L. Modesitt - Imager’s Battalion

The catapult buckled, and whatever was in the sling or bucket tumbled backward and dropped just behind the catapult frame. Then Antiagon Fire flared up from the earthworks that held the catapult. Quaeryt could not hear, but could imagine, the screams of men being consumed by living fire of crimson-green and yellow.

He looked to the Bovarian reinforcements, but unsurprisingly none of them had moved from their reserve positions higher on the low slope.

The sound of another volley of musket shots echoed back toward Quaeryt, but the smoke indicated that it had been aimed from defenders well away from Eleventh Regiment and opposite the western side of the Telaryn forces, at some of the marshal’s regiments who were advancing more slowly than was Eleventh Regiment. Everything he does is slower … but it won’t help him that much today.

Quaeryt looked to a second catapult, but it wasn’t moving. He concentrated on imaging several tiny pieces of white iron into a space where he thought the Antiagon Fire canisters might be … but nothing happened. He decided against trying again, because trying to replicate his success with the first catapult through blind imaging could easily wear him out before the Bovarians reacted in the way he needed. And then he would need all the strength he could muster … and more.

He didn’t want to think about the “more” part yet.

Another volley of musket fire ripped into Eleventh Regiment, and troopers went down, and horses screamed.

Then a rolling rumble echoed out of the north. For a moment Quaeryt thought it must have been thunder, but a quick glance skyward confirmed that the moderately high gray clouds were not that dark, and that there were no lightning flashes.

Gouts of dirt, turf, stones, and who knew what else erupted into the air less than a hundred yards in front of Eleventh Regiment’s first company.

As he kept riding, Quaeryt tried to judge the distance between the first riders of Eleventh Regiment and the earthworks ahead. “Imager Horan, forward! Beside me.”

Horan rode forward. “Sir?”

“Do you see the earthworks directly before Eleventh Regiment?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I need you to image them flat, as wide a section as you can without exhausting yourself. Just push the dirt and fill back over the defenders.” Quaeryt lurched in the saddle as the mare rode over something uneven, then caught himself.

“Now, sir?”

“Now. That’s so that Eleventh Regiment can gallop through and put a break in the defenses.” And so that the cannoneers won’t be able to fire there without hitting the defenders who will rush to fill the breach. “Threkhyl! Can you do the same for the earthworks directly behind the one Horan is targeting?”

“Yes, sir!”

In moments, there was a space some fifty yards wide where there had been an earthen barrier, and some fifty yards behind that and several yards higher was an even wider area of flattened earth.

Quaeryt glanced at Horan, whose face had paled, and at Threkhyl, whose face had not, then back at the Bovarians. For a moment all action seemed to stop on the low slope that held the Bovarians.

Then Khaern reacted immediately, putting Eleventh Regiment into a full gallop toward the gap in the Bovarian lines.

Unfortunately, within several moments, the Bovarian cannoneers reacted as well, and cannonballs tore into the midst of the charging troopers.

Quaeryt began to smell the acrid odor of powder, as well as the dryness of dust thrown into the air by the impacts of the cannonballs. Ignoring the bitterness in his nostrils, he turned to his left. “Voltyr … can you image a spray of white-hot iron fragments into the cannon emplacement directly up the slope from us?”

“Yes, sir.”

In moments a series of small explosions crescendoed into a large roar, and the ground shook. Then white and black smoke rose from the emplacement and began to drift slowly downhill and then across the Bovarian earthworks.

“I can do another, sir!” called Voltyr.

“Do it, then! But just one more.”

A second cannon emplacement went up in a roar.

Quaeryt glanced across to the west side of the battlefield, finally standing in the stirrups before he saw another series of musket volleys rip into Deucalon’s forces, this time at the middle of the assault. Still standing in the stirrups and knowing that he was making himself a target, he scanned the earthworks and the slope, trying to see the damage and the gaps in the defenses.

There were a few gaps here and there, but what were a few hundred yards at most across a mille of defenders?

Yet the Bovarian reserves remained planted on the upper slope.

“Voltyr! Can you take out a cannon emplacement to the left of the last one?” Quaeryt hoped that the smoke from such an explosion would create an impression among the Bovarian commanders of more damage to the defenses than was actually the case.

“Yes, sir!”

Quaeryt caught sight of a third catapult being winched back. “Smaethyl! The catapult to the right of the breach ahead! Take it down! Now!”

“Yes, sir!”

Quaeryt could barely hear the response, but he did, and he watched as the catapult bent forward in its release-and the cable snapped and released the canister almost straight up. The dark object went upward end over end and then came down forward of the emplacement, spewing Antiagon Fire largely in front of the earthworks.

At least it didn’t land in the middle of eleventh company.

“Subcommander! Down, sir!” That was Zhelan’s voice.

Quaeryt dropped back into his saddle. Instants later he heard and half felt a volley of musket balls pass overhead.

More cannonballs ripped into the rear of Eleventh Regiment, less than twenty yards ahead of Fifth Battalion, with more acrid smoke drifting toward Quaeryt and Fifth Battalion, but the first companies of the regiment had reached the gap in the defenses and were cutting down the defenders who were trying to fill the gap.

As more of Eleventh Regiment surged forward into the gap, finally a mass of Bovarian reinforcements began to hurry down from their reserve positions toward the attacking Telaryn troopers.

Despite heavy musket fire from the west side of the defensive emplacements, one of Deucalon’s regiments had broken through as well.

Yet more and more troops, mostly foot, poured over the hill and down toward the advancing Telaryn forces, a mass that had to outnumber the attackers by twice … if not three times-and Quaeryt had no idea how many more might be held in reserve.

Not only that, but he could see that he and Fifth Battalion, despite his efforts to keep some space, were so hemmed in by the other regiments that they had nowhere to go except continuing forward into the cannon fire.

Another gout of soil, grasses, and far worse erupted just ahead and to Quaeryt’s left.

Like it or not …

You can’t wait any longer. You can’t!

Quaeryt did not even attempt to draw in the other imagers … but instead reached out to the River Aluse, and then across the entire hillside before him, seeking any source of heat possible …

Lines of heat and cold crisscrossed over him and through him, but he continued to concentrate on three things-seeking heat, flattening and destroying everything in front of the Telaryn forces, and, just to be sure, imaging a coating of impenetrable white alabaster across every exterior surface of the Chateau Regis-the last, because he wasn’t quite certain that what he was doing would work without at least some constructive imaging. At the same time, he concentrated on holding links to the river, and to the warmth of thousands of bodies of poor hapless Bovarian troopers and officers, and even to all those within the Chateau Regis, for they too would pay … as would Quaeryt.