L. Modesitt - Imager’s Battalion

Then the Bovarian heavy cavalry had smashed into Meinyt’s right flank. In turn, from what Quaeryt could see, Fifth Regiment’s second battalion had hit the Bovarians on the flank and rear, and the Bovarians were being hacked down-but by the sheer numbers of Fifth Regiment, and the two Telaryn battalions were taking heavy casualties in the process.

“Desyrk! Baelthm! Voltyr! Into the middle-just the middle-of the Bovarian armor, smoke and pepper! Hold here and do what you can!”

Quaeryt turned in the saddle, trying to make sense out of the confusion in the dimness, looking from the north end of the hilltop ridge to the south.

Another roll of thunder shook the hilltop, and Quaeryt rocked in his saddle as musket balls slammed into his shields-from the south. He struggled to widen his shields slightly, enough to cover the imagers. A flicker of red-orangish lights appeared some hundred yards away, but before he could say or do more, another volley ran out, and his shields again shivered, sending jolts of pain into his body, or so it seemed.

He turned the mare. “Shaelyt! Threkhyl! After me, behind me!”

How long it took him to get near to the second musket emplacement he couldn’t have said. But as he neared it, he could see a dark space between the musketeers and the mare. A pit moat, for the Namer’s sake. Frig!

“Threkhyl! Image a bridge across this pit moat wide enough for a mount, and stay behind me!”

Quaeryt half wondered if Threkhyl could-and would-do so, and was ready to turn the mare, but just before he started to do so, a flat white stone ramp appeared before Quaeryt, and he urged the mare forward onto the stone, hoping it would hold. The stone didn’t even shiver, and the next volley from the musketeers didn’t even strike his shields.

Because you’re too close?

Abruptly he realized he needed his staff and struggled to get it free of the leathers, barely getting it into position before he was at the end of the stone. He almost flew over the mare’s neck, but managed, somehow, to keep his seat as she jumped from the low rampart to which Threkhyl had linked the stone bridge. He came down among the second row of musketeers, staggered, to afford them a clean line of fire. His shields threw one musketeer and his stand to the side before Quaeryt managed to turn the mare back east and start down the line of Bovarians. Several saw him coming and tried to scramble out of the way.

As he had done with the musketeers hidden behind false haystacks, he braced the staff against the front of the saddle and linked the shields to the saddle, trusting the girths held. He could only hope that Threkhyl and Shaelyt could use their sabres effectively, or follow him. He didn’t look back. There was no point whatsoever in doing that.

But when he neared the end of the second line of musketeers, he slowed the mare enough to turn her back to where she was just behind the front line. From there he could see that Threkhyl had gone the other way and was applying his sabre to the musketeers he could reach. While some clearly managed to scramble away, the effect was the same, in that by the time Quaeryt neared the far end of the first line he had to ease the mare to the side to avoid plowing into Threkhyl.

“Hold up! They’re all gone!”

“So they are!” Threkhyl offered a booming laugh. “Stopped those bastards, we did.”

Quaeryt looked around again, but was relieved to see Shaelyt coming up to join them, his sabre also at the ready. Quaeryt looked back to the north, where more Telaryn horsemen poured onto the hilltop, but re-formed almost immediately.

Quaeryt realized that no one was left fighting near him and that most of the sounds issued from wounded men and mounts. He looked back at Threkhyl’s bridge, knowing he didn’t want to have the mare jump up on it again, but from what he could see, the dry moat completely surrounded what had been the musketeers’ position.

“All right,” he muttered under his breath, bringing the mare around in a circle to the back of the redoubt, where he heard moans from the moat. He ignored them and urged the mare forward.

The mare had far less a problem with the low jump onto the bridge than did Quaeryt, who found himself, again, slightly off balance, but righted himself in the saddle and then reined her up a good ten yards beyond the dry moat. He looked around, but the only fighting going on was at the north end of the ridge, where Meinyt’s Fifth Regiment had surrounded the remaining Bovarian heavy cavalry, and there was little he or the imagers or Fifth Battalion could do.

So Quaeryt waited for the other two imagers, taking a quick breath of relief as Threkhyl and Shaelyt joined him. They continued to wait perhaps half a quint, Quaeryt holding personal shields around all three, hoping he could keep doing so until the fighting was clearly over.

Finally, Ghaelyn and a squad from first company rode toward him. The three imagers with the undercaptain looked unharmed.

Quaeryt could feel some of the tightness within loosen. Thank the Nameless you didn’t lose any more imagers.

“You all right, sir?” asked Ghaelyn, looking at Quaeryt’s shoulder.

Quaeryt glanced down at the dark stain, not that he could tell what color it was in the dimness lit but faintly by Artiema and a few remaining lanterns to the west. He flexed his shoulder. “I’m fine.” You think. “How about first company?”

“Not near so bad as it looked-”

Before Ghaelyn could say more, a trumpet blared out, followed by a powerful voice-Skarpa’s.

“Subcommanders! Report!”

Quaeryt had no idea what to report and looked to Ghaelyn.

“Two dead, five wounded, none seriously.”

Only two dead … in this mess?

“Fifth Regiment took the worst of it, sir.”

Zhelan reined up beside Ghaelyn. “No casualties in second, third, and fourth companies.” He offered a crooked smile. “I think the Khellans were almost disappointed.”

Quaeryt suspected that Meinyt would be happy to have had the “disappointed” Khellan officers and their men in the position of his first battalion, but said nothing except, “Thank you, Major, Undercaptain.”

Then he rode toward where he had heard Skarpa’s voice.

As he reined up, he heard Meinyt reporting.

“About eighty dead in First Battalion. No count on the casualties. Thirty dead in Second Battalion.” After a pause he added, “Rather not take the lead in going after the others … sir.”

Quaeryt winced silently at those words. For Meinyt to say that suggested the total of his wounded was even greater than those killed.

“There aren’t any others,” Skarpa said. “There’s no sign of any other Bovarians.”

“They just left a company or so of foot, those Namer-cursed musketeers, and two companies of heavy cavalry?”

“It looks that way. While you were finishing them off, I sent a company into Ralaes. The locals we rousted out say everyone else pulled out right after dark.”

As Quaeryt looked past Skarpa and back toward the center of the hilltop … and the carnage there, Quaeryt could see that, in a sense, all his fears had been realized. The Bovarians had indeed planned-and executed, if not as well as they had hoped-a trap with cavalry and muskets. They’d also effectively sacrificed several companies of their own foot to bait, or at least disguise, the trap.

He wasn’t looking forward-at all-toward the battle for Villerive.

As he thought that, he found an ironic smile on his face. No intelligent officer looks forward to these kinds of battles.

Dawn was already breaking before all the Telaryn companies, battalions, and regiments were re-formed, the wounded tended to, and the comparatively few Bovarian captives confined. Only then did Skarpa, Meinyt, and Quaeryt finally leave the battlefield southeast of Ralaes, but by then Zhelan and several other majors had commandeered the necessary quarters for the Telaryn forces. Even so, it was well past eighth glass on that cloudy Jeudi morning when the commander and two subcommanders met in a corner of the public room of the South River Inn, the largest of the three inns in the once-quiet town.