Treachery's Tools (71 page)

“Can you tell if Ryentar is here?”

“The scouts report a group flying his banners, and it appears to be the command group. Well back, of course.”

Alastar wouldn't have expected any less of Ryentar, whether as the disinherited brother of the rex or as High Holder Regial. “He must be confident, then, because his life is forfeit just for being this close to L'Excelsis.”

“From what I've seen and from what you've said, he's never lacked for either confidence or arrogance. It runs in a certain bloodline. Aestyn's in actual command. I'm certain.”

“And Ryentar's here to inspire the rebels … to lead them into a new and better day for Solidar … and especially for the High Holders.”

“Of course.” Wilkorn straightened, wincing slightly. “How do you plan to deploy and use your imagers?”

“The best way I can think of is to get rid of their cannon and kill as many of them as possible. Here's what I have in mind.…”

All that Alastar said took far less than half a quint. When he finished, he looked to the marshal. “Does that upset anything you and Maurek had planned?”

Wilkorn shook his head. “Except for the cannon, Maurek feels that the later the imagers can be used the more effective they'll be. So what you've outlined goes with what he's planned, even to where you intend to muster your imagers.”

“Then I'd better get back to them.”

Wilkorn was back looking at the map even before Alastar had left the tent.

By the time the eastern sky was graying, columns of rebel foot and mounted infantry were moving from the hamlet and from an encampment to the south toward Wilkorn's forces.

Major Rykards's foot rankers manned the revetments of the defenders, their rifles in hand, while Luerryn's mounted infantry was mustered to the east of the river, partly shielded by the slope down to the water, with Fifth Company to the north, behind where the imagers would be, Eighth Company farthest to the south, with the other mounted infantry companies between them. The eight cannon were in sandbagged pits, their muzzles barely visible even from a few yards away … and their powder trunks and ammunition well out of sight.
That ought to make their imagers work to even find them.

Alastar had gathered the imagers, not yet mounted. He looked over the junior maitres—copper-haired Julyan with his ready smile standing beside Chervyt; Chervyt, who had lost a lover in the last mess, but still was there to give all he had for the Collegium; then Dylert, so steady and determined; Taurek, burly, broad-shouldered, and more than accomplished enough to be a Maitre D'Structure; Seliora, who probably should have been one already; and finally, Belsior, not the most gifted, but hard-working, and enormously pleased to be an imager at all. To one side were Cyran and the senior maitres—Arion, Khaelis, Tiranya, and Taryn.

“Our task in the coming mess is to see what we can do to take out the rebel cannons … and hold back as much as possible until later in the fighting … when we're likely to be more effective … and less easily targeted if we can't take out all the cannon…”

Three quints later, Alastar rode toward the south end of the revetments, accompanied by Arion. Once on slightly higher ground, under a concealment, he and Arion reined up.

“We're looking for cannon … and for ammunition wagons or powder trunks. Since the ground slopes away from us rather gently, and there aren't any real hills or hillocks, we ought to be able to find them now that we're getting better light.”

“Yes, sir.”

Alastar was still looking when Arion spoke again. “Sir? Do you see those three bushes four hundred yards or so down the road to the hamlet?”

“I do.”

“About three hundred yards, I guess, due south, there's what might be a revetment, concealed by bushes, and there are wagons. One of them looks like a long trunk on carriage wheels.”

“That's a powder trunk.” Alastar squinted. After several moments, as the early-morning light strengthened, he could make out what seemed to be the muzzles of two cannon, but only the one powder trunk. “I can only see two cannon.”

“That's what I see. Just two of them. I don't see anything like that emplacement anywhere nearby.”

“Let's look on the other side of the hamlet road, then.” Alastar shifted his attention northward, toward the ground just south of the marshlands.

Once again, Arion spoke first. “Do you see that place in the marsh where the reeds are higher?”

“Yes.”

