Oliver had escorted plenty of people across Azeroth. Usually it meant following someone with a remarkable talent for wandering into danger, killing whatever came at them, and collecting the reward.
One quest had stayed with him: Of Love and Family, in the Plaguelands.
Tirion Fordring, once a paladin and lord of Hearthglen, had been living in seclusion when Oliver found him. Learning what the old man had lost made him want to help. He had taken the little wooden warhammer Tirion had made for his son, put on a disguise, and entered Hearthglen to find Taelan Fordring among the Scarlet Crusade.
The childhood toy had helped reach the man beneath the commander's title. Taelan understood what the Crusade had become and what his father wanted. He chose to leave. Oliver went with him, fighting through the men sent to stop them.
They were almost out when Isillien appeared.
Taelan died because the script required it. The game still called the mission a success. Oliver received his reward, but what he remembered was Tirion arriving too late and kneeling beside his son.
What use was killing the inquisitor afterward? What use was everything he had later done to the Scarlet Crusade in Northrend? The person he had wanted to save was still dead.
He didn't want to learn that lesson again with people whose faces he could touch.
From the day the caravan left, he wore his armor and worked his way along the front, inspecting every bridge and patch of woodland they approached. Cerran was pleased to have a conscientious guard. He was less pleased by the prospect of their strongest man exhausting himself before anything actually happened.
A week or two might be tolerable. Months of it? Even if Oliver held up, there were other costs. And Cerran knew this road well enough to remember individual stones. They weren't advancing into an enemy camp.
On the fifth day, the caravan reached its first scheduled village. Cerran and the drivers went in to arrange purchases. Kellan joined the other guards to buy vegetables, meat, and fresh bread. By evening they were all back at the camp formed by the five wagons, with a pot of bacon and mushroom soup hanging above the fire.
Cerran brought a skin of newly brewed rye ale and sat beside Oliver.
“Have some.”
“Thought we weren't drinking on the road.”
“We don't drink while we're traveling. Keeps men from holding everyone up.” Cerran laughed. “We're stopped at a village. You'd deny us a drink for two or three months?”
“Right. Fair enough.”
Oliver took several swallows. They passed the skin back and forth, ate soup and stewed meat, and let the day's work recede. When the conversation had settled, Cerran asked, “First time with a caravan?”
Oliver considered denying it, then decided there was no point.
“Yes. First guard job of this sort.”
“Thought so.” Cerran fished a piece of fatty meat from the pot. “I served in wars when I was young. Never did anything worth a song, but I learned a few things. You watch the front and rear, check every approach. I can see you've experience of danger.”
He nodded toward the horses.
“You still look full of energy. Your old horse doesn't.”
Oliver turned. Old Bones grazed nearby. Looking at him properly, he could see the difference from the animal they had bought.
“Are you treating us like an army in enemy country?” Cerran asked.
Oliver gave an embarrassed laugh.
“It's a different trade.”
From Redfield, their route went first to Hornwood, then south along the main road to White Harbor. Lords whose lands they crossed either added their own men and goods to the caravan or gave Cerran things to sell for them. On the return journey, he brought what they wanted in exchange.
Wine from Highgarden for a lord with a taste for it. New fashions from King's Landing, bought through White Harbor's jewelers, for a lady who wanted something her friends hadn't seen. The orders changed, but the arrangement did not.
Roderic's gross margin was about a quarter of each transaction. Cerran regarded that as modest for the risks of long-distance trade. The local nobles no longer had to accept whatever foreign merchants offered, and they didn't have to fund and protect caravans of their own. Roderic's business had become their business too.
“That helps explain five villages and a Hornwood wife,” Cerran said. He pointed to the flags hanging from the wagons. “The brown moose says we're under Hornwood protection. The three silver ears of wheat on dark blue say House Colbert stands behind the trade. The marlin says my brother's running it.”
Oliver looked at the three banners.
“Show those, and the lords along the road let us through without tolls. Some even send men with us where the way's dangerous.”
“Then why pay for seven guards?”
Cerran laughed.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Leave us unguarded, and a lord calling you brother at supper might turn robber after dark. Take the lot and blame some passing outlaws. Seven men won't beat his household soldiers. But one or two might get away and tell Roderic. Then he'd have somebody to answer to.”
“So we're meant to discourage the attempt.”
“Exactly.”
“And ordinary thieves? They don't have land or a name to lose.”
“More troublesome. That's when we need the blades.” Cerran took another drink. “Still, the Starks have kept the North quiet these past few years.”
Oliver understood what he was being told. Stop pushing himself so hard. Stop making the other guards feel as though they should be doing the same. Was the work unnecessary? He wasn't certain. But Cerran knew the route and was responsible for it. Oliver was a hired guard, and a temporary one at that.
It was the first time an employer had complained that he was taking a job too seriously.
“All right. I'll rest tomorrow.”
Cerran patted his shoulder, left the more-than-half-full skin beside him, and went to join the others.
* * *
Oliver stopped getting up before everyone else. Once camp was packed, he sat in the carriage Harrick had given him, practiced drawing the bow, or spent the journey going back through books in his memory. He found he was happier with a little less responsibility.
He also had time to work on the skill he actually lacked.
At morning and evening halts, he shot at trees beside the road. The bow was nearly five feet long when strung, cut from a single piece of weirwood. Its grip had been worn smooth by the old soldier's hand. The man had told him he would have kept it for his family if he weren't too old to use it, and if his children and grandchildren had shown any aptitude.
