“By the twins, shut the hell up you two” hissed Luca.
Biggs and Wedge clasped their hands over their mouths as they squatted deep behind the firs.
Luca’s hand reach for his pistol. His jaw clenched in annoyance as his fingers brushed the empty holster.
“I hope you’re putting those girls to good use, wherever you are Tulip” he mumbled.
He found the hilt of his longsword in the dark and coiled himself against the broad oak tree, ready to spring out at the dark figures if they wandered too close to his hiding spot.
“Now who rides a cart in the dead of night, and without any torchlight whatsoever I wonder?”
The figures on the road worked in silence, moving quickly and deliberately in the moonlight, hoisting the cart onto wooden blocks and replacing the shattered axel at the rear of the cart. The road was rocky this far north of Vicetina, difficult for a cart to pass during the day…
Silence was broken only my muffled scrapes and thumps as the boxes and barrels were lashed back in place atop the cart. They moved more slowly now, with more care. A gently hiss as the hempen tarp was repositioned tightly over their cargo. They would be back on the road in minutes. They worked much faster than peasants or idle travellers. Even faster than smugglers Luca thought. They worked like a well-oiled machine, like they had drilled for this.
He glanced at the Donkey Boys. Biggs had found himself a choice rock with which to defend himself. He was as likely to injure himself as he was an assailant. He had proved the least talented student Luca had ever attempted to train. He was neither fast nor strong, lacked even basic situational awareness, and he had seen better reflexes on a corpse. He didn’t even have enough meat on his bones to serve as a human shield. An incredibly underwhelming boy, but Luca found himself laughing with him and at him frequently on the road. He was good for something perhaps.
Wedge was by now convinced he had some innate connection to the weave after learning his mother was a witch, and would spend hours each day staring at objects attempting to move them with his mind. He had scaled down once he realised the donkeys themselves were probably a bit ambitious. His current project was a simple pine cone, and this staring could consume the boy for hours upon hours. Luca had decided not to interject when Wedge recalled the day his mother adopted him, for Wedge swore blindly that she must have seen his potential.
Luca didn’t know much about family bloodlines and the like, but he never saw a racehorse give birth to a donkey. And he sure has hell didn’t think that was how adoption worked.
He snapped his attention back to the road as he heard steel sliding from leather scabbards, the muffled, leathery sound of impending battle.
The men of the cart now stood in a defensive formation, covering their flanks, an assortment of weapons pointing at the tall figures emerging from the darkness to the north. Half a dozen in number, they were tall and graceful, flowing gently towards the men like leaves carried on the breeze. Their eyes shone in the moonlight, piercing, unknowable, alien.
Elves.
“Put down your weapons friends, we have long been on the road, and know where it leads.” came the voice, cool and soothing, like summer rain. Luca blinked back his awe and steadied himself. Surely something magical was afoot, honeying the voice. Tulip didn’t sound anything like that.
“ Er.. Captain that’s the codeword…”
The men lowered their weapons at the signal from their leader, albeit cautiously.
“Greetings from the Elves of the Blackwood. We come from the capital. You are late. But this is disappointing but not unfixable. There are only a few shipments left and we will be ready to proceed… Captain”
“Er.. ya. Good. Just some problems with the cart but were all fucking sorted now. We don’t need much help from here”
“Judges and Lancers prowl these roads brother. We are too close to the end to risk you being caught. That would unravel everything we have been working towards. No, we shall accompany you to Namburg. Are you being followed? Did you meet anybody on your travels?”
The elves eyes glowed gently, shining their milky radiance into the darkness.
“N..No. Nobody. Nobody knows we are here” faltered the captain
“But Captain, what about those wierdos, That Orc Throkk and… ”
“Shut the fuck up you absolute ginger bellend”
The silence roared at Luca as the temperature instantly dropped. He gripped his weapon until his knuckles were numb. He could almost taste the tension in the air, salty and bitter, like blood on the tongue.
“What wierdos? Have you been compromised?” cut the elves voice, cold and harsh in the stillness.
Luca gripped his sword tighter at the mention of Throkk. Tulip will have been with him. What happened, are they ok?
“We… took care of them, no problem at all … Elf.”
The blood drained from Lucas head and his felt the fear grip his guts. By the Twins what had they done to his boys.
The Elf and the Captain stared at each other for an eternity, peering into the darkness at each other, burning into each other’s eyes, looking for a tell, searching for a clue as to what lay beneath, daring the other to crack first. Hours seemed to pass.
“Very well, I expected nothing less from a Captain of your reputation”
The tension thawed slightly as the elves took up positions on the flanks and the cart began to mobilise.
Luca’s mind raced.
Had they killed them? Were their bodies stuffed ingloriously into the barrels only feet away? He needed to rescue them, repay the dept, save his Tulip… but… he had no idea what had happened. Where they were? Where to even begin looking? He needed to speak to that man but had no way of reaching him while he was guarded by 20 able bodied men and a squad of elves. There were only three of them and…
He turned to examine his charges. Biggs was licking the stone thoughtfully, nodding to himself as if some long held suspicion was now confirmed. Wedge had squatted until his ears were hidden behind his knees and he was staring intently at his pinecone, a solitary trickle of blood winding down his plump chin as it crept from his nose due to the exertion of his cause.
He revised his calculations. There was only one of him.
After a few minutes had passed he turned to the young men.
“Stash your stone and pick up that pine cone boys, were moving out”
They looked at him cowishly.
“At this hour? Salt in Wounds isn’t going anywhere, can’t we leave in the morning?” moaned Biggs
“We aint going there no more” growled Luca as he fastened his cloak and adjusted his scabbard.
“Detour. Theres somebody we need to talk to.”