Wizards Apprentice 4 the Vale in WinterChapter 14
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Wizards Apprentice #4: The Vale In WinterChapter 9 free porn video
There were six wagons, twelve drovers and a half dozen outriders, not counting myself. I was what the wagon master called 'supercargo'. I was along for the trip, but not accounted for on either the train's manifest or her roster.
"We're hauling rough sawn logs, so there's little need for guards or a night watch on these hauls," Drummon told me conversationally. He was the oldest of the outriders, and he'd taken a liking to me when he'd seen the tattoos on my hands. "Still, there are beasts and brigands who'll take advantage of those who don't keep an eye out. Mostly we're along on these rides as extra muscle in case a wheel or axle needs fixing. These logs are heavy, and it takes an experienced hand to wrangle them on and off these carts, even as low slung as they are."
Low slung indeed. If we weren't riding on a well maintained road, these carts would be close to useless. They had little in the way of ground clearance, and their heavy wheels and stiff frames would be cumbersome to drive on anything less manicured. Their low slung frames made loading and unloading the logs they carried far easier than it would have been otherwise, even allowing them to be loaded or unloaded in an emergency alongside the road. Lucat, the wagon master, didn't seem too concerned about this eventuality, and in truth, having heard the trip described, neither was I. This train, as massively loaded as it was, would be going hardly more than fifty miles, most of that downhill, before the logs would be unloaded on barges for the remainder of their trip.
"Sure wouldn't mind having a wizard along for the ride back, sometimes," Drummon continued, bringing me back out of my thoughts. "The northbound barges bring a lot of delicacies and doodads that are a good bit more tantalizing to the criminally minded."
"The criminally minded?" I said with some amusement. "You almost make it sound like the miscreants have no choice but to steal!"
"I sometimes wonder, wizard, what makes men behave in any particular way; why men tend to choose one particular path over another. I wonder how so many can agree on what is the right path, when I see nothing compelling us to do so."
"You do not believe that Gaen directs us, succors and rewards us and promotes correct behavior?"
"I would like to believe that, but if it were within Gaen's power to do so, then why are we all not on the same path to begin with?"
"You ask good questions, outrider, and ones I have no easy answers for. As a wizard, I can feel Gaen's power. I can see the will of a King be answered by Gaen. It lends me some appreciation for the sense of purpose and direction that those of the Right Born wield. Those I know within the Right Born wouldn't hesitate to say that theirs is a power granted by Gaen, for my part, I know, as much as I know anything, that Gaen has moved me along the path I am on."
"Well and good for you, wizard, but not all will see it that way. I know you folks of power — wizard or king, apprentice or prince, tend to see life as a great game of chess, and that kings and wizards and men are all pieces upon the great chess board we call Gaen," he paused, waiting for me to jump in if I wanted, but I saw no reason to. He had a good bit of wind in his sails and I wanted to see which way it blew him. The pause lingered overlong and he pulled his wineskin up from where it hung beside him and took a long swallow.
"A chess game, yes..." he cleared his throat and flashed me a look. "Some of us see life more like a game of skittles. Some are moved to act, its true, but its just as true that most of us can only stand and wait for the blow to come and wonder whether it will knock us over this time."
Drummon's fatalistic view was a common one, an understandable one for the common man or woman; there were forces obviously at work in the world about them that were beyond their ken, let alone their control. I could hardly blame them. I was a wizard's apprentice after all, one of the might born, and one with particular promise, if I believed my master's opinion of me, and despite that I felt as buffeted and battered by outside forces as anyone.
The road we took wound here and there as it dropped down out of the high mountain passes into the valley south of the vale, but when the winding was done, we were beside the river and barges were waiting for the logs we'd brought them at a small outpost called Ophil's Landing. With a borrowed pair of gloves I joined in the crew's efforts to get the logs moved from the wagons to the barge's deck. The contents of our six wagons fit on a single barge with room left over. There would be other stops along the way south, and other cargoes added as she went. I contemplated taking passage on the barge, our destinations coinciding at several points along the way, but I had Deak, and he was happier with a trail beneath his hooves, so I chose the road.
A half mile down the road, I came around a bend and there sat Kei and Labo, their tongues out and Vulkai grins on their snouts.
"Well, I see you have chosen to disobey me," I said, pleased to see them, but trying to sound disappointed and angry.
Lizbeth
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