The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [42]
“Wise man,” rumbles Derrild as Hylin winks and leaves the table.
“Him or me?”
“You. Can’t buy love. Can’t even buy real sex.” Derrild raises his heavy arm. “Another wine, pretty woman!”
Creslin sips his redberry, pursing his lips. How much he has yet to learn.
“Another wine, pretty woman!”
XXV
ONE OF THE mules swerves and plods through the mud at the edge of the road.
“Gee . . . ah!” Hylin methodically herds the pack animal back onto the road. “Damned mud. Slows everything.”
“How much farther?” Creslin again glances at the rolling hills that will in a day or so, according to Hylin, lead them to the western edge of the Easthorns. The horizon is dark. Looking over his shoulder at the hills behind, he sees the orangish-pink glow that reminds him of the towers of the sunset, those incredible sunset clouds seen from the Roof of the World.
But there are no towers on the eastern plains of Gallos, just fields and hills and occasional orchards, interspersed with rain and mud. The afternoon has been clear and still, almost springlike steamy as the sun has heated the puddles and quagmires resulting from the morning downpour. Creslin has sweated most of the afternoon, and his tunic is as loose as he can get it, though he must brush away the gnats and flies even more often.
Hylin and Derrild still wear their jackets.
Whhhhnnnn . . .
Smaackk.
Creslin removes from his forearm the pulped remains of the mosquito that has plagued him for more than a kay in the still and humid air.
Whhnnnn . . .
Should he call up the slightest of breezes now that they are well away from the white presence around Fenard?
Smmackk!
Whhhnnnn . . .
“Shit,” he mutters. No one had talked about the mosquitos when they mentioned the fertile plains of Gallos or the eastern lands. Nor the flies. Nor the stink of the back alleys of both the cities and the towns.
Whhnnnn . . .
A flicker of white catches his eye, and he turns toward the southern sky, but the bird, if it is a bird, has vanished.
Whhhnnn . . .
Smacckk!
Wwhhnnn . . .
“Don’t like the little buggers? They sure seem to like you,” Hylin observes.
Smmackk!
His exposed neck is sore, but the mosquito population of the Gallosian plains is one fewer. “How much farther?”
“Another couple of kays. Just far enough that it will be dark when we get there.” Hylin’s voice is dry.
“Be good to stand up,” rumbles the trader from the cart. “You two don’t have to sit on hard wood.”
Hylin looks at Creslin. Both have remarked upon the thick cushion that insulates the trader from the seat about which he is continually complaining.
Whhnnnnnn . . .
“How far is this place?”
“That might be the kaystone ahead . . . if we’re lucky.”
The orange-pink glow has faded, and the oblong stone is a light gray against the darker gray of a fast-falling twilight by the time Creslin reins up the gelding to make out the characters.
“Perndor. It says three kays. Is that where we’re headed?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“You think so?”
Whnnnnnn . . .
“He’s giving you the knife, youngster.”
Hylin grins, despite Derrild’s explanation.
Smaacckkk . . . Creslin sways in the saddle, off balance after his attempt at the latest attacker. Then he flicks the reins.
Squuusshhh . . . squuushhh. Mud flies from the gelding’s hooves as he carries Creslin back onto the highway’s stones, mud-coated but far firmer than the clay shoulders of the road.
“Shouldn’t be that much farther.”
Whhnnnn . . .
The silver-haired youth—sweat dripping down the inside of his shirt and insect welts rising on his neck—sighs. Before too much longer, they come to another gray stone, which says simply, “Perndor.” A tumbledown hovel looms off the road behind an equally decrepit railed fence.
The stones of the highway vanish, to be replaced with local clay . . . and worse. While the rain has long since stopped, the road remains filled with mud and water.
Creslin continues to sweat, even in the gloom of the cool twilight that is fast becoming night. He dare not shift the winds to cool himself or to keep the insects away, not with the skeptical