Heritage of Cyador

XLIII

Fiveday morning dawns bright and clear, and Lerial is at the palace shortly after seventh glass, again meeting with Sammyl and Rhamuel.

“The merchanters put to sea before the storm hit,” Sammyl reports. “Now that the weather has calmed, they’re all returning. There wasn’t any great damage to the piers here, and there likely wasn’t much to the piers at Estheld.”

“How long will it take to load the first ships?” asks Lerial, shifting his weight in the uncomfortable straight-backed chair.

“Most of today, I’d say. That’s if they’re not carrying cargo. Could be days if they’re loading cargo,” ventures Sammyl.

“The only cargo will be weapons and mounts,” declares Rhamuel, his forearms resting on the wooden surface of the table desk.

“If they’re headed to Baiet, they’ll want to cast off by second or third glass at the latest. That’s if they want to port before dark.”

“Then I need to be going,” says Lerial. “I need to get very close to Estheld.” The city of Heldya would be better, but it’s hundreds of kays away over hostile ground, not water, and we don’t have time for that.

“You’re planning what…” begins Sammyl, his voice dropping off at the look from the arms-commander.

“I think we can trust Overcaptain Lerial to act in both our interests and his,” Rhamuel says firmly.

Lerial can tell that Sammyl wants to know what he has in mind. For that reason alone, he doesn’t want to say much, in part because he has no idea if he can do what he has in mind. “The more I know, the more we’ll know what to do … and when.”

“We have sent scouts in other sail-galleys…”

Lerial smiles and rises. “For that I’m very grateful. I’ll let you know what I’ve found out when I return.”

Sammyl looks as though he wants to say something, but then just nods, as though he has decided against it.

“We’ll look forward to your report,” says Rhamuel.

Fhuraan and Fourth Squad from Eighth Company are waiting in the palace courtyard when Lerial reaches the stables.

“You’ve already got the squad mounted?” asks Lerial.

“I didn’t think you’d be long this morning, ser.”

The squad, with Fhuraan and Lerial immediately behind two outriders, takes the wide merchant avenue from the ring road around the palace along the base of the merchanters’ hill, where Kyedra remains with her mother and grandfather, then past the harbor. Lerial is surprised to see a good ten merchanters tied up at the piers, and crews and loaders very busily carrying goods on board the vessels.

Lerial frowns. The last time the Heldyans invaded, the harbor was empty. Why is it different now? He looks at the piers. All the goods are going on the ships. He nods. That, unfortunately, makes sense. It is also suggestive of the lack of confidence at least some of the merchanters have in Rhamuel and the Afritan Guard. But then, it could be that they are simply coppering their bets, sending goods out just in case matters do turn out badly for Swartheld.

As they ride up the road toward the Harbor Post, Lerial sees that groups of Heldyan prisoners, under guard, are still engaged in burying the dead from the fighting that ended almost an eightday ago. So many dead … or such lack of organization? Given that Dhresyl seems stronger on logistics than battle planning and anticipation, Lerial would wager on the former. And for what? And the fighting and the deaths are far from over, no matter who triumphs.

“Ser? You’re going to take a sail-galley out, aren’t you?”

For a moment, Lerial wonders how Fhuraan knows that, since he has not mentioned that specifically, but then realizes that the squad leaders must talk among themselves, and there was no secret about the fact that he’d tried to take one the day before. “Yes.”

“I’d feel better if you’d take Toeryn with you. He comes from a river family, and knows boats … and he’s good with weapons.”

“That’s a good idea.” Lerial grins. “I wish I’d thought of it.”

“I wish I had, ser,” admits Fhuraan. “Dhoraat suggested it.”

“I’m glad you two came up with it.”

When Lerial arrives at the stables at Harbor Post, he and Toeryn, a wiry ranker half a head shorter than Lerial, dismount, leave the squad, cross the southern end of the courtyard, and walk down the tunnel corridor to the boatyard and the pier. Lerial carries a water bottle filled with slightly watered lager. After they walk from the dimness of the tunnel into the bright early-morning sunlight, Lerial has to look around before he sees any of the Afritan Guards. Then, from the far side of the boatyard, Elphred hurries toward them.

“Overcaptain, ser! No one told us you were coming so early.”

“You’re right about that, galley master. I didn’t. That’s my fault. How soon can you be ready to set out?”

“Might be a half glass, ser.”

“Oh, this is Toeryn. He’ll be accompanying us. Unlike me, he has some experience on the water.”

“Just two of you, ser … that won’t be a problem. If you’ll excuse me…”

“Of course.”

Lerial watches as the sailing galley is released from its cradle and then moved alongside the stone pier. It is a narrow double-ended craft some ten yards long and slightly less than two wide, with benches for twelve oarsmen, a steering oar at the end that is presumably the stern, and a single mast, which is raised and stepped after the galley is tied in place beside the pier. Lerial is conscious of how small the craft is, given the expanse of water between him and Estheld. And how shallow a draft it has, most likely only about a yard.

After a time, Elphred walks from the pier to where Lerial waits, trying to stay out of the men’s way as they prepare. “You wouldn’t be minding, ser, if you were in the bow, and your ranker in the stern with me.”

“It’s your vessel, Elphred. That would be fine with me. How long will it take for us to get to Estheld?”

“There’s not much wind. Might be three glasses. Or we could row the whole way…”

“But you’d prefer to save the men in case we have to depart quickly?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Unless matters change, you can use the sail.”

“Yes, ser. We’re ready for you, then.”

“There is one thing you need to tell your men. I may have to place a concealment over the galley when we get close to Estheld. That means that the Heldyans won’t be able to see us. It also means that we’ll be surrounded by darkness deeper than the blackest night. I’ll be able to direct the vessel, but … no one else will be able to see. I hope it’s not necessary, but it could be.”

“Yes, ser. I’ll tell them.”

Lerial waits for Elphred to brief his crew before he and Toeryn board the sail-galley. When the galley pulls away from the pier, propelled by twelve oarsmen, Lerial is seated on a narrow bench just aft of the bow, his knees tucked under the triangle of polished wood that extends a half yard back from the stem, a spray shield too small for much protection and not wide enough for much motion for his legs and knees. He puts the water bottle between his boots.

Once the sail-galley is well away from the shore and the sail is unfurled and catching some of the light breeze, the rowers ship their oars, and Lerial turns his attention to the Swartheld harbor, where the loading of the merchanters tied there continues at a steady pace. As closely as he looks, he cannot see a single vessel that appears to be unloading. He does note that five of the vessels each fly a dull maroon ensign. When a light gust of wind strikes the merchanter closest to him, he gets a glimpse of what looks to be a green key in the center of the maroon field.

There is only a slight chop to the water in the bay, and Lerial is glad for the limited protection from the sun provided by his visor cap as the sail-galley moves slowly eastward across the wide bay toward Estheld. After perhaps another half glass, Lerial can begin to make out the shapes of the nearer buildings on shore. What surprises him is that Estheld is really not that large a city, perhaps only a large town, even if it has more piers than does Swartheld. There is also something about the piers … something that he should recognize … but cannot.

After another third of a glass, Elphred moves down the center of the sail-galley bending his way around the mast until he is within a yard of Lerial. “How do you want to approach Estheld, ser?”

“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.