L. Modesitt - Mage-Guard of Hamor

Surprisingly, to Rahl, only a few firebolts flew toward the wagons, but more than a few arrows did, and a number carried flaming tips, dipped in pitch or some similar substance. The arrows had even less effect than the firebolts had-until the wagons neared the barricade and several rebels stood near the top of the barricade and hurled what looked to be cloth soaked in oil and wrapped around a chunk of firewood under the nearer wagon.

That wagon began to burn, but the Imperial archers cut down most of the exposed rebels as another wave of troopers appeared, riding hard for the barricade.

This time the troopers who rode forward all had makeshift patches over one eye. Rahl nodded to himself. Crude, but effective. Theoretically, the chaos-mage who had loosed the first blinding flash could wait for a moment, then deliver another, but the amount of chaos required, from what Rahl had felt, made it most unlikely that any chaos-mage could do that often or in quick succession. It was also unlikely that more than one chaos-mage had that talent.

Rahl almost shook his head. How did he know that? Maybe the brilliant light flash was something from Fairhaven, where all the white wizards could do it.

There was a light flash, but far weaker, so much so that Rahl's vision returned almost immediately, and the mounted troopers rode to the wall, dragging the light scaling wagons into position.

Chaos-bolts flared down toward the Imperial forces surging toward the barricade, then died away. Rahl could sense a chill, and whiteness ran across the front of the lower-road barricade, then began to flow down the stones, turning into liquidlike fire moving from the barricade wall to the pavement, then toward the attacking troopers.

The flowing chaos licked at the forelegs of the mounts, then engulfed both the first line of horses and riders. The screams of men and mounts were lost in the roar of flames flaring skyward.

Rahl swallowed. He'd never seen anything like that. or smelled it, as the sickly-sweet nauseating odor of burned flesh settled around him and Third Company.

"Frig!" muttered Dhosyn from where he sat on his mount behind Rahl and Drakeyt.

Still, Rahl could feel the chaos ebbing.

Another wave of troopers rode forward, and this time there were only a few weak chaos-bolts, and a handful of arrows. Scaling ladders unfolded from the light wagons, and troopers began to climb up and over the barricade.

For a time, intermittent waves of death flowed down and across Rahl.

Then the rebel survivors broke and sprinted or hobbled back up the road, scrambling up and over the second barricade, set a good three hundred cubits farther up the road, a road that was but twenty cubits wide. The second barricade wasn't any higher than the first, but there was a ledge cut into the cliffside above the barricade and slightly behind it, also with a low wall, and on that ledge were both archers and chaos-mages, Rahl sensed.

Again, a kind of quiet fell across the contested area.

Rahl checked the sun, its white light diluted not only by the high haze, but by the smoke that had risen from all the fires and chaos-burning, and was surprised-again-to find that it was later than he would have believed, almost midafternoon. Bodies were everywhere, more than several hundred, Rahl thought, possibly close to a thousand. Given the nature of the fight so far, he doubted that there were many wounded.

Shuchyl did not even consider attacking the second barricade immediately. Instead, two shielded wagons moved up to the first barricade, and figures in brown and khaki-engineers-began to use bars and picks to remove the stones in the middle of the barricade.

Rahl took the time to walk back to where one of the first squad's troopers held his mount and extracted some of his travel rations from his saddlebags. As he ate, and drank from his water bottle, he kept looking at the barricade where the engineers moved stones. He had to wonder at the danger involved, but Shuchyl had judged that the chaos-mages were so worn down that they did not want to try to pick off engineers behind stone by trying to throw chaos-bolts hundreds of cubits. Even so, Rahl was concerned, but the rebels did not even attempt more than scattered flights of arrows, few of which hit anywhere near the engineers, and the sun had dropped noticeably lower in the afternoon sky by the time there was a breach in the barricade ten cubits wide.

That suggested to Rahl that the rebels definitely had limited manpower-or that their defense consisted of efforts to bleed the Imperial forces down without losing many of their own troops. Yet, if that had been the case, why had they fought at Selyma as they had?

Once the engineers had opened a gap almost twenty cubits wide in the lower-barricade wall, they retreated, the next company of troopers moved up and stationed themselves behind the remaining end sections of the barricade as shelter from attacks from the second barricade, not that the rebels were showing much of an attack.

Just as Rahl had thought that, a barrage of firebolts cascaded down into the troopers behind the barricade walls. Then a hail of arrows followed.

Another wave of deaths surged over Rahl.

"Too bad there's no easy way to put a gap in that second wall, or get cammabark close enough to blow it open." Dhosyn's voice was low, resigned, coming from behind Rahl.

"The cammabark wouldn't be any good unless it was in a casing, like a shell or an old-style cannonball," Drakeyt pointed out. "Then their mages would just explode it before anyone could get close enough."

Rahl frowned. Exploding the wall… exploding the wall… He'd once exploded a part of a wall. Admittedly, that had been the black wall separating Nylan from the rest of Recluce, and it had only worked because of the additional order linked into the stone… but natural stone did have more order than soil or sand.

Shuchyl ordered the archers back into the fray, and, as their shafts lofted and fell behind the second barricade, the number of rebel arrows fell off. The firebolts continued, if only occasionally.

From the positions taken by the regimental companies, it appeared as though the commander was not about to attempt any more assaults.. or not soon. Considering that Shuchyl had already lost more than a third of the regiment, Rahl could understand that decision.

Still… he glanced at the remnants of the carnage below the breached barricade wall and back toward the thinner ranks of Fifth Regiment. His eyes went back to the upper barricade. Could he do what he thought might be possible?

Finally, he squared his shoulders and turned to Drakeyt. "I think it's time."

"You have something in mind?" asked Drakeyt.

"Yes. I don't know if it will work, but it's worth the effort to see." He shrugged. "If it's not, no one will know." Except you and me, he thought.

Rahl moved more to his left, toward the base of the cliff, but raised his sight shield before he moved away from Third Company, navigating toward the road and the barricades with his order-senses. Holding both sight shield and order shields as strongly as he could, he walked forward, then up the slope of the paved road, staying in the shadows he could not see, hugging the cliff face, and hoping that his patience had convinced the rebels that all the Imperial mage-guards were with the main forces of First and Second Army.

He had to pick his way around the troopers behind the lower barricade, then ease through the breach and back to the side of the road. He could sense an occasional firebolt, but none were hurled in his direction. His sight shield kept the light from him, and he had no way of feeling whether he was in the shade except by staying as close to the ancient chaos-smoothed stone that formed the cliff-face wall overlooking the road.

When he neared the upper barricade, Rahl could feel the presence of several mages on the walled ledge behind and uphill of the barrier. One exuded such whiteness that he had to be a white wizard from Fairhaven. Intermittent chaos-order-probes flickered around the barricade, but they felt random, almost halfhearted.