The Mage-Fire War

by Modesitt. Jr. , L. E.

  He took a deep breath, and looked at the map he held in one hand, trying to fix names and places in his mind, even though he thought he knew most of them after several days of studying them.

  Two glasses later, Beltur could make out a scattering of houses that didn’t look much more numerous than those in the unnamed Montgren hamlet where he had captured Graalur.

  A quint later, they reined up at the small inn in Vaarlaan. Beltur paid for ale and some bread for the squad and himself. After watering the horses, they continued.

  Outside of the small town, the road turned almost due west, and the ground flattened, and there were far fewer trees, most of which looked stunted in some fashion. By early afternoon, knee-high bushes flanked the road for at least a kay on each side.

  “Bitterbush,” declared Gustaan. “Grows in salty ground. Even the goats won’t eat it.”

  “How far to Eskaad?”

  “We should make it before sunset.”

  Fourth glass came and went, and there was no sign of anything except bitterbush, hills to the north, and more bitterbush to the south, but the ground began to rise so slowly that Beltur didn’t realize it until he looked back east.

  “Beyond that low ridge ahead, everything changes,” Gustaan said quietly. “You’ll see.”

  What Beltur realized before they reached the top of the rise in the road was just why the Hydlenese force had arrived in stages. Then, from the top of the rise—Beltur wouldn’t have called it a ridge, not after riding through the Easthorns—he saw an irregular patchwork of fields, orchards, woodlots, and even places that glinted in the afternoon sun and were likely lakes and ponds.

  “Another glass until we reach Eskaad. It’s even got two inns.” Gustaan paused. “You can’t do what you did in Vaarlaan, ser. Greencoat officers don’t do that. We’ll have to take the stable, and you get a chamber and eat in the public room.”

  Beltur grimaced. “I thought that might be the case. Can I arrange for a second ale for everyone?”

  Gustaan grinned. “The good captains in Hydlen do that.”

  “Do they pay the innkeepers?”

  “They do, but they complain and try to bargain. Usually it doesn’t work.”

  As in towns in Montgren, there were cots set in the middle of fields, or occasionally orchards, on the outskirts of the town proper. All of them were of wood, and many were ramshackle, but none looked to be abandoned.

  The main square held two inns—the Yellow Dog and the Black Horse.

  “The Yellow Dog is better, and they cost the same,” murmured Gustaan as they rode into the square, where close to twenty carts or wagons were set up.

  For a moment, Beltur wondered why, before realizing that it was sevenday afternoon, usually a market afternoon in most small towns in Candar, unlike in the cities, where there were vendors in the square every day but eightday.

  For a few moments, many of those in the square immediately looked at the riders, took in the green uniforms, and then resumed what they had been doing. When Beltur reined up in the side yard of the Yellow Dog and dismounted, Turlow rode forward and took Slowpoke’s reins.

  Beltur walked into the inn and paused to look into the public room, where perhaps a third of the tables were taken. Immediately, a thin man with sparse sandy hair and a narrow face moved from where he had been talking with a server toward Beltur.

  An expression of both surprise and puzzlement crossed his face as he neared Beltur and stopped. “Ser…”

  “I need a room and space for my squad—half squad. We’ll just be here tonight … and for breakfast.”

  The innkeeper nodded. “We can do that. Four coppers for the room, and three coppers for each man in the empty hayloft. That includes supper for them with one ale. Breakfast with ale is another copper. Hay, cup of grain, and stalls are a copper a horse.” The innkeeper paused. “In advance.”

  “Not the breakfast. I’ll pay for that in the morning.”

  “Before they’re fed.”

  “Seems like it was less before.”

  “All of you say that. It never has been.”

  “That’s thirty-seven coppers for the men and thirteen coppers for the mounts.” Beltur reached for his belt wallet, took out five silvers, and handed them over.

  “Didn’t expect to see any more of you. True that the blueboys … got the better of you?”

