Colors of Chaos

CXXXVI

THE THREE MAGES stood on the edge of the quay, looking out into the empty harbor of Diev. The cool breeze off the water cooled them but carried the odor of dead fish and other decay-possibly bodies washed under the piers.

“We need supplies,” said Anya. “Cerryl, send out a force to gather what we need.”

“We can’t pillage everything,” the younger mage noted.

“Why not?” Fydel asked. “They killed half our men. They don’t deserve any better.”

Cerryl refrained from noting that earlier Fydel hadn’t much worried about how many levies had died in taking Spidlar. “If we keep taking things, we’ll never govern this place. We wouldn’t keep seizing things from the farmers around Fairhaven.”

“This isn’t Fairhaven,” said Fydel. “Never will be.”

“Maybe we’d better think about making it so,” answered Cerryl quietly. “The other way hasn’t been working all that well lately.”

“That will be the noble Sterol’s decision, as you keep reminding me, dear Cerryl,” answered Anya in an overly sweet voice. “I do not care how you obtain provisions, but provisions we must have. You seem best fitted for it, and Fydel must organize patrols to keep order.”

“I’ll take care of it.” All Fydel knows about peacekeeping is how to kill peacebreakers.

“I am so sure you will, Cerryl. You always do.” Anya flashed her bright smile. “You always do.”

“Just do it,” added Fydel.

“We’ll need some of the golds we took from the traders in Spidlar.”

“You wouldn’t if you just took them,” pointed out Fydel.

“Where would we get provisions next eight-day?” asked Cerryl. “Or the one after that?”

“You can have some golds,” conceded the redhead.

“Thank you, Anya.” Cerryl nodded, then walked back along the quay toward the spot where Ferek and Hiser and their lancers waited. His eyes drifted to the harbor, where but a day before a ship had moved to the sea without sail, under the power of some device, some engine, developed by the smith.

Cerryl offered himself an ironic smile. If the smith but knew what change he had already wrought. That may be but the beginning. The smile faded into a frown as he neared the two subofficers.

“You don’t look too happy, ser,” observed Hiser.

“We get to find provisions-without pillaging and disrupting things,” Cerryl answered as he mounted. “So I suppose we’d better see if there are any traders left around.”

“Traders?”

“I’d rather have a local do the hard work. Besides, they probably know better where to find things-especially since we’ll be able to pay a little.”

“Where do we start?” asked Ferek.

“At that warehouse there.” Cerryl pointed toward a timbered building several hundred cubits to the west of the end of the quay.

When they rode up, Cerryl could tell the warehouse had been stripped. The door hung open, and the shutters had not even been closed. “We’ll try another.”

They tried almost a dozen. Of all the buildings that had held factors or traders, only the chandlery remained occupied, and a thin trail of smoke wound upward from the chimney.

Ferek gestured, and a lancer dismounted and pounded on the door. After a moment, the door, recently reinforced on the outside with heavy planks, opened a crack.

“Open for the mages of Fairhaven,” snapped Ferek.

A thin figure scuttled out under the overhang of the extended second story. “Sers…we have but little.”

“That’s what you all say,” said Ferek.

“Sers…true it is…true indeed.”

“You are the trader Willum?” asked Cerryl, reading the carved signboard.

“No, ser…”

“Where is he?”

“He…ser mage,” stammered the thin-faced figure, “he was killed by bandits more than a year ago. I was his clerk. I help his widow and young sons.”

Cerryl concealed a wince. He had no doubt who the bandits had been. He glanced toward Hiser. “Hiser, you and your men work with this fellow to round up whatever supplies are left. Have him keep track of them, and we’ll use his warehouse to store them.” Cerryl looked at the trembling clerk. “You work with us, and you and the widow and her children will be fine.”

“Yes, ser mage…yes, ser.”

“Thank you.” Cerryl nodded at Hiser, then turned to Ferek. “We need to check out the last two at the end of the short wharf there.”

Ferek remounted, and half the lancers followed as Cerryl rode through the summer heat toward the still water of the back harbor, not all that far from where the smith had launched his vessel.

The vessel was still at sea, for Cerryl could not find it in his glass and would not be able to do so, he suspected, until the smith ported, wherever that might be.

The sound of the lancers’ mounts echoed hollowly on the pavement, reminding Cerryl of just how deserted the city-or port town-had become. Was that what always happened in war?

He shrugged. He’d promised Leyladin to do what he had to do and say little, but he’d already said too much beyond that, he feared. His eyes landed on the warehouse ahead, apparently abandoned like the others. A long day…many long days to come.