Imager’s Battalion

but do not interfere often enough for any man to count on it. Stupid men end up dead. Dead men do not see the next dawn, and with the next dawn there is always hope.”

Quaeryt hadn’t been able to refrain from asking, “Doesn’t that open a man up to seizing the opportunities of the moment?”

“My mother told me that a man who cannot see beyond tomorrow is also a stupid man. I have not seen that she was wrong.”

Quaeryt had laughed.

As he rode beside Zhelan on Mardi morning, under high gray clouds that made the day both cooler and the air a bit damper, a quint before ninth glass, he couldn’t help reflecting on what more he’d learned-or hadn’t-about the imager undercaptains over the previous two days.

Shouldn’t you have done more of that earlier? Except that he’d been far too absorbed in teaching them what they needed to know. And to further your goals for them, perhaps? He couldn’t deny that, but there was also the problem that he didn’t have the experience to be a subcommander and that he’d been trying to learn how to be more effective as both an imager commander and a troop subcommander. There are always excuses. And there were, he acknowledged, and all he could do was learn from the experience of being sidetracked by excuses and move on as best he could. His ruminations were cut short as a scout rode back eastward along the road toward Fifth Battalion, once more in the van.

Quaeryt waited as the scout eased in beside him.

“Sir … there’s a High Holding two milles ahead, sir. The gates are chained, but it looks deserted. There are tracks on the road and on the shoulder heading west.”

“Go and let the commander know. He’ll decide who will look into it.” The scout would anyway, but reinforcing Skarpa’s precedence never hurt.

“Yes, sir.”

While he was waiting for Skarpa to receive the report, Quaeryt studied the road ahead, as well as the small shuttered cots and dwellings they passed, as well as the absence of livestock, noting what the scouts had kept reporting-that there were no signs of any Bovarian forces.

In less than half a quint, Skarpa was riding up the shoulder of the road. By then, Quaeryt had sent a ranker to notify Major Zhael that third company might be required to accompany him and several undercaptains on a reconnaissance mission.

“You have a company ready to ride out and see?” Skarpa was wasting no time.

“Third company, with Desyrk and Lhandor.”

Skarpa nodded. “Make it quick. If there are supplies, let me know as soon as you can. If not, just leave the place … unless you think there are weapons or other useful items.”

“I’d be surprised if there were either.”

“So would I,” replied Skarpa. “Do what you can. I’ll call a halt by the gates.”

Quaeryt and third company moved out from the vanguard, and little more than a quint later, they reined up in front of the gates on the north side of the road. Quaeryt could scarcely miss the hold house, situated as it was on a rise overlooking the river, and so large that even from the chained gates, the structure still loomed impressively above the extensive formal gardens and forest park that surrounded it.

Yet, once they opened the gates and went through the buildings, that inspection revealed that the entire hold house and outbuildings had been recently and completely emptied.

But who could have done that so quickly? Kharst? The holding was certainly large enough and well appointed enough to be his. Still, there was little point in spending time there, not when there were neither supplies nor weapons, and Quaeryt had the gates rechained.

For the rest of Mardi and for the first glasses on Meredi, Skarpa and his forces saw only traces of the withdrawing Bovarians, or perhaps they were tracks of retainers hurrying Kharst’s goods from the holding back to Variana, mused Quaeryt-if the hold had been Kharst’s at all.

A quint or two after ninth glass on Meredi, the scouts came riding back with the report that the span over the fair-sized river three milles ahead had been destroyed, most likely with explosives. Once more, Fifth Battalion was in the van, as it had been for most of the ride west from Nordeau.

Skarpa didn’t have to glance at his map, but responded immediately. “That has to be the River Sommeil.”

“Whatever it is, Commander,” replied the squad leader of the scouts, “it looks to be too wide and too deep to ford.”

Of course it is. They wouldn’t destroy it if it weren’t. Quaeryt merely smiled.

Skarpa turned in the saddle and looked at Quaeryt without saying a word.

“We’ll see what we can do. I’ll take first company and the undercaptains.”

“Take the entire battalion, Subcommander.”

“Yes, sir.”

Shortly, Fifth Battalion moved ahead of the main column at a moderately quick trot. After riding about two milles Quaeryt glanced to the north and noted that the paving stones of the river road were only perhaps ten or fifteen yards higher than the River Aluse, if that. Ahead was a slight rise, and when Quaeryt came to the crest and looked ahead, he could see that the Bovarians had indeed chosen well.

The River Sommeil meandered through a swampy flood plain a good three milles wide, and the only raised ground was a tongue of land that led to the bridge. The structure itself had been a solid-looking stone span connecting two tongues of more solid land, although for a good hundred yards on each side of the bridge the road had been constructed on a causeway that was more like a levee. What the scouts had not mentioned was that, some hundred yards short of the east end of the bridge was a large gap in the road … and the causeway that had supported it.

While the terrain suggested it was unlikely that Fifth Battalion would face Bovarian forces, at least on the east side of the bridge, the gap in the road and the missing spans of the bridge indicated more work for the imagers. Since the bridge itself blocked a clear view of the road on the far side, there might also be other gaps.

Quaeryt kept studying the causeway and the terrain on the far side of the bridge, but could see no sign of Bovarians. If they waited, they were concealed in the trees that flanked the open ground on each side of the road.

Once he had reached the missing section of the causeway, he reined up and studied the damage in the road. While the gap wasn’t that wide, no more than five or six yards, the material that comprised the levee and roadbed had been blasted away to the point that whatever base remained was below the water level of the swamp surrounding the levee. He turned the mare sideways. “Undercaptain Horan, forward!”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re to start imaging rock into that gap. Not dirt because the water will turn it to mud.”

“Any kind of rock, sir?”

“Any kind that’s solid. Not sandstone or pumice. Do it in smaller amounts at a time, rather than trying it all at once.”

“Yes, sir.”

Quaeryt watched as the slightly grizzled imager concentrated. The water in the gap swelled as though a current pushed it upward, but Quaeryt did not see anything but more muddy water. A second swell of water followed, and when the current subsided, he could see grayish stones being washed by the swamp water. He glanced to Horan, whose forehead was glistening with sweat. “Wait a moment. Take a swallow of ale or whatever’s in your bottle.”

Horan needed little urging to reach for the water bottle.

Quaeryt once more surveyed the lands beyond the swamp to the west, thickly forested with trees and undergrowth that could hide regiments. He had his doubts that there were regiments concealed, but the flatness of the causeway on the far side concerned him, since it was a perfect situation to use musketeers. The road would only allow three riders abreast at any speed, and it would take time to cover the mille or so beyond the bridge.

But then, they wouldn’t be all that accurate at that distance, and they’d wait until we were closer to the woods. That was another worry.