Southern Wesfalle, Talav
Sowmoon, 255 AL
Violence is always a tragedy, but some tragedies cannot be avoided.
-The Hero’s Creed
Ricarin arrived at the front steps of the Caravan house and watched the sun rise over the tall brick buildings of Port Taig. The morning was cold and he was glad of the heavy weight of his road leathers and oilskin, as well as the thick woolen scarf at his neck. He’d slept rough and was feeling it in his back.
His stomach rumbled as he stretched, pacing back and forth a bit to keep warm. He’d spent everything he had saved on gear and couldn’t afford breakfast, but he was starting his new life as a caravaner today and meals were included once they got on the road. He’d eat soon enough.
He pulled a cheap paperback history of the Western Isles from his pocket and sat, reading to distract himself while he waited.
Darin and Marcus arrived an hour or so later and seemed surprised to find him there. He stood as they approached and shook their hands.
“What’s this then? We don’t load out until after breakfast.” Marcus looked hungover.
“I’m happy to keep reading if you prefer, but I didn’t have anything else to do this morning and figured I’d offer to help.”
“Hmph.” Marcus frowned. “I’m not paying you anything extra.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
At this, Darin chuckled. “I could use a hand loading the wagons if you’re game.”
“Yes sir.”
“None of that! Call me Darin. I’m a working man like you.”
Marcus headed for his office while Ricarin pitched in, and they were soon ready to leave. Darin took the opportunity to get a sandwich from his bag and – seeing that Ricarin did not do the same – passed half of it over. It was eggs and sausage with pickled onions in some kind of sauce on thick wheat bread.
Ricarin’s stomach growled audibly at the smell of food, but he hesitated before accepting it. “Are you sure? I can’t pay you for it.”
“I didn’t ask you to.” Darin grinned and Ricarin took the food.
“Thank you, I appreciate it.”
“You earned it, I’d have had to do all that load out by myself normally.”
They ate in silence for a minute.
“This your first caravan?”
“Yep, glad to be getting back out of the city.”
“Where are you from originally?”
“Farm, north of here a ways. Not too far.”
Between bites Darin replied, “I should have guessed from the way you handled the horses. So why a caravan?”
“I came to the city to be a writer, but all anyone wants to hire me for is manual labor or being a guard. Figured if that’s the best I can get, I might as well go and see the world while I do it.” He didn’t say that he’d leapt at the chance to escape the city because being around so many people constantly was overwhelming. He felt like a full cup that people kept trying to pour more liquid into. He was drowning here, and the isolation of the road seemed infinitely preferable to the constant pressure of civilization. Besides which, the prospect of having clear enemies and allies had its own appeal. He thought all of that so loudly he was almost surprised when Darin responded to the spoken answer instead of the unspoken one.
“What do you write?”
“Mostly just trying to make sense of the world, figure out what it all means.”
Darin nodded cautiously, looking at him differently now. “I can’t say we’ve ever had a philosopher on the crew before.”
Ricarin laughed at that. “I wouldn’t call myself a philosopher, not really. If I am, I’m a philosopher with bills to pay. And I’m well past any illusion that anyone else wants to read what I have to write, I’m just here to work.”
Darin glanced over at the loaded wagons. “Well, you’ve already proven you know how to do that.”
Just then, a pair of men clad in road leathers approached. They were both around six foot – tall, but shorter than Ricarin. Both of them were tan with dark curly hair. Darin stood to greet them and Ricarin followed his lead.
“Merek, Jeral. It’s good to see you both. I hope you didn’t get into too much trouble in town?”
“Oh, nothing we couldn’t handle.” They greeted him with open faces and shook hands before one of them gestured to Ricarin. “Who’s this then?”
He stood and extended a hand in greeting. “Ricarin, I’m the new man.”
The man reached out to clasp his arm. “I’m Merek, this is my brother Jeral. We’ve done three go-rounds with this old codger, already.”
Darin chuckled “Watch it now, Merek, You’d be lucky to get as old as me the way you fight.”
Jeral shook his hand while Merek and Darin bantered. “Good to have you with us.”
“Thanks, I’m glad to be here.”
