Scepters (54 page)

With
all the dirt around him, he had to half dig his way out of the trench, and it
took him two attempts to struggle out of the dirt and onto his knees beside the
trench. He looked northward. Fifth Company was formed and riding toward him.

He
stood, and as he held his rifle and watched Dhaget leading the gray toward him,
he tried not to think about Frynkel’s observation on leading from the front.

“There’s
the colonel!”

Alucius
mounted quickly, but Fifth Company was well past by the time he was back on the
road, surveying the carnage. Twenty-eighth and Thirty-fifth Companies were
moving up smartly from the east, with Thirty-fifth a good hundred yards ahead
of Deotyr and his men. To the south, from what he’d seen and sensed, the
Matrite forces were more disorganized than those in the west had been—but there
were also more of them.

Hubar’s
lancers were still milling around to the northwest of the fight, as if there
were no officers to give orders. “Idiots!” he mumbled quietly. “Just sit there
like targets.”

Sheathing
the rifle and drawing his sabre, Alucius urged the gray forward, moving just
behind Fifth Company’s fifth squad. He felt as though he should have been
leading the charge, rather than following it. He could sense the impacts as the
Northern Guard lancers slammed into the near-motionless Matrites.

Alucius
swung the gray out to the left and found himself attacked by two Matrites. A
wave of red fury surged over him at the mere sight of the two attackers, and he
pressed the gray toward them. He slipped the first wild slash and countered
with enough force that his sabre slammed the Matrite’s weapon from his hand and
cut deeply into the man. Alucius finished him with a quick cut and twisted in
the saddle to parry the violent cut of the big woman who had attacked while he
was dealing with the first Matrite. Almost contemptuously, with a strength he
had not known he had, he deflected her blade and slash-thrust through her neck.

He
moved forward, taking another Matrite from behind with a single cut, just
before the man was about to take down a Northern Guard, also from behind.

In
a moment of calm, Alucius glanced to the southeast, where a full Matrite
company charged up the hill toward the rear of Thirty-fifth Company, engaged in
hand-to-hand with the remnants of the last Matrite companies. He looked north
where two or three of Twenty-eighth Company’s squads were re-forming—a command
of which Alucius approved.

He
rode partway down the slope and called out, “Twenty-eighth Company! On me!”

“On
the colonel!” Deotyr echoed.

“Forward!”

Alucius
once more urged the gray forward as the Twenty-eighth Company lancers fell in
behind him. He found himself alone at the point of attack, and the red fury
took him as his sabre became a shimmering circle of death, with lancers
scrambling back from his berserk rage. Behind him and to both sides,
Twenty-eighth Company crashed into the Matrites who had thought to surprise
Thirty-fifth Company and had been themselves surprised, if only by the speed
and fury of Alucius and those who followed.

A
horn doublet sounded.

Alucius
glanced around, finding himself nearly alone—except, five yards to the east, a
Matrite squad had appeared, halted, and raised rifles.

Even
before Alucius sensed the line of fire flaring toward him, he urged the gray
forward, then, instinctively, raised his sabre, as if to block whatever it was,
knowing that the gesture was futile as a huge unseen hammer struck him and
flung him from the saddle.

His
last thought, with the blackness sweeping over him, as he struggled to stay in
the saddle, was that Frynkel had been right. Leading from the front could get
him killed.

North of Iron Stem, Iron Valleys

The
three sat in the main room. Wendra leaned back slightly in the rocking chair,
her feet on the lower hassock. Lucenda had taken the end of the couch closest
to Wendra. A book lay in Lucenda’s lap, closed with a leather marker in it.

Wendra
looked blankly at the wall to the right of the hearth.

“Can
you tell how he is?” Lucenda.

Wendra
shook her head. “I should have gone south. I should have.”

“You’re
due in a few weeks. Then what would you do?” asked Lucenda. “You can ride. No
one can gainsay that, but having a babe on the road… that’s not wise.”

“What’s
wise, anymore?” Wendra’s lips tightened into a near-cynical smile. “Alucius was
doing what he thought best. Now…”

“If
he’s alive after three days, and the crystal’s not fading, he’ll recover,”
Lucenda said.

