Scion of Cyador

LXII

By late afternoon the clouds have thinned into a high haze, and the day has warmed considerably, enough that Lorn has taken off the winter jacket. The stream to the left of the road is running deeper and faster, perhaps because the last of the snow is melting.

Yet neither Lorn nor the scouts can see any signs of recent travel on the road itself, no new tracks that would signify someone fleeing them-only cart tracks several days old and a few hoofprints. Have those who escaped the carnage at the first town fled eastward? Does no one expect him to be heading northwest? Has he done something so unexpected that none know how to react?

The road is a good ten cubits above the water almost on a bluff overlooking a bend where the current has dug a deep pool. Lorn glances at the stream, now almost a river, and the deep pool in the bend.

Then he glances at Emsahl, riding to his right. “You think that’s deep enough down there to cover fivescore blades?”

Emsahl smiles. “Deep enough, ser. Good idea, too. Don’t want to carry ’em, and they’ll likely rust before they’re found. If they’re found.”

“If you’d send a messenger back to Cheryk?”

Emsahl turns in the saddle. “Dwyt…the majer’d like to see Captain Cheryk up here for a few moments.”

“Yes, ser.”

Lorn looks down at the river bend ahead. While he’d wanted to carry the blades, it is a waste of horses and can only slow them down. He wonders what some future peasant will think when the river changes course and his plow runs into iron…or will the plow just turn up red dust as it cuts through the clay deposited over the years?

He shakes his head, riding northwest and waiting for Cheryk to join them.