Rhoen took the letter and read it carefully.
After a long silence, he set it back down on the table, his fingertips resting lightly on the paper.
“The time and meeting place are all spelled out.
I thought he was just a small rat, but turns out there was something much bigger hiding behind him.
I’m starting to regret not keeping him alive.”
He looked up at Erwin, a hint of gravity in his eyes.
“Where did you find this?”
“In the bandit chief’s bedroom.” Erwin adjusted his glasses.
“There was a hidden compartment beneath the table.
I pried it open, and these letters were inside.
There was also this.”
He pulled a small leather pouch from his coat.
Its mouth was open, stuffed so full that it bulged.
Rhoen took it and pinched a coin out from inside.
He flicked it across his knuckles.
The gold coin spun into the air before he caught it again, its cool surface settling against his palm.
Stamped on one side was Nilfgaard’s sun emblem.
The coin looked newly minted, as though it had just come out of the mint.
“A florin?” Rhoen raised an eyebrow.
“There are several hundred of them,” Erwin added, his voice carrying a suppressed heaviness.
“Hah.
A bandit den with hundreds of Nilfgaardian coins hidden away?
There’s no way they saved all this themselves.”
“Oh, right.
I also searched the bandit chief’s body.
The dagger he was carrying is standard-issue Nilfgaardian military equipment.”
“The buckle on his belt is military issue too.
He wasn’t a deserter at all.
He’d been deliberately removed from the military rolls and turned into a black-ops thug to do other people’s dirty work.”
Rhoen tossed the coin back into the pouch, where it landed with a soft clink.
“Do the letters contain anything that can identify whoever’s behind this?”
Erwin shook his head.
“No.
I’ve gone through every letter and every item several times.
Whoever wrote them was extremely careful.
No signatures, no names, and every transaction used a different meeting point.”
“I also studied the writing itself.
The format is standard military correspondence.
The sentence structure, the choice of words, and the writer’s familiarity with every step of the slave trade…”
“My guess is that the other party is a Nilfgaardian officer—and not a low-ranking one.
As for exactly who, I can’t say.”
After a brief silence, he asked a different question.
“Why would the military get involved in the slave trade?”
It was as though Erwin had been waiting for that question all along.
He cleared his throat, tucked the wooden board back under his arm, and freed both hands to gesture as he spoke.
“Nilfgaard doesn’t wage war for the same reasons the Northern Kingdoms do.
The North fights to plunder, seize territory, demand reparations, and collect ransoms.
Once the war’s over, that’s the end of it.”
“But Nilfgaard doesn’t launch invasions while stretching its supply lines to the breaking point and facing opposition at home just to take a stroll through foreign lands.”
“They fight to permanently occupy conquered territory.
Nilfgaard has developed an efficient, well-practiced system that transforms every region its armies conquer into an imperial province—a colony of the Empire.”
“And war is a business.
It requires enormous amounts of money to sustain.
Merchant guilds, trading companies, and the great noble houses are the investors.”
“Land in the occupied territories is sold cheaply to nobles, merchants, and trading companies.
Those people are both the investors and the driving force behind colonization.
They build estates, develop mines, establish workshops, and create trade networks.”
He raised a single finger.
“All of that requires people—a lot of people.
Hire workers?
Too expensive.
The Nilfgaardians have clearly done the math.
Capturing people in the North and shipping them south costs only a third as much as hiring laborers.”
“They cram them into the mines and work them to death.
No wages to pay, no compensation to their families.
Once they’ve been used up, they just capture another batch.”
He reached up and adjusted his glasses.
“So the slave trade isn’t some side business a handful of officers run to make extra money.
It’s part of Nilfgaard’s war machine, and frontline officers are the ones driving it.”
“But military law and government regulations keep them in check.
They can’t show themselves openly, so every theater needs a few deserters, bandits, or local strongmen to act as their proxies.”
“They handle the kidnappings, transportation, and money laundering, while the officers provide protection and equipment.
The man we killed was their fixer here in Velen.”
Erwin’s voice dropped lower, so low it seemed squeezed out from deep in his chest, carrying the resentment he had held in for far too long.
“Those Nilfgaardians never stop calling themselves civilized.
The rightful Empire.
The light of civilization.
They act like everyone in the North is nothing but an uncivilized barbarian.”
“I don’t think they’re any better.
They just wrapped themselves in a veneer of civilization before marching onto other people’s land to burn, loot, murder, and traffic civilians as slaves.
Don’t let that serious, respectable act of theirs fool you.”
Rhoen gave a slight nod, barely moving.
Erwin took a deep breath, forcing his voice back to its normal tone. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
“The immediate problem is this: when the people coming for the handoff arrive and find no one waiting for them, they’ll grow suspicious if enough time passes.
Most likely, they’ll send someone to investigate.
We have two options.”
He raised one finger and held it in the air.
“We go to the rendezvous point and eliminate them.
According to the letters, this exchange isn’t just about money.”
“The ship is also bringing a shipment of equipment—longswords, shields, mail armor, bows, crossbows—the very things we’re most desperate for right now.”
“We seize it all and equip our own troops.
Whoever’s behind this is bound by military discipline, and since they’re involved in something as dirty as slave trading, they can’t openly send regular troops to retaliate.
Even if they send a few hired swords or bandits after us, they won’t be much of a threat.”
His raised finger lingered for a moment before slowly lowering.
“The second option…”
He left the sentence unfinished.
Rhoen looked him straight in the eyes.
He didn’t urge him to continue.
He simply waited.
“Say it,” Rhoen said.
Erwin was silent for a long while.
“If you don’t want to make an enemy of the Nilfgaardian military, I’d understand.
In that case…
we pack up, take everyone with us, and find somewhere else to settle.”
When those words fell, the room went quiet.
From outside the window came the distant sound of Karl drilling the recruits, his shouted commands mingling with the clanging of steel.
Rhoen rose to his feet.
The chair scraped briefly across the floor as he walked over to Erwin and placed a hand on his shoulder.
His large hand settled on Erwin’s frail shoulder.
Erwin’s shoulder visibly sank beneath the weight, but this time, he didn’t pull away.
“How could we possibly do that?” Rhoen said with a smile, the corners of his mouth lifting.
“They’ve come all this way, bringing us equipment and money.
If we don’t extend a proper welcome to our guests, wouldn’t that be terribly rude?”
He turned toward the door.
When he reached it, he stopped and glanced back over his shoulder.
“Erwin, you know the location in the letter.
You’ll lead the way.”
“I’ll gather the men.”
His footsteps descended the staircase one step at a time, growing fainter until they disappeared.
Erwin remained where he was.
He adjusted his glasses, then lowered his gaze to the pouch of florins and the stack of letters spread across the table.
Taking a deep breath, he slowly let it out.
“Barbarians,” he muttered to himself, so quietly that only he could hear.
“We’re the real barbarians.”
He gathered up the letters, tucked them back into his wooden folder, then turned and hurried after him.