Quaeryt looked back, but sawa"besides first, second, and third companiesa"no other riders or troopers on the approachway or the main avenue to the south. Fifth Battalion was alone. When he looked to the north end of the bridge, he saw that the gates there, gates that had been closed, were now opening.

You had to have Voltyr destroy the gate on this end. Idiot! Unfortunately, what was done was done.

Even through that narrow, if widening aperture, he could see hundreds, if not thousands, of armed Bovarians lined up as far as his eyes could see, ready to storm across the bridge. Quaeryt had no idea where Skarpa and Meinyt were, but he doubted, fierce as the Khellans were, and comparatively narrow as the bridge was, that less than four hundred troopers could hold off thousands, not without severe losses, and not for that long.

"Imagers! On me!" Except he didn't have time to wait on them.

He rode forward until he was less than fifty yards from the oncoming Bovarian foot, led, of course, by three rows of pikes. There, he reined up and concentrated on linking to the river belowa"there had to be warmth there, after such a long hot summer and harvest! He also concentrated on linking and drawing from the advancing mass of blue-gray clad Bovarian soldiers, all of them.

Then he pictured a stone wall to the north of the one holding the gates that had just opened to the flood of Bovarian troopers, a solid gray stone wall at the edge of the bluff to the west of the bridge, across the bridge and then at the edge of the east bluff.

A blinding flash of light seared across him, followed by a chill that cut through his body like a thousand knives. Then came thunder, and hail that slammed into his body, no longer protected by his personal shields, shields that had somehow vanished. His muscles felt like watery jelly, yet he could see, surprisingly, if barely, through a splitting headache and searing flashes of light that stabbed into his eyes like daggers.

When he could finally straighten up, hail and ice flowed off him and his uniform and down off the mare's coat. The roadway of the bridge was also white with ice and hail. Slowly, he looked toward the north end of the bridge.

Beginning less than twenty yards from him, at least two hundred ice-covered troopers lay scattered and frozen on the bridge between him and the open gates. Beyond the gates were more ice-covered bodies, frozen where they stood, wedged and welded together in ice. Farther to the north was a featureless gray stone wall running along the river bluff and across the point where the approach ended and the bridge proper began. Quaeryt wondered yet how many more ice-covered bodies lay sprawled beyond the wall he had imaged.

Then he shook his heada"and was rewarded with an even more intense flash of pain, so much so that he couldn't see for a moment. He turned in the saddle a slowly. "Arion! Get your men to that gate, and get it closed." He looked at Shaelyt and Voltyr who were riding slowly toward him. "You two need to image beams and bars in 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 a 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 a 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 a 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 firea"

Catapults a there was something about catapults, but Quaeryt couldn't think of what it might be.

"a 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, anda" 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 undercaptainsa"and himselfa"to the Bluff Point, an old inn just west of the approach to the bridgea"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 unhappy."

"His men weren't the ones dying."

"No a but he's lost more troopers than we have. More than two regiments worth in dead and wounded. That's what I heard from the dispatch couriers."

Quaeryt frowned. "There are more and larger towns on the north side of the river. That's why he needed a bigger force."

"He's losing a greater proportion than we are. That's because a he says a he doesn't have Fifth Battalion."

"He didn't want us. Even without Fifth Battalion, you wouldn't be losing as great a proportion as he is."

"Doesn't matter." Skarpa sighed. "He thinks if a trooper can move, he can fight. He doesn't understand. Not sure I would if I hadn't seen what happened to you."

"Tell him imagers are like blades. When they're pushed too hard, they break. Rest can reforge them. Trying to make them fight when they're broken destroys them beyond hope of reforging." Quaeryt massaged his forehead again.

"He might understand that."

Quaeryt saw Skarpa had his doubts. "They're like muskets when the powder's gone."

"I'll think of something." Skarpa paused. "Where are they?"

"Sleeping a or lying on a bed so tired they can't move."

"Your head is pounding, and you have trouble seeing, don't you?"

"Something like that," Quaeryt admitted.

"Might not be a bad idea if you turned things over to Zhelan and got some sleep."

"I mostly have, but I thought I'd better wait to see what you had to say."

"You've heard. Go get some rest." Skarpa stood.

So did Quaeryt, not quite so quickly or vigorously.

45.

Quaeryt slept for two glasses Lundi afternoon, woke and checked with Zhelan, made certain all the battalion was quartered and fed, ate what he could, and went back to his chamber and collapsed. He woke before dawn on Mardi morning, with only a trace of a headache and clear vision. Relieved at discovering that, he hurried into his uniform and went to find Zhelan.

He did not have far to go, since the major was standing in the doorway between the narrow public room and the kitchen.

Zhelan turned. "Good morning, sir."

"Have the Bovarians tried anything with the bridge or the wall?"

"No, sir. I had squads on the bridge last night and companies on standby just in casea"two glasses for each one. That was so all the men would get at least six glasses of sleep. In case they had to fight today."

"Good. I appreciate your taking care of that. I wasn't thinking too clearly last night."

"Sir a what you and the undercaptains do keeps men from getting killed. By now, they all understand that. They also know that imagers can be killed just as they can."

That might be the only good thing about poor Akoryt's death. Quaeryt nodded. "Is the kitchen here feeding the troopers?"

"I took the liberty of getting that done early, sir. Some of our cooks are working with the inn's cook. We've got the first two companies fed, and the others will be getting fed in a quint. They have to eat in the courtyard, but for hot food they don't mind, so long as it's not raining."

Once more, Quaeryt was more than grateful for Zhelan's competence and experience. "That was a good thought. I have the feeling we may have to move over the bridge and into north Villerive fairly soon."

"I had thought so. The sentries heard horns and chimes late in the day yesterday. Someone was attacking someone on the other side of the river. Have you heard, sir?"

"Not yet. The marshal wanted us to use the bridge to attack the Bovarians yesterday afternoon. I told Commander Skarpa that if the marshal wanted our forces to attack, it would be without Fifth Battalion."

"Sir?"