Soarers Choice (29 page)

—
Views of the Highest Illustra W.T. 1513

Two
solid glasses of flight had brought First Company eastward over a lower section
of the peaks of the Coast Range and then northward, roughly following the high
road from Elcien to Harmony. The pteridons flew at an altitude of a thousand
yards, high enough to afford the Myrmidons a view of the terrain ahead and low
enough that the pteridons did not use an inordinate amount of lifeforce — nor
did the fliers have to contend with the colder air that would have surrounded
them at a higher altitude. Hying was cold enough, because they were under a
high layer of clouds that blocked direct sunlight, and left the world beneath
them looking winter-brown and gray, although there was technically still a week
left in fall.

Each
Myrmidon had also been supplied with two lightcutters, in addition to the
pteridon-powered skylances, for use inside the Blackstear Table building.
Zelyert hadn’t been happy about that, either.

As
Ghasylt had announced to the company, the northward flight, especially as they
neared Blackstear, would make a winter Spine run seem warm. Dainyl was flying
wing on the captain, if in the second seat harness behind Halya, one of the
younger members of the company, normally in second squad. As marshal, he did
not rate a pteridon, scarce as they were, but he still missed being the one who
actually flew the pteridon.

From
behind Halya, Dainyl studied the high road below and to his left. While there
was an occasional wagon or rider, most stretches of the road were empty, except
for the five vingts or so on each side of a hamlet or town. The horizon to the
north was a featureless gray, and that worried Dainyl because it suggested one
of the northern blizzards might be brewing.

The
wind had begun to shift, from the northeast to the northwest, and the air felt
slightly warmer. Slightly warmer meant only that the air would freeze
unprotected skin in perhaps a tenth of a glass rather than in moments. It also
indicated a greater likelihood of a storm.

Another
third of a glass passed before Dainyl could see Harmony almost dead ahead,
where the two high roads crossed, and where the one First Company had followed
turned from a northeast direction to due east, running straight as a rifle
barrel for three hundred vingts from Harmony to Soulend. The other high road
ran to Klamat, some 270 vingts north of Harmony. Beyond Klamat no high roads
ran. From there First Company would have to fly across the frozen Moors of
Yesterday to Blackstear.

From
nowhere, a howling wind buffeted the pteridon, and the Talent creature’s left
wing went up, and the right dropped, more than forty degrees. Even before
Dainyl caught the sense of command from Halya to the blue-winged creature, the
pteridon had righted itself. Even after they were level, the wind raked across
Dainyl’s face like miniature daggers with ice-fiery points, then fell off until
the pteridons were flying through absolutely calm air.

Dainyl
glanced ahead.

The
featureless gray looked more like a wall of clouds. He judged it to be a good
twenty vingts away. What bothered him more than even the wall-like appearance
of the clouds was the growing hint of blackish green behind the clouds.

The
light strengthened as the fliers continued northward, passing Harmony, and
changing course so that they flew due north, following the high road that led
to Klamat. Dainyl glanced up. The higher clouds that had been above them had
thinned, but the sky still held but the barest hint of green, lost in a
silver-gray sheen, although the air around Dainyl seemed to become both grayer
and greener with each vingt flown.

He
looked ahead once more. Now the clouds had become more distinct, showing a wall
of dark gray for the first few hundred yards up from the ground, and then
turning positively black for the next several thousand. Under the leading
e.g.
of the storm, Dainyl could see a line where the
ground and trees had begun to turn white from snow that fell in sheets.

“Marshal!”

Dainyl
turned his head!

Ghasylt
had eased his pteridon closer to that of Halya and Dainyl. “We can’t fly
through that!” The captain gestured toward the dark wall of the storm.

“Turn
back to Harmony! Land at the local Cadmian garrison there!” Dainyl called back.

“Harmony
Cadmian garrison! Yes, sir!”

Ghasylt
banked his pteridon into a descending right-hand turn.

As
Halya followed, an unseen force pressed the pteridon downward, into a dive.

