The Towers Of the Sunset (11 page)

THE ECHO OF the hooves resounds from the stone walls at Creslin, even as he can see ahead to where the canyon widens and the shadows of the hills rise beyond the last stone ramparts of the Westhorns.

Ahead of him, Hylin touches the hilt of the sword at his belt, leaning forward as if straining to hear someone, or something.

Creslin wonders why the mercenary appears so concerned now when they are about to reach the rolling plains of Gallos after nearly three days on winding mountain trails. Still, the man has far more experience than he does. Creslin gathers his senses and spreads himself to the winds, especially to those eddying around the trail where it opens into the brushy valley ahead.

The effort brings beads of sweat to his normally cool forehead, and he sways slightly in the saddle. After a time, however long it takes for the horses to tread another half kay, he straightens.

“Hylin…” His voice is raspy, for his throat has dried out. “There are two or three people down there, behind that ridge that faces where we’ll leave the protection of the rocks.”

Hylin’s sword is out and pointed toward Creslin. “You said you’d never traveled this far.”

“I haven’t. I just know they’re there.” Hylin studies the youth’s face for a long moment. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t make sense you’d be with them.” Creslin waits.

“But how do you know, damn it?” Creslin shrugs. “Sometimes… I can feel where people are, if there are winds around them. That’s part of what got me in trouble.” His stomach tightens at the partial deception, and he wonders if every untruth or incomplete truth will continue to torment him so. He blinks, and when he clears his eyes, he sees that Hylin has lowered the sword and dropped back to the cart, where he is talking with the trader.

“… damned witch as well…”

“… damned… or not.”

“… have him do it…”

“Creslin? Can you handle a bow?”

“Not as well as a sword,” confesses the silver-haired youth, without the slightest tremor in his guts. “But I can usually hit the target.”

Hylin is holding what might be called a short longbow. “If you know where these bandits, or whatever, are, could you slip down to just short of the gate rocks up ahead and arch an arrow over the ridge? There’s not much cover there.”

Creslin frowns. “What good would that do? I don’t know how much power an arrow would have from that far away.”

“It just has to get there. Most of these types want to surprise you. I think an arrow or two might send them on their way. If it doesn’t,” Hylin shrugs, “it sure doesn’t cost us much.”

Creslin understands both elements of the man’s logic- that, and the fact that Hylin will be guarding Derrild and whatever the trader’s goods are.

Creslin takes the bow and ties the quiver to the free brass ring beside his right knee, realizing his own naivete again. He has not the faintest idea of what goods the trader carries, nor has he ever asked. Keeping to the side of the road so as not to be visible from beyond the exit of the pass that will lead to the rolling plains, Creslin nudges his mount forward.

In time, he reins up, holding the bow. Before he nocks the arrow, once again he sends forth his senses upon the light breezes.

The three figures remain behind the ridge.

He draws the bow to the full, then releases the arrow, feeling it as it soars, then drops toward the three.

Creslin can sense the impact of the iron arrowhead as it strikes the boulder before one of the waiting riders.

“Demons!”

“Where are they shooting from?”

He releases a second shaft, correcting slightly and touching the winds, as if they may help guide the feathered missile. The shaft penetrates a heavy shoulder.

“Move!”

“Can’t fight what you can’t see…”

“Devils!”

The muffled clops of the hooves echo back up the canyon as Creslin nudges the chestnut back toward Hylin and Derrild.

Hylin smiles faintly. “They’re leaving, all right.”

Creslin nods. “Two arrows.”

“Hit anyone?”

“One, I think, by the sounds.” Creslin’s stomach twists at the misrepresentation. When will he learn not to volunteer unnecessary and misleading information, he wonders.

“Thought you said you were better with the sword.”

“I am.” The words slip out before Creslin can catch them.

“Oh…” The trader’s involuntary comment drifts upward from the cart.

Hylin’s lips tighten for a moment, then he swallows. “Let’s take it easy, just to make sure.”

Only faint traces inform the three of the would-be bandits: smudged hoofprints, a shattered arrow, and a few dark splotches on a low boulder.

