Legacies (39 page)

The sun had not yet cleared the timber-covered ridge to the east of the former logging camp where half of Fortieth Company was now stationed in the first week of its three-week rotation, a series of rotations begun in midsummer of the previous year when one more company had been shifted to Zalt. Alucius walked quickly toward the stable.

He found it hard to believe that he had been at Senob Post for over a year, that he had been on more than fifty patrols, and that he'd lost count of the number of raiders and Lanachronan troopers he'd shot and killed, and that seventh squad was now on its third squad leader—Solat. Solat seemed to have more tactical sense than Alben had. So had Relt, but Relt had just been unlucky on the patrol before the last one.

Alucius took a deep breath as he stepped into the stable, then nodded as he passed Oryn, who was already checking his mount.

“You think we'll find anyone today?” asked Oryn.

“Some tracks, not much more. They've been avoiding us lately.”

“Could be they're getting ready for a big attack, try and push through to Southgate?”

“Who knows? Everyone says they want Southgate. Lot of folks in Zalt ran from Southgate when they could. From what the women in the market tell me, the seltyrs use the Dramuran meres to keep everyone a serf, except a handful of traders.”

“Matrial should have taken it years ago.”

“Why didn't she?” asked Alucius.

“Got me. Relt told me that both Dramur and Lanachrona said they'd attack Madrien if the Matrial tried.”

“The Lord-Protector's attacking anyway,” Alucius pointed out. “And neither one offers much trade.” Or any way to send messages, he'd discovered.

Oryn laughed. “They call them raids. That way…”

Alucius shook his head and headed for the stall holding Wildebeast. Even before he stepped up beside his mount, he could sense the residual soreness in Wildebeast's left front pastern. He had no idea what had caused it, unless it had been a stone thrown by another mount, because they'd only been riding the logging roads and not going crosscountry after the Lanachronans.

He bent down and spread his fingers across the bone, letting his Talent enfold the skin, sinew, and bone under his fingers. “Easy, fellow…easy. This should help.”

Alucius had done the same the night before, and his healing had clearly removed most of the damage. Healing his mount wasn't something that would be obvious, and Wildebeast wasn't about to tell anyone.

Wildebeast remained calm, almost as if the stallion understood that Alucius was trying to help him. Finally, Alucius stood, smiling faintly to himself, then patted his mount on the shoulder. In the two glasses before they would begin patrol, there would be more healing, enough so that Wildebeast shouldn't have any trouble.

“Halt!” ordered squad leader Solat.

In the early afternoon, under a hazy silver-clouded spring sky, seventh squad reined up at the junction of the two rutted logging roads. As he waited in the second rank, Alucius patted Wildebeast. His mount had recovered fully from whatever had caused the soreness in his pastern.

Solat studied the dusty road, then looked up. “No signs of tracks here. Alucius…you take Venn, Oryn, and Astyl, and follow the tracks on east fork. We'll take the west road. Whoever gets first to where they rejoin waits for the other group.”

“Yes, sir.” Alucius eased Wildebeast forward, waiting for the other three to fall in beside and behind him. One reason Solat picked him to take half the squad was that Alucius wouldn't say anything about it. There wasn't anything in the regulations about patrols smaller than a squad. It just wasn't done—except two patrols could cover more ground than one. Since they knew the area around the old logging camp well, it was certainly faster with two patrols.

Venn slipped his roan up beside Alucius.

Neither said anything until they were a good three hundred yards away from the fork. Then, Alucius turned in the saddle. “Let it open up until we're about ten yards apart.”

“Got it,” replied Oryn.

Astyl, who had only been with seventh squad two months, glanced from Alucius to Oryn. Alucius let Oryn explain.

“In a small patrol, we don't want to be too close together.”

Alucius kept scanning the woods on each side, not only with his eyes, but with his Talent-sense. The only scents were those of dust and men and mounts, so dry had the weather been in recent weeks. By the time they had covered almost a vingt, he could sense that there was something—or someone—out there, even if there weren't any hoofprints in the road dust. He paused, then raised his hand. “Halt!”

Venn just waited as Alucius dismounted and studied the road.

