Ryba’s eyes appeared to look at neither Skiodra or Nylan, but remained on the blond trader.
“Such generosity would quickly bring you dinner on plates of gold and silver. At six coppers a barrel, you would be feeding your mounts sweetcakes.” Nylan smiled broadly to signify his amusement.
“Sweetcakes? More likely maize husks begged from gleaning fields. A silver and one … not a copper less!” Skiodra looked toward the roiling clouds. “May the devils from the skies show you my good faith.”
“Your faith, that I believe,” answered Nylan. “It is your price that not even a spendthrift second son would swallow. Seven coppers.”
“I said you were a mage. Oh, I said that, and blades like black lightning you may forge, but your father could not have been a mere usurer, but an usurer to usurers. You would have my horses grub stubble from peasants’ fields. Even to give you a gift to start trading, at a silver a barrel, I would have to sell not only my daughter, but my son.”
“At eight coppers a barrel, because I would reward your efforts to climb here, you would still have golden chains for your daughter.”
“I could not sell a single barrel at nine coppers,” protested Skiodra.
“How about eleven barrels for a gold?” Nylan’s fingers slipped over the hilt of his blade as he sensed the growing chaos and tension in the big guard next to Skiodra and keyed in the reflex boost he had always worried about using, even on the Winterlance’s neuronet.
“Done, even though you will ruin me, Mage.”
Ryba looked sideways, and the blade of the blond trader flickered-but not as fast as Nylan’s, which flashed like a stroke of black lightning through shoulder and armor.
The blond trader’s dead eyes were frozen open in surprise, and Ryba’s blade rested against Skiodra’s throat, as Nylan removed and cleaned his own blade, fighting against the throbbing and aching that battered his skull, both from the chaos of death and the agony of forced reflexes. Wouldevery death hurt that much? Or would it get worse?
“This sort of thing isn’t good for a trader,” Nylan remarked conversationally. “People might get the wrong idea. We might think that you really wanted to rob us.” He squinted, trying to fight off the pain.
“I did not know …” Skiodra looked toward the dozen armed men with bared blades who edged their mounts toward the mounted guards of Westwind.
“Let us just say that you did not,” said Ryba. “You might tell your men to sheathe their blades. Could any of them have stopped the mage?”
“No.” Skiodra looked toward his men. “The angels mean well, I think, and it might be best if you put your blades away.”
About half did.
“Who wants a blade right through his chest?” asked Ryba with a smile.
A single man charged, and Ryba’s left hand flickered. The dark-bearded man slumped across the horse’s mane with the throwing blade through his chest, and his mount reared. The body slid into the dust.
The dozen mounted angels eased forward, each bearing an unsheathed and dark blade Nylan had forged.
Skiodra looked at the grim faces of the women, and the blades. The other five men sheathed their blades slowly, though their hands remained on their hilts.
“This really isn’t very friendly, Skiodra,” said Nylan. “Have you seen that your men all moved first, and they’re all dead?”
Skiodra swallowed, eyes glancing at Ryba’s blade, back at his neck.
“Doesn’t that tell you something?” pursued Nylan. “Now … do you want to trade for your goods, or do you want us to slaughter you and take them?”
“How do I know-”
“Stuff it!” snapped Ryba. “We would prefer to trade, and you know it. You’d prefer to steal, and we know it.”
A pasty cast crossed Skiodra’s face.
“So we’ll trade, and if you try anything nasty, we’ll just kill you,” concluded Ryba. “I thought you agreed to nine coppers a barrel for the flour.”
“Yes, Marshal of angels.”
As Ryba lowered her blade, Skiodra mopped his forehead.
“What else do you have to offer?”
Skiodra forced a grin under his pale and sweating brow. “I might ask the same of you, Mage.”
“How about two dozen of the finest blades produced west of the Westhorns, directly, more or less, from a place called Carpa. Of course,” Nylan said lightly, “I expect that five of them would pay for everything in your carts with a few golds to spare.”
“I slandered your father, Mage. You had to be whelped from a white witch and sired by the patron angel of usurers.” Skiodra shrugged. “I cannot blame you for trying to get the best price, but your idea of fairness would have ruined Lestmerk, and he could get blood from stones and water from the sands of the Stone Hills.”
“Now that we have that understood,” laughed Nylan, doing his best to ignore his continuing headache, “what do you offer from the remaining carts?”
“I will show you, provided you bring down those blades.”
“I’d say to bring ten,” Nylan suggested to Ryba, “just so that the honorable Skiodra has a choice. And some of the breastplates, maybe.”
Skiodra frowned, and Nylan translated roughly. “I suggested that the marshal bring a double handful to allow you a choice.”
“Mage … you alone must be the patron of usurers.”
Nylan shrugged. “Since you are the patron of ambitious traders, I’d say we could work out a fair trade.”
Skiodra laughed, but the sweat beaded on his forehead, and Nylan wondered why. Did he seem that formidable?
Cessya turned her mount back up the ridge, presumably to bring down the cart and some of the blades captured from Relyn’s forces.
In the end, Ryba and Nylan looked upon nearly thirty barrelsof flours-maize, wheat, and barley; five bolts of gray woolen cloth; one bolt of a red and blue plaid; four barrels of dried fruit; two kegs of a cooking oil from something called oilpods; three axes; two saws; and enough other assorted goods to fill a wagon-plus one of Skiodra’s carts, the oldest and most rickety. He’d even managed to get a barrel and a small keg of feed corn that might help the chickens through the winter.
The guards remained mounted until the trader’s entourage was well along the road toward Lornth. Then, as half the women began to load the two carts, Nylan mounted and eased the gray up beside Ryba.
“This whole business is a little strange,” he observed. “You notice that Skiodra didn’t show up until after you made hash of young Relyn’s forces. And this Lord Sillek-he’s the son of the lord you killed in the first battle-he’s offered land and a title for our destruction, enough that this young hothead-Relyn, I mean-was willing to take the chance.”
“It’s not all that strange,” answered Ryba. “Skiodra wanted to see if we’d been hurt, and how badly. If we were weak, then he’d attack. Since he found us strong, he’ll sell, the information to someone. Lord Sillek, I suppose.”
“Something like that,” Nylan agreed. His eyes covered the goods that had cost eight blades and some breastplates. “We still have some coins.”
“The flour and fruit will help, but it’s going to be a long winter,” Ryba said quietly, “even if we can get some more from those traders that Ayrlyn has been working with near … what is it? … Clarta, Carpa? The economics are the hard part-in war or peace, I suppose.” As the last of Skiodra’s riders disappeared beyond the ridge, she turned her mount uphill.
Nylan rode beside her, still bouncing in his saddle, wondering if he would ever learn to ride as smoothly as the others. “Do you think we can make this work economically? Westwind, I mean?”
“I already have,” said Ryba slowly, “thanks to Skiodra and young Relyn.”
“You don’t sound happy. Is that another vision?”
“Not exactly. But the pieces I’ve already seen make more sense.” Ryba shifted her weight in the saddle and turned to face Nylan. “Look how many bandits there are. Trading has to be dangerous. Westwind will patrol the roads across this section of the mountains-what are they called?”