way!” he called, urging the mare onto the shoulder of the road and then at an angle uphill.
“Follow the scholar!”
Quaeryt guided the mare through the low bushes that stretched for a good thirty yards back from the road, keeping his head down and close to the mare’s neck. As he neared the top of the slope, the mare’s hoofs slipped once in the slushy snow that remained in patches between the bushes, but Quaeryt kept riding toward where he’d seen the archer, then was surprised when three other figures, wearing white cloth over their leathers, rose out of the bushes and let fly their shafts.
They missed.
More archers rose, and Quaeryt kept riding. Another shaft struck his shields, but it must have been at an angle because he barely sensed the impact. He could feel the squad had almost caught up with him.
The archers turned and began to run.
One stumbled, and another tripped. The squad leader swept past Quaeryt, then leaned forward and slashed down across the back of one man’s neck.
More arrows flew from the trees, and Quaeryt turned his mount directly toward the archers, but had covered no more than a few yards before the volleys stopped. He could hear the sounds of crackling underbrush and then of horses. He reined up, as did the rankers around him.
“First squad … return to the company!” called the squad leader, who then added, “Sir … we’re not to follow into the trees once they stop shooting.”
Quaeryt turned the mare, seeing two figures who had fallen amid the bushes and the remnants of slushy snow. Red stained their white overgarments.
One of the rankers bent down in the saddle, so easily that Quaeryt was amazed, and grabbed the crossbow from where it lay caught in the bushes beside one of the hill archers, while another retrieved a bow and quiver.
By the time the mare carried Quaeryt down the slope and forward to Sixth Company-which, with the rest of the column, had kept moving-Quaeryt wondered, exactly, why he’d done what he had.
Behind him, the squad leader reported to Meinyt, “We got two stragglers, sir, before the rest got to the woods and rode off.”
Skarpa looked at Quaeryt. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t make an officer.”
“I said I wouldn’t make a good one,” Quaeryt said dryly. “A good officer would have described where to go in a few words. I couldn’t find the words quickly enough. So the only thing I could do was lead.”
“That’s what officers do. They act when things go wrong. Anyone with any sense can handle matters when they go right.”
Quaeryt wasn’t about to argue, especially since, suddenly, large wet snowflakes were pelting the riders and mounts.
“Good thing they’re large,” observed Meinyt from behind Quaeryt and Skarpa. “The large flakes mean the storm won’t last long. The small really cold ones mean a storm can last for days.”
The heavy snow continued for almost a glass, until everything was covered, before it subsided into occasional flurries. For Quaeryt, that glass seemed all too long.
90
More scattered attacks occurred on Mardi afternoon and evening, as did more snow flurries, but the regiment again took over a hamlet that evening, one supposedly situated less than two milles from the gates of Zorlyn’s holding. There were no attacks on Mardi night, but that might have been because Rescalyn had posted sentries and supporting patrols all the way around the hamlet, which was named, unsurprisingly to Quaeryt, Zaemla. It also might have been because cold and snow flurries continued through the night.
Early on Meredi morning, with Rescalyn having assigned Sixth Battalion as the vanguard, the regiment moved out under high clouds, down from which drifted occasional small flakes of snow. Even wearing his browns and another shirt, Quaeryt was chilled after riding less than a quint.
His first glimpse of Zorlyn’s holding affirmed his suspicions, because he saw it from a good mille away, situated on a low hill or ridge, facing to the south. The stone-walled and slate-roofed structure was close to as large as the central palace building of the Telaryn Palace, but without its wings and all the other structures held within the walls that had sheltered the Khanars. Although there were some ornamental trees near the hold, and there looked to be, from the tops of trees protruding, a walled garden adjoining the hold on the southwest side, effectively there was no way to approach the hold without being exposed. Halfway up the hill and close to a half mille downhill from the lowest of the outbuildings was a stone wall of close to two yards in height that encircled the entire hill. Quaeryt could see but a single gate, which served the road on which the regiment approached, but there might have been another on the north side. Not only were the iron-grilled double gates closed, but large stones had been stacked in front of them to the height of the wall on each side.
Rows of archers stood on the sloping ground about fifty yards back of the wall and gate. But Quaeryt did not see any other men-at-arms, not that he doubted that there were a good thousand or more somewhere nearby.
The regiment halted some three hundred yards from the gate and wall. Horn signals followed until the horse battalions were in formation side by side. What Quaeryt didn’t understand, though, was why they remained in files of two, rather than with the five-man front used for attack. For another half quint, the regiment waited.
Then two strange-looking wagons appeared. The long wagon beds were filled with bags of some sort, and at the rear of each wagon was a wooden shield that rose a good two yards. Behind the shield were six horses, with far wider spacing than in a normal hitch, and a single teamster rode astride one of the rear horses. The wagons moved forward along the road no faster than a man could walk, creaking and groaning. As they approached the wall, the archers let fly, but the arrows either missed or stuck in the timber shield or the bags in the wagon bed. One wagon turned gradually and slightly to the right and one to the left until they were lined up to reach the wall on each side of the blocked gates.
More arrows flew, but the wagons continued to move forward slowly until they reached the wall. Then they stopped. For a time, it appeared to Quaeryt that nothing happened, even as arrows sleeted down, but were blocked by the wooden shields that were beginning to resemble hedgehogs. He realized that there were two teamsters and that they were doing something with the hitches and turning the big dray horses. Then the horses began to pull again-except that the wagons did not move, but began to tilt until the front end lifted and kept rising until it was as high as the wall. At the same time, the wagon bed stretched.
Quaeryt’s mouth opened. Indeed, Rescalyn had some surprises prepared. Then another set of planks emerged, winched from somewhere, that began to extend over the wall. The scholar watched as both wagons became ramps.
“Fifth Battalion! Forward! By twos!”
The companies of Fifth Battalion galloped to the wall, then slowed, as each rider guided his mount up the ramp and then down the other side.
The archers targeted the riders, and several were hit. One mount and rider went down on the ramp, then slid to the bottom, but Fifth Battalion kept coming.
“Sixth Battalion! Forward! By twos!”
As he rode forward, Quaeryt could see a flood of men hurrying downhill from one of the structures near the top of the knoll, but they had close to a half mille to cover. At the same time, more than a few riders and mounts from Fifth Battalion had fallen, but the others were riding toward the archers, and the closer they got, the less time the bowmen had to nock and release the next volley.
He glanced to his right, where he saw two engineers’ wagons being driven toward the gate, with a ranker holding a wide shield in front of the teamster. There had to be more engineers in the wagons, and Quaeryt could only hope that they were going to try to sap the gates or create more ways for the regiment to get through or over the walls.
Quaeryt forced his concentration back to the road and Meinyt in front of him, trying to ignore the fact that