Alucius nodded to himself, then mounted again. “Keep your eyes open.”

“What did you see?” Venn asked. “There weren't any tracks.”

“There weren't any tracks at all. None, not game, not birds, and there were some faint lines.”

“That's what—oh. You think they're close?”

“No. Not yet. The dust has settled. You can still hear birds and insects farther back in the trees. Also, there's no undergrowth here, and no low trees. It's too exposed.” Alucius pointed more than a vingt ahead to where the old road swung more directly eastward and around a rocky ridge. “When we get near there…then we'll see.”

After another four hundred yards or so, Alucius could feel the blackness of troopers, Lanachronan troopers, farther ahead, waiting in ambush. There weren't that many…and if his little squad took them by surprise…

“Halt!” He reined up, then gestured to a boulder almost the height of a mount at the shoulder on the right side of the road. “We'll go over there.”

Oryn and Venn nodded. Astyl just looked puzzled as the four eased their mounts to the flat area between a fallen fir and the boulder.

“I can't be sure,” Alucius said, “but I think the Lanachronans have set up an ambush up there, right below that ridge. It looks right down on the road. So we're going to see if we can do the same to them.”

“Shouldn't we…” Astyl closed his mouth abruptly as Oryn glared at him.

“If we try to get help, they'll move,” Alucius pointed out. “If we ride past, we get shot. If we go back and around, the other half of the squad might decide to come after us, and they could get ambushed from that side.”

“Oh…”

“Astyl?” Alucius asked.

“Sir?”

“We're going into the woods and climb up behind them. I want you to wait here, right behind this boulder. Once we're out of sight, I want you to count to four hundred, and then fire one shot into the trees on the east side of the road—just across from you. Then I want you to count to two hundred and fire once more. Do that once more, and then reload and wait. If any Lanachronan troopers ride down the road, shoot them. Just make sure they're Lanachronan.”

“Ah…yes, sir.”

“We'll ride to the base of those rocks, and then we'll climb the back side. I'd wager that the Lanachronans are on the flat rock below. It's slanted, and they can't be seen from the road.”

“How do you know that?” asked Venn.

“Maps,” Alucius answered, less than completely truthfully. “There are lots of them in the library at Zalt. That's the only spot for an ambush, and they swept the road so that they could set it up.”

Astyl looked puzzled.

“Dragged a pine branch behind their mounts or something like that.” Alucius turned to Oryn and Venn. “Let's go.” He looked back at Astyl. “Don't start counting until we're well out of sight. And count
slowly
.”

Alucius eased Wildebeast back around the uprooted trunk of the fallen fir, and followed a narrow game trail under the pines and firs, a trail that angled downhill, and then back up to the southeast and the rocky outcropping that overlooked the logging road. Once he had to dismount and lead his mount around a bushy growth of pines that were but shoulder high where the trail was blocked by a pine half fallen and wedged against a larger fir.

“Glad he knows where he's going…”

“…safer around him…”

Alucius ignored Venn's murmur, as well as Oryn's reply. He definitely disagreed with the idea that being around him was safer.

A single shot echoed from the north. Alucius smiled. “Not that much farther.” He remounted, then froze in the saddle for a moment, as, again, he could sense the brownish green of the unseen creature. The feeling passed as quickly as it had appeared, and Alucius urged Wildebeast toward the western side of the base of the rocky ridge, now visible through the trees ahead. His Talent confirmed that there were no Lanachronans on the west side, although there was a single trooper with the mounts on the south side, almost a vingt away.

Just before Alucius reached the spot where the ridge began to rise too steeply for the mounts, Astyl's second shot echoed through the trees.

“We'll tie the mounts up there,” Alucius said quietly. “We have to climb up there to get above them. Then we'll shoot down at them.”

After another fifty yards, he reined up and dismounted, studying the rocks with eyes and Talent, and waiting for Venn and Oryn to join him. He dropped two more cartridge packs inside his tunic before turning toward the jumble of rocks that rose like irregular steps punctuated with scattered cedars and barely leafing mountain birches. “Let's go. Try to be quiet.”

Oryn nodded. So did Venn, but the older trooper's nod was more resignation than acceptance.

