Legacies (25 page)

He could sense someone nearing—not that close, but close enough for him to be careful.

Below the rise, well back in the wide flat that was almost a valley, a Matrite trooper rode north, toward the midroad. Alucius watched as the man, his breath a white fog in the early afternoon, let his mount carry him northward until he reached the midroad. There, the mounted sentry surveyed the road, before turning his mount and riding back past Alucius.

Alucius waited until the picket rider rode his post a second time and passed southward once more. The rider took almost a quarter glass each way on his post. Alucius's Talent-senses showed him that there were others not too far away, and, of course, a pack of sandwolves farther to the northwest. He did not sense any sanders—or soarers.

Once the picket rider was out of sight, Alucius slipped down the gentle slope, easing from tree to tree, still carrying the heavy rifle. He vowed to concentrate on following Geran's example, to pick up information in ways that would be effective and less dangerous.

On the flat, the trees were spread farther apart, and Alucius moved deliberately from tree to tree, keeping low and moving slowly, trying to make sure he was concealed from the picket he had slipped past, as well as any sentries he might find ahead.

He found them, mainly through his Talent-sense—single foot patrols, each waiting behind the few remaining pines, each with a thin-looking rifle. The three posts he could find were each roughly a hundred yards from the next. Lying nearly flat, he checked his map against what he could see, and against where he knew the midroad to be.

Crack!
The sound of the rifle was higher and thinner than those used by the militia, and Alucius froze, trying to determine if he had been seen. But he heard nothing, and he could sense no one moving toward him—or any of the sentries moving at all. The report had been close enough that it had to have been one of the foot sentries.

He forced himself to wait, to be patient, as his grandsire had told him, because he knew that he hadn't been seen. He would have sensed something—fear, excitement, apprehension. But why had a sentry fired? Or had the trooper fired at a grayjay or a scrat?

A good half glass passed, during which Alucius memorized as he could the positions of the sentries. There seemed to be little but open space—and scattered quarasote bushes—between the foot sentries and the stead and bivouac area. Certainly, neither his senses nor his eyes revealed any movement there, and it was open enough that the only way to cross it would be on his stomach—after taking out at least one sentry.

No other sentries fired weapons, and finally, Alucius squirmed his way back around the quarasote bushes and spines, back over one low rise, and then another, until he could sense the mounted picket. He waited some more, before he eventually slipped back to his mount.

He rode northward another half vingt to where he could clearly see the midroad from a taller hill. There was a hastily built revetment post of heaped earth with at least eight foot troopers guarding the road.

Then, in the light that was well past midafternoon, Alucius turned his mount back south and then eastward, feeling that he should have discovered more, but knowing that he didn't know enough to have done so, not without killing someone—and he'd been effectively ordered not to do anything of the sort.

As he rode eastward, well south of the midroad and the Matrite sentry lines, the wind blew into the side of his face, and he was glad for the skull-mask, and sorry that he did not dare to wear it except when alone, because the woolen scarf was barely adequate to protect his face against frostbite in the chill northern winds.

Although he was the last scout to return—well after twilight—and report his findings, Alucius managed to get dinner from the cooks before Geran found him in a corner of the mess.

“Thought you might be here. How did it go?”

“Long…cold,” mumbled Alucius through a mouthful of overcooked stew. He took another bite of the bread, and a swallow of cider that was beginning to turn. “Picket sentries and foot inside them. Someone shot at a scrat or something. Thought they'd seen me.” He took another mouthful of the barely warm stew.

“The captain and Ilten want all the scouts in a meeting.”

“Now?” Alucius took another gulp of cider.

“Now.”

Alucius groaned and gulped down another mouthful before rising and carrying the platter back to the mess boy. Then he followed Geran.

The captain's room was crowded, with Heald, Ilten, Troas—the undercaptain of the foot company—and his senior squad leader, and the five squad leaders of Third Company seated around the long table, and the seven scouts standing behind them.

