Free The Magic Engineer by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Page B

Poor bitch couldn’t move.”
    Dorrin flushes.
    “Recluce kid?”
    Finding he cannot lie, Dorrin nods.
    “Don’t tell anyone. You aren’t wanted.”
    Dorrin waits.
    “Boy?”
    Dorrin looks up. “Here’s your change.” The shopkeeper counts out the coppers into Dorrin’s palm. Then he adds a wooden token. “Give that to Gerin. He’s at the stable. Tell him I sent you. Hertor…that’s me.” He lifts the partly full bags across the counter.
    Dorrin nods as he takes the leather bags. “Thank you. I hope she”—he nods toward the stove—“is a little better. Maybe the warmth by the stove will help.”
    “Best bird-dog I ever had,” repeats the older man in a lowvoice. “Tell Gerin. Now don’t you stand on pride, young fellow.”
    “I won’t, ser.” Dorrin nods politely and steps back.
    At the end of the counter, Brede is holding up the heavy saddlebags.
    Dorrin turns to Kadara, who is looking at the dog, as if she has overheard the low-voiced conversation with the shopkeeper. “I’m going over to the stable.”
    “I’ll need some coin from you.”
    “How much?” Dorrin fumbles in his wallet again.
    “I’d guess around five coppers.”
    He hands her the coins. “If it’s more, let me know.”
    “Those will be two silvers, young ser.” The man’s voice is flat again as he addresses Brede.
    Dorrin says nothing as he steps into the chill breeze and closes the heavy oak door behind him. He pauses at the top of the wooden steps. Is it wise to leave the others?
    A woman, bundled in a worn leather coat, ungloved hands red from the cold, walks away from him, downhill toward the port, where three wagons creak toward the Ryessa . Across the mud and cobblestones from where Dorrin stands, an older man, heavy and bald, strains to roll a barrel toward a side door.
    With a deep breath, the young man shrugs his pack into place, steadies the saddlebags that he carries on one shoulder, and, staff in hand, heads down the steps and to the right, toward the stable.
    Thweeeeett… The sound of a whistle drifts uphill from the harbor. Dorrin studies the storefronts he passes until his eyes and nose agree. Despite the chill, the stable smells like a stable, and Dorrin looks as much for where to put his feet as where to find Gerin, wherever the man may be.
    Gerin is wrestling round bales of hay from a stack at the back of the stable onto a flat cart.
    “I beg your pardon…” begins Dorrin.
    “You want something…give a hand,” grouses the thin sweating figure.
    Brede and Kadara are not around.
    “Are you just going to stand there?”
    Dorrin sets his gear on a half wall to an empty stall and hoists a heavy bale onto the cart. “Here all right?”
    “Fine. Put the next one crossways.”
    Dorrin lifts two more bales into place.
    “That’s fine. If you want it, the job’s yours.”
    Dorrin shakes his head.
    “What do you mean? You don’t want it? You work good, but jobs aren’t that easy to find.”
    “I’m sorry, ser. But I was really looking for a horse. Hertor sent me. Are you Gerin?” Dorrin flushes at the misunderstanding.
    “And you hoisted hay?”
    “You looked like you needed help,” Dorrin admits.
    The thin man shakes his head. “Takes all kinds.” His face stiffens. “Lots of people say Hertor sends them.”
    Dorrin fumbles and finally produces the wooden disc.
    Gerin shakes his head again. “You’re too young to be buying a horse.”
    “I really don’t have that much choice.” Dorrin reclaims his pack, staff, and saddlebags.
    “And too damned young to be traveling alone.”
    “I have two friends. They’ll need mounts, too. They’re still at Hertor’s, getting some supplies.”
    “Stupid…should get the mounts first. How are they going to carry all that crap?”
    Dorrin has no answer.
    “Come on. I’ll show you what’s here. You ride much?”
    “I can stay on a horse. That’s about it,” Dorrin says, feeling very inadequate at having to admit shortcoming after