“Yes, ser.”
This time there were blades, but no records.
“Emsahl is firing the square, and the buildings around it will catch fire soon. Can you finish here quickly?” asks Lorn. “Use torches to fire the warehouses.”
Gyraet laughs. “We’re near finished already. Not that much here.”
“Good. Let me know when your company and Cheryk’s are ready to ride.”
Lorn turns his mount, back toward the town square. As he looks northward, in the direction of thin lines of black smoke and the fires that will rage before long, and toward the bridge he cannot see, the bridge that will lead to Jera, Lorn is not even sure they have taken Berlitos so much as killed some inept armsmen, ridden through the place, looted and burned a few warehouses and the center of the town and ridden on. He wonders whether he is making an enormous mistake in pushing on toward Jera.
Yet the weapons have to come from somewhere, and go to someone who can use them, and he has to stop the easy flow of blades. If he can.
He shakes his head.
LXVI
To the south of the bivouac, the River Jeryna runs smoothly, its now-deep waters dark in the twilight. Somewhere out in the camp, Lorn can hear the twirrrp…of another of the ubiquitous traitor birds scolding some lancer. A few spring insects chirp down by the river bank, and in the greenish purple sky, stars are beginning to appear.
Lorn opens his saddlebags, and his fingers slide over the cool surface of the silver-covered book of verse. Even in the warm evening, after a hot day’s ride, with the sun pounding down on the saddlebags, the book is cool. For a moment, his fingers rest on the cool surface, and he thinks of Ryalth-and Kerial.
A faint smile comes to his lips.
Then, with a long slow breath, he extracts the soap he will take down to the river, and closes the saddlebag. His eyes lift into the clear night sky, seeking stars he cannot identify, for there is no chart of which are-or were-the Rational Stars.
Had the ancient writer felt as Lorn did, looking back as the smoke and flames engulfed the forested town of Berlitos? Had that ancient wondered why he had to do what he did? Had he asked himself what difference his actions would make?
Lorn drops his eyes from the faint stars of twilight and laughs, a soft bitter sound, but loud enough for himself.
Of course the ancient writer had wondered. That is why so many of the verses are melancholy, why so many convey a sense of futility.
Lorn shakes his head. He can but do what he feels best, and he knows that blades coming from elsewhere to Jera are killing lancers for no good reason except to fuel and justify ancient hates-and perhaps to fatten the purses of traders who care little for the men whom their trades kill.
LXVII
In the morning light, the brown waters of the River Jeryna swirl through the bushes half-submerged at the water’s edge. Farther offshore, the currents occasionally show eddies and whirlpools that appear and disappear, but there is no white water on the lower reaches of the river, just a muddy expanse of brown a good two hundred kays wide and thirty deep. By looking along the river that flows to his left, Lorn can see touches of gray-blue on the horizon-the Northern Ocean.
If his maps and calculations are correct, they are within ten kays of Jera, and before long they should be seeing increasing numbers of steads and dwellings. He shifts his weight in the gelding’s saddle and glances back along the river road at the column of Mirror Lancers, then back at the road before him. A grassy swale drops away on the right side, then rises into a long grassy slope for grazing-but there are no sheep or cattle anywhere to be seen.
As Lorn rides around the sweeping curve that brings the road to the right and more northward, he sees another of the stone-and-rail fences to the right of the river road, but all is still as the Cyadoran column rides toward the fence and the buildings behind it.
“Another empty stead,” observes Gyraet, whose Sixth Company rides in the van with Lorn for the day. The captain inclines his head to the right toward the slab-timbered farm dwelling on the low slope north of the river road. There are three outbuildings of various sizes, but even the chicken shed seems to have been emptied.
Behind the buildings, the spreading trees, and the low slope are rolling hills, and then, perhaps five kays northward, the steeper but still-forested slopes that mark the boundary of the High Steppes.
“All of them have been empty for the last day,” Lorn replies.
Word of the Cyadoran force has spread throughout Jerans-or at least along the river. The dwellings near the road are all abandoned. Lorn can see thin lines of chimney smoke rising into the green-blue sky from those houses on more distant hillsides, but the scouts have reported that every holding is either empty or shuttered and barred. Yet the scouts have seen no evidence of regular armsmen or barbarians, nor any tracks in the lanes and roads.
Lorn stretches as best he can in the saddle and takes a deep breath.
Midmorning still finds Lorn and the Cyadorans on the river road, but Lorn can see a distant outline of several ships in the harbor and the gray-blue of the Northern Ocean beyond. The road has also carried them closer to the steep hills that border the port city to the north-and to a kaystone, whose inscription is clear enough: Jera, 5 k.
“Seems like the last five kays have been ten,” Gyraet says.
“Or fifteen,” Lorn says with a laugh. He glances ahead toward two figures in white riding around the curve of the road. “Send a messenger to summon the officers.” He and Gyraet keep riding, leading the column toward Jera along the dusty road that holds few tracks, and those mainly of heavy wagons.
Emsahl and Cheryk arrive within moments. Both glance at Lorn.
“We’ll keep riding until the scouts and the other officers arrive,” Lorn says.
Esfayl and Rhalyt are next, followed by Quytyl, who has barely reined his mount into a walk behind the more senior captains when the scouts ride in and turn their mounts to ride alongside Lorn and Gyraet.
“What did you find?” asks the sub-majer.
The gray-bearded older lancer speaks first. “Roads are clear, ser, like everyone’s fled. No tracks like armsmen or barbarians. More wagon tracks than we’ve seen before.”
“You think traders are trying to pack their goods and flee?”
“Could be…”
“What about the city?”
“Less smoke from the chimneys than you’d see most days,” answers the ginger-bearded scout. “Didn’t see no folk or mounts about, except around the wharfs-that was from the hill a couple kays from there, and it was hard to tell, but the port part seemed busy, ser.”
“No armsmen?” Lorn wants to be sure.
“None we saw.”
The sub-majer turns in the saddle. “This time we’re going straight for the ocean piers and the warehouses.” He glances across the faces of the captains. “We’ll worry about the city later.” At the puzzled expression that crosses Quytyl’s face, and Cheryk’s worried frown, he adds, “We’re after all the blades and the traders. They’re trying to escape. The city will still be there, but they may not.”
“And their records won’t be, either,” suggests Gyraet. “Sub-majers need things like records to take back to commanders who haven’t been in the field. Without proof, in a year, they’ll forget, and we’ll be facing more cupridium blades from Summerdock-with fewer firelance charges.”
Emsahl nods slowly.
“The river road runs straight to the piers, right along the river,” Lorn explains, “and once we get close, we’ll go to four-abreast. First Company, move up. You’ll follow me.” Lorn reflects that on this campaign he has effectively followed Dettaur’s directive, by alternating his own command between the First and Fifth Companies. Then, Dettaur will be furious when he discovers what Lorn has done-if Lorn survives to report his actions.