Mahon carefully walked without making any noise towards the desert canyon. A few dozen meters behind him, Neia and Elas were following, their bows drawn. Mahon hadn’t yet unsheathed his weapons, instead focusing all his senses outward to detect any hostile presence.

The thin canyon was the only way to get to the next city, and it was also the perfect place for an ambush. The trio of scouts was extra careful in examining it, to make sure the caravan would be able to pass without unpleasant surprises.

It had already been two days since they entered the domain of the goblins. At first, it wasn’t really visible, and only the experienced Neia felt it, but kilometer after kilometer they moved deeper into the monsters’ territory, and it was made immediately clear to anyone that they were intruding.

The road was scattered with skulls of dead animals, threatening messages and morbid bone constructs. On the first night, they heard the hoots of nearby goblins, but they never saw a shadow of them. The creatures seemed to love to toy with the merchant’s nerves, and they spent every hour of the following day haunting them without ever attacking.

As a result, Mahon and the two Frontaliers found even more bones and macabre sculptures on their way, but still not a trace of the goblins.

“Seen something?” Neia whispered to Mahon as she joined him behind the last tree leading to the canyon.

Mahon shook his head. “Not anything alive at least.” He pointed to the entrance of the canyon where another goblin’s work waited for them.

Neia turned her head and squinted her eyes to get a better look at the monstrosity. “It’s human!”

“Yeah. But he’s been long dead.”

Elas joined them at this moment, and he too looked at the canyon’s entrance where a spiked carbonized human body waited for them in the middle of the way. He grimaced.

“They’re stepping up their game. I don’t like it.”

Neia bit her lips. “It’s not like them. Goblins are usually simple creatures. They will attack if they think they’re stronger than you. Otherwise, they will leave you alone. What they’re doing here makes no sense. We should already have met a small party that would test our strength, but we only get… this.”

“Maybe they’re just trying to intimidate us.” Elas chimed in, as he cleared the sweat on his forehead with his sleeve.

“They’re trying to intimidate us, that’s for sure.” Neia replicated. “But they still didn’t send a party to try us, and that’s unusual.”

Mahon stopped his watch of the surroundings and turned to the two Frontaliers scouting with him.

“We’re still checking the canyon?”

“Yes.” Neia nodded, although reluctantly. “There is no other road, anyway. That’s the last place where they could attack us, afterwards we’ll be moving away from their territory. It’s their best shot at attacking us, if they don’t do it now, then we’re free.”

Mahon threw a glance at the sun, high in the sky. “Let’s go then. The caravan will be there in two hours or so. If we want to cross the canyon and move away to find a good place to camp tonight, we shouldn’t waste time.”

The two Frontaliers acquiesced at Mahon’s remark, but they didn’t move forward in the slightest, instead throwing a look at Mahon. Mahon held back a sigh and after a last glance at his surroundings, he rushed to the canyon, hid behind a large rock and gestured for the Frontaliers to join him once he had made sure there was no threat around.

The Frontaliers’ scouting techniques were very lacking compared to Mahon and Jorik’s ones. On the first day, they had simply made two teams. One with Mahon, Neia and Elas, and a second with Jorik and the last two Frontaliers, Zelphar and Ailred. The teams were then sent alternatively forward to make sure no ambush laid in the caravan’s path.

A team walked forward for three hours, getting them approximately an hour and a half ahead of the caravan. They left signs on the way to indicate to the caravan that everything was good, and then they would go back to the caravan for the last hour, double checking that no enemy had passed behind them. In total, it was a four-hour shift, and once a scouting team was back to the caravan, the other would immediately leave, and do its own shift.

The strategy employed was vastly different from Mahon and Jorik’s method of continuously sending people forward, and splitting them on the way if needed. When the first scout or group of scouts needed to investigate something, they would leave a sign, and the following group would act accordingly and take over the lead.

