Chương 304: Chapter 99: Highwaymen Made of Iron

The highwaymen chose the narrowest part of the southern road. A washout had taken most of the western shoulder, leaving one wagon-width between a shale bank and a slope steep enough that eleven hundred kilograms of metal would reach the bottom before any of us decided how to recover it. Mörk had already brought the first wagon into the bend when three men stepped from behind the bank with crossbows levelled at his chest, while another two climbed from the scrub below the road and moved towards the rear wheels.

Their coats had been repaired before the holes widened, their boots were made for distance, and every visible weapon had been oiled recently. They had watched Eisenfeld's southern road, counted the wagons, and selected ground where the Bridge Building Fund could neither turn nor retreat without losing an axle. Hunger might have brought them onto the road, but it had not arranged the ambush. The man in front wore boiled leather reinforced with Copper rings across both shoulders.

A pale scar ran beneath his left eye, and he held his crossbow with the easy familiarity of someone who had pointed it at travellers before.

"Leave the wagons. Walk north, and you keep your lives and whatever is already in your pockets." Talia sat on the second wagon's driver board with the reins looped around one hand and the other hidden beneath her coat. Halden stood between the wagons, close enough to reach the first rear brake, while Mörk kept his attention on the draft animals rather than the three quarrels aimed at him.

The highwaymen had seen a tall dwarf driving, a wounded-looking woman, a bearded engineer, and a man carrying a repaired Iron axe while a better weapon remained wrapped across his back. They had counted bodies more easily than pressure. Halden looked towards the loaded axle.

"You cannot move the first wagon without us. The rear bearing will fail before the next rise." The leader glanced at the bars beneath the chained cover.

"Then you travel with it until we no longer require you."

"That changes the offer from robbery to slavery."

"Employment," the leader said.

"Meals included." Mörk adjusted the reins, and the wagon settled as the animals felt the change through the traces.

"The contract lacks medical care." One of the men below the road moved towards the second wagon's lead animal with a hooked knife. Grey cloth covered the lower half of his face, but his attention stayed on the harness rather than the people guarding it. Cut one trace, panic the team, and the provisions wagon would turn across the road while they took control of the heavier load. Hunter's Eye divided the ambush into smaller failures. The left crossbowman held too much weight over his forward foot.

The man with the hook exposed his wrist whenever he reached. The leader's Copper-ringed shoulder protected the line the Woodsman's Axe would naturally seek, while the throat above it remained open enough that Ironwood Strike offered an answer I did not want. Bone carried load. Joints transferred it. Human bodies were no less structural because they could speak.

"We can pay a toll," I said. Talia's gaze shifted towards me without moving her head. The leader smiled because the offer had confirmed that the wagons mattered more than pride.

"You already have." The crossbowman fired at Mörk. Talia's hand came out of her coat with a knife between two fingers. The blade struck the crossbow's wooden prod as the string released, turning the quarrel far enough that it buried itself in the wagon side rather than Mörk's chest. He pulled the team forwards at the same moment, placing the loaded wagon between himself and the next shot, while Halden drove the brake block beneath the rear wheel before the load could roll backwards into us.

The second crossbow swung towards Talia. I reached the man before he settled the stock, caught it beneath the beard of the Woodsman's Axe, and tore it from his hands. Ironwood Strike showed the wrist, elbow, shoulder, and ribs aligned beneath the movement. I reversed the weapon and drove the haft into his side instead of allowing the edge to follow the full path. He folded against the shale bank, wind leaving him in a sound too ordinary for the violence around it.

The man with the hooked knife reached the rear trace. Halden threw a steel wedge underhand and caught him above the temple, breaking his balance on the ruined edge of the road. The highwayman dropped to one knee, caught the wagon rail before the slope took him, and tried to rise as Mörk stepped down from the first driver's board. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Another man had already climbed onto the chained metal load.

Mörk caught the back of his coat, removed him from the wagon, and placed him on the road hard enough to end the climb without breaking him. One broad boot stayed across the man's chest while Mörk watched the remaining weapons.

"The employment offer appears withdrawn." The leader came at me with a short spear. His first thrust tested distance, the second tested whether I had learned from it, and the third came low when he recognised that the axe required more space than the road provided. The spearhead glanced from my hardened work coat and opened the leather beneath my ribs without reaching skin.

