The moon had only just slipped beyond the western ridge when the wagon finally rattled out of the pass and descended into the wide, wind-swept valley that pointed toward Ortovy. Dawn painted the low clouds saffron, and the light caught on beads of river-mist that hovered over the grass, turning every droplet into a shard of amber. Bravae drew his cloak tighter and breathed in the scent of damp earth, trying—unsuccessfully—to ignore the ache coiled behind his ribs.
Indumae walked beside the lead horse, reins in hand, boots squelching in last night's rain. Merab sat on the driver's plank, hood up, watching for movement on either flank. Behind them, tucked against crates of dried corn and bundles of hemp rope, Orvae rubbed sleep from his eyes. Only Gbavamy, hunched on the splash-board, looked at ease; the old herbalist hummed a low tune that meandered between half-forgotten lullabies and tavern reels.
The weight of two private errands completed only hours earlier still clung to the company like smoke from a cook-fire.
Bravae broke the silence first. "We were lucky with Rumein, weren't we?"
Orvae nodded. "Well that is assuming he stays in beiamy and keeps his mouth shut no matter what.
He tugged at the cuff of his shirt as if to hide invisible bloodstains. In the lantern glow of the previous night they had steered the confused blacksmith to the edge of deiamy, where his eldest daughter lived among the weavers. There had been no time for reunion tears; Indumae had pressed a handful of silver spanners into Rumein's palm, whispering the location of a charcoal-burner's hut deep in the middle of the beiamy central market.Rumein had only managed a single, glassy-eyed "thank you" before they vanished back into the trees.
Now, recalling the desperation in the man's face, Bravae felt his throat tighten.
Gbavamy glanced over his shoulder. "A craftsman never forgets the ring of his own anvil," he said softly. "In hiding or not, he will find a way to keep working. Steel spirits are stubborn."
"That stubbornness may keep him alive," Indumae added. He slowed the horse so he could fall back beside the cart. "A smith buys friends with ploughshares as easily as with swords."
Orvae exhaled. "I just wish we hadn't dragged him into this in the first place."
"Well that's what happens when you take certain actions without thinking about the consequences or without a care for who may be affected" merab said
Her words, sharp but calm, settled the harvest of guilt no one else could thresh. The wagon was quiet for sometime as the wheels rolled along the rocky terrain of the valley.
Not for long. Indumae cleared his throat respectfully. "Orvae… about the ceremony. Were you able—?"
"It was… better than I expected," the younger man said. "Grandmother insisted the pyre face east, said Grand-father always woke with the sunrise." A small, wry smile. "She even smuggled in old Chief Amin-toro's hunting horn. We sounded it once, low, so the neighbors would think it thunder. He would have laughed at that."
Bravae reached across the wagon bench and clasped Orvae's shoulder. No one said I'm sorry; the phrase was too small, too frayed from overuse since the occupation began. Instead Gbavamy began humming again, this time a highlands dirge whose cadence matched the sway of the cart wheels. In that hush, condolences flowed unspoken.
Toward mid-morning the valley narrowed and a pale road cut across their path like a blade. On the far side, the square shoulders of a Braunian checkpoint blocked the quickest route to Ortovy. Two half-tents, a cook-fire, a rack of muskets, nine soldiers. Smoke drifted lazily from a copper kettle; someone was stewing some lamb. The scent almost hid the tang of gunpowder.
Indumae hissed through his teeth. "We expected three troopers at most."
Merab swung down from the driver's bench. "we have to take cover"
Gbavamy patted the mule's neck. "we have to atleast be conservative for now and avoid confrontation, these soldiers are weary i'm sure they are not looking for trouble," he said. The old man slid off the plank, tugged his faded straw hat low across his brow, and pressed a grubby ledger to his chest. "An aging hemp-farmer hauling seed. Perfectly dull."
"Are you certain?" Bravae asked.
"Soldiers grow allergic to boredom," Gbavamy chuckled. "Watch; they'll pay me to leave."
Under the shadow of an alder the rest of the company scrambled. Bravae slipped between two barrels; Orvae wedged himself beneath a mound of jute sacks. Merab muttered an incantation and simply blinked—her outline fizzled into nothing, though a faint indentation on the wagon canvas suggested she had flattened herself between the hoops. Indumae stepped behind the hind wheel, cloak drawn, merging with the wagon's silhouette. Only the rhythmic cluck of his tongue to the horse betrayed him.
