“So that’s Jellis,” Oliver observed.
“Oh good, you’ve recovered enough to offer us the benefits of your profound intellect again,” Beryl groused.
The boy huffed a laugh and put a hand on the girl’s powerful shoulder. “And you’re recovered enough to complain. We’re all doing wonderfully.”
The warden recruit broke her gaze from the draft team for a moment to give him a sidelong look, but a smile split her face, too. In the day and a half since Rose had healed him, Oliver had been relieved to find the tension between all three of them dispersed. He still expected that he and Beryl would never be close, but their struggle with the storm monsters had reminded them of what it meant to work together.
It was difficult to stay upset with someone who had saved your life, and in the desperate fight with the stormstrike stag, each of the trio owed their lives to the other two.
Of course, Oliver didn’t have too much time to reflect on the ramifications of life-and-death struggles, as the trade town of Jellis quickly occupied his attention.
“It’s… quite a bit larger than I expected,” Beryl admitted.
Normally Oliver would take the chance to tease the girl for letting her jaded act slide, but really, he was just as stunned as she was.
Most of the villages that dotted the heartlands were small communities of perhaps a few hundred people, at most, and never numbered more than two hundred or so homes. What few artisans dwelled in those villages tended to conduct business out of their homes, and so there were few notable buildings in any given settlement. An inn, if the village was situated along a trade route, a boarding house if not, maybe a mill or a smithy. There was no need for much more than that, and as most villages produced their own food, their size was limited by their ability to feed themselves while producing a surplus to sell.
Jellis was… different. Oliver had known that, in theory at least, as had Rose and Beryl. Situated at the bottom of the Flax Road, Jellis was about halfway between Correntry to the north and Emeston to the south. A few generations back, it had sprung up as a trading post, taking advantage of a central crossroad that the dozen or so local farming communities had brought their trade goods to.
It had grown naturally from there. An inn opened to cater to caravans stopping at the trading post. Then a smithy, a wainwright, a cooper, a barn and livery, all businesses serving the needs of those same caravans. Soon there were enough permanent residents to afford the upkeep of a few hunters, who needed their own homes, which lured in carpenters. Eventually, Jellis solidified its place on the map when an Adept weaver took up residence there, working with the flax being brought in from the outlying communities, allowing merchants to trade not just for raw materials but for processed, and often magical, cloth and textiles.
Now, Jellis was a community of over two thousand people, including half a dozen competing weavers and tailors that each had a significant staff, a pair of merchant companies that based themselves out of the cheaper town rather than pay the expensive rates of life in Correntry, and no small number of other professional tradesmen and women. It was still small, admittedly, compared to the trade cities or the massive bastion cities, but it was far larger than any other settlement nearby, and after well over a month on the road, it was stunning to Oliver and Beryl alike.
Rose was less impressed. She sat up with a sleepy yawn in the back of the wagon, and asked, “What are you two so shocked over? It’s charming and all, but after so long on the road, I was hoping for something less,” button nose wrinkling, she continued, “rustic.”
“Rustic,” Beryl repeated with an eye roll. “A lifetime on the road, then living in an orphanage, and she thinks this is rustic.”
Oliver huffed a little laugh. As impressive and bustling as the town was, it truly didn’t compare to a major city like Correntry or Elliven. Although, Oli reflected, that was more a result of its location than anything else. Not so long ago, before the appearance of the Arboreal Wastes, Elliven had been a township not much larger than Jellis, and Oliver wouldn’t be surprised if this town one day reached the heights of Correntry and Emeston, a fourth trade city.
Oliver started to make a joke about the likely lack of bathhouses in the town, but he was interrupted by the calls of rough voices, and the carts ahead of them pulling to one side of the road.
“What’s this?” Oliver asked suspiciously, while Beryl cursed and hauled on the reins, directing the pair of draft goats pulling their cart to follow Hugo’s lead.
A handful of armed and armored men approached the caravan, and Oliver hissed a warning through his teeth. His hand flew to his sword before Rose, behind him, said, “Calm down, Oli. It’s just the guards.”
Rose was quickly proven correct. Hugo hopped off the forward caravan and promptly began talking to the guardsmen of Jellis, presenting them a series of documents. Inventory lists and travel papers and the like, Oliver figured.
The leader of the guards was a mountain of a man, six feet tall and nearly as wide across. With him standing next to Hugo, himself stout and with a bit of paunch, Oliver couldn’t help but think of a draft goat standing next to a domestic farm goat.
