L. Modesitt - Imager’s Battalion
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- Название:Imager’s Battalion
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In the end, Quaeryt assigned Horan, Threkhyl, and Shaelyt to fill and pave the second gap in the causeway. While they worked, taking long breaks between imaging, at Quaeryt’s insistence, he continued to study the remainder of the causeway and then the space cut for the road through the forest and heavy undergrowth beyond the end of the causeway. The forest growth between the river road and the River Aluse appeared to be close to a half mille wide, but given the path of the road, the tree-filled area narrowed so that, most likely, several milles farther along, the road was much closer to the river. From where he was, Quaeryt could make out a brown line to the left of the river road, mostly straight, running roughly parallel to the road and equidistant between the road and the woods on the south side of the road. It was some sort of drainage ditch several yards wide.
Once the repairs were complete, Quaeryt had the three rest for another half quint before he had Fifth Battalion resume riding. As he rode along the causeway arcing gently northward to meet a tongue of land that the road followed through a narrow gap in a forest that might well be swamp forest at times of the year, Quaeryt tried to catch murmurs from the imagers.
“… not too bad…”
“… didn’t image himself…”
“… has … reasons…”
Quaeryt did indeed, and he hoped that his suspicions were unfounded.
Once they left the causeway and rode on the slightly raised road flanked mainly by knee-high and browning grasses-and red flies and mosquitoes-Quaeryt kept studying the trees, looking for anything that appeared less-or more-than it should have been. Then … he stiffened in the saddle, immediately turning. “Imagers! Mark the brown stump ahead and to the left. Stand ready to image iron darts into any Bovarians who appear! At my command.”
Quaeryt was partly guessing, but there were far more wilting and yellow leaves ahead to the left. He concentrated on removing all the leaves-or what seemed to be leaves-across a space some hundred yards wide.
Instantly, he heard screams and saw wooden frames, with musketeers and their loaders.
“Image darts! At the musketeers!” Then he extended his own shields at an angle just before a ragged volley discharged.
He reeled back in the saddle, but the impact was nothing compared to what he’d experienced in Nordeau. He contracted the shields to protect a smaller area, basically the imagers, and imaged iron darts at three musketeers.
Another volley, smaller than the first, ripped in the direction of Fifth Battalion. Quaeryt felt no impacts on his shields. He kept imaging darts. So did the other imagers, especially Voltyr, but that was one reason why Quaeryt had kept one of the stronger imagers fresh.
There were only a few musketeers who fired a third volley, and there was no fourth volley. Quaeryt saw some Bovarians crawling or scuttling back into the thick forest.
“Shaelyt! Image pepper and smoke across the whole area where the musketeers were.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Major Zhelan, forward!”
Zhelan moved up beside Quaeryt. “Sir?”
“We need to send a message back to the commander, telling him what happened and warning him that there might be a musketeer or two left.”
“You don’t want to send troopers in to clean them out?” Zhelan’s voice was level.
“I think we’ve put them to rout, and I’m not inclined to send troopers across uneven ground, maybe even with swampy spots, not to mention a wide ditch just to have them try to catch a few Bovarians in a thick forest that doesn’t look friendly to horses.” Quaeryt looked at Zhelan. “If I’m wrong, please tell me. I value your judgment.”
“Sir … you have to make the decision … but you wouldn’t catch many.” Zhelan paused. “You were busy, sir, but whatever you did at the beginning killed about half of them, ripped off arms and the like.”
Quaeryt winced. He had heard screams, but he’d only meant to remove the musketeers’ camouflage. “I didn’t realize.”
“That’s why any troopers might not find much.”
“We’ll leave it that way, but the commander needs to know.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it … and we can send out the scouts now.”
That was another thing Quaeryt had forgotten.
As he looked southward at the gash in the trees, Quaeryt swallowed again. He hadn’t done that kind of imaging before … and with any new imaging … there were often costs. That one … you just didn’t expect.
He kept riding, looking for other ambush spots, although he doubted there would be another too close. Still …
69
That evening, after the three regiments and Fifth Battalion were settled in for the night in a small town that the locals called Byun, and the map showed as Reyks, Quaeryt had just finished a short session with the new imagers when Skarpa rode up. Quaeryt and the commander ended up on a small porch of a dwelling less than fifty yards from the south bank of the River Aluse.
“How are your imagers coming?” asked Skarpa.
“Each day, most of them are getting stronger, even Baelthm, not that he’ll ever have much strength. Some of the younger ones show great promise…” After reporting on the rest of Fifth Battalion, Quaeryt asked, “Is there anything else I should know?”
“We haven’t heard from the marshal since this morning’s dispatch. He was still about a half day behind us on Lundi. His scouts reported a regiment moving westward toward Variana. The Bovarians spurred their mounts and even made their foot trot to avoid Myskyl’s vanguard.”
“Have they experienced any musketeers?”
Skarpa frowned. “Come to think of it, I don’t think they’ve encountered any musket fire.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as strange?”
“It tells me that the Bovarians are targeting you and the imagers.”
“How did they know early enough to get the musketeers into position? Moving all those stands, the camouflage, the powder, the muskets-that’s not nearly so easy as moving a mounted company.”
“They must have spies.”
“Of some sort,” said Quaeryt blandly.
“You’d best leave it at that, right now, unless there’s proof,” cautioned Skarpa.
“I intend to, but I’ll keep it in mind.” Quaeryt paused. “There’s one other thing … cannon.”
“You mean that we haven’t seen any? We might at Variana or closer to it.”
“Why not now?”
“I’d guess that they don’t have that many, and most were probably around Ephra. They’re Namer-fired heavy. Muskets are easier to move, and you can get a more rapid fire from them.” Skarpa shrugged. “Those’d be my thoughts.”
Quaeryt still wondered. “Is there anything you have in mind for us tomorrow?”
“I still want Fifth Battalion in the van.” Skarpa stretched, then glanced toward his horse, tied to a sturdy, if slightly angled post just beside the path to the cot.
“We’ll be there.”
“Good.” The commander turned and made his way off the narrow porch, pausing beside the post, his eyes going to the River Aluse. “Don’t see why they build so close to the water.”
“They don’t have to drag a boat too far or carry water for hundreds of yards,” replied Quaeryt. “That gets tiring after a while. Besides, the land’s so flat here that they’d likely get flooded even if they were hundreds of yards away.”
Skarpa looked toward into the rapidly purpling eastern sky, where the three-quarters-full disc of Erion hung well above the trees in the distance. The smaller moon’s shade was more like amber, but would turn its usual reddish tint once the sky darkened. “Might just be full when we reach Variana.” Then he looked to Quaeryt. “How did you know the musketeers were there?”
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