“Oh, frig …” The engineer shook his head. Next time; he’d have to cut the composite so that the heat-reflective side was to the inside of the groove. It made a stupid kind of sense, although he couldn’t have given the explanation a good physicist could have.
“I take it you figured it out?” asked Ryba. “You have that look that says you’re so stupid not to have realized it from the beginning.” She paused. “No one else would ever figure out your mistakes if you weren’t so upset about them.” She laughed briefly. “What were you trying this time?”
“Another weapon.”
Huldran eased away from the two. “Need to set these stones, ser, Marshal, before the mortar locks up.”
“Go ahead,” said Nylan.
“We’ll need every new weapon we can get,” Ryba said.
“We’re about out of slug-thrower shells?” asked Nylan.
“Maybe fifty, seventy-five rounds left in personal weapons, about the same for the two rifles. That’s not enough.” She shrugged. “What were you trying to make?”
“One of those endurasteel composite bows.”
“We could use some, but where did you get the idea?”
“Gerlich was muttering the other morning about the lack of accuracy and range with the native bows.”
“He always mutters-when he’s around.”
Thunder rumbled across the skies, echoing back from Freyja, and fat raindrops began to fall.
“Excuse me. I need to get the laser under cover.” Nylan began to disassemble the equipment. First the powerhead and cable went back to the fifth-level storage space-into an area half built into the central stone pedestal-then the meters, and finally, the firin cells themselves. Ryba helped him carry the cell assembly. After that he set the cooled and melted puddle of metal and composite in a corner of the uncompleted bathhouse. He might be able to use the mess in some fashion later … and he might not.
Then, through the scattered but big raindrops, he and Ryba walked up to the emergency generator, spinning in the fall wind. It too was failing, bearings squeaking, and power surging, but it still put power into the firin cell attached to the charger. Both charger and cell were protected by a framework of fir limbs covered with alternating layers of cannibalized lander tiles held in place with heavy stones.
“Still charging.” Nylan carefully replaced the covering.
“You’ve made the power last longer than anyone thought possible,” Ryba said.
Looking downhill at the tower, Nylan answered, “There’s more to do, a lot more.”
“There always will be, but Dyliess will appreciate it all. All of the guards will.”
At the clop of hooves, both turned toward the narrow trail from the ridge, where Istril rode toward the front gate to the black tower.
“Trouble?” asked the engineer.
“I don’t think so. She wasn’t riding that fast.”
They had almost reached the south side of the tower before the triangle gong rang. Clang! Clang!
“Those traders are back, Marshal,” called Istril as she rode from the causeway toward Nylan and Ryba. “The first ones.”
“Skiodra,” Nylan recalled.
“He’s the one. He’s got nearly a score of men, and eight wagon.”
“I told you we needed weapons,” said Ryba dryly.
Nylan shrugged.
“Get a dozen marines,” ordered Ryba, looking at Istril, “fully armed. Have the rifles stationed to sweep them if we need it.”
“Gerlich is out hunting,” pointed out Istril, “with half a squad.”
“Get who you can.” Ryba turned to Nylan. “You, too. You did so well last time that you can handle the trading.”
Nylan shrugged, then headed to the washing area of the stream. He wished the bathhouse were completed. Then he laughed. The tower had gone more quickly than anyone could have anticipated, far more quickly, and he was still worrying, except it was about showers, and laundry tubs, and more jakes.
Ryba headed toward the stables. “I’ll have a mount waiting for you.”
“Thank you. I won’t be too long.”
After a quick wash and shave, with the attendant cuts, a return to the tower, and a change into his other shipsuit, he donned the slug-thrower he hoped he didn’t have to use, and the black blade he had infused with black flux order. Then he walked down the stone steps, past the aroma of bakingbread, and out the front gate of the tower.
As Ryba had promised, a mount was waiting, its reins held by Istril.
“They just left, ser, at a walk.”
“Can we catch them by walking a bit faster?” asked Nylan. The not-quite-swaybacked gray whickered softly as he mounted.
“I think so.” Istril grinned.
Nylan and the silver-haired marine with the warm smile joined the other eleven marines and Ryba halfway down the ridge toward the spot where the traders, dressed in the same quilted jackets and cloaks, waited by a single cart that flew a trading banner. Two were on foot before the cart, the remainder mounted behind the cart.
Skiodra, still the biggest man among the traders and wearing in his shoulder harness an even bigger broadsword than the long blade Gerlich usually bore in similar fashion, stepped forward. “I am Skiodra, and I have returned.” His Old Anglorat did not seem so thick, but Nylan wondered if that were merely his growing familiarity with the local tongue.
“Greetings, trader,” answered Ryba, still mounted. Her eyes did not leave his, and after a moment, the trader bowed.
“Greetings, Marshal of the angels. We bring more supplies. Have you blades to trade?”
“These are better,” said Ryba. “We will bring them down shortly. What do you have to offer?”
“Are we sure they are angels?” interrupted the bushyhaired and full-bearded trader behind Skiodra.
Skiodra waited, enough so that Nylan understood the ploy.
“If you wish to join those under that cairn there,” suggested the engineer quietly, pointing to the heaped rocks that covered the slain bandits, “you may certainly test the strength of your beliefs.” He dismounted and handed the reins to Istril. Then he walked forward, slowly drawing his blade, the one he had kept because it was even darker than the others and seemed to hold darkness within its smooth luster, and extended it sideways and slowly. “You might alsowish to touch this blade if you doubt.” He smiled, knowing that he had bound some of the strange flux energy within the blade.
The blond reached for the blade, but his fingers never touched the black metal. Instead, he stepped back, his face pale.
Nylan extended the side of the blade toward Skiodra. “Perhaps …”
“No. My friend spoke too hastily.”
As before, the first cart-the one with the banner this time-was filled with barrels.
“Shall we start with the wheat flour?” asked Skiodra. “I have the finest of flours from the fertile plains of Gallos, even better than the flour of Certis, and closer and fresher.”
“And doubtless unnecessarily costly, for all that trouble, trader.”
“It is good flour.”
“I am sure it is,” agreed Nylan, “but why should we pay for a few days’ freshness when we will be storing it and not using it until seasons from now?”
“I had forgotten-until now-that, mage or not, you came from a long and distinguished line of usurers,” responded Skiodra. “As I told you once, my friend, and I will accord you that courtesy, it is far from costless to travel the Westhorns. This is good flour, the best flour, and that freshness means that you can store it longer, far, far longer … at a silver and three coppers a barrel, I am offering you what few could find.”
Nylan tried not to sigh. Was every trading session going to be like the first? “And fewer still could afford,” he responded as smoothly as he could. “Granting you the freshness, still five coppers would more than recompense your travel.”
“Five coppers! Five? You would destroy me,” declared Skiodra. “With your black blades, do you think that you can eat metal in the cold of winter? Or your soldiers, will they not grow thin on cold iron? A generous man am I, and for a silver and two I will prove that generosity.”