Legacies (24 page)

While the nightsilk undergarments and skull-mask kept Alucius warm, he had slept fitfully, although he could sense no sanders nearby, and the closer sandwolves seemed to be to the north of the Matrite encampment. The wind remained chill and biting, and his breath steamed. He noticed the chill mostly when breathing deeply, because his lungs protested and the inside of his nostrils felt frozen.

Since he scarcely had enough information to return and report, he was up well before dawn, and back checking the encampment. In the hazy, but stronger light of dawn, he could see that his initial judgment of the location of the camp had placed it too far south, for he could see the midroad less than half a vingt to the north of the low rise on which the Matrite force had camped. Alucius had clearly been more tired than he'd realized the night before.

He watched as the horns offered signals, and as the entire camp was packed up. A six-horse team was being readied to move the lead wagon, while those that followed had but four. He would have liked to see what was in the lead wagon. All his Talent-senses told him was that it was somehow both very new and very old, and that a sense of danger surrounded it. His best guess was that it was a weapon, and that the wagons that followed carried equipment it required. But those were only guesses, and he didn't like the idea of reporting something so uncertain.

The other scout was nowhere within his senses, and Alucius wondered if the man had headed farther westward or back toward Soulend.

Within a glass of dawn, scout patrols were assembling. Alucius remounted the gray and rode eastward, but onto a concealed position on a higher ridge, waiting and watching. The patrols headed eastward as well, and the entire Matrite force followed, with the four wagons in the middle of the column, rather than at the end.

Once Alucius was certain of that, he rode down the eastern side of the ridge, then angled northeast to pick up the midroad, and to make his way back to Soulend. There was little doubt in his mind—or in the actions of the Matrite troops—that they were headed through the remainder of the Westerhills toward Soulend—another Legacy of the Duarches that the Iron Valleys could ill afford.

Even with the greater speed afforded Alucius by taking the midroad, it was past midafternoon before he rode into the encampment. He had managed to wiggle out of his skull-mask before nearing Soulend, and the cold wind had made his face raw enough by the time he dismounted outside the stable that no one would have guessed he had such a mask. He hastily stabled and groomed the gray, and arranged for fodder and water with the company ostler before hurrying into the barracks to find Ilten.

He didn't see Ilten around and went to the captain's spaces to inquire. A very young trooper, looking no older than Alucius, was standing guard.

“I'm looking for Senior Squad Leader Ilten,” Alucius said. “I just got back from scouting, and there's something he should know.”

“He's with the captain.”

“They really should know,” Alucius said politely, projecting a sense of urgency.

“He said they weren't to be disturbed.”

Alucius swallowed silently, not quite understanding the rage he felt, then used his Talent to let it pour out toward the hapless trooper. The trooper almost cringed against the door.

“You'd best let them know…now,” Alucius said mildly.

The man glanced at Alucius as if the scout were a sandwolf, then ducked inside the door.

Ilten appeared—without the trooper.

“Sir, reporting as ordered, sir,” Alucius said.

“You're back early.” Third Company's senior squad leader sounded less than pleased, and he radiated displeasure.

“That's because the Matrites are marching eastward along the midroad toward Soulend,” Alucius replied. “They only have patrols out flanking the road. They have about five companies of horse and close to ten of heavy foot. They all packed up right after dawn and headed east on the midroad.”

“Are you sure?” asked Ilten.

“Yes, sir.”

Ilten sighed. “You'd better report this to the captain directly.” He turned and opened the door, motioning for Alucius to enter before him.

The guard trooper eased out behind Ilten, not looking anywhere at the returned scout.

Captain Heald glanced from the departing trooper to Alucius. “Did you threaten Barka?”

“No, sir. I did tell him that Senior Squad Leader Ilten needed to hear my report now.”

Heald frowned.

“You should hear what he has to say, sir,” Ilten said mildly.

“What is so important, then, scout?”

“The Matrites left their camp and are marching the midroad toward Soulend. They should be clear of the Westerhills by twilight. They have about five companies of horse, and seven to ten of heavy foot.”

“Show us where this camp was.” Ilten pointed to the map on the long table.

