“I’m beginning to understand why Creslin didn’t think much about the idea of coming to Sarronnyn.” Justen grinned.
“Or why he worried about being tied up with a redhead?” asked Gunnar.
Krytella blushed.
Even late in the afternoon, the avenue toward the main square was half-filled. They eased past a wagon full of tanned hides that were being unloaded into a large building. Justen wrinkled his nose at the acrid smell that seeped from the wagon bed.
“They must have used it for more than tanned leather,” Gunnar observed.
Justen let his perceptions touch the wood. “It feels similar to some quenches, except with an edge.”
Krytella and Gunnar exchanged a quick glance that Justen ignored as the three stepped into the market square, still nearly filled with vendors despite the nearness of twilight.
“Carpets… carpets from the best midland wool…”
“Blades… the best blades this side of Hamor…”
“See the best carpets in Sarron… soft as a baby’s cheek… stronger than spun brass.”
“Spices… fresh spices. Get your astra here… fresher than the Blacks’ best…”
At the last boast, Krytella paused and turned toward the hawker, her eyebrows raised for a moment. The woman who stood before a small, dark-wood cart with nearly a dozen cloth bags spread out on the sale board fell silent.
“All the way from Hamor, and they’re fresher than from Recluce?” probed Krytella.
“They are fresh… lady.”
Krytella smiled faintly, then nodded first toward Gunnar, then toward Justen. She began to walk toward the far side of the square, toward a narrow, gray building that topped the two beside it by a handful of cubits.
Justen held back a frown, but turned and followed the other two.
“Look at that lady… two hunks like that!”
“Like the blond one…”
“No… the darker one’s got a nicer ass. The blond’s a little thin.”
Justen glanced sideways at Gunnar, grinning, but his brother’s thoughts were off somewhere, certainly not focusing on the local conversation.
“A little thin? He makes your Friedner look like an underweight calf. Bet you wouldn’t turn him out of your bed, Cerla. Of course, the dark one’s definitely something…”
Justen felt himself flushing and turned to catch Krytella’s eyes. The healer was also flushing.
“They’re rather… direct here.” Justen caught sight of a tasteful inn board displaying a silver shield rimmed in black, “There’s an inn, and it’s not the Brass Bull.”
The Silver Shield’s public room, despite a faint smokiness that recalled burned grease, had unshuttered windows and a faint breeze that Justen appreciated on a close afternoon. Most of the tables were empty, and the three sat in the corner at a circular table that offered each of them a view of the doorway.
Gunnar gestured to a serving boy, thin and younger than most apprentices on Recluce. “Could we have some drinks?”
The serving boy ignored Gunnar and turned to Krytella. “Yes, my lady?”
Krytella grinned at Gunnar, then looked to the youth. “What do you offer?”
“We have red wine, dark beer, lager, and redberry.” The youth’s voice almost squeaked. He cleared his throat and waited.
Krytella nodded toward Gunnar, then toward Justen.
“I’d like a dark beer,” Justen said, trying not to grin.
“I’ll have a redberry,” Gunnar said.
The youth looked to Krytella, then finally asked, “Your wish, lady?”
“A redberry.”
The youth looked from her to the two men, raising an eyebrow.
“Two redberries and a dark beer,” Krytella told him.
“Thank you.” The youth hurried toward the back room, his slippered feet whispering on the worn and wide-plank floors.
Two white-haired women sat at a table along one wall with a game board between them, nursing mugs of something. Justen glanced toward the pair, trying to determine the game, which seemed to employ red and black counters.
“Are you finding out anything?” Krytella lowered her voice,
“Besides too much chaos for a home of the Legend?” Gunnar’s voice was equally low. “No.”
Justen licked his lips and tried to let his thoughts go blank, to let his perceptions pick up a sense of what might be happening in Sarron.
Near the door, a single woman, dressed in the blue leathers that indicated a soldier in service to the Tyrant, sipped from a chipped, gray-crockery mug. Her gray - and - black hair was cropped short, and a white scar crossed her left cheekbone. Two empty mugs stood on the corner of the table.
