Authors: L. E. Modesitt
Mykel
eased back in the armless chair, very carefully, thinking. She was conveying,
as best she could within the limits of her situation, her interest in him, as
well as her inability to accept him at present. Was it just because his
position and social status were insufficient?
He
laughed, softly and not quite bitterly. Just?
His
thoughts went back to their last meeting. He had mentioned hope, and she had
said hope was for children. He paused. That wasn’t quite what she had said. She
had said that hope was for children who did not realize that the faults and the
status and the reputation of their parents could blight their future. Yet she
had reached out to him, if formally.
He
sat there for a time, still holding the unsigned missive. Children ... Rachyla
wasn’t just thinking about herself. She was thinking about children, about, in
a way, what she had suffered because of her father’s failings and her mother’s
abandonment. She could not accept a mere majer’s suit, not and remain in the
south of Corns, and she would not doom a child to a life where that child was
forced by birth to be subservient to those with whom she had been raised. Those
were the messages she had sent, and given the indirect nature of the world in
which she had grown up, she was clearly suggesting that she cared, but that she
could do little about it unless he could do better by her. Somehow ... he had
to cut her loose from her prison.
Yet...
what could he promise? He had no commercial prospects, and from what he had
seen, he was not by nature a factor, even had he the golds to launch such a
venture. He’d been promoted early to majer, and it was unlikely that he would
ever become a colonel. Even if he did make the rank, it would not be for years,
and there was no guarantee that Rachyla would be there for him by then. Would
she accept him as a majer, living near Elcien or Faitel?
He
shook his head again. That was most unlikely, given the luxury in which she had
been raised.
Yet...
she knew what his limitations were. She was far too intelligent not to, and she
had mentioned them more than once. But she had earlier made certain that she
had been sent to Tempre as Amaryk’s chatelaine, and now she was informing him
that she knew of his injuries when there was no way that she could have.
His
eyes dropped to the letter once more, and he smiled. For all her protestations
against the vanity of hope, she had hopes as well, and those hopes included
him... and she wanted him to know that.
His
smile faded. No matter what she wrote, no matter what they both wished and
hoped, there would be no prospects at all if he did not find a way out of the
situation in which fate and Marshal Dainyl had placed him and one in which he
had to find better solutions than always risking himself.
Duadi
morning had come far too early for Dainyl, since he had awakened well before
dawn. While the other alectors slept, he had thought... and thought some more.
He did not wish to lose more pteridons, but he also could not afford to take a
week to reduce the Soupat alector’s complex to rubble, and the way matters were
going, it might take that long. Losing two pteridons a day for who knew how
many days more wasn’t acceptable, either.
Finally,
after an informal morning muster, he met with Alcyna and the two company
commanders outside the dilapidated patroller’s barracks, just as the sun edged
over the sandy rolling and rocky hills to the southeast. Alcyna stood slightly
back of his shoulder.
“We
need to change the attack strategy some.” Dainyl studied both Ghasylt and
Lyzetta. They looked more tired than he felt, and every bone in his body ached.
That was more from sleeping on a hard floor on a partial pallet, because none
of the patroller beds were long or wide enough to fit even an alector of
Alcyna’s diminutive stature, although she was only slightly taller than almost
all indigens and most landers. “I’d like to try varying the attack numbers,
having two pteridons attack on one side, then several single attacks,
interspersed irregularly with dual attacks.”
“Anything
to keep them from predicting when and where the next pteridon will appear,”
added Alcyna in a quiet voice.
“We
can do that,” replied Ghasylt.
Lyzetta
nodded.
After
the captains left, Dainyl turned to Alcyna. “We’re running out of time.”
“Better
that than pteridons, sir.”
But
Dainyl knew they were running out of both.
For
the third day running, nearly two glasses passed before Dainyl was in position
and the pteridons began their passes at the regional alector’s complex. As on
previous days, few local inhabitants were out in the streets or lanes, and
despite the warmth of the day the majority of homes, especially those to the
northwest, nearer the bombardment, remained shuttered. Dainyl had seen no sign
of the Cadmians of Sixth Battalion, and that was also for the best.
The
sky was a dusty beige-silver, with but the slightest trace of green, except
near the northern horizon. As he watched the pteridons release their boulders,
Dainyl wondered if that beige-silver was the way it looked all the time during
the intense heat of summer.
Both
companies completed their first set of passes and part of the second before the
lightcannon fired even once. That first shot was nowhere close to the single
pteridon, but once more the power of the weapon created brilliant burning
sparkles in the air and left a clear swath through the dust and sand raised by
the bombardment.
The
second bombardment run continued, and Dainyl noted that the lightcannon was not
firing so often as on the previous days. In fact, it only fired three times at
the next fourteen pteridons. He also sensed what he could only have described
as a Talent-vibration each time the beam winked out.
After
a slight break, First Company began the third set of runs with two pteridons,
one from the west-southwest and another from the northwest, both delivering
substantia]
boulders.
One missed the central building, but the second slammed into the southwest
corner of the smaller western building.
Dainyl
watched as the corner shuddered and then toppled outward, stones flying in a
long slow arc. Then the ends of the western wall crumpled into a heap in the
center, leaving the northwest corner as a triangular battlement but after a
moment it imploded in toward the center of the structure, and the remaining
walls collapsed, with sand and dust exploding skyward.
A
single alector scrambled away from the rubbled ruin, sprinting toward the
remaining battered building.
Battered
the surviving structure might have been, but after three more glasses, with a
break for replenishment and rest, the Myrmidons had still not been able to
inflict any more significant damage on the central building. In fact, Dainyl
had the sense that the boulders piling up around its walls might now actually
be providing a measure of protection.