  Beltur had the feeling that the innkeeper had meant to be more direct in his description of what had happened. He managed to glare at the man. “Not me. We were sent later.” That was accurate, if misleading.

  “Is it true?”

  “They had better mages. They weren’t supposed to have whites who could throw chaos bolts. They hid their troopers under some sort of mage concealment. We got one of their mages. They got all of ours.”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “From the deserters who came through here? When?”

  “Must have been two eightdays back. That’s why…”

  “Why you didn’t expect us?”

  “Ah … well, yes.”

  “It took a while for us to get there. Now we’re headed back.”

  The innkeeper gestured toward the foyer. “I need to get you a key for your room, Captain.”

  Beltur followed the innkeeper.

  After he received the key, he and the innkeeper headed out to the stable, but Beltur let Gustaan deal with the innkeeper so far as lodgings went, while he went to find the ostler and make sure that the horses were properly stabled. Then he unsaddled and groomed Slowpoke.

  As he was finishing, a stableboy appeared, his eyes darting from Beltur to Slowpoke and back. Finally, he said, “He’s a real warhorse, isn’t he.”

  “He is.”

  “Why do you groom him? Most officers don’t.”

  “He’s saved my life more than once. I want to make sure he’s taken care of.”

  “The grain Carsos has isn’t that good.”

  Beltur refrained from smiling and produced two coppers. “I imagine you can find better grain for all our horses.”

  “Might be able to.”

  Beltur added two more coppers, holding them up. “After I see the grain.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Once the stableboy had returned with two large buckets of oats for Beltur to inspect, he handed over the coins and then accompanied the boy to each of the stalls that held the squad’s mounts—beginning with Slowpoke, who got a larger share.

  Then Beltur checked with Gustaan, who assured him that all was well, and gave him three silvers to pay for a second ale for everyone before carrying his gear up to his chamber, where he washed up before returning to the public room and taking a small table at one side, next to an open window. That didn’t mean the table was cool, only that it was as warm as the air outside, rather than warmer, the way most of the rest of the public room was.

  The single server was a dark-haired woman who looked fifteen years older than Beltur and likely wasn’t nearly that much older. She approached him with resignation. “Captain, we only have mutton hash, shepherd’s pie, or mutton cutlets with brown sauce.”

  “How is the sauce?”

  For a moment, she looked surprised, then said in a lower voice, “Sauce is fair to middling. The cutlets aren’t.”

  “What about the shepherd’s pie with the brown sauce?”

  “That might be best, ser.” The faintest hint of a smile, and the lack of chaos in her words, suggested she meant it.

  “And the ale?”

  “Pale and dark.”

  “The less bitter one.”

  “That’ll be four coppers when I bring it.”

  Beltur nodded, then studied the room after she left. The three men at the nearest table tried to avoid looking at him as they talked about dray horses and wagons, suggesting that they might be teamsters. Farther away were two white-bearded men who sipped occasionally from their beakers, but didn’t seem to be talking to each other. Then there were five young men in a corner throwing dice, on
e of whom kept looking covertly but worriedly at Beltur, in a way that made Beltur wonder if the man was a deserter.

  He waited less than a third of a quint before the server returned with a pale ale and his platter, which contained a heathy chunk of shepherd’s pie, most of which looked to be a thick brown crust and potatoes and root vegetables. Looking at it, Beltur was very glad he’d asked for the brown sauce. He handed over four coppers, then slipped her a fifth.

  She looked surprised.

  He shook his head, and she nodded in response, then said, “Let me know if you’d like another pale ale.”

  He sipped the ale, gingerly, but, while not great, it wasn’t bitter, and it was definitely better than anything Bythalt served. Then he took a bite of the shepherd’s pie, the crust of which was heavy and a little dry. The brown sauce mitigated that.

