Chapter 2: The Caravan
The next morning Archonius woke up to his father tapping his foot, “time to wake up, we’ll start our journey once you get outside, for breakfast you can eat some apples that the mercenaries bought.” Archonius got up and got his classic on: gray tunic, gray shorts, and brown boots, he walked out his room to the sunlight beaming through the open doorway, his mother was nowhere to be seen, so he walked out the door and closed it behind himself. The mercenaries were gathered by three caravans: talking, drinking, and readying themselves for the journey. The leader of the mercenaries came out from behind one of the caravans and grabbed Archonius by the shoulders, “Archonius! Ahaha!” He shouted, he steered Archonius to the side of the caravans and shook his hand vigorously. “The name’s Gregor, I know we didn’t initially meet, but my men and I happened to see you splitting heads yesterday, I won’t say I was shocked of course, but It was a sight to see.” Gregor was a hearty man, he had bronze skin, black curly hair, a mischievous grin, brown eyes, and a great mustache. Compared to other men, he wasn’t the tallest, nor the buffest, but he was still the leader of his band of mercenaries, The Red Vultures. They wore matching red and black leather armor sets with bloody vultures devouring carcasses of dead men.
“Gregor stop beaming at the son.” One of his men said he was accompanied by three other men, he was quite tall, even taller than Archonius himself, and he had a large axe on his back that was shaped weirdly. It resembled the claw of a crab, and he was Zhotenian.
“Archonius! His name is Archonius.” Gregor shouted at his lackeys who rolled their eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry Archonius, my men have no manners, anyways there’s Ten Count, real name Ten Cao Zhi, I just didn’t feel like saying it so now it's Ten Count.” He said nodding at the guy with the ax who nodded back, “That's Flint, he knows how to find stuff, and their worth, he’s an appraiser if you know what I mean.” He was a weasley looking man, he was short with a bald head and glasses, he had a belt of knives wrapped around his waist and a rapier. “Damn, you’re not even going to nod back, Flint?”
“Oh, my bad.” He had a regular voice unfitting of his stature which surprised Archonius. One of the other men leaned his arm on Flint’s head, “get off me, shitter!” Flint shrieked, and all the men laughed, Archonius let out a silent laugh of his own.
“Wow, I didn’t know mute people laughed silently.” The man said. He had pale skin, purple eyes and pale hair, which wasn’t common in Satir or anywhere that Archonius was familiar with.
“That right there is Tower, his real name is Toh-toh-toh can you just say it, you see me struggling here!” Gregor shouted as the rest of his men giggled.
The man wiped his eyes and straightened up, “Tohkanot-Zegazna, is my name; it's quite easy to say, actually it's one of the easiest out of my entire family. You might be thinking why am I here if I have a family?” Tower rambled on.
“He definitely wasn’t.” Gregor replied.
“The reason is because I got lost, I was looking to join the army of my country, but they rejected me. Me! Of all people they rejected it was me, a guy was missing his tongue and an arm, how did he get in!? Did I just hear you ask what country?”
“No one has said anything.”
“It was Dauntuzz, am I really surprised, definitely not, and so I joined a group of bandits that operated in Dauntuzz, but they were kind of weird, they only attacked civilians. I know what you’re thinking, Archonius, typical nut-rag behavior, I definitely agree, and so I poisoned their food and watched them die, then I joined this band of mercs.” Tower said with a proud look on his face while everyone had their mouths open, “what?”
“You never told us this.” Flint said.
“I’m pretty sure I did.” Tower said thinking about it.
“You never mentioned poisoning the bandits.” Flint replied, cleaning his glasses.
“Oh,” everyone was silent as they all exchanged looks, “do you want me to introduce the main shitter himself, the rat bastard of the west, home to the lands of Carcas, Demurion?” Tower said shifting the focus off the awkwardness he left.
“Sure.” Flint replied.
