At length, Eloti pointed out, "We can't wait too long before leaving. We must get past Lutegh before dawn."
Everyone shivered, but nobody argued with her logic.
They waited less than an hour after dark for dinner to settle—and, hopefully, the unseen enemy to sleep—before setting out.
This time they raised no sail. Everyone took an oar, though they began with poles to slide the boat out of its safe niche in the reeds. The treacherously clear sky at least gave them good starlight for reckoning, though they clung to the shore and the banks of reeds to at least disguise their silhouette.
On the far bank, campfires glimmered like malevolent yellow stars—countless thousands of them. One look sufficed. The refugees shivered, looked no more, and bent to the oars.
The mules, muzzles occupied with well-filled nosebags, stamped and grumbled quietly. The noise was slight, but it made the rowers wince.
Omis and Zeren, matched on the two foremost oars, bent their backs with the stoic concentration of workmen at a long, hard task. Vari and Eloti, next, hauled with distinctly different styles: Vari's angular and fierce, puffing for breath to every upstroke, Eloti swaying quietly, smoothly, her gloved hands seeming to grip casually, as if this too were just another passing amusement. Arizun and Ziya, on the third pair, lifted and hauled doggedly in tight-lipped determination to do their share. Doshi and Sulun tacitly worked out a rowing cycle that gave them an acceptable weight on the oars with the best economy of motion, Yanados crouched at the sweep, holding it with her weight, hollow eyes peering at the dark water ahead.
"Stroke . . . stroke . . . stroke . . ." she half-whispered, until everyone's rhythm matched.
The black water growled and gurgled under the hull. The boat moved slowly upstream.
In the muttering darkness the rhythmic labor grew hypnotic. Sulun found himself sinking into an oar-paced reverie, thoughts rolling in stately cadences like the phrases of a holy-day chant. Who else escaped from Sabis? he wondered. Where will they settle? What will they do? Mez, in the end, would benefit. The refugees who fled there were not all unskilled and penniless; the craftsmen and merchants and even the clerks would put their trades to good use. No doubt many would leave the city, work their way south and east through Esha, set up in the lesser cities and even backwater towns where they'd find less rivalry for their skills and wares. Soon enough the lands of the southern shore would find themselves gemmed with cities of wealth, knowledge, and trade. Give them a generation or two undisturbed, which the Ancar, having taken all the north and east, just might be content to do . . .
And what of the poorer refugees who fled across the Baiz into the swamps of the delta? Surely they couldn't all stay there, hiding in the reeds, living on fish and water birds. Soon enough they'd march west, into the wild lands of marsh and forest, to find some means of living among the thick foliage and wild beasts. Perhaps they'd become hunters, trappers, woodcutters—trading occasionally, resentfully, with the new masters of their old city. Or perhaps they'd go far enough west, into the unknown lands, to find someplace fit to build another city. Give them time, give them time . . .
And we go north, the thought circled to conclusion. Behind the Ancar lines, into half-wild lands, to found our own little colony. What can we build there that will endure?
He couldn't imagine it now; his mind was growing dulled with fatigue. Only the resolution remained: find a safe place to settle, some place where a blacksmith and a gaggle of engineers could make their living as they were, doing what they had always done.
Sulun shivered as a touch of wind ruffled his hair, then nudged the hood of his robe off his head.
"Down anchor," Yanados announced quietly. "Up oars and set them."
It took Sulun a few seconds to understand the words, then act on them. Oars rattled on wood as they were drawn in. The anchor splashed down into the inky water.
"Noise!" Doshi gulped. "Too loud. Yanados—"
"We're past them," Yanados panted, leaning on the sweep. "Look."
Sure enough, the far bank of the river was dark and silent. They had finally outsailed the last fringes of the marching Ancar horde.
"Hush," Zeren warned, quietly as he could while still being heard. "They must have guards on the road, messengers, post houses. . . ."
"We'll be quiet," Yanados agreed, tying down the sweep and climbing to her feet. "Better rest, though, and use this wind. Up sails."
"They might be seen."
"Not likely, not at this distance, in such dark. Put up sail."
Sluggishly, the others moved to comply. In less than a quarter-hour the boat was moving again, slowly but steadily upstream. Everyone sagged on the deck, rubbing cramped arms and backs. The mules munched placidly. Weary eyes raked the water, the shores, found only blackness. Eventually Vari got up, fetched a thin wineskin out of supplies, and passed it around. Yanados inspected the sail, reset a few lines, then came back and sat down at the tiller.
"How long?" Sulun panted, amazed at the number of cramps and aches he hadn't noticed until he stopped rowing.
"The wind? Who can tell?" Yanados shrugged. "We'll have to row again in an hour, anyway. Wind alone won't take us past Lutegh in time."
Sulun groaned, thinking of the long night ahead. Best make sure the children were safely asleep and the mules bribed to silence with enough grain.
They were rowing with the wind when the first lights came into sight. Yanados, eyes ahead, saw them first.
"Approaching Lutegh," she almost whispered to Sulun and Doshi. "Keep silence. Pass it on."
Sulun, slow-witted with fatigue, duly passed the message on before its implications sank in.
Lutegh: east, on the fork of the Dawnstream, fallen to the Ancar. And they would turn there, come into the Dawnstream almost under Lutegh's walls. How could they not be seen and noted? How could the Ancar not order some captive boatman to set out after them? It was impossible, suicidal. They should make for the west bank, land, take out the mules and wagon and go overland from here—
Through a countryside crawling with Ancar troops.
Sulun said nothing, only pulled harder on his oar.
Yanados huddled at the tiller, flicking her eyes across the water ahead, the ominous glimmers of light on the distant east shore, and the sails. Keep the sails up? They were dull grey colored, not terribly visible in the dark, would add to their speed—and the boat needed speed now, speed and power to make the turn into the Dawnstream against the gods only knew what crosscurrents. According to all she'd ever heard, the Dawnstream's mouth was wide and deep. Wide enough that a boat this size couldn't be seen by torchlight from the bank? Deep enough that the major current would run low, leaving the surface placid enough to skim quickly? And how much of the night was left? Would the mists rise at dawn, or would the air and sky stay treacherously clear? If mist came, how would she find it anyway, in all this darkness?
No help for it; she would have to steer closer to the east shore, go within sight of Lutegh.
Yanados gritted her teeth and leaned on the tiller, pulling to starboard.
More pinpoints of orange light appeared, shimmering through the night haze, on the east bank. So many of them, no visible end to them ahead. White stars dead above, evil orange stars to the right, nothing else visible in the gurgling darkness. And now there came sounds: somewhere a dog barking, distant creaking of wood, sloshing of water around moored ships' hulls or the piers of once busy docks.