Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [31]
Now, they could see few wagons and fewer faces of the riders, either – both because of the clouds of dust, and because of the improvised cloth masks almost everyone wore over their faces, against that dust.
Shandril's eyes were already stinging as they finally left Scornubel behind, with its shouting traders and running, mud-clod-hurling boys, and gazed out on what would become a very familiar view, ahead of them: a wide vista of hills and mountains, distant and haze-shrouded off to the left, nigh the sea, and nearby and soaring to their right. Open wilderlands, of rolling hills and scrub forest, with a line of dust running ever ahead of them: the Trade Way, a-crawl with caravans.
The hills around them were alive with brigands and raiding bands of bugbears, ores, and goblins, the guards had delighted in telling every client riding with the caravan – and this was monster country, too.
It was a long way to Triel, the next settlement of any size on the road – and as they passed the ashes and tumbled stones of a few burned and long-abandoned steadings, Shandril could guess why. Anything that wasn't well-armed and on the move in this lawless lower end of the Sword Coast was a sitting target waiting to be plucked. Suddenly she was grateful for the dust and the din around her and pleased to be rolling and bouncing along in the midst of thirty-odd groaning wagons. 'Twas comforting, though she knew it shouldn't be: unlike some of the small, fast caravans of a dozen wagons or even half that many, they could outrun nothing and hide nowhere. All they could do was fight whatever came at them. If it used bows, and there were a lot of them around her right now, some of them possibly in the hands of folk who knew who she was and what she bore within her, she might not even be able to use spellfire against that "whatever" or whoever…
Shandril sighed, thrust aside such gloomy thoughts, and peered all around, through the dust, like a guard with any wits at all should.
Orthil was shouting at someone and waving one of those massive, corded arms, indicating that despite the heavy brush, his outriders should spread out to each side of the road and move ahead. Reluctantly two of the younger guards spurred their horses forward, and Voldovan promptly plucked a horn up from his belt – it remained fastened there, on long leather straps of its own, Shan noticed – and blew it, in a high, clear call.
Both of the outriders replied with horn-calls of their own – and when they were done, two more sounded from the rear.
Voldovan nodded and hooked his horn back into place. Shandril concluded that she'd be hearing those horns a lot during the days ahead. The caravan master's head was never still, she noticed. He seemed to spend most of his time peering at hilltops and gullies ahead and behind, but also from time to time he rode his huge horse through the caravan, glancing sharply here and there – almost as if he feared treachery as much among his clients as attacks from as-yet-unseen, lurking perils of the wilderland around them.
Excitement – nay, apprehension – was so strong in Shan as Scornubel disappeared in the rolling hills behind them that she could taste it and was almost sickened by it… but as the day wore on and the hot sun climbed the sky overhead, it faded into a wearying, lulling monotony of being, bruisingly jolted and nigh-deafened among the snorting, headtossing beasts and ever-swirling dust. She could see, now, why everything – even the crossbows she and Narm held – were tethered to ring-bolts on the wagons, for 'twas all too easy to nod off and let something fall… and all too dangerous to leap down from a wagon and try to snatch something in the dust, with the wagons moving steadily and ponderously along like a purposeful herd of so many rothe.
Highsun – or rather, the next stream of goodly size they came to after the sun was at its beating height – meant a rest for the beasts and the folk riding in the wagons but not for the guards. This stopping place had been used by countless