"There are tracks on the road ahead, sir, just past some fields that have been harvested. That'd be a mille or so ahead."

"What crop?"

"Looks to be hay, sir. They got those funny haystacks in the field, and the stubble's short."

"There's no one hiding behind those stacks, is there?"

"No, sir. Hardly big enough to hide a single man and mount."

Quaeryt recalled what Calkoran had said about muskets a and flat areas. "What's the ground like just ahead, between here and there?"

"You can see, sir. Pretty much the same as here."

That meant fields and small steads on the south, and a narrow strip of brush, bushes, and occasional trees between the river road and the River Aluse.

"Column! Halt! Third company! Forward! Pass it back!" Quaeryt couldn't quite have said why he had reacted so quickly, but there was something about the scout's report that bothered him, even if he couldn't have said what. He turned to Zhelan. "I don't like the scout's report. So I'm going to move ahead with third company. Keep Fifth Battalion at the ready."

"Yes, sir. Are you certain that you don't want the whole battalion?"

"If it's that bad, I'll let you know."

In less than half a quint, Major Zhael reined up, third company behind him on the shoulder of the road. "Sir?"

"We're going to look and see about something, Major." Quaeryt offered a smile. "I thought you and your men could keep me company." He eased his mount around to the south, so that Zhael would be riding on the river side of the road. Then he nodded to the scout. "Lead the way."

For the next half mille, Quaeryt could see nothing out of the ordinary. While the fields had been recently harvested, there were no haystacks or even enough grain or maize for gleaning. Then they rode past a cot set back some fifty yards from the road, with a weathered split rail fence some thirty yards to the west of the cot. Beyond the fence began another series of fields, beginning with a green plant that covered everything and stood a little over knee-high. Beyond that was the harvested grain field dotted with small haystacks.

As they rode past the fence, Quaeryt studied the green field, clearly something being raised for winter fodder for livestock, but he could see no sign that anyone had walked or ridden through the comparatively low plants. The haystacks beyond did indeed look strange, seemingly with hay bundled into pyramids and encircled with cord. But there was something about the haystacks.

There aren't any in the fifty yards closest to the road.

"Third company! To arms!" Even as he spoke, Quaeryt tried to extend his shields more and at an angle.

A thunderous roar swept across him, with multiple impacts on his shields nearly tearing him out of his saddle. As he struggled to regain his seat, his eyes went to the left of the road, from where the impacts had come. For a moment he saw nothing out of the ordinary, before he saw the slits in the "haystacks" that were nothing of the sort.

He didn't have much time to consider more, because a wave of riders charged out of the woods behind the recently harvested fielda"and past the haystacks that were screens covered with hay, concealing musketeersa"toward Quaeryt and third company.

"Third company!" he commanded, in Bovarian. "On me! Charge!"

He wasn't certain he'd been heard, but then caught the words of Major Zhael, but not their meaning, as he turned the mare toward the oncoming riders, and narrowed his shields, if only slightly. Then he managed to ease the half-staff from its leathers and brace it across the front of the saddle as he guided the mare into the field.

Quaeryt sensed rather than heard another volley from the muskets, less thunderous than the first, but could feel no impacts on his shields.

"Zhael! Charge ahead! Not on me!" he ordered as he neared the first line of "haystacks." He could see musketeers and the loaders ducking behind the cloth- and hay-covered frames of their stands. Abruptly he turned the mare to the right at an angle and raced along the haystacks with his shields extended, using the shields as a weapon to flatten the Bovarians. By the time he'd reached the end of the musket screens, his head was splitting, and it was getting hard to see. Still a You can't let them keep shooting troopers down a Concentrating through the growing haze of blinding light and what felt like blows to his head, he wheeled the mare and started back along the second line. With each haystack he passed, the pain intensified.

Ahead of him and to his right, third company slashed into the Bovarians, shredding the ambushing company.

Quaeryt let the mare slow as he passed the last haystack/musket stand, so that by the time he rejoined the main body of the company, more than half the Bovarians were down, cut out of their saddles, and the remainder were fleeing back through the woods.

Then he reined up, gasping, trying to massage his forehead with one hand, leaving the staff across the front of the saddle.

Perhaps a quint latera"Quaeryt wasn't surea"Zhael rode back and reined up beside Quaeryt.

"Sir a are you wounded?"

"I'll a be all right a in a while." Quaeryt fumbled out the water bottle and took a swallow, then another. "You and your men did well."

"You led us well."

Quaeryt wanted to laugh. "No, Major. I did my best to distract the musketeers. You led third company. I hope you didn't lose too many men." He had trouble focusing his eyes on Zhael.

"No, sir. Just two. Another eight have small wounds."

Just ten casualties? That seemed terribly low. "What about the Bovarians?"

"More than fifty. They are not used to experiencing a charge when their muskets are not effective. We have eleven prisoners. Most will not live, I think."

"Are there any captive musketeers?"

"There are two, sir," answered Zhael, his voice subdued. "The othersa"

"What happened to the others?"

"You killed them, sir. Their necks, their bones a Most of them. One or two ran into the woods. We did not chase them far a as you ordered."

"I just charged them with my staff so they wouldn't shoot any more of us."

"They will not do that." Zhael did not quite meet Quaeryt's eyes.

After a long moment Quaeryt said, "If you'd have some of your men collect the muskets and pile them by the side of the road for the wagons to pick up. I don't want the Bovarians to come back and collect them." Quaeryt massaged his forehead again. It didn't seem to help the throbbing in his skull. "Oh a and if you'd dispatch a trooper to tell Major Zhelan that Fifth Battalion can join us."

