Chương 43: The Road

During the first few days of the journey, Arien made two discoveries. The first was that he preferred roadside forests to village inns. Cold and damp he could tolerate; wolves howling beyond the fire bothered him far less than rats scratching beneath the floorboards and blankets reeking of beer and sweat, crawling with lice and bedbugs. After nights spent waking at every sound, he caught up on sleep in the wagon and promised himself that one day he would learn a spell against vermin.

Unfortunately, Jax had little more to say after that first story. The next day, Elias made the mistake of asking him for fighting lessons, insisting he only wanted to defend himself against bandits. His explanation did nothing to calm his enraged father. For the next few days, the caravan remained quiet, broken only by Elias's groans whenever the cart hit a rut and sent fresh pain through his sore backside. Arien couldn't bring himself to pity him.

If one story about Portal riches was enough to make Elias dream of abandoning the family trade for an Explorer's life, a sore backside was probably the cheapest lesson he could receive. He learned little more about Explorers. Instead, Rufik filled the silence with lessons in trade.

"Rezna sends timber. Lindt and Gravhall, copper. The Selinn Valley feeds half the kingdom. Jakar has its ceramics and silver mines, while Wayhold sells every kind of magical artifact imaginable, provided you can afford it." Arien managed to follow until Rufik reached taxes.

"Grain fetches a better price in Jakar before the summer harvest," the merchant explained, patting one of the sacks behind them.

"We trade it for plates and pots instead of coins, avoid one levy, and return with goods every village around Ribenne will happily buy." Rufik's eyes shone as though he were describing buried treasure. He continued through city tolls, barter exemptions, and the exact point at which a different route became more profitable. Somewhere between the second levy and the third exemption, Arien made his other discovery. He would never be a merchant. By then, the caravan had settled into a routine.

They travelled from dawn until dusk, stopped near a village, roadside inn, or patch of forest, ate supper, slept, and continued the next morning. On the sixth day, near a weathered roadside shrine of Sul, they passed a farmer sitting on a wagon loaded with sacks of potatoes. Neither he nor the wagon had moved by the time Arien looked back. Arien watched him as they went by.

"Did his wagon break?" Arien asked. Rufik followed his gaze.

"Road tax."

"Road tax?"

"Collector's supposed to sit there." He pointed toward a small wooden hut beside the shrine.

"Supposed to?"

"Mm."

"Where is he?" Rufik shrugged.

"Sleeping. Drinking. Visiting a widow. Who knows." Arien looked back at the farmer.

"Can't he just leave?"

"Of course."

"Then why doesn't he?" Rufik gave him a strange look.

"Because next month they'll ask where his receipt is." The merchant promptly returned to explaining grain prices in Wyndor. Several days later, Jakar announced itself long before they reached its gates. A pale glow hung above the rooftops, growing brighter with every turn of the road. By the time the caravan rolled into the city, night had already fallen, yet the streets were far from empty.

Lanterns burned outside inns and workshops, carts rattled over the stones, and people still crowded beneath signs Arien barely had time to read. The buildings rose higher than anything in Ribenne, packed so closely together that their upper floors almost seemed to lean across the streets. Arien twisted on the wagon seat, trying to look everywhere at once.

"You'll break your neck before you see half of it," Rufik told him. He never got the chance. Before they reached the city proper, the caravan turned downhill toward the river. The smell of smoke and cooking food slowly gave way to damp wood, mud, and fish. Warehouses replaced shops, and the streets widened to accommodate carts waiting beneath rows of cranes. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Rufik led him directly to a river barge scheduled to depart for Torben at dawn. From there, the captain was supposed to find him passage aboard one of the ships sailing to Wayhold. Only then did Arien realize that this was goodbye. Usna wished him luck, while Jax reminded him to avoid jobs that sounded like stories. Rufik, meanwhile, gripped Arien's hand firmly and looked him over as though checking a shipment for damage one last time.

"Learn the trade properly from your uncle," the merchant said.

"And listen when he explains taxes. You stopped paying attention every time I reached the important part."

"I listened," Arien protested.

"Then name the ceramic levy in Jakar." Arien hesitated. Rufik sighed and released his hand.

"Hopeless." Elias gave him a final wave from atop the grain sacks. Arien returned it, suddenly aware that he would probably never see any of them again. Rufik, apparently less troubled by the thought, was already hurrying after the wagons and shouting at the drivers to move faster before the warehouse started charging them for another day of storage. Arien watched him go, then adjusted his backpack and turned toward the barge that would carry him downriver.