Gbavamy clicked the reins and rolled forward.
The sergeant—a wiry man whose breastplate bore fresh dents—looked up from a ledger. "State your name, cargo, and destination," he droned in heavily accented braunian, the words rusted from repetition.
"Name's Old Gully, sir," Gbavamy said, adopting a rural accent thick as honey. "I have a careful of seed hemp. Bound for the lower terraces around Ortovy. Planting's late after the floods."
"Hemp?" The sergeant lifted a greasy eyebrow. Behind him, two riflemen lounged against an empty crate, eager for diversion. "We'll have a look."
"off Course, off course." Gbavamy hopped down, knees creaking, and wrestled at a side-board latch—deliberately blocking the soldiers' angle into the wagon's heart. The foremost rifleman peered past him, saw nothing but burlap and coiled rope.
One of the privates rooted through a sack, producing exactly what the label promised: pale, oily hempseed. He tasted a kernel, spat. "Farmer's fare," he grunted.
The sergeant wasn't satisfied. "Taxes on seed transport have doubled," he lied, extending a gauntlet.
Gbavamy's eyes widened in theatrical outrage. "Doubled? By God, the governor's as hungry as we poor dirt-scratchers!" Even so, he slipped a neat roll of bronze slivers into the waiting palm.
Metal vanished. The sergeant yawned. "Move along before the price climbs again."
The wagon creaked forward. Not until the checkpoint dwindled to an anthill behind them did Merab shimmer back into view, brushing dust from her sleeves. Bravae crawled free, needles in his knees.
"That was too close," Indumae muttered. "From here we take the cattle tracks, not the trade road."
"No argument," Orvae said, coughing straw from his lungs.
They traveled until the sun balanced on the valley's rim, then veered into a copse of alder and elder. The ground sloped downward toward a trickling rill, perfect for watering the horses. Merab found a hollow between roots wide enough for a cook-fire. Soon salted oats bubbled in a copper pot; the smell softened everyone's shoulders.
Bravae poked the flames with a twig. "Merab, may I ask you a question"
"You may always ask," she said.
"If you can teleport across many miles like you did at the castle and in the forest, why can't you just do that and take us to mandove immediately,without us having to move through this dangerous terrain."
The mage smoothed ash from her palms. "Two reasons. First: range. A blink carries the body only as far as the phosphor in one's blood can burn before it must cool—fifty miles if you're strong, two hundred if you're reckless. Mandove lies seven hundred miles south-east."
"Second," Gbavamy added, "the old mage-kings laced this continent with enchantments. Some are frayed to cobweb, some still hard as bronze, but any fortress province—Mandove among them—is stitched against long-gate sorceries. You might tear a hole wide enough, but the backlash would char your bones."
Bravae whistled, chastened. "So we have to go head on through this then?"
"And shoulder first were we can," Indumae said, spooning oats into wooden bowls. "Travel light; stay ready to vanish."
"Vanishing seems to be your solution to everything," Orvae muttered, though without hostility.
"Not everything," Indumae answered. "Sometimes you must stand and draw steel. Which reminds me—Bravae, we begin at dawn."
Bravae turned sharply and said "really?"
"really. For now, eat. Sleep. Tomorrow we meet the discipline of calloused palms."
Bravae's stomach fluttered—part fear, part gratitude that Indumae still believed he could master the massive, ember-veined blade lashed beneath the wagon boards.
Stars pricked the sky while the fire sank to embers. Merab extinguished the last blaze with an upturned pot of water, leaving only the perfume of wet cedar. One by one, bedrolls rustled. Indumae retired to a small canvas wedge, muttering a sailor's prayer against night insects. Gbavamy remained by the rill, grinding herbs into paste—for sunrise tea, he claimed.
Bravae lay on his back, cloak for blanket, the sword's wrapped hilt a familiar weight beside his hip.
He wondered if Rumein had found the charcoal-burner's hut yet. If simphymi had slept, clasping Amintoro's obsidian necklace to her breast. If the Empire sentinels at the checkpoint realized they'd sold their silence too cheaply.
Somewhere a nightjar called. The stars blurred; brimstone memories flickered; and sleep folded over Bravae like a soft-footed hunter.