Skaith - The Ginger Star Part 7

"Don't you think we had better be planning what we're going to do next?" He had drunk quite a bit of khamm.

"A little more information might help us decide," said Stark mildly. "In any case, we'll need warmer clothing and more provisions."

Without noticeable enthusiasm, the Irnanese rose and fetched their cloaks and followed him into the chilly street.

Halk. Breca, who was Halk's s.h.i.+eld-mate. Gerrith. Atril and Wake, the brothers, two of Yarrod's picked men. Stark could not have asked for better. Yet they six were a small handful against the North. Not for the first time Stark considered slipping away from them to finish his journey alone and unenc.u.mbered.

He was surprised to hear Gerrith say softly, "No. Me at least you must have with you. Perhaps the others as well, I don't know. But if you go alone, you will fail."

"Your gift?" asked Stark, and she nodded.

"My gift. On that score it is quite clear."

The market was roofed against snow. Doors at the entrances shut out most of the cold wind. Smoky lamps and braziers burned. Merchants sat amid their wares, and Stark noticed that few of them were of Izvand. The pale-haired warriors apparently scorned such occupation.

The market was busy. The party from Irnan wandered with the crowd, buying furs and boots and sacks of the sweet, fatty journey-cake they make in Izvand against the cold. After a while Stark found what he was looking for, the street of the chart-makers.

It was a small street, lined with alcoves where men sat hunched over their drawing tables, surrounded on three sides by honeycomb shelves stuffed with rolls of parchment. Stark went from shop to shop, emerging at last with an armload of maps.

They went back to the inn. Stark found a relatively quiet table in a corner of the common-room and spread out his purchases.

The maps were for the use of traders, and in the essentials they agreed well enough. The roads, with inns and shelter-houses marked. Modern towns like Izvand, pegs to hold the roads together where they crossed. Vestiges, here and there, of older roads leading to older cities, and most of these marked ominously with death's heads. On other matters they were vaguer. Several of them showed Worldheart, hedged about with many warnings, but each one in a different place. Others did not show it at all, merely indicating a huge area of nothing with the comforting legend Demons.

"Somewhere in here," said Stark, setting his hand over the blank area. "If we keep going north, sooner or later we'll find someone who knows."

"So the maps don't help much," said Halt.

"You haven't looked closely," Gerrith said. "They all show one thing, and that is that we must travel by the road as far as we can." Her fingers flicked across the wrinkled parchment. "Here we are blocked by the sea, and here by a mountain wall. Here again, where the land is low, are lakes and bogs."

"All frozen now," Halk said.

"And impa.s.sable even so. The beasts would be dead or crippled and we would be starving before a week's end."

"Besides," said Wake, who always spoke for the brothers, "there is the matter of time. Irnan may already be under attack. Even if we could make it the other way, it would take too long."

Halk looked around the table. "You're all agreed?" They were. Halk tossed back another gla.s.s of khamm. "Very well. Let us go by the road, and go fast."

"That is another point," Stark said. "Whether to travel alone, or go with some trader. A trader's company would be safer . . ."

"If you could trust the trader."

". . . but we would be held to the wagon pace."

"We didn't make this journey to be safe," said Halk.

"For once, I agree with you," Stark said. "By the road, then, and alone." The others voiced a.s.sent. Stark bent over the maps again. "I'd give much to know where the Wandsmen's road runs."

"Not on these maps," said Gerrith. "They must go up from Skeg to the east, across the desert. There would be post-houses and wells, everything to get them quickly on their way."

"And safeguards, doubtless, to make sure that no one can follow them." Stark began rolling up the parchments. "We'll leave at the fourth hour. Best get some sleep."

"Not yet a few moments," said Breca, and nodded toward the inn door.

Kazimni had just entered, in company with a lean brown man in a furred cloak who moved with the agile, hungry, questing gait of a wolverine. Kazimni saw them, and the two came toward their table.

"I'll talk," said Stark quietly. "No comment, no matter what I say."

Kazimni hailed them with great cheer. "Greetings, friends! Here is one you will be glad to meet." He introduced his companion. "Amnir of Komrey." The man in the furred cloak bowed. His eyes, gleaming like brown beryls, darted from one face to another. His mouth smiled. "Amnir trades far into the darklands. He thinks he can be of help to you."

Stark invited the men to sit and introduced his party. The merchant ordered a round of khamm for all.