“Fifty yards back and a little to the left…”

“I see them. Three cannon muzzles. Two powder trunks. The trunks are half hidden in the reeds.” In both instances, once Arion had pointed them out, Alastar had had no trouble seeing them.
But you couldn't see them first.
“Can you image something that far?”

“If it's small.”

“Let me see what I can do.” Alastar focused on the emplacement near the reeds, since it was slightly closer, if still a good seven hundred yards. He concentrated on imaging a single very thin, white-hot, iron needle inside one of those magazines. Nothing happened. He took a long swallow of lager, waited a bit, and tried again … with no better success. The third time, the wagon exploded. How much damage resulted, Alastar had no way of knowing, given that white smoke wreathed the entire area.

“There must have been a lot of powder there.”

“Enough, anyway.”

“How did you do that, sir?”

“A thin, very thin, white-hot iron needle inside the powder trunk. Why don't you try that on the other emplacement?” Alastar blotted his suddenly perspiring forehead with his sleeve. Imaging a hot iron needle that far had been work.
A lot more work than something like that used to be.
That was something he really didn't want to think about. Instead, he watched Arion concentrate on the rebel emplacement.

“Needle's not that hard … harder to aim.”

After a time, a second explosion and a cloud of white smoke marked where a powder trunk had once been.

“Excellent!” Alastar estimated that the younger maitre had likely imaged more needles than Alastar had, but Arion had merely appeared annoyed, rather than flushed.

“That was tricky.”

Technique helped, Alastar decided, as Gauswn had once written about Quaeryt, but there was no doubt he didn't have quite the raw power he'd once been able to summon. “Tricky, but effective. Let's get back to the others and hope that they can't come up with more powder.” In point of fact, Alastar had had no intention of trying to destroy any cannon, not given the distance and the imaging effort it would take just to destroy the powder, without which a cannon was just a big bronze tube.

Alastar couldn't help but notice the line of black and crimson banners near the rear of the rebel forces. Behind the banners was perhaps a half company mounted in black uniforms, trimmed in crimson. At least, that was the impression Alastar got.

He continued to study the advancing forces, beginning to re-form about three-quarters of a mille from the arc of the revetments holding Wilkorn's troopers. If the formations of the rebels were any indication, their battle plan was simple. One group would advance north along the river road, and two would advance across the sloping grasslands. Between the two forces, apparently readying to advance eastward on the east side of the road from the hamlet to the river, was a much smaller force, little more than a squad with a wagon, except the wagon was being pushed by a team of oxen. All of that pointed to a direct and headlong advance against riflemen in protected positions, which seemed suicidal, given how exposed the attackers would be.

Concealments.
The rebels were already forming up far enough away from the defenders that accurate fire would be difficult, even for Wilkorn's few cannon. Then the rebel imagers would raise concealments, and the attackers would move quickly in a mass rush to get as close to the defenders' revetments as possible, most likely within a few yards.

“You need to get back to the other imagers,” declared Alastar, “and I need to see the marshal immediately. Tell Maitre Cyran that we may need a great deal of pepper far sooner than anticipated.”

“Yes, sir.” Arion turned his mount toward the river.

As Alastar rode toward the command tent, he still wondered why a cart pushed by oxen was moving into position between two of the three masses of attackers.
It has to have something to do with the attack.
He just couldn't figure out what, although he had no doubt it would become blindingly obvious at the most inopportune time.

When he reached the command tent, he handed the gelding's reins to one of the troopers standing guard and hurried inside. Maurek and Wilkorn immediately turned.

“I don't know if this is going to happen,” said Alastar, “but the rebels are forming up for an all-out attack. That's not as suicidal as it seems.…” he explained quickly.

“What can your imagers do?” demanded Maurek.

“I don't know any way of breaking a concealment. We can hamper those being hidden by it, but not until they get closer to our lines, or close enough that we can hear them or determine roughly where they are.”

“Why not earlier?” asked Maurek.