The captain looked around the room, then cleared his throat, before speaking. “I've heard from all the scouts. We're looking at a force of four to five companies of horse, possibly twice that many of heavy foot. They also have wagons not being used for food or transport, and that might mean some sort of weapons we haven't seen.” Heald offered a grim smile. “We have a company of horse, and one of foot, and it will be at least a week before we get reinforcements.”

Left unsaid was the possibility that they might get no reinforcements.

“We have to stop them, or at least slow them down. They've got more men and equipment. What we have to work with is the land and the winter. They've already lost a few men to sandwolves and Reillies, and Ilten and I have come up with a plan that should cost them even more, and shouldn't cost us much at all.” The captain stood and pointed to the hand-drawn map on the table. “Once I've explained the plan, I'd like all of you, including the scouts, to take a good look at the map. That's so you'll see how your actions fit into the plan.”

“First, we're going to set up before dawn. The plan is simple enough. They've got heavy patrols and revetments on the midroad. They've already figured that we're not likely to attack through the quarasote flats, not with what it can do to a mount at full speed or a footman under attack. They're wrong.” Heald grinned.

Even Ilten smiled, if faintly.

“We've found a road—a lane, really, but it's clear of quarasote, that runs within a half vingt of the south side of the stead where they've camped. We'll attack before dawn tomorrow. But it'll be a different kind of attack. It'll be two-pronged. First, most of their mounts are in the old main nightsheep shed. Strong place. Stone walls, slate roof, hard-packed floor. The scouts are going to take out the sentries in the southeast quarter. Then fifth squad will ride in and storm the shed entrance, and throw in some special explosives and a few other items—and jam the doors shut. That will make a dent in their mounts and horse teams. Then, fifth squad will withdraw—and wait in plain sight. When they counterattack, we'll spring the second trap.” Heald smiled, and nodded at Ilten.

“They've got sentries posted in two circles,” the senior squad leader began, “one set of foot about a half vingt out, between fifty and a hundred yards apart. Another half vingt out, they have picket lines, roving patrols. It's a thin line of sentries, and we think they can be taken out. They'll hear some shots in the dim light, but they won't be sure where they're coming from.”

“What about the quarasote?” asked the undercaptain. “That'll cut up men and mounts.”

“There's a back lane on the south side that runs almost parallel to the midroad for about a vingt before it turns south,” Heald replied. “The quarasote bushes are thick there. We've got five squads of foot. I want them set up just outside the Matrite perimeter. Then, when the scouts take out the sentries, they'll move forward through the quarasote here—” Heald pointed to a spot on the map to the south of the stead and the midroad.

“The Matrite horse will run them down,” the undercaptain of foot protested. “You can't be sure of getting all their mounts.”

“Not through quarasote that thick. They'll charge, and they'll lose a good third of their mounts. Your men will be in three lines. The first line will fire—one or two volleys—and then retreat to behind the third line. Once the first line is past, the second line will fire…

“They'll charge, you really think, and lose mounts?”

“If they don't,” Heald pointed out, “they'll lose troopers, and we won't.”

“What if they just stay put in the stead, sir?” asked Wualt, the first squad leader.

“Then, we'll start taking out their troopers all across the south side,” Heald replied. “If they won't counterattack…we'll start making small raids on their sentry posts, day after day. The more Matrites we kill before we have to fight a pitched battle, the better.”

Alucius didn't question the logic, but wondered how long those tactics would work if the Matrites just massed their forces and moved on Soulend. Unlike most of the troopers, who came from nearer the River Vedra, Alucius knew how difficult it was to live off the land in the north.

“I'd like to have you scouts take out the sentries about a glass before dawn,” Heald continued.

Just like that, Alucius reflected, take out the sentries. Was war ever that simple? Was anything?

In the dim light of the stable two glasses after midnight, Delar arrived at the stall as Alucius was checking the fastenings on his saddle bags. “Can you carry an extra cartridge belt?” Delar handed it to Alucius before the scout could answer.