They had tried to explain their better strategy to the Frontaliers, but they had simply looked at them with weird looks and stated it wasn’t how they usually proceeded. Pushing the subject a bit further with his scouting team, Mahon found out they thought that their strategy was too complex and relied too much on trust and organization, and although it might be more efficient, the cost of learning to coordinate effortlessly with each other was too much for the small gain. At least according to Neia and Elas.

Mahon tried to refute their claim and that it wasn’t that difficult to learn, but after a heated discussion, he gave up and simply went with the Frontaliers’ strategy. The Frontaliers had been a bit resentful about how he had criticized their methods, and Elas was also shunning him since he had refused to explain from which country he came from and who trained him.

In the end, Neia and Elas had made him go first for their whole scouting trip as a petty revenge, and Mahon hadn’t stopped sighing at their unprofessionalism.

How could people let their emotions affect such an important mission?

Hidden behind his rock, Mahon waited for Neia and Elas to join him before he could proceed further ahead. He focused on his breath and made a quick scan of the surroundings with his Flow just to be extra secure, but again, he didn’t notice anything living in the vicinity.

When the Frontaliers joined him, he started climbing the short cliff to the right of the canyon whereas the Frontaliers covered him with their bows. The climb was easy as the slope wasn’t that steep, and there were a lot of good holds. Mahon reached the top, twenty meters above in under a minute, and confirmed with his eyes what he had sensed before. No one was waiting for them.

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He gestured to the Frontaliers, and they started moving on through the canyon while he matched their pace at the top. They moved through the whole length of the canyon in fifteen minutes, and beside the dead body at the entrance, there was no sign of goblins.

They went back on their tracks as soon as they were sure goblins wouldn’t come for them, cleared the path of the macabre sculpture and went back to the caravan at a quick pace.

“So?” Edwin asked once they reached the caravan.

“We walked through the canyon, up and down. There was a little message, but no sign of goblins.” Neia resumed the situation. “I don’t like it much. I can feel something is wrong in my guts, but the path seems clear.”

At Edwin's side, Jorik, Ailred and Zelphar were listening with rapt attention, ready to move as soon as the report was over.

“Maybe they picked up with the dead reaper-cat, and judged we were too much trouble for them.” Edwin thought out loud.

Neia shrugged. “I’m not convinced, Edwin. Why would they taunt us all the way if they don’t plan to attack?”

The chief of Frontaliers sighed loudly. “I don’t know, Neia. We heard they were more active than usual. Maybe they’re mad they can’t deal with us, and it eases their monster’s pride to play with us like this.”

Neia groaned, but she didn’t add anything. Edwin threw a last look at her before he turned to the other scouting team.

“Be extra careful. Although I’m not as pessimistic as Neia, everyone can tell the situation is a bit unusual. Take your time to re-check the canyon and warn us if you see anything wrong.”

“Sure. Don’t worry, Edwin.” The burly Ailred answered.

Jorik exchanged a small look with Mahon, but the latter shook his head ever so slightly, gesturing in their scouting code he hadn’t found anything troubling, and he had nothing to add to Neia’s explanations.

An instant later, the trio left to scout forward while Mahon, Neia and Elas went to sit in a cart to rest a bit before they would be sent forward again. Elas grabbed a nearby basket of fruit and handed one to Neia and Mahon out of habit.

Mahon started eating his fruit while leaning back in the cart with a satisfied smile. Since the tension went down a notch, the smile and happy expression on Elas’ face quickly came back.

“Hey, Mahon. Sorry for earlier. We didn’t mean to be so rude to you. It’s just… We’re quite proud of what we can do in the Frontaliers. Even though you’re an incredible fighter probably worth a dozen like us, you’re still wet behind the ears when it comes to this. I get you learned a lot of theory, but in the end you’re still much younger than us. You’ve yet to experience the world. And not a lot of theory works as fine as they should in practice.”

Mahon didn’t say anything, as he knew it would only add fuel to the fire once again. Seeing his face, Elas burst out laughing.

“Hey! Don’t make this face! I don’t know in which country you trained and what you studied, but I can tell it wasn’t anything I could have done. You deserve respect for what you managed to achieve. But don’t forget they’re still people who know more than you somewhere. I’ve seen too much youngsters like you think they were the kings of the world died stupidly not to know. Be patient, learn when you can, and you will grow wiser, trust me.”