“Now presenting the last fucker you’ll ever get to know, the farmer of the west, the plower of the best, the Demon with the sickle, the man in the camp with a huge pickle, Demurion!” Tower shouts, pointing to the guy standing behind Ten Count, he was a regular sized man, not too short, nor too big, he was older than all of them by the looks of it, but he had brown eyes that were full of life, and a mighty white grin after hearing his introduction. He had the complexion of many of the people that lived in Satir including Archonius, light brown skin, he had a sharp nose and high cheekbones.
“Nice to meet you, Archonius.” Demurion said gripping Archonius’ hand, “I know about a few other guys from Satir as well, but you’re the only headsmen that I know so far, I have to say the show you put on yesterday was truly immaculate.” Gregor patted Archonius on the back and left them talking with Archonius to assemble the rest of his mercenaries. “He probably really likes you because you remind him of his son.” Demurion said, watching Gregor leave.
“He killed his son in battle, I think?” Tower said in a hushed voice.
“Yes, Tower he unintentionally killed his son, I was there myself. We were a smaller band, he and son were both mercs, but his dumb tactics got his son killed because he wanted to play it risky. That’s about as much you’re getting from me.” Demurion said, and walked away, Ten Count followed him leaving Flint and Tower standing there.
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“You should get something to eat, I recommend bread and apples, the meat is probably all gone by now.” Flint said, then walked away in the direction of the gathering crowd in front of the caravans, Tower stayed with Archonius and motioned for him to follow, they walked to the back where two men were stirring a black pot over a fire. The men looked up and a grin spread on their faces.
“Oh you guys caught us; since the men took the meat,” The man on the left said, “or so they thought they did!” The man on the right interjected, “we thought it would be smart to save a little bit of meat for extra savory eats.” The man on the right rubbed his hands, “we call it the three-meats stew, it has: beef, chicken, turkey, garlic, onion, peppers, water, and tomatoes.” The man on the left interrupted, “we’ll give you two some if you sit down and eat it with us, that way we all get caught.” The man said, both of them grinning from ear to ear.
Archonius and Tower exchanged looks, “fair enough.” They plopped down next to the two men who passed them bowls ladled with the brown and green stew with chunks and bits of turkey, beef and chicken poking out. The two men topped the bowls with seasoned golden rice and little wooden spoons to go with it. Archonius put a spoonful in his mouth and he could taste it, he could taste the delicate saltiness of the turkey rhyming with small bits of onions and green peppers and the rice was slightly sweet, but not too sweet in a way that it did not impede on the delicious taste from the stew. He looked over and saw Tower tearing through his beef and chicken and scooping the rest of the rice and stew into his mouth. He waved his bowl in their faces and through puffed cheeks and rice said, “double up.”
“Damn, okay.” The one on the right said refilling his bowl with steamy stew and rice. The one on the left looked over at Archonius and asked, “so how are you enjoying the stew?” Archonius didn’t say anything, but he put a smile on his face and pointed at Tower. The two men looked at him, who looked up from his bowl.
“He’s mute, but he definitely likes it.” Tower said and continued to gorge himself on the stew and rice.
The two men looked at Archonius and said, “well that's alright if you’re mute, I guess we’ll have to guess, I’m Ross, and that's Voss, we’re cousins not brothers.” The one on the left said. Ross and Voss were from the Southeasternmost country of Kaznach, it was a forest-like area with lots of green trees you could get lost in, most of the citizens of Kaznach have pale-faces sometimes they turn red, sometimes they turn tan, but most of them have a white complexion. Blond, brown, and occasionally red hair, paired with small ears, sharp long noses, and blue and green eyes. Ross and Voss matched completely, both had blond straight hair, pale faces and sharp noses, except that Voss had green eyes and Ross had blue eyes. “Well hurry up and eat, the little meeting might be done soon.” Ross rushed him, the two finished off their own bowls, poured the leftover stew in a smaller wooden container, put out the fire and washed the pot with a small bag of water. Archonius scooped rice, stew, chicken, and turkey into his cheeks and gave them the bowl. He stood up and walked with Tower furiously chewing on the food back to where the meeting was taking place.
