From the ridgetop the road sloped steeply down toward a river bigger than Dumery had ever imagined rivers could be. He had never seen a real river, of course, just drainage ditches and canals; the broadest canal he had ever seen was the New Canal, between Shiphaven and Spicetown, which was two hundred feet wide for much of its length, big enough for the ocean-going ships to use freely.
The lower part of the Grand Canal, between Spicetown and Fishertown, was about the same.
The two of them could have been put side by side and still not equalled more than a tiny fraction of the river before him now.
And the really amazing part of the view wasn’t the river at all; it was the bridge across it. It was stone, soaring arches of stone supporting a roadbed higher and broader than Ethshar’s city wall-and built across water, rather than on solid ground!
Dumery stared at it in amazement.
Soldiers, four of them, in the uniform of Ethshar’s city guard, stood at the near end, chatting quietly and watching half-heartedly for approaching traffic. Just now no one was crossing, but on the far side, in the distance, Dumery thought he could see a wagon on the road.
What he didnot see was the man in brown, and he looked about worriedly as he hurried on down the long slope.
Then Dumery spotted his quarry; he wasn’t on the main road at all. Rather than approaching the bridge, he had turned aside onto a smaller and even steeper road that branched off inconspicuously to the left, just where the approaches of the bridge parted company with the natural contour of the land.
This little branch road followed the slope down to the river and a dock.
It wasn’t a particularly impressive dock compared with the great trading wharves in Spicetown or the shipping piers in Shiphaven, but it was undeniably a dock. What’s more, there were boats tied up there, and the man in brown was heading straight for the biggest one, which waited at the end of the dock, its gangplank out.
Forgetting about any need for secrecy, Dumery broke into a run, chasing after the dragon-hunter, lest the boat leave with the man aboard before Dumery could reach it.
The boat was long and square, without masts or rigging, and with little freeboard. Sweeps were racked on either side of the deck, their blades poking up at a steep angle, giving the whole craft something of the appearance of an overturned beetle with its legs in the air.
Despite its rather ugly shape, the craft was gaily painted; the hull was a deep rich red picked out with gold, the deck and superstructure a gleaming yellow, with predominantly-green fancywork around the ports and hatches. Green and gold banners flew at bow and stern. The sweeps were painted green, with gold scrollwork on the shafts.
This was not, Dumery realized, a sea-going ship, nor even a harbor boat. It bore more of a resemblance to the flat-bottomed barges that were used to haul materials around the waterfront, especially in the shipyard, than to anything else Dumery had often encountered. He thought he might have seen a few such craft here and there along Ethshar’s waterfront, but he wasn’t really sure; he had certainly not seen many, and never at the deep-water piers.
It had to be a riverboat.
The man in brown marched up the gangplank without slowing and waved a greeting to the handful of brightly-dressed people on the boat’s deck. Two of them waved back; a third stepped forward and exchanged a few words with the dragon-hunter.
Dumery wished he could hear what was being said, but he was still much too far away.
He was running as fast as he could on the downgrade, but the man in brown’s head start and longer legs had given him a sizable lead, and the slope made running difficult. Dumery’s feet thumped onto the dock’s first plank as the man in brown vanished through a low doorway, his business with the man on deck completed.
Dumery ran out the dock’s length and up the gangplank without slowing.
At the sound of his approach-which was easy to hear, thanks to the dock’s loose planking-the party on deck turned and looked at him. The man who had spoken with the dragon-hunter, a man in a white tunic and sky-blue kilt, stepped over to the gangplank.
Dumery ran straight into his outstretched arms.
“Hai,there,” the man said, grabbing Dumery’s arms. “What’s your hurry?”
Dumery realized he had made it; he was aboard the boat, with the man in brown.
“I didn’t want to miss the boat,” he said, panting.
“No danger of that,” the man in the white tunic said. “We won’t be leaving until noon.”
“Oh,” Dumery said, feeling foolish. “I didn’t know.”
“Ah,” the man said, releasing one arm. “Well, now you do.” He looked Dumery over, and Dumery stared back defiantly.
He knew he looked terrible, after sleeping in his clothes in the mud and then tripping over that stupid spriggan, but he didn’t care, and he waited for the man to criticize him, ready to reply.
“I take it,” the man said, “that you’d like to stay aboard for the ride north?”
Dumery blinked and looked around.
No, he wasn’t confused; there the sun was on the far side of the bridge, which meant that was east. The other direction on the river was west. Was this boat just a ferry, then?
If so, he could have just walked across the bridge!
“North?” he said.
“Yes, north,” the man replied. “Didn’t you know, then?” He pointed due west.
“We’ll be cruising upstream, all the way to Sardiron of the Waters.”
“Oh,” Dumery said.
Either the entire World was confused somehow and the sun was rising in the south, or else the river to the west turned north somewhere along the way.
This was no local ferry-Sardiron of the Waters was hundreds of miles away.
In fact, it wasn’t even in the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars. It was the council city of the Baronies of Sardiron, a land Dumery had heard described in countless tales as a barbarous foreign realm of gloomy castles, deep dark forests, icy winters, hungry wolves-and marauding dragons.
Wasthat where the man in brown was going?
It made sense, of course. There were no dragons left in the Hegemony, so far as Dumery knew; certainly not anywhere near Ethshar of the Spices.
He should have thought of that sooner. A dragon-hunter could scarcely ply his trade in such quiet, civilized country.
He might have to pursue the man in brown for sixnights, even months.
He hesitated.
“Were you going to Sardiron, then?” the boatman asked.
Dumery nodded. “Yes,” he said.
“Ah,” the boatman replied, nodding. “And you have the fare?”
Dumery’s heart fell. “Fare?” he asked.
“Of course,” the boatman said. “Did you think we man this boat for the sheer delight of it?”
“No, I... how much?”
“To Sardiron?”
“Yes.”
“The full fare, lad, is five rounds of silver, but for a boy your size-call it three.”
“Oh,” Dumery said. While that discount meant that the price was actually negotiable, Dumery knew there was no way in the World he could haggle three silver pieces down to a few copper bits.
And all he had was a few copper bits.
“Haven’t got it, have you?” the man asked, glaring at him.
“No, I...” Dumery began. Then he caught the boatman’s gaze and just said, “No.”
“Off the boat, then,” the boatman ordered, pointing ashore and using the grip on Dumery’s arm to turn the boy.
“Could I work...” Dumery began.
“No,” the boatman said, cutting him off. “TheSunlit Meadows is no cattle barge, boy, to be hiring anyone who comes aboard with two hands and a strong back-and your back doesn’t look that strong, for that matter! This is the finest passenger boat on the Great River, and we’ve had a full crew of trained professionals working her since before we left Sardiron of the Waters; we’ve no need for a fumble-fingered farmboy.” He put his other hand between Dumery’s shoulders and began pushing the boy down the gangplank.