look.”
“I don’t need a subcommander being shot,” said Skarpa.
“They won’t see me. There’s something not right about this.”
“That’s new?” rejoined Skarpa dryly.
“I want to see if the ground will allow us to spread out, or if we need to just move around the Bovarians and attack from the south or even the north.”
“It won’t. They wouldn’t have taken a position if we could.”
Quaeryt was afraid Skarpa was right, but he still wanted to see.
“Go ahead. Be careful.”
Quaeryt eased the mare forward, slowly, taking his time, and raising a concealment shield before him, as well as his personal full shields. When he neared the top of the rise in the road, as he passed a narrow lane that ran westward, he guided his mount onto the left shoulder of the river road, just in case someone might see dust or something and target the middle of the main road.
He was a good twenty yards from the crest when he could see the Bovarian position, and he reined up immediately. The musketeers were lined up across the road and a good fifty yards on either side, if not more, protected by a chest-high earthen berm. As the scout had reported, they looked to be a fifth of a mille to the north. There looked to be another battalion of foot dug in behind the musketeers, keeping low in shallow trenches behind the earth excavated from the trenches, and several other berms farther back, although he couldn’t see what kind of troops they sheltered. There were even berms between the lines of trenches, at the west end, as if the Bovarians expected a flanking maneuver of some sort.
The squad on the right side of the road had retreated and was more than a hundred yards north of the hill crest.
Quaeryt felt cold inside, even if he couldn’t have said why.
He kept studying the Bovarian position, then the ground to the west of the road, mostly consisting of fields and small holdings, with cots and outbuildings scattered here and there. The side lane that he had just crossed was little more than a path, as were most of those many they’d passed over the last few glasses, and ran due west from the river road. After perhaps a half mille, it split, or joined another narrower road running north parallel to the river road. Farther back was a long narrow lake that stretched for a mille or more to the north, confirming Skarpa’s skepticism about avoiding the Bovarians, although there was an area several hundred yards wide without defensive emplacements. Quaeryt shook his head. Getting there would still expose the Telaryn forces to musket fire.
Finally, he nodded. If he took Fifth Battalion along the side road, under a concealment shield, and then they followed the side roads, they could flank the musketeers. He’d have to be careful though because the land flattened some to the west of the road, and after some fifty yards whoever rode on the side road would be exposed to the Bovarians, not that such would be a great problem if he and the other imagers could maintain concealment shields. He kept studying the land, but the cots were shuttered, and no smoke rose anywhere.
Finally, he turned the mare and rode back to rejoin Skarpa. He began, “I think we can flank them…” and then went on to describe the terrain, the positions, and what he proposed.
“You’ll need the entire battalion.”
“I intend to take all the companies.”
“We’ll move up to just below the crest of the road and re-form into a wide front. We’ll wait until you begin your attack. Then we’ll follow up as quickly as we can…”
When Skarpa finished, Quaeryt moved back and gathered all the Fifth Battalion officers. Once they were all present, he cleared his throat. “We have Bovarian forces with musketeers in position directly over that low rise before us. Our task is to swing out to the west and then flank them. Lhandor, Khalis, you’ll ride with me. Voltyr and Threkhyl, you’ll accompany Major Calkoran. Shaelyt and Horan, you’ll be with third company, and Desyrk, Smaethyl, and Baelthm will protect fourth company. Our first objective is to flank and then attack the musketeers. We’ll move out under concealment shields…” Quaeryt went on to explain, then repeated his orders in Bovarian to make sure the Kellan officers fully understood, then added, in both languages, one after the other, “Because we don’t know what else may be out there, I may have to take first company with me. If I move away from the attack on the musketeers, do not follow me. I repeat. Do not follow me. Your task is to take down the musketeers so that the regiments can advance without getting shot to pieces.”
Thankfully, no one mentioned the possibility that Fifth Battalion also risked getting shot to pieces if matters went ill.
Another quint passed before Fifth Battalion, moving slowly so as not to raise dust that would linger after the riders and their concealment shields passed, moved westward on the side road, first on the section hidden from the Bovarians and then on the more exposed part of the narrow clay and dirt road. After Quaeryt had ridden several hundred yards, he realized that the road was not nearly so rutted as most of the side roads, and, in places, the locals had filled in areas and packed the dirt.
That bothered him, and he glanced to the north to determine whether the musketeers were moving or tracking the battalion, not that they should have been able to see through the concealment shield. He saw no movement there. Then he glanced back over his shoulder to check the battalion’s progress. He’d hoped that the concealment shield would cover the battalion, but the road was so dry that Arion’s last squads were trailed by the faintest signs of dust.
The entire road shook, and Quaeryt swallowed as he saw men and mounts from the middle of third company hurled southward.
“Fifth Battalion! Off the road! Into the fields! On me!” Quaeryt image-projected the command back at the battalion, still holding the concealment shields between the battalion and the Bovarians.
More cannon shots tore into the dirt road, now empty of Fifth Battalion troopers-except for those already dead, dying, or wounded. Unable to see who lay there because of the smoke and dust, Quaeryt could only hope that his failure to anticipate the cannon fire had not caused too many deaths.
Quaeryt turned the mare toward the first line of musketeers, some of whom, he could see, were already trying to swivel their cumbersome weapons to the west, as if they knew that they faced an attack, while others were aiming at the oncoming troopers of Third Regiment. A moment later he saw that the westward-facing berms also had musketeers, and they were trying to sight their muskets, most likely based on the dust raised from the Telaryn mounts as they charged through the fields.
He yanked his staff from the leathers and braced it against the front of the saddle, then at the last moment dropped the concealment and expanded his shields into an angled wedge, anchored to the mounts behind him, hoping that not too many of the musketeers behind the west-facing berms fired at once.
A muted roar sounded, and while he could feel impacts on his shields, they barely rocked him in the saddle as he leaned forward and extended his shields to the side as the mare jumped the berm. From the corners of his eyes, he saw musketeers and loaders crumple, and he turned northward again, angling toward the foot behind the second line of lower berms, not that he was that interested in them, but only because they protected the cannon emplacements farther back.
He had no doubts that Voltyr and Calkoran would continue against the musketeers, and that Shaelyt and Major Zhael-and what was left of third company-would as well.
The rearmost berms had to be those sheltering the cannon, but Quaeryt wasn’t about to charge them directly. Instead he urged the mare toward the Bovarian foot berms, where, since he saw no pikes, he hoped to demoralize the foot and push them back.
Except … the space behind the berms was empty … or mostly so, with just a few foot troopers sprinting away from Quaeryt and first company.
Had the Bovarians dug trenches to create the impression of a larger force just to get at the imagers?
