L. Modesitt - Imager’s Battalion

Quaeryt closed the book and sat down at the small table, trying to turn what he read into a semblance of a homily. Two glasses later, he was still struggling, but he finally had something workable, if not ideal, just before he had to join the other officers in the public room.

That evening, after dinner, at slightly before half past sixth glass, Quaeryt approached the door in the South River Inn leading out onto the courtyard porch.

Skarpa stood beside the door, with a slight smile on his face. “Both courtyards are filled. I hope your voice is in good fettle.”

“So do I.” That meant image-projecting his voice, but that wasn’t tiring, and he would have a night’s sleep before they advanced on Villerive.

He stepped out onto the porch, and the conversations died away. He let the silence draw out for a bit, then image-projected his voice. “We gather together in the spirit of the Nameless and to affirm the quest for goodness and mercy in all that we do.”

Then came the opening hymn, again the only one he knew by heart-“Glory to the Nameless”-followed by the confession beginning with, “We name not You, for naming presumes, and we presume not upon the Creator of all that was, is, and will be…”

As always the confessional words that followed were difficult for Quaeryt, but he did lead the response that followed, “In peace and harmony.”

He waited for a long moment, and then spoke. “Good evening, and all evenings are good evenings under the Nameless, but we say that so often that, for many, it is like saying a day is a day, an evening an evening, and all roads lead somewhere. When I thought that, I wondered what Rholan had thought about roads, since he walked and rode many in his time. Then I recalled what he had said. He claimed that whether a road was good or not so good depended on how you looked at it. Were you considering where a road stopped as its end or its beginning? Now … if we’re walking a road, and it stops, we think we’ve come to the end. But what of the man who steps out of the woods and sees where we thought the road ended? He sees it as a beginning. In that way, whether a road is an end or a beginning depends on where you’re going. That’s true of every man here.

“Before long, we will be heading west, toward Villerive and then toward Nordeau and Variana. If we are to be successful, we must consider the road we travel, the road we must fight to travel, as a beginning, and not as an end. It must be the beginning of a better time for all of Lydar …

“Why do I say this? Some of you may know that Rex Kharst sent out his own men to burn the crops of his own holders for fear that we might benefit from them. His own holders, and his men burned crops we could not have used. Some others of you may know that he has sent assassins with crossbows to kill our officers, but these assassins were not trained to kill Telaryn officers. They were trained to kill anyone in Bovaria-not in Telaryn, but Bovaria-from High Holders to important factors who uttered a word against the rex. Rex Kharst does not have a few assassins; he has companies of them.

“We did not start to travel this road. In order to attack us, Rex Kharst sent his troopers down the very road we travel in the opposite direction. If we do not travel this road all the way to Variana, and beyond, then you, and your children, and your children’s children will live in fear that, at some time, another rex will burn your crops and worse. For as Rholan said many years ago, a road is measured by its quality and the goodness of not only those who create it, but those who must travel it … and we are traveling it to return goodness to Lydar…”

As he went on to finish the service, Quaeryt realized that he had twisted Rholan’s words, although, from what he’d read of the Unnamer, he doubted that Rholan would have found too much fault.

Still … it bothered him, for all of Skarpa’s nod when Quaeryt spoke the last words of his final words that followed the closing hymn.

“As we have come together to seek meaning and renewal, let us go forth this evening renewed in hope and in harmony with that which was, is, and ever shall be.”

When the sun cleared the eastern horizon on Lundi morning, Quaeryt and Fifth Battalion were riding westward on a narrow lane that circled a series of fields and would turn northward, less than a mille ahead, back toward the river and the western end of the earthworks around the southern part of Villerive. Because Fifth Battalion had the farthest to travel, Quaeryt and first company had been the first to leave Ralaes, shortly after daybreak.

Quaeryt studied the fields to his right, most holding some sort of bean plants that were near harvesting and stood waist-high. He would have preferred maize, because the taller plants would have concealed their movements, but then he doubted that his force would have gained much advantage from not being seen until later. The Bovarians had to know they were coming.

“Have the scouts reported anything more about where the defenders might be located?” asked Zhelan. “Or any areas where there might be fewer?”

“All they have reported is that the Bovarians have enough archers to keep them from getting too close to the earthworks. They could discover no pits or traps beyond two hundred yards, and there appeared to be few or none between one and two hundred yards.”

Zhelan glanced back at the undercaptains, then looked straight ahead. “In how many places will the imagers be able to weaken the defenses?”

“Three, at least.”

Although Skarpa was in favor of what Quaeryt would have called a measured and inexorable attack on Villerive, he had suggested that Meinyt and Quaeryt proceed as their men, their opposition, and circumstance allowed. Quaeryt intended to use imaging to change those circumstances.

He studied the lane ahead, where it curved northward toward the western end of the earthworks, and the fields of more beans that ran almost to the hurriedly built revetments. With the haze hanging over the fields and the woods farther east, Quaeryt couldn’t even feel the heat of the sun on his back.

He turned in the saddle as Threkhyl eased his mount forward.

“Sir … a question, if you would?”

“Go ahead.”

“You don’t care how we do this, sir?” asked Threkhyl. “In dealing with the earthworks? So long as we flatten them?”

“Whatever takes the least effort for you,” replied Quaeryt, his thoughts more on what lay behind the earthworks. “That way, you can open a wider gap. That will leave less cover for the defenders and more space for the troopers.”

“Yes, sir. I think we can do the same thing if we image the earth back, especially if they have trenches behind.”

“You can try it, but it’s got to be low enough for the troopers to go through without being slowed.”

“Yes, sir. We can do that.” Threkhyl let his mount drop back.

Another quint passed, and Fifth Battalion left the narrow way that had already dwindled to little more than a path and began to form up some 250 yards away from the earthworks, companies abreast with a five-man front. The area Quaeryt had picked was located just before the earthworks turned sharply north toward the low bluff that marked the edge of the river. The section of earthworks that ran north was less than fifty yards long, while the target area for Fifth Battalion ran roughly from east-southeast to west-northwest, so that the troopers would not be attacking into the morning sun. The earthworks before Quaeryt showed only two catapults rising above the defenses, not that there might not be smaller ones as well. He could see a few defenders here and there, but try as he might, he could make out no sign of muskets, or any sort of variation in the front of the earthworks that might conceal musketeers.