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  “Ah,” Serge said with a wink. “I know exactly the place.”

  Chapter 18

  Serge’s buddy was a basically a junk trader. Glorified pawn shop. He sold everything, and was willing to buy everything. He bought the janky goblin swords and their crap armor. He even offered me a whole gold for the Boss Chopper, but I decided I’d keep it. He was happy to buy the Queen’s Army Armor, and I was happy to get rid of it. I kept my furs, but put them in a tight pack, and bought some actual clothing, leather pants and a grey wool tunic. I also got a bit of armor:

  Studded Leather Cuirass

  Item Type: Common

  Item Class: Light

  Material: Leather, Iron

  Armor: +12

  Durability: Good

  Weight: 13 pounds

  Requirements: n/a

  Description: Made from tough, flexible leather, the armor is reinforced with close-set rivets.

  And looked through his shields before settling on a Heater Shield.

  Heater Shield

  Item Type: Common

  Item Class: Shield

  Material: Ash, Iron

  Damage: 10 (Bashing)

  Armor: +3

  Durability: Good

  Weight: 12 lbs.

  Requirements: n/a

  Description: A smaller shield that can be used either on horseback or foot, the heater shield is in the shape of an iron and provides moderate additional protection from attacks.

  Which I promptly put on my back. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a slab of wood covered with a bit of metal that was painted light blue. Mostly, that is — a lot of paint had flaked off. I got an extra pair of pants, some heavy boots, some underthings, a few shirts, and a poncey sort of hat with a feather. I didn’t have the courage to wear it, but I’d wanted one like that since the summer I went to the Renaissance Faire and ate too many turkey legs. I got a wink and a smile when I pulled out the Skull Helm, and laid out the jewelry. Sure, I probably got a bit screwed, but I wound up with a lot of coin for stuff I didn’t want in the first place. Happy customer.

  My bag felt substantially lighter, and after parting with an additional copper, the man gave me directions to the Caravaners’ Guild House. I started moseying in that direction.

  The streets were substantially busier now that the sun was out in force. There were people of all different races and, well, species. Humans and gnomes and dwarves and elves and, uh, more elves. Lots of elves. I even saw a massive Minotaur decked out in steel plate armor. He had a sword as tall as me strapped to his back. It would seem all the races got along in the Empire, at least in the city of Arenberg.

  The Caravaners’ Guild House was a large building near the southern gate of the city, about as close to the wall as it could be. The main building had a large arch in the middle, through which wagons could pass, I supposed. A door flanked either side of the arch. One was very nice, painted a deep red with gold trim and a stained glass window in the middle of it. A small gleaming brass sign said it was for members only. Far more traffic used the door on the opposite side, so I followed along, tailing a rather malodorous gent clearly coming off a multi-day bender.

  The door led to a large open room full of humanoids of various stripes. Most of which were seated in long pews, just sort of waiting. Along one wall, there was a huge map of the Empire, with several routes detailed in colorful lines. Opposite the map-wall were a series of stations, much like the DMV. And like the DMV, there were plenty of bored looking individuals manning said stations.

  I walked up to the first open one, where a haggard blonde human who’d certainly seen better days barely acknowledge me.

  “Name?” she said, her voice sounding like it came through a pile of pumice.

  “Montana,” I said.

  “Have you worked one of the caravans before?”

  “No.”

  She groaned. “Can you read?”

  I nodded.

  She narrowed her eyes. “I’m having my doubts.”

  “I’m one hundred percent literate, and nearly house-broken.”

  She didn’t laugh. Someone behind her did, but nothing from Sourpuss. Instead, the dour lady handed me a form and pointed to a quill and pot of ink.

  “Fill this out.”

  Using a quill was a challenge, and I managed to get a number of bizarre ink blots all over the paper, but in the end, I think my handwriting was somewhere in the neighborhood of legible. Which, you know, kind of a win. The form was basic: name, strength, skill level with swords, with shields, willingness to travel, have you been in the Legion. I considered lying, what with my skills being trash, but what’d that get me?

  Finished, I slid the form back over to the lady. She was lazily reading a small pamphlet. She looked up at me, then at the form. There was, for a heartbeat, the slightest eyebrow raise, as if I’d managed to impress her ever so slightly by writing letters.

  She held out her arm, and a small black symbol appeared on the inside of her wrist. Then she did a little bit of waggling of her fingers, and finally looked at me. Like really, really looked at me. Then, at that moment, her eyebrow went up.

  “Impressive,” she said. “Do you have a route preference, or any job anywhere?”

  I looked over at the map, then back at her.

  “Look lady,” I said, “I’m just trying to get to Osterstadt, so, whatever it is that gets me there.”

  She made a few marks on the paper. “Take a seat.”

  I sat down where I could look at the map. I had little to go on for scale, so just relied on Serge’s assertion that the Empire was huge. It seemed to be broken into a ridiculous number of, well, states. Or countries. Little dotted lines and self-aggrandizing names littered all areas of the map. There were red lines running from certain cities, and I assumed those were roads. Or just caravan paths. One went straight west before it hooked a sharp left and went south to the capital. There was little to no topographical information on the map, so I had no idea of the terrain I’d be looking to cover. But it really seemed like I’d be able to make it without any trouble. That I didn’t actually need a caravan to do the deed. Maybe I could just waltz out of this joint and mosey down the street.