I hooked the shaft, pulled him forwards, and nearly brought his throat into the axe before he released the weapon and drew a narrow sword from behind his hip. He stepped between me and the second wagon, keeping my body in the line of Talia's knives, and cut towards my hands. Hunter's Eye showed the threat without granting enough time to make the answer elegant. I withdrew the left hand, took the edge across the reinforced glove, and struck his sword beside the guard with the axe head.

Ember Blade entered the edge in a brief orange line, carrying enough heat into his weapon that he released it with a curse. The leader backed towards the shale with both hands open.

"Done." The word stopped the next swing. I wanted it to be true badly enough that I watched him instead of the road behind him. The first crossbowman had regained his footing. He abandoned the weapon, drew a knife, and moved around the wagon towards Mörk's exposed back while the dwarf held another highwayman beneath his boot. A sleeve pulled away from the attacker's wrist during the run, exposing a braided Copper cord tied tightly beneath it.

Hunter's Eye joined the knife, the forward step, and the open line under the raised arm. Ironwood Strike found the ribs, shoulder, and centre of motion before thought supplied another answer. I crossed the distance and swung to stop him. The Woodsman's Axe entered below the shoulder and travelled farther than I intended. Ember had left the edge warm, Ironwood Strike carried it through bone, and the man's own momentum completed the cut.

His knife landed beside Mörk's boot while his body remained against the axe for one breath, close enough that I smelled road dust, old wool, and onions. I pulled the blade free. He fell beside the wagon wheel, and his blood followed the road's slope until it collected beneath the iron bars. The leader used the moment to run. Talia raised another knife, tracked him towards the scrub, then lowered her hand when the remaining highwaymen dropped their weapons.

Halden ordered them away from the road edge, while Mörk bound three with their own bowstrings and the fourth remained curled beside the shale with one arm protecting his ribs. The dead man's blood was red rather than the black slurry of the Deep Ironbacks and thin enough to vanish between the stones. The Copper cord beneath his wrist remained clean because his sleeve had protected it.

I had cut through ranked beasts, grubs, Kóboldar, and the Crimson Elf in Araluen, but none of them had carried something tied on by another person before leaving home. COMBAT INSIGHT GAINED Ironwood Strike has been applied against human load-bearing anatomy under active threat. Your recognition of guarded joints, weapon lines, committed motion, and the structural consequences of interrupted movement has deepened. Ironwood Strike remains Copper (mid). Pressure towards Copper (late) has increased.

The system had found a lesson inside the body and recorded it without hesitation. The man had become another example of how force travelled through structure, as though the Copper cord, the knife, and whatever name he had answered to before the road were details outside the ability's purpose. Talia crouched beside him and closed his eyes. She moved the fallen knife away from his hand but left the cord where it was.

"He was reaching Mörk."

"I saw him."

"There was no clean warning left."

"I know." The facts described the movement accurately and changed nothing about how far the axe had travelled after entering him. Mörk came to stand beside the body and looked down at the knife near his boot.

"He would have reached me," he said.

"Could you have stopped him?"

"Probably." Mörk did not soften the answer.

"Probably is what remains when one person acts before another. The living use the difference." Halden searched the prisoners while Talia kept watch towards the scrub. He found two Copper work licences, three Iron (late) rank seals, a folded road sketch marking likely freight routes, and a list of cargo descriptions copied from Eisenfeld's southern-gate ledger. The first wagon had been recorded as ranked metal, bridge stock, and probable Copper fittings.

The second had been described closely enough to include the Deep Ironback crate and charcoal cover.

"Someone sold the gate record," I said. Halden examined the handwriting.

"Or copied it before the ledger reached proper storage. Either failure gives the escaped leader the same information." The prisoners eventually gave the dead man's name. We surrendered them and the body to a northbound patrol before dusk, together with the licences, weapons, and a copy of the cargo list. Talia retained the road sketch, Halden kept the leader's reinforced coat as evidence of the group's preparation, and Mörk recovered the quarrel from the split wagon runner. None of us took the Copper cord.

The patrol wrapped it with the dead man's effects while the wagons were repaired beside the road. When we travelled again, the escaped leader knew the convoy still carried metal, and someone in Eisenfeld knew enough about our load to sell it. The distance to Dunmere had become shorter, but the warning behind us was already travelling south without a wagon.