Scion of Cyador

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.

“Once we get closer, I’ll give more orders, but, remember, we want to take the harbor and the warehouses first.”

“Yes, ser.”

Lorn looks at the scouts. “You need to head back out and see if there are any armsmen or barbarians forming up to attack-or defend.”

As the scouts ride off, Lorn still wonders at the lack of resistance. Or will the Jeranyi wait until he has almost returned to Inividra, without firelance charges, before they mount a final attack? He shrugs to himself.

Roughly a kay later, the road sweeps upward perhaps twenty cubits over the distance of half a kay and northward. At the top of the low rise, the harbor and Northern Ocean stretch out before Lorn, with the city’s buildings and dwellings set on an incline to his right, and the warehouse and harbor directly before the riders. To the left, the river widens so that it is difficult to tell exactly where the river ends and the harbor begins

Less than a kay ahead is the first section of the stone riprap of the seawall, and there two redstone pillars flank the road. The pillars are without gates or a gatehouse. Riding up the incline from the seawall are the two scouts, moving at almost a gallop.

As Lorn starts down the incline toward the approaching scouts, he can feel the wind shift from barely a flutter to a strong breeze out of the northwest, bearing the scent of salt air and the less appetizing odor of dead fish. He glances upward, but the sky remains hazy, a white film covering the clear green-blue that he had seen earlier in the morning.

The scouts ride in beside Lorn and begin to report, even without waiting for an order. “Armsmen ahead, ser. Maybe twoscore-with boards and blades.”

“How far?”

“A kay, mayhap, beyond the pillars, but afore the warehouses, it looks to be.”

“Shields? What kind?”

“Sort of look like Mirror Shields.”

Lorn glances at Rhalyt. “Send a messenger to have the captains join me here again for a few moments. We aren’t stopping.”

“Yes, ser.” The undercaptain turns and relays the message.

Lorn studies the road and the harbor. While he cannot be sure, there appear to be two vessels still tied up at the long spindly pier that juts well out into the harbor. There are carts and people jostling toward the pier, and a reddish block of figures that must be the armsmen the scouts have reported. The sub-majer keeps riding.

Emsahl and Cheryk arrive first. Then come Esfayl and Gyraet, and finally, once more, Quytyl.

They are less than a hundred cubits from the redstone pillars when Lorn begins to talk. “There’s a company or more of armsmen trying to block us from the harbor. They’ve got polished mirror shields and armor. Who has the most firelances working?”

“We do, I think,” ventures Cheryk.

“I’d like you to take the lead. Have your men aim the firelances for the mounts. Bring them down quickly. I’m going to take First Company and Second Company and get behind them if we can.” Lorn glances toward Esfayl, then Rhalyt. “You ready for that?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Fourth Company to the fore! Fourth Company to the fore!” Cheryk’s deep voice rises over the sound of hoofs and mounts and lancers murmuring.

Lorn turns to Rhalyt and Esfayl. “Once we pass the pillars, move your men to the right shoulder. When I signal, have them follow me.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Gyraet and Emsahl…you support Cheryk.”

“Yes, ser,” reply the other two captains.

Lorn eases the gelding to the right to pass through the stone pillars. To his left is a long line of rose-thorns covering a brick wall of almost five cubits. Behind the wall is a short open space, and behind that, the brick-walled backs of older buildings, few with windows, some shuttered, others boarded.

As the Mirror Lancers ride toward the harbor wharfs and warehouses ahead, along the uneven cobblestones that have replaced the dirt and clay of the roadbed beyond the pillar gates, the echoes of their mounts’ hoofs clatter into the pale midday. The high thin clouds of morning have thickened just enough more to blunt the sun’s light into a bright haze.

Ahead is a line of armsmen, mounted, and three-deep. As the scouts have reported, each wears a breastplate, armored gauntlets, and a crimson tunic. All bear shimmering mirror shields and iron blades longer than sabres, but shorter than the massive barbarian blades.

“Lancers!” calls a voice. “You let the merchants depart, and we’ll leave the city to you!”

“You surrender and let us have the merchants, and the ships, and we’ll spare you!” Lorn counters.

“Prepare to die!” calls back the voice.

Lorn turns to the senior captains. “Cheryk! Remember! Use the firelances we have left on the mounts! Bring them down!”

