Legacies (57 page)

“Why are you—”

“I'm going to talk to them because the more troopers we have the better chance we have of getting good terms from the militia command.” Alucius turned Wildebeast back to the rear of the column.

There he waited.

The lone rider neared the column slowly, his hands in the open and empty, except for the one hand around the long branch that held a crude banner—a white undergarment.

“I'd like to talk!” called the rider.

Alucius noted the single chevron on the man's sleeve. “You can ride up. We won't shoot.”

Warily, the other squad leader approached.

Alucius rode out and stopped five yards short of the older man.

The other noted the double chevrons on Alucius's sleeve, and nodded, almost to himself, before speaking. “Sir? Is it true that you're an Iron Valley officer who's escaped from the Matrites and heading home? ”

“Yes.” Alucius wasn't about to get into technicalities about what kind of officer he was.

“We'd like to join you. We also got another bunch, two squads, really, that's farther back. They've got a wagon with some provisions and other stuff.”

What could he do? After a moment, Alucius said, “You can join us if you want. The rules are simple. I'm in charge. No arguments. No discussion. We act like a regular company until we get to the Iron Valleys, and we stay together until we get good terms from the militia.”

“Good terms?”

“Squad leader…” Alucius sighed. “What would you do if a company of horse showed up in Matrite uniforms. We don't stick together, and some idiot is going to get the wrong idea.” Like claiming that the former militia troopers were deserters, or worse. “At the very least, we can probably get accepted into militia service as a company, and that's with pay, and without torques, and there isn't likely to be that much fighting for the next year or so.”

The other considered what Alucius had said. Finally, he spoke. “That makes sense to me. I think it will to the others.” He grinned ruefully. “Wish we'd have known before you made that charge.”

Alucius waited.

“Your men took out more than two squads, and the captain.”

Alucius hadn't even recalled the officer. Then it struck him, and he grinned back at the other man. “That's the way it will be.”

“Appreciate that. If you'll stay here, we'll rejoin you. We'll ride in one at a time, arms empty.”

“That's a good idea,” Alucius agreed.

“We won't be that long. Appreciate the consideration. My name's Longyl.”

“Alucius.”

“We'll be back, captain.”

Zerdial glanced from the departing squad leader to Alucius. “Is that wise, sir?”

“Not totally. We'll be on guard, but I'll know, long before they can do anything, if they're up to something. We'll either have reinforcements—or more dead Matrites.” His voice was tired, almost cold. He could sense the chill it cast over the two squad leaders.

Now…all he had to do was reach the Iron Valleys without getting attacked, negotiate an agreement, and make sure that the Iron Valley Militia kept it.

All? He laughed, softly, almost bitterly.

The ragtag company that Alucius found himself commanding had finally camped at an abandoned Reillie stead, less than half a vingt off the high road. The spring was still good, and between the two wagons, there were enough provisions for the troopers and grain for the mounts. In the early evening, after sentries had been set, and one group of scouts had returned, Alucius and his four squad leaders met in the main room of the three-room Reillie hut.

“There's one other thing we need to do,” Alucius said to the squad leaders who had joined his force. “I want to remove every torque from your men. We'll keep them to show to the militia.”

Longyl nodded. “Proof.”

“People like proof,” Alucius said. “Also the torques are mostly silver.”

That got a nod from Longyl, a short barrel-chested man, who, Alucius suspected, was or would have been a militia squad leader. The other junior squad leader was Egyl, taller than Longyl, but also stocky. Next to them, Zerdial and Anslym—and Alucius himself—probably looked green.

“You're herder born, aren't you?” asked Egyl.

“Yes.”

“One reason why you look so young. All herders do.”

“That's true,” Alucius admitted. It was true, but it also gave Egyl and Longyl a way to explain Alucius's apparent youth to the troopers. “I also entered the militia young.”

Both older men nodded.

Alucius got a sense that Longyl was solid to the core—the kind of squad leader that men would follow and who would do his best, and also the kind who wasn't afraid to question a bad order, but tactfully.

“You saw a lot of combat, didn't you?” asked Egyl.