Though they were too far for Oliver to hear their words, he could make out the general direction of their conversation through body language. The big man cut Hugo off with a barked question, and the little merchant lifted a hand, looking somewhat put out, to gesture towards the back of the caravan.
At Oliver and his friends, specifically.
The big guard nodded and turned to follow Hugo’s indicated direction, starting towards them.
“Incoming,” Oliver muttered.
“Fantastic…” Beryl muttered.
“Oh stop whining, let’s at least go meet the man before we get all upset,” Rose scolded both of them. Still, as she hopped out of the wagon, Oliver noted that she was carrying her thin, pale staff, and had made sure that Beryl had her own warstaff resting nearby.
Oliver grunted and hopped over the driver’s bench, standing with Rose as the giant of a man reached them.
He had the dark brown skin typical of Westerlen, and both his head and face were shaved bare. Though heavyset, he carried himself with the careful balance and casual ease of a battle-gifted, and his heavy-lidded eyes gave him a deceptively sleepy appearance noticeably at odds with his sharp gaze.
“So you’re the wardens then?” he drawled.
“Recruits,” Rose clarified politely. “We’re only Novice level.”
“Hngh,” the man grunted. “Under what officer?”
“Warden Farris, sir.”
“Hmph.” The man’s eyes locked on Oliver, and he felt his skin crawl from the stare. It was the kind of look Oliver had seen from very few people, most of them nobles. It was like, in a moment, the man had cataloged every detail he needed about Oliver. “You’re not.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Oliver blinked, and tried for his best smile, but he felt clumsy and awkward compared to Rose’s deliberate poise. Wasn’t he supposed to be the noble here? “Pardon?”
“That arming jack, your sword, your eyes. You're no warden, recruit or no.”
Oliver blinked again. “Ah… you’re correct, sir. I’m a knight, or, I mean, a squire, that is.”
“Order?”
It took Oliver a moment to figure out the laconic man’s meaning. “Oh. Argent, sir.”
The big man huffed a breath that only very generously could’ve been called a laugh. “Baby silver knight, aye?”
“Yessir, under Lady-”
“I don’t care, baby knight.” The man’s gaze drifted away from him with a dismissive finality.
Oliver felt something dark and sullen flare up in his chest, and for a second, he was back in Elliven, getting told off for another quasi-real social slight. His father’s eyes were the same as this man’s, this guard who hadn’t even bothered to introduce himself before picking him apart. They weren’t alike in shape or color, but they shared that talent for visually breaking a person down like they were deboning a chicken, and for visibly dismissing someone from their attention as if they didn’t exist anymore.
If the big man noticed Oliver’s reaction, he didn’t show it as he addressed all three of them. “Let me be clear. I don’t care if the King himself sent you. You’re in my town now, and here, my men are the only ones with the authority to draw steel or offer battle. You see something suspicious, warden or knight or hunter, you find me or one of my men. We’re about. Got it?”
“And who exactly are you?” Oliver asked.
Apparently his voice held a little more of his anger than Oli had thought, because the big man’s eyes locked onto him with all the mercy of an arrow in flight. “I’m Sheriff Elway.”
“‘Sheriff,’” Oliver repeated. “I don’t know that title.” His back was still rigid, but Oliver carefully kept his hands away from his sword, refusing to back down but not inviting violence.
“Think of it like a hunter chief. Only I’ve got a score of hunters working under me, and another two score guardsmen. Clear?”
Oliver nodded, but the big man wasn’t done. He took a pair of rumbling steps closer to Oliver, and told him, “And I got my position by merit. I did my time in the Wastes, and I’m the highest level person between here and the trade cities. So hear me clear when I say that I don't need any of them to help me tie you in knots and drop you off to my magistrate. Heard?”
The sheriff didn’t bluster or boast. He delivered the threat calmly, his voice lazy as ever and his arms folded across his barrel of a chest, and Oliver had no doubt he was telling the truth.
“Heard,” Oliver acknowledged, if somewhat reluctantly.
Elway’s eyes stayed focused on Oliver for a few tense, silent moments, then the spell seemed to break. His stance shifted and his eyes moved away–but this time, they didn’t dismiss him. The most dangerous man in Jellis clearly stayed very, very aware of Oliver.
Great.
“I’d like to speak with you at some point about our task,” Rose told the man brightly, as if the confrontation between him and Oliver hadn’t even happened.