Alucius studied the map, then checked his own, and finally pointed. “There. That's where they were set up, less than a half vingt south of the midroad on a rise.”

“Have you talked to Waltar?” asked Ilten.

“Waltar?” Alucius didn't have to act surprised. “Sir…I don't know Waltar.”

“You've met him. He's the seventh squad scout.”

“I might recognize his face, sir, but I've never seen him close up outside of this room.”

“Well…both you and Waltar gave the same location, but he came back in the middle of the night.” Ilten nodded. “How did you find that encampment? And why did you stay? Oh…you can sit down.”

Both Ilten and the captain reseated themselves.

“Thank you, sir.” Alucius took the stool across the table from Ilten. “I was following orders, sir, trying to find the Matrites. It was maybe midafternoon yesterday, and I'd seen a thin trail of smoke. The Reillies had to know that the Matrites were around. So I thought there was a chance that it was another burned hut. With the snow, I figured I might be able to follow their traces—if they'd burned the hut, that is.”

“Go on. I'd like to hear how the smoke led to the encampment,” Ilten said dryly.

“I'm a herder, sir. I could sense that there were sandwolves around. I thought that meant bodies. I was very careful to keep downwind of the sandwolves when I was moving in to see what had happened. There was a hut, hidden up in the rocks, and there was a flat little valley below. The Matrites saw the smoke, too. I could feel horses, and that meant troopers. You told us not to get involved, but I couldn't move, not without being seen. So I waited. The sandwolves must have been hungry. They went after the mount of the last rider.”

“They went after a Matrite trooper? I find that hard to believe,” the captain snorted.

“You want me to take you out there and show you the bones and the hut, sir?”

“Go on,” Ilten said quickly.

“The Reillie must have figured that was his chance. He put a bullet through the leader. Then things got really strange, because a sander appeared and took out a trooper and his mount. There had to be someone else firing, because two more of their troopers went down.”

“And I suppose you sat there and did nothing?” asked Heald.

“No, sir,” Alucius replied. “The trooper who lost his mount to the sandwolves got clear, but he started running right toward where I was hiding. I figured that with the Reillies all shooting, no one would hear me. I shot him. Then I waited a bit and circled south and followed the survivors straight back to their camp after that, but I got there so late that it was hard to see what they had. So I holed up out of sight and came back to their camp before dawn.” Alucius cleared his throat. “There's one other thing, sir. They've got a big heavy wagon, and it takes a six-horse team, and there are three other wagons with it. They're not supply wagons, and they're all covered. They're in the middle of the column. I couldn't find any way to see what it is, but where they have it, and the way it's traveling, I think it's some sort of weapon.”

Ilten and the captain exchanged glances.

“We'll keep that in mind,” Heald finally said. “Is there anything else?”

Alucius considered. “Just one thing. The Matrites don't seem to send out single scouts. The few times I've seen them, they've had an eight man patrol.”

“That might help us…a bit.” Heald nodded to Ilten.

The senior squad leader stood.

So did Alucius.

Ilten walked out with Alucius. Once he closed the door to the captain's space, he motioned the young guard away, before turning back to the scout. “Alucius?”

“Yes, sir?”

“A couple of things. First, don't tell anyone the details of what you reported. That's the captain's job. He'll talk to Delar shortly, and he won't like it if your squad leader has already found out from you. Neither will I. You can say that you ran across the Matrites, and you gave the information. Let it go at that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now…just what did you tell Barka?”

“Just what I told you, sir.”

Ilten laughed. “
How
did you tell him?”

“Well, sir…I
was
angry, but I didn't say a word, just what I said.”

“I imagine you have a way of expressing anger within the rules, Alucius. Most herders do. Just don't do it often.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The captain and I know you left out a few details. Make sure that they stay left out.”

Alucius could sense a wry amusement, not hostility or anger. “Yes, sir. I tried very hard to follow orders, sir.”

“I'm sure you did, trooper. But you can't always rely on helpful sandwolves and sharpshooting Reillies to bail you out. You wouldn't know it, but two of you scouts aren't back yet. I hope they will make it back. Go get some sleep. You'll need it. We'll have to be ready for anything.”