The younger man hefted the heavy leather belt. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Delar paused. “We'll be forming up in about a glass. Don't have to tell you, but wait in the stable till the last moment.” The squad leader smiled, wryly. “Easier on you than most of us, I'd wager.”

“Yes, sir, but it's still cold.”

“That it is.” With a rueful smile, the tall blond squad leader turned away.

Alucius rolled the second belt, with its heavy cartridges, into a tight circle and wedged it inside the left saddlebag. Then he walked the gray to the stable door, where he waited.

Ilten arrived within moments. He glanced at Alucius, then asked with a smile, “You think the sandwolves will give us a hand, trooper?”

“No, sir. Last time I could locate them, they were north of the Matrites.”

“Could be better that way. Never know what the wild creatures might do.” Ilten nodded and stepped back, waiting.

Waltar arrived next, followed by Narlet, and then Geran. Within moments, the other three scouts had joined the group. One of the mounts
whuffed
, and the gray sidled toward Alucius.

“Easy…” Alucius patted his mount on the shoulder.

“Everyone's here,” Ilten said. “You all know your orders, and you know where you're to meet up. If something goes wrong—it shouldn't, but if it does, fall back here.” He nodded to Geran. “You have command here, senior scout.”

“Yes, sir.” Geran nodded. “Walk out your horses and mount.”

Outside was almost pitch dark, the moonless night lit only faintly by starlight and by the single lamp on the outside stone wall of the stable.

Alucius had little trouble mounting or in taking station on Geran, but then, his Talent-senses gave him an advantage. Although he had the black woolen riding scarf across his face, Alucius wished for the skull-mask, but even beneath the scarf it would have been obvious.

Once the seven reached the midroad, the gray eternastone seemed to hold a faint glow in the darkness. That illumination was not the glow of light itself, Alucius realized, but something akin to what his Talent sensed—a residual energy put there generations upon generations into the past when the road had been laid down, seemingly for eternity. Did he sense it now because he'd been using his Talent more—and searching with it?

“Hardly see anything.” Syurn's voice carried forward in the darkness, over the clopping of hoofs on the stone road.

“Neither can the Matrites. That's the point.” Geran's voice held irritation and exasperation. “They won't expect an attack before dawn.”

The Matrites must have expected something, Alucius reflected, or they would not have so many sentries out—unless the sentries were but a gesture to prudence.

After more than a glass and a half of riding, Geran slowed his mount and began scanning the left side of the road. Perhaps a quarter glass passed before he nodded at a single post set on the south side of the midroad. “There. We'll follow that trail. It leads to the other road.”

“How—” Syurn offered the unfinished question.

“Because I put the post there,” answered the senior scout. “Took some doing with the soil frozen.”

Progress along the trail was slower. Riding in single file after Geran, without the faint glow of the midroad to help him, Alucius had to watch the way more closely. The night seemed more still and colder with each yard that the scouts rode. Alucius flexed his fingers within the heavy herder's gloves, trying to keep them warm.

Another glass went by before Geran reined up. “To the northwest there, you can see a few lamps. That's the stead. We'll be riding behind a rise for another half vingt or so.”

The distance before the senior scout halted the group again seemed far longer than a mere half vingt.

“Here's the rendezvous point.” Geran kept his voice low. “You have to look closely for the marker on the north there.” Geran pointed to another short pole rising less than a yard from the top of a quarasote bush a yard to the north side of the track the scouts had followed.

“Now…start moving off once I call your name. Wait at the edge of the road from where you're supposed to start north until I come by and check your spacing. Understood? Narlet?”

“Here…”

“Balant?…Syurn?…Waltar?…Alucius…Henaar…”

Alucius eased the gray along the road, first passing Narlet, then a hundred yards later, Balant, and then Syurn, and Waltar.

Again, the wait in the chill seemed interminable.

“Alucius?” called Geran as he rode up.

