Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 22

The wagon lurched violently just as Alan nodded off in his seat, and he nearly tumbled off and down into the muddy roads below. He gripped the edge of the bench, arms trembling. Mud-caked wheel below turned slowly and it took a second before he managed to right himself again.

“Gods damn it all,” he cursed, “why the hell did I ag–”

Phlegm caught in his throat, sending him into a fit of coughing. His hacking filled the air for a good minute before he wiped his eyes with a sleeve and cleared his throat, spitting out onto the road.

Alan hated the spring. It was cool at night and damp all day and his breathing didn’t agree with the air. He should have been in the capital, readying his caravan for the summer, but a woman showed up to make an unexpected request, with an offer he couldn’t refuse.

The woman, Hilma Cygnaeus, was an acquaintance of his: a woman with her roots planted deep into the workings of capital that one was better off staying well out of. He didn’t like her much but, as a business contact, she came in handy from time to time, asking for small favours once in a while that he didn’t overly mind.

This time, however, what she asked left his mouth open as he stood in his wagon yard listening to her. She wanted him to go all the way out to gods-forsaken E-Rantel and purchase grain. He could think of any number of reasons why she might have wanted this, but the fact that she wanted him to do it in the spring caused him to look for some way to politely turn her down.

It was over 400 kilometres from the capital of Re-Estize to E-Rantel, using the main route that went through E-Pespel. Worse yet, only half of the roads were paved. Attempting travel in the spring was pure misery, slogging through the poorly drained clay roads and making less than ten kilometres on a bad day. If it was pouring, they couldn’t get anywhere at all. Only idiots tried to make that trip in the rainy season, and he had told her exactly that. Politely.

There was also the fact that he hadn’t even finished preparing any goods for the summer trade, but Hilma took care of both problems at once by offering to sell him ore at an unheard of price. It was so cheap that Alan immediately suspected it had been stolen from somewhere and she wanted to move it as soon as she could, but Hilma insisted that it was mined legitimately by one of her associates. Assuming the regular prices for ore in E-Rantel, the profits would be worth two good seasons of trade – well more than worth the time.

She had also insisted that, despite now being ruled by the Undead Sorcerer King, E-Rantel would be perfectly safe – that her advance agents, dispatched to investigate the condition of the duchy, had contacted her from the city and found nothing to worry about. With nothing to say and nothing to lose, Alan had begrudgingly agreed. It took several days to prepare for their departure, pulling his men together for the unexpected trip. Now, he could only curse the dismal conditions that plagued them along the way.

Sitting beside him, the lead wagon’s teamster looked dully on, trying his best to navigate a way through the muck.

“How long until we reach the border?” Alan asked him.

“Mmm…few hours, maybe?” The man replied, “Hard to tell. Surprised we’re not all dead yet – the lot o’ fools we all look.”

Alan sighed, unable to refute him. There were thirty freight wagons in his caravan, and it seemed that they had to stop to deal with one getting stuck in the mud or damaged three times a day. He had hired a small mercenary company as an escort, so the fifty-odd men should be enough to deter any of the brigands that littered the countryside, but he couldn’t help but keep his head low and look nervously to their surroundings every time they rolled to a halt.

Well, no matter. Not being attacked was nothing to grouch over. He figured the three weeks they had spent on the road so far just left him irritated and looking for anything at all to complain about. They should be within a few hours of the border, and back on paved roads where they could make good time again.

“This should be it,” the teamster pointed to a village overlooking the road. “Last village to the border.”

Now that they were here, Alan could clearly remember the small collection of buildings, loosely arranged into what one might call a village. It lay slightly off of the highway, on a small ridge.

“How are we for time today?” Alan asked.

“Just past midday,” the teamster looked to the north. “Weather looks clear as well. As long as nothing breaks, we should be able to make it to the next stop before the evening.”

Alan grimaced at the thought of the ‘next stop’. It was a seedy town ruled by a small-time count that made himself as much more important than he actually was. It was still a good place to get ready for the more important stops beyond, however, and he looked forward to a roof over his head and a real bath after weeks of travel.

Two hours later, they reached the border, where the clay roads turned cobbled and the crops to either side of the road abruptly vanished into thick, rolling woodlands. Alan looked for signs of other caravans tracking mud over onto the pavement, but either there were none or they had been washed away by the spring rains. The caravan picked up speed and, after another half hour, they were making their way around a wide bend in the road.

The teamster frowned and reached under his seat.

“What is it?” Alan asked.

The man didn’t reply, instead pulling out a wide roll of parchment. Alan leaned over as he unfurled it, seeing that it was a map.

The teamster’s expression deepened, and he kept looking between the map and the scenery before them.