“Sir? What might happen?”

Ilten shrugged. “The captain's already requested reinforcements, after Waltar's report. We'd hoped the Matrites wouldn't move so fast. We'll do what we can. Now…you look like death. Get some food and rest. You can tell the cooks I said to find you something to eat.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Ilten nodded, then turned and re-entered the captain's room.

As he headed for the mess, Alucius hoped that Geran wasn't among the missing.

The next morning—Alucius found it hard to believe it was Sexdi—found Third Company mustered in its entirety in the barracks. Alucius was relieved to see Geran, even if the older scout's eyes were rimmed with deep and black circles.

Outside, the wind had subsided into a moan, and the day was fair and cold. Inside, the captain's eyes surveyed the troopers. Finally, he spoke. “You all know we've been scouting the Matrite force. They're on the midroad moving toward Soulend. If they push, they could be here in two days, or sooner. I sent a second messenger to militia headquarters requesting reinforcements. We can't wait for them. So we're going to attack—like sandwolves, when and where they least expect it.” Captain Heald stepped back.

Ilten stepped forward. “Pack your gear for a week's ride—light on comfort, except for warmth. You have one glass. Then you'll stand down. We could ride this afternoon or tomorrow. You'll get your rations and cartridges for your rifles from your squad leader after you've been inspected and passed, and before we ride out. Dismissed to your squad leaders.”

Alucius kept his frown to himself. His grandsire had foreseen what was occurring more than a year before. Why hadn't the Council put more companies in the north? Was it that the north was expendable to the merchants of Dekhron?

“Second squad, stand easy,” ordered Delar.

There was the slightest shuffling of feet.

“You heard the captain. When I dismiss you, get your gear ready, and have it on your footchests. Then I want you to check your tack and your mounts. Then come back to the barracks bay.” Delar paused. “Geran, Alucius, I need a moment from you two. The rest of you are dismissed to get ready.”

The other eighteen troopers fell out, leaving the two scouts with the squad leader.

Delar looked at Geran, then at Alucius. “Anything I ought to know?”

“Sir, I don't know what Ilten and the captain told you,” Alucius replied.

“He said that there were too many Matrites, but that we had to do something to slow them down, or they'd be marching into Dekhron by spring.” Delar glanced from Alucius to Geran.

“I saw four companies of horse,” Geran offered. “Could be more.”

“Could be at least that many heavy foot,” Alucius added.

Delar nodded. “Another frigging Legacy. Stinks worse than soarer shit. Anything else?”

“They don't like to send out small patrols. Eight or more,” Alucius said.

“They've got smaller bore rifles. Probably have a larger magazine with more cartridges. Bullets go farther, maybe more accurate,” suggested Geran.

Alucius's respect for Geran rose as he realized how close Geran must have gotten. Either that or Geran had ambushed enough of a patrol to collect arms.

“Good to know.” Delar cleared his throat. “Anything else?”

“Not that I can think of,” Alucius admitted.

“Dismissed.”

As the two scouts walked toward second squad's barracks bay, Alucius said, “How did you get so close? If you don't mind…”

Geran grinned. “I didn't. I kept my eye out for spent casings. Found enough of them. They're all the same. You'd expect that from either the Matrites or the Lanachronans.” He fumbled in his tunic, then extracted a brass casing that he passed to Alucius.

Alucius examined it. “Only a little more than half the size of ours…” He realized, belatedly, that he could have discovered the same thing. He'd seen casings in the hills—another reminder that he hadn't thought things through.

“About two thirds. Shell is longer, too.”

“They're not used to dealing with sandwolves. Some of them got surprised by them.”

“They aren't righting sandwolves. They're after us,” Geran said.

Alucius could see Geran's point.

After packing his gear, Alucius left it on his footchest and headed out to the stable, where he checked the gray carefully. His Talent-senses confirmed that his mount was in decent shape.”

Kesper appeared at the end of the stall. “Alucius…”

“Thank you. You gave him some extra grain, didn't you?”