The
lightcannon fired erratically, but despite the feeling of instability Dainyl
sensed, the actual blue-green beam was as powerful as ever, and those aiming it
were getting closer and closer to bringing down another pteridon.
The
pteridons were getting tired. That Dainyl could tell. Many more passes, and the
lightcannon would start taking them out. He studied the flat area around the
remaining building on the ridge, littered as it was with boulders, not huge,
but a number large enough for cover. He’d already seen that the lightcannon did
not have the power to stop or destroy the boulders, only to glaze one side.
After
another moment of thought, he edged back from cover and partway down the
backside of the ridge before signaling Lyzetta. While he waited for her, he
checked the lightcutters at his belt. Both were fully charged. Two would have
to do.
Before
that long, Lyzetta made a low approach and landed. Rather, her pteridon
balanced on the slope while Dainyl scrambled into the second harness.
“Here’s
what I need,” he called forward to the Seventh Company captain. “Set me down on
the east side, below the ridgeline, low enough that they can’t see me from the
central building. Then make one or two more passes, but make them from due
east, and don’t come above the ridgeline just lob boulders over the
e.g.
as well as you can, and not too often. Don’t expose
yourself. Give the same message to Captain Ghasylt. I don’t want anyone
exposed.”
“Sir
... ?”
“I
need to get close enough to check out some things.” That much was true, but
that was only the start unless things were worse than he thought, in which
case he had no compunctions about withdrawing as expeditiously as possible.
“I’ll come back as close as I can to where you drop me and signal for pickup.”
“Yes,
sir.”
The
pteridon turned and glided down the east side of the ridge, almost into the
sinkhole valley, before turning back west, but remaining barely a handful of
yards above the uneven and rocky ground on the east side of the ridge that held
the regional alector’s complex. Once more, when the pteridon landed, it
balanced with tail and talons until Dainyl was clear.
He
took a deep breath once Lyzetta and her pteridon were away, then looked at the
seventy-some yards of steep and rocky incline before him. He began to climb,
extending his Talent-senses to make certain he did not face snipers, even
though there had been no evidence of them previously.
He
angled his way up the slope, using his Talent to guide him, so that he would
reach the area directly behind the rubble of the smaller eastern building,
where he would be seen so easily from the remaining building. There were no boulders
or other types of cover above where the slope flattened out not until within
fifty yards or so of the first pile of rubble.
Dainyl
stopped short of where he could be seen, then came up the last part of the
slope at a sprint, holding his Talent shields as well. He had covered almost a
hundred yards before the first light-rifle fired past him. He angled to his
right, then back left, before skidding to a halt behind the first boulder he
reached. He had to tuck himself tightly together to keep all of his body behind
the stone. Somehow, the stones that had looked large while being flung seemed
all too inadequate to conceal an alector.
Another
light-rifle beam flaring overhead emphasized that point.
Keeping
low and out of sight, he tried to breathe deeply and let his body recover.
From
what he could tell, he still had a good three hundred yards to go before he
reached the area where there were numerous boulders for cover. He extended his
Talent, trying to locate the next nearest patch of cover. Ahead and to his left
was a slight rise, slightly less than a yard, but high enough to have slowed
and stopped one of the boulders launched at the buildings of the complex.
Dainyl
coiled his legs under him, strengthened his shields, and sprinted again.
The
lightcannon hummed above him, not aimed at him, but somewhere beyond. As close
as he was, Dainyl sensed the definite growing instability of the weapon, an
instability that suggested a failing crystal in the power or control system. He
also had the feeling that one of the Myrmidons had appeared more than he had
ordered, perhaps to draw fire from him. It had helped, because there was only a
single light-rifle shot, and that was a belated one as he drew up behind the
rocky escarpment that was little more than knee high and the boulder that had
half climbed it and stuck.
Could
he do something about the failing crystal before the refugees noted it and
replaced it? He couldn’t count on there only being one crystal. Surely, they
had at least one spare and were trying to make each crystal last as long as
possible.
After
several more deep breaths, he used his Talent to chart a path back to the right
toward the larger of two boulders fifty yards away.
Then
he began another dash. He managed to make it almost to the boulder before the
light-rifle slammed into his shields, and he staggered behind cover. This time,
he had to wait longer, and he took a long swallow from his depleted water
bottle.
The
lightcannon hummed overhead again, only briefly.
Dainyl
winced, but relaxed when he realized that it had missed whatever had been its
target. He forced himself to wait as he used Talent to chart his next dash
this time to the pile of rubble that had been the eastern building.
Two
light-rifle shots went past him but barely grazed his shields on the dash to
the fallen structure. Once there, Dainyl was happy to be able to stand, rather
than having to squeeze into the most compact form he could imagine to avoid
getting hit. Slowly, he worked his way northward and then to the west, easing
around the mass of fallen stone and masonry, which was still close to three
yards in height in places.
He
could also sense that there had been more than a few alectors in the structure,
and he could see treated shimmersilk uniforms protruding from the heaped stones
in places. There were also other garments as well, all remnants of alectors who
had died, far more than he would have guessed and the eastern structure was
the smallest of the three. How many alectors had used the Table in an effort to
escape Ifryn only to die under his bombardment?
Dainyl
had to force those thoughts out of his mind, as he looked westward. With less
than a hundred yards between the fallen building and the central structure, its
walls battered, but still holding together, there was more than a little cover
in the field of stones and boulders between the two buildings.
He
had worked his way halfway across the field when he realized that the
light-rifle was no longer firing at him. He knew he was close enough to the
central building that the heavy lightcutter could not be depressed enough to
aim at him without hitting the building itself. But now, even the light-rifles
could not be used unless those firing them wanted to chance the weakened outer
walls of the structure.