  He ate slowly, studying the public room, but it seemed as though no one had that much interest in him, possibly because no one wanted to call attention to themselves. As he was nearing the end of the heavy and filling meal, he saw a woman with long blond hair tied back, and with an instrument that was likely a lutar, since it wasn’t a guitar and he didn’t recognize it, step up onto the cold hearth and begin to sing.

  “When I set out for Lydiar

  A thousand kays away …

  That spring, it scarcely seemed that far,

  a season and a day…”

  Beltur had the feeling that the song was somehow familiar, but he didn’t recall hearing it. Are you sure?

  “When I reached my end in Lydiar

  A thousand kays away,

  A journey not so very far,

  My hair, I found, was gray.”

  One of the white-bearded men smiled at the last words.

  As Beltur looked at the singer, for a long moment, another image appeared before him, and his eyes burned, long after the image faded. He swallowed, then took a last sip of the pale ale. You did hear it.

  Without his really sensing her, the server returned and said quietly, “Bhreta’s good.”

  “She is.”

  “Would you like another ale?”

  Beltur hadn’t intended to take another, but he found himself nodding, even as he listened to the next song, one he realized he had once known, and almost forgotten.

  “When masons strive to break their bricks

  And joiners craft their best with sticks …

  When rich men find their golds a curse,

  And Westwind’s marshal fills your purse,

  Then sea-hags will dance upon their hands

  And dolphins swim through silver sands.

  Hollicum-hoarem, billicum-borem…”

  When the singer finished and was about to leave, Beltur stood and walked toward her. She was older than she’d seemed, closer to the age someone else might have been, and that was right, too.

  Her eyes widened in alarm.

  He smiled sadly. “Thank you. If anyone asks, tell them I paid you a family debt.” He slipped her a gold, then turned and left, heading for his room.

  Once there, he barred the door. He just hoped he’d sleep well.

  LXXVI

  The next four days were a variation on sevenday—ride until midday; take a break for men and mounts; ride some more; take another break; ride some more and find an inn—except for oneday, when they had to stop for the night at an excuse for a way station.

  By late morning on fourday, it was more than clear that they were nearing Hydolar. The road that they had followed ended at the main road along the north side of the Ohyde River, and the main road was actually stone-paved, even if there were often gaps in the paving stones. Beltur did notice that the carts and riders that they passed barely looked at them as they rode westward along the river.

  While he’d studied the rough maps that Gustaan and Turlow had given him, he still had questions, some of which he should have thought out before. “Is there a section of barracks in the main trooper post that we could just take, instead of the marshaling post?” asked Beltur, worrying that the kay or so between the marshaling post and the main post might prove a problem.

  “No, ser. You have to have written orders, or have a majer or commander personally order the billeting officer to assign barracks or officers’ quarters in the main post. That’s why we decided on the marshaling post. We say we’re recovered wounded awaiting reassignment to another company. They don’t have good records on the wounded who make it, and not many would pretend to be a trooper when they could get sent anywhere. It’ll take a few days for them to assign us.”

  Beltur paused. “Then I’ll have to stay at an inn, like we planned. You said most of the inns weren’t near the palace.”

  “The ones a captain could afford aren’t.”

  “What if I pretend that I’m the son of a rich merchant that doesn’t like captains’ quarters? Is there an expensive inn close to the palace?”

  Gustaan grinned. “If you’re willing to spend a lot of silvers, and a gold or two. The Palace Inn is right across the Duke’s Square from the palace.”

  Beltur smiled in return. “If you billet yourself at the marshaling post, can you get out of there quickly if someone decides to assign you somewhere? And let me know?”

  “We can do both. I can just send Turlow to you as a courier. I got the seamstress to make up some courier armbands. There are always rankers carrying messages.”

  “Should one of the men ride to the inn with me?”

  Gustaan frowned, then shook his head. “You’d be outside the rules. That would make the ranker breaking rules as well. If you’re rich no one would say anything so long as you met your duty assignments, but that wouldn’t protect the ranker, and even a spoiled rich captain would know that.”