Dainyl
could sense the increased lifeforce draw as the pteridon struggled to avoid
losing more altitude, and as the wings beat faster. He watched as the forests
flanking the high road drew closer and closer.

The
pteridon was less than fifty yards above the tops of the fir trees before Halya
managed to level out. They had lost over a thousand yards in altitude in the
space of moments. Slowly, the pteridon began to climb until, once more flying
wing to Ghasylt, they followed the high road south back to Harmony at an
altitude of roughly five hundred yards.

Dainyl
swallowed. He’d never felt that severe a downdraft, not in all his years of
flying, but he’d flown mostly in the south. He glanced back at the rest of the
company. While the other fliers seemed to have hit the same downdraft, they had
not lost as much altitude, probably because their pteridons had not been
carrying double.

To
the north, behind First Company, the clouds continued to darken, advancing
inexorably southward. The advance fliers had not seen the storm rising. From
where had it come? Had the ancients something to do with it?

Dainyl
shook his head. Storms happened, even unforeseen ones. They could only get to
Blackstear when they could.

Lazy
flakes of snow drifted past Mykel’s face as he rode westward on the high road
from Iron
Ste.
to Wesrigg. Beside him rode Rhystan,
with Sixteenth Company immediately following. Behind Sixteenth Company rode the
other companies of Third Battalion. Nineteenth Company brought up the rear.
They had already been riding for two glasses along the westbound high road. The
snow had become even more intermittent with each vingt they traveled. To the
north of the road, at times, Mykel caught sight of a stream or creek, and for a
time a small dam and a lake behind it. He thought that might be the reservoir
for Iron
Ste.
and for the ironworks.

Now,
in the distance ahead, Mykel could see that white covered the more distant
summits of the Westerhills, the legacy of the storm that had swept through the
Iron Valleys late on Quinti, leaving less than a span’s depth of snow on the
ground, and nothing but a slight layer of slush on the high road. The wind had
shifted once more, back to the northeast, becoming colder, but promising
clearer skies. Mykel had already seen breaks in the clouds, and glimpses of the
deep silver-green that marked a winter sky.

“This
isn’t going to melt quickly,” observed Rhystan, “except on the high road. The
back roads will be muddy, where they aren’t frozen.”

“They
won’t be that bad, and it’s not that deep. Besides, it will make tracking the
Reillies and Squawts easier. Hamylt will have, to be careful he doesn’t close
too quickly.”

Rhystan
nodded. “Looks like it’s a lot deeper to the west, up in the hills.”

“If
they retreat there, we’ll leave them for now. We can wait in Wesrigg for a few
days if we have to and see what they do.”

“They
could wait all winter.”

Mykel
shook his head. “No, they can’t. They’ve pulled everyone from their hill
steads. They can’t hold a force that size together for long. They’ll either
have to attack or disband.”

“If
they disband ... then what?”

“We
wait until they gather again in the spring, but I don’t think that’s what
they’ll do.”

“Why
not?”

Mykel
didn’t answer what he felt — that something more was happening, that the
soarers or the alectors — someone — wanted the Cadmians under attack and
reduced in strength and ability. “They won’t have gone to all this trouble to
pull together, just to give up. The leaders who called them together would lose
too much influence.”

“Have
to wonder how many bad decisions have been made for reasons like that,” mused
Rhystan.

“More
than anyone would like to think.” Mykel laughed.

Over
the next glass or so, Mykel began to feel a growing sense that they were being
watched from the woods that lay behind the snow-covered fields and meadows
bordering the road. Yet the scouts riding ahead of the column had yet to report
seeing anyone, and they had seen no one on the road, and no sign of any
travelers. The roadside steads gave way to occasional meadows set between
stretches of woods, and then to unbroken stretches of trees, beginning about
fifty yards back from the high road itself.

Mykel
shifted his weight in the saddle. “Rhystan ... send some scouts out on the
south side of the road ahead. Rifles ready. Have them look for signs at the
e.g.
of the woods there.”

Rhystan
half turned in the saddle. “Kursolt, Alberut, Wersylt...”

