil between the rebel and Imperial forces. Rahl had to believe that wasn't totally accidental.

Even before the second company of attackers returned downhill, a third company passed through them on its ride up toward the earthworks, and the second rank held riders who weren't mounted infantry. The mounted archers reined up a good two hundred cubits short of the earthworks and began to loose thick-shafted arrows—not at random or at the larger concentrations of defenders, but at the areas where the sticky oil still burned. One of the arrows landed in a pool of flaming gel, immediately catching fire, and then spewing a stream of liquid flame skyward and back down over the nearby defenders.

Many of the thick shafts missed, but a number did strike where the sticky-oil flames still burned or smoldered, and more flame fountains spewed over the defenders at the earthworks, thickening the haze of smoke.

Then an entire company that had been creeping up the slope on the far-left flank, partly shielded by the smoke, burst into a full gallop toward a section of the earthworks where the flames were dying away.

Whhstt! Whsst!
Chaos-bolts flamed over the earthworks toward the charging troopers.

Rahl couldn't help but wince as one of the firebolts exploded across the front rank of one squad and turned close to a half score of men and mounts into momentary torches, then fine ashes. The remaining troopers reached the section of the earthworks where the defenders had been decimated by flame, but by that time more defenders had appeared. Several of the troopers dropped iron grapples over the top line of stones, and then began to ride away. In places two courses of stones tumbled forward, leaving a low spot in the wall.

Rahl had been watching that so closely that he almost missed another attempt of the same type near the southern end of the wall and earthworks.

A handful of troopers were so close beneath the wall that the chaos-bolts that were aimed at them were bursting farther downslope. Taryl's archers were arcing arrows into the area just behind the wall. The trooper-engineers were beginning to pull out the top course of stone that stood on the earthworks base. If the stone work could be removed, Rahl calculated, then a trooper could remain mounted and cross the wider earthworks base. He had to wonder why they hadn't put a ditch under the earthworks, even lined it with stakes or something.

A well-placed firebolt dropped on one of the laboring engineers, engulfing him and the base of the wall in chaos-fire. When it died away, Rahl had his answer. He could see whitish stone, stained black and brown by the chaos-fire. The soil was barely thick enough to support the grass, and digging a deeper ditch would have taken seasons.

Whhhstt! Whssst!

One of the rebel chaos-mages had moved forward and to the north so that he or she could angle firebolts down onto the engineers. The handful of Imperial troopers who survived galloped away downhill, chased by two more firebolts.

Rahl had been able to identify four different mages, and all were fairly powerful, if not of the strength of the two Triads or of Taryl, and it was unlikely that the mages being used in the early stages of the battle were the most powerful available to Golyat.

Third Regiment was moving up into position at the bottom of the slope.

A set of double trumpet triplets rang out, and the battalions of the regiment began to move forward, slowly at first, and then more swiftly. A firebolt arced from behind the earthwork ramparts and splattered across the grass a good hundred cubits short of the first riders.

Then, just as the leading riders began to near the point where the firebolt had struck and splattered chaos-flame, waves of arrows sleeted down into the defenders.

Rahl looked around, because he had seen no archers, before he realized that the shafts had come from the north, and that Taryl had placed the archers below the steeper part of the ridge, out of sight of the rebels. That didn't keep them from arcing the shafts up over the ridge toward an unseen target.

A series of wide chaos-flares appeared in the air just beyond the earthworks, incinerating most of the shafts, although Rahl could sense the chaos-tinged iron arrowheads falling like dark hail. More shafts lifted and in turn were incinerated. A third volley suffered the same fate.

The troopers of the two lead battalions of Third Regiment were almost at the earthworks, when a line of chaos-bolts wiped out close to two entire companies, and the massive waves of death rolled downhill and through Rahl, chilling him deep inside.

The chaos-bolts had done more than kill those troopers they had struck, because the loose chaos-fire also ignited the thick-shafted fire arrows that had previously fallen short of the earth-and-stone ramparts, as well as several sticky-oil bladders that had not previously ignited. More Imperial troopers and their mounts died a fiery death.

Gray-and-black smoke rose from all around the earthworks, slowly roiling downhill toward Third Company, burning eyes and throats alike, and carrying a sickening odor of roasted flesh. Defenders poured over the earthworks, many bearing falchionas and hacking at disabled and burned or blinded troopers. The troopers in the companies following swept in at an angle, cutting down the defenders on foot.

A scattered volley of arrows tore into Third Regiment, and more firebolts ripped into the battalions leading the assault.

A trumpet recall echoed uphill, and Third Regiment withdrew, leaving an expanse of blackened ground and stone before the defenders' earthworks, where the charred forms of men and mounts lay strewn. Yet all those dead forms represented but a fraction of those killed, Rahl knew, because the chaos-fire left no corpses, only blackened ground and ashes.

Rahl could sense a welter of death behind the ramparts as well as he watched Third Regiment return to lower ground and re-form. Was the use of Third Regiment for such a punishing part of the attack because Commander Hyksyn had been relieved? The former commander had certainly been right about the cost to his former regiment. Or would they all suffer that much before it was all over?

“Do you know what we're standing by for?” asked Drakeyt.

“No. I'd guess that we're going to be part of the final assault—or the overcommander's rear guard if the attack fails.”

“I'm not certain which I'd prefer less.” Drakeyt's voice was low and dry.

Rahl studied the ramparts. Whether from the engineers' work, the continued assaults, or even the chaos of the defenders' mages, the stone work of the upper levels had been destroyed or tumbled in a score of places, and he could see the defenders trying to lift stones back into place.

Rahl glanced up through the smoky haze. The sun was past midmorning and headed toward noon.

The trumpet ordered another attack, and Third Regiment started riding back up the slope.

Another flight of arrows arced into the defenders, but those shafts were far fewer, far fewer indeed. Even so, more firebolts slashed down toward the half-concealed archers on the rugged north slope. While most missed, a few did strike, assuring that the next volley would have even fewer shafts coming down at the rebels.

Rahl became aware of something, moving closer, but he could see nothing. Why couldn't he see or sense anything but a vague sense? Shields and sight shields! He'd have wagered that a strong chaos-mage was shielding a force coming around from the south for a strike at Taryl and the Triads. “There's a mage-hidden side attack coming,” he snapped at Drakeyt. “Have the company mount up.”

“Third Company, mount up and form up! On the double!”

“Form up on the double!” echoed Quelsyn.