full purse. Furthermore, if the crowd from Westgate extended this far, might not the crowd from the next gate extend as far in the opposite direction, so that he would be walking into a throng similar to the one he had just departed? Westgate might be the most active gate, but the others would surely be almost as busy and expensive.
It was quite obvious that he was not going to get anywhere in Azrad’s Ethshar; far too many people had gotten here before him, and every available opportunity must certainly have already been taken. He would have to get out into the countryside, at least temporarily. He still had no interest in becoming a farmer, but surely something, some sort of an opportunity, would present itself.
He had not eaten since leaving the ship, and his stomach was growling persistently as he smoothed his blanket on the hard-packed, bare dirt of the field. He promised himself that he would buy something to eat in the morning, no matter what the cost.
With a wary glance at his neighbors, he settled down, keeping his right hand on Wirikidor’s hilt, his left still securely gripping his purse. He did not intend to be robbed. He fell asleep, finally, and awoke at dawn to find sword and purse still intact. Any thieves who might have been around had presumably found easier pickings.
He was stiff and cramped from sleeping curled up in his blanket. He struggled to his feet and stretched vigorously. All around him, men and a few scattered women were still sleeping. A few were awake, some of them moving, some just sitting and gazing about sleepily. Valder found himself becoming depressed just looking at them — all this potential going to waste! He was determined that he, at least, would not sit and rot in the Hundred-Foot Field. He would get out of the city and find himself a career. He had not seen the horrendous inflation in prices anywhere but Azrad’s Ethshar — which was, of course, far more crowded than anywhere else — so he hoped his savings would tide him over.
He had wanted to lose himself in a crowd, where Gor would be unable to find him, should he decide ex- assassins were dangerous, but the crowding in this city was more than Valder had imagined possible, so much so that now he was eager to leave it behind. Rolling up his blanket, he picked his way carefully across his neighbors to Wall Street, where he turned left and headed for Westgate.
No one took any special note of him as he marched out the gate onto the highway. The guard he had spoken with was nowhere in sight.
By noon he was almost four leagues from the city wall.
As the day progressed, the traffic grew from virtually nothing moving to a steady stream in both directions. People were still drifting in toward the city from the disbanding armies, while others who had already seen the situation and given up on finding a place in Azrad’s Ethshar were heading back out to look for someplace better.
This struck him as futile, and he tried stopping a party heading toward the city to tell them that there was nothing for them there. They ignored his warning.
“Maybe there’s nothing there for you, fellow, but perhaps we aren’t as picky,” the leader said, glancing significantly at Valder’s black-and-gray uniform. Like most people, the man wore green and brown; very few people had bothered to acquire civilian clothes yet, though insignia and marks of rank were now rare, and only those that remained soldiers were permitted to keep their breastplates.
“I’m not picky,” Valder insisted. “The whole place is mobbed. Food is running low, and lodging costs more for a night than it should for a year.”
“Well, we’ll just have to see this for ourselves. We don’t know you; why should we believe you?”
Valder shrugged. “I’m just trying to help,” he said.
“We don’t need your help,” the spokesman said, turning away. Valder watched helplessly as they trudged on toward the gates. When they were lost in the streaming traffic, he turned and headed onward.
The highway had left the city running due west, but quickly curved around to the north, leading from the peninsula to the mainland. Valder knew a little basic geography, enough to know that the only land routes from Azrad’s Ethshar to anywhere worth mentioning would have to run northward across the isthmus to the mainland; there simply wasn’t anything except open countryside surrounded by sea to the south, east, or west. He supposed that some of that land might be suitable for farming — though he had an impression it was too sandy to be much use, even for that — but he was not willing to try farming it.
That meant he had to head north, and that was what he was doing, but once he reached the mainland he had more of a choice. He could head back west along the coast to Ethshar of the Sands, perhaps — but that would take him closer to Gor, and though Ethshar of the Sands was less crowded than Azrad’s Ethshar, it was more primitive, and he was not at all sure it would be any real improvement. Somewhere far to the north were the mines and mountains taken from the Northern Empire in the course of the last century or so, and beyond them lay the ruins of the Empire itself. He had no interest in mining and knew that it was never the common miners who got rich from the jewels and metals they found, but those who owned the mines, or bought from the miners, or sold to the miners. A wine merchant might do well in the mining country, but first he would need stock, and as yet Valder had no stock and no idea where he might find any.
In all the wide arc of land between the mines and Ethshar of the Sands, there was only wilderness, forests and grasslands, and a few scattered farms that had been established to help feed the armies fighting in that wilderness. Those armies had once had camps dotting the plains and forests in every direction, but were now disbanded. A few camps might survive as villages and towns, but Valder doubted any would have much to offer him.
That covered the compass from south sunwise through northeast, leaving only the east and southeast. That was where the old homeland had been. It had never actually been his home, of course; he had been born in the camp-town at Kardoret, a base on the line between the western and central commands, and had never seen Old Ethshar. The official story, which he had no reason to doubt, was that it was now fragmented into dozens of pretty states, warring with one another. Valder had had his fill of war, certainly, but he wondered whether there might not be opportunities to be found there. Certainly, Gor of the Rocks had no authority there and so could not pursue him; the Hegemony of Ethshar claimed only the lands outside the old borders.
His worries about the overlord might be unfounded, he knew; but even so, the prospect of actually seeing the land he had fought for so long, a land that had history extending back before the war, had a certain charm to it. Most of the veterans were unimaginative enough to accept the official line and stay in the Hegemony, he was sure, so the competition for work would not be as fierce in the Small Kingdoms.
That decided him. He would head for the Small Kingdoms, where Old Ethshar used to be. That meant he must bear right at every major fork, following the highways around the northern end of the Gulf of the East.
So far, however, he had seen no forks; the highway rolled on, indivisible, across the isthmus.
He marched on through the afternoon, despite mounting weariness. He was not accustomed to long walks any more, after his enforced inactivity at sea and his long stint as an assassin, where speed and stealth had been far more important than stamina. Furthermore, he had realized he had broken his promise to himself in his rush to get out of the city and had not eaten anything since his last meal aboard ship, which had been a large breakfast the day before. He had found water at several small streams that crossed the highway, but no food.
For that matter, he had not encountered a stream recently, and, although the day was no more than pleasantly warm, he was again growing thirsty. He cursed himself for not having planned more carefully and brought adequate supplies.
Of course, he had expected to find everything he needed in Azrad’s Ethshar. The impossibly high prices had been a complete surprise and had shocked him so badly that he had forgotten how essential food and drink could be. He had refused to buy anything at all, despite his sizeable store of cash, and was now paying for his miserliness. He wished he had somehow wangled a Spell of Sustenance somewhere along the line, but he no longer even had a bloodstone; he had turned his in after his last assassination, in accordance with his orders.
If mere food and drink were so outrageously expensive in the city, he wondered what astronomical sum might be required to buy an enchanted bloodstone.
Somewhere along the highway, he told himself, there would surely be an inn or a tavern, or at least a farmhouse, where he might buy bread and ale, or find water. With that in mind, he kept marching and even managed to pick up his pace a trifle.
The sun was reddening in the west when he reached the fork. As he had decided, he bore right. Some of his fellow travelers were already settling by the roadside for the night, some with elaborate camps, others with just a blanket. Virtually all the traffic that was still moving was using the left-hand fork, and Valder realized that that