“Fourth Company! Prepare to discharge firelances. Aim at the mounts! At the mounts!”

As Cheryk orders his men, and Gyraet and Quytyl move up their lancers, beyond the massed armsmen, along the wharf, Lorn can see figures scurrying out of one of the warehouses. “First Company! Second Company! Follow me!” He turns the white gelding back along the first lane to the north, past the side of what appears to be a tannery, away from the barrels and the stench, and he wonders why the Jeranyi ever allowed a tannery in the city itself. Beyond the tannery, he turns the gelding westward on the empty street, half mud and half ancient cobblestones, past a large cooper’s shop, and then past a building that is but half-built.

Some five hundred cubits farther westward, almost to where the street ends in a brick wall, he finds a side lane, between a cabinet-maker’s and an unmarked structure, and rides through it. As the gelding quick-trots out of the alleylike lane, a gray-haired woman dashes to escape, but the gelding knocks her to one side. Lorn hopes she can get clear of the riders that follow.

He turns the gelding to his right, toward the first of the warehouses and the long and angled pier beyond that which he has seen so often in his chaos-glass. Figures are moving, some running toward the pier and the ship beyond. The three-masted ship at the end of the pier is red-hulled-Hamorian.

“Rhalyt-take the second squad and block the pier-don’t let anyone on it-if you can. Keep anyone from boarding that ship! First squad, stand by me!”

As Rhalyt rides up with the first squad of first company, the undercaptain starts to separate out the second squad, and Lorn quickly surveys the seawall and the harbor. A blue-hulled vessel has left the pier and, in the darker water beyond the immediate harbor, spread its sails.

Lorn waits until he sees the first part of Second Company. “Esfayl, attack the armsmen from the rear!”

“The armsmen from the rear. Second Company!” orders Esfayl, turning his mount back toward the battle.

“First Company, first squad!” Lorn rides toward the pier and toward the end warehouse where a figure in gray runs with a torch toward the building. Lorn lifts the firelance, and triggers it. The man who had been running toward the warehouse with the torch, pitches forward into the clay, and the torch drops on the cobblestones.

Lorn keeps riding toward the pier, his squad almost up to Rhalyt’s as they pass the end warehouse. Behind him, he hears shouts, the hsst of firelances, and the sound of metal on metal.

“Frig! Bastards are behind us!” yells someone.

“Quarter! Quarter!”

“No quarter! No quarter!” Lorn yells, turning and trying to send his voice back toward the pitched fight. “They’ll be sending blades to kill you in a year! No quarter!”

He hopes his words are heeded, but he rides toward the merchant or factor running beside a heavy-laden handcart filled with wooden footchests. The cart and merchant have almost reached the foot of the pier, when the bearded man looks back. The factor or trader-in a gold-trimmed crimson tunic-then begins to sprint toward the pier, leaving the handcart. Two guards scramble after him.

The two porters in gray abandon the cart and scramble off the cobblestones of the wharf road toward the gap in the brick wall beside the last warehouse. For the first time, Lorn spurs the gelding, and the white responds, his hoofs clattering on the stones.

Lorn lifts the firelance, aiming it toward the fleeing merchant.

One of the guards stops and turns, then lifts his big blade. He sees the firelance and jumps off the side of the seawall into waist-deep water. The second guard sprints onto the single long pier, past the slower and heavier merchant, his legs pumping as he dashes around abandoned handcarts and shoves an older man in maroon into a bollard. The man totters, then plummets into the gray water of the harbor.

Lorn triggers the firelance. Hssst! The bolt strikes the wooden planks of the pier seaward of the merchant. “Trader! Halt or die!”

The trader looks to the end of the pier, where his former guard jumps across the widening gap between the Hamorian ship and the pier, grabbing a dangling line which has been cut, for the other end of the line dangles from the last bollard on the pier. Then the trader stops and shrugs, helplessly, lifting his arms.

Lorn watches for a moment, then shakes his head. He can do nothing about the trading vessels that have escaped. Slowly as the last ship pulls away from the end of the long and narrow pier, it will be beyond the range of his firelance by the time he can reach the pier’s end. He can only hope that what he needs is among the abandoned bags, bales, and handcarts on the pier, and the street that borders the pier and seawall. He turns the gelding.