"Kazimni tells me that you have an errand northward," he said, when the gla.s.ses had arrived and the ceremonial first sip was taken. "What I think of the wisdom of that errand is neither here nor there." He glanced at the heap of parchments on the table. "I see you have bought maps."

"Yes."

"You were, perhaps, thinking of going on alone?"

"Hazardous, we know," said Stark. "Nevertheless, our errand is urgent."

"Better to make haste slowly than not at all," said Amnir sententiously. "There are wicked men in the Barrens. You can't know how wicked. Six of you-and all stout fighters, I'm sure-would be as nothing against those you will meet along the road."

"What would they want with us?" Stark asked. "We have nothing worth the stealing."

"You have yourselves," said Amnir. "Your bodies. Your strength." He bowed to the ladies. "Your beauty. Men and women are sold in the Barrens, for many purposes."

Halk said, "I think anyone who tried that would find us a poor bargain."

"No doubt. But why take the risk? If you're captured, or killed resisting capture, where is your errand then?" He leaned forward over the table. Sincerity shone within him. "I trade farther into the darklands than anyone because I am able to face the dangers there not only with courage, which many others have as well, but with prudence, which many others seem to lack. I travel with fifty well-armed men. Why not share that safety?"

Stark frowned, as though pondering. Halk seemed on the point of saying something, and Breca gave him a warning glare.

"All he says is true," Kazimni said. "By Old Sun, I swear it."

"The time, though." Stark shook his head. "Alone, we can move much faster."

"For a while," Amnir agreed. "And then-" He made a chopping gesture with the edge of his hand against his neck. "Besides, I'm no laggard, I can't afford to be. You'd not be losing much."

"When do you leave?"

"In the morning, before first light."

Again Stark seemed to ponder. "What price would you want?"

"No price. You'd find your own food and mounts, of course, and if we should be attacked you'd be expected to fight. That's all."

"What could be fairer?" asked Kazimni. "And look, if the pace proves to be too slow, you can always leave the wagons. Is that not so, Amnir?"

Amnir laughed. "I'd not be the one to stop them."

Stark looked across at Gerrith. "What does the wise woman say?"

"That we should do what the Dark Man thinks best."

"Well," said Stark, "if it's true that we can go our own way if we choose to later on-"

"Of course. Of course!"

"Then I think we ought to go with Amnir in the morning."

They struck hands on it. They drank more khamm. They arranged final details, and the two men left. Stark gathered his maps and led his party upstairs. They crowded into one of the small rooms.

"Now what does the wise woman say?" asked Stark.

"That Amnir of Komrey means us no good."

"It needs no wise woman to see that," said Halk. "The man smells of treachery. Yet the Dark Man has agreed to go with him."

"The Dark Man is not above telling lies when he thinks they're called for." Stark looked round at them. "We'll not wait for the fourth hour. As soon as the inn is quiet, we go. You can do your sleeping in the saddle."

In the star-blazing midnight, they rode out of Izvand. The cold ribbon of road stretched north toward the darklands, and they had it all to themselves. They made the most of it. Halk seemed to be consumed with a pa.s.sion for haste, and Stark was in no mood to dispute him. He, too, wanted to leave Amnir as far behind as possible.

The land had begun its long slope upward to the ice-locked ranges of the north, and from the higher places Stark could keep a watchful eye on the backtrail. He could also sniff the wind and listen to the silence and feel the vast secret land that encircled him.

It was not a good land. The primitive in him sensed evil there like a sickness. It wanted to turn tail and go s.h.i.+vering and howling back to the smoky warmth of Izvand and the safety of walls. The reasoning man in him agreed, but kept moving forward nevertheless.

Clouds hid the Three Ladies. Snow began falling. Stark disliked the inability to see clearly; anything might come upon them out of those pale drifting clouds. The party rode more slowly, keeping close together.

They came upon an inn, crouched over a crossroads. It had a tall roof like a wizard's hat, and one slitted yellow eye. Stark considered stopping there and instantly decided against it. By common consent they left the road and made a wide circle round the inn, walking the beasts carefully so as to make no sound.

Daylight was slow in coming, and when Old Sun did show himself at last it was only as a smear of ginger-colored light behind a blur of snowflakes.

It was in that strange bra.s.sy glow that they came to the bridge.

12.

The bridge, the rocky gorge it spanned, and the village that existed solely to administer to and extort for the bridge, were clearly marked on all the maps. There was apparently no way around that did not take at least a week, even without snow, and the toll seemed reasonable. Stark loosened his sword in its scabbard and dug some coins from the leather bag that hung about his neck underneath the bulky furs. The Irnanese checked their own weapons.

