L. Modesitt - Mage-Guard of Hamor

Consider this notice that further lack of competence will not be tolerated.

Rahl read it again. Could the submarshal truly be that stupid? He shook his head.

"What do you think?" asked Drakeyt.

"I'm amazed at his stupidity," Rahl replied. "I think you should read the dispatch I just received from the overcommander." He handed both Drakeyt's dispatch and the one he had received to the older officer.

When Drakeyt finished reading Taryl's dispatch, he looked to Rahl. "The overcommander outranks the submarshal, doesn't he?"

"He's not in the chain of direct command, but, yes, he does."

Drakeyt nodded, his smile faint and grim. "Machinations within machinations. I'm just a simple officer. What do you suggest?"

"What the overcommander recommended-that we ignore the sub-marshal and deal with the rebels. You weren't really ordered to do anything. I've never gone wrong following his guidance, and he's the one who rescued me from the slag heaps at Luba."

Drakeyt looked stunned for a moment, and Rahl realized that he'd never told the other officer that.

"I'd been drugged with something that blocked my memories and skills. I'd been slipped into the ironworks and passed off as a Codex breaker. I spent seasons as a loader before he discovered I had order-skills."

Drakeyt shook his head. "The longer I'm around you, the more I discover, and the less the world seems to be what I thought it was."

That was life, Rahl was beginning to think. "We might as well keep scouting. It'll keep us at a distance from the submarshal. I'll head back to the outriders."

Drakeyt nodded.

Rahl continued to scan the hills and the road, but the only thing he found unusual was that there were no steads nearby, although he could see that the hills had been logged in sections, and the grasslands between the remaining patches of trees had been grazed, heavily in places.

The hills were low, and the road curved between two of them. At the end of the long curve, the road straightened, heading toward a wide swampy marsh. Rahl could see why there weren't that many steads, and he suspected that the area would be most unpleasant in summer.

Ahead, a causeway some sixty cubits wide arrowed through the swampy marsh and extended at least two kays toward Helstyra. Gray-stone riprap bordered the causeway on each side. The section of road atop the causeway was paved-the first section of paved road Rahl had seen since leaving Kysha-and was a good fifteen cubits wide.

"Ugly-looking swamp, ser," observed Alrydd, riding to Rahl's right as they neared the beginning of the causeway.

"It is." Rahl had been studying the approaches to the swamp, but could detect nothing that seemed unusual. The winter-browned swamp grass rose less than a cubit above the dark and oily-looking water that extended from the edge of the gray riprap out through the marsh grasses eastward toward intermittent scraggly clumps of low bushes. Amid the swamp grasses were open spaces of the black water. Several hundred cubits ahead on the left was a large grove of live oaks.

Rahl could see and sense the ravages of age that permeated the ancient, massive, and clearly dying ancient live oaks rising from the marshlands to the southeast of the road. Even the moss hanging from sagging and rugged limbs was a whitish gray. Despite the bright if cold afternoon sunlight, an aura of gloom shrouded the trees.

The closer he rode to the trees, the more uneasy Rahl became, yet he could detect no chaos, and nothing that seemed unusual. The oaks were so tall that he had not realized that they were not all that close to the road, certainly a good hundred-fifty cubits to the left. Then he swallowed because he realized that he could not sense into the swamp as far as the oaks. Why couldn't he? What was it about the swamp? Or was it this swamp? He knew water affected what chaos-mages could perceive, but why would it affect him?

In one of the nearer spaces of still black water, he saw a set of ripples radiating from one point, then recognized a water rat swimming into the higher marsh grasses. Farther to the south, there was a flurry of wings and two golden cranes lifted off, skimming over the grass and past the oaks, then to the southeast.

Then he saw a wider wedgelike head, attached to a scaly body, swimming parallel to the causeway before heading back toward the oaks. While he'd never seen one before, the creature matched an illustration he'd seen of a stun-lizard. It was smaller than the ones described as inhabiting the Great Forest of the druids, but he had the feeling it was either the same or similar, and a chill ran down his spine.

Rahl kept studying the swamp on both sides, but on the right side of the causeway, there were only bushes, water, and grass for at least a kay and perhaps twice as far. As he and Alrydd passed even with the oaks, Rahl tried even harder to sense what might be there, but his order-senses did not reach that far, although they certainly had extended much farther all the time-until now. He could see no movement in the trees, though, and nothing unnatural.

He used his order-senses to scan the bushy miniature islands, but found nothing, then glanced back along the causeway. First squad was drawing abreast of the oak grove, but what could happen from a hundred and fifty cubits away across an impassable swamp?

After another moment of studying the trees, he looked forward again. The lead scouts were another half kay ahead, but there was nothing except brush and grass near the causeway where they rode.

Sprung. The sound was so faint Rahl almost didn't hear it.

He turned in the saddle just in time to see an ancient trunk drop into the swamp and a hail of arrows arch from the oaks down into the road, as well as onto the causeway and the swampy water on the left side of the causeway.

He turned the chestnut and urged his mount back toward the main body of Third Company at a full canter, hoping he didn't fall off onto the hard stone pavement.

As he neared first squad and Drakeyt, he still did not see or sense anything moving in the swamp, except for the ripples from the fallen trunk and various birds taking wing in and around the live oaks, reacting to the impact of the ancient trunk on the dark water.

"Look to Whebyt there," Drakeyt clipped, as Rahl reined up.

Rahl dismounted as quickly as he could, kneeling by the trooper who'd been lowered out of the saddle. Quarrel-like shafts protruded from his thigh and shoulder. Blood was not gushing, but his trousers and shirt showed wide dark patches.

If Rahl could stop the bleeding… After a moment, he concentrated, trying to erect tiny shields around the quarrels. He could sense the blood flow stopping, and he turned his head. "I can keep him from bleeding for a bit, until you can get this out and dress the wound. Then… maybe… I can do more."

A trooper appeared, then another, and between the two, they eased out both shafts, cleaned the wounds as they could, and bound them. After that, Rahl removed the wound chaos.

Finally, he stood and looked at Drakeyt, who had ridden off down the column and returned.

"I think I did enough that Whebyt will make it."

"That helps." Drakeyt's voice was slightly flat. "We lost one other, and there are three more with slight wounds."

"I'm sorry. I can't sense things as far in this swamp. I don't know why. We didn't see anything, even after the trap was sprung."

"You can't get them all," Drakeyt replied tersely, his tone partly belying his words.

Rahl stiffened, even as he still felt that he should have done more, but how could he have gotten close enough to the oaks when there was no solid land there? How could they have avoided the swamp without going scores of kays out of their way? How could he have known?

"I'll keep doing what I can," he finally said. He walked toward his mount and climbed back into the saddle. Without looking at Drakeyt, he turned the gelding back toward Alrydd.