Chương 382: 377. Widel - I

~ Widel ~ ~ Approaching Tiranat ~ Widel was tired. And hungry. And angry. Just how far did she have to keep walking! They had been walking south for days and days, but this miraculous village of Tiranat was still not in sight. Tesyb kept saying they were close, and the other guards kept repeating the same thing, but her tired legs did not care about promises. She looked around and saw the same exhausted expressions on others' faces. The whole group was dragging itself along on aching legs.

At least the elderly had been given space on the wagons' seats, while the guards walked on the ground beside them. They certainly looked fit enough for that, while those from the camp were all thin and gaunt. The toddlers and children kept switching—carried in an adult's arms for a while, then sat down beside the sacks on the wagons until someone else needed the space again. She kept glancing at those sacks. What was even in them? They hadn't been opened once since they left the clearing.

When the children sat on them, the sound and the give of the cloth made it feel like grain—probably wheat. But that was a lot of wheat. What would a small village like Tiranat even do with that much? Didn't just a few hundred miners live there? Then again, she didn't really know how much food that many people needed. Maybe even this wasn't enough. Still, at least the guards had been true to their words and the promises they had made at the camp. So far.

There really were more guards waiting on the road to protect the group, just like they had told them at the camp. Everyone had rested that first night at that clearing where the wagons had been parked, then started moving south the next morning. That same morning, Feroy—the man who had been making all those tall promises—had left north again, and a redhead woman went with him. Widel had watched them go and felt a flash of alarm.

She had been distraught, thinking now that their leader is gone, the rest of the guards will start getting adventurous. Hands that wandered. Smirks. Quiet offers. A little extra food for an hour alone. The guards of any noble were supposed to be like that, from her experience back at the farms. But as it turned out, she had been worrying for nothing, and none of those things had happened. So far, the guards' behavior had been better than she had ever hoped. None of them had harassed her or the other women.

None of them had tried to bargain, or acted like the camp people owed them for saving their lives. Every day, the guards—led by their brawny leader Tesyb—made sure enough porridge was cooked in the evenings so everyone got to eat their fill, and so that there was still some of it left for the morning. The bread and dried meat had been used up long ago, but the veggies the guards had brought were freely shared with everyone through the stews they made.

Whatever they managed to trap in the night gave a little meat at breakfast —which was already a new experience. Back at the encampment, everyone barely got to eat once a day. Eating twice only happened on those rare days when the traps gave more than expected. Having three meals on the same day was still just a dream, and not something she remembered ever having in all her life seeing 20 winters, even though Tesyb had promised they would get that in Tiranat soon.

Only time would tell if that was true, or just another promise said to keep people walking south. Two nights ago, a boar had attacked their overnight camp, but the guards had dealt with it way too easily. That meat had filled many bellies that night, but what she remembered most was watching those young men fight with confidence and without any panic at all.

It made her think of the men from their own camp—brothers, husbands, sons—and it made her want to believe that at least some of them really were alive in Tiranat. She didn't have any relatives amongst them, but those men were still like brothers to her. But she couldn't let herself believe it yet. Not until she saw them with her own eyes. She kept walking, jaw tight, and tried not to count how many steps were still ahead of her.

At their stop two nights ago, near what used to be an inn, the guards had said the village was just a day's wagon ride from there. So two days on foot with a group this size. That meant they should have reached the village by now, since the sun was already sinking again. That's when the guard on the leading wagon stood up, squinting ahead. A moment later, he looked back with a grin.

"We've arrived at Tiranat, everyone!" he shouted. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it The whole group reacted at once, bodies straightening, heads turning, people trying to see past wagons and shoulders. Widel craned her neck, but with her short height, she couldn't see anything except a guard's head and the backs of people in front of her. She pushed forward through the slow-moving crowd, aiming for the front of the caravan.

By the time she reached there, there were just two men in front of her—Tesyb walking beside another guard. She expected to see the village in front of them, but she saw... nothing. Just forest.

