Heritage of Cyador (saga of recluce Book 18) (62 page)

“What are the possibilities?”

“With this wind—it’s picked up a bit—we could sail directly east from here. We’d be almost a kay offshore. They might not come after us, and we could tack enough to get back to catch the river current that would give us enough speed that they couldn’t catch us. Or … we could head for the shoreline and try to creep in. That could cause a problem because we’d lose some of the wind, and we’d have to row back to catch the current.”

“Could you use the sail to get closer offshore once we near the harbor … if we sail due east?”

“We can, but when we’ve done that before, they send out their fast galleys.”

“We’ll have to chance that. I’ll need to be about half a kay offshore.”
Maybe closer.
After a moment, he asks. “Elphred … there seems to be something different about the piers at Estheld, but I don’t know enough to determine what it is.”

“They’re cheap. They’re all timber. Most of them were built five-six years ago. A real storm, or a few years, and most of them will fall apart, if you ask me. It’s not the best place for a harbor, either. Deep enough, but too open to the northwesters that hit in the winter.”

Of course!
They were built to last only a few years, possibly even for the invasion of Afrit.
And after that, Swartheld would serve Heldya and a conquered Afrit.
“Thank you. I knew there was something. Is there anything else I should know? Things so obvious to you that someone like me wouldn’t even think of?”

“They’ve got their warehouses too close together, and they’re all timber. You build like that, and you get too much spoilage, especially in a wet spell. They did put a set of piers near the river, though, just at the edge of where you lose the current. Makes it easy for their flatboats to dock and tie up there. Means more than two kays by wagon to the nearest deepwater pier, but you don’t risk losing the flatboats either.”

After Elphred retreats to the stern, where he alternates as steersman with another Afritan, Lerial again concentrates on studying the merchanters, if only for a short time, because he is still too far away to see or sense the details he needs to know.

Almost another glass passes before the sail-galley reaches a point due north of the westernmost dwellings and buildings of Estheld, but still west of the harbor piers. Elphred turns the sail-galley more to the southeast, and two of the men adjust the sail, angling it to the wind. The galley picks up a bit more speed, or so it seems to Lerial, from the light spray coming up over the bow.

Before long, Lerial can begin to sense more details of Estheld, rather than see them, because the large merchanters at the piers block much of his view of the warehouses and other buildings along the waterfront. The first, and most obvious, discovery is that there are two chaos-mages there, one clearly aboard a large merchanter tied at the end of the westernmost pier, the other somewhere ashore. At the same time, he still cannot tell much about what or who might be loading aboard the merchanters, although he can sense cold iron on the nearest vessel, a likely hint of weapons, but certainly not anything conclusive.

“Ser! There are two fast galleys headed our way … over there to the south. They’re twenty-oar boats.”

Lerial looks to where Elphred is pointing, and, unhappily, there are indeed two galleys moving toward them, each twice the size of the Afritan sail-galley. Knowing how much more difficult it is to use order or chaos over water—and the fact that he’ll need every bit of strength he has to deal with the real Heldyan problem—Lerial doesn’t even consider using order-chaos separation.
Not yet, anyway.
And since no chaos-mage is supplying chaos, that limits his choices. “We need to get closer. I’m going to conceal us. After everything goes black, turn more to port, and then keep moving on that heading. But have the men ready to row when I give the word.”

“Yes, ser.”

Lerial can sense a certain fatalism in Elphred’s voice, and while he’d like to reassure the galley master, he has his own doubts, especially since he’s trying to keep in mind his father’s advice about avoiding suicidal efforts. He raises the concealment … and listens to the murmurs from the Afritan crew, if only for a moment.

“… frigging … black…”

“… told us…”

“… said we’d be in less danger…”

“… mages … always danger…”

Lerial keeps the concealment as close to the sail-galley as possible while gauging the shift in heading and trying to determine if Elphred’s new course is widening the gap between them and the galleys while also trying to sense everything in the Estheld harbor.