Mahon hesitated to answer. Although he looked two centuries old, he was in fact only in his twenties, memory wise. What would Elas say if he learned Mahon was even younger than he thought? His two decades of experience had forged him quickly into a mature soldier, though.

His body still remembered some of his previous feats, as his rapid rise in Nightmare had proven about his fighting capabilities, but more than ever the constant fighting had sharpened his mind more than anything else, and few people would actually dare to call Mahon inexperienced regarding military.

It was true that Elas had at least two centuries over Mahon, and he obviously knew a lot more than him regarding Finem since Mahon had just arrived, but still, the Frontalier felt very childish for someone who had lived almost half a millennium. Given his stories, he had spent all his life on the road, and yet he had never improved much in fighting or scouting during that time.

That the man dared to lecture him about such subjects annoyed Mahon, although he endured, but that he had the guts to refuse to even listen to a new strategy nor try to understand the underlying principles just because it was too complicated made Mahon boil deep inside.

No wonder that he didn’t progress, if he thinks like that.

Elas was really nice and of good company, but anyone who refused to work on himself and even judged others wasn’t worth a lot in Mahon’s eyes. The thing that confused Mahon the most was that Elas didn’t seem to be the only one like that. Even Edwin and Neia, who were a cut above the rest, weren’t as exemplary as Mahon had imagined them.

They were led by their feelings more often than not and only used logic when it suited them. Overall, their techniques were good regarding the caravan’s people, but compared to the Pine Hill Officer Institute, they could only be described as poor.

Maybe their simple life, away from an Amentiae’s disaster hanging at their throat made them more complacent than us.

Lost in his thoughts about this new world and his traveling companions, time moved fast and the caravan quickly reached the canyon. At that time, Mahon exited the cart and walked beside the caravan, on its guard.

With a short look around, he easily found Jorik’s scouting marks that informed him about the situation. Nothing had changed, and the canyon was as desert as Mahon had left it a couple hours ago.

“Brace yourself for the last hurdle. Once on the other side, we’ll be free.” Edwin’s voice traveled through the caravan, and the merchants tightened their grip on their weapons as they engaged inside the canyon.

Mahon just happened to pass by Siraye’s cart, and the woman appeared as calm as him. She had a shortsword and dagger resting on her lap and was eyeing the canyon walls with suspicion. Seeing Mahon walk beside her cart, she nodded at him before returning her attention to her surroundings.

The caravan progressed much more slowly than a scouting team, and given the narrowness of the canyon, the merchants also had to be extra careful not to break their carts or injure their muxales.

As usual, Mahon stayed behind with Elas, and they scrutinized the vicinity attentively while the last carts moved in the canyon.

If they try something, it’s right now.

Exhaling deeply, Mahon Flowed, but again, only the known rhythms of the merchants and their cargo appeared in his vision. Not leaving the Flow, he started to walk slowly behind the convoy.

The crossing of the canyon happened in an eerie silence at an excruciating slow time. With the Flow, Mahon picked on the nervous heartbeats and afraid looks. Each time a muxale hit a loose rock, and it rolled away in an echoing sound, more than a few people jumped on their seats.

Five minutes passed, and nothing happened. The shrilling creaks of the wheels of an old cart added to the stress of the situation, but another five minutes went by and nothing happened to the caravan. The merchants didn’t lower their guards in the slightest, and they reached the halfway point unimpeded in an ever-growing tension.

A dry cough jolted awake half of the caravan, and Edwin threw the responsible a death stare, but he didn’t say anything, instead leading the caravan further away from the goblin’s territory.

In the end, the caravan managed to pass through the canyon without meeting any goblin, and a visible relief showed on each merchant that managed to get his cart away from the canyon. When they had all exited, Edwin guided them away as quickly as they could and the jovial atmosphere Mahon had known in the first days of the trip slowly started to come back.