L. Modesitt - Imager’s Battalion

On Samedi, the first step was simple enough, to send forward Ghaelyn to request the surrender of Nordeau. Neither Skarpa nor Quaeryt expected that the Bovarians would even consider surrender, but Quaeryt had insisted that Skarpa make the offer.

“Why?” Skarpa had asked. “They won’t consider it. You know that.”

“I do.”

“Then…?”

“Because I want to be able to try to soothe my conscience,” replied Quaeryt.

Skarpa had merely nodded sadly.

Skarpa and Quaeryt were right. The Bovarians refused to surrender. But they didn’t try to kill poor Ghaelyn, for which Quaeryt was most thankful, recalling as he did how the hill holders of Tilbor had dealt with troopers carrying the request for their surrender. The Bovarians had just laughed and, from the gate towers, showered the undercaptain with ridicule.

Once Ghaelyn had returned, the Telaryn forces moved forward, slowly. Fifth Battalion, led by Quaeryt with Baelthm beside him, took the old road toward the southeast gate. Eleventh Regiment, positioned some six hundred yards to the south and west of Fifth Battalion, rode through the knee-high browning grass toward a point on the walls some four hundred yards southwest of the southeast gate towers. Near the front ranks rode Voltyr and Smaethyl.

Due south of the curved walls of Nordeau, Third Regiment rode toward the southernmost point of the wall, and close to Skarpa rode Threkhyl, Desyrk, and Horan. Farther to the west, aiming at a point on the walls equidistant between the target of Third Regiment and the southwestern gate, was Fifth Regiment, without any imager undercaptains. Taking the newer road toward the southwest gate was a battalion detached from Fifth Regiment, with the major in command accompanied by Shaelyt, Lhandor, and Khalis.

Quaeryt would have liked to have had imagers with each attack formation, but he didn’t have enough for that, and he was asking a great deal of them. At the same time, they needed to see what it was like when their lives and those of others depended on themselves, and not on Quaeryt. Some of them, he suspected, hadn’t even realized how much he had shielded them.

Even when the Telaryn formations had reached a point two hundred yards from the walls, the defenders had made no moves and launched neither arrows nor Antiagon Fire.

Then … dark shafts rose from behind the walls and angled down toward the attackers. There weren’t that many shafts targeted at each regiment and battalion, one of the reasons why Skarpa and Quaeryt had decided on the spread approach that they had adopted.

Quaeryt only had to raise and expand his shields for an instant so that the shafts dropped into the grass and road ahead of Fifth Battalion. From what he could tell, the other imagers had shielded most of the troops, with Lhandor, Khalis, and Shaelyt providing some coverage for Fifth Regiment as well as for the battalion they accompanied.

As the arrows were shunted away, a horn signal sounded from Third Regiment, and all the riders urged their mounts forward at a quick trot-because Skarpa had determined that the archers were behind the walls and not firing from the scattered slits and embrasures. That meant that the closer the attacking troopers were to the walls, the harder it would be for the archers to target the Telaryn forces, all the better for the attacker since the imagers couldn’t provide shielding and do what else they needed to accomplish next.

Because Quaeryt had studied the gates, he thought he could bring down those in front of him without too much strain, not that he intended to lead Fifth Battalion through them unless absolutely necessary. He’d also gone over the details of the gates with Shaelyt, suggesting the points of attack for the southwest gate.

As he rode forward on the ancient road, Quaeryt contracted his shields, to cover just the front of the column, then concentrated on removing a line of wood and metal from the outer edge of the gates. A flash of fire-pain lanced through his eyes, then dissipated so quickly that his eyes watered but for a moment. When he blinked again, he saw that the gates had dropped perhaps a third of a yard. There was the thinnest sliver of light on the left side, between what remained of the edge of the gate and the recessed stone that had held the ironbound wood in place. He concentrated once more, this time across the bottom, trying to angle what he imaged away.

The fire-pain lasted longer, and for another moment or two he could not see, but he did hear a muffled crash, and when his eyes cleared, the gates lay almost flat on the gray stone. As Skarpa’s scouts had reported, though, behind the gate was an iron portcullis, already lowered into place.

Quaeryt grabbed for his water bottle, then took a long swallow of the lager before recorking the bottle and slipping it back into the leather holder. Another attempt at image-cutting the iron of the portcullis followed, based on what he’d studied of such construction.

The third flash of fire-pain was no greater than the second, suggesting that the gates themselves had contained far more iron that he’d thought, and the portcullis crashed forward.

Quaeryt’s eyes flicked from the seemingly open southeast gate toward Eleventh Regiment and then toward the walls before them, drawn by a flash of light.

A narrow stone ramp, barely wide enough for two mounts stirrup-to-stirrup, stretched some fifteen yards from the ground to the top of the wall, and the troopers of Eleventh Regiment were riding straight toward it. Quaeryt could only hope that Voltyr and Smaethyl had been as successful at creating a ramp on the far side.

An even brighter flash of light flared from the south, but Quaeryt could only see the base of the ramp imaged by Threkhyl and Horan, and it appeared far wider and lower than the one imaged by Voltyr and Smaethyl. Quaeryt could not see anything near the southwest gate, and could only hope that the Pharsi imagers were able to create another entry to Nordeau. What he also did not see were defenders near the fallen gate or on or near the ramp up to the walls that was closest to Fifth Battalion.

One or even two ramps wouldn’t be enough to force an entry, especially once the defenders regrouped. Quaeryt looked at the fallen gate and took a deep breath.

“Fifth Battalion! On me! To the gate!”

As he neared the gate, and could feel the dull impact of arrow shafts on his shields coming through the opening where the gate had been, the thought crossed his mind, not that he could remember where he had heard the words, that even the best battle plan didn’t survive after the first moments. Abruptly the impacts of the arrow shafts stopped just before the mare’s hooves clattered on the wood and metal of the fallen gate.

Because Quaeryt had to slow the mare slightly in order to allow her to pick her way over the flat iron of the fallen portcullis, at any moment he expected either Antiagon Fire or burning or boiling oil. There was neither, but once he passed through the gate towers, the morning warmth of harvest was replaced with the chill of winter, and his breath and that of the mare steamed in the frigid air.

Quaeryt glanced around, seeing frost-shrouded figures sprawled everywhere within some fifty yards of the gates. His eyes went to his left, down the wide paved courtyard or street behind the foot of the walls to the south, where he saw horsemen pouring off a ramp.

“There!”

At that command from somewhere ahead, Quaeryt’s eyes flicked back forward along the street that connected to the gate, but which curved gradually past stone buildings until it headed northward to the bridge.

Archers scattered and ran down a side street as a company of pikemen marched toward Fifth Battalion, pikes angled toward first company. Quaeryt calculated. There might be seven or eight abreast. “First company! On me! Charge!”