Colors of Chaos

LXV

CERRYL YAWNED. TWILIGHT had passed into full evening, and every span of his body ached, starting with the crown of his head all the way to toes that threatened to cramp within his boots. The night was still, cool, but not yet cold, and with the stillness he could hear a few scattered insects in the dry fields flanking the road. Insects? In winter? More likely rodents.

He’d hoped to make the Great White Highway before long, but the stretch of road he traveled had no kay markers and no towns, just dark humps in the fields that were the cots and houses of peasants and herders. He wished he’d been able to ask for a detachment of lancers to wait for him, but that would have alerted the Hydlenese, and the lancers wouldn’t have kept quiet about it, either-and it was clear that Jeslek wanted mystery.

Cerryl patted the stolen horse on the shoulder. He needed to find another place somewhere to deal with his bodily necessities-again! He preferred a spot not exactly on the open road, although he had yet to see all that many travelers.

He hoped his vision-blurring skills had been good enough to ensure that those few who had seen a rider would not remember any details, except that the mount was that of a lancer of Hydlen. A disappearing duke wasn’t much good to the Guild-or Jeslek-if people noticed a White mage traveling back from Hydlen. Once he was close to the Great White Highway, it wouldn’t matter, but…until then…few should see him.

His guts twisted again-violently-and he shivered.

He glanced around. Was that a clump of bushes ahead, where he could tie the mount? Already the big beast had tried to leave him twice, and once he’d had to lunge for the reins. Clearly, the animal belonged to someone and Cerryl wasn’t that someone.

Cerryl dismounted and led the beast toward the bushes. His guts contracted, sending a wave of pain through his torso, and his fingers fumbled with the leather reins. He reached for them, and his boot caught on a root, and he sprawled on the ground, dust welling up around him, his fingers losing the leathers.

He stumbled to his feet, but the horse was trotting down the road.

“Here, fellow…” Cerryl rasped. “Here, fellow.”

The horse did not turn but kept moving back southward.

Cerryl walked more quickly. So did the horse.

Cerryl tried to trot, but the chestnut picked up his feet even more quickly.

After a time, Cerryl stood, panting, in the darkness of an empty road, watching the dark blur that was a horse moving southward, in the direction of Hydolar.

Cerryl shook his head. He faced a long and hungry walk back to Fairhaven, with little more than a handful of silvers and coppers in his wallet.

Not only that, but he could hear the rumbling in his lower gut and sense the continuing pain. The bread he had stolen? Or the strain of the whole effort on little sleep and less food? Or the apples from the duke’s fruit bowl? Had they been poisoned? He laughed harshly. Indeed, that would be an irony.

His guts twisted again, and he looked for a more promising and private place, stumbling off the road and toward another clump of bushes beyond the shoulder of the road by perhaps a dozen cubits or more.

When he had recovered, Cerryl stumbled back to the road, clenched his teeth, and kept walking, trying to hold himself together for a bit longer, looking for a place to rest before he resumed what was going to be a long walk, one far too long.

The night was looking far less than restful or promising, and it was getting colder. He shivered again, despite the heavy riding jacket.