The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [54]
Feeling eyes upon him, he glances overhead but sees no white birds flying, nor any other bird.
The guards ride mechanically, and the wagons creak eastward on the hard granite, rolling solidly toward the white city, bearing sacks and boxes of who knows what from who knows where. In time, the guard named Pitlick rides up and suggests they trade places. Creslin then rides behind the wagons, still feeling the eyes of an unseen watcher, or watchers, upon him.
XXX
MUCH AS THE wagons rolled onto the wizards’ road and past the toll station, they roll off. Except that this time there is a paved road, also of smoothed granite blocks, leading at right angles to the main highway.
Gerhard is talking to the toll collector, another of the guards dressed in white and wearing white armor. Whatever the trader has said, the collector appears interested, nodding his head before waving the merchant on.
Creslin looks at the gentle slope upward. Beside the road grows only a thin, crawling grass, not even bushes or low trees—just grass, reaching halfway up the slopes of the hills.
The road-building is something that Creslin still fails to understand. Why does the road tend to be slightly lower, straight and fine as it is, rather than higher than the ground around it? But the builders have taken the runoff problem into account, as shown by the continuous stone-lined drainage ditch on the right-hand side.
He frowns. The military uses of the road are obvious. But why build a road where an enemy could hide above it in some cases? He almost gathers the winds to cool him as he ponders, for they tend to blow above the road rather than upon it.
Then he nods. The wizards do not fear archers. They fear other wizards, those who can lash fire—presumably—at an exposed target. Even Creslin has trouble in directing the breezes onto the road.
Still, he suspects that either Heldra or Aemris would have little difficulty in turning the road against its builders.
“Straight ahead,” Gerhard bellows. “The trade stop is straight ahead.”
Creslin nudges the dun mare in the direction indicated by the fat trader’s voice, letting the sun warm his back as he rides northward. In less than a kay, he reaches the top of a hill from where he can see before him tents of all colors and sorts, many of them patched with odd-shaped and off-colored cloth.
“Pitlick! Get on up there and scout out a site. You know what we need. Damned wizards. Rules . . .” Gerhard’s voice drops off.
Creslin tries to discern the meaning behind the mutterings, but there is neither meaning nor coherency.
“Zern!”
“Yes, ser!” The guard leader drops farther behind Creslin and matches pace with the trader’s wagon. He leans toward the trader as he rides.
“. . . once we get passes . . . Pitlick . . . location . . . pay off silverhead . . .”
“. . . before we set up?”
“. . . not until you get Turque . . .”
Creslin strains to pick up the words passing between the two men, but with the low pitch of their voices, and the squeaking and rumbling of the wagons, he is unsuccessful.
“. . . pay him . . . agreed, plus a silver as a bonus.”
“. . . a silver! I . . . we . . .”
“. . . you want to be in his boots, Zern?”
“. . . Turque . . . I wouldn’t bet—”
“. . . you want Turque . . . after you?”
“. . . all right . . .”
Creslin is not surprised, but wonders who or what Turque is. In the meantime, he rides the dun mare toward the tents, toward the dust and the noise of trade.
Zern eases his horse up beside Creslin and his mount.
“Why don’t we go straight to Fairhaven?” asks Creslin.
“We can’t. Only food gets traded in Fairhaven, unless you live there. They don’t like traders in the city.”
“You can’t even go into the city?”
“Didn’t say that, young fellow!” Zern’s booming laugh sounds hollow. “They’ll take your money. You’ll see. They don’t talk to outsiders,