“How far is it to the next gate?”
The soldier leaned back in his chair and considered that for a moment. “I’d guess two miles or more,” he said. “It’s a big city.”
Valder glanced at the thinning crowds, then at the dimming sky. Torches were being lighted in front of some of the taverns and shops, but the streets would still be dark.
Walking two miles through an unfamiliar city at night on the slim chance that the other gates would be preferable when he was already tired was not an attractive prospect. “Let me have one of those blankets,” he said. “It looks as if I’ll be spending the night in the Hundred-Foot Field.”
The soldier grinned. “Right. Got to make that back pay last, don’t you?” He sat up and let the chair’s front legs down, then got to his feet. With a nod, he vanished through the gatehouse door, to emerge a moment later with a brown bundle. “It’s all yours,” he said, tossing the blanket to Valder.
Valder decided against replying; he nodded politely and slipped away into the crowd.
As he made his way southward on Wall Street looking for a blanket-sized opening in the Hundred-Foot Field, he kept a steady eye on the field’s inhabitants. The further from the market square he went, the less savory his view became; by the time he had gone six blocks, he had the blanket tucked securely under one arm in order to keep his hands free, his right resting on his sword hilt and his left clutching his purse.
The wall, and Wall Street with it, jogged three times before he found himself a spot. He judged the distance from Westgate Market at roughly a mile and briefly considered continuing on toward the second gate.
He quickly dismissed the notion, however. Night had fallen, and the light from the scattered torches and lanterns did not amount to much. He did not care to travel further by such uncertain illumination, particularly with a full purse. Furthermore, if the crowd from Westgate extended this far, might not the crowd from the next gate extend as far in the opposite direction, so that he would be walking into a throng similar to the one he had just departed? Westgate might be the most active gate, but the others would surely be almost as busy and expensive.
It was quite obvious that he was not going to get anywhere in Azrad’s Ethshar; far too many people had gotten here before him, and every available opportunity must certainly have already been taken. He would have to get out into the countryside, at least temporarily. He still had no interest in becoming a farmer, but surely something, some sort of an opportunity, would present itself.
He had not eaten since leaving the ship, and his stomach was growling persistently as he smoothed his blanket on the hard-packed, bare dirt of the field. He promised himself that he would buy something to eat in the morning, no matter what the cost.
With a wary glance at his neighbors, he settled down, keeping his right hand on Wirikidor’s hilt, his left still securely gripping his purse. He did not intend to be robbed. He fell asleep, finally, and awoke at dawn to find sword and purse still intact. Any thieves who might have been around had presumably found easier pickings.
He was stiff and cramped from sleeping curled up in his blanket. He struggled to his feet and stretched vigorously. All around him, men and a few scattered women were still sleeping. A few were awake, some of them moving, some just sitting and gazing about sleepily. Valder found himself becoming depressed just looking at them — all this potential going to waste! He was determined that he, at least, would not sit and rot in the Hundred-Foot Field. He would get out of the city and find himself a career. He had not seen the horrendous inflation in prices anywhere but Azrad’s Ethshar — which was, of course, far more crowded than anywhere else — so he hoped his savings would tide him over.
He had wanted to lose himself in a crowd, where Gor would be unable to find him, should he decide ex-assassins were dangerous, but the crowding in this city was more than Valder had imagined possible, so much so that now he was eager to leave it behind. Rolling up his blanket, he picked his way carefully across his neighbors to Wall Street, where he turned left and headed for Westgate.
No one took any special note of him as he marched out the gate onto the highway. The guard he had spoken with was nowhere in sight.
By noon he was almost four leagues from the city wall.
As the day progressed, the traffic grew from virtually nothing moving to a steady stream in both directions. People were still drifting in toward the city from the disbanding armies, while others who had already seen the situation and given up on finding a place in Azrad’s Ethshar were heading back out to look for someplace better.
This struck him as futile, and he tried stopping a party heading toward the city to tell them that there was nothing for them there. They ignored his warning.
“Maybe there’s nothing there for you, fellow, but perhaps we aren’t as picky,” the leader said, glancing significantly at Valder’s black-and-gray uniform. Like most people, the man wore green and brown; very few people had bothered to acquire civilian clothes yet, though insignia and marks of rank were now rare, and only those that remained soldiers were permitted to keep their breastplates.
“I’m not picky,” Valder insisted. “The whole place is mobbed. Food is running low, and lodging costs more for a night than it should for a year.”
“Well, we’ll just have to see this for ourselves. We don’t know you; why should we believe you?”
Valder shrugged. “I’m just trying to help,” he said.
“We don’t need your help,” the spokesman said, turning away. Valder watched helplessly as they trudged on toward the gates. When they were lost in the streaming traffic, he turned and headed onward.
The highway had left the city running due west, but quickly curved around to the north, leading from the peninsula to the mainland. Valder knew a little basic geography, enough to know that the only land routes from Azrad’s Ethshar to anywhere worth mentioning would have to run northward across the isthmus to the mainland; there simply wasn’t anything except open countryside surrounded by sea to the south, east, or west. He supposed that some of that land might be suitable for farming — though he had an impression it was too sandy to be much use, even for that — but he was not willing to try farming it.