“Rhalyt! Take the pier, and make sure that no one makes off with any of the bags or carts! And guard that trader in crimson. Don’t let him escape or kill himself.”

“Yes, ser.”

Lorn turns the gelding, and the first squad follows him as he rides back toward where the armsmen and the lancers had been fighting. He winces as he sees the number of mounts lying across the street. As he nears, the last armsman in crimson falls to an attack of three lancers.

Lorn reins up, looking around. Except for the dead Hamorian armsmen, all those remaining at the eastern end of the street flanking the seawall are Cyadoran lancers.

Cheryk rides forward. “Lost near-on a halfscore, ser. They were better than any we’ve faced.”

Lorn nods. “I’m sorry. But we couldn’t leave them here to provide a guard for more shipments of blades.”

“No, ser. Not after all we’ve done.”

Esfayl eases his mount toward Lorn. “Ser?”

“Are your men in order?”

“Yes, ser.”

“I’d like you to find as much lamp oil as you can,” Lorn orders. “Around here, if you can. Bring some of it to the long pier out there, and some to the warehouses.”

Esfayl raises his eyebrows.

“We’re going to burn the piers before we leave.” Lorn mouth twists into the smile he dislikes. “It’s harder to land blades if you have to bring them in by boat. And the warehouses, once we take anything we need.”

Gyraet rides up. “We’re going through the nearer warehouse, ser. Spidlarian, looks like.”

“See what you can find, quickly, and records, if you can.” Lorn looks back at Emsahl. “Can you and Fifth Company stand guard while we do what has to be done?”

“Yes, ser.”

“We’ll try to be quick.”

Lorn rides back along the seawall. In a way, he feels ineffectual, for it seems as though all he has done is ride back and forth.

Rhalyt’s lancers are escorting a bearded figure in crimson from the foot of the pier toward the front of the last warehouse, a three-story timber structure that still flies the ensign of Hamor. The trader’s hands are bound behind him, and there is a slash across his cheek.

“We got him, ser, and some others who might be traders.”

“Hold him there, and don’t let him near the warehouse.” Lorn rides toward the foot of the pier, and the abandoned handcart filled with footchests, where he dismounts, absently handing the gelding’s reins to the nearest lancer. He steps to the handcart, and the chests, then notes the heavy leather bags beneath the footchests. He leans forward and manages to wrench one free. The weight and sound of coins confirm his suspicions. He motions to Rhalyt, who has remained mounted.

“Ser?”

“We’ll need a guard here. Several.”

Lorn looks back at the four chests, then lifts the top one and opens it, running through the papers. He shakes his head. They will need a wagon. It will take more time than he dares take in Jera to sort through the records.

“Rhalyt,” he calls again. “We need to find a wagon to carry this, and any supplies we can use. See if you can have one of the squad leaders round up one and some team horses.”

Rhalyt nods.

Lorn remounts the gelding and looks out into the harbor, where the Hamorian trader has also spread its sails. He shakes his head again, then rides the short distance to the end warehouse, the Hamorian one. He dismounts and ties the gelding to a post by the door. Rhalyt also dismounts and follows him.

In the front room are open wooden cases, one is half-filled with long dark iron blades, coated with oil and wax. The other nine cases have not been opened.

Lorn counts the blades in the open case-over a score. “It looks like there are over twentyscore blades just here.”

Two lancers slip in, and Rhalyt motions to the door. “Best you check the rooms before the majer.”

The graying veteran nods and steps through the doorway. After several moments, he returns. “No one there, ser.”

Lorn and Rhalyt enter the storage section of the warehouse. Some of the racks are empty, but most of the goods have been left in the warehouse. Lorn sees bolts of cotton, amphorae which may contain olives or oils, barrels of dried fish, dried fruits, even some barrels of clay from Biehl.

“Ser!” Rhalyt gestures.

Lorn rejoins the undercaptain, before whom are two wooden cases, each lettered in a grayish greaselike paint: sabres, cup., 2 sc., Smdck.

“Fourscore lancer-type sabres-made from cupridium,” Lorn says. “We’ll need to take these back. We’ll have to cart them and the other blades out front.”

Lorn steps back out from the storage area into the side room where his glass had shown that records had been kept, but the room is bare except for a flat table and a chair. Marks in the floor dust show where chests had been.