The Heldyan galleys appear not to have changed course, while the Afritan sail-galley nears the piers, passing less than a hundred yards from yet another merchanter anchored off the harbor proper. Lerial can sense no troopers on the decks, suggesting that the merchanter is waiting for a berth at one of the piers.

Now Lerial can sense armsmen on one of the piers, shuffling up a gangplank and onto the main deck of a vessel. He shifts his sensing to another vessel, whose decks are crowded with men, that is preparing to cast off. After another tenth of a glass, from what Lerial can tell, there are indeed thousands of troopers in and around the Estheld harbor, either already on vessels, boarding them, or waiting to board them.

What can you do? What will stop all of them?

After several moments, the answer strikes him:
Fire … fire everywhere.
But how can he accomplish that without totally exhausting himself long before he has created a wide-enough conflagration?
Will small bits of order-chaos separation all across the merchanters and the warehouses near the harbor do that? But how can you do even that without exhausting yourself?
The only way for that to work is for the sail-galley to get much, much closer.

Even so, Lerial has his doubts about how much destruction he can cause.
But any delay and anything that reduces the number of armsmen headed to Afrit is far better than fighting them in Afrit.
He checks the position of the Heldyan galleys, but they have slowed, as if they are trying to determine where the sail-galley has gone. Next he tries to calculate how close they are to the outermost pier, and he thinks that they are less than half a kay away. He doesn’t want to be too close to the piers, but he also doesn’t want to have to strain too much.

So he sits in the bow, order-sensing and waiting, before realizing that one of the Heldyan galleys has shifted its course and is directly behind the sail-galley, if a good third of a kay back. How could that be, with the concealment?
Following your wake, of course.

“Where are we, ser?” calls out Elphred.

“Less than half a kay north of the middle of the piers. Hold this course for just a bit.”

“Aye, ser.” Elphred definitely sounds worried and unhappy.

Behind them, the Heldyan galley is closing.

Lerial knows he can no longer put off doing something, either escaping or acting. The first question is where he should begin … on the ships at the piers … or on the shore. He swallows and concentrates on the fully loaded merchanter, creating a spaced line of order-chaos separations beginning just above the waterline on one side of the ship and angling them up and across the ship. Then he concentrates on the outermost vessel at the next pier, followed by the largest vessel at the westernmost pier. As he continues to place his separations, sweat begins to well up all over his body and ooze from under his visor cap down the sides of his forehead. Almost absently, he blots it away with the back of his sleeve.

He can sense a slight hint of light-headedness and decides to drop the concealment. As he does, he orders, “Turn west!”

For an instant, the return of full sunlight blinds him, and his eyes water. When he can make out things clearly again, he sees that most of the ships at the piers are aflame, but there are no fires ashore, although he can sense men and mounts moving in all directions.

He concentrates on focusing on the largest structure along the harbor front, setting three different order-separations. A line of pain feels like it has split his head, and he massages his forehead, then forces himself to uncork the bottle of lager and take several swallows.

“… the frig is he doing…?”

“… need to get out of here!”

Lerial is vaguely aware that several men are resetting the sail, while the others have unshipped their oars and are beginning to row. He glances back, his mouth opening as he realizes that the one fast galley is less than fifty yards behind them.

“Frig…” While he hates to spend the effort on something as small as the fast galley, he and the sail-galley won’t be around to do much of anything else if he doesn’t deal with it. He immediately concentrates on creating a tiny order-chaos separation right above the waterline at the galley’s bow, wincing at the jolt of fire that shivers through his skull as he does.

The entire bow of the pursuing galley explodes and a rush of flame sweeps back along the narrow vessel. Then water floods into the open stem of the craft, and it noses down and comes to a stop.

Lerial looks back toward the shore and concentrates on another set of order-chaos separations, this time dealing with more waterfront structures. Each separation is more painful than the last, and Lerial has to pause longer between each, occasionally taking another swallow of lager.

One ship, already flaming, abruptly explodes, and fragments of chaos and burning debris spray everywhere.