"Huh?" The word slipped out under her breath before she could stop it. She frowned at the guard who had shouted. Why would he say they'd arrived, if there was nothing ahead? Her hand immediately went to the broken knife she kept with her at all times. Was something weird going on here? Was this some kind of trick? She looked at Tesyb, expecting him to be tense, to be scanning the trees, to be doing something unusual. He wasn't. He just looked like a man who had finally made it home after a long journey.

Widel turned forward again and this time she noticed something. The forest ahead was thinning. The trees didn't crowd the path the same way. The undergrowth was also breaking up. Then a short distance ahead, the forest seemed to have ended abruptly. She kept walking eagerly with the others, and soon they crossed the tree line. That's when she got her first glimpse of what was probably going to be her new home.

A tall palisade wall stretched across the open ground, running from some distance on the left to far off on the right. Three watchtowers rose above it—tall and solid-looking, nothing like what their men had been expecting when they went to raid this place. Oh, maybe that wagon guard had known about the village in advance because he'd stood up on the wagon and spotted the walls first. Or maybe he recognized the trees here. This was no trick. There really was a walled village in front of her.

However, even though the guards' behavior had been faultless, Widel still couldn't stop bleak thoughts from digging in. That's how life worked for people like her. You either stayed on your toes, or you ended up dead. Or worse. So if she and the others wanted to run, this was the moment. Once they went through those tall walls, they would be at the mercy of the guards—and their baron, the so-called Savior of Tiranat.

If all those promises were a lie, just for him to get new slaves for free, then the moment they stepped inside, they'd be helpless. She had to decide right now. Widel kept her eyes forward as the caravan trudged closer to the walls, forcing herself to look at details instead of her own fear. A wide trench ran parallel to the palisade, and she flinched noticing that sharp wooden stakes were planted in it. It looked… scary.

The walls themselves were coated in clay for some reason—maybe to stop them from catching fire. That thought only made her stomach tighten. Was there someone who wanted to burn this village? And if someone did, was this place even safe for the kids and children in their group? Or even those who lived here already? She shook her head hard, annoyed at herself. There she went again. Worrying, spiraling, searching for knives in every shadow. At the very least, she owed these people the benefit of doubt.

Even if the guards were pretending, this was still the best anyone had treated them in a long, long time. They deserved—if not her trust—then at least a chance. And even if this did turn into another life of slavery for them—despite everything they'd promised—then with the amount of food they were getting every day, it would still be a far more comfortable kind of misery than the farms or the forest camp had ever been. She decided she wouldn't run. Not yet anyway.

As they drew near the wide gates, she noticed two figures high up on the watchtower—an older man and a young woman peering down at them. The woman held a strange small bow in her hands. The older man watched the group for a moment, then his eyes went to the guards. He gave a nod toward Tesyb, then leaned over the railing and shouted, "Open up! It's Tesyb and our guards!" The gates started to open at once, heavy wood shifting with a deep, steady creak, and the caravan began to move inside.

Widel was near the front now, so she saw the inside first—and it wasn't what she expected. Right past the gates, a small group of guards stood alert, positioned like they were ready for any kind of trouble—even though she thought there would be lazy and corrupt guards here as well. That was common in every village or town she had been so far. But there were no bribes given by the merchant to enter the gates here. It felt weird. She was surprised when she gazed further.

From what their group had known back when their men had gone to raid this place, she'd expected a series of half-burnt shacks, some damaged huts, and the baron's manor towering over it all. Instead, just a short distance in, there was a huge wooden building made of logs. For a moment she wondered if that was the baron's manor, but as the caravan creaked forward—on a wide, flat gravel road—she saw another building like it beyond the first. It couldn't be the manor, since there couldn't be two of them.

There was a stream of people entering and exiting the gates of these huge buildings, so it had to be housing of some kind. Was this where the villagers lived here? But where were the huts and shacks?