“It wouldn't do much good, and it would tire the imagers. First, we can't see where they are, and we don't have enough imagers to image pepper everywhere. Even if we were fortunate enough to hit some of them, they can move out of the spray, and we wouldn't know exactly where they were … not until they're almost on top of the troopers. Once their troopers reach our lines, our men would be inside the concealment as well, and able to see all of the attackers. If the rebels keep the concealment just short of our lines, then their men won't be able to see if they were supported or left out there all alone. Maintaining such a large concealment for a long time takes great effort. So they might drop it just before their leading troopers reached our lines.”

“Their columns are tight right now,” said Maurek.

“If they go with a concealment, once it's in place, they'll likely move to a different location or formation. It might be useful to fire at where the column was immediately after their troopers vanish. That's if they're in range. You might get some of them that way, while they're still close together.”

“What if they don't use a concealment?” asked Wilkorn.

“Then when they get closer we'll begin by blanketing them with pepper mist … and we'll concentrate on dealing with groups or attackers that seem to be giving your troopers trouble. That won't change from what we discussed before. What I wanted you to know was that the attackers might seem to disappear while they were actually still moving forward to attack.”

“Pass that to your officers immediately,” Wilkorn said to Maurek.

“I'm on my way.”

“So am I,” added Alastar.

Alastar hadn't even ridden all the way back to the river road, east of which the imagers were mustered, when the two columns of attackers directly west of the defenders vanished from sight. The column to the south, while drawn up and appearing ready to move, remained visible, stationary, and out of accurate rifle range, and just dispersed enough that cannon wouldn't be that effective.

Now what are you going to do?

Cyran and Akoryt hurried toward him as he reined up.

“They've thrown a concealment over the forces moving toward us from the west. I'm guessing they'll hold it until their troopers are almost on top of ours. The only thing I can think of is to move the imagers forward, also under a concealment, and wait for their troopers to show up. If we space the imagers out, and tell each to deal only with attackers in front of them, that would keep them from targeting the same rebel troopers. Mostly anyway.” When neither responded immediately, Alastar asked, “Any other ideas?”

The two looked at each other.

“No, sir,” Akoryt finally said.

“I knew Bettaur was strong, but…” Cyran shook his head.

“It's actually a good way of using only a few imagers,” Alastar pointed out. Concealments are easier than shields…” He broke off. “Of course!”

“Of course what?” Cyran didn't hide his puzzlement.

“I saw a wagon being pushed by a team of oxen. I'd wager that the front of the wagon is armored, and that Bettaur and Ashkyr are inside. The wagon will move with the troopers, and the two imagers won't have to worry about shields—just about maintaining the concealment.”

“They couldn't have thought that up on the spur of the moment,” Cyran pointed out, in his always practical manner. “That would take a special yoke and harness arrangement.”

“None of this revolt has been planned as a spur-of-the-moment uprising, no matter how much it seems that way. That includes all the petitions. This has been going on for years. The drought and then the late rains just made it seem that way.” Alastar shook his head. “We need to mount up everyone and space them up behind the revetments, fairly far back, because they won't be able to do much until they can see the attackers. We can talk about how it all happened later.”
If we manage to survive this disaster.

Despite Alastar's concerns and worries, it still took almost half a quint before he had the other twelve imagers mounted and in position some sixty yards back from the second line of trenched earthworks, with Cyran positioned a third of the way in from the south end of the line, while he had taken a position a third of the way in from the northern end of the imagers. Each imager was separated from the next by ten yards, and, in addition to personal shields, each held a screen concealment, a yard or so in front of his or her mount, which allowed Alastar and Cyran to see them all.

When Alastar looked out to the west, he shivered at the seeming unreality before him, an expanse of grass and harvested fields that appeared empty, but over which marched a good thousand men, if not more, unseen. He could still see about half the number of rebel troopers as before, but all those who remained unconcealed were mounted, while those he couldn't see, he realized from his much earlier observations, were foot troopers. Again, that made sense, allowing the men on foot to advance at a measured pace without too much fear of being shot, while saving the faster-moving mounted troopers for action when or if the concealment collapsed.