The Hordes of Chanakra (Knights of Aerioch) (11 page)

Kaila sat beside him. “So tell me, Kreg, where were these ‘police’ when you saw the crime you espied before you came here?  And where were they when you were struck from behind?”

Kreg looked over at her.

“I think this is but part of your trouble.”

Kreg sighed and nodded. “It’s like my mind is being pulled in a dozen different directions.” He pointed. “That’s an oak.  I know it’s an oak, exactly like the oaks back home.  That...” He pointed to a different tree, one with many thin, straight branches from which dangled tufts of green strands like clumps of hair. “I don’t know what that is.  I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it.

“Everything is a mix of familiar and strange.  We ride horses, just like those at home, but I was almost killed by a ‘sand devil’ that doesn’t exist back home.  What I don’t know here can kill me.” He stood up and turned to face Kaila. “I’ve mostly been too busy to think about it but I want to go home.”

“Methinks I understand your heart in this, Kreg.” Kaila stood and placed a hand on his shoulder. “But is there nothing that moves you to remain here?”

“Kaila, I...” Kreg sighed. “You and Shillond have become good friends, and I’d miss you but this place isn’t for me.  I need to go home.”

Kaila nodded. “Then so be it.  Once we have won this war or once the campaign season ends, my father and I shall bend all our effort to finding a way to return you to your world.”

“Thank you.”

“But for now,” Kaila said, “we are sore pressed.  Will you aid us in our struggles against the Schahi?”

“Of course.”

#

Starting the next morning, they rode at full gallop, obtaining fresh horses at small villages several times a day.  After the first day, Kreg no longer felt pain, just a kind of dull numbness.  At least the headaches were gone.

Each night, they stopped at whatever town or village they first reached after the setting of the sun, ate a meal that exhaustion robbed of all flavor, and crawled into whatever rough beds either an inn or local Lord provided.

The ride seemed to last forever.  In reality, they needed only three days to reach the city of Enosh on the northwest coast of Aerioch.  Their ship would take them around Shendar to Schah, dropping off one of the guerilla units along Shendar's west coast.

The ship was the newest and largest in Marek's fleet, 30 paces long and about 5 paces across the widest part of her deck, a square rigged vessel using what was, for them, a new type of sail, a jib.  No, Kreg thought, not a jib.  A forestaysail.  A true jib would extend farther forward onto a jib boom extending beyond the bowsprit.  The stem post, the angled wooden beam that formed the very bow of the boat, looked far heavier than it needed to be to support the ship's structure.  Kreg wondered why.

She was a far more sophisticated ship than Kreg had expected to find.  Her hull consisted of overlapping planks on a stout wood frame, stained black with a thick layer of pitch.  Two masts each carried a topmast and topsails, giving the ship a large amount of sail area.  A third mast at the rear of the ship carried a triangular sail that hung from a long, diagonally rigged yard.  The ship had a stern tiller rather than the steering oars of other ships in the harbor.  The rear of the ship rose in a high stern-castle providing both cover for the ship's pilot and room for two small cabins above the main deck.  The topcastles at the top of both masts were far too large for simple lookouts and Kreg surmised that in battle archers would use them to rain arrows on another vessel's decks.

"I dare not take you all the way to landfall," the Captain of the ship told them once they had settled into their small cabins.  Kreg and Shillond shared a room in the stern castle while Kaila was alone in her, even smaller, room. "Not if they have taken the precaution of setting up naval patrols.  This ship can outsail anything that Schah can float, especially with your help, mage, and we can sail closer to the wind than can they.  But a war galley is faster than we are in a short pull. I have to spill sail to drop a boat and it takes time to regain speed.  I cannot come too close to shore and risk being cut off from the open sea."

"How close can you get us?"

"No closer than two leagues," the Captain said. "If you mean to go on with this mad scheme, then you must pull the rest of the way in a boat."