Just then Marcus finished up whatever he’d been doing in the office and emerged. Glancing over the men, he called, “Alright then, lads. It’s time we were on the road.”
•••
The days passed slowly at first. Talav was a beautiful country, and Ricarin was relieved beyond words to be out of the stink and crush of the city. They were heading south along the coast and the road followed the cliffs for the first week – nothing but wide open ocean and blue skies as far as he could see to the west. To the east were rolling hills and wilderness stretching nearly a thousand miles to the Eacad Mountains. He thought it would be impossible to ever get bored in such surroundings.
The caravan delivered mail, documents, machinery, or even people – really whatever needed moving – in a big winding loop that would last an entire year and pass through more than a hundred towns and villages across the wide spreading frontier of Human settlement in Talav.
Most of the job was taking care of the animals, setting up and breaking down camp, wagon repair, and so on. It was simple work and he had time to read and write in camp every night before taking watch. The wagons rolled along, he and the other caravaners walked along beside them, and the days soon blended together. There wasn’t much glamour in it, but it was honest work and important in its own way. The frontier was vast and Caravans were the lifeblood that tied the world together. He reminded himself of that fact as he nursed his aching feet at night or stared down yet another soaring mountain in between them and their next destination.
The route was well-worn and the roads were mostly decent. But a month in, they were caught out in a heavy storm. All along the hills, tall trees swayed, foliage moving like waves on the ocean as thick droplets of rain pelted them. The road here was stone and gravel marked by the deep ruts of wagon wheels. There were deep potholes, filled with mud and sometimes hard to see, and Ricarin had to watch his footing.
The other caravaners trudged along, cursing occasionally. Pushing through the rain and mud felt like swimming upstream, Ricarin briefly wondered if this is what it felt like to be a salmon and the thought amused him as he imagined a salmon trying to swim with a heavy pack.
Fortunately, his oilskin and the road leathers beneath it kept him relatively dry – they had been well worth emptying his savings to acquire. A heavy mace with a wickedly flanged head hung on a loop from his belt as well. The gear was heavy, but he’d have hated to be caught without it when it was needed.
Halfway up the mountain, the road just disappeared, erased by a mudslide. After a brief conversation, Darin and Marcus announced they were going to have to take a different route and they headed right back down the mountain. Jeral grumbled about retracing their steps and Merek mocked his grumbling while the rest listened and chuckled at their endless repartee.
Darin called “Look careful now, lads” as they left the main road and followed a new path around the base of the mountain. A mile in, the trail opened up on the ruins of an impossibly old city, overtaken by forest. Redpines could live for thousands of years and generations of them had lived and died here since this city fell. Between the trees, they saw badly eroded stone foundations the size of city blocks. Crumbled piles of the same stone, shot through with holes stained red by rust, peeked out from beneath ancient trees and were interspersed with massive piles of glass long since ground to clear-sand by rain and wind.
Examining the sand as they walked past one of the piles, Ricarin wondered at what might have once stood here. How tall must these buildings have been and how big the sheets of glass to leave such wreckage? It was hard to imagine – they must have fallen from an incredible height. Even the great cathedrals in Port Taig would have looked tiny in comparison. Ricarin felt small, insignificant in the face of their size and age. He had never imagined that either buildings or trees this size could exist. Near the trail were the broken remnants of a marble statue with a face that might have once been Human. Ricarin tried to keep his eyes on the road, scanning for threats, but his eyes wanted to linger on the colossal wreckage of the old world around them.
Suddenly, Jeral called out: “Strangers, look alive!”
•••
Four men approached. Their apparent leader would have barely reached Ricarin’s chest, but moved with determination and confidence. He wore a rough brown coat of thick leather covered in iron studs, heavy leather gloves and pants, and a cloak the color of grass. At his side was a long, thin sword with an ornate hilt – the kind wealthy islanders sometimes carried in the city when they wanted to show off. His followers were similarly armored but carried axes and longknives on their belts. Their weapons were sheathed and their leader held up empty hands to signal that he wanted to talk.
Darin raised a hand in return and walked forward to meet him in the space between the two groups and they talked for a moment. Whatever Darin said put the man at ease and he visibly relaxed and turned towards his men to say something inaudible.
