No cannon yet? Or muskets? Concern over powder? Or premeasured and ranged target points?
Quaeryt looked northward once more. The whitish gray walls of the Chateau Regis rose above everything, unsurprisingly, since it was a tall oblong structure with its longest sides running north and south located on the highest hill west of the River Aluse … more than a mille from the river and directly west of the single isle in the middle of the river, an isle used mainly by factors for warehouses, and piers for barges and flatboats, at least by its appearance and the weathered look of the structures.
Waste of a perfectly good isle, thought Quaeryt absently. Then he concentrated on what was beginning to happen before him … and what was not. The first line of defenders extended pikes, or more likely braced them against the rear of the narrow trenches in which they waited so that the first earthworks bristled.
Then Quaeryt watched as the last ranks of Eleventh Regiment’s fourth company began to move forward.
He could only estimate how far the leading squads of Eleventh Regiment had gone when the initial volley of musket shots ripped into the troopers of Khaern’s first company. A second volley did not follow immediately, but Quaeryt could see that one of the spindly catapults behind the musketeers composing the second line of defenders began to arch, as if being winched back to release something. With no doubts as to what that might be, Quaeryt imaged away the smallest chunk of ropelike cable.
The catapult buckled, and whatever was in the sling or bucket tumbled backward and dropped just behind the catapult frame. Then Antiagon Fire flared up from the earthworks that held the catapult. Quaeryt could not hear, but could imagine, the screams of men being consumed by living fire of crimson-green and yellow.
He looked to the Bovarian reinforcements, but unsurprisingly none of them had moved from their reserve positions higher on the low slope.
The sound of another volley of musket shots echoed back toward Quaeryt, but the smoke indicated that it had been aimed from defenders well away from Eleventh Regiment and opposite the western side of the Telaryn forces, at some of the marshal’s regiments who were advancing more slowly than was Eleventh Regiment. Everything he does is slower … but it won’t help him that much today.
Quaeryt looked to a second catapult, but it wasn’t moving. He concentrated on imaging several tiny pieces of white iron into a space where he thought the Antiagon Fire canisters might be … but nothing happened. He decided against trying again, because trying to replicate his success with the first catapult through blind imaging could easily wear him out before the Bovarians reacted in the way he needed. And then he would need all the strength he could muster … and more.
He didn’t want to think about the “more” part yet.
Another volley of musket fire ripped into Eleventh Regiment, and troopers went down, and horses screamed.
Then a rolling rumble echoed out of the north. For a moment Quaeryt thought it must have been thunder, but a quick glance skyward confirmed that the moderately high gray clouds were not that dark, and that there were no lightning flashes.
Gouts of dirt, turf, stones, and who knew what else erupted into the air less than a hundred yards in front of Eleventh Regiment’s first company.
As he kept riding, Quaeryt tried to judge the distance between the first riders of Eleventh Regiment and the earthworks ahead. “Imager Horan, forward! Beside me.”
Horan rode forward. “Sir?”
“Do you see the earthworks directly before Eleventh Regiment?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I need you to image them flat, as wide a section as you can without exhausting yourself. Just push the dirt and fill back over the defenders.” Quaeryt lurched in the saddle as the mare rode over something uneven, then caught himself.
“Now, sir?”
“Now. That’s so that Eleventh Regiment can gallop through and put a break in the defenses.” And so that the cannoneers won’t be able to fire there without hitting the defenders who will rush to fill the breach. “Threkhyl! Can you do the same for the earthworks directly behind the one Horan is targeting?”
“Yes, sir!”
In moments, there was a space some fifty yards wide where there had been an earthen barrier, and some fifty yards behind that and several yards higher was an even wider area of flattened earth.
Quaeryt glanced at Horan, whose face had paled, and at Threkhyl, whose face had not, then back at the Bovarians. For a moment all action seemed to stop on the low slope that held the Bovarians.
Then Khaern reacted immediately, putting Eleventh Regiment into a full gallop toward the gap in the Bovarian lines.
Unfortunately, within several moments, the Bovarian cannoneers reacted as well, and cannonballs tore into the midst of the charging troopers.
Quaeryt began to smell the acrid odor of powder, as well as the dryness of dust thrown into the air by the impacts of the cannonballs. Ignoring the bitterness in his nostrils, he turned to his left. “Voltyr … can you image a spray of white-hot iron fragments into the cannon emplacement directly up the slope from us?”
“Yes, sir.”
In moments a series of small explosions crescendoed into a large roar, and the ground shook. Then white and black smoke rose from the emplacement and began to drift slowly downhill and then across the Bovarian earthworks.
“I can do another, sir!” called Voltyr.
“Do it, then! But just one more.”
A second cannon emplacement went up in a roar.
Quaeryt glanced across to the west side of the battlefield, finally standing in the stirrups before he saw another series of musket volleys rip into Deucalon’s forces, this time at the middle of the assault. Still standing in the stirrups and knowing that he was making himself a target, he scanned the earthworks and the slope, trying to see the damage and the gaps in the defenses.
There were a few gaps here and there, but what were a few hundred yards at most across a mille of defenders?
Yet the Bovarian reserves remained planted on the upper slope.
“Voltyr! Can you take out a cannon emplacement to the left of the last one?” Quaeryt hoped that the smoke from such an explosion would create an impression among the Bovarian commanders of more damage to the defenses than was actually the case.
“Yes, sir!”
Quaeryt caught sight of a third catapult being winched back. “Smaethyl! The catapult to the right of the breach ahead! Take it down! Now!”
“Yes, sir!”
Quaeryt could barely hear the response, but he did, and he watched as the catapult bent forward in its release-and the cable snapped and released the canister almost straight up. The dark object went upward end over end and then came down forward of the emplacement, spewing Antiagon Fire largely in front of the earthworks.
At least it didn’t land in the middle of eleventh company.
“Subcommander! Down, sir!” That was Zhelan’s voice.
Quaeryt dropped back into his saddle. Instants later he heard and half felt a volley of musket balls pass overhead.
More cannonballs ripped into the rear of Eleventh Regiment, less than twenty yards ahead of Fifth Battalion, with more acrid smoke drifting toward Quaeryt and Fifth Battalion, but the first companies of the regiment had reached the gap in the defenses and were cutting down the defenders who were trying to fill the gap.
As more of Eleventh Regiment surged forward into the gap, finally a mass of Bovarian reinforcements began to hurry down from their reserve positions toward the attacking Telaryn troopers.
Despite heavy musket fire from the west side of the defensive emplacements, one of Deucalon’s regiments had broken through as well.
Yet more and more troops, mostly foot, poured over the hill and down toward the advancing Telaryn forces, a mass that had to outnumber the attackers by twice … if not three times-and Quaeryt had no idea how many more might be held in reserve.