The man huffed another breath. “Is that right?” His tone made it clear that the words weren’t a question. “Come find me in a day or two.” He tilted his head to indicate Oliver. “And maybe leave this one out.”
Without another word, Sheriff Elway turned and strode away, not giving them a second look.
“Well,” Rose said once they were alone, turning on Oli. “What exactly was that display?”
Oliver shrugged, and looked away. Now that the sheriff was gone, he couldn’t help but be embarrassed by his behavior. He could only imagine the tongue lashing Adeline would’ve given him, had she seen the conversation. “I didn’t like the way he looked at me.”
After a moment, Rose sighed. “I get that.” The girl seemed to give Oliver another moment before asking, “I’m going to check in with Hugo. Would you like to join me?”
Oliver sighed, and gave the girl a bashful look. “Yeah, let’s go.”
“Great. And try not to pick a fight with him too, please.”
#
“We’ll be here at least a week,” Hugo told them, “but less than two.”
“Seems like a quick stop,” Oliver pointed out. “Figured you’d want to stick around longer than that to make the trip worth it.”
The stout merchant shook his head. “No need. Thanks to the attacks on the road, no caravans my size have braved the roads in over a month. They’ve got a surplus and no one to sell it to.”
Rose furrowed her brow. “Really? I thought there were still some larger caravans that got through, ones that had higher level guards.”
“Sure, they got through,” Hugo explained, “and then they kept right on going, to Emeston. The big companies don’t bother with a Flax Road round trip until harvest time, when they can buy up a season’s worth of stock all at once. A week or so will be long enough to get the damaged wagon fixed and some maintenance done on the other one, and for me to try to trade some raw flax for cloth before we head back. So take your rest while you can get it.”
“And the totems?” Oliver asked.
The merchant gave him a black look. Oliver had learned, after he recovered, that the stormstrike stag had produced a relic after it died, the stag totem a match to the one Hugo had bought earlier on their trip. Rather than wait until they returned to the city, the three had asked Hugo to see to its sale while they were in Jellis.
“I still say we wait till we get back to Correntry.”
Oilver shook his head firmly. “We burned through a lot of our potions, and we need to check for new weapons and armor before the trip back. We need the money from that totem to do so, and we need your help to get it sold.”
“And don’t forget you need to pay me back, too,” Hugo reminded them grumpily.
Rose rolled her eyes. “Yes, we know, master merchant. We’ve discussed it already. You can recoup any costs for the potions you used to help us recover from the fight, then we’ll split the remainder four ways.”
Hugo’s deep set eyes glittered avariciously. “Five ways,” he countered. “One portion for me, one for my employees. Scholar knows they deserve a bonus after all this mess.”
Oliver nodded. “I agree–which is why you’ll see it paid out of your portion.” The portly man began to set his jaw, and Oliver hardened his voice. “Hugo, if it wasn’t for us, you and this entire caravan would be nothing but shattered remains on the side of the road. And you know as well as I do that we’ve still got at least one more fight coming on the trip back.”
“If your guess is right, perhaps…”
“It is,” Oliver insisted. “Four ways.”
The man crossed his arms. “Elder-damned nobles… fine, four ways!”
“Start with Sheriff Ellway,” Rose suggested. “I’m sure he’d be pleased to get some stag gifts on his scouts.”
The man grumbled as he turned away. “Oh why thank you, that would’ve never occurred to… DERRIK! Where are you hiding? Let’s get this wagon unloaded!”
Oliver chuckled at the little merchant’s obvious effort to disengage from the conversation as it got away from him. “So what now?” he asked Rose as they started back to their wagon.
“We find the livery or stables or what have you and get the draft goats taken care of,” Rose held up one finger then another as she spoke, as if counting off steps, “then we seek out whatever passes for an inn in this town. A bath, a warm meal, a soft bed.” The girl frowned at her hand as she ran out of fingers and shrugged a delicate shoulder. “Then I suppose we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”
Oliver snorted. “Sounds like a plan to me. I could use a little peace and quiet, even if it’s just for a week.”
Rose made a soft sound of agreement. “Mmm. Then perhaps avoid starting arguments with any other notable authority figures in town, if you think you can manage it.”
“It was one time!”
“Nobles,” she bemoaned theatrically. “Always needing everything their way.”
“I’m not even a noble anymore!” Oliver argued.
“Once a noble, always a noble,” Beryl drawled as they approached the wagon, despite not hearing the rest of the exchange.
“I hate you both,” Oliver muttered–but he couldn’t quite hold back a grin that matched their own.