Blurgh! “Aw, that was good, if you get on their good side they’ll make you anything.” Tower said, burping, the two sauntered over to hear the end of Gregor’s speech.
“...Keep your weapons sharp, and your eyes peeled, that is all.” Gregor finished as the mercs walked off to take their place alongside the caravans. Gregor saw Tower and Archonius walking over out of the corner of his eyes and walked up to them, “I reckon you too are finished eating, Archonius your father wants to see you at the second caravan, and Tower you’ll be in the front with me.” Archonius walked up to the second caravan where his father was already sitting in the cart.
“Based on what Gregor was saying there is a chance we may encounter some bandits, I’d like you to at least have something to defend yourself with, but I don’t think you can take the ax out of the city, so we’ll have to rely on the mercenaries, but if push comes to shove, here,” He said pulling out a small, thin, knife from his pocket, “I got it from one of my last expeditions, apparently the scabbard has poison in it, so anytime you sheathe the knife it's gets covered in lethal poison, so try not to cut yourself, you might die.” Archonius grabbed the sheathed knife, “it comes with a belt.” His father says, handing him a small leather belt, he put the sheathe in the hole and wrapped it until it was tight around his waist, and climbed in beside his father. “We’re ready to go!” Another voice shouted, “ready in the rear!” and Gregor’s voice shouted, “ready in the front!” Tychonius shouted, “let's move out!” The caravans started their trip past the blacksmith district across the bridge and into Pyrach. Archonius viewed men, women, and children working on farms and in Pyrach laboring in their fields with their grains and fruits. It was a short while until they had passed the South gate of Pyrach and headed into the woods of Sangron, which was the name of the woods between Zhoten and Satir.
The woods of Sangron had thick dark green trees that climbed into the sky as if they were towers, the forest had a few rivers and lakes scattered about, but the main road that most travelers traveled was far from any source of water. They traveled till nightfall when they set up camp near some trees by the side of the road. Gregor and Ross were handing out bowls of pottage to the mercs and hirelings working under Tychonius. Archonius walked to the back where the last caravan was lined up to piss against a tree, as he was done doing the deed he became curious about the knife and unsheathed it. He held it to the moonlight peeking in between the trees to gaze upon the blade, it had a smooth double edge, and it glistened with a greenish-purplish color from the moonlight which had to have been the poison. Archonius lifted up the sheathe to look inside when he saw what appeared to be a woman in red vulture attire shooting arrows at a tree. Gregor had come around to the last caravan with a bowl of pottage when he spotted Archonius looking at someone in the forest. “Hey Archonius, can you give this bowl of pottage to the lady over there with the bow.” Gregor said pointing at the tall and muscular woman he had been staring at, she had short curly hair and as he approached he saw that she had a jagged scar on the left side of her face stretching from her left eye to her upper lip. Archonius walked up to her and displayed the bowl of pottage while she was about to let off another arrow into the tree.
“You know you could have just told me the food was ready.” Archonius wasn’t used to making signs indicating that he was mute and so his go to was slicing his neck with a hand indicating that he couldn’t speak, “What do you mean by that?” Archonius frustratedly held up his hand and pointed down, telling her to stay there, and walked back to Gregor, so he could explain.
“He can’t talk, and his name is Archonius, his father is the client.”
“Oh, well come back over here and let me introduce myself.” He scurried back over to her, “I’m Sophia, I’m from Pyrach, my father taught me how to hunt, he felt like he might as well since I always begged him and all he had were girls. I decided to become a mercenary because I wanted to quickly earn money. I've been through a few bands, but most of the guys in this one at least treat me as if they have some sense of dignity, or it might be the muscles.” The moon was heightened overhead, it's light was shining down into the trees in forest, Sophia squinted her eyes at something past Archonius causing him to swivel around, he couldn’t see what she was looking at, at first, but she pointed at a little creeping object in the bushes past the first caravan, it was covered in what seemed like black fur, and she began nocking an arrow, preparing to fire when a sharp cry resounded through the forest and another voice yelled.