Land of the Burning Sands by Rachel Neumeier Page B

at a pace no horse could sustain. But as the man-at-arms had suggested, Gereint not infrequently saw one or another boat snagged up, the men of their crews cursing as they worked to free it.
    There were few inns south of Dachsichten, but far more farms that offered travelers meals in their huge, busy kitchens, and the hospitality of a clean, hay-sweet barn or an extra room for those who wished to barter coin or labor for a night’s comfortable rest. Gereint, disgusted by the continuing bad weather, halted early his first evening out from Dachsichten, when he came to a particularly pleasant-looking farm. He stayed there an entire extra day, watching the rain fall and setting his hands to small tasks of mending and making that had proven beyond the limited skill of local makers. He even borrowed the small portable forge the farmer owned and showed the farmer’s twin sons, both moderately gifted, how to repair worn pots and skillets.
    It occurred to Gereint for the first time that even bearing the
geas
rings, he might not need to go to Feierabiand to find a new life; that he might trade his skill as a maker for a place at almost any normal, peaceful farm and disappear from the sight of anyone who might wish to find him. Unless, of course, someone someday caught sight of the rings. Then that new life would vanish in a heartbeat… No. He set his face south when the rain finally stopped and went on.
    The sun came out at last, and Gereint’s horse strode out with a will in the clean air, happy with its rest and with the generous measure of grain the farmer’s sons had measured out for it. The most common travelers on the road were now farmers with small dog-carts and teams of wagonners with six-horse teams of enormous horses. The carts were for local travel, but the wagons were heading, loaded, to Breidechboden, or returning empty to their farms.
    It had been years since Gereint had lived in Breidechboden, and he had neither intended nor wished to return. Nevertheless, a strange feeling went through him when, two days later, he finally saw the Emnerechke Gates rise up before him: great stone pillars that marked the beginning of the city proper. It was foolish to feel he’d come home. Breidechboden was not, could never again be, his home. But even so, the feeling was there, surprising him with its intensity.
    A wall had once run between each of the four hills that framed the city, encircling the valley that lay in their midst. That wall had been two spear-casts thick and six high, faced with stone and huge timbers from the heart of the great forest, heavy with builders’ magic so that it would stand against even the most powerful siege engines.
    Berusent described the great wall of Breidechboden in his
Historica,
when he described the founding of the capital. Tauchen Breidech, one of the early kings of the original, smaller Casmantium, had built this city on a base of seven wide roads linking eight concentric circles; the outermost circle comprised the wall and its famous gates. But successive iterations of war and conquest and peace and growth had thoroughly disguised the great king’s original plan. The wall had been first absorbed into the widening city and finally, after a century or so, torn down completely. Its great stones had been incorporated into the innumerable tenements and apartments and private houses that now ascended the hills, rising rank above rank, pink and creamy gold in the soft morning light. Gereint wondered whether any of those residences might possibly prove impervious to siege engines, if a catapult happened to fire against them: Berusent had not commented on whether the builders’ magic might have stayed in the stones and timbers when the walls were taken apart for their materials.
    The Amnachudran townhouse was set on the lee side of Seven Son Hill, which lay to the right hand of the Emnerechke Gates. Gereint gave his name—not his real name, of course—and the townhouse address to the city