Kesper nodded. “Try to do that with all the scouts' mounts. There's some extra in the corner there. Best you take it with you.” He paused. “Word is that…things could get tight.”

“They could. The Matrites are riding this way. The captain has some plan to slow them, but I don't know what it is.”

“Nothing likely to stop the iron bitches.”

“We'll see.”

Kesper shook his head. “Wouldn't want to be any of you.” He offered a forced smile to Alucius. “You take care.” Then he was gone.

Alucius went over his riding gear. All the time, he just hoped that the captain had a
very
good plan. He had barely returned to the barracks when Delar and Geran appeared.

“The captain wants to see all scouts,” Delar said. “In his study.”

Alucius and Geran followed orders and made their way to the captain's study.

Ilten was waiting, as were several other scouts—Syurn, Henaar, and Waltar.

“The captain will be here in a moment,” offered Ilten, who resumed smoothing out a long map on the table.

“This one's not going to be so easy,” Geran predicted in a low voice. “The captain's going to want to know where everything is—sentries, picket lines—”

Ilten lifted his head and cleared his throat—loudly. “You might be right, Geran, but why don't you let the captain tell you?”

“Yes, sir.” Geran did not sound abashed.

Two other scouts that Alucius did not know by name stepped into the room, so that seven scouts stood around the table.

Almost immediately, Captain Heald appeared. “I'm glad to see all of you. Before we can act, we need to know where the Matrites are set up—if they are, or if they're still on the march, and what their deployment or their camp layout is. Our patrols haven't seen them within six vingts of here on the midroad. There's only one decent stead out there—I sent a messenger, suggested to the herders that they leave, but we don't know if they did. Place would make a solid bivouac—with shelter for the troopers and most mounts. It's about eight vingts out, just at the base of the hills. I'd camp there, but that doesn't mean they will.”

Heald paused and focused on the senior scout. “Geran, you'll be in charge of the scouts.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Once you have an idea of where the Matrites are, I want half of you to swing south of the road, and half north and each take a quarter. Geran will assign you as he thinks best. Try not to be seen. Don't do anything stupid. We'll need every one of you before this is all over.” The captain looked from scout to scout, ending up with Geran. “I expect you all on the road in less than a quarter glass. Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Geran.

Alucius waited for Geran to move, and then followed the older scout out and toward the barracks bay, where they collected their gear.

“Road patrols didn't tell him enough,” Geran said to Alucius as the two walked toward the stable. “They never do.”

“You think the Matrites are at that stead?”

“Where else?” Geran laughed. “In this weather, you go for shelter. They haven't tried to take Soulend. That doesn't leave much this far north.”

After saddling their mounts and packing their gear, the two waited with their mounts inside the stable doors until they were joined by all of the other five scouts. Then, without ceremony, they led their mounts out into the chill, mounted, and rode away from the post and onto the midroad. Alucius rode alongside Geran, and Henaar and Waltar were immediately behind them.

Except for the road patrol, the midroad was empty, a gray line stretching westward all the way to the ruins of ancient Elcien, though that was more than six hundred vingts away. Alucius wondered if the road remained as untouched there as in the Iron Valleys.

By midmorning, a half-glass later and two vingts west of the militia outpost, there was still no wind to speak of. From the clouds to the west, Alucius knew another storm would be coming in. The snow had not melted in most places, but light as it was, the previous day's wind had swirled it into heaps around the quarasote bushes, so that the ground resembled a patchwork of snow, gray-green quarasote bushes, and red-sandy soil. Although he had a riding scarf wrapped across his face, it wasn't nearly so warm as the skull-mask. That was tucked inside his tunic.

Geran finally turned in the saddle and studied the six other scouts. “I'd like Narlet, Balant, and Syurn to take the north side of the midroad when the time comes. You probably won't have to circle out as far because the stead is on the south side, but there is one shed on the north, and they might have mounts or foot there…Waltar, on the south side, you'll have the quarter just south of the road, and I'll take the one after that. Henaar will take the south-southwest quarter, and Alucius will take the quarter south of the road on the west end of the stead. Remember, we need information. It doesn't do much good to leave your dead body there because we don't get any information at all that way, and killing one or two Matrites won't change much….”

