Rahl could sense the evasions behind the other’s words.
Whhsttt! A chaos-bolt flew from somewhere.
Rahl strengthened his shields, but, even so, was rocked back, and barely managed to avoid crashing into the stone pier that held the mage-guard’s chair.
Whhstt! Whsstt! Whsst!
For a moment, it seemed as though chaos-bolts were everywhere, and most of them seemed aimed at Rahl, although his shields held. Screams and yells added to the confusion, and the handfuls of people on foot near them scattered. The teamster who had just driven his wagon past Rahl and Caersyn struggled to keep control of his team.
The chaos-bolt attack ended as suddenly as it had begun, but by the time Rahl gathered himself together, he could detect no sign of free chaos…or of a chaos-mage. Either that, or the mage had such tight shields that he or she was effectively invisible to Rahl’s order-senses.
Caersyn held on to the chair in which he had been seated. He leaned to one side, looking dazed. Rahl glanced past the stone post that anchored one of the iron gates to the piers, not that Rahl had ever seen it closed, and along the wall beyond it. He thought he sensed something, but he was looking for the duty pier guards, and they were nowhere around, either, and that was unusual.
The faintest scraping sound alerted Rahl, and he turned to see six men in worn blue moving toward him from behind a donkey cart. Two had sabres, rather than falchionas, and one carried something like a billhook, while the other three had cudgels. Rahl glanced toward Caersyn, but the mage-guard lay sprawled in his seat, moving slightly. Rahl couldn’t very well leave, although that would have been the sensible thing to do had he been there alone.
Rahl had the truncheon out and immediately charged the man with the billhook before the man could lift the heavy weapon. Rahl got well inside both blade and hook. The truncheon went into the man’s throat, and Rahl’s knee into his groin. The billhook clattered on the stone.
Then Rahl dodged the wild swing of a cudgel and struck across the fellow’s forearm, reinforcing the blow with order.
He danced back, away from a wiry bravo with a sabre. Unlike the others, the man was at least a passable blade, and Rahl had to deal with him while trying to avoid the others as they closed on him.
The other blade darted toward Rahl.
Whssst! Whsst! Two chaos-bolts slammed into the second blade, and he went down.
A weaker chaos-bolt burned the shoulder of a cudgel-wielder.
The remaining blade danced to one side, as if to keep Rahl between him and whatever chaos-mage was coming to Rahl’s assistance. He moved again, and Rahl struck. The sabre went flying, but before Rahl could move to disable him, another chaos-bolt, one of the weaker ones, caught him full in the face, and he pitched forward onto the stone pavement.
Rahl turned.
Myala stood less than fifteen cubits away.
The man who had carried the billhook was dead. So were the two blades. The others had run off.
Myala looked at Rahl. “For an ordermage, you’re not bad.”
“I’m very thankful you arrived.” Rahl looked up the mage-guard chair, where Caersyn sat, still looking slightly dazed. “Are you all right?”
“I will be…” Caersyn shook his head. “That first chaos attack…it took a lot out of me. I could barely get those last two off.”
“Chaos attack?” asked Myala.
“I thought I’d wait for you here,” Rahl said. “We’ve always done that before. Just after I got here, someone fired chaos-bolts at us. Then, right after that, those six came in.”
“Against two mage-guards?”
“Caersyn was knocked out for a bit,” Rahl explained. “They must have sent most of the chaos against him. I don’t know where the pier guards went.”
“One had gone to relieve himself, and the other started running when the chaos started to fly,” Caersyn said. “I saw that.”
“We’ll take the pier,” Myala said, looking at Caersyn. “You’re in no shape to finish your duty. You go find the undercaptain or the captain and tell him what happened. Have the guards send out another pier guard.”
“Probably best that way,” Caersyn admitted. “You’re sure?”
“What else can we do?” asked Myala. “It’s getting toward sunset, and the piers are clearing anyway.”
Only after Caersyn was well away, and Rahl had dragged the three bodies and their weapons over to the gate pillar and laid them out, did Myala speak. “Weakassed excuse for a chaos-mage. And letting a guard go off…that’s inexcusable. Why was he on duty? Do you know?”
“He said he was filling in. Hegyr was too sick to stand duty. That’s what he said.”
“I don’t like it. The weakest chaos-mage in the station with an ordermage.”
Rahl had his own doubts, but he said, “They might not have known I was going to be here. They started the attack with chaos-bolts.”
“Hmmm…that’s true.” Myala gestured to the teamster moving southward and away from the piers. “Hurry it up. Time to clear the piers!”
The driver flicked the long leads, and the wagon, laden with bales of wool, began to move a trace more quickly. Behind him were two vendors, pushing carts.
“What about the Jeranyi crews?” asked Rahl.
“Some have been going ashore, but they’ve been going like most crews…that’s in groups of two or three, or sometimes all alone.” She gestured toward the three bodies. “They don’t look like Jeranyi. The others didn’t, either.”
“So what were they after?” asked Rahl.
“I don’t have any idea. That’s why I sent Caersyn to get the undercaptain.”
Just before the sun finished dropping behind the distant hills, three pier guards appeared with a cart. Two began to load the bodies onto the cart. The other took station by the gate.
Suvynt had accompanied them. “I’m here to relieve you. The undercaptain asked if you would meet him at the duty desk to brief him on what happened.”
“We can do that.” Myala’s words were clipped.
Rahl could sense her displeasure.
Neither spoke until they were a good fifty cubits from Suvynt.
“Would have been easier if he’d just come out and seen it,” was all that Myala said.
Rahl couldn’t help but feel that somehow the attack had been aimed at him, but how could he say that? He had not one shred of proof, only his feelings that it was all linked to the pickle barrels, the Jeranyi, and Shyret and the Nylan Merchant Association warehouses. The problem was that he couldn’t figure out any possible reason why the Jeranyi would want him dead. How did any of them even know who he was? And why would the Jeranyi even care?
Almost as soon as they stepped into the mage-guard building and neared the duty desk, Craelyt appeared, as if he had been waiting for them.
“I’m sorry that I couldn’t come out to see what happened, but the captain left word that I was to meet him here for something urgent.” Craelyt’s shields were even tighter than usual, and not a trace of any emotion escaped, but his voice was warm. “I heard that you both had a difficult time at the pier-guard station.”
“You could say that, ser,” replied Myala.
“Caersyn said that there was an attack on the pier-guard mage post,” Craelyt said. “I’d like to hear your account of what happened?” His eyes were fixed on Rahl.
“After I finished sparring here, ser, I returned to the pier-guard mage post to meet up with Mage-Guard Myala…” Rahl related what had happened from the chaos-bolt attacks onward. He did not mention the Nylan Merchant Association wagons or the pickle barrels. “…and then Myala sent Caersyn to find you. He didn’t seem in any condition to finish his duty.”
“He’ll have to have several days off,” Craelyt agreed. “Were you able to discover anything about the chaos-mage who attacked? Did you see who it might have been?”
“No, ser. There was almost no warning at all,” replied Rahl. “Then, as soon as Caersyn was staggered, the bravos and ruffians appeared.”