Princeps

not explode violently.

He concentrated on imaging another red-hot piece of iron, this time into the middle of the small pile of cannon powder.

Almost instantly, a flash appeared, higher than Quaeryt expected, followed by a haze of smoke, barely visible in the light of the stars and little else.

Good thing you were careful.

Quaeryt then picked up the powder bag and walked back to the north end of the courtyard. Avoiding the place where he’d placed the first pile of powder, he poured out a smaller pile of powder and then retreated with the powder bag, setting it down on the stone pavement again and stepping away from it before he began to image. The second time, he imaged a piece of red-hot iron the thickness of a knitting needle, but less than half the width of a fingernail.

Again, the powder flared, and the acrid smell of burned powder drifted toward Quaeryt.

The third time he tried with an even smaller piece, and while that also ignited the powder, he had the feeling that the smaller needle-like section was about as small as would work reliably. A fourth attempt with an even smaller needle-like piece failed, but a fifth attempt with just a slightly larger needle piece did not.

But was that because of the way you felt?

He shook his head. One way or the other, most, if not all, of the undercaptains should be able to image the amount of iron required.

But can they do it and have it red-hot?

He didn’t have an answer to that question.

He imaged a larger piece of red-hot iron into the remaining powder, which he left in the bag. The powder burned, but the flash did not seem that much different from the earlier efforts.

In the darkness of a cloudless sky, lit but dimly by partial crescents of both Artiema and Erion, he collected several of the small pieces of iron he had used to flash the powder, then made his way back toward his quarters, worrying about whether the Bovarians would attempt to destroy the Narrows Bridge that night. Then he smiled wryly. It might happen in the early morning, but it wouldn’t happen at night, not when there wasn’t enough light to guide such barges against the bridge piers.

Still … he hoped Meinyt was right and that the Bovarians were being too cautious.

72

As on Lundi morning, the alarm chimes rang again on Mardi … except they didn’t wake Quaeryt, because one of the duty rankers had rapped vigorously on his quarters door two quints earlier, informing him that all of Third Regiment and the imagers had been ordered to form up and ride to the north approach to the Narrows Bridge as soon as possible.

Quaeryt was waiting for the imager undercaptains in the courtyard. Before he had left his quarters, he’d made certain he had the small iron pieces in a bag tucked into his saddlebags. This time the undercaptains all appeared relatively quickly, then proceeded to saddle their mounts and return in a short enough time that they did not delay the regiment’s departure. Quaeryt rode near the front of the column with Skarpa. The sky was covered with high featureless clouds, and although it was before sunrise, he had the feeling that the day would be hot and muggy, even if the sun didn’t break through the overcast.

Again, on the ride through the city, Quaeryt’s eyes began to burn from the smoke and stench of the ironworks, possibly because the light wind was out of the north.

When the regiment halted on the stone-paved approach to the bridge, an undercaptain quickly rode forward. “Commander, Subcommander, Marshal Deucalon and Lord Bhayar await you on the north parapet.”

Parapet-on a bridge?

Quaeryt looked in the direction of the undercaptain’s gesture. There was a walled structure ahead and to his right, attached to the west end of the bridge. The low stone wall that extended the entire length of the west side of the bridge roadway curved into the wall of the stone structure toward which the squad leader pointed. Although Quaeryt couldn’t be certain, from what he could see, he gained the impression that the structure had been built almost to the edge of the cliff that formed the north bank of the Aluse just west of the bridge. Belatedly, he realized that the entire long and connected set of structures comprised South Post.

Quaeryt and Skarpa followed the undercaptain through an iron gate that was fastened open with chains and into a courtyard. A ranker was waiting to hold their mounts.

“The steps to your right, sirs,” offered the undercaptain.

“Thank you,” replied Quaeryt, almost in unison with Skarpa.

As soon as he reached the top of the stone steps, which opened onto a walled parapet, Quaeryt immediately looked westward. There were no signs of any barges or other river craft. So, as he turned toward the raised stone platform at the back of the walkway behind the parapet wall, where Bhayar and several senior officers waited, he took a moment to study the bridge’s construction and its position. Over time, the river had cut through a ridge of grayish stone, leaving the sheer cliff over which the long and narrow fortress was perched. Each end of the bridge was anchored in that stone, although the cliff on the southern side was lower, and that had necessitated the building of a stone-walled structure to raise the southern approach to the same level as that of the north. The other aspect of the bridge’s construction that struck Quaeryt immediately was that the central pylon was not centered. Then he realized that it had been built on what remained of stony isle in the middle of the narrows-and that the isle was possibly the only thing that had made the bridge feasible.

Heavy cables and nets were set in place so that they almost reached the surface of the river, leaving less than a yard between the base of the nets and the water, but Quaeryt could also see that cables attached to the bottom of the nets ran to winches on the bridge itself so that the nets could be raised and lowered as necessary.

“Quaeryt…” murmured Skarpa.

“I needed a quick look. I’ve never been here before,” returned Quaeryt in a low voice, turning directly toward Bhayar, who, with an officer in the uniform of a marshal, presumably Deucalon, had stepped down from the platform. When Quaeryt was several yards from the Lord of Telaryn, he stopped and inclined his head. “Lord.”

His single word was echoed by Skarpa.

“I don’t see any barges, Subcommander,” said Bhayar evenly.

“I believe my dispatch only mentioned the possibility and suggested that you might already have considered that,” replied Quaeryt.

“I had. Marshal Deucalon”-and with the mention of the marshal, Bhayar inclined his head to the slender, if wiry, gray-haired officer standing beside him-“thought it a possibility also. But he believed that the Bovarians would first attack all points of weakness before attempting a direct assault on the bridge. We have positioned cannon on the solid stone at the end of each approach to the bridge. They will attempt to sink any vessels approaching the bridge. They likely will not succeed in sinking all of them.” Bhayar looked directly at Quaeryt. “Should the Bovarians launch barges filled with explosives at the bridge, can your imagers do anything to stop the barges that the cannon cannot sink before they strike the bridge piers and supports?”

“We can likely stop some of them, sir.”

“If you can stop some,” asked Deucalon, in an edged voice that Quaeryt found grating, “why not all of them?”

“The greater the distance from the imager to the barge, the harder it will be. Imaging can take great effort. I have only six imagers. If the Bovarians have scores of barges loaded with explosives that are all coming at the same time…” Quaeryt shrugged. “I suppose it’s like a very good battalion. That battalion will likely prevail against one or two or three less able battalions. It’s unlikely to prevail against three regiments.”

The marshal frowned.

“That makes sense to me,” replied Bhayar. “I don’t like the idea that some may still strike the bridge, but anything that reduces the chance of damage will be helpful. Where would you place your imagers?”

“Most likely up here, sir. But I don’t know where the channel runs, sir. I’d not wish to commit definitely until I know.”