Kreg bit his lip.  Two leagues came to a distance of almost seven miles. "It might be a good idea to start at sunset.  That would give us the cover of night for our row."

"Aye, that it would," the Captain said, "for part of the trip.  But two leagues is a long pull in a boat even for seamen.  For you?  We could rig sail, but as you are landsmen, you would as like capsize her as reach shore."

"We all do as we must," Shillond said.

Kreg counted himself fortunate that he did not suffer from seasickness.  Several of the group destined for Shendar did and Kreg had no wish to share their discomfort.  He watched in sympathy as several green-faced men boarded a longboat for the row to Shendar.  Two weeks' sail remained before they would reach Schah.

Kaila did not let the trip go to waste.  Several hours each day she continued to drill Kreg in the sword.  Often those sailors not immediately involved in other tasks would gather to watch.  Kreg expected to take a ribbing for his ineptitude but, strangely, the sailors had no comments to make.

"Damn!" Kreg said as he stumbled.  Kaila's training sword thwacked him in the side. "The rocking of the ship throws me off."

"Aye." Kaila stepped back, allowing Kreg to rest a moment. "That is all to the good.  Rarely have we so perfect an opportunity for the learning of balance."

Kreg snorted and took a ready stance.  This time Kreg lasted through almost a dozen parries and counters before Kaila penetrated his guard.

What time Kreg did not spend in sword practice on this trip, he spent drawing the bow to build muscles in his shoulder and back.  By the end of the voyage he could draw the bow over a hundred times without feeling strain.

And in the evenings, Shillond attempted to instruct Kreg and Kaila in form of speech used in Schah.  While the language was nearly identical to some of the rougher modes of speech in Aerioch, the locals spoke with a nasal twang.  In time, Shillond pronounced Kreg as sufficiently capable in it.  About Kaila, he said nothing.

Eventually they reached the point where they lowered the longboat.  The shore was invisible in the distance.  As the ship sailed away, vanishing in the gloom of twilight, Kreg thought how small their boat was on that sea, particularly should some Schahi ship discover them.

#

It was near noon before they reached the shore.  They hid the longboat in a small cave near the shore where rocky cliffs rimmed the beach, more to conceal evidence of their arrival than from any thought that they might use it again.  The ship was now on her way back to Aerioch and they had no way to arrange for another to retrieve them.

Kreg was just as glad.  He had never realized that keeping a boat to a straight line with two people rowing would be so difficult.

"Has anyone thought about how we're supposed to get back?" he asked.

"It is obvious," Shillond said. "We must win the war."

"And if it is that we do not?" Kaila shrugged her pack onto her shoulders.  Instead of her chainmail, Kaila wore a thick leather vest over her buff tunic.  Shillond had managed to convince her that no one in their assumed role would wear mail.  Leather, at least, was possible.  The iron plates sewn into the lining of the vest could not be seen from outside

"Then--" Shillond picked up his staff and began to walk along the beach. "--it will not matter, for there will be no Aerioch to return to."

Kreg grinned. "You have a point there.  Grim, but a point."

They shouldered their packs.  After a short walk along the beach, they found a break in the cliffs where a stream ran into the sea. Here, they struck inland.  The stream meandered between the low hills, gurgling as it poured over the smooth stones of its bed.  There were no trees, but occasional clumps of brush broke the sere grassland.  The breeze from out of the south brought scant comfort as the sun burned against Kreg's face.

By evening they had reached a small village of sod buildings with thatched roofs.  A modest, two-story wooden inn was the largest building in the village.

The inn was smaller than the one at Trevanta and almost deserted.  Two men in leather tunics sat in one corner, engaged in whispered conversation.  Another man sat at the bar, quaffing blackjacks of ale.  He had apparently been pursuing that occupation for some time with single-minded devotion.  A minstrel sang.  Kreg had to look twice to be certain that it was not the same minstrel that had inflicted himself on the inn at Trevanta.  He was singing the same ballad--off-key.