“Here.”

“If you head straight in for half a vingt, you should be in the middle of the picket lines. About three hundred yards ahead is a shallow wash that angles northwest. You can ride along it for maybe fifty yards. Then you'll have to move in on foot.”

“I understand.”

Geran laughed softly. “See you later.” The senior scout rode on westward.

Once he was on his own, Alucius wiggled on the skull-mask. Not only did it offer greater protection, but it also darkened his face. Moving slowly and carefully, he guided the gray northward through the quarasote, using his Talent-senses, hearing, and sight. He couldn't sense either sanders or sandwolves, but the Matrite sentries were definitely somewhere ahead.

It was more like four hundred yards before he reached the wash in the ground, a depression that was barely a yard and a half deep. After dismounting and leading the gray down a gentle slope, Alucius tied the gelding to the half-exposed roots of a quarasote bush on the south side of the depression that was barely a yard and a half deep. The horse would be all too visible in the day, or even by dawn, but if Alucius hadn't carried out his orders by then, that would be the least of his problems.

Then he eased his way to the northern side of the wash and tried to determine where the picket rider might be. He could sense the grayish points that had to be Matrite riders and sentries, but none were that close to him, but even farther north than the six hundred yards they were supposed to be. So he eased out of the wash, listening, sensing, and slipped from low quarasote bush to quarasote bush, but always heading north. Even with the skull-mask, some chill seeped in around the eyeholes and in through his nose, leaving his nostrils feeling frozen.

Scuttling over ice-hard ground and around the quarasote, he finally began to sense one Matrite mounted trooper coming closer, and he settled behind a larger quarasote bush, waiting.

A single rifle shot—heavy—came from the east, followed by a second shot, a lighter one, and then by a third shot from a militia rifle. There were no other shots. Alucius nodded to himself, thinking that Waltar had taken out someone.

As the picket rider neared, Alucius could sense not only the man's grayness, but his apprehension.

There was a faint clicking—a scrat—and, abruptly, the rider reined up and looked southeast, lifting and aiming his rifle—but nowhere close to Alucius. “Who goes there?”

That was a stupid question. In fact, saying anything in the darkness while riding a picket line wasn't very smart. Alucius just waited as the rider turned his mount. Between night-adjusted eyes and Talent-senses, Alucius could see his target almost as clearly as if it were day. He squeezed the trigger of the heavy rifle.

Crack!

The echo seemed deafening, but his aim had been accurate, and the sentry pitched sideways in the saddle—and that cold emptiness of red death washed across Alucius. He forced himself to push aside that void of finality.

The mount reared, then gave a sound that seemed like a cross between a whinny and a scream. Alucius winced. The horse had come down on a mature quarasote bush, but after a moment, limped away, favoring one leg, dragging the dead sentry, whose boot had caught in one stirrup. After the horse had gone less than ten yards, the body flopped onto the frozen ground.

Alucius recocked his rifle and turned westward. The sentry on the adjoining picket section should have investigated, but nothing happened. The moments passed, then perhaps a quarter glass, before his senses revealed another Matrite rider.

“Issop? Issop?”

The voice was low, and the accent strange, but it was clear to Alucius that the sentry was calling a name. Hadn't the Matrites ever fought anyone except in pitched battles? Or except against outnumbered enemies? With all the shots, they should have sent more than one rider.

Almost sadly, he aimed, waiting, before he fired once more. One shot was enough. This time, the mount backed away, riderless.

After adding two shells to the rifle's magazine, Alucius slipped through the darkness, past the first dead Matrite and toward the fixed line of sentries.

There were two—about seventy-five yards apart in the darkness—and each was behind a low mound of soil, soil that must have taken incredible effort by the Matrites to have broken free and heaped there. One man hissed something to the other, but Alucius couldn't understand a word. Nor did he understand the exact response of the other, except that he could tell by tone and his Talent-feel that it was negative. Both sentries were worried.

