Fall of Angels (The Saga of Recluce #6)(66)

Skiodra, still the biggest man among the traders and wearing in his shoulder harness an even bigger broadsword than the long blade Gerlich usually bore in similar fashion, stepped forward. "I am Skiodra, and I have returned." His Old Anglorat did not seem so thick, but Nylan wondered if that were merely his growing familiarity with the local tongue.

"Greetings, trader," answered Ryba, still mounted. Her eyes did not leave his, and after a moment, the trader bowed.

"Greetings, Marshal of the angels. We bring more supplies. Have you blades to trade?"

"These are better," said Ryba. "We will bring them down shortly. What do you have to offer?"

"Are we sure they are angels?" interrupted the bushy-haired and full-bearded trader behind Skiodra.

Skiodra waited, enough so that Nylan understood the ploy.

"If you wish to join those under that cairn there," suggested the engineer quietly, pointing to the heaped rocks that covered the slain bandits, "you may certainly test the strength of your beliefs." He dismounted and handed the reins to Istril. Then he walked forward, slowly drawing his blade, the one he had kept because it was even darker than the others and seemed to hold darkness within its smooth luster, and extended it sideways and slowly. "You might also wish to touch this blade if you doubt." He smiled, knowing that he had bound some of the strange flux energy within the blade.

The blond reached for the blade, but his fingers never touched the black metal. Instead, he stepped back, his face pale.

Nylan extended the side of the blade toward Skiodra. "Perhaps..."

"No. My friend spoke too hastily."

As before, the first cart-the one with the banner this time-was filled with barrels.

"Shall we start with the wheat flour?" asked Skiodra. "I have the finest of flours from the fertile plains of Gallos, even better than the flour of Certis, and closer and fresher."

"And doubtless unnecessarily costly, for all that trouble, trader."

"It is good flour."

"I am sure it is," agreed Nylan, "but why should we pay for a few days' freshness when we will be storing it and not using it until seasons from now?"

"I had forgotten-until now-that, mage or not, you came from a long and distinguished line of usurers," responded Skiodra. "As I told you once, my friend, and I will accord you that courtesy, it is far from costless to travel the Westhorns. This is good flour, the best flour, and that freshness means that you can store it longer, far, far longer... at a silver and three coppers a barrel, I am offering you what few could find."

Nylan tried not to sigh. Was every trading session going to be like the first? "And fewer still could afford," he responded as smoothly as he could. "Granting you the freshness, still five coppers would more than recompense your travel."

"Five coppers! Five? You would destroy me," declared Skiodra. "With your black blades, do you think that you can eat metal in the cold of winter? Or your soldiers, will they not grow thin on cold iron? A generous man am I, and for a silver and two I will prove that generosity."

Ryba's eyes appeared to look at neither Skiodra or Nylan, but remained on the blond trader.

"Such generosity would quickly bring you dinner on plates of gold and silver. At six coppers a barrel, you would be feeding your mounts sweetcakes." Nylan smiled broadly to signify his amusement.

"Sweetcakes? More likely maize husks begged from gleaning fields. A silver and one... not a copper less!" Skiodra looked toward the roiling clouds. "May the devils from the skies show you my good faith."

"Your faith, that I believe," answered Nylan. "It is your price that not even a spendthrift second son would swallow. Seven coppers."

"I said you were a mage. Oh, I said that, and blades like black lightning you may forge, but your father could not have been a mere usurer, but an usurer to usurers. You would have my horses grub stubble from peasants' fields. Even to give you a gift to start trading, at a silver a barrel, I would have to sell not only my daughter, but my son."

"At eight coppers a barrel, because I would reward your efforts to climb here, you would still have golden chains for your daughter."

"I could not sell a single barrel at nine coppers," protested Skiodra.

"How about eleven barrels for a gold?" Nylan's fingers slipped over the hilt of his blade as he sensed the growing chaos and tension in the big guard next to Skiodra and keyed in the reflex boost he had always worried about using, even on the Winterlance 's neuronet.

"Done, even though you will ruin me, Mage."

Ryba looked sideways, and the blade of the blond trader flickered-but not as fast as Nylan's, which flashed like a stroke of black lightning through shoulder and armor.

The blond trader's dead eyes were frozen open in surprise, and Ryba's blade rested against Skiodra's throat, as Nylan removed and cleaned his own blade, fighting against the throbbing and aching that battered his skull, both from the chaos of death and the agony of forced reflexes. Would every death hurt that much? Or would it get worse?

"This sort of thing isn't good for a trader," Nylan remarked conversationally. "People might get the wrong idea. We might think that you really wanted to rob us." He squinted, trying to fight off the pain.

"I did not know . . ." Skiodra looked toward the dozen armed men with bared blades who edged their mounts toward the mounted guards of Westwind.