Alucius knew that part of the orders was for him, although Geran never looked in his direction.

“We won't try to meet. Once you've gotten as much information as you can, withdraw and take it back to Ilten and the captain at the outpost. Any questions?”

“Ah…does anyone know what happened to Welkar?” That came from Narlet, a stocky scout from the third squad, not much older looking than Alucius.

“No one's seen him,” Geran said. “He still could be out there. Or…”

The others nodded.

After yet another half-glass of measured riding on the midroad, they all could see thin trails of smoke rising into a sky that was becoming less silver-green and grayer and grayer.

“Captain was right,” murmured Henaar from where he rode behind Alucius. “Too many fires for a normal stead.”

Even without the smoke, and from more than four vingts away, the concentration of Matrite troopers was obvious to Alucius's Talent-senses, the grayness so blatant that he half-wondered why he hadn't felt it when he'd neared the previous Matrite encampment while he had been tracking the two patrol survivors. Had he been too tired? Or did the “grayness” just blend into all the other sensations until he'd become aware of what it meant?

“Halt!”

Geran's order nearly took Alucius by surprise, so preoccupied with Talent-sensing he had been, but he managed to pull up the gray with the other scouts.

“We're nearing where they'll have road patrols, if they have any sense,” Geran said. “Time to break off and circle around. Some of you may not be able to get close. If there's no cover, no washes, or gulches, or trees…don't force it. Just watch from a distance.”

Henaar nodded. So did Waltar.

As Waltar angled away from the road and toward what looked like a low wash, Geran led Alucius and Henaar on a circuitous path behind another low rise that was barely perceptible. Once they were behind the rise, they couldn't see the lower sections of the smoke trails—or be seen by any road patrols that the Matrites might dispatch.

After they had traveled another two vingts and crossed a low depression to yet another long and low rise, Geran reined up. So did Henaar and Alucius.

“I'll be heading north-northwest from here. I'd judge you'll need to ride another vingt or so before you head in, Henaar. Alucius—I'd make sure you're almost in the hills before you head in, just south of the road.”

As Henaar and Alucius continued riding, now moving almost due west, the wind picked up, even colder than the day before, and coming from a few points to the east of due north.

Henaar finally reined up, looking northward. “Looks like there's a series of little rises I can move north behind.”

“Good luck,” Alucius said. “I'll see you back with the company.”

“Same to you.”

Once he was well clear of Henaar, Alucius took off his winter cap and slipped the skull-mask out of his tunic. As before, it took a while to work it into place. Then he put his cap back on. Mindful of Geran's advice, he did not even begin to ease his way northward until the low rises began to resemble small hills, and showed scattered low pines and junipers. His Talent-senses told him that, except for small wildlife, there were no large living things within nearly a vingt, although he could sense the mass of gray that was the Matrite force to the northeast.

Another half glass later, he studied the land from the concealment of a juniper at the crest of a low hill, taking in the stead in the distance to the northeast. He began to move more to the east, through the junipers that offered concealment, but before long, he began to sense riders. From the grayness he felt, he judged they were Matrite riders.

Riding farther eastward and north, he found a low hill that offered more cover, and one where he could sense at least one rider somewhere beyond the eastern side. Alucius tied the gray on the back side of the rise, in the middle of a clump of junipers halfway up. He took the rifle as he made his way up the rest of the hill, then settled behind the base of an older pine to survey the area. The trees thinned on the east side of the rise below him, and continued to become more and more spread toward the flat to the east, where there were few trees and more than a few scattered quarasote bushes.

With the wind now blowing out of the northeast, he could smell the cookfires—and an odor that was familiar—and yet not. After a moment, he realized it was the smell of fresh-cooked nightsheep. A cold smile crossed his face. If roasted nightsheep were what the Matrites were eating, there would be a number of very sick troopers for several days, unless they were very different from other people, and he doubted that. Only the sandwolves, the grayjays, the black vultures, and a handful of other animals could tolerate nightsheep meat without adverse effects.