The White Road - Lynn Flewelling [37]
Rieser paused at a stall where a man was selling roasted chestnuts. "Who are these soldiers?" he asked.
The man gave him much the same look as the Tir back at that tavern had. "Why, the Skalan Red Hawk regiment, of course."
According to the man back at the tavern, this was a good thing. Encouraged, Rieser led his company down to the waterfront.
Boats were tied up beside the long wooden platforms, many of them little more than huge rafts, like the ones children played with on the lakes back home.
After some confusion he was directed to someone called the dock master. This turned out to be a friendly man with dishonest eyes whose palm had to be crossed with silver before he would take them to something called a "flat boat" that could carry their horses. Rieser paid the captain in gold for passage on one of the larger ones, what the master called a "barge."
For the next week they kept to themselves as much as possible, but it was difficult. The bargemen picked up other passengers along the way, and stopped to let others off. Some of these people felt it necessary to pester Nowen and the other women with unwanted attentions, and Rieser and the rest of them with pointless questions. Young Rane and his brother Thiren were excited and curious, and a few times Rieser was forced to act as their interpreter, but he soon made it clear that they were to keep to themselves.
They began to see signs of the war now. Some of the villages they passed had been burned, and dead sheep and horses floated at the river's edge.
"Who has done this?" he asked the barge captain.
"Damn Plenimarans, of course!" the man replied. "You're in Mycena now, and they've always been Skala's friend."
"What are they fighting about, these two lands?"
"This river, for one thing. Surely you've heard it called the Gold Road? What do you think we carry down from Boersby, eh? It ain't all Wolde cloth and apple wine."
"They don't have gold in the south?"
"Damn little of it, and they're not content with silver." He grinned and put a finger to the side of his nose. "But then, who is?"
This made sense. The mountains surrounding the North Star clan's fai'thast were rich with metals, and some gems and rock crystal, too.
Just then Rieser caught sight of a large camp in the distance on the western shore. There were hundreds of tents and shelters, and what looked to be twice that in horses and men.
"There's some of the Skalans, in winter camp," the captain told him. "A good thing for us, too. The Plenimarans raid our boats whenever they can when they're this far west."
"How do the Skalans feel about the Aurenfaie?"
The man gave him a surprised look. "You ought to know better than me, what with the 'faie trading with them for horses and all the rest."
Rieser cursed himself for breaking his own rule of talking too much. "We're from the south. I don't pay much attention to such things."
"Ah, well, that'll be why you don't sound like any 'faie I've met, then," the captain said, not looking entirely convinced. "As for the war, Skala still holds Nanta, so I won't have to put you ashore before that. At least that was the last news I had. By the Old Sailor, it can change in the blink of an eye! You'll do well to find a ship to make the crossing, rather than going overland. The two armies will start up again pretty soon and you wouldn't want to get caught in the middle of that, believe me."
"I thank you for this knowledge," Rieser said. For once, a talkative Tirfaie had proven useful.
There had been no question of Turmay playing the oo'lu during the voyage, or in the teeming city of Nanta, when they docked at last. None of them had seen a city of this size before, or a body of water as large as the Inside Sea, and the young ones drew smiles from passersby as they gawked.
The harbor was full of huge ships with red sails--Skalan warships, the captain said--and there were soldiers everywhere, wearing long tunics with different emblems