to make sure they were still behind him. The young woman glared at him but said nothing, obviously offended. They pushed on through the crowded streets and into the small town square, which had the look of a refugee camp. There were hundreds of tents set up, crowded close together, their pegs driven into the gaps in the cobblestones.
“This is madness,” he muttered, mostly to himself, as he surveyed the square. A drizzling rain had begun to fall again and the air was biting, even through his Defenders' cloak. He glanced over his shoulder and beckoned Ghari forward. The young rebel threw his reins to the man beside him and pushed his way between the horses to Tarja's side.
“What's wrong?”
“I don't know yet. You and the others stay here. Mandah and I will make our way down to the river and see what's happening. We'll never lead the horses through this.”
Ghari nodded and took their reins. Tarja took Mandah's arm and led her through the chaos, stepping over guy ropes, small children, washing lines and smoking cook fires that hissed defiantly at the rain that threatened to extinguish them. The landing was not far, but the closer they got, the thicker the crowd grew, until they reached a wall of densely packed bodies that no amount of pushing and shoving could penetrate.
Being taller than average, Tarja could see over the heads of the crowd. What he saw did not please him. The ferry was halfway across the river, loaded almost beyond capacity with passengers, sluggishly making its way against the current to the other side.
“What do you see?” Mandah asked, her view blocked by a solid wall of bodies.
“The ferry is making a crossing. It'll be hours before it returns and even then we'll have no hope of getting near it.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We'll have to fall back on my other plan.”
“What's your other plan?”
“I'll tell you as soon as I think of it,” he said with a frown.
By mid-afternoon the ferry had returned to Cauthside. Tarja waited with growing impatience as the barge made its way laboriously across the rain-swollen river under a sky as dark as tarnished silver. The crowd grew restless as it neared the bank, surging forward as the refugees tried to push to the front of the line. Short of taking to the crowd with swords and cutting their way through (and even then he wasn't certain that would work), there was no way they could get near the landing.
More frustrated than angry, Tarja pushed his way through the mob and walked back to where Mandah and the others waited under the eaves of the local inn. His expression told them what they wanted to know, even before he got close enough to speak.
“So, how do we get near the ferry?” Ghari asked.
“We don't. We'll have to think of something else.”
“If we had a ballista, we could set it alight with burning pitch,” Rylan suggested.
“A
Tarja frowned at the young man's flippancy. “If you can't offer anything useful, Harben, be quiet.”
Harben had the sense to look contrite. Tarja called the men to him and they huddled together under the thin shelter of the inn, suggesting and rejecting ideas as they tried to think of a way to get close enough to the landing and the ferry. In the end it was Harben who suggested the solution, and he acted on it before Tarja could stop him. The young rebel pushed his way into the crowd in his red Defenders uniform and began shouting.
“They're coming! They're coming! The Kariens are here! Flee! Run for your lives! The Kariens are here! The Kariens are here!”
It was not long before the mob took up his cry. The effect was instantaneous and disastrous. Those at the back of the crowd broke away and began to run from the landing back towards the square. Those closest to the landing lunged forward, pushing the front ranks into the icy river. Everyone was shouting, pushing, shoving to get clear.
“Stop him, Tarja!” Mandah gasped. “Someone will be killed!”
But it was too late to stop the panic Harben's reckless cries had triggered. Instinct quickly replaced common sense. Fear replaced reason. The crowd became a heedless mob. Tarja was pushed back against the wall of the inn as the crowd spilled into the square, trampling tents, cook fires and anything else that got in their way. Their cries echoed through the town, panicked and desperate.
“The Kariens are coming! The Kariens are coming!”
“The Kariens!” Mandah shouted, echoing the hysterical cries of the mob. Tarja grunted as a sharp elbow jabbed him in the ribs and he turned to chide her for contributing to the chaos. But she wasn't looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on the entrance to the square. “Oh gods, Tarja, they're here!”
Tarja turned to look in the direction of Mandah's pointing finger. At the entrance to the square a column of armoured knights was ploughing into the chaos, their pennons flapping wetly in the damp air. Whether the knights had intended to run down the people before them, or simply had not had time to stop their heavy warhorses, Tarja couldn't tell. In any case, the effect was the same. Harben's cries of impending doom had proved horribly prophetic.
“Back this way!” he yelled, as he pulled Mandah along the wall to the corner of the inn. The narrow lane behind the tavern was cluttered with debris and fleeing refugees. Tarja pushed his way through, using his size and height to shove less motivated souls out of his way.
“I was right!” Harben chortled gleefully as he leapt over a pile of garbage and raced ahead. “The Kariens are here!”
“Get to the horses!” Tarja shouted after him. Harben waved to indicate he had heard the order and ran on. Tarja glanced over his shoulder to assure himself the others were following. Mandah stumbled beside him, her long skirts hampering her steps. Once past the inn he dragged Mandah into a small lane between the Heart and Hearth inn, and the livery next door.
“Get rid of the jackets,” he ordered as the others followed them into the lane. He tore off his own distinctive red jacket and stuffed it behind a barrel full of rainwater placed to catch the run-off from the roof of the inn. The air was icy, but it was vastly preferable to being identified as a member of the defeated Medalonian army.
“We'll never get past them,” Ghari predicted as he shoved his jacket down beside Tarja's.
“We're not going to try. But sinking that ferry just changed from a good idea to an imperative.” The others nodded their agreement. With the Kariens quite literally on their heels, all objections were forgotten. “Mandah, you and Ghari follow Harben and get the horses ready. Borus, you and Torlin scout the north side of town. Find out if this is just an advance party, or if we really do have the Karien host just over the next hill. Paval, you ride back and warn the Fardohnyans that when we leave here, we'll be running and we might have half the damned Karien army on our heels.”
The men nodded and slipped away. Mandah looked as if she might object, but Ghari gave her no chance. He grabbed her arm and headed back out into the lane behind the inn in the direction Harben had gone.
“And the rest of us?” Rylan asked.
“We're going back to the ferry. Kariens or not, it still has to dock. If we're ever going to have a chance at it, it will be in the next few minutes, before the Kariens take control of the town. We need to sink that ferry and get out of Cauthside before the Kariens arrive in force, or it's going to be a
They retraced their steps back to the square and turned towards the landing, pushing against the flow of the crowd, which had thinned considerably since the appearance of the Karien knights. The square was a shambles of flattened tents, distraught mothers and screaming men trampled by the fleeing mob. Then there were the dozen or so knights who had ridden through them, milling about in the centre of the square, almost as confused about what had happened as the refugees.
The ferrymen waited a little offshore, afraid to land, yet unable to hold for long against the current. They pulled on a rope as thick as a man's thigh that stretched from one side of the river to the other, clinging to it grimly