As his perceptions drifted past the older soldier, Justen caught a sense of regret, almost of emptiness, but the emptiness was honest, close to ordered sadness.
Justen could catch hints of something out in the square, like a faint but unseen white mist that tugged at the corners of buildings and drifted along the gutters and peered from the covered sewers.
“Your beer, ser.” The serving boy set a mug before Krytella.
“That’s for my friend.” She nodded toward Justen, who sat up with a twitch at the thump of the mugs on the table.
The youth smiled politely and set one redberry before the healer, and the other before Gunnar. ‘ “That will be a silver and four, ser.” The beer stayed put.
“A silver and four?”
“With the White devils coming through the mountains, there’s been some hoarding. They say they burn anyone who’s a Legend-holder.”
Justen handed Krytella a half-silver, as did Gunnar. The healer handed the server three half-silvers. “The extra is yours.”
“My pleasure, lady.” He blinked long, sooty eyelashes at the healer. “My pleasure.”
Justen watched as the boy minced back toward the kitchen.
“Don’t glare, Justen, dear. It’s not becoming.” Krytella’s voice was pitched loud enough to carry to the other corner table, where two round-faced traders-one in gray, the other in brown-gestured at each other across a tray of glittering stones. Both women paused for an instant and studied the three from Recluce. Then the one in brown flashed a quick smile to Krytella before turning back to her dickering.
“Was that totally necessary?” Justen didn’t know whether to grin or be annoyed.
“Absolutely.” Krytella winked, then looked at Gunnar.
“There’s too much chaos under the surface here, but I haven’t been able to really link it to any one place.” The Air Wizard lifted his mug to his lips and sipped. “There’s also a lot of fear.” Krytella slid the beer in front of Justen, who decided to say nothing about his own, obviously far weaker, attempts to track the underlying chaos. Instead, he took.a long swallow from the mug and listened to the low-voiced conversation.
“You think the Whites already have the city?” Krytella asked.
Gunnar shook his head. “The traces aren’t that strong. But if they get here, I don’t think there will be much resistance.”
“Why not?”
Justen could have answered that easily enough, but he took another sip of the dark beer, more bitter with its hints of chaos than it should have been, and an illustration of the answer.
“Order, especially, needs a focus. If you start bribing or removing the people around whom order would build…” Gunnar shrugged.
Justen nodded. Gunnar had explained even more clearly than he could have.
Krytella paused and took another sip of redberry. The three sat silent for a time, occasionally sipping from their mugs.
“Would you like anything else?” The serving boy batted the long, sooty eyelashes at Krytella.
The blatant nature of the come-on twisted Justen’s stomach, especially when he realized that the youth was not chaos-driven, at least not beyond the normal desires of young men.
“I should think not, thank you.” Krytella offered a smile, patently false, but the youth bat
ted his eyelashes back in return before bowing and departing.
“This place is different,” admitted Gunnar.
“I can see why Creslin didn’t want to come here,” added Justen, trying not to grin as he baited the healer.
“If that’s the way you feel, well…” mused Krytella “… I think it makes me glad we’re helping the Legend.”
“Are we?” Gunnar asked.
The soldier at the farther table set her third mug on the corner of the table, then stood and walked with exaggerated care toward the open doorway to the square. The serving boy reclaimed the mugs and the coin that rested beside them.
“I would hope so.” Krytella lowered her voice. “The Sarronnese haven’t been able to slow the Whites, and that’s why they asked for Firbek and the marines to join them on the north road that leads to Middlevale. I wanted to go with you and Justen, but Ninca said someone has to stay.”
“I wasn’t exactly given much choice.” Justen’s voice was wry. “And no one can tell me exactly what I’m supposed to do, except to try to figure out some way to help. Gunnar here can at least use the winds to spy out where the Whites are, or to bring in a fog or something.”