Zerdial looked at the square-jawed Egyl, clearly puzzled by the question.

“Pretty obvious,” Egyl explained. “He knows combat tactics. He kept you moving when someone who hadn't seen a lot would have dithered. He saw the weakest spot in our line, and he kept you tight. Most times, that's dangerous, but not with what he had in mind.” Egyl looked at Alucius. “Sorry, sir.”

Alucius smiled. “It might be for the best that you explained. The two squads I brought were all captive trainees I broke out of Eltema Post. I was there, for reassignment, when the torques failed.” Alucius shrugged. “I saw a chance and took it.”

Egyl and Longyl actually looked impressed.

“You got two squads of trainees from Hieron to the border, and through four companies?” asked Egyl.

Alucius nodded, although it would have been more accurate to say that he had avoided two companies and broken through two with deception.

“What did you do before you were sent back to Hieron?”

“I started out as a trooper with Fortieth Company. That was after I got captured. Part of something fell on me at Soulend. I was a scout for Third Company in the militia…” Alucius gave a summary of his Matrite career, such as it was.

“Shame the militia didn't make you an officer,” Longyl said. “You're still our captain.”

“Right,” added Egyl. “Won't hurt to have a herder speaking for us, either.”

After a moment of silence, Alucius asked, “What did the scouts find out?”

“Just like you thought. No sign of a militia encampment near here. Probably at the eastern side of the Westerhills…”

“Tomorrow, we'll keep moving, but we'll send scouts out a good two vingts ahead. We'll need that much warning if we see any militia patrols.”

“What will you do if we see any?”

“We'll use a white banner,” Alucius replied, “but we'll see if we can make first contact from a higher point, hilltop, bluff, cliff, that sort of thing. I don't trust anyone, not the way this war has gone. I don't imagine anyone in the militia would either. But they have to be hurting for troopers—and for information. We've got both.” He knew it wouldn't be that simple.

There was little else to be said, and they all knew it. So he nodded and added, “We'll talk in the morning.”

Then he watched as the four left the hut, studied them closely from the shadows.

Zerdial glanced back, then shrugged.

“Zerdial?” Egyl gestured to the fresh-faced squad leader.

“Sir?”

Alucius used his Talent to listen.

“You want to stay a squad leader…don't look so stupid. The captain, and you'd better think of him that way, he's been through more in the last year than most officers see in a career. You owe your friggin' life to him…”

“You don't,” Zerdial said.

“You don't get it, do you? Before long, the Matrites would be killing or putting chains on any man, trooper or not, who isn't from Madrien. This way, we all got a chance to go home, and the rest of us want to. Sometimes, I wonder if you care. You do what the captain says because he scares you.”

“Ah…”

“Captain's right. We'll probably have to stay troopers for a while, but when it's over, we're home, and we're not serving where someone can decide that they don't like what you did or said and choke you to death before you know what struck you. Even the Reillies we got, most of them'd stay with a good captain. The captain rode point on your attack. Two things. First, he didn't get shot, and second, he killed a lot of people who could have killed you. You find another officer who can do that for a year, and I'll eat your sabre.”

Zerdial was silent.

“Might be a good thing to tell your friend Anslym that. Or do you want me to?”

“I'll tell him.” After a moment, Zerdial asked, “Is he…the captain…that good?”

Egyl laughed. “I spent four years in the militia and three with the Matrites. Made junior squad leader. He made full squad leader in two, and he had enough guts to take on the Matrites in their capital, and enough smarts to take a bunch of green-assed trooper trainees four hundred vingts through an enemy land, and he only lost something like seven. He looked at Longyl and me, and he
knew
who we were and what we could do. Just like we knew he'd bust his ass for his men, and break anyone who didn't. You don't shape up, and he'll break yours. You could be a good squad leader, you know, if you tried harder, and we need good squad leaders.”

Zerdial looked down.

In the shadows, Alucius swallowed. Not only was life not simple, but he was making it even harder for himself.

