L. Modesitt - Cyador’s Heirs

“First squad, ready to withdraw.”

Meaning that they’re out of shafts. “First squad, withdraw! On the double!”

Lerial turns the gelding and rides back toward second squad. “Second squad! Fire at will!” He reins up, looking beyond the first lines to the rear of the oncoming force. He can sense the chaos mist, but there is still no sign of a firebolt.

The Meroweyans keep coming, and the gap between the forces is more like sixty yards, although Lerial can see and sense that the war arrows, fired at such comparatively close range are taking a toll, despite the attackers’ shields, which are deflecting many of the Verdyn shafts.

All too soon, Lerial orders, “Second squad! Withdraw! Double time!”

He barely waits until the last second squad ranker has slipped past the fourth squad archers before ordering, “Fourth squad! Fire at will!”

The greater number of archers in fourth squad, and the speed with which they release their shafts, slows the Meroweyans, but the attackers are far too close, and Lerial wishes he had ordered first squad to begin shooting far earlier.

Again, he wonders why the Meroweyan wizard has not thrown a single firebolt. Because he’s been told to let the troopers do what they can? Because they’ve lost too many wizards? Still, he’s definitely glad that he hasn’t had to deflect any firebolts.

Overhead, thunder rumbles through the dark clouds, but there is not a hint of rain.

Lerial glances from the Meroweyan foot troopers, still advancing, if more slowly, now only forty yards away and holding their shields in a fashion to guard their chest and guts, and then back to fourth squad, where Alaynara stands in middle of the front rank of the archers, releasing shaft after shaft.

At that moment, he senses a strong buildup of chaos, just before a firebolt arches toward fourth squad from behind the still-advancing Meroweyan shields and foot.

Lerial concentrates, coldly, accurately, and like a crossbow quarrel, the firebolt sears straight back to the chaos wizard who created it-except that the wizard does something, and the firebolt, brighter than ever, and far stronger, slows, then reverses its course, arching higher and angling straight toward Lerial.

Lerial smiles grimly and sets out three fine-linked ten-line patterns, then clamps them around the firebolt. There! See how you like this!

WHHHUMPHT!!

Lerial gapes, openmouthed, as the firebolt splits into three unequal lines of flame-the largest one slamming back at the Meroweyan wizard, one fanning down on the lead ranks of the Meroweyan foot, and one narrower beam slashing into the middle of the fourth squad-where Alaynara and three other archers had stood loosing shafts a moment before.

Unseen silver-gray mists, but mists that Lerial can sense all too well, fill the entire area from the front of fourth squad to the rear of the Meroweyan force.

For several moments, Lerial sits frozen in the saddle. How did that happen?

With all that chaos in one firebolt … why hadn’t he considered where some of it might go when it could not return to him and some was blocked by the Meroweyan wizard’s shields? Why hadn’t he…?

Anticipation! Why didn’t you anticipate something like that?

His eyes keep looking for Alaynara and the other two archers.

“Ser!” calls Moraris. “Fourth squad is ready to withdraw!”

Lerial brings himself up short. “Fourth squad! Withdraw! Withdraw! Withdraw and mount!” He looks to the Meroweyan front, but the shielded foot have halted. For the moment.

He tries to see if he can tell anything about the casualties that he and second company have inflicted, but amid the lingering smoke and a misty haze rising from the damp ground that had once held at least a score of Meroweyan foot, he cannot tell.

“Third squad, withdraw now! Third squad! Withdraw now!” While Lerial would like to have Fhentaar’s squad use their shafts, the Meroweyans are beginning to regroup, and they are far, far too close.

“Third squad, withdrawing!”

Lerial keeps looking from his rankers to the Meroweyans and back again.

His eyes go back to second company. The archers have reached their horses and mounted, and third squad is beginning to mount. But the Meroweyans, at least some of them, are beginning to run toward second company. Realizing, almost belatedly, that he is the closest one to the attackers, he turns his mount and urges the gelding forward.

By the time he reaches third squad, at the rear of second company, all the Lancers are mounted, and he orders, “Second company! Withdraw! Withdraw on the double!”

Lerial remains near the rear of the company, glancing back and using his order-senses, but before long, the running Meroweyans slow … and then stop, and second company is widening the gap between forces on its way south … and Lerial cannot help but worry about how Altyrn’s remaining three companies are faring against thousands of attackers.

Another roll of thunder echoes across the sky, and he glances up. There is no lightning he can see, and no rain falls.

Once he is certain that the Meroweyans are not pursuing, or not with any speed, and that second company will not be attacked from the rear so long as they keep moving, Lerial eases the gelding forward to the front of the company and slows the pace to a fast walk. Then, he begins to use his order-senses to try to determine what lies ahead of them, except he has more and more trouble discerning anything to the south, other than the fact that there appear to be a chaos wizard and far more men than could be possible for just the three companies that had held the eastern bank of the stream.

“We’re going to have to work our way through the trees to join up with the others,” Lerial tells Korlyn. “The Meroweyans have crossed the stream and hold the eastern side.” From what little you can tell … and if you can find Altyrn. As he speaks, droplets begin to fall, and before they have ridden another hundred yards, the rain is coming down steadily, and the drops are cold enough to give Lerial a chill feeling when they hit the back of his neck.

Lerial has a thought and tries to order sense to the north, finding that his ability to find the Meroweyans is far better there. So the rain affects you as well. Are you using chaos as well as order, then? He doesn’t know, not for certain, and now is not the time to be trying to find out. Instead he attempts to locate the Verdyn Lancers.

After riding another hundred yards, he thinks he has located them, if more than two kays away and almost due east of where he is. Next, he tries to find a way through both the trees and rain.

“Second company! On me!”

As Lerial struggles to lead the company through rain and trees, and around occasional large patches of thornbushes, his thoughts keep returning to the short battle on the banks of the stream-if indeed it even qualified as a skirmish, let alone a battle.

It was not quite a rout, but his withdrawal has been hasty indeed. Still … is it a rout when they lost scores, and a white wizard, and you only lost three? He shakes his head, knowing he could have accounted for more Meroweyans, had he judged the pace of their attack better. And perhaps Alaynara and those other two archers wouldn’t have died.

Some three glasses later, well after fifth glass, Lerial and second company struggle into Bherkhan, the small hamlet where Altyrn has billeted the other three companies. Just off the main road to Escadya and, eventually, to Verdell, Bherkhan lies some eight kays east of the site of the stream battle. Everyone in second company is drenched through, and Lerial is shivering by the time he finally stands in front of a fire in the small dwelling serving as officers’ quarters.