  Probably not the best idea, but theoretically possible.

  I watched as other humanoids in the waiting area were called into a side room. Most never returned. Those that did looked irritated.

  Somewhere about the time my stomach started rumbling, I heard my name called.

  “Montana?” came a tentative voice, sounding like they weren’t sure how to pronounce it.

  I stood up and looked around.

  A young lady motioned me over, and told me to follow her. I did as told. She was exactly the type of girl who’d gotten me in trouble my whole life over. Tiny and curvy. A pert nose and intense eyes. The only saving grace was that her tiny was, like, really tiny. Three feet tall tiny. So, not exactly an anatomical match for my new sometimes-I-have-to-duck-under-the-doorjam size. I clamped down on my inner ego and steeled my innards. I wasn’t in Vuldranni for women. I was here for myself. Thankfully, the girl was just guiding me. She took me to another large room. This one had far fewer people inside it, and just a few old desks spread out. The girl pointed out a desk in the far corner, the darkest portion of the room where just the edge of a lantern’s glow reached.

  “Thanks,” I said, but the girl had already gone. I walked over to the indicated desk, and sat down. The uncomfortable chair creaked under my bulk, and I made sure to remain very, very still.

  An older man with pointy ears, fine features, and very hard eyes sat across the table. He had a pipe sitting on the desk, one that looked like it hadn’t been lit in some time. The piece of paper I’d filled out was in front of him. He looked at the paper, then me.

  “You ever fight?” the man asked.

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  “Win more than you lose?”

  “Type of fighting I did, losers didn’t get to walk away.”

&nb
sp; “You steal? You a bandit?”

  “Never,” I said. I thought about the laundry list of jobs I’d had. Roughneck in the Dakota oil fields, deckhand on a seismic ship, trucker in Texas, roustabout with a circus, and the list goes on. But the bulk of my work experience came from my time with the motorcycle club. Sure, there I ran drugs and guns, bounced and bartended, loan sharking and debt collection, but never stealing of any kind. “The kind of work I did was, well, be a guard for the wrong people I guess.”

  The guy leaned back in his chair, and looked me over. Intense like. Almost as if I could feel his eyes pierce through me.

  “You have shit for skills,” he said. “And you have no levels. But you are strong. Look big. Mean.”

  “Yay?”

  A hint of a smile. “You are smart enough to read. To write. Can you count?”

  “At least to ten,” I said, waggling my fingers at him.

  He wasn’t amused.

  “I can do math,” I said, “just not complex stuff, like multivariate questions. Algebra though? Geometry? Fine.”

  “You can add, subtract?”

  “Yeah. And handle bookkeeping if needed.”

  He nodded, but looked a mite confused. “If you can do all this, why be a guard?”

  “Is there something else?”

  “A man who can read and do maths is in demand.”

  “I’m new here.”

  “Clearly,” he said. “The standard rate for a guild guard is 5 silver a week.”

  “Sounds fine.”

  “You are not a guild guard. You are a random man who has gone through the most basic of screenings. Given what I have seen of you, I doubt you can even swing a sword properly. I will offer you a chance to come onto my caravan as a guard, but I will pay you two silvers a week until you are at an apprentice level with at least one weapon. Preferably a blade. Do you have a blade?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then the deal is amenable?”

  I didn’t really want to tell him that I wasn’t super concerned about money. At least not yet. I had some gold, enough that I could figure out how to earn more once I got to Osterstadt.

  “Yeah. Totally. One question—”

  “I would you have more than one question.”

  “One to start. Apprentice, what rank is that?”

  He stared at me for a long time. “For skills, you will be an apprentice when you achieve level 25 in any particular skill.”

  “Okay, sure. No problem. Second question — you know, since you want me to ask more — how long is this journey we are taking?”

  “If we are lucky, if we avoid all the horrors along the route, and we have nothing but perfect weather, we will hopefully be in Osterstadt in eight weeks.”

  “And if we’re not lucky?”

  “We never arrive.”

  “Awesome.”

  A bemused smile spread across his face, and he extended his hand. “Welcome to my caravan, Montana.”

  “Thanks, Boss.”

  We shook.

  The man did a little writing of his own on some papers, pulled a stamp out of his pocket, and stamped the papers before filing them in a number of different envelopes. Then he stood.

  I followed as he led me through to the other side of the building, the members’ side.

  It was substantially nicer on the members’ side.

  A large dining room with a massive hearth overfilled with burning logs dominated the space, but there was also a lounge, a den, and a place where snooty men played some sort of game with balls.

  “Cleeve Dye,” the boss said.

  “Sorry?” I asked, confused.

  “My name.”

  “Ah, Montana.”

  “I know.”

  “Right, you got that, uh, my information.”

  He gave me a look, that universal look that said he thought I was an idiot, yet found me amusing.

