men and mounts. He looked back at Threkhyl’s bridge, knowing he didn’t want to have the mare jump up on it again, but from what he could see, the dry moat completely surrounded what had been the musketeers’ position.
“All right,” he muttered under his breath, bringing the mare around in a circle to the back of the redoubt, where he heard moans from the moat. He ignored them and urged the mare forward.
The mare had far less a problem with the low jump onto the bridge than did Quaeryt, who found himself, again, slightly off balance, but righted himself in the saddle and then reined her up a good ten yards beyond the dry moat. He looked around, but the only fighting going on was at the north end of the ridge, where Meinyt’s Fifth Regiment had surrounded the remaining Bovarian heavy cavalry, and there was little he or the imagers or Fifth Battalion could do.
So Quaeryt waited for the other two imagers, taking a quick breath of relief as Threkhyl and Shaelyt joined him. They continued to wait perhaps half a quint, Quaeryt holding personal shields around all three, hoping he could keep doing so until the fighting was clearly over.
Finally, Ghaelyn and a squad from first company rode toward him. The three imagers with the undercaptain looked unharmed.
Quaeryt could feel some of the tightness within loosen.
“You all right, sir?” asked Ghaelyn, looking at Quaeryt’s shoulder.
Quaeryt glanced down at the dark stain, not that he could tell what color it was in the dimness lit but faintly by Artiema and a few remaining lanterns to the west. He flexed his shoulder. “I’m fine.”
“Not near so bad as it looked-”
Before Ghaelyn could say more, a trumpet blared out, followed by a powerful voice-Skarpa’s.
“Subcommanders! Report!”
Quaeryt had no idea what to report and looked to Ghaelyn.
“Two dead, five wounded, none seriously.”
“Fifth Regiment took the worst of it, sir.”
Zhelan reined up beside Ghaelyn. “No casualties in second, third, and fourth companies.” He offered a crooked smile. “I think the Khellans were almost disappointed.”
Quaeryt suspected that Meinyt would be happy to have had the “disappointed” Khellan officers and their men in the position of his first battalion, but said nothing except, “Thank you, Major, Undercaptain.”
Then he rode toward where he had heard Skarpa’s voice.
As he reined up, he heard Meinyt reporting.
“About eighty dead in First Battalion. No count on the casualties. Thirty dead in Second Battalion.” After a pause he added, “Rather not take the lead in going after the others … sir.”
Quaeryt winced silently at those words. For Meinyt to say that suggested the total of his wounded was even greater than those killed.
“There aren’t any others,” Skarpa said. “There’s no sign of any other Bovarians.”
“They just left a company or so of foot, those Namer-cursed musketeers, and two companies of heavy cavalry?”
“It looks that way. While you were finishing them off, I sent a company into Ralaes. The locals we rousted out say everyone else pulled out right after dark.”
As Quaeryt looked past Skarpa and back toward the center of the hilltop … and the carnage there, Quaeryt could see that, in a sense, all his fears had been realized. The Bovarians had indeed planned-and executed, if not as well as they had hoped-a trap with cavalry and muskets. They’d also effectively sacrificed several companies of their own foot to bait, or at least disguise, the trap.
He wasn’t looking forward-at all-toward the battle for Villerive.
As he thought that, he found an ironic smile on his face.
39
Dawn was already breaking before all the Telaryn companies, battalions, and regiments were re-formed, the wounded tended to, and the comparatively few Bovarian captives confined. Only then did Skarpa, Meinyt, and Quaeryt finally leave the battlefield southeast of Ralaes, but by then Zhelan and several other majors had commandeered the necessary quarters for the Telaryn forces. Even so, it was well past eighth glass on that cloudy Jeudi morning when the commander and two subcommanders met in a corner of the public room of the South River Inn, the largest of the three inns in the once-quiet town.
Skarpa sat down heavily and rubbed his forehead. Under his eyes were dark circles. Meinyt’s eyes were bloodshot, possibly from the imagers’ smoke and pepper, and his face was generally haggard. Quaeryt doubted that he looked any better.
“We lost nearly two hundred,” said Skarpa slowly, “and there might be another fifty that don’t make it. They lost more than four hundred, all told. It could have been better. It also could have been much worse.”
Quaeryt had to agree, much as he had worried about how things had gone the night before … and his own failure to realize that he’d trapped first company. As he considered that, his eyes scanned the public room, a space some eight yards wide and possibly twelve long, with four narrow windows across the front and four high windows across the back. All were open, but the room was still close because, even outside, there wasn’t the faintest trace of a breeze.
A round-faced woman with black hair in a bun and narrow-set eyes watched from the archway into the kitchen at the far side of the chamber. Two troopers guarded the front entrance to the public room, and Quaeryt had seen a squad stationed in the courtyard beyond the kitchen, as well as one on the front porch of the inn.
“It would have been if the imagers hadn’t taken out that second company of musketeers,” averred Meinyt, “the ones across that moat to the south. We’d have lost another hundred or so troopers, maybe more.”
“I’m glad we could, but…” Quaeryt paused. “We should have been nearer the front on the charge.”
“You’ll go mad if you keep guessing on what you could have done,” said Skarpa. “I planned the attack, and you both carried it out. We took the town, and they had more than twice the casualties we did. We’ve done better, but Namer-few others have done as well as we did last night against an entrenched position.”
“Why do you think they sacrificed two companies, maybe more, of musketeers?” asked Quaeryt. “I can see them losing the foot, but heavy cavalry and musketeers?”
“I don’t know,” replied Skarpa. “They had to know we’d capture at least some of the muskets. So far we’ve counted over two hundred. You two and your men killed over a hundred musketeers, and we captured some thirty, all wounded.”
“What about powder and ball?” demanded Meinyt.
“Half a dozen kegs of powder, and four hundred rounds.”
“Someone knew it was a sacrifice,” suggested Quaeryt.
“I don’t think the foot or the musketeers were told,” replied Skarpa. “There were wagons waiting on the west side of the hill. The ones who escaped took them.”
“How many wagons?” asked Meinyt skeptically.
“There was one left. The driver must have run off or been killed. The scouts said there were tracks left by five others.”
“So their commanders told the poor bastards to hold as long as they could and then to withdraw to the wagons. Just six wagons for close to seven or eight hundred men?” Meinyt snorted.
“The cavalry didn’t need wagons,” said Skarpa dryly.
“If they’d risk that many muskets, they must have more muskets and musketeers than Bhayar and Deucalon thought,” said Meinyt.
“Or someone realized that the musketeers aren’t as effective against us during the day,” suggested