Its captain was an older man with grey sideburns and forearms that looked far too large for the rest of him. He didn't offer his name. He merely pointed toward the hatch.

"Guest cabin's below. Second door. The only rule is, don't get underfoot." Arien was too tired to comment. He climbed down the narrow steps, one hand gripping the damp railing as the barge shifted beneath him. The air below deck smelled river water and tar, and the ceiling was low enough that even he felt the urge to duck. There were only two doors. The first was locked. Behind the second, he found a windowless cubby barely large enough to lie down in. It contained no bed, stool, or chest.

A rough rope hammock hung between two iron hooks. Arien nearly laughed with relief. No stained blankets or straw mattress for at least a couple nights. He pushed his backpack into the far corner, where anyone trying to reach it would have to step over him, then wrapped himself in his cloak and climbed into the hammock. The ropes creaked beneath his weight, and water slapped softly against the hull. He was asleep before the hammock stopped swaying.

He woke to the creak of timber and pale sunlight leaking around the door. By the time he climbed on deck, Jakar had already disappeared behind them. Cold air struck his face, carrying the smells of mud and river water. The captain informed him that Torben lay more than a week downstream and that they would not be stopping along the way. Apart from Arien and the captain, the barge carried only two other bargemen. Both acknowledged him with brief nods before returning to their work.

Arien spent most of the voyage on deck, watching the kingdom drift past. Swollen with winter meltwater, the Jask river stretched so wide that the banks sometimes vanished behind the morning mist. The current carried branches, broken fencing, and entire uprooted trees. Whenever a dark trunk appeared ahead, one of the bargemen shouted a warning and the others strained to guide the barge around it. Closer to shore, reeds whispered in the wind and half-flooded trees clung stubbornly to the banks.

The landscape shifted from forests to meadows and low hills, with stretches of marshland appearing farther downstream. Small villages appeared every few hours, little clusters of roofs and chimney smoke surrounded by narrow fields carved out of the wilderness. From the river, they looked less like settlements than isolated outposts fighting to keep the forest and swamp from swallowing them. Otters slipped between the reeds.

Beavers watched the barge from muddy banks before vanishing beneath the surface with a slap of their tails. Geese and ducks rose from the water in noisy clouds, while turtles crowded onto fallen logs whenever the sun appeared. The mornings were never quiet. Birds shrieked, whistled, and argued from before sunrise. The gulls were the worst. Their cries sounded like men being flayed alive, and they seemed determined to follow the barge for hours. The scenery changed constantly. Life aboard the barge did not.

Meals offered little variety. The bargemen roasted larger fish over a brazier near the bow, while everything else went into a pot with water and potatoes, producing a pale, oily soup that smelled almost as unpleasant as it tasted. After several days, even the food at the roadside inns was beginning to seem appealing. Conversation proved no better. Arien tried asking about the river, nearby towns, and eventually the Monsters beneath the water.

One of the bargemen stared at him for several seconds, spat a thick lump of phlegm over the side, and returned to coiling his rope. Arien stopped trying. One morning, after nearly two weeks on the river, Arien woke to a hand shaking his shoulder.

"Torben," the captain grunted.

"Get your things." Arien needed no further encouragement. He had endured enough fish soup, silence, and phlegm for one journey. The moment he climbed on deck, cold sea air struck his face, sharp with salt. Gulls screamed overhead while dockworkers shouted across the quays and ships groaned against their moorings. Arien had known Torben was one of the kingdom's major ports, but the scale still caught him off guard. He had pictured a long pier, a few merchant ships, perhaps a fishing fleet.

The real harbor was far larger. Two enormous piers stretched into the dark water, sheltered by a distant breakwater. Ships crowded every berth, while others waited offshore for harbor pilots to guide them in. Small boats darted between them, carrying sailors, cargo, and shouting officials. The waterfront was just as crowded. Warehouses, inns, granaries, and workshops pressed against one another, rising three, four, even five stories when there was no space left to expand.

Dockworkers rolled barrels over rattling planks, merchants argued beside open crates, and vendors pushed through the crowds with trays of hot food. Above the waterfront stood two massive cranes of timber and brick, more like siege towers than tools. Thick ropes creaked as one lifted a pallet of copper ingots from the quay, the metal clanging high above the workers. Beyond it rose a forest of masts and furled sails stretching almost as far as Arien could see.

Somewhere among those ships waited the one that would carry him to Wayhold.