“Well, it is, and the question is whether you fellows will hand over your golds and head back peaceably, or whether you end up in the quarries.”
“I thought the justicers or Lord West decided that,” Kharl said, even as he extended an order-probe to the rifle the undercaptain was pulling from its case. He began to untwist the order-locks in the iron.
″The lancers decide here, and I’ve decided-″
Kharl untwisted the last of the order-ties, then flung up a shield around his group.
Crrummmpttt! The blinding white glare and heat of chaos flared over the undercaptain and the ten suddenly hapless lancers.
Despite the shield, Kharl felt as though he had been thrust inside a furnace, then shaken. He just grabbed the rim of the saddle with his free hand and braced himself, trying to stay in the saddle as the chestnut jerked sideways. He managed to hold both his mount and the order shield until the tumult and chaos had dispersed.
Even so, a good tenth of a glass passed before Kharl’s eyes stopped watering, and he could see clearly. Except for an irregular patch of darkened gray stone in the center of the new road, and a number of fine cracks in the paving stones, there was no sign of the eleven lancers, except ashes as fine as mist drifting in the light breeze.
“Light-demons … burned’em to less’n ash …”
“Mean bastards … woulda shot us dead on the spot …”
Kharl had no doubts of that, or that the undercaptain had been ordered to act just that way.
“Now what?” asked Demyst.
“We keep riding. We still don′t know why they don′t want anyone here.” And Kharl wanted to get to Warrl before things got worse-if they hadn’t already.
“ … no sign of’em … nothing but a blackened patch on the road …” murmured Erdyl.
Neither guard answered his comments.
Kharl eased the chestnut forward at an easy walk. He had to keep blottinghis forehead. They covered another two kays before he began to cool off. When he began to feel light-headed, he took out some cheese and bread from the provisions in his saddlebag, an awkward task for him because he still wasn′t that good a rider. He ate slowly and drank almost half the water in his bottle.
The light-headedness departed, and as they continued southward, Kharl used his order-senses to study the road and the holdings. Occasionally, there were traces of chaos-wizardry, seemingly in places where stony outcrops or rises had been removed or lowered, but most of the road had been built without wizardry. Along the way, there was only a scattering of empty dwellings, and those were where the road had been built across the land belonging to that cottage or hut-at least from what Kharl could tell.
Still, no one anywhere close to the highway ventured out as they passed. Twice, a more distant peasant holder scurried into his hut when he saw the five riders.
The second time, Demyst cleared his throat. “Doesn’t look like they like riders, ser.”
“After the way those lancers tried to kill us, I’m sure that they don’t.”
″Don′t see why they were acting like brigands …″
“So that anyone who escaped would add to the stories about brigands dressed as lancers.” Kharl wondered exactly what Egen was hiding.
Another glass passed. They saw no one else on the new highway, and the gray stone pavement still stretched before them, arrowing southward. They continued riding, and Kharl kept looking, trying to sense the lancers he knew had to be somewhere ahead. Yet he sensed nothing but the remnants of older chaos.
Just before midmorning, on the east side of the road, Kharl saw the burned remnants of a cot that looked familiar. He thought it might have been the one where he had persuaded the elderly woman who lived there to feed him.
“The well here should be good,” he said to the others, riding though the open side gate.
Demyst glanced at Kharl.
“There’s no one here.” The mage reined up short of the well.
“Eerie,” murmured Erdyl. “There’s no one in these cots real close to the road, none of them. This is the first one that’s burned, though. What happened, do you think?”
“They didn’t want to give up their land, or part of it, to Lord West’sroad.” Kharl dismounted and tied the gelding to the dead limb of a tree that had been charred by the fire and stood leafless between the burned cot and the well. He walked to the well. A bucket and rope still remained.
After drawing the water, he let his order-senses check it, but he could detect no chaos-natural or wizardly-in the water. “It’s good.”
“Mounts could use water. So could I,” said Demyst.
After watering their horses and letting them rest for a half glass or so, Kharl and the others remounted. As he rode on, Kharl’s stomach grew tighter and tighter. While there were no more burned cots, and only a handful of empty cots and pastures, with untended fields that lay fallow, they saw no more holders outside. At times, Kharl could see others in the distance, and carts and wagons on back lanes, but none on the gray stone highway.
A good glass before noon, Kharl could see, off to the west of the new gray stone road, a curving section of the old road-and the kaystone that announced Peachill.
“We’ll cross to the older track now.” He turned the chestnut and let his mount pick his way over the uneven ground until they reached the original road. Even the ruts were old and worn down by rain and weather. Merayni and Dowsyl’s orchards were off a lane on the west side of the road, short of the hamlet itself. The small hutlike cottage where he had asked directions was also a heap of charcoal, burned at least a season before.
As he guided the chestnut westward along the narrower lane, his eyes looked for the other cots and dwellings. He could see none, only another heap of burned ruins. His stomach clenched even more tightly.
“Ser …?”
“I need to see someone-if they’re here. If they’re not …” He forced a shrug.
“Doesn’t look like they left anyone here,” ventured Demyst. “Must have done something.”
Kharl could only hope that the destruction remained near the old road, as he rode westward on the lane. Dowsyl’s orchard and house were a good two kays from the road, with the dwelling and storage barns set amid the orchard, between the pearapples and the peach trees.
Less than a quarter kay farther westward, he came to another burned-out cot and barn. He swallowed, moistening his lips.
“ … worried, I think …”
“ … be worried, too … no one on the roads, empty cots, burned cots …”
Kharl glanced down the lane, toward the rolling hills to the west, hills covered with the full summer green of broadleaf trees, mixed with the darker green of the pines and firs. Ahead, to his right was the old stone wall that marked the beginning of Dowsyl’s lands and orchards. The pearapples and the peaches were in full leaf, and he could see the gold of the peaches amid the green. His guts twisted as he rode closer. He could not see the thatched roof of the house above the stone wall, nor the roof of the barn in the space between pearapples and peaches. Dreading what he knew was beyond the wall, he eased the chestnut through the gateless opening in the stone wall.
At the other scenes of destruction, where the houses had been burned or just left deserted, there had been no indication of what had happened to the holders. At Dowsyl’s, that was not so. In the garden to the south of the charred ruins, six clear graves had been dug-and filled-heaped high with extra loam so as to leave no doubt that they were graves.
For a long time, Kharl just sat in the saddle and looked. He could sense that they were indeed graves, with the faintness of old death. The graves were not new. They could have been dug within eightdays of when he had last visited Warrl. Within eightdays. Eightdays … and Kharl had not even known. Had not sensed it, even.