FOR THE LESS than half a day it takes the three to cross the rolling plains from the edge of the Westhorns to the plateau on which the city of Fenard squats, Creslin is largely silent, wondering about his success with the winds and the arrows, wondering exactly how far beyond the winds his talents lie, if indeed he has talents.

Twice he sees a white bird, one he has never seen before except in his dreams, circling overhead before disappearing. Neither time does he see it appear or vanish, and the second time, on the stone-paved bridge crossing the river to the northwest gate of Fenard, he shakes his head.

“You’re right, young fellow. Those are witch birds. That’s what the Suthyan women told me, anyhow. Witches watch people through their eyes.”

Is the woman who called herself Megaera a witch? Is her name even Megaera? And what does it mean? And why will he pay? With a second shiver, he drops the questions. She has to be a witch. But why does she follow him?

“Careful. The guards here are sort of touchy,” Hylin volunteers.

“Oh?”

“They worry about everyone being an agent of the White Wizards,” rumbles Derrild from the cart. “As if worrying’d do them much good.”

“I don’t know much about the White Wizards-” begins Creslin.

“Later,” hisses the mercenary.

Three guards in black leathers greet the travelers at the post on the far side of the bridge. A low stone wall runs along the eastern bank of the small river, broken only by the bridge and the stone gates.

The main city walls are a good kay ahead. Fenard appears to have been designed to withstand a prolonged assault, yet Creslin cannot recall any tales about battles in or around the city.

“Your business?” asks the middle guard.

“Trade,” wheezes Derrild. He flourishes a heavy leather folder, letting it fall open to a page on which is embossed a gilt seal over purpled wax. “My seal… from the prefect.”

The guard nods politely. “And what are you trading this season? Any hempweed or dreamdust?”

“Demons’ brew,” Derrild snorts. “None of that. A few trinkets; some spices, like ryall seeds; some vials of cerann oil; purple glaze paste from Suthya for the potters of Jellico.”

“Let’s see.” The guard steps toward the bags on the cart.

Derrild sighs as he slides off the cart’s bench seat. “What’s a poor trader to do?” He loosens the largest sack. “If you would like to see for yourself…”

The guard peers into the sack.

Derrild thumps the sack, and a faint, dusty haze surrounds the guard’s head. “Just dried glaze powder…”

“ChhheeWWW… AHHHCHWEEE… ACH-WEEE…” Tears stream down the guard’s cheeks as he continues to double over with violent sneezing.

“Now, in this pack… here is the cerann oil. Each vial is stoppered with wax. That’s because the oil can burn your skin…” Derrild’s voice rumbles on as if nothing has happened.

“CHHWEEE… ACHWEEE…”

The trader gestures toward the third sack. “And here-”

“Just… CHWEEEE… move on… ACHHWEEE.”

Hylin’s lips are pressed tightly together as they lead the mules past the two lesser guards. One of the guards, a youth not any older than Creslin, also has his lips pressed tightly together.

Not until they are almost to the main walls, with an open and unguarded gate, does Derrild comment. “Damned officious fool. Waste of good glaze powder. They never learn.”

Hylin shakes his head. “Even his own guards were trying not to split their sides laughing.”

“Why didn’t he use his weapons after that?” asks Creslin.

“Because he can’t. He turns on one of the trade guild, and we’ll threaten to send everything to Kyphrien.”

“But Kyphrien is still part of Gallos,” Creslin points out.

“True enough, but the guards are paid out of the city’s trade levies. Would you want to explain to the prefect how you caused all the traders to leave Fenard?”

“Besides,” adds Hylin with a laugh like a barking dog, “the traders have been looking for a reason to make the trade center of Gallos in Kyphrien. It’s warmer, and the prefect is here.”

“Wouldn’t he just move?”

“It’s not that simple,” Hylin responds. “The foretellers have said for generations that Fenard shall not fall if the prefect holds the Great Keep.” Creslin raises his eyebrows.

“Ah, yes, it’s superstition,” interrupts the trader from the creaking cart. “But rulers have to follow superstition. What happens if Vaslek moves to Kyphrien? Then the peasants and the soldiers immediately believe that the city will fall, and they start looking for the worst. Their belief encourages some fortune-seeker to split off northern Gallos and live in the Great Keep, and before long, you’ve got a war and then some.”

