Scion of Cyador

XXVIII

Despite the midday heat, after leaving the administration building, Lorn takes the steps to his quarters two at a time. There, he quickly eats some bread and cheese in the kitchen and then walks quickly to his study to use the chaos-glass.

He closes the shutters so that the silvered image will not pale against the bright summer light. After that, he pulls the old glass that had been his father’s from the drawer and concentrates on its shimmering surface. He ignores the sweat that begins to form on his brow, from both the effort he makes and from the closeness of the study without any breeze from the shuttered windows. The silver mists form and vanish quickly, leaving a view of the port of Jera. There are two ships at the long rickety pier that winds out into the calm and nearly flat waters of the harbor. Both appear to have arrived recently, with carts on the pier, and goods being carried down the gangways.

Lorn concentrates on the vessel with the Hamorian lines. The pier seems to bow under the weight of the cart. Lorn tries to coax a better image of the long objects wrapped in cloth from his glass, but cannot. Still, they are wrapped separately; they are of iron, and there is little of value to be shipped from Hamor that would be handled such, except the large and heavy blades preferred by the barbarians.

He releases the image, and slips the glass into the drawer before opening the shutters. While he can draw maps in the late afternoon, and indeed, the shadows often make that task easier, he cannot follow ships and their trading in darkness. Nor, he reflects, at all, once they are at sea and beyond any harbor.

From his maps and his conversations with the captains of the trading vessels that have once again begun to frequent Biehl, Lorn can better understand the large image he is forming within his mind. That picture he likes not at all, although there is little he can do about it, and, at times, he wonders why he expends the effort. Yet he feels he must.

The barbarians trade tooled leather goods, often artistic; worked copper; and large baskets of some form of roasted nuts that must keep well. These reach Jera by the three branches of the river. In return, they purchase large amounts of iron blades better than they could forge. And those blades are used to kill Mirror Lancers.

More important to him, some of those blades are making their way west of Jera, with ever-increasing numbers of barbarians. So far, the barbarians have made no raids beyond the Grass Hills in the direction of Ehyla and Biehl. That also concerns Lorn, for when before have the barbarians failed to raid when they have had weapons and largely undefended hamlets?

True…the Grass Hills to the east of Biehl and to the west of Jera might better be termed “Stone Hills” for their steepness and for streams that are few and widely separated. And the barbarians have preferred to attack through the wider passes and vales of the southwest where grass and water are more abundant.

Lorn shakes his head. He can think about such later. For the moment, he needs to work with Tashqyt, Helkyt, and Whylyn on a better system for accustoming the trainees to firelances-without discharging the twoscore that are all that they hold in the compound.

After that, they will conduct more sabre drills…and Lorn will take up the padded heavy hand-and-a-half sword that he has had to learn to master in order to accustom the trainees to facing the barbarian blades.