“I
worry that he’ll be… Alucius isn’t a man to sit around…”

“He
won’t sit,” interjected Royalt, standing in the archway from the kitchen. “Herders
don’t. Hulius lost both legs. Still herded until he was near ninety. Fudalt…”

“Father…
we know you’re all indestructible, but Wendra doesn’t need to think about
things like that. Besides, Alucius will be all right. That’s that.” Lucenda
straightened.

“Kustyl’ll
be bringing the goats tomorrow, Septi at the latest,” Royalt announced.

“We
don’t need goats,” Lucenda said.

“Maybe
yes, maybe no. Kustyl’s insisting. They’re a gift.”

“But…”
Lucenda glanced at Wendra.

“His
Mairee had trouble nursing,” Royalt said. “He figures Wendra won’t, but Mairee
insists, just in case. Says we can always use them if we get another lamb that
turns motherless or if one has twins.”

“Grandmother’s
always been like that,” Wendra said. “That’s why her cellar has everything in
it. Grandfather says it’s less trouble to store the extras than to argue about
it.”

“Wise
man,” observed Lucenda.

Wendra
stiffened.

“Alucius?”
asked Lucenda.

“Just
a little cramp… the kind that sort of exercises things,” Wendra said. “She’s
just fine.”

“You
still think you’ll call her Alendra?”

“That’s
what we’d agreed on, and I still like it,” replied Wendra, shifting her weight
in the chair. “I feel like a ewe with twins.”

“You’re
small. I was out to here with Alucius.” Lucenda placed her hand a third of a
yard in front of her still-slender waist.

“I
know that. But I don’t feel small. Especially when she kicks.”

“She’ll
be a healthy one, no matter,” Royalt observed.

“She’ll
be big, we think,” Wendra said, “more like Alucius.”

“She’ll
be beautiful, whatever size she is,” added Lucenda.

Wendra’s
eyes dropped to the black crystal of the herder’s ring. “He’s still strong.”

“Alucius
was meant for great things,” Lucenda mused. “He’ll be back, strong and healthy.
He’s a soarer’s child.”

“But
he’s suffered so much already,” Wendra said quietly.

“The
great ones do,” Royalt said in a low voice.

Lucenda
shot a glance at her father, but Wendra only smiled sadly, her eyes focused far
beyond the wall before her.

A
reddish pink haze enveloped Alucius. At times it was redder and more painful,
and at other times a trace of cooling golden green crept in. Then the haze was
barely pink, and he merely felt as though he had been staked out in the summer
sun, rather than placed on a bonfire. Every time he started to feel even
slightly cooler, the redness and heat and pain returned, and when he tried to
lift his arms to ward off the unseen sun, he could not.

He
could sense water or liquid going down his throat, and even that hurt, and the
water cooled him not at all.

In
time, the haze faded enough that he could make out a figure looking down at
him.

“Colonel…
? Can you hear me?”

“Yes…”
Alucius half mumbled, half croaked.

“That’s
good. You were badly injured, but you’re going to be all right. It’s going to
take some time. Just try to relax.”

Relax?
When he alternated between burning and merely being overheated?

Even
that simple thought was enough to plunge him back into the pinkish fog, the
pink that he’d come to dislike so much.

When
he woke again, he could see more clearly. He was in a moderately wide bed in a
small room with a window. A heavy splint was strapped around his right forearm.
There was gray and rain, he thought, beyond the window, but the white walls of
his room helped in keeping the gray at bay.

Within
a short time, a heavyset, gray-haired woman in pale gray appeared beside his
bed. For a time, she looked down at him. Then she smiled, almost sadly. “You
will recover. It will take time.”

Alucius
couldn’t place her accent or her speech. It was somewhere between Madden and
Lanachronan. “How long
…
?”

“You
have been here more than a week. They did not think you would live. You have
two broken ribs, two cracked ribs, a broken arm, and your chest was so badly
bruised that it was bloody from your neck to your waist. So was your right
thigh. Even nightsilk cannot save someone who has lost that much blood to
bruising.”

“You’re
cheerful,” Alucius rasped.

“Much
of the bruising has already healed. I have not told anyone how badly you were
injured.”