“Just because of beliefs?” Creslin shakes his head. “Don’t laugh, young fellow,” rumbles the trader. “What about those women guards? They’re the deadliest fighters on either side of the Westhorns, and it’s at least in part because they believe in that damned Legend about the Fall from Heaven being caused by men.”

Creslin says nothing. Is the Legend enough reason for the Westwind guards’ success? Or is that just what other people say, while they ignore the precision and the training that create a guard?

The lowlands between the river and the walls bear the green haze of a recently planted crop, but there are no farmhouses, no fences. Creslin turns in the saddle to look back to the river, then smiles as he understands the city’s defenses. Doubtless there are hidden gates in the levees that would flood the lowlands, turning those fields nearly a kay wide into marsh and mud.

The hooves of the horses and mules clatter on the causeway leading to the outer city wall. Although the gates are massive and sit on steel hinges and pillars guarded by even more massive granite walls, only a pair of guards, and those high on the wall, oversee the actual entrance to the city.

“Let’s get to the Gilded Ram,” wheezes the trader. “Long day tomorrow. And you’ll get an education, western boy. Will you get an education!”

“Education?” Each question Creslin asks makes him feel less sophisticated, but there is so much he does not know.

“That’s Derrild’s way of saying that while the prefect may be rather distant, the women here can be very friendly.”

“They can be so friendly that they end up with everything you own and then some,” grouses the trader without looking at either of his hired guards. “Take the second wide street we come to. The Ram is on the left side, by a woodcrafting shop, before we get to the
Great Square
.”

Not understanding how he is supposed to take directions from places he will not even reach, Creslin throws his senses to the light spring breezes that swirl around him, trying to locate a great square.

A Great Square
there is, thronged with people and small merchants. But beyond and behind, or perhaps above and behind, Creslin also finds a mist, a reddish-white smokiness invisible to his eyes, that hangs over the city like an unseen pall, or fog. Even the lightest touch of that smokiness twists his stomach, and he is forced to withdraw into himself almost as soon as he has located the
Great Square
.

He sways in the saddle for an instant before his reflexes and training take over.

“You all right?”

“Yes.” Creslin wipes his forehead with the back of his sleeve. “It will pass.” Yet he wonders what it is about the city that bothers him, even after they are unsaddling in the stable behind the Gilded Ram.

Derrild appears from the inn with a grim look on his face. “Get those mules unloaded. That locker there!”

Hylin and Creslin exchange glances, but not words.

“You have to clean out the stalls before we leave in the morning,” announces Derrild while the two guards begin unloading the bags and transferring them into a solid red-oak locker encircled in black iron.

“We’re not stable hands,” snaps Hylin, halting with a bag in his arms.

“I know. It’s worth an extra day’s pay.”

“Just this time,” concedes the thin mercenary, handing the bag to Creslin, who stacks it in the rear corner of the locker.

“Agreed,” sighs the trader, and he begins to remove certain small packages from the cart and place them within his own pack. He looks at the locker and shakes his head. “They say it’s safe.” He shakes his head again. “Keep the glaze powder until the last.”

Hylin nods. “You want it tipped so that it falls if anyone else opens the locker?”

Derrild nods glumly. “Waste of good glaze powder, but what can you do? Robbers even here in Fenard. They’re all thieves.”

“They wouldn’t let you bring the stuff into the inn?”

“No. Some order of the prefect’s. I tried the Brass Goat across the way, but they said the same thing. Two inns caught fire last year. The idiots were carrying cammabark.”

Creslin looks up blankly, then staggers under a bag of heavy and lumpy objects Hylin thrusts at him. “Cammabark?”

“It’s a wet root that grows in the southern marshes. When it dries, it burns almost like demon-fire. Anyone with any sense carries it in wet canvas.” Derrild lugs bags from the cart to the locker.

In the background, a small boy is dragging a bale of hay through the stable doorway.

Derrild turns. “Boy! Which stalls are five, six, and seven?”

“Ser?” The boy straightens.

“Stalls five, six, and seven?”

“Those empty ones right before you, ser. See the numbers… on the beams up there?”

“Ah. I see. And what about some feed for our poor animals?”