“I’m sure you’ll do just fine, Justen. Dorrin was very successful at that,” Krytella reassured him.
“That was centuries ago. Who knows how successful he really was?”
“You sound somewhat skeptical, Brother.”
“I’m always skeptical of legends and tales of long-dead heroes.”
The scraping of a chair interrupted the low-voiced conversation as the two traders rose from their table and left. Justen glanced around the near-empty public room, vacant now except for them-and the long-lashed serving boy, who waited by the doorway to the back room. “Everyone else has left.”
“I’m done,” Krytella said. “I hope your feelings about Sarron were worth the overpriced redberry.”
“Probably not.” Gunnar swallowed the last of his drink.
“The beer wasn’t bad,” Justen added. “Bitter, but not bad.”
“How you can drink that…” muttered Gunnar.
The healer shook her head but said nothing, ignoring even the last flirtatious smile and batted eyelashes from the serving boy.
Only a handful of hawkers remained in the square outside the Silver Shield, and even those were packing their wares into cases or packs as the three headed back toward the main gate-except for the carpet merchants, who had rolled their wares into long, heavy tubes. Although the tannery wagon had long since left, Justen could still smell a lingering odor of solvents and manure as they passed the barred door of the leather shop.
The gate guards scarcely looked at the three leaving Sarron and walking down the causeway behind an empty farm wagon pulled by a single swaybacked chestnut.
Gunnar jumped aside to avoid a steaming pile of just-delivered dung. “It doesn’t pay to follow horses too closely.”
“Not on foot, anyway.” Justen shivered as once again he felt the miasma of chaos that seemed to lurk beyond the pale pink granite walls of Sarron, like a too-early winter fog seeping out of the Westhorns and across the unharvested green of the land.
“Are you cold? You aren’t sick, are you?” asked Krytella.
“I will be if you’ll take care of me.” He forced a semi-lecherous grin, then let it drop away as he caught the worried expression on his brother’s face.
The sound of a single horse echoed through the twilight, and the three glanced downhill toward the rider in black who swung past the farm wagon.
“Healer!” Firbek reined up. “The chief engineer needs you. One of the engineers got an arm caught in the mill.”
Something about the marine bothered Justen, even though he could sense that the man told the truth.
“Give me a ride.”
Krytella took the marine’s hand and swung up behind the saddle with a quick boost from Gunnar. The two brothers watched as the heavy-laden horse headed back downhill.
“Where are the other two healers?” asked Justen, brushing away an unseen mosquito. He swatted again, too distracted to try to set up a ward against the hungry insects.
“They were requested to visit the Tyrant. Apparently her daughter, the heir, had some difficulty that Ninca thought they could help. In the interests of harmony and goodwill, the chief engineer agreed.” Gunnar motioned toward the enclave. “We probably ought to get back.”
Justen nodded, and they began to walk more quickly downhill.
“You felt it, too, didn’t you?” asked Gunnar. “What?”
“Firbek. He doesn’t feel quite right. It’s not chaos, but it’s… something.”
“I’ve always felt that way about Firbek.” Justen laughed harshly.
“You may have a reason. Still…” Gunnar shrugged. “We’ll have to watch him when we head into the West-horns.”
The brothers kept walking.
XXVII
Justen rubbed the muscles above his right knee, then his left. Finally, he slipped one foot out of the stirrup, flexing it and trying to reduce the cramping. Even with all the riding he’d done lately, he wondered if he’d ever get used to horses.
He glanced down the sloping hill to the right, where the stream that eventually fed into the River Sarron wound its way through the rocky foothills of southeast Sarronnyn. To his left rose the Westhorns, their heights still glittering in the summer air with ice that even the Great Change had not been able to erase. Sarron itself lay nearly five days behind.
How had he gotten into this mess? His limited experience on horseback had certainly not prepared him for so many days in the saddle. The gray plodded around another narrow turn in the road. And why was he here? With Quentel’s right arm shattered and useless for seasons, if not forever, why was he riding with armed soldiers who certainly knew far more about the business of slaughter than he could ever pick up in watching a fight or two?