As
Rhystan instructed and ordered the scouts, Mykel studied the woods, probing with
both his eyes and his Talent. Ahead, perhaps in the trees on the lower part of
the hill that climbed away from the shoulder of the roadbed, he could sense
someone. Where the trees began was a good ten yards higher than the road, and
there were perhaps as many as two or three men, but he could not place where
they were — as if they had some sort of partial Talent shield. He frowned.
They’d let the road scouts and the vanguard pass, and that meant they were
looking either for information or to attack the main body of the column, but
with only a handful of men, that didn’t make sense, not unless they didn’t
expect any pursuit.

“...
check the south side of the road, all the way up to that hill. Keep your eyes
sharp and your rifles ready,” Rhystan finished.

“Third
Battalion! Rifles ready!” Mykel ordered as the additional scouts rode forward.
“There might be snipers or Reillies somewhere ahead,” he added in a lower voice
to Rhystan as he took out his own rifle.

He
studied the hillside ahead on the south side of the road. It bothered him, but
he could only sense a few people, and fuzzily at that. He couldn’t very well
order the battalion to fire until he knew what was there. They might well be
shooting at innocent foresters or peasants.

The
morning was silent, except for the sound of the Cadmians.

Mykel
strengthened his shields, knowing something was going to happen, but not
knowing exactly from where it would come. Crack! Crack!

The
first shot hammered Mykel back in the saddle, twisting his left shoulder from
the force on his shields. He forced himself erect and lifted his own rifle,
aiming toward the faint flash from where he thought the sniper had fired. He
willed the shot home as he squeezed the trigger.

He
could sense death ... the shriveling of lifeforce. As the Talented Reillie
died, the Talent screen vanished, and Mykel could sense more than thirty riders
in the trees.

“Rhystan.
A squad and a half of Reillies ahead of the scouts! Sixteenth Company!
Forward!” As he gave the order, Mykel urged the roan forward, flattening
himself against the gelding’s mane and neck. At least the slope was gentler,
taken from the east, than it would have been had he waited until they were
directly north of the hill.

“After
the majer!”

A
ragged volley of shots spewed from the trees. Behind him, Mykel could sense
injuries and at least one ranker’s death. He managed to get the rifle back in
its case and get his sabre out before he reached the trees, where he used his
Talent-sense to guide the roan around the thinner pines at the
e.g.
of the woods and then to his right.

The
snow, light as it was, had flattened the undergrowth, and he could see two
Reillies ahead, on foot behind the trees, swinging their rifles toward him.

He
urged the gelding to the left, around a larger fir, and then forward — only to
see a fallen trunk. The gelding recovered enough to jump the trunk, but all
Mykel could do was hang on. The Reillies’ shots went over his head.

One
scrambled to the left and out of sight. The other one tried to bring his rifle
up.

Mykel
was on top of him before he could fire. One slash was enough, awkward as it
was, to cut deeply into his neck. Mykel barely managed to hang on to the blade
as the roan kept moving past the dying man.

Behind
him, Sixteenth Company followed, scattering into the trees.

“Sabres!”
came Rhystan’s command.

Mykel
caught a flash of red and brown to his left and turned the gelding. The Reillie
jumped to the side and tried to bring the rifle to bear, but Mykel was faster,
although he had to lean to his right to avoid a heavy tree branch, and slashed
with the sabre, using the momentum of his mount to augment the force of the
blade.

As
the Reillie went down under the sabre, Mykel’s stomach turned. He’d realized,
after he’d delivered the fatal cut, that the Reillie had been little more than
a girl. She was shooting at you and your men, he reminded himself.

He
saw green and red ahead, but reined up when he realized that the Reillie
slumped against the ancient pine was dead. He could only hope his Talent had
been accurate, and that there were no more Reillies. Fighting more than a squad
of Reillies in the frigging trees was stupid. He just hoped Sixteenth Company
casualties weren’t too high.

He
reined up, looking around. From what he could sense, only Cadmians remained in
the woods.