  Chapter 19

  We left the member’s area and stepped outside into the open space around the building. Wagons of all types and sizes were lined up in rows, and plenty of different animals were pawing at the ground, eating various foods, all getting ready to pull. Men and women with weapons and armor sat around on wagons, while animal handlers checked harnesses, and, well, some other people loaded and lashed goods.

  Cleeve weaved us through various teams until we got to a group of four wagons. It was something that would be considered small when compared to the rest of the groups in the yard. They were bigger wagons though, and there were absolutely massive horses attached. I counted five people with weapons and four drivers.

  Cleeve raised a hand. Everyone turned to pay attention.

  “I have an additional hand for us,” Cleeve said. “This is Montana. We will be training him to be a guard, but, for the moment, he is here to help in whatever way we need.”

  I swallowed the frown I felt forming. I was pretty sure I signed on to be at least a guard in training. But, you know, what was I going to do? So I employed my signature move in this world: a weak wave.

  Barely a response from the guards — just grim faces and a slight sneer from one of them. They looked very hard, and their armor was well-worn. There were two men and three women, a mix of races and species. They seemed to give me just enough of a cursory glance to know I wasn’t a threat, and then returned to their stations.

  The drivers, on the other hand, approached me with smiles on their faces. A short man with a massive beard came first, his meaty hand out. “Hademar,” he said. If I had to guess, I’d call him a dwarf. He was stocky, but to a degree that I’d never seen in humans. Maybe four and a half feet tall, but also somewhere in the region of four and a half feet wide. His boots were massive. Everything about the man was massive, save his height.

  I shook his hand, feeling nothing but callouses.

  “Welcome to the Empire,” he said, slapping his hand against my thigh, bringing me back to my football days.

  “That obvious?” I asked.

  He winked.

  Next up was a young woman with dirty blonde hair in tight braids that went most of the way down her back. Human. I think.

  “Bruna.”

  She was gruff and had gnarly scars on her arms.

  We locked our wrists together, and I had the uneasy feeling she was testing my strength.

  Third up was a wiry-looking guy. Younger, clean shaven, but with old blue eyes that looked out on the world as if they’d seen it all already.

  “Lee,” he said, and he shook hands with me. Pointedly shook hands. “Oddly enough, I’m not originally from the Empire either.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Detroit,” I said.

  “Minneapolis.”

  A huge smile spread across my face.

  “We’ll talk,” he said.

  The last driver rolled over, a gruff sort with a huge drooping black mustache.

  “Cole,” he said, grabbing my wrist and giving it a single pump.

  I started to say I was excited, but then everyone went back to work, and I was left to myself.

  “Lots for them to do,” Cleeve said from behind me. “There will be time to talk on the road, but walk with me a moment.”

  “When do we leave?” I asked as we started strolling.

  “As soon as Darius returns from the feed store,” Cleeve replied, giving a lazy wave to one of the other caravan leaders.

  “There’s one more?”

  “Darius handles the animals. Well, helps handle the animals. He also provides a little extra incentive to not bother us. He looks a bit fearsome.”

  “But isn’t?”

  “A gentle giant, let’s say.”

  We got to the edge of the open area, and he leaned against the fence.

  “I’m taking a bit of a chance on you,” he started, “and I think you could be a good person—”

  “I’d like to think so,” I said.

  His mouth snapped shut and his eyes hardened, making it exceedingly clear he did not apprecia
te interruptions.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “I need to see your sword,” he said, pointing to the sheath on my hip. “Take off the belt. Do not unsheathe it — just give it to me.”

  I did as he requested, handing over the longsword. He looked at it carefully, rubbing his fingers over the pommel and the guard, then sliding the blade free of the scabbard a few inches to peek at the metal.

  “I am taking this weapon from you,” he said.

  “Wait—“

  “It is for your good and mine. This is not just any sword, is it?”

  “I have no idea about it, really.”

  “Are you telling me you just happened upon this blade? Perhaps tripped over it while gallivanting about in the flowers?”

  “The guy who had this tried to kill me. And I got a bit lucky, and well, he wound up leaving it to me. In a way.”

  “You can say you killed him.”

  “I killed him.”

  Cleeve nodded. “This is a sword given to officers of the Mahrduhm army when they have won the favor of the queen. It is said she is able to keep track of those who have them, that she knows when the blade is unsheathed. The swords cannot be bought in that realm. They are a visible mark of her favor, and they carry great weight in that culture. With tensions rising, it will only make things difficult for you, and likely us, if people have the impression that you have the queen’s favor. Those people will judge you with hostility, and, therefore, will judge me and my trade. I cannot let you jeopardize my caravan because of a sword you know nothing about.”

  “Dude, no problem. I’m happy to give it up. Seriously, I have no connection to the sword. It’s just a weapon. You know, my only weapon.”

  He gave a slight smile. “I will provide you with weapons as long as you give this up to me.”

  “Dude, you get me out of this city before the war comes, well, then I’m your huckleberry.”

  “War?”

  “The Queen’s Army, the one I took that blade from, they’re right up there,” I said, pointing towards the pass. I could just sort of make out where it was, as the clouds moved away from the mountains for a moment, revealing a deep azure sky.