In close order, they trotted themselves and their pack animals toward the toll-house, a squat blocky structure commanding the southern end of the bridge. An identical structure was at the northern end. Each building contained a winch that raised or lowered a portion of the bridge floor, so that no one could force his way through without paying. You might take one toll-house but never both, and a part of the bridge would always be unreachably open. The drop below it was unpleasant, several hundred feet down past jagged boulders rimed with snow and frozen spray to a vicious little river that drained some glacier slope higher up. The village was built on the southern side, against the face of a low cliff, strongly fortified. Stark guessed that the convenience of the bridge outweighed the nuisance factor, and so generations of merchants had let it survive.

Three men came out of the building. Short, broad and ugly troll-like men, with many furs and too-wide smiles. They smelled.

"How much?" asked Stark.

"For how large a party?" Small eyes probed the snowfall behind them. "How many beasts? How many wagons? The bridge floor suffers. Lumber Is costly. Planks must be replaced. This is heavy labor, and our children starve to pay for the wood."

"No wagons," said Stark. "A dozen beasts. What you see."

Three faces stared in disbelief. "Six persons, traveling alone?"

Again Stark asked, "How much?"

"Ah. Um," said the chief of the three men, suddenly animated. "For so small a party, a small price." He named it. Stark leaned down and counted the coins into his grimy palm. It seemed, indeed, too small a price. The men departed chattering into the toll-house. They had some way of signaling to the other side of the gorge, and presently both sections of the bridge went creaking down into position.

Stark and the Irnanese rode onto the bridge.

The signaling was very effective, because before they could reach the other side the northern section of the bridge shot upward again, leaving a large cold gap to death.

"All right, then," said Stark wearily, "we fight."

They turned, with the intention of bolting back off the bridge, but a flight of arrows came from slits in the toll-house wall and thumped into the planking in front of them.

"Stand where you are!" a voice shouted. "Lay down your weapons."

A whole band of trolls, furred and armed, came waddling at speed from the village. Stark looked at the nasty little slits in the wall, where more arrow-tips were visible. "I think we're fairly caught," he said. "Shall we live a little longer, or die now?"

"Live," said Gerrith.

They laid their weapons down and stood where they were. The villagers swarmed onto the bridge and took them, dragging them out of the saddle, pus.h.i.+ng, pummelling, laughing. The beasts were led off and tethered to a rack by the toll-house. The bridge-keeper and his friends came out "Six persons traveling alone!" said the bridge-keeper, and lifted his hands to the bra.s.sy glow in the south. "Old Sun, we thank you for sending us fools." He turned and pawed at Stark's garments, searching for the purse.

Stark resisted a strong impulse to tear the man's throat out with his teeth. Halk, who was being similarly handled, got his hands free and fought. He was immediately clubbed down.

"Don't damage him," said the bridge-keeper. "All that muscle is worth its weight in iron." He found the purse and slashed the thong that held it, then prodded at Stark's chest with his dirty fingers. "This one, too-all strong big men, the four of them. Good, good! And the women-" He cackled, skipping on his thick feet. "Maybe we'll keep them here for a while, eh? Until we're tired, eh? Look at them, lads, and their d.a.m.ned long legs-"

Gerrith said, "I was wrong. It would have been better to die."

And Stark answered, "Listen."

It was difficult to hear anything over the chattering of the villagers, and her ears were not as keen as his. But as the sounds swept nearer she heard, and then everybody heard; the rush of hoofbeats, the jingle of harness, the clash of arms. Riders appeared out of the falling snow. They came in strength, they came like the wind, their lances were sharp, and Amnir of Komrey was at their head.

The villagers turned and ran.

"Oh, no," said Amnir, and the riders herded them back, jabbing them painfully so that they leapt and screamed. The bridge-keeper stood stock still with Stark's purse in his hand.

"You have broken the covenant," Amnir said. "The covenant by which we let you live, which is that once a man has paid fair toll for his pa.s.sage across your bridge, he shall pa.s.s without let or hindrance."

"But," said the bridge-keeper, "six persons alone-such fools are doomed in any case. Could I spurn the gift of Old Sun? It is seldom enough that he sends us one."

Amnir's hard eyes looked down upon him. Amnir's lance-tip p.r.i.c.ked his throat. "That which is in your hand. Does it belong to you?"

The man shook his head. He let the purse drop with a small heavy clink at his feet.

"What shall I do," asked Amnir, "with you and your people?"