“Are those his trading records?”
“Look to be, ser.” Gyraet offers a grim smile. “If I read ’em right, some of the blades being used against us were forged in Summerdock.”
“We need to keep those,” Lorn says. “Very safe.”
“You ought to carry them-once we get the blades loaded and the stuff we want from the warehouses.”
“Which warehouse had the blades?”
“That one there-blades, some of those polished iron shields that’ll block a firelance, and those axes with hooks.” Gyraet gestures to the westernmost structure-smaller and older than the one from which the lancers are loading provisions.
“Make sure it’s burned to the ground,” Lorn says quietly, “both of them.”
“Aye, ser.”
“We shouldn’t be staying here too long.”
“What about the flatboat there?” asks Cheryk who rides out from behind the back of the warehouse.
“Burn it. Use the oils,” Lorn says. “Are you almost through here?”
“Yes, ser.”
“Set everything afire and join the other companies in the square. We’ll form up there, and ride out.” Lorn turns the gelding.
“…you hear that?…friggin’ traders in Summerdock…”
“…do anything for a gold…”
“…our blood…their golds…”
As Lorn rides toward the square, Rhalyt and his First Company following, again past houses with shutters fastened, and some few with doors flapping in the light wind, Lorn can sense a brief chill of a chaos-glass, which fades almost as quickly as it passes over him. The glass reminds him, once more, that his efforts to protect Cyador are going to cause more disruptions he had not foreseen, as if everything in Cyador and Candar is twined together in a web where the slightest tug on one side ripples the entire world.
Still, he wants to get out of Disfek and on the road toward Jera, for that is where he can do the most damage, and perhaps find the greatest support for what he feels, but cannot prove.
As he nears the square, he can hear the crackle of flames and see dark smoke beginning to rise into the sky, and the odor of burning wood and oils fills his nostrils. The Third and Fifth Companies are re-forming into four-abreast columns in a square empty except for bodies and lancers.
Lorn squares his shoulders. They have barely begun to do what must be accomplished, and more than a hundred kays still lie before them.
LXIV
Lorn sits on a flat section of a stone wall by the side of the river road, under an oak that has barely begun to show new spring leaves and whose winter leaves remain mostly gray. He reads through the sheets of paper and parchment and bills of lading that Gyraet had discovered in the river town of Disfek. He has to squint in the early twilight to make out some of the words and figures. A few insects chirp in the low grass sprouting from under the brown stalks left from the previous year, and the occasional twirrp of a traitor bird berating some lancer drifts to Lorn as he reads.
“Ten sabres from Bluyet House, Summerdock…” Lorn shakes his head. After his experiences with Flutak or Baryat the olive-grower, he cannot say he is totally surprised. Some traders and functionaries will clearly sell anyone or anything to make golds. He takes a deep breath, recalling the grower’s daughter, and wondering how many other innocents will die as a result of his efforts to make things right.
“Right as you see them,” he murmurs to himself, before checking the dates on the records. The sabres were purchased recently-well after Lorn left Biehl, and after the Emperor’s Merchanter Advisor was replaced, Lorn thinks, although he is not certain about when that had occurred.
“Ser?”
Lorn looks up to see Emsahl, Gyraet, and Cheryk standing in the road. “Yes? I wanted to read these…in case there was something in there about blade sales in other towns.”
“Ah, ser…” Gyraet begins. “I said I thought there were traders from Cyad selling blades to the barbarians…and…” The captain shrugs.
“These two good captains had their doubts?” asks Lorn.
“Yes, ser,” answers Emsahl.
Lorn flips back through the pages, then proffers a sheet to the senior captain. “This is the first. There are about five…so far. I’m not quite through them all.”
Emsahl reads slowly, then hands the sheet to Cheryk. He looks at Lorn. “I’d be asking whether we might be better heading back.”
“A line of retreat?” Lorn raises his eyebrows.
“No lancer company has been this deep into barbarian lands.”
“That’s true, and if we have to, we can cross the river and take the south side back. Right now that would be most unwise.”
“Unwise?” asks Emsahl.
Lorn smiles, almost bitterly. “Captain, surely you don’t think that a few blades like this mean anything? Any trader could make a mistake. Besides, what difference does a halfscore or even a score of blades make when there are so many barbarians?”
“Ser!” Then Emsahl catches himself.
“That is what I’d be told right now if we returned,” Lorn says. “A halfscore of blades forged in Summerdock mean nothing.”
“He’s right,” Gyraet says. “They don’t care if we lose another score of lancers because there aren’t enough firelance recharges. Why would a halfscore of sabres forged in Summerdock change anything?”
“You knew this, ser?” asks Emsahl.
“I had a good idea. All the barbarians we killed east of Biehl had Hamorian blades, but they were new, and the traders were telling me everyone was trading blades in Jera. I’d seen a few Brystan sabres earlier, and I thought there would probably be others.” Lorn stands and shrugs, taking back the sheet from Cheryk after the older captain reads it. “Tales don’t mean much to lancer headquarters. The only thing they accepted was fifteenscore blades in the strongroom of the compound, attested to by two enumerators.”
“So…we’re hunting blades as well as Jeranyi, ser?” asks Emsahl.
“Both,” replies Lorn wearily. “Both.”
LXV
Although a cool breeze blows out of the north, the morning sun that foreshadows summer beats down onto Lorn’s back and neck, heating his whole body, and he continually blots his forehead and face as the Cyadoran force rides westward along the rutted river road toward the river town that the older maps had named as Berlitos. Since leaving the town of Disfek, they have swept through a handful of hamlets and smaller towns, but have found neither armsmen nor blades, and only a few score warriors, and they have been able to avoid using firelances, relying on torches and sabres.
Still, Lorn reflects, if they remove a few score warriors here and a few score there, before long, the Jeranyi will not be nearly so able or eager to invade Cyador.
The trees are far thicker now, particularly on the north side of the river where the Cyadoran force rides, and even farther north Lorn can see heavily wooded hills, with fields hewn from the forests. The fields do not show signs of sprouts, and even the roadside grasses are mostly brown, with few green shoots beneath. Because of all the trees and hedgerows even in the cleared fields, Lorn has sent out more scouts to assure they are not surprised, but the reports he receives have shown no signs of armed Jeranyi. The relative scarcity of people tends to confirm the idea that the Jeranyi do not attack Cyador from poverty or from having too many mouths and too little land, but for reasons unrelated to golds or food.
Ahead on the right shoulder is a kaystone-a large kaystone that Lorn can read from more than fifty cubits away: Berlitos, 10 k. From his maps, Berlitos is the only large town between his force and Jera-and it lies on the eastern triangle of land between the North and the South Branches of the River Jeryna.
“Must be a big town,” suggests Emsahl.
“The maps and the traders say almost fiftyscore,” Lorn says. “Some don’t live in the town, but nearby.”
“Could raise a force there-a large one.”