place on this side once they get those gates there closed. Follow Arion’s men!”
“Yes, sir.”
Quaeryt just watched, squinting and massaging his forehead with one hand, while the fourth company rankers moved bodies and forced the gates shut and while the two imagers created brackets and beams to keep them shut.
Then he turned to Arion, whose eyes remained wide. “Major?”
“Yes, sir?”
“You and your men are to make sure that no one gets past those gates.”
“Yes, sir.” Although Arion’s voice was firm, his eyes flicked to the bodies and the walls.
“Once the bodies aren’t frozen, you’ll need to have them cleared from the bridge.” Quaeryt paused. “I’d appreciate it if they weren’t thrown in the river. Thank you.”
Arion nodded.
Slowly, Quaeryt rode back across the bridge, followed by Shaelyt and Voltyr. When he reached first company, he saw that Threkhyl was in the saddle, but pale as ice, as were Desyrk and Baelthm.
“All imagers … please eat and drink something.” After a moment he reached for his own water bottle and began to sip the watered lager, hoping that his guts would settle down. He doubted he would even have been in the saddle if he hadn’t had the presence of mind to link his imaging to the warmth of the river.
Almost a glass passed before riders appeared coming from the south on the main avenue to the bridge. They wore the green of Telaryn.
Quaeryt continued to wait, slowly eating the hard biscuits he’d taken from the inn that morning.
In time, Skarpa rode forward and reined up. “Even from here I can see there’s another wall on the north side of the bridge, and ice formed around the bridge piers … and probably on the river earlier.” Skarpa’s voice was half sardonic and half dry.
“There was some ice,” Quaeryt admitted.
“Why the wall?”
“Fifth Battalion wasn’t ready to face two regiments or more of Bovarians.” Quaeryt paused. “I suppose there are fewer than that now.”
“They’re frozen?” Skarpa’s voice held little surprise.
Quaeryt nodded.
Skarpa glanced beyond Quaeryt to where fourth company rankers were piling corpses on a wagon that they’d found somewhere. “Two regiments less, I’d wager … or close enough. The marshal won’t be pleased, especially since the bridge is blocked.”
“When Threkhyl and the other imagers have recovered and the northern army holds Villerive, the imagers can create an opening in the wall.”
Skarpa chuckled.
“You hold all the southern part now?” asked Quaeryt.
“After you cut through the west part, the Bovarians lost heart. They didn’t expect you to just wipe out chunks of their earthworks and ride through them. Or to take out their catapults and spill their own Antiagon Fire on them. We tried to avoid the catapults, but we lost a good hundred troopers to the fire…”
Catapults … there was something about catapults, but Quaeryt couldn’t think of what it might be.
“… The Bovarians also didn’t expect you to wipe out so many defenders so quickly. Or turn their reinforcements into icy corpses. You keep this up, Subcommander, and…” Skarpa shook his head.
“What?”
“No matter what they’ve said about Kharst, before long, they’ll fear Bhayar more than they ever did their rex.”
“I don’t see why. Over the years he’s slaughtered more than we ever could.”
“The numbers of dead matter less than the manner of their death.”
Quaeryt was all too afraid that Skarpa was right. Yet, again, what else could he and the imagers have done?
“I’ll be sending a boat with a courier to the marshal informing him that we hold the south side and the bridge.”
“Do you think the Bovarians will withdraw now?” asked Quaeryt.
“Do you?”
Quaeryt shook his head. “Not from what we’ve learned about Kharst.”
“I don’t think so, either. I need to get that courier off. I’ll leave it to you and Fifth Battalion to hold the bridge for now. Third and Fifth Regiments will finish up with the defenders and take positions just south of the bridge.”
“Yes, sir.”
Skarpa turned and rode off the bridge, his mount’s hooves clicking dully on the gray paving stones.
Quaeryt looked back to the north. The ice had vanished. Most of the bodies remained.
44
More than two glasses had passed, and Quaeryt had moved the undercaptains-and himself-to the Bluff Point, an old inn just west of the approach to the bridge-where he’d made sure that everyone was fed and resting. At close to the second glass of the afternoon, the supply wagons arrived, with gear. Shortly afterward, Skarpa returned, and he and Quaeryt met in the plaque room of the inn. Quaeryt had decided that the closer they came to Variana, the more likely inns were to have plaque rooms, although the innkeeper couldn’t tell him why.
“Have the Bovarians tried to climb that wall you put up?” asked Skarpa.
“Arion reported that one or two looked over, but no one has tried to climb it or reclaim the bodies.” Quaeryt took a deep breath, then used his right hand to massage his forehead, trying to ease the pain and pressure there. Even the creaking of the old stairs outside the room seemed to worsen the headache. “When it gets later in the day, we’ll unbar the old gate at that end and pull out the bodies. We’ll need to do that before we’re ready to do whatever the marshal wants.”
“He wants us to attack this afternoon. Then he’ll move against the city.”
Quaeryt laughed, roughly and not humorously, but broke it off as light knives flashed across his vision. “He’ll have to wait until tomorrow if he wants any imaging. Two glasses ago, I had two imagers who couldn’t see, one who kept puking his guts out, and the other three of us who couldn’t have imaged a false copper right now.”
“And now?” asked Skarpa.
“I have five imagers who might manage a false copper and one who might be able to image a single silver.” Quaeryt took another swallow of the too-bitter lager from the mug he’d brought with him, hoping that would help him regain some strength.
“He won’t like hearing that.”
“I’m sure he won’t. How many regiments did the Bovarians have here on the south side? Not on the bridge. On the south side?”
“The Bovarian officers who survived claim they had four regiments. I’d say three and a half at most. We’ve got half a regiment in captives, mostly wounded, and maybe another five or six hundred escaped.” Skarpa paused. “I know where you’re going. We’ve taken out another four and a half regiments, and lost almost a battalion in casualties. The marshal won’t see it that way. He wants to hit them now.”
“After dawdling up the river for a month?” Quaeryt shook his head. “I won’t send Fifth Battalion into battle without imagers, not when we’re not threatened.”
Skarpa smiled wryly. “I guess I’d better wait a while and then send a message saying that because the effort of destroying two regiments left the imagers unconscious or otherwise incapacitated, you moved them to safety, and it took a while to determine the status of Fifth Battalion and the regiments. By then, hopefully, he’ll decide on an attack tomorrow.”
“Your way is better,” said Quaeryt. “Maybe I’m just too tired to be tactful.”
“He’ll know what we think,” replied Skarpa. “This way he just won’t be able to prove it. He’ll be just as
