“Yes, sir. I’ll tell my officers.” Quaeryt slowly rode back toward Fifth Battalion, but caught sight of the red banner that marked the surgeon, and turned his mount that way.
When he neared the banner, he saw Voltyr and Shaelyt. Both looked pale as he reined up beside where they stood holding the reins to their mounts.
“How is he?” asked Quaeryt.
Voltyr shook his head. “The surgeon-he’s really a senior squad leader who’s a field surgeon-said you’d stopped the bleeding, sir. Mostly … but that wasn’t enough. Something with the lungs. He stopped breathing.”
“He just gasped and gasped,” said Shaelyt. “Then he didn’t anymore.”
Quaeryt didn’t hide the wince. Yet what else could you have done? After a moment he said, “We’ll need to form up again. The commander wants to keep moving.”
“Yes, sir.”
As Quaeryt turned the mare back toward Fifth Battalion, he couldn’t help thinking, Should you have started training all of them on shields earlier? But that wouldn’t have helped Akoryt, because he couldn’t have developed enough strength as an imager to hold shields all the time, and the attack had come without warning. Almost without warning.
With that thought, he turned his mount toward second company and Major Calkoran.
The major was waiting for him.
“Subcommander, sir … your imagers … they kept us from greater casualties.”
“They did. Undercaptain Akoryt took a musket ball. He died.”
“I am sorry for him … and for us. He will be missed.”
For a moment Quaeryt was stunned by Calkoran’s coolness. He had to remind himself that the major had suffered incredible losses and seen far greater slaughter, and that the death of less than a score of men and a young officer could not compare to what Calkoran had experienced. “Major … how did you know they had musketeers on that island?”
“I saw those strange trees. Except they are not real trees. Each is a … screen … around the musket stand. The Bovarians used them to hide their musketeers in Khel,” said Calkoran, adding, “Or something like them. The muskets … do not fire accurately, either uphill or downslope. They are terrible when they can be fired in mass across a level ground, and where they cannot be charged quickly.”
Terrible … Quaeryt could see that. Four volleys into first and second company, and in a fraction of a quint, thirteen men were dead, and another eleven were wounded. Fourteen dead, now, with Akoryt.
Without the imagers-again-the results could have been much worse.
But the question of shields lingered in the back of his mind.
After he finished with Calkoran, Quaeryt rode to the front of first company, his eyes going to the trees on the north side of the road and the canal, not quite seeing either. You tried to protect them … you just didn’t think about muskets in a side volley. He shook his head again.
No matter how much he told himself that in the few weeks he’d had the imagers he couldn’t have taught them what it had taken him well over a year to learn and develop, he had the feeling that Akoryt’s death … and perhaps those of others … would haunt him.
But he did need to give the others a better chance. They might surprise you.
One way or the other …
He glanced northward again, for a moment.
32
Just slightly after midday, Skarpa ordered resumption of the advance toward Ralaes, leaving Fifth Battalion as vanguard. He also sent out two squads of scouts and remained at the head of the column with Quaeryt as they rode alongside the ancient canal.
A mille or so past the spot where the Bovarians had attacked, the canal turned southward. Quaeryt couldn’t help but study what the Naedarans had done. The far side of the canal was clearly a stone wall, backed by an earthen levee. On the far side of the levee was a marsh that extended northwest and joined the River Aluse. An ancient stone bridge-repaired in more recent times-crossed the canal, and on the far side of the bridge, the ancient stone road swung west to again parallel the river.
As he adjusted the visor cap and blotted the sweat off his forehead in the early afternoon heat, Quaeryt’s eyes followed the canal. Why isn’t it swamp? There has to be water flowing from somewhere or it would have long since filled itself in. Quickly taking out his map, he located where he thought they were. While the canal wasn’t shown on the map, nor the bridge, the isle was. So was a large lake to the south, with a town called Chelaes located along the western side of the unnamed lake. Chelaes must have been important for Naedara.
“What are you thinking about? You’ve got that expression,” said Skarpa.
“The canal and why it was built.”
“It was built to get boats to the river. That was a long time back. Right now, the Bovarians used the canal wall to get off that isle. They have carts or wagons and they’re moving west at a good clip.”
“So they can set up another ambush or withdraw to meet their main body,” suggested Quaeryt.
“Most likely both,” replied Skarpa dryly.
Another glass passed before one of the scouts rode up beside the commander.
“What did you find?”
“The wagons that carried the musketeers and their muskets took another road just ahead. It’s headed south. The millestones say that there’s a place called Chelaes eleven milles south.”
“It’s on a lake, according to the map,” added Quaeryt.
“They won’t go that far. They need to get to Villerive.” Skarpa shook his head. “We’ll have to leave a company where the roads split … at least for a glass or so after we pass. I don’t want them circling back and following us. Not too close, anyway.”
“Maybe there’s a back road that parallels the river road that will get them to Ralaes or Villerive sooner,” suggested Quaeryt.
“That could be. The river swings north and then back south. Might be faster to cut across. But we don’t know. Don’t want to take any chances, though.”
Quaeryt could understand that all too well.
“I’m going to ride back and talk to Meinyt. You see anything out of sorts … call a halt.”
“Yes, sir.” Quaeryt understood what Skarpa hadn’t said-that he’d better be alert to something “out of sorts” early enough to avoid another ambush.
Skarpa looked to the scout. “You keep the reports coming to the subcommander.”
“Yes, sir.”
As the scout headed back westward and Skarpa rode toward the rear of the column, Quaeryt made an effort to study the terrain on both sides of the road-carefully, forcing his eyes to take in each area, from the scraggly weeds just beyond the shoulder of the road, to the sagging split rail fence of the small stead ahead and the lack of smoke from the chimney of the small cot.
Quaeryt kept watching.
Finally, a quint or so later, they reached the spot where the road to the south split off the river road, except it was a gentle turn, and the paved road was the one heading south, while the river road returned to being packed clay. Quaeryt studied the river road carefully, but there were no heavy wheel tracks and only a few hoofprints, likely those of the Telaryn scouts, heading west along the river. He could discern no attempts to blur prints or tracks on the river road, nor did he see any evidence of a concealed return to the river road as he and Fifth Battalion rode on.
Shortly, another scout rode back eastward and swung his mount in beside Quaeryt.
“There are tracks on the road ahead, sir, just past some fields that have been harvested. That’d be a mille or so ahead.”
“What crop?”
“Looks to be hay, sir. They got those funny haystacks in the field, and the stubble’s short.”
“There’s no one hiding behind those stacks, is there?”
“No, sir. Hardly big enough to hide a single man and mount.”