Not surprisingly, to Alucius, it was two days later, midmorning on Septi, when the scouts reported finding a militia encampment, right where Egyl had predicted, on the eastern edge of the Westerhills. Egyl, Longyl, and Alucius sat astride their mounts in the warm morning, in the middle of the high road that led to Iron Stem, with Anslym and Zerdial on their mounts, but slightly farther away from the other three.

“They've got an encampment on the stream just east of where the trees end,” Egyl was pointing out. “There's a hillside above that, and it looks like they water the mounts below that.”

“So we could get their attention there?” asked Alucius. “They aren't running any patrols?”

“None that the scouts could see, and not many tracks in the dust of the high road,” Longyl pointed out. “Trees are pines and junipers…scattered, but enough cover if we're careful.”

“It's like they've left the Westerhills as an unprotected buffer between the Iron Valleys and Madrien,” Alucius mused. “That's not good. What I'd expect from Dysar, but…”

“Patrols cost coins,” Longyl said slowly.

“And the merchants in Dekhron aren't interested in paying to protect what they don't see will hurt their profits,” Alucius concluded. “So we'll be there in force, but we'll need to be prepared to move back.” He looked toward Zerdial. “You don't get good terms if you shoot people—not unless you can shoot them all, and we can't do that.”

“We could probably wipe out the company there,” Egyl said. “Not a good idea, though.”

Alucius took a deep breath. “We might as well push on. But make sure the scouts and patrols let us know about anything.”

“Yes, sir.”

Less than a glass before noon, Egyl rode back down the road. Alucius could see a broad smile on the squad leader's face.

“The boys cornered one of their road scouts,” Egyl reported. “Thought it might make working out terms a little quicker.”

“How far ahead?”

“Just a vingt.”

“Good. We'll see what we can do.”

As they rode on, Egyl looked to Alucius. “This isn't going to be easy.”

“No. It won't. But I have some ideas. The way they're set up shows that they really don't want to fight. Not two months since the Matrial pulled out of the Iron Valleys and the Westerhills, and they've already reduced the militia forces. I'd bet that there's only one company at the encampment.”

“Town sheep,” Egyl said.

Alucius didn't argue with that. He just nodded.

A little more than a quarter glass later, Alucius reined up about five yards short of the militia road scout, a young man not that much older than Alucius had been when he had been with Third Company, a time in his life that seemed far more than two years before.

“Greetings,” he offered. “What company are you with?”

The scout, clearly uncomfortable with the Matrite uniforms and rifles trained on him, finally spoke. “Cylpher, Eleventh Company…that's all—”

“I'm not asking for any more,” Alucius said. “All we want is for you to take a message back to your captain.”

“That's all?”

“Despite the uniforms, we're mostly all from the Iron Valleys. A lot of us were captured in the Soulend campaign and later, some earlier. The Matrial slapped Talent-collars on us and impressed us into her forces. The Matrial is dead, and the collars no longer work, and we escaped. It's very simple. We'd like to come home, and we want to make sure we get treated fairly. So I want to talk to your captain. I'll meet him—or another officer—by the place on the stream where you water your mounts—one glass after you return to the encampment. He can stay on the east side of the stream. I'll be on the west.”

“Ah…sir…what if…ah…”

“Trooper,” Alucius said firmly, “we are coming home. Now…if the good captain doesn't want to talk to me, we'll just avoid the encampment and ride on to somewhere closer to Iron Stem, and we'll find a sympathetic herder, and then we'll work out details from there, and the captain will look foolish. I'd rather not make him look foolish, and I don't think he wants to look foolish. As for an ambush…if we'd wanted to do that, all we had to do was take you, and slip into the encampment. I imagine we could have wiped out about half the company before anyone knew what happened. We didn't.”

The scout's eyes widened. “Who do I tell the captain is in charge of…your company?”

“Alucius. Scout and trooper with Third Company in Soulend. Grandson of Royalt, captain and herder out of Iron Stem. I was hit on the head and captured at the raid on the Soulend encampment, after the Matrites took it. That was the battle where they used the crystal spear-thrower until it exploded.” Alucius paused. “That should be enough.”

“And you'll let me go, if I tell him that?”

