L. Modesitt - Imager’s Battalion

A handful of defenders rushed forward with pikes. Quaeryt glanced back, then concentrated on imaging the contents of the last grenade back against the defenders. Only about half flared up, but that was enough to unsettle the others. But as they fell back, more pikemen rushed forward to try to halt the oncoming troopers.

Then, in the light of the Antiagon Fire that he had imaged against the pikemen, behind them he saw a figure with a framework and a sling-pouch-what he thought was a one-man trebuchet, or something like it. As the sling-catapult arm went back, Quaeryt imaged away part of the wooden arm, and the sling-pouch swung sideways, and Antiagon Fire flared along the wide trench behind the stone wall, and toward the pikemen.

“More pepper and smoke!” ordered Quaeryt.

Even he spoke, he heard the muffled thwump even before he saw a larger dark globe arc from a larger catapult through the air and strike the shoulder of the road more than a hundred yards downhill from where he watched, then explode into a ball of mixed crimson and yellow-green flames, an incandescence whose heat he could feel from more than a hundred yards away.

What can you do to stop that?

Almost without thinking, he imaged that mass of fire back onto the pikemen-except a good half of it vanished as he did, and there was a loud sizzling and a welter of steam rose around the remaining pikemen.

Why- He didn’t bother to complete the thought. He knew why. All the effort it had taken to image the Antiagon Fire back uphill had created ice around it and the ice had dropped on the edges of the fire.

Another fire grenade slammed against Quaeryt’s shields, and he could feel his control slipping. He contracted them to protect himself, feeling guilty as he did, glancing back in the direction of the sloping meadow and stone walls.

One trooper, trying to escape another fireball, rode off the road and across the grass toward the stone wall. His mount appeared to stumble, and then a gout of flame rose from the concealed pit, immersing man and mount in greenish yellow flames with crimson overshades.

From somewhere in the direction of the town, he heard a horn, and then several squads of men, perhaps a company of cavalry, plunged down the road toward Quaeryt and the troopers of Third Regiment who were pressing past him and toward the stone walls.

“Fourth company! On me! To the right!”

Quaeryt didn’t recognize the officer’s voice, but appreciated the speed and decisiveness of his action.

Even so, close to a squad of Bovarian riders broke past fourth company and rode down the narrow strip between the road and the wall, galloping toward the imagers at full speed.

Although some of the rankers in Third Regiment saw them, Quaeryt realized they wouldn’t react in time. “Imagers! Attack from the town. Image pepper!”

He hoped that they would react quickly, but suspected most wouldn’t be able to change their focus fast enough, and that some were probably already exhausted. He urged the mare forward, widening his shields slightly.

The three leading Bovarians raised blades, markedly longer than Telaryn sabres, and spurred toward him.

Quaeryt aimed the mare between two of them, then let the shields knock them aside. One mount veered into the one closest to the stone wall and that horse crashed into the stone. The remaining Bovarians slashed at Quaeryt, and while he could feel the impact of every blow on his shields, they held. Then he found himself in a small open space short of Third Regiment’s fourth company, in the process of cutting down and routing the Bovarians.

He turned the mare back toward the imager undercaptains, then reined up. The Telaryn troopers had followed him-or enough had-that the Bovarians who had charged the imagers were either wounded or dead. From what he could tell, the Telaryn forces had overrun the stone walls, at least to the extent that no more fireballs had appeared.

After a time, he eased the mare along the wall back toward the undercaptains. Once he returned, he stopped and studied them. Akoryt was slumped over the neck of his mount. But the others were more upright in their saddles, although Shaelyt looked to be shivering … or shuddering.

Sweat dripped from under the visor cap, through his hair, and down Quaeryt’s brow, while tiny flashes of light flickered across his vision. After another glance around, he pulled out his water bottle and took several swallows of watered lager. Several swallows later, the light flashes subsided, but did not entirely vanish.

Should you have continued the charge with the battalion? Even though he knew he’d been able to do more from where he placed the imagers, letting Zhelan lead them had bothered him, much as he knew that the major was far better trained in that than he was, and that he’d survived by imaging skill and not skill in leadership or arms. He was also aware that he was getting tired, and that any more imaging might not be possible.

His eyes scanned the slope and stone walls once more.

The night had taken on a muted lurid light, with patches of Antiagon Fire still burning here and there, and other fires that had spread through the drier vegetation. The various kinds of smoke billowed and swirled in an unpleasant and acrid mixture.

Quaeryt’s head ached so much that he could barely see. His eyes burned from the smoke, and his guts were churning from the odor of burned flesh. Through tearing eyes, he tried to make out the walls, but in the gloom from all the dying embers, he could make out little, except that it was clear that the Bovarians and Antiagons had broken and were fleeing … and that there was little more that he could do for the moment.

Several defenders fled downhill. In the dim light, Quaeryt saw one man flail and then disappear into a hidden pit. With all the sound of horses, riders, and weapons, he couldn’t hear if the Bovarian cried out.

“Sir?” asked Voltyr, moving his mount up past the leading rank of the squad protecting the imagers. “Do we need to do anything more?”

Can any of you? Quaeryt didn’t ask that. He turned. “Not now. I hope not. We’ll see.” He glanced at the fires and the smoke and stifled a cough. Was there any way he could project small shields away from him-to stop the fire grenades right after they were launched, so that they would explode then and shower fire on the Antiagons? Should he have thought of that earlier?

It wouldn’t have mattered. You’d have to see them much earlier than you could in the dark. He shook his head. You need to teach some of the imagers about shields. At least, Voltyr and Shaelyt … and the others later. Some of them might have noticed the way the fire hadn’t struck him, but in the darkness, they couldn’t have been certain, and he doubted that they’d been looking at him all the time, not in a battle. Still … that was another problem.

He took a deep breath.

He was still watching the last of what appeared to have degenerated into a slaughter two quints later when Zhelan rode back out of the heavier smoke that surrounded the stone walls.

The major reined up. “Sir … the area is ours. Those defenders who remain are dead or in no way able to fight.”

“What did it cost?” asked Quaeryt. “Do you know yet?”

“No, sir, but it looks worse than it was. Ghaelyn reports he lost ten men and has five wounded. The Khellans … they don’t know yet.”

“You did better than I hoped, leading the attack.” Ghaelyn’s casualties didn’t sound too bad, not when he’d been the first to reach the defenders, but Quaeryt worried about exactly why the Khellans didn’t know. Hunting down fleeing Bovarians?

“They were bunched in too tight, and got in each other’s way. The smoke and pepper helped. At first, they couldn’t see much.” Zhelan paused. “If there’s nothing else, sir?”