Ayrlyn frowned.
“It takes time, good tools, and manpower to clear them. They’re not much good for anything, and some of the bigger ones you couldn’t budge with heavy industrial equipment. That means it’s a slow tedious business-”
“That could be. I don’t know.”
Nylan crumbled more of the hard cheese into little pieces, and tried to coax more of it into Weryl’s mouth. Without milk, trying to balance the nutrients for his son was hard, especially since fruits and vegetables weren’t in season.
“Have you ever wondered why we’re doing this?” Nylan mused. “Here we are, riding almost blindly into a country that was an enemy. If you look at it rationally, it verges on the insane.”
“Yes and no. Was it sane to stay in Westwind?” asked the healer.
“Probably not, given Ryba’s mindset.”
“Would you rather have gone east, into Gallos?”
Nylan grinned wryly. “No.”
“What other direction could we head? Or would you prefer to hide out in the mountains for the rest of what would be quite short lives?”
“When you put it that way, I feel a little better. A little.” Considering that he still hadn’t the faintest idea of what he really wanted to do, except…except what? Survival wasn’t anything except survival, and life had to be more than that. Didn’t it? He shook his head.
Weryl drooled out the last section of cheese, a whitish-yellow mess that oozed across Ayrlyn’s wrist.
“I think he’s had enough.” Ayrlyn eased the child onto the packed clay floor and unstopped a water bottle to wash the small mess from her wrist onto the hearth stones. A sizzle followed when some of the water touched a coal.
Nylan used a stick he had whittled clean to stir the stew, but kept his eyes on Weryl. “It’s still going to be a while. Maybe you could get out the lutar and sing something?”
“Later.” Ayrlyn glanced at Weryl, who was crawling rapidly toward the waystation’s door and the twilight outside. “Later.”
Nylan handed the stirring stick to Ayrlyn and hurried after his son.
XXX
By mid-afternoon of the next day, the two angels had ridden far enough north and west that hills had flattened more, and there were cots and even farms scattered here and there on both sides of the road.
Nylan absently wiggled his fingers in front of Weryl, and the boy grabbed his index finger. The smith tugged, just hard enough that Weryl could hang on for a time.
Nylan rubbed his chin, glad that he’d spent the time to shave away the stubble that had been approaching a beard and getting hot and sweaty in the afternoons. Ahead, the engineer could see a wagon drawn by a pair of horses headed in their direction.
“The road’s getting busier,” he said with a laugh, turning his head toward Ayrlyn, again wiggling his fingers for Weryl to wrestle with.
“It’s about time.”
As the wagon neared, Nylan and Ayrlyn eased their mounts, and the trailing gray, to the right side of the road, onto the shoulder where shorter stalks of green grass sprouted up underneath the dead grass of the previous year. The creaking of the battered wagon grew loud enough to silence the scattered calls of the ground birds in the meadow to the right of the road.
“Greetings,” Nylan offered pleasantly as the wagon drew abreast of the two angels.
The gray-haired driver glanced at the two without speaking, then looked away quickly, his eyes on the road before him.
“Pleasant sort,” Nylan said conversationally.
“You’ll find more than a few like that. They think we’re evil spirits or something.” Ayrlyn gestured ahead. “We should be coming to a town before long. It could be right past that hill. I remember there was a hill where the road curved just before we got there. It’s called Ginpa, or Hinpa, or something like that. After the town, the road follows the river almost straight north to Lornth. We didn’t go nearly that far when we were trading last year, because the towns get a lot closer together now.”
As they rode down the gentle grade toward the curve in the road, a gray stone no more than knee-high and partly obscured by grass appeared on the right side of the road. The kaystone read “HENSPA-3K.”
“I knew it was something like that,” said Ayrlyn.
“What’s it like?”
“They’re all alike. If they’re really small, you have one muddy street, or dusty if it’s been dry, and there are a few stores, usually a chandlery-that’s where you can find travel goods, leather, candles, sometimes cheese-a cooper’s, maybe a cabinetmaker. They’ll have a smithy farther out, and some have a mill by the water. The bigger towns sometimes have a square with an inn, and a public room. The food’s not too bad, but the rooms are pretty awful-bugs and worse. The smell gets worse in the bigger towns.”
“You make it sound so attractive.” Nylan looked down. Weryl had dozed off.
“They don’t have your fetish for proper sanitation-or building.”
“I wouldn’t quite call it a fetish.”
“Most of the guards would-except Huldran. She’s as bad as you.” Ayrlyn grinned. “I liked the semiwarm water, too.”
“Thanks.”
At the base of the hill were clustered several houses around a large barn and some outbuildings. One man guided a horse-drawn plow, turning back the dark soil in an even row. Two others seemed to be shearing black-faced sheep.
“I’ve never seen black-faced sheep before,” Nylan said.
“The Rats have them-even sheep that are totally black.”
“That seems odd, when they revere white and mirror reflections.” The engineer glanced down again, but Weryl continued to sleep.
“People aren’t nearly so logical as they’d like to believe.” Ayrlyn’s tone was dry. “Even the cold and logical Ryba can be illogical. Forcing you out of Westwind wasn’t the most logical thing to do.”
“That depends on what’s important, I suppose.”
A boy near the road, holding a scythe, looked at the two riders, dropped the scythe and ran down the lane toward the two who were shearing.
“I don’t like that,” said Nylan.
“Neither do I, but you’ll find it happens. Some of the older children have been fed tales about everything from our eating babies to causing ewes to abort their lambs-or worse. It was probably easier for Gerlich because he didn’t have flame hair or silver hair.”
“That’s not any more reassuring.”
As the road straightened on the other side of the hill, Nylan studied the town that lay ahead. Just a brown clay road leading to what appeared to be a small square. The houses were not stone, but some form of stucco, whitewashed, probably over mud bricks or something akin. The roofs were made of a dull clay tile, and many of the tiles appeared cracked or askew.
A short-haired, golden-brown dog appeared on the edge of the road, its tail stiff, almost pointing at the riders, but as they passed, Nylan detected the faintest wag.
A young woman, with a toddler tied to a rope wound around her waist, struggled to fold laundry on a crude outdoor trestle table on the sunny south side of a small hut. Chickens pecked nearly around her bare feet. The woman scarcely looked up at the two.
A black dog chained to a small hut yapped, and kept yapping.
Farther toward the center of the town, a partly bald white-haired man openly stared as they passed.
“Greetings,” offered Ayrlyn. She got no response, and no lessening of the stare.
“This place has a square, anyway.” Nylan eased the mare to a slow walk as they approached the center of the town.
The square was barely that, with a pedestal and a battered statue in the middle of the road, surrounded by a knee-high brick wall.
On one side of the road was a cooper’s. Nylan could tell that from the barrel hung over the open doorway. Beside the cooper’s was another shop, or something, which had no sign. Across from the unnamed shop was a larger building, bearing a sign that showed two crudely drawn crossed yellow candles. Beside the candle-signed building was a stable and beyond that an inn-or the equivalent-with a sign showing a black bull on a weathered grayish background.