A barmaid appeared at their table and they ordered.  This time Kreg ordered with confidence although the rancid scent wafting from the kitchen each time a breeze blew through the door did much to still his appetite.

"I don't think I've ever been so tired in all my life," Kreg said as he ate.  He tried to ignore the sour taste of the meat stew in his trencher.  Probably the meat had started to spoil before being made into the stew.  He did not know whether exhaustion, infection, or food poisoning was going to kill him first.  He twisted and stretched in an effort to relieve a knot in his back. "I hurt in places I didn't even know I had places."

"Aye," Kaila agreed, keeping her voice low.  Shillond had decided that it would be best if as few people heard Kaila's speech as possible. "Of a truth, I find myself in like straits. 'Twill be good to sleep this night."

Shillond grinned. "Why, children, how can you even consider sleep after such a refreshing, invigorating walk?  But I see that you will neither be much use until you rest.  To bed with you and I shall hear what there is to hear."

"Your counsel shall not go unfollowed." Kaila heaved herself to her feet.

"Second that motion." Kreg got up, somewhat unsteadily.  His back and shoulders ached from the pack.

#

They slept late into the next morning.  A sleepless night rowing a boat and an all-day march had taken their toll.  When Kreg woke, he found Shillond sitting by a lantern, reading from a scroll.  As Kreg sat up on his pallet of folded blankets, Kaila, in the room's single bed, roused.

Shillond smiled as Kreg stood. "I have had good fortune.  There is a great deal of confusion over the wizards from Chanakra who are about.  No one knows why they are here but if we continue up the road we will find one of them staying at the inn in the next village."

"So we go?" Kreg asked.  He reached for his pack.

Shillond's voice contained an indulgent chuckle. "I think we can delay long enough to eat first."

"Truly that is the best of news," Kaila said. "Methinks I could devour a krayt entire."

"Been meaning to ask," Kreg said. "What's a krayt?"

"Oh," Shillond said. "It's a somewhat large predator.  Best to avoid them."

"Oh?" Something in Shillond's voice roused Kreg's distrust.  He cast a sidelong glance at Kaila.  Her face was blank.

They ate a breakfast consisting mostly of fruit before taking to the road again.  By noon they had reached the next town.  The village occupied a valley in the rolling countryside.  A hill about a mile to the north overlooked the town, capped by a small castle.

"I think we will stay the night here," Shillond said as they approached the inn.

"Of cou--" Kaila stopped in mid-word.

Shillond was muttering under his breath and moving his fingers in intricate patterns.  Kaila jumped, then cocked her head to one side.  Kreg, standing at Kaila's side, heard a sound like faint whispering coming from the direction of her ears.  A few seconds later, she said, "Umm, but there are yet many hours of daylight."

"Oh, tut." Shillond waved the comment aside. "A man my age does not march from sunup to sundown."

"But father...." Kaila hesitated, clearly not sure what to say next.

"But nothing." Shillond sighed. "I go no further and that is that."

"Yes, father."

"Besides," Shillond said brightly, "perhaps we can sell some furs, and maybe even find someone to buy the firestones."

Kaila looked puzzled. "But I thought..."

Shillond's eyes narrowed as he looked at her.

"Oh." Kaila changed tack. "This town is of little size.  'Tis, uh, my thought that they rate not a mage."

Shillond shook his head slightly. "Oh, I don't know," he said smoothly. "We can always ask."

Kreg assumed that Shillond knew what he was doing and remained silent.

"Old man," the voice came from a window in the inn, "what said you of firestones?"

"Found a bunch of 'em," Shillond said. "You a mage?  Want to buy 'em?"

"And how many have you wasted in lighting fires?"

"Oh." Shillond scratched his head. "Three or four, I guess."

The man in the window sucked his breath over his teeth. "I will speak with you in the common room."

"As you wish," Shillond said.

Kreg had to admit that Shillond did a good imitation of a bumbling idiot.  He just hoped that Shillond's ability would cover his and Kaila's inability.