Ricarin looked at the others, confused as to what was going on, and Merek grinned at him.
As the scavver leader turned back towards them, Darin punched him in the throat.
Most people signal in their eyes and bodies when they’re about to attack, but with Darin there was nothing – no warning. He was smiling and friendly and open right up until his half-fist collapsed the man’s windpipe. The scavver staggered backwards gasping and slipped in a puddle. As he tried to catch his balance, Darin dove at him, wrapping an arm around his enemy’s throat and twisting as he fell, dropping onto his back with the scavver above him as a human shield. Merek and Jeral charged as he did.
Ricarin had been as taken by surprise as anyone, and wasn’t as quick. In the time it took him to realize what was happening, the man opposite him threw an axe. He tried to dodge, but the force of it sliced through the sleeve of his armored jacket and left a gash on his upper arm. Ricarin registered the wound but didn’t give himself space to feel it, and reached the man a half-second later. His mace crashed into the steel vambrace on the scaavver’s raised left arm, and his opponent stepped aside, tripping him as he came. As Ricarin fell, he grabbed the scavver’s jacket and pulled him down with him. They both went sprawling into the mud. As his enemy fumbled at his belt for his longknife, Ricarin rolled through the mud onto his right side and kicked as hard as he could. The heavy steel toe of his boot connected with the side of man’s head with a crunch as Ricarin continued his roll onto hands and knees. His enemy never got up.
He found his feet and searched desperately for his mace, cursing himself for losing it, and grabbed the longknife out of the mud where it had fallen. He turned to aid his comrades, just in time to see Darin violently twist the scavver leader’s neck and Merek render a pinned man unconscious with a blow from a stone in his fist. Jeral’s man was already bleeding out on the ground.
Seconds after it began, the fight was over. There was nothing left to do but try to calm the heartbeat pounding in his ears and wash the blood off his boots.
•••
“Well done!” called Marcus. He had hidden behind the cart for cover as soon as the fighting started and emerged looking relieved. He walked towards Ricarin and the reddening pool of mud around the scavver’s broken skull, looking down and laughing rudely. Ricarin hated the crassness of the sound, the obscenity of it, but said nothing.
“This one won’t be holding up any more caravans.” Marcus scanned the aftermath of the fight. “Tie up the survivor while I get the book.”
Marcus retrieved the book of open bounties from the wagons and brought it over to the leader’s corpse. The book was standard issue from the guild, part warning of known threats and part incentive to deal with those threats and collect extra pay – a bandit’s head was just another valuable delivery for a well-armed caravan.
“Let’s see here, five foot eight, brown hair, brown eyes, fancy sword…” He nudged the leader’s corpse with his foot, rolling it over onto its back so he could see the face and match it to the sketch in the book before continuing. “There we are, ‘Handsome Jack’ – not so handsome now! Apparently he was quite the swordsman, liked to talk at his victims before robbing them and then attack once their guard was down. Too bad for him, you never let him draw. Well done, Darin.”
Darin inclined his head in acknowledgment. He didn’t say he’d recognized the man. He didn’t need to.
Marcus continued. “It’s a small bounty, but it’ll be a nice bonus for you lads. Take his head and bag it. We can drop it when we get to town. Leave the bodies for the crows.”
“And this one?” Darin asked, gesturing at the prisoner who was starting to struggle against his bindings.
“There are no other bounties in this area. Tie him to a tree. I have some questions for him.”
Darin went to get a hatchet from the cart while Merek and Jeral took the prisoner. Ricarin fetched his pack and pulled a bottle of alcohol and bandages from a pouch at the front. He cleaned and bound his arm to stop the bleeding, finally letting himself feel the pain and wincing. Fortunately, the wound wasn’t deep. After, he searched the corpses. They didn’t have much besides their weapons and oilskins – a couple quarter-ons ingots of copper and a carved wooden locket that might buy a single round of drinks.
As he was turning the items over to Darin, Marcus returned from his conversation with the prisoner.
“Good news?” Ricarin asked, as casually as he could.
“He said the trail continues around the mountain and reconnects to the main road on the other side. We should be able to make the roadhouse by nightfall.”