“Once we're closer to your encampment,” Alucius promised. “We're going to ride back with you until we're just a vingt or two away. That way, your captain doesn't get any strange ideas, and you'll have time to think about how you're going to convince him.” He gestured at the column that had followed him. “You can see that we do have a few troopers here.”

“Ah…yes, sir.”

Alucius turned to Longyl. “We'll send him back with a broken torque and an empty Matrite rifle. The captain will find it harder to ignore that way.” Alucius turned back to face the scout, projecting an air of command, “and I'm sure that our friend here will understand that he should tell all his compatriots about our meeting
before
he meets with his captain, perhaps even show them the broken torque collar and the rifle. Not that I wouldn't trust the captain, but trusting him would be a lot easier if the captain knew that most of the company knew.” Alucius smiled. Even before he finished speaking, he could sense the approval of Egyl and Longyl, and, belatedly, that of Zerdial.

“Column forward!”

For another glass the company and the captured scout rode eastward, until they reached a gentle incline that led down to a higher valley that held the militia encampment.

Once they had sent the scout on his way, with the rifle and the broken torque, Alucius and his company left the high road and crossed the vingt of hilly land, partly forested with junipers and low pines, to the hillside overlooking the bend in the stream that served as a watering hole. They had to leave the wagons within a few hundred yards of the high road, with their drivers and half a squad, but Alucius doubted that the militia would come storming out after wagons.

Alucius had the remainder of his entire company set up in concealment, ready to rake the land below. He watched the militia encampment, both with his eyes and his Talent, to make certain that the militia did not send out messengers or squads. Then they waited for almost a glass before Alucius had one of the troopers from Zerdial's squad begin to wave the makeshift white banner.

Shortly, the militia captain rode out to the stream, accompanied by a squad, all with rifles at the ready.

Alucius rode Wildebeast just enough into the open that he was visible, but with a clear path behind a clump of junipers—just in case. He recalled the story of his father's death all too well, and he wasn't about to be trusting.

“You…you say you have a whole company,” called the captain. “Where are they?”

Alucius ordered, “Company, ready rifles! Into the air! Into the air, fire!”

The hillside seemed to explode.

As the sound died away, Alucius replied, “As you can see, they're up here.”

“You disarm, and we'll talk about your request,” the captain said.

Alucius laughed. “I don't think so. Majer Dysar and Colonel Clyon don't have enough troopers. You don't have enough. Most of my men are former militia troopers. They never wanted to wear Matrite collars. Now…you try for some sort of stunt, like the one you're thinking, and you won't be able to hide what you did.” Alucius projected a sense of his own command, and a feeling that the captain would be mustered out in disgrace. “Colonel Clyon will have your bars and your head. He needs every trooper he can get, and he'd really like some with knowledge about the Matrites.”

“I can't make that sort of decision.”

“We know that. We'll wait. You send a messenger to the colonel. We'll talk to him or Majer Dysar—no one else. We can also tell if someone's moving against us in force. That wouldn't be a good idea.” Alucius used his Talent to convey the feeling of absolute strength. “You also send us some provisions, standard rations for a company for a week. You can leave them on the high road at the crest, a half vingt west of the camp. We'll leave a couple more of the broken torques. They're close to solid silver. You already have one.”

“That will leave us short.”

“Ask the colonel for more. He'll be happy to supply you for providing him with more troopers—and for handling a touchy situation with dispatch and caution. Remember, most of my company knows the Iron Valleys very well, and they all have families who wouldn't be too pleased if they weren't dealt with fairly. I'm sure you understand all that, captain.” Alucius added a sense of authority to the words.

“You have the torques there tomorrow before noon, and we'll leave the provisions.”

Alucius could sense the caution, but the resolve to provide the provisions—and the captain's concern that he was treading on dangerous ground.

“You're an honorable man, captain. Keep it that way, and we'll all do fine.” Alucius guided Wildebeast back out of sight. He could feel the sweat pouring down his forehead, and down the back of his neck.

In some ways, battle was easier than negotiating, and that was even when he had tools for negotiating that most officers didn't.