A chaos-mage, trying to hold shields against the heat and flames?

Fires now rage along all the piers, including parts of the piers themselves, and most of the buildings along the waterfront are now in flames, with thickening clouds of smoke billowing skyward.

Lerial realizes that he has done nothing about the merchanter anchored away from the piers. He concentrates once more—and the pain is so intense he cannot even move or see for several moments. When he can finally see, he has no order-sensing ability, but when he looks back, he can see flames across the midsection of the anchored merchanter, and before that long there are explosions, and the ship sags in the midsection, then begins to take on water. He looks toward the piers. So far as he can tell, every vessel at the piers has either vanished or appears to be in flames or sinking, if not both.

Lerial leans forward and closes his eyes for several moments, resting his head on the spray shield, then looks up once more. Clouds of black and gray smoke continue to rise skyward from the flames that seemingly fill the southern horizon, and the black-silvered mists of death flow out in all directions from the conflagration.

“Ser?” calls out Elphred.

“Head back to Swartheld … any way you can. I don’t think I can do much more.”
More like nothing.

“… much more…?” murmurs someone.

“It looks clear, ser. The other fast galley headed back south.”

“Good,” murmurs Lerial. He slumps over the spray shield of the sail-galley, the sea and sky spinning slowly around him, his guts churning, and his eyes burning, light flashes searing through closed eyes. Despite the wind from the north, he can smell smoke and all manner of acrid odors … and he can imagine, if not sense, the silver-black death mists flowing out across the burning debris that had once been ships and piers.

At least you didn’t pass out this time.
After a long moment, a second thought strikes him.
But you barely managed not to.

XLIV

Just after third glass of the afternoon, Elphred eases the sail-galley alongside the Harbor Post pier. From what Lerial has seen on the last part of the return to Afrit, the merchanters in Swartheld Harbor are continuing to load various cargoes. He wonders exactly what the ships’ masters, or owners, will do now that the immediate threat from Heldya has been removed.

Immediate threat? More like any threat for several years, if not longer.

Lerial still has flashes across his vision when he climbs out of the galley and looks back toward Estheld, still marked by towering clouds of gray and black smoke. After a moment, he turns and walks back to the stern of the sail-galley, where he stands beside Toeryn and waits for Elphred to finish giving orders to his crew.

Once the galley master is on the stone pier, Lerial says, “Thank you.”

“Yes, ser,” replies Elphred. His eyes do not quite meet Lerial’s.

“Would you have preferred to have another ten battalions of Heldyans marching down from Baiet in a few days?” asks Lerial quietly. “We have less than three battalions remaining. I am grateful to you and your men.” He smiles sadly, because he does understand the galley master’s feelings, then turns and walks toward the tunnel, Toeryn beside him. He carries the empty water bottle in his left hand. “We’ll need to head to the palace once I give a brief report to Commander Dhresyl. The arms-commander needs to know immediately.”
Or as close to immediately as you can manage.

The cool and the darkness of the tunnel up to the Harbor Post are welcome, but the squad leader waiting at the end of the tunnel is less so.

“Ser, Commander Dhresyl would hope you might spare him a few moments.”

Lerial doubts that Dhresyl had been quite so deferential in his wording, but merely says, “Lead the way.”

When they reach the senior officers’ mess, Lerial hands the water bottle to Toeryn. “If you wouldn’t mind, while I talk to the commander … I could use some lager.”

“Yes, ser.”

Lerial walks into the small chamber, closes the door, and settles himself into the chair across from the commander. “You wished to see me?”

Dhresyl does not speak for a moment, his eyes studying Lerial. Finally, he says, almost pensively, “The lookouts report a great deal of smoke and fire around Estheld. Do you think that will delay the Heldyans that much?”

“It might,” replies Lerial, “that is, if they can find a way to replace something like fifteen merchanters, all their piers, most of the city of Estheld, and at least several thousand trained armsmen … if not more.”