“I didn’t ask for your life’s history, just if you sensed danger!”
Mandes sniffed. “No better than you, my lord.” His tone implied he did not consider it a useful trait.
Tol halted his men. He sent Sanksa and thirty skirmishers ahead to look for trouble. Another company of thirty, under the command of the seasoned Frez, he sent back as a rear guard. The high ground west of the river looked harmless, but Tol sent his engineer, Fellen, with thirty more men to look around there. The balance of the demi-horde resumed its march.
The land remained hilly right down to the sea. Before leaving the cover of the trees, Sanksa’s men returned with word they’d overlooked Old Port and all appeared ordinary.
“What?” Egrin exclaimed. “Is there no garrison of Tarsan troops for us to contend with?”
“We watched all afternoon and saw naught but kender,” Sanksa replied.
Old Port was on the other side of the estuary. Curious to see for himself, Tol told his men to keep to the trees and continue up the shore to the next town, Far-to-go.
“Darpo, Mandes, Miya, and Kiya will accompany me to Old Port for a closer look around,” he said.
Egrin protested, saying a commander should not enter an unknown town without proper escort. Tol assured him no one would know his rank.
He proceeded to take off his helmet and red mantle. He tied a strip of homespun around his forehead as a sweatband. Dressed plainly to start with, without his cloak and helmet Tol looked like an ordinary man-at-arms. He shifted his dagger from his belt to his boot, a style affected by wandering mercenaries. Darpo likewise dressed down, commenting that Mandes already looked like a vagabond. The sorcerer pointedly ignored the slur.
Tol gave Egrin command in his absence, telling him to keep the men out of sight but moving. He wanted the demi-horde in Far-to-go by nightfall.
“How will you catch up with us?” Egrin asked.
“If there’s no danger in Old Port, we’ll hustle up the coast in time to rejoin you before the next town.”
“And if there is danger…?”
Tol let the question hang. He turned Cloud over to Narren, and with his four companions set out for the kender town.
As they walked, they spoke in loud, unguarded voices of ordinary things-food, work, the weather. At the water’s edge they found a kender lying in a flat-bottomed boat, face covered by a woven-grass hat. Snores rose from under the hat.
“Wake up,” Tol said, rapping on the gunwale. “We want passage to town.”
The kender said, “So what’s stoppin’ ya? Ya think I row folks across the river?”
“You mean we have to row ourselves?” said Kiya.
“Yep. One silver piece each, please.”
They all looked to Miya, the renowned haggler. Eyes brightening in anticipation, she rose to the challenge.
“For a silver piece, we could hire a Tarsan galley!” she declared. “A copper per head is plenty.”
“Four coppers per head,” said the kender.
“One!” Miya insisted. “Plus one when we get to the other side.”
“One more each?”
Miya would have continued disputing, but Tol caught her arm and nodded. “Done,” she said to the kender. “One per head now, one per head on arrival.”
“Done.” The kender stretched out one hand. Miya gave him the first half of the payment. They piled in, sat down, and searched in vain for oars or poles.
“Where’s the oars?” demanded Tol.
“Oars would be one silver piece each-”
“You try me, little man!” Miya fumed. “Nothing more! Two coppers each was the price!”
“One was just to get in, and the other pays for getting out. Nobody said anything about oars.”
Tol was somewhat amused, but the Dom-shu most assuredly were not. Kiya seized the kender by his vest and dragged him up. Oddly, the grass hat clung to his face, even when she had him upright.
“Oars!” she bellowed.
The boat owner merely hung limp in her grip. Furious, she flung him into the water. Darpo and Tol rushed to the side to help the unlucky kender, but he bobbed to the surface out of reach. He had a swarthy, sunburned face, despite his clinging hat. Floating serenely on his back, the kender boatman kicked lazily away.
“Now that’s negotiation,” Mandes said dryly.
Tol and Darpo went ashore and cut a pair of saplings. They trimmed off the branches and used them to pole the boat out from shore. The current was strong, but they managed slow progress across the river.
From the water, Old Port lived up to its name-weather-beaten, innocent of paint. The houses were tall and narrow, worn brown by years of sun and rain, but every building bore a brightly colored pennant or metal totem, swinging in the wind. Eight merchant ships of modest size were tied up at the docks. They looked deserted and neglected. Streaks of black mold stained the canvas sails, and many lines were broken or untied. A few smaller craft crawled around the harbor.
Tol guided the boat to an empty berth on a long, ramshackle pier. A single kender, pot-bellied and possessing enormous ears, sat in a small kiosk at the end of the pier. Kiya leaped out and secured a line. They climbed out, and Tol nodded politely to the kender in the kiosk.
“Are you the harbormaster?” Tol asked.
“I am. That’s Gusgrave’s boat. Where’s Gus?”
“He went for a swim. We borrowed his boat,” Darpo said.
“Oh.” The harbormaster closed his eyes and held out a hand. “Docking fee, two silver pieces.”
Miya gave him two coppers. “We docked ourselves.” The kender shrugged and put the coins in his shirt pocket.
“Quiet, isn’t it?” said Tol. “No ships coming or going, no one loading or unloading.”
“Blockade. Tarsis,” the harbormaster said, yawning.
No blockading warships were in sight, but the long, narrow bay could be sealed easily at its mouth, over thirty leagues away.
“How long has the blockade been going on?” asked Darpo.
The harbormaster scratched his brown cheek. “Since the dark of the moons,” he said. The night when no moons rose was forty days past.
Tol asked, “Any Tarsans here?”
“A few traders, some sailors. Flack the feather merchant, he lives in the high street.” The kender looked slantwise at his interrogators and asked, “Will Ergoth attack our town?”
“How should we know?” Tol replied casually.
“You talk like Ergos. Word is, an army’s coming overland from Ropunt. Are you them?”
Tol denied it, but he was perplexed. Despite their precautions, the kender seemed well informed of their presence. And if the kender knew, the Tarsans likely knew too. What of the unknown menace that had repelled Tylocost-did it (or they) also know the Ergothians’ movements?
“We’re mercenaries,” Tol announced. “We heard there might be work here for good fighters.”
“Try the Tarsans, ’cross the bay.” The kender pointed vaguely northeast. “Big camp over there. General Ty- something. Maybe hell hire you. Or maybe he’ll hang you as Ergo spies.”
The harbormaster leaned forward and closed the shutters of his kiosk, indicating their conversation was over.
It was late afternoon by the time they finished their explorations and regained the western shore. They tied Gusgrave’s boat where they’d found it, and Miya tossed five coppers in it, the second half of the price she’d agreed to pay for use of the craft.
Tol led them quickly through the lengthening shadows. Mandes hampered their progress. He puffed and wheezed like an old man, and complained constantly of the too-brisk pace.
The setting sun colored the bay crimson, like an Ackal banner. On a bluff overlooking the calm sea, they paused to let the magician catch his breath.
“Look there!” cried Darpo, pointing out to sea.
Crawling across the flat water came a large vessel, a quin-quireme of the Tarsan Navy. It ploughed ahead