Behind them a third shot echoed over the trees.

Alucius began the climb by squeezing between the irregular gap formed when one huge bolder had been split by water and time, then easing up an angled ledge. When they had climbed another fifty yards uphill, perhaps ten short of the crest, he motioned for the other two troopers to move closer. “They'll be in some sort of line. Unless I tell you otherwise, Venn, you take the three on the right end, and, Oryn, you take the three on the left. Understand?”

“What if there are more than that?” whispered Oryn.

“Then move toward the center—after you take down the ones on the end.”

Both troopers nodded.

Alucius eased across the sandy exposed rock that formed the top of the ridge, moving slowly, and keeping low, finally stopping several yards short of the edge, and dropping onto his stomach before edging forward, his rifle in his left hand.

When Oryn and Venn slipped into place beside him, Alucius pointed over the lip of the redstone boulder. Less than fifteen yards below were nine Lanachronans stretched out prone, their rifles aimed at the empty road.

He cocked his rifle, waited for them to do the same, and then whispered. “Fire!”

His first shot took the middle trooper in the back of the skull.

Alucius got off three shots before the troopers below even began to realize from where the Matrite troopers were firing. Alucius pushed aside the empty voids of death washing over him, and kept shooting. The other two were slower, but less accurate, and Alucius had finished reloading before they had emptied their magazines.

By then, the ambush of the would-be ambush was over, and there were six bodies on the rock below. A single Lanachronan trooper—the one guarding the mounts—had galloped off, with two mounts. That Alucius had determined with his Talent…and said nothing about it.

“Now what?” asked Venn.

“Are you three ready to surrender?” Alucius called down to the three wounded men, who had tried to huddle behind low outcroppings of rock.

“You'll just shoot us.”

“We could already have,” Alucius called back. “Throw out your rifles, or I will.”

“Frig you!”

Alucius sighted on the man who had replied, then squeezed the trigger.

The Lanachronan's rifle clattered onto the stone.

“…how'd he do that?” Venn murmured.

“…don't ask…” muttered Oryn.

“We'll surrender,” called back another voice. Two rifles skidded across the stone.

“Sit up with your hands on your head!”

When he was certain that the two remaining Lanachronans were unable to fire at them, Alucius motioned for Oryn and Venn to follow him, taking turns moving so that a rifle was always trained on the two survivors.

In the end, Alucius and the half squad resumed their ride toward the rest of seventh squad. Astyl was leading six Lanachronan mounts, loaded with the captured rifles and other gear, and the two wounded Lanachronans. Oryn rode behind, his rifle at the ready.

It took more than a glass to reach where the roads joined.

Solat rode out to meet them. His eyes widened as he saw what followed Alucius.

“The rest of you form up with the squad. We'll be heading back. The undercaptain will want a report, and she'll want to talk to the prisoners.” He looked at Alucius. “You ride with me and tell me what happened.” He raised his voice. “Daafl and Neyl—you ride as scouts.”

Denal looked toward Alucius and grinned.

Alucius shrugged, helplessly.

“Let's go!” snapped Solat.

Alucius guided Wildebeast up beside the squad leader and his mount.

The squad rode almost half a vingt before Solat turned in the saddle. “Tymal told me things happened around you.” The squad leader paused, then asked, “What happened? How many were there?”

“Half of one of their patrols, I'd say. We counted seven bodies, and only one got away. Thought the undercaptain might like to talk to the ones that we captured. They'd set up an ambush, but they were too clever.”

“Too clever?”

“They used a pine branch or something, dragged it behind a mount, to sweep away the traces of their tracks. There weren't any tracks at all on the road dust, and we haven't had rain or snow in weeks. I kept looking, and there was only one place for an ambush. We ambushed them.”

Solat shook his head. “How did you manage that without losing anyone?” He paused. “Don't answer that. I don't need to know.”

“Sir…I just do the best I can.” That was certainly true enough, and it was the only way Alucius could hope to live long enough to figure out how to escape and return home.

“I've already recommended you for promotion to junior squad leader.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You get the job done…”

Alucius could almost read Solat's unspoken words
…and I don't know how…