The Towers of the Sunset by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Page A

half the travelers have struggled awake.
    In the stable, his breath steaming like the caldrons in the kitchen, Creslin studies the horse, taller and more fragile than the battle ponies of Westwind's guards. Finally he touches the chestnut gelding's shoulder, avoiding an old scar, and concentrates on reassuring the beast. In time, he checks the bridle and the rest of the fittings before beginning to saddle up.
    "I never got your name ... or what you'd be called if the name's a problem." Hylin watches but for a moment before saddling his own horse, a heavier and younger gray. "Derrild'll be here 'fore long."
    "I'll be ready." Creslin wears his sword in the shoulder harness, as he has been battle-trained, outlandish as it may appear to the easterners. Only on ceremonial occasions do the guards wear sword-belts. "Call me Creslin."
    "Creslin ..." The thin man rolls the sound across his tongue. "Weren't for that beard you had the other day, and that silver hair, you'd pass for one of those devil guards."
    "Devil guards?"
    "You know. Haven't you heard of them? Those women fighters off the Roof of the World. The ones that destroyed Jerliall two years ago." The small man tightens the straps on a pack mule, then stacks the fitted bags onto the harness.
    "Jerliall?" The name is unfamiliar, but then, Creslin realizes, there is so much he does not know.
    "You really don't know, do you?"
    Creslin shakes his head.
    "Stop the jabbering, and let's get on the road." Derrild's voice is even thicker than on the day before. The trader jabs a heavy arm at Hylin and then toward the half-open stable door.
    â€¢ In turn, Hylin turns toward the youth. "Give me a hand, would you, Creslin?"
    Creslin skirts the gelding and begins to hand the cargo bags to Hylin one at a time as the trader wrestles another mule out into the yard and into cart traces.
    Silently, Hylin and Creslin load a second pack mule while Derrild mumbles and stacks bags and boxes in the cart. "Frigging cold. Hell of a time to trade . . . got to be crazy to be a trader."
    Creslin looks toward the hulking and bearded man, then toward Hylin.
    "Don't mind him." Hylin checks the harness. "He talks to himself a lot, but he's careful. He doesn't get drunk, and he pays. Can't say that about too many traders. It's a hard life, being a trader."
    "Must be harder being a guard."
    "Some ways, but we get paid whether he makes money or not." Creslin frowns, not having considered that a trader might well lose money. "Does he do . . . well?"
    "Can't say as I know. But he's still in business, and has been for a long time, and he has a solid house in Jellico, with a stable. His son takes the shorter runs, north to Sligo, or south to Hydlen."
    Creslin nods as he hands the last bag to Hylin. "What about the east?"
    "Ha . . .no money trading there. Not much risk. Not even someone like Frosee messes with the wizards' road guards." The thin man tightens the last of the straps and begins to lead the pair of mules out of the stable. "Same thing's true out west. Between those devils of the mountains and the Tyrant, not much thieving goes on. So anyone can be a trader."
    "They just think they're traders," rumbles Derrild as he finishes loading the cart. "They carry a wagon load of cabbage twenty kays and they're a trader. Bah!"
    Creslin holds the reins of both the gray and the chestnut; his breath steams in the chill air. He has strapped his pack behind his saddle, between the near-empty saddle bags that contain grain cakes, presumably for the horse.
    "Let's go. The sooner we get moving, the sooner I can warm myself before the fire at home." Derrild levers himself onto the cart seat, his right hand touching the leather-wrapped handle of some sort of weapon.
    After readjusting the stirrups, Creslin swings into the saddle.
    Hylin merely grunts. "Where to?" the younger man asks. "You haven't been this way?"
    "This is as far east as I've ever been." The mercenary raises his eyebrows under the hood of his stained