“If you are attacked, you have leave to defend yourself, but I would encourage you not to use your powers against any except those who do attack you.” Jeslek’s voice was mild, reasonable, and Cerryl could sense that the chaos around the overmage had begun to subside.
“I will use what powers I have,” Cerryl answered as he mounted the chestnut, “only if attacked.”
“Good.”
Ludren remounted, then looked at Cerryl.
“Whenever you are ready, Undercaptain.”
Ludren nodded and turned his mount westward on the Great White Highway.
Cerryl’s lips tightened as he could sense a screen of chaos rising behind them, one that doubtless blurred his departure. Sterol has set you as a check to Jeslek, and Jeslek wants you removed in a manner not to be traced to him.
Still, there was nothing he dared do. Not yet. His lips tightened. Perhaps not ever, but definitely not yet. He flicked the reins and let the chestnut pull alongside the undercaptain and his mount.
XCVII
THROUGH THE DAY and a half since Cerryl and his escort had left the main body of the Fairhaven forces, the twelve had ridden alone westward on the Great White Highway, not encountering anyone, in and out of intermittent cool rain and chilly breezes. Puddles collected next to the granite road wall, and their mounts occasionally splashed through flat sheets of water running off the nearly level granite paving stones.
“Empty, it is,” Ludren said once more, as he did every few kays.
“Not a soul in sight,” answered Cerryl. The only living thing outside his group was a single black vulcrow that flew ahead of them and waited, then watched as they passed, and flew farther ahead—either looking for scraps or for someone or some animal to keel over and die.
Ahead, Cerryl could see a side road—one that crossed the Great Highway, or that the Highway crossed. As they neared the crossroads, he could make out a single kaystone with two arrows. One pointed south with the name Tellura—one of the names that had led to his mapmaking. The north-pointing arrow bore the name Fenard.
“Toward Fenard.” Cerryl turned the chestnut off the Great White Highway and onto the clay-packed trail that bore hoofprints—not terribly recent prints.
“Here’s where it may get rough, ser,” said Ludren.
“Do you think that the Gallosians would wait on the side road this far from Fenard?” Cerryl doubted it very much. They might run into a company of armsmen closer to the capital. Might? He held back a laugh, since Ludren would have taken it wrong.
Ludren frowned, then nodded slowly. “You might be right, ser.”
“I don’t know. I’m new to this,” Cerryl said as the chestnut carried him along the narrower packed clay road. “I would think that the armsmen who survived would probably ride to Fenard to tell the prefect.”
“Like as not, he won’t be wishing to see us.”
“No.” That was an understatement. Jeslek had clearly set Cerryl a near-impossible task, doubtless in hopes that someone would kill him. More than a day of riding, and Cerryl still didn’t have a good idea of how he was going to get into Fenard, let alone kill the prefect and get out.
Half-surprisingly, the thought of killing the prefect didn’t bother him. Was that because what everyone had said and what he had seen gave the impression of a very unpleasant character? What if Lyam weren’t as pictured?
Cerryl glanced back over his shoulder at the white lancers. The pair behind him—Jubuul and Zusta, he thought—rode silently and dejectedly. The mage wondered what they had done to displease Klybel and Jeslek.
“Ludren?”
“Yes, ser.”
“What were you told about escorting me to Fenard?”
“Well . . . ser . . . I can’t say as I was told much. The captain said I was to get you there, and then we were to try to catch them on the Great Highway, and if not, to rejoin them at the South Barracks.”
“You weren’t supposed to carry any messages or supplies to the mage Sverlik or back from him?”
“No, ser. We were to escort you to the prefect’s palace and then return.”
Cerryl nodded. “How long have you been a lancer?”
“Nigh on ten years, ser. Glad I was that the captain and the overmage offered this. Otherwise, it might have been another ten afore I made captain. That’s why there be no silver on my tunic—just the rank bar.”
“It must take a while to make rank.”
“Depends, ser. Huylar made undercaptain in six, but he was in the Sligan campaign—the one where they put down the timber camps and the traders so as they’d listen to the Brotherhood. To make rank, you take chances or time.”