  “That undercaptain that caused you all the problems was like that?”

  “He wasn’t that smart,” said Gustaan flatly.

  Beltur nodded and turned his attention back to the road and the river to his left, its water grayish rather than blue and slow-moving. Several flatboats stacked high with goods seemed to drift with the current. The seemingly haphazard cargo stowage suggested that there were no rapids or stretches of rough water between Hydolar and Renklaar.

  After riding another glass, the twelve were definitely on the outskirts of Hydolar, with small buildings and piers jutting into the murky water on the left, and run-down cots and cottages on the higher ground to the right of the road. Less than a kay ahead, Beltur could see red stone walls rising over the lower buildings, and he realized that Hydolar was a city within a city, the inner, and likely older, city being walled and on a low bluff. Within those walls was the palace. Gustaan and Turlow had mentioned the walls, but he hadn’t pictured them as quite so tall, or how many houses and buildings were along the river on the east side of the walls.

  He looked to the south side of the river opposite the walls, but could only see scattered huts on platforms rising out of the reeds.

  “Why did they build Hydolar on the north side of the river?”

  “Because so much of the south side is marshland and swamp.”

  Beltur couldn’t help but wonder why one side of the river was marshy and the other side wasn’t. But that’s not your problem.

  “The river gate’s ahead, ser,” said Gustaan quietly. “We shouldn’t take it, but follow the wall road around the north side of the city. It’s faster and all troopers posted here know that.”

  The gate guards barely looked at Beltur and the others as they followed the wall road away from the river gate. In the meantime, Beltur thought over all the possibilities that he and Gustaan had discussed on the ride from Haven, and what he should say in each case. He just hoped he could remember them all.

  The farther they got from the river, though, the fewer houses and shops there were, until when they reached the redstone tower that marked the northeast corner of the walls enclosing the old city, there were only fields and scattered cots in the lower land to the north of the walls.

  “T
here aren’t any houses here,” Beltur said as he turned Slowpoke onto the west-heading section of the wall road.

  “That’s because this part of the land floods most springs, and even sometimes in the late fall. Up ahead, where you see the road, that’s the way to Jellico. It runs right into the north gate. That’s the one you want to take on the way back. Just follow the gate avenue south until you come to the square. The palace is on the south side. Farther east, beyond its walls, you can see the headquarters post.”

  When the twelve rode past the gate, none of the guards gave them more than a glance, nor did the two troopers riding eastward shortly after that. West of the walls of the city proper there was a low swell where wheat grew. Looking at the lands surrounding the city, Beltur had to wonder if it once had been surrounded by water, or if those lands could still be flooded to thwart an attacking force. Beyond the swell through which the road dipped was another rise, on which was located a number of buildings surrounded by a brick wall little more than two yards high.

  “That’s the marshaling post?”

  “That’s it, ser.”

  Two guards stood outside the open iron gates, not quite blocking entry.

  “Ser?”

  “Headquarters detailed me to make sure these men reached the marshaling post.”

  “The first building on the left. Have them wait outside.”

  Beltur nodded and rode toward the one-story oblong structure. Once there, he dismounted and tied Slowpoke to the old iron rail, then made his way inside.

  Seated at a table stacked with papers was a graying squad leader. “Ser?”

  “I have a half squad of recovered wounded, with a squad leader.”

  “Where’s the marshaling order for them?”

  Beltur launched into what Gustaan had briefed him to say. “The majer said it had already been sent and not to worry.”

  “Not to worry? You bring in half a squad, ser, and I’m not to worry?”

  “I just got here from Telsen, and I’m supposed to question a majer?”

  “If you could, ser, the next time Majer Kellth tells you to do this, at least ask for one.”

  That suggested, as Gustaan had said was possible, that even headquarters occasionally lost orders. “I’ll do that, Squad Leader. I’d like to ask a favor in return. These men fought hard, and they have good records. Can you make sure that they get in a good company?”