“And what happens to him?” He gestured at the bound man.
“We leave him. If he’s lucky, he’ll freeze before the wolves find him.”
“That doesn’t feel right. Killing someone in a fight is one thing, but that’s -”
Marcus didn’t let him finish. “If you don’t like it, you can give him a cleaner death before we go. But that’s the last I want to hear of it.”
From behind their boss, Merek looked at Ricarin and shook his head, urging him to let it go. Reluctantly, he did.
Marcus and the brothers set out but Ricarin lingered, looking at the bound man and torn between his orders and his conscience. Darin watched him watching the prisoner and then approached.
“What are you thinking?”
“I know Marcus said to kill him or leave him, but if I cut the ropes part way it would still take hours for him to get free. We’d be well clear of here by then.”
“He doesn’t deserve freedom and we’ve got no way to transport prisoners, but he doesn’t deserve to be eaten either. I might have considered doing the same when I was your age.”
“And what would you do now?”
“Not take prisoners. Loose ends are risky, if we let him go and run into him again, or he decides to follow us to get revenge, he’ll know not to get close. An arrow from the dark is a hard thing to defend against.”
“Fuck me, I hadn’t thought of that. So what do we do?” Ricarin looked at the older man, desperate for a solution that wouldn’t cost him his humanity.
Darin cut the man’s throat.
•••
Ricarin walked in solitude a while, wrestling with his thoughts and feeling guilty for what they’d done. A half mile further down the road, they passed a broken wagon and scattered remains, at least some of them clearly human. He looked up to see Darin watching him.
“Look at the wagon markings.” Darin’s voice was quiet.
Ricarin obeyed and made out a faded sigil of a wagon wheel with wings. Darin continued.
“They were the ‘Flying Wheel,’ went missing on this route about six months ago.”
“What happened?”
“A wagon wheel broke and they got stranded here towards nightfall. Handsome Jack and his men offered them hospitality and then killed them in their sleep. Only one of them escaped, running alone into the night, and made it to the next roadhouse. Bounty got posted after that.”
“Did you know them?”
“Only in passing.”
Ricarin had no reply. He fell into step beside Darin and the road passed under their feet as the wind drove the clouds across the sky above. Eventually, he asked, “Why’d you choose this life?”
In the month they’d spent together, Darin had only spoken a little, and all of it related to tasks at hand. To Ricarin’s surprise, he answered now.
“I don’t know that I did choose. My parents owned a caravan and I grew up on the road. Are you having second thoughts? This life isn’t for everyone.”
“I don’t like killing, but I wasn’t good enough to take my man alive.” He sighed and glanced at Darin. “I guess I shouldn’t be trying to take people alive anyway…”
“The lives you need to be worried about saving are the four of us.” He paused a beat for comedic effect before adding, “And Marcus too, I suppose. But if you want to survive out here, you’d do better to spend less time writing in that journal and more time practicing fighting.”
“Actually, I’ve been wanting to ask you about that. Would you be willing to teach me?”
Darin considered his response before replying. “You’d have to make it worth my while. When I do a job, I get paid.”
“How much do you want?”
“You’re serious?” Darin paused again, face thoughtful. “How about a half-ons of silver a lesson?”
“You know I can’t afford that. How about a quarter-ons?”
Darin weighed it a moment and then agreed. “I’ll see you tomorrow an hour before we set out.”
Ricarin slowed down and let the others pass him, he needed space to think. The journal Darin had mentioned was his “Hero’s Creed.” The world was easier to navigate when it had clear rules, and he’d set out to figure out what they were and write them down.
Most of the philosophy he had read was for people with full bellies sitting in comfortable rooms – it did not engage with the mud and the blood and the sound of his boot caving in a man’s skull. He wondered ruefully how any person could claim to know the meaning of life if they spent it indoors instead of out in the world. The answer had to be elsewhere, so he’d set out to find it.
What he’d found instead was more violence – it wasn’t the first time he’d killed, but it was getting easier. That fact scared him more than the fight had. What was the point of all his philosophy and introspection if at the end of the day he was nothing more than a thoughtful kind of monster?
•••
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