A chill breeze whipped down the canyon and ripped at his jacket. He shook his head.
“Cold, isn’t it?” asked Yonada, the black-haired officer who rode up beside him.
Justen turned and shifted his weight in the saddle. “It’s not the chill. -It’s the riding.” His gloved fingers brushed the black staff in the lance holder, feeling the warmth of order even through the leather and even as his head throbbed at the evasion he had voiced. Somehow, the evasions and the little deceptions bothered him more than they used to. Was it because of the closeness of the Whites?
“You get accustomed to it.”
The carts behind Justen creaked. He turned in the saddle, swaying somewhat, to make sure that the rockets and the launching frame remained securely lashed in place.
Yonada followed his look, licked her lips. “I can’t believe you can ride so close to all that powder,”
“You are.” Justen grinned.
“Only because you are. Engineer. How can you be sure that some White Wizard won’t touch it off?”
“I can’t. But not one of them has been able to touch powder held in black iron since Dorrin came up with the idea centuries ago.” Justen looked forward to the beginning of the column, where Gunnar rode beside Dyessa, the angular force leader, who reminded Justen of a handful of iron rods not quite fully welded together.
Just before the two disappeared around the switchback, Dyessa smiled at Gunnar in response to whatever he had said.
Justen shook his head.
“That wizard, he must be something.” Yonada flicked the reins gently. “Dyessa almost never smiles.”
“Oh, he is.”
“You know him?” The black-haired Sarronnese officer laughed. “I suppose that’s a stupid question. You’re both from Recluce.”
“Recluce isn’t that small. It takes a solid six days to ride from one end of the island to the other. That’s almost as far as from Rulyarth to the Tyrant’s palace in Sarron. There are lots of people I don’t know. But the wizard’s my brother, Gunnar.”
“Younger?”
“Older,” corrected Justen with a wry smile. “Air Wizards always tend to look younger. Why, I don’t know.”
Yonada’s horse edged closer to his, and Justen studied the road as they neared the switchback around which the others had disappeared. To the right of the road, the stream had cut a channel only a handful of cubits wide. Just beyond the switchback, the water dropped into a narrow gorge of dark, reddish rock almost thirty cubits deep. The canyon narrowed until the road was barely wide enough for but a single carthemmed in on the left by a sheer ledge that rose nearly a hundred cubits and by the gorge on the right. Beyond the gorge and the rushing water was another sheer wall rising to a greenish-blue sky, partly obscured by hazy white clouds.
Even at midday, the road was shadowed and cool, although Justen occasionally felt a gust of warmer and moister summer air probing the depths of the canyon from somewhere.
“We’re almost there,” the Sarronnese offered.
“Where?”
“Middlevale.” Yonada took a deep breath. “This could be-” She broke off in mid-sentence.
Justen caught a hint of raw fear behind the words. What was it about the Whites that so bothered the Sarronnese? The fact that the Sarronnese viewed the invasion as a White crusade against the Legend?
Beyond the switchback turn, the road narrowed even more, then opened onto a small valley with steep walls of reddish rock. Middlevale was hilly, perhaps two kays long, filled with rocky, shrub-covered hillocks and scrub oak. A small inn, with but two chimneys and a single story, hunkered just off the dusty road between two larger hillocks not more than half a kay from Justen. From a stripped sapling between the hut that served as a stable and the inn itself flew the blue ensign of Sarronnyn.
Justen pursed his lips and turned to Yonada. “I don’t understand why you didn’t defend the eastern gap there.” He pointed to the far end of the valley and to the narrow defile from which the White forces would presumably emerge.
“We tried that idea when we were forced out of Westwind. But the Chaos Wizard just loosened the rocks in the narrow canyons-and Derla’s whole force was smashed. The Whites can’t do that on open ground.”
The Order War Page 11