A muffled yell came from the east, then silence. Had Waltar used his sabre on one of the sentries? Alucius certainly didn't see how he'd get close enough to do something like that. He frowned. If…if Waltar had killed the sentry to the east, wouldn't it be possible for Alucius to slip through that way, and strike from behind? It would take time, and it meant a lot of scuttling and squirming, but both sentries were worried, alert, and keeping low behind their piles of rock-hard frozen dirt.

With a silent sigh, the young scout began to ease back and then eastward. A quarter of a glass later, or more, he finally slipped past the invisible perimeter line and began circling back in behind the sentries. Neither man looked behind himself often.

Slowly, silently, Alucius cocked the rifle, aimed and fired—and missed. The man had jerked his head sideways just as the scout had fired. The sentry lifted his rifle and turned.

Alucius waited until the man had almost completed the turn before he fired again, then scuttled sideways, knowing that, this time, the muzzle flash might well leave him a target for the westernmost sentry.

Crack!
The single shot from the other Matrite was several yards off, but certainly the man had a good idea where Alucius might be.

Alucius moved westward, keeping low and behind quarasote, despite the heavy rifle.

Crack! Crack!

None of the shots were close, but with each shot, from both the muzzle flashes and through his Talent-sense, Alucius could see the other sentry, who was shooting from a kneeling position. The scout could also feel the near-panic in the sentry.

Still, Alucius forced himself to set up behind another quarasote bush and to aim carefully—and fire. The second sentry pitched forward, and his gun clunked dully on the hard ground.

Alucius swallowed the bile in his throat and eased his way back to where he had left the gray, keeping low, but not by crawling on his belly as he had to get close to the sentries. Before mounting, he reloaded, and then switched cartridge belts.

He was the second scout at the rendezvous point, even after reloading and worrying off the skull-mask. Waltar was waiting for him.

“Figured it'd be you,” the older scout murmured.

Before either could say more, several shots rang out in the darkness, and half were from the sharper-sounding Matrite rifles. There were no more sounds of militia rifles, but Alucius could sense and hear riders.

“That sounded like number three area—Syurn's,” murmured Waltar.

Four men rode toward them. Alucius could sense that they were militia.

“Scouts?” hissed a voice.

“We're here, Squad Leader,” Waltar said. “Two of us.”

“What was that?” Ilten reined up less than three yards from Alucius.

“Matrite sentry shooting at one of us, I figure,” answered Waltar.

Alucius could feel an emptiness, distant but very real. He didn't know which scout had died, but one had, and Waltar was probably right.

“The column's about two vingts back. Slower on this side road,” Ilten said. “How have you done?”

“Alucius and me—we cleared out the section just to the west of the middle.”

“How soon will you know about the rest?” asked Ilten.

“There's one section not clear,” Waltar pointed out.

Ilten was silent.

“Think we ought to go back in?” Waltar looked at Alucius.

Reluctantly, Alucius nodded.

“Someone didn't clear his sentry?” asked Ilten.

“Doesn't appear so, sir. Alucius and me…we'll see.”

“Two of you?”

“Might be best. They got one of us, and they're probably waiting,” Waltar pointed out.

Alucius was content to let the older scout talk.

“You think you should wait for Geran?”

“Not if you want this to go right.”

“Go ahead.” Ilten's voice was reluctant—and doubtful.

“Yes, sir,” Alucius said quickly.

As the two scouts rode back westward along the narrow road, Waltar snorted softly. Alucius said nothing. Syurn's section had no wash, but another of the gentle rises, and the two had to tie their mounts directly to quarasote bushes with rope leads.

“You go around this side, and I'll go around the other,” Waltar suggested. “You can sense me enough not to shoot at me, right?”

“Right,” Alucius agreed.

On the far side of the rise, a good sixty yards away from where Alucius had slithered through a low spot in the rise were three picket riders, on horseback, in a semicircle facing south. At each side was a trooper on foot. All had rifles near-ready.