“Soon as I get this in, I’ll be with you, ser.” He resumes dragging the bale, nearly as large as he is, toward the first stall, wherein resides a tall black stallion.

Creslin and Hylin finish with the pack mules and begin to help the trader in emptying the cart.

“They’re crowded, so we’ll be sharing the same room. I got two cots for you.” The trader grunts as he waddles toward the locker with a heavy bundle.

Creslin stacks two more leather bags near the front, then stops, for there is nothing else to place within the locker except for the two bags of glaze powder that Hylin moves, ever so gently, toward the narrow oak doorway.

“Right. Edge them here so we can catch them.” As Derrild speaks, he eases the locker door shut and places a heavy iron lock through the hasp loops.

“Now, you get the animals in the stalls and let me find that stable boy.” The heavy-set trader shoulders his pack, filled with the smaller bags he placed within it earlier, and trundles toward the front of the stable.

Creslin unties the gelding from the railing and leads him into the second stall, then returns for Hylin’s gray, since the stalls are doubles. The mercenary, in turn, has managed to get both pack mules into the third stall, leaving the first stall for the bigger cart mule.

“They promised feed, and we’ll have feed…”

Creslin ignores the trader as he racks the saddles and blankets.

“… here and now…”

“Ser…”

Hylin looks across the stall barrier and grins, shaking his head as the trader’s voice begins to echo off the stained plank walls.

By the time Creslin leaves the stall, closing it behind him, the stable boy, now muttering to himself, is filling the mangers while the trader watches.

“Let’s go eat,” Derrild says, looking from the stable boy to his guards.

“Sounds like a good idea,” answers Hylin, shouldering his pack. Creslin nods, leaving his pack slung half across his shoulder.

The Gilded Ram has one public room, smoky with burned grease and close with the odors of spilled ale and wine. Of the three empty tables, Hylin chooses one nearest the wall and sits facing the doorway. “Expecting trouble?” asks Creslin. “No. Not here. It’s a good idea to keep up the habits, no matter where you are. Besides, avoiding a fight is usually worth more than winning one.”

“That’s an odd comment from a hired guard.” Creslin adjusts his chair on the uneven, wide-plank floor.

“Smart comment,” grumbles Derrild. He turns to Creslin. “Your speaking’s gotten a whole lot better. Sometimes I hardly hear the accent.”

“You see,” adds Hylin, “anytime that you fight, you can get hurt. Or you could hurt or kill someone. In lots of towns,,you hurt a local, and they want to lock you up, or worse. So you don’t get paid, or you end up on a road crew, or hanging from a tree. When you’re in a town, you only fight when the alternatives are worse.” He gestures to the serving woman, thin and of an indeterminate age. “Some drinks here!”

“We have red wine, ale, mead, and redberry. What will it be?” The woman’s voice is simultaneously bored and tired.

“What’s redberry?” asks Creslin.

“
Berry
juice, red. Ladies’ drink, no alcohol.”

“Wine,” announces Derrild.

“Same here,” adds Hylin.

“Redberry,” says Creslin slowly. Whether he will like it or not, he scarcely knows, but his guts tell him that alcohol is not a good idea.

The serving woman looks again at the silver-haired young man, then catches sight of the sword and harness attached to the pack by his feet and nods. “Two wines and a redberry. How about dinner? Fowl pie or stew for two coppers, four coppers for a cutlet. Black bread with any of them.”

“Stew.”

“Stew.”

“Fowl pie.”

The serving woman again refrains from looking at Creslin. “Eleven coppers. Four each for you two with the wine, three for you.” She inclines her head toward Creslin.

Derrild drops a silver and a copper on the table, then covers them with a heavy fist.

“Just make sure they’re there when your stuff comes, trader.”

“Don’t worry, lass. Don’t worry.”

“I guess I can trust you, trader.”

Hylin manages not to grin until she has turned toward another table. “Such charm you have, Derrild.”

“At least someone trusts me,” snorts the trader.

Creslin glances around the room. His eyes sting from the greasy smoke, and he wishes he dared to summon the slightest of breezes, but with the sullen white vapor that infuses the city, he refrains. He blinks his eyes against the stinging. The tears help.

“Now, isn’t that some lady?” observes Hylin.