“Even when the roads are unsafe, people will brave peril for profits anyway.” - Old merchant saying.

A couple days later, Aideen and Celia continued on their eastward trek. They were headed towards the Trade City of Alfheim, the very same place where the revolution that changed the elven society in Alcidea started. For once, however, the two of them had not traveled by their lonesome, and had instead joined a large merchant caravan of nearly twenty wagons headed in the same direction.

Because they still wished to avoid attracting undue attention, and no sane person would have taken the trek from Boroes to Alfheim on their own.

The main reason for that was because the long trek went through vast swathes of uninhabited land that were nominally part of elven territory. The vast plains to the east of Alcidea was slightly different to the plains of the north that Aideen and Celia spent their last few decades in, with taller grass and more groves of trees, but both shared one similarity.

Namely that the wild animals and monsters that called the place home tended to be very territorial in nature.

It was such an issue with the roads that led to Alfheim that no sane merchant would travel there without a convoy of at least ten wagons, with a healthy amount of hired swords to keep them safe on top. As a result, merchant traffic to the region tended to happen in batches rather than in a constant, steady stream, as merchants and travelers both waited until their group was large enough before they set off.

Aideen had easily bartered her and Celia’s passage with the group by offering her services as a healer, often something difficult to find amongst travelers and sellswords since most healers preferred staying in the safety of the cities and towns. The caravan they were part of had twenty wagons from six different merchant groups, each with their own set of hired muscle to keep them safe, easily numbering well over a hundred people in total with the other travelers included.

The road they took was more of a crude path made from countless wagons and feet treading on the road over many, many years rather than an official one. It was more of an area of the plains where the grass had been trodden on, rather than any sort of built road. It was barely wide enough to allow one wagon pass through with escorts riding along its sides.

During the cold nights, the caravan camped in clearings that had been designated as rest areas, something that was left behind by previous travelers. Each caravan that passed through the route would help maintain the clearings and slightly enlarge it, so they grew larger over time. It was as simple as accommodations got, but it was the price to pay to travel the route.

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They had been informed that under ideal conditions, the trip would take approximately two weeks, and that the merchants put no guarantee in their safety. Everyone’s safety was in their own hands, since the trip was risky enough for the merchants to have hired so many guards for themselves. Even under such conditions though, the promise of profits still lured many merchants and travelers to go through the route on a regular basis.

For the first week of their travel, the caravan got off light. They were attacked thrice at night and once during the day by roving packs of beasts, but the beasts were smaller, less dangerous sorts, and their hired guards handily scared them off after a short fight each time. Aideen did her part and healed what injuries the guards took after the fighting was done, and they continued on their way shortly afterwards.

Halfway into their second week of travel, the caravan’s people thought that they had a particularly fortunate trip this time, since they had not been attacked by the wildlife over the past four days. None of them had expected that the relative peace and quiet they enjoyed was caused by the worst possible scenario they could face.

Namely that a pack of vicious beasts had recently claimed that region of the plains as their territory and chased away all their competitors.

The Caravan started to notice the first signs of trouble in the evening of their twelfth day of travel, when some of the hired swords reported seeing movement in the tall grass to their sides. It was a rather unnerving sight, one that indicated that some creatures were keeping an eye on them, waiting for the right moment to pounce.

That sort of behavior indicated a smarter sort of beast, and those types were always trouble when compared to their simpler, more instinctive brethren.

While the guards remained on alert all day due to the beast activity, no actual attacks took place during the day. The caravan successfully reached the next clearing on their route and stopped to set up camp as usual for the evening. Their vigilance had lulled somewhat as the beast activity had also stopped an hour or so before they reached the clearing.

It was that lulled sense of vigilance that cost them the lives of several guards before they even realized that they were under attack.

The first signs of the attack were the screams that some of the guards who patrolled the perimeter of the clearing managed to give out before they were dragged into the tall grass and vanished. Their dying cries alerted the rest and allowed the guards to form a semblance of defense around the surprised merchants and travelers when the monsters burst out from the tall grass around the clearing and attacked for real.

Four insectoid legs supported a flat, oval-shaped torso covered in carapace, which opened into a large maw that covered its entire width and half its depth. Dozens of tiny, multifaceted eyes dotted the topside of the carapace, each suspended on a short stalk, while four larger limbs extended from the sides. Two of the limbs ended in large, powerful pincers each easily capable of shearing a man in half in one snip, while the other pair ended in scythe-like appendages akin to those of a praying mantis.

Except each of the creatures were as tall as the donkeys that pulled the wagons.

Amidst panicked screams of fear and the shrill, ululating cries of the monsters, the battle broke out in the clearing.