That meant he had to head north, and that was what he was doing, but once he reached the mainland he had more of a choice. He could head back west along the coast to Ethshar of the Sands, perhaps — but that would take him closer to Gor, and though Ethshar of the Sands was less crowded than Azrad’s Ethshar, it was more primitive, and he was not at all sure it would be any real improvement. Somewhere far to the north were the mines and mountains taken from the Northern Empire in the course of the last century or so, and beyond them lay the ruins of the Empire itself. He had no interest in mining and knew that it was never the common miners who got rich from the jewels and metals they found, but those who owned the mines, or bought from the miners, or sold to the miners. A wine merchant might do well in the mining country, but first he would need stock, and as yet Valder had no stock and no idea where he might find any.
In all the wide arc of land between the mines and Ethshar of the Sands, there was only wilderness, forests and grasslands, and a few scattered farms that had been established to help feed the armies fighting in that wilderness. Those armies had once had camps dotting the plains and forests in every direction, but were now disbanded. A few camps might survive as villages and towns, but Valder doubted any would have much to offer him.
That covered the compass from south sunwise through northeast, leaving only the east and southeast. That was where the old homeland had been. It had never actually been his home, of course; he had been born in the camp-town at Kardoret, a base on the line between the western and central commands, and had never seen Old Ethshar. The official story, which he had no reason to doubt, was that it was now fragmented into dozens of pretty states, warring with one another. Valder had had his fill of war, certainly, but he wondered whether there might not be opportunities to be foun
d there. Certainly, Gor of the Rocks had no authority there and so could not pursue him; the Hegemony of Ethshar claimed only the lands outside the old borders.
His worries about the overlord might be unfounded, he knew; but even so, the prospect of actually seeing the land he had fought for so long, a land that had history extending back before the war, had a certain charm to it. Most of the veterans were unimaginative enough to accept the official line and stay in the Hegemony, he was sure, so the competition for work would not be as fierce in the Small Kingdoms.
That decided him. He would head for the Small Kingdoms, where Old Ethshar used to be. That meant he must bear right at every major fork, following the highways around the northern end of the Gulf of the East.
So far, however, he had seen no forks; the highway rolled on, indivisible, across the isthmus.
He marched on through the afternoon, despite mounting weariness. He was not accustomed to long walks any more, after his enforced inactivity at sea and his long stint as an assassin, where speed and stealth had been far more important than stamina. Furthermore, he had realized he had broken his promise to himself in his rush to get out of the city and had not eaten anything since his last meal aboard ship, which had been a large breakfast the day before. He had found water at several small streams that crossed the highway, but no food.
For that matter, he had not encountered a stream recently, and, although the day was no more than pleasantly warm, he was again growing thirsty. He cursed himself for not having planned more carefully and brought adequate supplies.
Of course, he had expected to find everything he needed in Azrad’s Ethshar. The impossibly high prices had been a complete surprise and had shocked him so badly that he had forgotten how essential food and drink could be. He had refused to buy anything at all, despite his sizeable store of cash, and was now paying for his miserliness. He wished he had somehow wangled a Spell of Sustenance somewhere along the line, but he no longer even had a bloodstone; he had turned his in after his last assassination, in accordance with his orders.
If mere food and drink were so outrageously expensive in the city, he wondered what astronomical sum might be required to buy an enchanted bloodstone.
Somewhere along the highway, he told himself, there would surely be an inn or a tavern, or at least a farmhouse, where he might buy bread and ale, or find water. With that in mind, he kept marching and even managed to pick up his pace a trifle.
The sun was reddening in the west when he reached the fork. As he had decided, he bore right. Some of his fellow travelers were already settling by the roadside for the night, some with elaborate camps, others with just a blanket. Virtually all the traffic that was still moving was using the left-hand fork, and Valder realized that that must be the road to both Anaran’s territory and the northern lands. Since the left fork headed due west and the right due north, he would have assumed otherwise, if not for the traffic, but among those coming down the west fork were men and women in clothes far warmer than the climate called for, some with mining tools on belts or backpacks.
Those who had stopped for the night were strewn haphazardly along the wayside with whatever supplies they had brought, which hardly seemed to indicate the presence of an inn anywhere on the road. Valder had brought nothing and still hoped to find shelter; he marched on past the fork and almost immediately felt a cool breeze that carried the scent of water — but not the salt tang of the ocean.
The fork had been on the side of a low rise, with the west fork following the contour of the land, while the north headed directly up over the crest. Valder pushed on over the ridgetop to where he could see what lay beyond, could see the broad river that lay at the bottom of the slope, the widest river he had ever seen just half a mile further down the road.
That meant fresh water, though perhaps not the best, unless the river was somehow too polluted to drink from. There might well be fish and edible plants of some sort, rather than the endless grasses that covered most of the countryside.
The road itself ran on across the river by means of a bridge — a bridge Valder judged to be a prodigious feat of engineering, one that quite possibly had required magic in its construction, since the river was very wide indeed. Men were standing on the bridge; perhaps, he thought, he had finally found some clever farm folk cashing in on the steady stream of traffic by selling their produce. Exhausted as he was, he stumbled down the slope toward the river.
