Chương 406: 401. Kirnos - I

~ Levalas ~ ~ Approaching Kirnos ~ Levalas gazed upwards, looking at the darkening clouds. It wouldn't be long before it started raining. They had left Tiranat yesterday morning, and the clouds had started coming in from the west by the evening. It was approaching evening again, and by now there was a thick layer of clouds in the sky, hiding the sun completely. It was hard to guess the time, but it couldn't be longer than an hour before it started to get dark. He only hoped they reached Kirnos before that.

This was the first time he was coming to this village, so he wasn't sure how far the place was. He looked behind, making sure that the other wagon was following without a problem. The guard sitting on the driver's seat noticed him and gave a nod. Then he turned to the other guard—Torig—sitting next to him.

"Will we reach the village before it gets dark?" Levalas asked.

"What do ya think?"

"Not sure, man," Torig muttered, as he looked upward.

"The better question is, will we reach Kirnos before it starts pouring?" Levalas nodded slowly.

"True enough. Didn't you come here last time with Feroy?" Torig shrugged.

"That was in winter. The snow had just melted and it was muddy everywhere, and the trees were leafless. The scenery looks quite different right now with dense forests on both sides. It's also getting dark, so I can't exactly recall either of the bends we'd taken before reaching the village."

"Let's hurry up then," Levalas said. Torig nodded and whipped the horses, who started walking faster. They didn't have to wait long. Soon, the dirt road curved around a bend, and they saw the palisade walls of Kirnos in the distance, with a burning torch hanging next to the gates.

"Finally!" Torig grinned.

"Damn those corrupt bastards," Torig spat.

"It's like they're charging us a toll to cross a bridge during wartime!" Levalas snorted, as their wagons moved further inside Kirnos.

"What do you expect? Nearly every place I've been to is like that. Doesn't matter anyway... Lord Kivamus had expected it and had given me some extra coin for the bribes."

"Still seems like a waste..." Torig muttered. Levalas nodded as he felt a drop of water on his hand, which made him look upwards.

"Damn… it's gonna rain," Torig said as he spread his hand as well to feel the droplets. Levalas looked around.

"Feroy told me a place which is trustworthy. We gotta find that barn before it rains. We'll stay there tonight."

"A barn, huh?" Torig chuckled.

"At least it'll be dry inside. Let's go."

It was the next morning, and Levalas had just returned after talking to the owner of the barn where they'd stayed for the night, and it had cost them. It seemed every place in the village wanted to charge as much as they could from any outsiders. At least the owner had allowed them to stay inside the barn until the endless rain stopped, although it didn't seem like it would happen anytime soon. He reached the other guards who were waiting near the wagons.

"Are we now—" the other guard started, before Levalas interrupted him with a raised finger. They waited as a slave of the barn owner passed near them, before he went out into the rain for some task. Poor guy... Levalas looked around to make sure there was no one else nearby before he nodded.

"Are we going to… uh, liberate Joric's family now?" the guard asked.

"How will we even find their house? Maybe we can ask someone for directions?" Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Torig gestured at the rain pouring outside.

"Don't you see that? Nobody'll be outside to help us."

"Exactly," Levalas grinned.

"That's why this is the perfect time for us to do things which we aren't supposed to be doing. The rain doesn't seem like it'll stop for hours, so nobody'll be walking outside right now. Joric also gave us some general directions of where his house is, and I should be able to find it from that. So here's what we'll do. We'll break into three teams." He pointed at the first guard.

"You'll stay here and keep an eye on our wagons and our… special bows… until the two of us return." He looked at Torig next.

"You can stay here for a few hours until the rain slows down or stops. Then you'll go to the local blacksmith to ask if he needs any coal. After that you have to go to the baron's manor, and make a deal to sell all our remaining coal to them. I'll go and look for Joric's family and talk with them. We don't want any of their neighbors to see an unknown man going to their home, so the rain will help us with that."

"But…" Torig hesitated.

"I don't know how to make a deal..."

"Don't worry about that," Levalas said.

