Fortress Myen was not a towering place, but it was at a strategically significant location. A ten mile stretch of land separated the sea to the west and the high mountains to the east, mountains whose peaks stabbed at the very clouds.

The entire area around the fortress was cut clean for three miles away both north and south, creating a wide open range of open ground over which it was impossible to sneak.

The relatively narrow road north was heavily wooded, and as such it made it difficult for armies to march and move with any secrecy or speed. The walls of the fort itself were four paces thick and thirty feet high, making them much smaller than the great fortress in the capital cities, but formidable nonetheless.

Moreover, the outer wall hemmed in an inner wall that was slightly higher, before finally a central administrative tower that was largest of all.

Adding to the strength of the fortification, the Long River cut that ten mile stretch in two and a manmade course had been cut on the path that went all the way to the sea, and cut the way to the fort apart by a thirty foot wide raging torrent over which a single bridge cut.

Atop the wall archers with common bows patrolled, their quivers full of arrows, their bodies clad in banded mail armor. Interspersed between them were footmen with long spears, short swords, and scalemail armor, the lone entrance was a portcullis that for the present was up to allow visitors.

Notably however, a small stone guardhouse was set a hundred paces away from the entrance which was staffed by a pair of fully armored knights complete with gleaming halberds and faces covered by helmets. It was early in the day still, and few travelers would be out and about, particularly coming from the north.

Reaching the gatehouse, the two knights gave a smart turn on their heels and crossed their halberds together in the road, the universal sign of ‘do not pass’ and waited while the wagons slowed and stopped.

Speranzi waited beside the wagon while Corwin dismounted and approached the guards, his weighty body moved closer to a waddle than a walk, and this set the knights further at ease despite the presence of the heavily armored company that rode on either side of the short wagon train.

He had his papers out identifying himself and his caravan.

“Corwin Amber. Merchant of North Qadish. Here is my guild seal, here is my writ of taxes paid, and here is my inventory. Also,” he pointed behind him toward Sevari, “I am traveling with the Black Quivers as my escort. They have bandit ears to sell and rescued a handful of prisoners from the encampment where they took the ears, they have some undeclared plunder to register after sale.” Corwin explained everything with the crisp precision of a man familiar with his task, and between his portly appearance and clearly mercantile conduct they were even more at ease with him after he was done, and after looking at his papers.

“Go inside, sign the book, bounties can be traded at the House of Law beside the tavern inside the gate. Taxes paid on exit or bypass taxes with labor equivalent to the tax assessed on any sales you make.” The knight looked the merchant up and down, “I recommend you pay the taxes.”

Corwin flushed red in the face, “Ah, yes, yes. I always do. What about the survivors we picked up?”

The knights looked at one another, briefly mystified, “Drop them at the village south of here, they should be fine there, or take them to the temple in the fort.”

“As you will it, Sir Knight.” Corwin said and as soon as he had his papers back in hand, he half bowed at the waist and returned to his wagon.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“That went well.” Speranzi said as he clambered back up with one heavy grunt, the springs of the wagon gave a little as his weight was added, and they were ready to go.

“It did. The outpost here is well run.” He acknowledged as she started to walk when the wagons began to roll.

“It doesn’t hurt that I wasn’t the one to show papers this time.” She laughed a little with some self-deprecating humor coming out, “Last time you almost had to bribe that guard to convince him I wasn’t a bandit infiltrator or something.”

“I recall. But it didn’t help that you kept staring at him.” Corwin pointed out.

“You’re right, I should wear a mask or something.” She said, and Corwin snapped his jaw shut.

The laugh that followed her words sounded hollow to him, and he didn’t care for it. A twinge of guilt touched his heart as he realized he must have sounded like he agreed with her self assessment. A part of him did… at least some. The first reaction most people had when they looked at her was fear, even though without her eyes being the way they were, she was almost cute in the way fresh faced young women were. But one look at those and it was as if she loathed you from the bottom of her soul.

Sounding as if he found her to be that way, when he considered her a friend, it wasn’t what he meant. “I didn’t mean it that way.” He finally replied. “I’m sorry.”

She gave him a little half smile and slapped his calf lightly with the back of her hand, “It’s fine, Corwin, don’t worry about it.”

Whether she believed him or not, even the merchant who had read through a thousand bad deals wasn’t sure. They rolled on in silence, passing beneath the eyes of watching guards and inside the relative safety of the walls. The interior was clean and well ordered, though the buildings were not much to look at. Most of them were simply cut logs with gouges rubbed smooth that each successive log was nestled into. The gaps in between each log were sealed with sap and straw, and with wildly varying degrees of success from one level to the next.

Privately, Corwin called the method ‘Good Enough Construction’ it did the job, but not fantastically well. It was the go-to method of building structures in most ‘frontier’ areas of a country where conflict might occur as it required minimal talent to build or maintain and would generally last if nothing deliberately destroyed it.

What served as a road was a mix of ground up rocks from the mountain and sand from the ocean, while walkways beside the street were composed of essentially pallets of wood.

However, most notably, Fortress Myen was laid out in a pattern that matched exactly every single fortification in the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Qadish. If you knew the lay of one, you knew them all. With that easy familiarity it was effortless for the well traveled Corwin to find the merchant’s guildhall, along with its well guarded warehouses.

The merchant’s hall itself was not given the ‘good enough’ treatment, and instead had a stone base that rose waist high from the ground and stone cut steps which led up to a front area with various benches and tables for outdoor dining, along with a comfortable overhang of shingles to protect people from the rain.

A wide double door was guarded by two men in plate armor which had been painted gold to show their affiliation with masters of the movement of coin. While she’d never personally touched their weapons or armor, Speranzi had no doubt that it wasn’t actually the gold it appeared to be. ‘Nobody would be that dumb, not even the most ostentatious merchant would waste money on something that just plain didn’t work.’ Gold was far too soft and useless for weapons or armor, and as such, it was likely orichalcum and steel blended, perhaps a touch of adamantite if they were really looking for the best.

That thought sparked a rare moment of envy. ‘Oh, to have enchanted and adamantite equipment… the only thing better exists only in myth, but if I had a hundred soldiers equipped with that kind of thing, what couldn’t we bring down… and would we ever lose anyone?’

The sobering thought brought the memory of many a fresh-faced and confident youth who died in a pointless fight for money never received. Out of her steady hundred, there was a new face to be found and another face sent down to memory after every major conflict.

She tried not to think about it, letting her hand rest on the wagon while Corwin left her behind again to go into the guild hall and make the arrangements, the idle minutes turning her thoughts in unpleasant directions and tangents that, for reasons even she couldn’t fully grasp, caused her to look back behind her to the still staring pair of green eyes that focused in on her from the wagon in which the last captive still sat bound and waiting for judgment, death, or freedom, seemingly at ease with any of it.

And that was a more unnerving thing to Speranzi’s heart than the dead bandit’s head in a bag a few feet away.