Free Timegods' World by L.E. Modesitt Jr. Page B

survived.
    Shrugging, I got up. There wasn’t that much choice. So I began to struggle along the edge of the destruction. The trees and brush closest to the actual destruction looked more as if they had been winter-killed than burned, but would extreme cold have the same effect as fire and create an ash-like dust?
    By the time I regained the road, or the sheltered edge under the firs that bordered the highway, indeed had bordered all the highways, the afternoon was nearly gone. And I had no handy way-stations in which to shelter myself. So I kept putting one foot in front of the other.
    Twice more the rumble of freighters pushed me out of sight—once into the ditch and once behind a thicket. These freighters were also guarded by ConFed Marines bearing nasty looks and nastier weapons.
    As the day waned into twilight, and as I neared the top of each hill, I edged over carefully, afraid of what I might find.
    Herfidian was in more of a valley, cut by the Oligar River, as I recalled, and the trade section was the part closest to Bremarlyn.
    Had been the closest to Bremarlyn. The same circle of destruction was evident on the western side of the river. The eastern side looked untouched by that destruction, but I could see the shanties and tents and smell the open fires from more than a kay away.
    Some order prevailed. The road had been swept clear of dust, or used enough to keep it mostly clear. That, and there was some sort of gate guarding the old stone bridge that crossed the Oligar. In the early evening
light, I could see someone lighting a set of torches there. A soldier of some sort, for the outline of the weapon on his back was clear.
    Soldiers and more soldiers!
    If I walked down the road, the soldiers would have me, and some might know who I was. But with the river to the south and the swamps to the north …
    So I retreated into the bushes and relieved myself again. After that, I found a grassy spot behind a tree, out of sight of the road. Once my pack was off, out came the last chunk of cheese and several fractured pieces of jerky. I chewed them slowly, savoring the last taste of each.
    I curled up, just to rest—and woke to another set of rumbling wheels. Not that it could have been long, but the lights of the steamers against the thicket and trunks made me squirm even flatter to the ground until all three were past and rumbling down to the guarded bridge.
    I thought about the place-sliding. Could I use it to at least get past the bridge?
    That wouldn’t be a problem, but I’d have to be careful where I ended up. The old Herfidian had been a worn-out trade town, dying bit by bit, and the enemy’s destruction of the western part had probably just hastened the inevitable. Off in the older eastern part had been the metalworks where the smiths had built the land steamers and freighters, using the river mills for power.
    Supposedly, Jerz Davniads’s grandfather had made his fortune by developing a strain of oilseed plants from which etheline was distilled. Idly, I first wondered what had happened to the great oilseed plantations of the north, then briefly wished I had an etheline heater. But wishing was not about to deliver me a heater, and the soldiers below would spot the light anyway.
    I sighed and put on my pack. Then, sitting in the hollow behind a fir trunk, partly sheltered from the evening wind that still bore the bitter cold-burnt odor of enemy destruction, I tried to call up the red-blue-gold-black crossroads of my mind. This time, surprisingly, I could summon the image easily, and with almost no effort I dropped behind the black curtain of no-time.
    East Herfidian was no longer just metalworking, but an armed camp. Combat-ready ConFeds patrolled the streets. The metalworkers were busy now, apparently repairing military equipment. Seeing from behind the curtain was a strain, and East Herfidian did not appeal to me.
    What about further east, toward Jillriko, or Halfprince?
    I let my mind carry my seemingly