“Something’s not right,” he finally said. “Should be able to see the town in the distance by now.”

“Maybe we’re not fully around the bend yet?” Alan glanced forward, then across at the map again.

“Nope,” the teamster pointed. “See where the road straightens out and goes south? Should be where the town is.”

“Stop the wagons.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice.”

Alan stood up on his wagon seat, looking back over the caravan. Spotting the grizzled mercenary captain a few wagons back, he waved him over. The captain trotted up to him and nodded.

“Master Alan,” he said.

“There’s a problem up ahead…” Alan started.

The captain looked down the road, then looked back at him.

“I fail to see any problems,” he said.

“That is the problem,” Alan said. “There’s supposed to be a whole damn town up ahead, but there’s nothing as far as the eye can see.”

Alan reached back and took the map, offering it to the captain. The man frowned down at it for a moment, then looked back and forth in much the same way that the teamster did. He turned to the aide that had followed him.

“Two scouts – bring up horses for them too,” he told him. “Have ‘em ride out five kilometres south and see if they find anything.”

The aide nodded and turned, running back up the line of wagons.

Alan looked around nervously as the scouts made their way down the road. The forest on either side looked too pristine; untouched by Human hands. A monster could possibly charge out of the treeline to attack them right then and there. He tried to get his mind off of the surroundings.

The map is recent, right? No, there’s no way a whole town just vanishes, even if the map is a bit old.

“We’re not all just getting the map wrong, are we?” He said nervously, “This town was here last year: how can it just disappear?”

“Who knows,” the captain shrugged. “Maybe some Undead monster wiped it out.”

“D-don’t say that!” Alan’s voice rose an octave, “We’re supposed to be going to E-Rantel, you know!”

He had heard the stories, too. Rumors of the catastrophic defeat at Katze plains: the army routed by unimaginable terrors.

“Calm down,” the captain chuckled. “If it was an Undead monster, it wouldn’t be looking all nice and green like this. It’d be looking more like Katze, yeah?”

Why did he have to say that just then?

Still, it made sense. Even small villages destroyed by monsters left ruins. Alan took several deep breaths to calm his frayed nerves. The scouts returned a half hour later, looking none the worse for wear.

“Find anything?” The captain asked.

“Yes, sir,” one of them said as they dismounted and handed off their horses. “Of the town, there’s no trace of it ever being there. No ruined buildings or fortifications, not even the remains of streets or any kind of Human habitation. Just a sparse meadow, with forests and hills as far as the eye can see in all directions. May as well be pure wilderness.”

“No sign of battle or anything like that?”

“No, sir. Nothing at all.”

“Alright then…get back into your positions.” The captain looked at Alan, “What’s your call, Master Alan?”

Alan looked down the road again.

“What else can we do?” He laughed helplessly, “We keep going. Let’s hope we can find some place to stay before the evening.”

A few minutes later, the caravan rolled forward again, forging ahead to the distant site of where the town should have been. Deciding that it was pointless and unhealthy to continue imagining monsters behind every tree, Alan turned his attention to his inventories. It was just ore, actually – all thirty of his wagons were laden with iron ore from the northern regions of Re-Estize.

How Hilma could afford to part ways with it for so little still bothered him. She should have at least sent an agent to negotiate the best prices possible rather than coming personally. The woman looked so thin and ragged compared to the last time he had seen her – maybe Hilma’s characteristically shrewd and cunning practices were being affected by her health.

Not that it mattered. Her loss was his gain. E-Rantel was rich in produce and lumber, while lacking in mineral wealth. If traffic on the highway was truly as bare as he had seen, the duchy’s forges would be desperate for ore, and the profits from his cargo would be enormous. He would be able to return fully laden with Hilma’s grain with a year’s worth of profit in his pocket.

The idea that he would need to go through Re-Estize’s muddy roads again tempered the elation over his apparent gains. Hopefully, by the time he made his way back, most of the spring rains would have passed and the journey made more amenable. Maybe he’d stick around for a week or so to see what had changed, and if there were any more opportunities to be had.

Or maybe not. An Undead magic caster now ruled over the duchy, and news had been scarce since the beginning of spring. Merchant traffic was certainly down and, though that might simply be explained by the uncertainty that came with power changing hands, he didn’t want to find out firsthand if it was for another, more insidious reason.

Alan shook his head, trying to clear his mind of doubts. They were only a few days away: he should be taking advantage of anything new that he could.

“How ‘bout that ridge?” The teamster pointed to a bare overlook rising out of the forest near the highway, “Still a bit early, but it’ll be midnight by the time we reach the next village on the map – if it’s still there.”