“Thank
you.”

“You
are a child of the ancients. We have not seen one in many years.” She extended
a mug. “You should drink. This will help with the healing.”

Alucius
drank, and in time, drained the mug.

“You’re
from Southgate?” he asked.

“From
Dramur, years ago. Here I became the healer to the Seltyr Benjir. He knew I did
not wish to return to Dramur, and he let me escape when the Lanachronans came.
Now… you must rest. You have many vingts yet to travel.”

With
the same sad smile, she stepped back. Alucius could feel the reddish darkness
creeping over him, but it was not so hot this time.

For
the next few days, he drifted in and out of sleep, mostly.

One
afternoon, he woke to see a figure in a Northern Guard uniform sitting on a
stool beside his bed.

“What…
who…” His voice felt and sounded like his vocal cords had been filled with
sandstone and grit, but
that
seemed to be the case
every time he woke.

“Waris,
sir. You were hurt pretty bad, they say, but it looks like everything is
healing all right. Healers don’t know why, but that doesn’t matter.”

“Matrites…?”

“You
smashed ‘em, sir, you and the overcaptain… broke their whole center. Captain
Deotyr, he’d never seen you fight in battle. Said you took out a whole squad by
yourself, the ones going after Thirty-fifth Company. The other Southern Guard
companies got it together enough after that. We slaughtered half of ‘em. Maybe
more. Captain Deotyr… he saw that they’d set up an ambush just to try to get
you… he fought like a madman. All of Twenty-eighth Company did… they were
pretty good this time. Never thought I’d see that, not after those days back in
Krost, but they were good…

“Word
is that the Matrites have moved back to Hafin. Colonel Faurad took back Dimor,
too. The whole south of Madrien is back under the Lord-Protector’s control.
Matrites don’t do so good without those spear-throwers.”

“That
was… the idea.”

“Overcaptain
Feran, he’s got everything organized. We even got a wagon of the right kind of
ammunition yesterday. Been a little worried about that. Didn’t have much left
after the big fight on the ring road.”

“Any
word on going home?”

“You
don’t worry about that, sir. Overcaptain says we don’t go until you go.
Besides, we got a few others need to heal, too. More ‘n a few, actually. About
twenty.”

Alucius
didn’t really want to ask about casualties. “How many didn’t make it?”

Waris
looked away, then back at Alucius. “Both battles… we lost thirty. Thirty-fifth
Company lost thirty-five, Twenty-eighth almost forty.”

Alucius
winced, and pain shot through his entire body. “Too… many.”

“No,
sir. Most Southern Guard outfits, they lost fifty, sixty, out of every hundred.
Matrites lost eighty. Figure we’re lucky.” Waris stood. “Healer said I shouldn’t
stay long, sir, but wanted you to know everyone’s glad you were in charge, want
to see you back soon.”

“Thank
you.”

“You
take care, sir.”

After
Waris left, Alucius looked at the window and the grayness beyond. In winter in
Southgate, was there ever sunlight?

All
told, Fifth Company had taken roughly forty percent casualties… and that was
the lowest by half? What was happening? How had the Lord-Protector and the
Regent ever gotten themselves into positions where such carnage was necessary?
And why?

The
grayness of the day merged with the hot grayness of sleep before he ever found
an answer.

Hieron, Madrien

The
Regent stood to the right of the conference table. Because of the rain and mist
that fell outside the wide glass window, only the southern quarter of the Park
of the Matrial was visible. The southern part of Hieron had been swallowed by
gray mist and rain. The Regent’s violet eyes fixed on the officer who had just
entered the chamber.

“I
have read your report, Marshal Benyal. I am not pleased. We no longer have
either crystal spear-thrower?”

“We
don’t even have the pieces of either, Regent.” The marshal’s voice was flat and
level. Her eyes met those of the Regent.

“How
could that possibly happen? How could both explode in the same campaign? In the
same battle?”

“We
don’t know. The first one exploded as well after a period of use, as you may
recall. It may be that the weapon does not hold up well for prolonged use.”

“I
find that hard to believe. A weapon whose parts endured for more than two
millennia explodes after a few weeks of use?”