He noticed other things. The town was not so populous or so prosperous as it had first appeared. Many of the windows were boarded up, many of the doors too. In some places tiled roofs had collapsed, and entire tenements emitted a fusty, unlived in smell. There were the usual beggar swarms and many traders but not much of anybody else. It looked like a lot of people had left town. Given the tales of what Lord Ilmarec was up to, he supposed it was hardly surprising.
As the street reached the river, he noticed there were many bridges and hundreds of small boats. There were barges too, for transporting goods up and down the Mor. Most of them were harnessed to huge river wyrms. They splashed through the river like massive ships, sending ripples of waves behind them as they towed the enormous cargo vessels. The creatures were well trained, ducking their long, snakelike necks as they passed through the arches of the bridges.
“We’ll be heading downriver on those soon, I reckon,” said Weasel. He paused to light his pipe. He used a spill of wood, and a food vendor's brazier and he bought a sausage and some bread in return for the service.
“You think?” asked the Barbarian.
“Use that chunk of meat you call a brain,” said Weasel. “It’s the fastest way into the centre of the country, certainly the quickest way of moving supplies and reinforcements. That river is a wet road leading all the way to Halim, the capital, and then all the way down to the sea at Harven.”
The Barbarian considered this. “Never liked that place.”
“What place?” Rik asked.
“Harven. Passed through it when I first came from the Northlands. Lots of strange temples to the Sea Gods. Elder World demons in the water too. The Quan they were called. Strange things they were, half-man, half-squid. You could see them in the harbour sometimes. They say there is an underwater city full of them just out in the Gulf of Harven. I believe it. There were lights down there as our freighter came in. Sailors kept making elder signs, talked all the time about the Shipbreaker. Some huge demon that'd pull a galleon to the bottom. Take down a dragon in a gulp.” He paused and looked up at the Tower. Its tip vanished into the gathering clouds. Rik guessed there would be rain soon.
“I’m not very keen on Elder World demons,” the Barbarian said eventually.
“Who is?” Rik asked.
“I’m not very keen on those who consort with them either. I don’t know how these people can stand to live in the shadow of that thing. Bloody Serpent Men.”
“Hasn’t been a Serpent Man up there since the start of the New Age,” said Weasel.
“What was that bloody light we saw in the woods then?” the Barbarian asked.
The vendor looked at them. His face paled. It made his massive bushy black moustache look all the more prominent. “You say you saw a light in the woods?” he said.
The Barbarian nodded. “Aye, what of it?”
“Where?” the vendor said. His accent was so thick Rik had to concentrate to understand him.
“Near an abandoned mansion house near a ford, about six leagues south west of here.”
“Out near the old abandoned Abelen Manor?”
“Yes, maybe,” said Weasel. He looked at the man. “What’s so strange about seeing a light out there?”
“The place is haunted. Foresters saw ghosts in the woods near there. Ghosts from the Elder days. Some say they saw them up by the broken towers where the master used the green light too.”
Rik passed the man some money for a sausage. He seemed keen to talk now, and scared. “You say Lord Ilmarec has been using green light.”
“Aye- he’s only doing so to protect his holdings now that civil war has come, but I agree with your big Northern friend there. I don’t hold with Elder World sorcery. It does no good meddling with such things. No good at all.”
“I’m sure Lord Ilmarec knows better than us,” said Weasel.
The vendor touched the wooden elder sign on his breast, then moved his fingers to inscribe its outline on the air. “You’re probably right, sir. You’re probably right but some very strange things has been happening of late and the ghosts of the elder snakes is not the least of it.”
“No?” said Weasel, leading the man on.
“Lock yourself up after dark,” said the trader. He spoke the words with the hint of satisfaction that some people get from imparting bad news.
“Why?”
“People are going missing.”
“Certainly looks that way,” said Rik. “I saw a lot of empty houses as we walked down here.”
The vendor laughed nervously. “Those houses most likely belong to people who left town when Lord Ilmarec started calling on the green light and the runes on the Tower side started to glow. Lot of folk were afraid of it, and the coming war, so they headed out into the country.”
“You said people were going missing though,” said Rik.
“They are. Men walk out of a tavern at night and are never seen again. Never make it to their home or business.”
“Maybe they fell in the river,” said Weasel reasonably. “Man gets drunk, gets to thinking how hard life is, sometimes dark water can be very appealing.”
“A lot of folk have suddenly found life very trying then,” said the vendor. “And some of them seemed happy enough with their lives. Young Pavel’s wife just bore their first baby and he was pleased as punch.”
“What do you think is happening then?” asked Rik.
“Don’t know,” he said, “but it started after those easterners arrived a week or so ago.”
“Did it now? You reckon they are up to some mischief.”
“It would not surprise me,” said the vendor. “Slavery most likely. Easterners use humans as slaves on their estates.”
Rik thought of the superb Lord Jaderac. It was hard to picture such a Terrarch having a sideline in kidnapping drunks from a tavern as part of the slave trade. Maybe this was all just a story. Kharadrean humans did not like the Sardeans and with good reason. They lived in fear of their giant neighbour spreading its rule to their own land for a very long time.
“They might be using them for dark sorcery,” said Weasel with a wink to Rik that the vendor was in no position to see. It would not do any harm to start blackening Jaderac’s reputation, Rik supposed.
“I would not put it past them,” said the vendor with a shudder. “You said you saw a ghost in the woods,” he said, obviously wanting to change the subject.
“We saw one,” said the Barbarian. “Glowing in the dark it was.”
“You saw one? For sure? Up close?”
“Close as we two are now,” said the Barbarian exaggerating somewhat. He proceeded into a meandering version of their encounter that seemingly held the vendor enthralled. Rik knew that a new chapter would be added to the local tales of the Serpent Men before this day was out.
He gave his attention to the small ships on the river. They were of all kinds from small taxi boats poled by their owners, to sailboats belonging to merchants. It was the massive river wyrms that fascinated him. They towed rafts even in the deepest parts of the flow, their bodies half out of the water, and their long serpentine necks towering almost the height of a house. Rik had heard that these wyrms were the largest of their kind, and needed the water to help support their huge weight. Seeing them he believed it.
Massive as they were though, the Tower made them look small. Its cold shadow covered the town, hinting at the presence of Elder horrors within. Rik told himself it was just his imagination, but he could not help but feel intimidated by the sheer size and scale of the alien structure.
The Barbarian finished his boasting as a fine drizzle began to fall.
“Time for beer,” said Weasel. “Time to get out of this rain.”
“I’ll drink to that,” said the Barbarian. “Although in the northlands we would not call this rain.”