"Yes, sir." Zhael rode off.

Quaeryt didn't take in what happened, because his vision kept blurring with the pain in his eyes and head. He drank more water, then fumbled out several dry biscuits and methodically started chewing one. By the time he'd finished the second one, the pain had subsided from sheer agony to extreme discomfort, but he could see more clearly a for a few moments, if he squinted. He also realized that he was sore across his thighs and abdomen a and on his backside. Very sore.

He took another long swallow of the watered lager, then replaced the bottle in its holder, just as Zhael reined up beside him.

"You are wounded in another way, are you not, sir?"

"You might say that," Quaeryt admitted. "I'll recover." If we aren't attacked again soon.

"The Bovariansa"the ones remaininga"are long gone."

"For the moment I have to say I'm glad."

Zhael nodded.

Quaeryt reached up and massaged his forehead and neck again.

Almost two quints passed before Quaeryt and Zhael, waiting beside the pile of muskets, saw Fifth Battalion approach. Then Skarpa rode out along the shoulder of the road toward them. Major Zhael eased his mount away as Skarpa reined up.

"I understand you had a little action here." The commander glanced down at the muskets stacked on the shoulder of the road.

"Another musket attack."

"How many did you lose?"

"Two killed, eight wounded, not seriously, according to Major Zhael."

"What were their casualties? Do you know?"

"Some fifty dead, eleven captives, mostly wounded."

Skarpa's eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't have led the attack on them, would you?"

"They attacked us, sir."

Skarpa snorted. "I'll rephrase that. You wouldn't have led the counterattack, would you?"

"Only against the musketeers. Major Zhael commanded the attack against the Bovarian cavalry."

"So you took out the musketeers a and they destroyed the Bovarians. Exactly how did that happen?"

"The major said the Bovarians weren't used to enemies who charged into musket fire."

"I suspect that the Bovarians weren't used to enemies who were able to charge through it."

Quaeryt managed a grin, but even that hurt. "We were fortunate."

"Didn't I tell you that I was already suspicious of that explanation?"

"What can I say, sir? We were."

"How many muskets are there in that pile?"

"Forty-one, sir."

"Did you kill all of the men who used them?"

"No, sir. I don't know how many I might have injured. I just charged their stands from the side, and they couldn't turn their weapons fast enough."

"Just?"

"Muskets are like pikes, in a way. They're awkward."

"Have you ever been attacked by muskets before this campaign, Subcommander?"

"No."

Skarpa nodded. "You can rejoin Fifth Battalion. We'll take a break here and bring Third Regiment forward. Fifth Battalion will take the middle of the column, before the wagons."

Quaeryt didn't protest. He just nodded.

33.

Late on Lundi afternoon Skarpa received scout reports that the Bovarians had invested the approach to Ralaes with revetments and trenches. He called a halt to the advance at a small, nameless, and hastily abandoned hamlet some four milles from the approach to the town. While the company officers and men of the regiments and Fifth Battalion were making camp, setting up picket lines, and taking care of mounts, among other matters, and the cooks were preparing an evening meal, Skarpa called Quaeryt and Meinyt to meet with him on the covered front porch of one of the larger dwellings in the hamlet, and one with a view of the river and a breeze off the water. For the breeze alone, Quaeryt was grateful. He'd made the ride to the hamlet in a painful semidaze, not to mention being hot and sweaty.

Skarpa had found a small table that he'd set in the middle of the narrow porch and some stools. He'd also spread a map on the table, weighted on the corners with stones. As Quaeryt listened, he tried not to squirm too much on the stool, but he was feeling more aches than he had thought he would, and there were bruises in more than a few places he couldn't see.

"a the ground to the south of the town is low and swampy, with thick underbrush and mud holes and uneven ground. There are also extensive false olive thickets on the higher ground. We'd have to ride more than twenty milles to get around ita"

"What about that other road?" asked Meinyt. "The one the musketeers took?"

"It joins the river road about a mille toward Raelaes from here," replied Skarpa.

"Too bad we didn't know that."

"You wouldn't have wanted to take it, not the part heading west from the paved road." Skarpa cleared his throat. "The scouts found two abandoned wagonsa"both with broken axles."

"They just left them?" Meinyt frowned.

"Apparently they were worried about Quaeryt's third company catching them." Skarpa smiled.

"After the way Zhael's men ripped through their troopers," said Quaeryt, "they were right to be worried."

Meinyt and Skarpa exchanged a quick glance, one that Quaeryt ignored.

"Anywaya" continued Skarpa, "there's about two milles of open ground east of the town, between that jungle and the river. They've thrown up revetments across most of the last mille, with ditches in other places. Most of the ditches are wide enough that a horse can't jump them, and they're filled with sharpened stakes and who knows what elsea"

"Filthy water and mud, most likely," added Meinyt.

"a it's hard to tell how many men they've got, but it looks like they've got at least three, maybe four, regiments of foot behind those earthworks."

"At least some muskets, too," said Quaeryt. "Where they've got a clear path of fire."

Skarpa continued using the map to point out what he'd learned from the scouts for another half quint before he finally said, "That's what we know now. I'm in no hurry to attack. Not for a day or so, anyway. The men could use some resta"and so could you and the imagers, Subcommander. We need to feel out where their strong points are and see if there's somewhere we can break through and then wheel and pin them against their own earthworks." Skarpa looked at Quaeryt. "Tomorrow, when you're rested, I'd like you to ride closer and see what you think."

"Yes, sir."

"Get some food and sleep. Leave everything else to Zhelan. That's what he's there for."

Quaeryt nodded, not trying even to smile pleasantly.