CHAPTER 21
The men on the bridge were soldiers, in full uniform and heavily armed. They stood in front of a gate that blocked the south end of the bridge. Pitched nearby was an army-issue tent.
They did not appear to be there to sell vegetables. After a glance at them, Valder left the highway and made his way down the bank to the river. He drank his fill, wiped the sweat from his face and arms, splashed a little water on his tunic to cool himself down, then sat and rested for a few moments.
The last daylight was fading; on the bridge above him the soldiers were lighting torches. He glanced up at the hiss as the first one caught fire, and watched the procedure with interest. This was obviously a toll bridge. He had heard of such things, though in wartime they had been illegal outside the borders of Old Ethshar — or rather, the Small Kingdoms, since Old Ethshar had apparently collapsed before Valder was born. Toll bridges might have interfered with the movement of troops or supplies, so they had not been permitted.
The war was over, however, and that law seemed to have been repealed — assuming this group was here legally. With four of them and Valder alone, he had no intention of questioning their rights.
He glanced at the river. Already the far side was invisible. He could not possibly swim so far, he knew, and he doubted that a river of such a size could be forded anywhere within twenty leagues. Certainly, no one would get any goods across without using either a bridge or a ferry. He saw no ferries. All trade, then, would use the bridge. The toll collection should prove profitable.
When he was feeling somewhat less exhausted, he got to his feet and climbed slowly back up the bank to the highway.
No traffic was moving. Three small parties, perhaps a dozen travelers in all, were camped along the roadside up toward the fork, with campfires burning. The only other people in sight were the soldiers on the bridge; in addition to their torches, they had a small cooking fire in front of their tent.
Valder was at a loss as to what he should do next. He was tired, hungry, and lonely, with no idea what would become of him; these common problems seemed more important at present than his unique one of being linked for life to a magic sword he did not trust. The sword was strictly a long-term problem, while the others were all immediate.
He could handle his weariness by trampling out a circle in the grass and going to sleep — in fact, he could probably find an abandoned campsite and save himself the trouble of trampling one out. Food, however, was becoming a very serious concern, and the sight of a soldier hanging a kettle over the cookfire decided him. He trudged up onto the bridge.
The soldiers saw him coming, despite the gathering gloom. Two had cocked crossbows in their hands, but did not bother to aim or release the safety catches, while a third dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword. Valder saw five in all; the fourth was the man tending the kettle, and the fifth was dozing nearby.
“Hello there!” Valder called.
“Hello,” the swordsman replied.
“What are you doing here?” His assumption that they were toll collectors was, after all, only a guess.
“Guarding the bridge.”
“Guarding it against what? The war is over!”
“Guarding against unauthorized crossing. It’s one copper piece to cross for veterans or their families, and no one else is welcome.”
“On whose orders?”
“Lord Azrad’s.”
That made sense. In fact, Valder respected Azrad for thinking of it. Not only would it add to the coffers, but it would keep the people of the Small Kingdoms — who w
ould not be veterans, since the army had not been responsible for the homeland and had long ago moved all operations, including recruiting, elsewhere — from coming to Ethshar and further increasing the crowding in the cities. While the war had continued, none would have dared to venture into the war zones and military lands without a good reason, but now that peace had come and the war zones were transformed into the Hegemony of Ethshar, some might think there were opportunities to be exploited.
Valder had no intention of crossing the bridge until morning, when he could see the other bank and decide whether it was worth a copper piece, but he was very much interested in food and conversation before he slept. “What’s cooking?” he asked, pointing to the kettle. “It smells good.”
“Just stew; Zak caught a rabbit this afternoon.” “Might I join you? I haven’t eaten in almost two days; I can’t afford the prices in the city.”
The swordsman glanced at his companions, and, although no objections were spoken aloud, Valder sensed reluctance all around.
“I’ll pay a fair price, if you want; I’ve still got my back pay. I just wasn’t willing to pay those robbers in the city what they wanted.”
“I can agree with that,” one of the crossbowmen remarked. “If I had any doubts about staying in the army, those prices cured them. Silver bits for ale, they wanted!”
“Four the pint at the Overflowing Chalice, and worse in Westgate Market!” Valder agreed. “I can’t pay that! Better to drink seawater!”
That broke the ice, as the soldiers all chimed in with complaints. A moment later the whole crew, Valder included, was clustered around the kettle, dishing out rabbit stew. No matter where or when, soldiers loved to complain, and Valder had given this group an opportunity for which they were properly grateful.
They even forgot to charge him for the stew.
The food did not stop the conversation. Between bites, Valder exchanged accounts of wartime action seen, commanders served under, and so forth. Coming as he did from the extreme west, Valder’s tales seemed strange and exotic to the guardsmen, even though he avoided any mention of his work as an assassin. Their stories, in turn, seemed odd to him; they had lived and served without ever seeing northern troops. Their only action had been against magical assaults, either sorcerous or demonic, or against rebellion among the civilian population.
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