Oliver knew metal better than bows. He had learned mining and smithing, not engineering, and there had been no archery skill waiting in his new memories. He had the impression that a well-made composite bow of wood, horn, and sinew ought to be better than a simple wooden stave, but a remote village could only offer what it had. This bow would serve. A city might provide something better later.
For now, the arrows gradually began to land closer to where he wanted them. He almost expected to see Skill +1 appear above his head.
* * *
North of Hornwood, a young man with curly brown hair aimed a crossbow at a woman running between the trees.
“Sideways! Run faster!”
She looked back. The bolt passed her ear and struck the mud.
“Did I tell you to look at me?” Ramsay Snow spat in irritation. “Get up. Keep running.”
She could not. She sat on the ground, spent, and begged him to let her go.
Ramsay handed the crossbow to a guard and turned to the man beside him.
“She's yours, Reek. Leave her back alone. I want the skin.”
“Aren't you joining me?”
“Boring.”
Small women reminded him of his mother. He had an attendant bring a stool, sat down with a drink, and watched while Reek sexually assaulted and tortured her. After a while, even that failed to hold his attention.
“Need something bigger to hunt,” he said. He looked at the attendant. “What do you think? Shall we turn robber and take a caravan?”
“Your father might not like his people being robbed, my lord.”
“Of course he wouldn't. Such a dutiful lord. Always thinking of his subjects.” Ramsay considered the woods around them. “But we're hunting. We lose our way. It's a big forest. Perhaps we find ourselves in Lord Halys's lands, and his people give us presents. Father would like that. His only son bringing gifts. What more could the old bastard want?”
“Any father would be glad of so thoughtful a son.”
Ramsay gave him a sideways look.
“What did I say?”
“To rob a caravan, my lord.”
“And?”
The man hesitated. “To bring gifts home to Lord Bolton.”
Ramsay nodded, rose, and walked over to Reek. He made a brief cutting gesture to another of his followers. Behind him, the attendant's throat was opened.
“Reek. Fancy a caravan?”
Reek left the woman and got to his feet. “Where?”
“South.”
He collected the trophy Ramsay had demanded and tucked it away. Ramsay was already mounting his horse.
“Come on, my good boys. Something worth hunting.”
He rode away with nine followers. In the clearing behind them, the woman and the murdered attendant lay in the blood-soaked earth.
* * *
The journey from Redfield to Hornwood accounted for roughly two-thirds of the road to White Harbor. After more than a month of stops and trading, the caravan entered Lord Halys's own lands.
Cerran was thinking about the market outside Hornwood, and the pleasures available once his work was done. Brynna or Sefra? Brynna charged handsomely for anything beyond the ordinary. Sefra could seem cool, but she never made him feel foolish about his belly, and in her company he sometimes felt young again. There wouldn't be much time. Perhaps he could see them both.
A crossbow bolt struck the wagon behind him.
For two breaths, he stared. Then he rolled off his seat, wriggled beneath the wagon, and shouted.
“Attack! Weapons! Defend yourselves!”
In the trees, Ramsay threw down his crossbow in disgust.
“Useless. Go!”
Two of his men had already aimed at the mounted guards near the front of the caravan. Their bolts struck before the guards gathered themselves. Men fell from their horses. As the others reached for weapons, seven or eight figures in black cloaks rushed onto the narrow road, mail showing beneath the cloth. Two more members of the caravan went down in the first clash.
Ramsay remained back, watching with a pleased smile.
“Shoot first. Rush them. Break the front and drive it back into the rest...” He followed the confusion with satisfaction. “Then finish them while they don't know where to turn.”
A voice roared from the last wagon.
“Throat!”
On the left side of the road, an arrow struck a crossbowman sheltering behind a tree. He clutched the right side of his chest and fell. For an instant, men on both sides turned toward the sound.
Oliver stood in the carriage with his bow drawn. He had left Kellan to drive and spent much of the day handling the weapon. At Cerran's cry, he had snatched up his breastplate and hung it on without even fastening it properly. The crossbows were the greatest danger. He had aimed at the first man he saw.
“Forehead!”
The second arrow passed the other crossbowman's ear and buried itself in the earth.
Perrick had time to look at it, and scarcely time to feel relieved. Another arrow struck his upper arm and pinned it to the tree. He sagged, the pain arriving after the force of the impact.
Oliver searched for another archer moving among the trees. He saw none. The men in the road were already mixed together, attackers and caravan guards fighting at close quarters. He wasn't prepared to test his improving aim with a friend's life behind the target.
He put down the bow and seized the saber.
The ambushers had chosen well. Rain had turned the narrow road muddy, leaving no room for a useful mounted charge. Oliver joined on foot. His heavy cuts broke through the cloaked men's defenses: a head fell, another man went down beneath a deep cleaving blow, and a third lost both his sword and his life when the steel failed him.
The attack began to turn. Men who had rushed forward confidently were now looking for a way out.
Ramsay told Reek to retrieve the discarded crossbow. Reek cocked it and fired.
Oliver had just killed another man when something struck him from behind with a metallic ring. He looked down. A bolt lay near his feet, its head bent out of shape.
Another crossbowman. He had missed one.
He turned toward the shot and saw a young man in black brocade wheeling his horse into the woods.
“Reek! Run!”
With their master fleeing, the remaining attackers lost the will to hold. Some threw down their weapons and knelt. Others tried to follow him, only to be caught by the guards they had been fighting.
When Cerran finally crawled out from beneath his wagon, four of the men in black were still alive and able to speak.