"You can give the regular price to the smith, because he won't buy too much of it to try to haggle. But when you go to the manor, you just have to quote a very high price in the beginning. Feroy somehow managed to sell the coal at double the price—at above 20 gold per wagon load—so that'll be your initial quote. Those at the manor will obviously haggle it down, but I'll handle that later. You just have to give that initial price and return back here."

"That I can do," Torig nodded.

"Good, then let's begin. Our target is to convince that family to return with us and to sell all the coal by today. It'll take time for them to sell the shop, but we'll use that time to visit the smoked fish merchant." The guards nodded, and Levalas turned around. He stopped for a moment at the doorway, putting his hand out. Yeah, it was raining pretty heavily. Good for me...

He returned to the wagon and brought out the large straw hat he had borrowed from a farmer before leaving Tiranat, and after tying it above his head, he walked into the rain. The constant pattering of water drops on his hat gave a background noise as he walked through the muddy street. It made him miss Cinran's cobblestone roads for a moment, before he shook his head. Nah, this life was already much better than that.

Lord Kivamus and his people had started trusting him more by now, and he got to live freely in the manor without worrying about waking up in the night with a blade lodged in his heart. He had even found some camaraderie with people here. Tesyb was gruff and honest, while Yufim was a player and a showoff, but both had become kind of friends with him. Even the tall redhead Hyola was more friendly than she looked from a distance, although her sweetheart Calubo still looked scared of her at times.

He chuckled thinking about the pair. He had also started learning swordsmanship with the other new guards, but had found it wasn't for him. For sure, he could hold his own with a short sword, but he had no interest in learning it well enough to participate in the Ulrigan tourneys or something. That was for those with noble blood in them—not someone like him, who had been living as a commoner for all his life—but real nobles, who had more money and time than they knew what to do with.

The fact that leaving regular sword training meant not having to interact too much with Nesser was only a side benefit, of course. That man looked like a demon from hell with his half-burnt skin, and new recruits looked ready to wet their pants whenever the man glared at them. Still, it was good for the village, he supposed.

He had even tried learning how to shoot a bow properly from the expert archer Yufim, but it hadn't taken long for him to realize that it would take years before he could shoot a barn on its side. Hah! On the other hand, Isomi—the older of the two sisters—had shown him how to use a crossbow. And that had been much easier to use. For this current mission, they had been given two crossbows to use in case of an emergency, but they were told to keep its knowledge hidden unless absolutely necessary.

The captain didn't want it known publicly that Tiranat possessed crossbows. His feet squelched in the mud as he reached the western end of the village, and entered the marketplace located on the shore. As expected, it was abandoned right now. It seemed people had taken their goods and returned back to their homes with them when the rain started, after seeing the heavy clouds earlier. Good for me. He looked at the shore. For probably the first time in his life, he saw the ocean.

He couldn't really see too far with the ongoing rain, but it was... huge. The immense expanse of the water was tossing and churning and heaving with the flow of the gale, and it looked dangerous, but also… exciting. The lone sailship anchored next to the pier was rolling with the waves, likely abandoned at the time. He wished he could travel in such a ship in the future. Perhaps not in such a storm, but yeah, he would like that.

He turned around, his clothes already getting drenched despite the shade provided by the large straw hat. He counted the streets exiting from the marketplace into the village, and walked into the third one. Counting four houses from the corner, he reached his target—no, his destination. He wasn't here for performing one of Zoricus' underhanded deeds. He was standing at the doorway of an unknown woman in the pouring rain here for a good purpose, not for threatening her to pay the monthly protection fee.

Quite an unexpected turn of events from my earlier life. He gently knocked on the door located next to the shop front, before realizing that it wouldn't be audible in this weather. He tried again, this time much more loudly. At least there wasn't any chance of the neighbors noticing him in this rain. All the nearby houses were barred shut at the moment. It took a while, but the door opened a few inches and a thin but good-looking woman peeked outside.

"Who are you?" she glared at him, one of her hands hidden behind her. Probably holding a knife.