“Ser,” calls one of the lancers, “Captain Esfayl is here with a wagon.”

Lorn hurries out into the still-hazy afternoon sun. Two lancers stand by the bound trader, and beyond them, Esfayl is mounted beside a four-horse team. The large wagon behind the team carries eight huge barrels of lamp oil. Esfayl grins at Lorn. “We got the oil, ser.”

Lorn grins back, momentarily. “We’ll use six on the pier, and one each for the two large warehouses. There’s oil in this one, anyway. Have your men space the barrels evenly along the piers-one at the outermost end. Put a small hole in each and roll them in so that the oil spreads over the wood. Then, I’ll go out and set them afire.”

Esfayl nods.

“We’ll use the wagon for the blades and the coins and supplies-and the records we’ve gathered. Leave it here so Rhalyt’s men can load it.”

As the lancers begin to unload the barrels and roll them along the rough cobblestones toward the pier, Lorn turns to the Hamorian trader. “You seem to have a prosperous warehouse here-especially in blades.”

The Hamorian trader, his hands tied behind him, spits on the cobblestones. “You are a worthless piece of dung…a man whose mind is as narrow as the lance you carry.”

“If I didn’t need you to deliver a message…. you’d be dead,” Lorn says quietly. “I might burn off your right hand, though, if you aren’t silent.”

The trader closes his mouth, and his eyes radiate hate.

“Cyador doesn’t like Hamorian traders making golds off blades that kill its lancers.” Lorn fixes his eyes on the trader. “Think long about why we’re here. We’re going to leave you here. Someone will find you, I’m sure, and you can explain everything.”

The bearded trader looks down.

“Oh, I know you won’t explain it to the locals.” Lorn laughs. “They might cut your throat. But you’re going to have to explain it to your backers, and perhaps to the Emperor of Hamor.” He shrugs. “You might get away with not telling them…until the Majer-Commander of Mirror Lancers conveys the same message to the Hamorian traders in Cyad. He might even mention that you’d been told.” Lorn offers a nasty smile.

“I will convey your message, but you are but an impetuous young majer, and you will change nothing,” the trader says slowly. “Lancers come, and lancers go, and nothing changes.”

“I won’t change the hearts of traders,” Lorn admits. “You’ll always place a gold above a life…but I just might change where you trade for those golds.”

The bearded trader looks down.

“Tie up his legs and leave him on the edge of the seawall, out of the way. And have someone check all those bags, for golds or trading records.” Lorn walks to the gelding, where he pulls out the firelance. Then, carrying it carefully, he makes his way out to the end of the long and spindly pier…setting his boots carefully on the slippery wood. At the end, he looks out to the Northern Ocean, but both trading vessels have vanished into the limitless gray-blue expanse.

He turns and lowers the lance. Hssst! From the small firelance-bolt flames lick upward and across the wooden planks. Lorn walks back toward the shore. He uses the firelance nearly a halfscore of times, although much of the chaos comes from what he draws as a magus, and his head aches, and his eyes water by the time he steps off the end of the pier. The seaward end is already a raging blaze, and the sea breeze carries the heat inward.

“The warehouses…they’re ready,” Rhalyt calls. “We’ve also got the chests and bags in the wagon, and some dried meat and hard cheese-and the boxes of sabres. We can’t fit all those blades in the first wagon.”

“Let’s see if your squad leaders can find another.” Lorn tilts his head. “Did your men make sure they got oil on the wall timbers as well? And everyone’s out of the warehouse?”

“Yes, ser.”

After three firelance-bolts, one side of the warehouse is in flames, and the crackling orange flames and black smoke rise into the hazy afternoon sky.

Lorn has Rhalyt repeat the process with the warehouse of the Spidlarian traders.

Then he gathers the captains. “Now we’ll move toward the city square closest and up the hill. Bring torches. Keep saving the firelances. We’re going to burn anything else that will burn as we leave,” Lorn orders the captains. “I want it to be a long, long time before traders can make golds bringing blades here.”

He remounts the gelding and waits as the Mirror Lancers re-form, and as the three wagons that they have gathered are lined up. Behind him the flames mount-because the traders will stop at nothing to gain golds, and he has but one chance to halt their killing trade.