Alan wasn’t so sure that it was. The entire place seemed devoid of any sign of Human habitation so far. He wasn’t a Ranger or any vocation skilled at scouting, however, so they might have slipped beneath his notice. He turned to the captain, who was still walking on the road beside him.

“What do you think?” He asked.

“Stopping anywhere along this stretch will be the same,” the captain replied. “It’ll be three days to the city either way.”

He had a point. Even with the paved and well-drained roads that they now traveled over, the caravan of wagons could only make roughly 30 kilometres a day. That was why the town was there – well, supposed to be there – after all. Fassett Town was thirty kilometres from Crosston, Crosston was thirty kilometres from the town in Jezne County, which was in turn thirty kilometres from E-Rantel. On a major highway, every town was placed a day’s travel from the next: It was common sense for any merchant or traveller.

Luckily, the ridge was nearby. It looked nice and defensible as well, just in case there were monsters lurking about.

“Let’s use it,” Alan told them. “We shouldn’t be turning up a good campsite when it appears right in front of us.”

The driver nodded, and the captain turned around to issue orders to his men. A half hour later, they had a better view of the site.

“Looks like someone else had the same idea,” the captain noted. “Those are well-made barricades; done recently, too.”

Alan frowned at the idea that another merchant might have made it to the city ahead of him. A figure was up near the aforementioned barricades ahead of them, startling him out of his thoughts. It wasn’t there a second ago.

Dressed in a sharply tailored outfit of white over red-scaled leathers, a dark-skinned Elf boy looked towards them with a wide smile on his face. He couldn’t help but appraise his overall appearance: in a big city, the boy would be a superb way to advertise the high-class boutique that his exquisite clothing most likely came from. Just why he was wearing it in a place surrounded by wilderness was another question.

“Oh, you’ve arrived~” He said as they made their way up the final stretch, “They said that some merchants would be coming from the west, but that was weeks ago!”

“The roads are truly terrible this spring…”

Alan started to fall into the lazy routine that merchants often used when conversing between one another, but then he furrowed his brow.

“Wait, you knew we were coming?” He asked.

“Yup!” The Elf answered brightly, “You’ll be just in time for the big event, too! I expected more, honestly…there’s a huge line of traders coming in from the Empire.”

That might explain why Hilma was so generous in trying to get him out to E-Rantel…chances were that he wouldn’t be the only one that she roused to action.

“I probably won’t be the only one,” Alan told the Elf. “What are you doing out here, anyways? You’re camping here too?”

“Ah, no,” the Elf replied. “I just work here.”

“Work…?” Alan glanced over the Elf’s appearance again, but couldn’t make anything of his outfit.

“Patrolling the border,” the Elf explained.

“A Ranger?” He looked him over again, “So young…actually, if you work here, do you know what happened to the town that’s supposed to be back there?”

“We got rid of it,” the Elf said. “Over two weeks ago. Looks nice and natural now, right?”

A wide smile appeared on his face at the last, as if he was more interested in what they thought about the land’s appearance than the fact that a whole town was gone.

“B-but why?”

“Why? It’s because, uh…”

The boy turned around and peered up at a sign planted at the top of the ridge.

“Fassett,” he turned back with a cross expression. “That’s right – those nobles and their people were doing a bunch of things they shouldn’t have been!”

“So their town was d-destroyed?” Alan was incredulous.

“Yes?” The boy tilted his head curiously, “Ah! It wasn’t just the town, it was all of their land, obviously.”

“All of it?” Alan’s mouth fell open, “But that’s…d-does that mean you killed everyone as well?”

The Elf’s expression turned extraordinarily grim, and the three men swallowed.

“Way worse than that,” the boy said. “They…they were kicked out.”

Alan wanted to ask how that could be worse than losing one’s life, but the boy didn’t seem to be in the mood to talk any more. The Elf turned around and left, disappearing just as quickly as he had appeared.

“What could he have meant by that?” Alan voiced his question anyways.

He glanced to either side of him, but the men shook their heads unknowingly. The caravan continued on past the barricades, and Alan’s employees and the mercenaries started preparations for the night. Alan walked up to the sign on the ridge: a large billboard with text in all of the regional languages upon it.

Welcome to Fassett’s Folly!

Designated Campground of the Sorcerous Kingdom

Site usage free of charge

Rules

1. Be a good neighbor! Get along with your fellow campers. Do not attack the local citizenry or any Undead Servitors.
2. Hunting, Foraging, Logging and Mining in the surrounding area is prohibited: People live here – don’t steal their stuff!
3. Keep pets and livestock within the camp perimeter, or they may be hunted and eaten.
4. Clean up after yourself! Put food scraps and waste into the provided Slime bins.
5. Do not leave fires unattended. Extinguish them completely before departure.

Violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Enjoy your stay!

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