“Torlin's right,” Rylan agreed. He was one of the few Defenders in the squad - solid and dependable. “The Kariens are foraging their way south. They'll strip Medalon clean. There won't be anything left to trade by the time they've passed through.”
Ulran nodded his reluctant agreement. “I suppose. It just seems a pity to destroy a perfectly good ferry, that's all.”
“Well, if you're feeling so noble, Ulran, you can come back and build them a new one after the war,” Harben suggested with a grin. Harben worried Tarja a little. His enthusiasm for destruction was matched only by his refusal to take anything seriously. He reminded Tarja a little of Damin Wolfblade.
“I've a feeling we'll all be in our dotage before that day comes,” Ulran retorted, then turned back to Tarja. “So, we burn the ferry. How?”
As if in answer to his question, the night was lit by jagged lightning, accompanied by the rattle of thunder. The rain began to fall even more heavily, pounding on the battered shingles of the boathouse so hard that Tarja could barely hear himself think. He looked up, shook his head and looked back at his men.
“I was hoping one of you would have a bright idea.”
The wounded Fardohnyan that Mandah was so concerned for died not long after midnight. By dawn the following day the rain had not let up, but Tarja could not afford to delay, so they hastily buried the dead soldier in the soft ground, packed up their makeshift camp and rode on. After a lengthy conversation with Filip in Karien, it was decided that the Guard would wait on the south side of the town while Tarja and his men sank the ferry. The Fardohnyans would offer cover in case of pursuit and together they would head back to Testra and the ferry there once the job was done. Tarja's men had shaved and now wore Defender uniforms and Mandah sat astride her mare in Sisterhood blue. They were stiff with the cold and soaked to the skin by the time they split from the Fardohnyans and turned towards the northern river town.
Cauthside was normally a quiet town, but now it was filled with refugees fleeing the advancing Kariens. When Tarja had last seen it over two years ago, he was with the late Lord Pieter and his entourage. That fateful journey had led to most of the trouble he now found himself in, he thought sourly. The town had been preparing for the Founders' Day Parade. Streets he remembered decked out with blue bunting were now crowded with lost souls, waiting a chance at the ferry to get to relative safety on the other side of the river.
“Tarja, what will happen to these people?” Mandah asked as they dismounted and led their horses towards the landing through the press of bodies. “They'll be stranded once we've... you know.”
“It can't be helped,” he told her. “Better a few stranded souls on this side than the Kariens in control of the Citadel.”
“There's more than a few people here, Tarja. There must be thousands of them.”
Tarja nodded, but found himself rather unsympathetic to their plight. These were the camp followers who had ridden on the heels of the Defenders hoping for a profit from the war. He did not intend to feel guilty because things had not turned out as they planned.
“You can't help them, Mandah.”
She nodded reluctantly as a child of about eight or nine with large, sad grey eyes ran up alongside them, tugging hopefully on Mandah's blue sleeve. She was clutching a bedraggled, tan-coloured puppy to her chest and both of them were shivering.
“Are you here to save us, Sister?”
Mandah looked down and shook her head. “I'm sorry, child. I'll —”
Tarja grabbed her arm and pulled her away before she could say anything else, or offer to adopt the puppy, which was the sort of thing Mandah was liable to do when left to her own devices.
“You're supposed to be a Sister of the Blade.”
“That doesn't mean I have no compassion.”
“No, but it does mean you keep your damned head down,” he reminded her. “We've a job to do, Mandah. You've already adopted a score of lost Fardohnyans. You'll have to save orphans and stray dogs some other time.”
“But —” she protested indignantly.
“That's an order,” he told her harshly as he shouldered his way through the crowd. “Now do as I say. Keep your head down and don't make eye contact with anyone... or anything.”
“You're a heartless fiend, Tarja,” she hissed as she followed the path he cut through the throng. “How can you just stand by and watch —”
“Mandah!” Ghari warned from behind, saving Tarja the need to scold her further. He glanced back at his men to make sure they were still behind him. The young woman glared at him but said nothing, obviously offended. They pushed on through the crowded streets and into the small town square, which had the look of a refugee camp. There were hundreds of tents set up, crowded close together, their pegs driven into the gaps in the cobblestones.
“This is madness,” he muttered, mostly to himself, as he surveyed the square. A drizzling rain had begun to fall again and the air was biting, even through his Defenders' cloak. He glanced over his shoulder and beckoned Ghari forward. The young rebel threw his reins to the man beside him and pushed his way between the horses to Tarja's side.
“What's wrong?”
“I don't know yet. You and the others stay here. Mandah and I will make our way down to the river and see what's happening. We'll never lead the horses through this.”
Ghari nodded and took their reins. Tarja took Mandah's arm and led her through the chaos, stepping over guy ropes, small children, washing lines and smoking cook fires that hissed defiantly at the rain that threatened to extinguish them. The landing was not far, but the closer they got, the thicker the crowd grew, until they reached a wall of densely packed bodies that no amount of pushing and shoving could penetrate.
Being taller than average, Tarja could see over the heads of the crowd. What he saw did not please him. The ferry was halfway across the river, loaded almost beyond capacity with passengers, sluggishly making its way against the current to the other side.
“What do you see?” Mandah asked, her view blocked by a solid wall of bodies.
“The ferry is making a crossing. It'll be hours before it returns and even then we'll have no hope of getting near it.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We'll have to fall back on my other plan.”
“What's your other plan?”
“I'll tell you as soon as I think of it,” he said with a frown.
By mid-afternoon the ferry had returned to Cauthside. Tarja waited with growing impatience as the barge made its way laboriously across the rain-swollen river under a sky as dark as tarnished silver. The crowd grew restless as it neared the bank, surging forward as the refugees tried to push to the front of the line. Short of taking to the crowd with swords and cutting their way through (and even then he wasn't certain that would work), there was no way they could get near the landing.
More frustrated than angry, Tarja pushed his way through the mob and walked back to where Mandah and the others waited under the eaves of the local inn. His expression told them what they wanted to know, even before he got close enough to speak.
“So, how do we get near the ferry?” Ghari asked.
“We don't. We'll have to think of something else.”
“If we had a ballista, we could set it alight with burning pitch,” Rylan suggested.
“A ballista?” Harben asked. “And to think I had one in my pocket and left it behind because I didn't think we'd need it!”
Tarja frowned at the young man's flippancy. “If you can't offer anything useful, Harben, be quiet.”