Chương 414: 409. Ulriga - I

~ Calubo ~ ~ Approaching Ulriga ~ Calubo sat on the plank seat beside Pydaso in the leading wagon, his boots braced against the rough wood as the wheels rattled over the road. The second wagon followed behind with the other guard and the driver, both of them bobbing with the movement. The sky was turning the dull color it always did before evening, and the air felt cooler than it had at midday. Pydaso glanced ahead.

"Only an hour more, I'd say. Then we'll start seeing the outskirts." Calubo felt his face pull into a grin before he could stop it.

"An hour," he repeated. Then he would get to see the city—a real, huge city.

"I can't wait!" Pydaso gave a short laugh and flicked the reins. The horses kept a steady pace, their hooves thudding in a rhythm that had become familiar over the last two weeks. They had been on the road for 14 days now—longer than what they had expected. Calubo's mind went back to the wagon wheel on the left, the way it had started wobbling with a faint clunk at first. Then louder. Then enough that even he, sitting up front, had felt the wagon tug wrong.

Pydaso had sworn, they'd pulled off the road, and the driver had crouched in the mud and spun the wheel with both hands. Loose. Bad enough that pushing on without repair would've risked the whole thing coming apart. They had to take a detour to a small village because Pydaso knew there was a wheelwright there. That had wasted three days—waiting, paying, watching the wheelwright work with tools Calubo had never seen up close before. By the time they left, the wagon rolled clean again. No wobble. No clunk.

Still, Calubo remembered how exposed they'd felt those nights, parked near strangers and hoping nobody got curious about what they were carrying in secret. Now, with Ulriga close, that worry sat in his chest again, different but sharper. If it was dangerous transporting Acelos tablets through a small village, just how risky would it be when carrying it in Ulriga, which was easily a hundred times bigger than most villages? For the last few days, the road had run parallel to the Kal River on their left.

Calubo had seen the Kal near Cinran, wide enough that it already felt huge, but back there he could still imagine a strong swimmer being able to cross it if needed. Here, this close to the Dujtaar Ocean, the river was so wide he could barely make out the far bank through the evening haze. The surface wasn't calm, either—dark water rolling and shifting, with wind pushing ripples that broke against the occasional driftwood. The skies had been cloudy for the past few days, but the weather was still calm.

Who knew how difficult sailing on this river would get when the weather turned stormy? He glanced to the front again, trying to see farther downstream. The city was ahead, and the ocean was on the other side of it. He'd never seen the ocean though. He'd only heard about it in stories. Pydaso had told him about the seaport of Ulriga—huge ships docked there, ships that didn't just hug the coast or move between familiar towns.

These were ships that crossed oceans and reached places Calubo had only heard named in tavern talk in the villages on the way, half the time from men who sounded like they were already drunk. He didn't know which stories were true, but the idea of a ship that could disappear over the horizon and not come back for months was... daunting. The surrounding land had been changing too. A few days back, farms started showing up on both sides of the road, the fields broad and laid out in clean stretches.

Most of it looked like wheat. The shoots were up, pale green and uneven in height, but growing steadily. Some plots were different—plants with leaves he didn't recognize, arranged in tighter rows. He'd even seen orchards fenced in with rough wooden fences beside farmhouses, fruit bearing trees set in straight lines, their branches still thin. The closer they got to the huge city, the more people appeared. Boats and rafts moved along the river in steady traffic.

Some were oared, men pulling in rhythm, bodies leaning forward and back. Some had sails, though most were folded or only partly used because the current did most of the work when going downstream. Calubo watched one raft drift by loaded with sacks and crates, tied down with rope. Another carried animals—cows pressed close together, pigs penned in with rough planks, oxen tied in isolation, a pair of horses shifting their weight, ears flicking.

He saw nodors too, bulky and calm, standing as if they didn't even care they were moving over water. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. There were even some sailboats with people on them, packed tight under cloaks and simple coverings, heads down against the wind and spray. Cinran was many days' journey upstream from here, but they must have realized their destination was close and had been looking around in curiosity.

Then he saw it—dark lumps piled in a raft, covered partially with a cloth that had slipped from the wind. Coal. Calubo couldn't help the small smile that came with it. Cinran didn't produce any coal. That meant it had come from somewhere else, and Tiranat was the only place he knew that supplied that town in any amount. He didn't know for sure where exactly that raft had loaded up, but the thought still warmed him. Something from his village was being taken to the biggest city in the kingdom.

The road traffic thickened too as they reached closer to Ulriga. Horsemen passed them going in both directions, some riding alone, others in small groups. Merchants rolled by with wagons—some pulled by horses, others by nodors—wheels splashing through puddles that hadn't dried even though it hadn't rained here in days. At one point, Calubo saw a pair of knights hurrying somewhere, both mounted, moving fast enough that people edged aside without being told.

He saw their plate armors covering them till their necks and the way their warhorses carried themselves—trained, controlled, and still urgent.

"It is getting crowded," he muttered.

"Ulriga does this to roads," Pydaso said, watching the flow like it was normal.

"Everything and everyone comes here." Calubo nodded, eyes forward, trying not to stare too obviously at every passing thing. Soon, the outskirts of the city began to appear. He saw a series of houses on both sides of the road—proper wooden ones, not the half-fallen shacks you saw in some villages, and not the patched huts that had once made up most of Tiranat. One-story and two-story homes lined the road in clusters, most of them with fenced gardens or vegetable patches around them.

There was plenty of land outside the city walls, and people knew how to use it effectively. He shook his head. They hadn't even entered the city-proper yet, but even the houses on the outskirts here looked rich compared to those in Tiranat. Some properties were even larger, with yards big enough to keep animals, while the houses themselves were broad, with fences surrounding the whole property and roofs that looked well-maintained.

He saw some compounds which were bigger than even the baron's manor back in Tiranat, although these houses didn't look that well defended—probably because this place was as safe as it could be in the kingdom. The heavy traffic made sure there were no places which were desolate, and there were regular patrols by mounted knights. Which bandit in his right mind would want to end his robbing career coming this close to the city? The road under their wheels changed too after entering the outskirts.

Dirt gave way to cobblestone, the sound turning from soft crunch and squelch to hard clatter. The wagon shook differently now, every stone making its presence known through the seat and the frame. Calubo leaned forward slightly, looking above the houses ahead of them—and then he saw the huge city wall of Ulriga. It rose in the distance like it belonged there, too large to feel real at first. As they rolled closer, he realized it wasn't just tall.

It was thick, made of stone blocks stacked in clean, repeating layers. He was no expert in judging heights accurately, but the city wall looked to be around 60 or 70 feet high at least, towering over everything around it. The evening light still held, and it showed movement along the top—men walking in small groups, stopping, turning, scanning. City guards. Calubo watched them with the strange feeling of recognizing the job while knowing the scale was nothing like his own.

He was also a guard in Tiranat and had often pulled gate duty at one of the three entrances of the village. Those men were guards too, but their wall stretched farther than he could even see from this angle. He squinted at the wall and caught the occasional reflection from its top—metal glinting where the light hit. Some wore more than leather. Some had plate armor, and the way they carried themselves looked different. Knights. Wow... Ulriga had enough knights to place them on a routine guard duty...

He swallowed, then realized he'd been holding his breath. As they drew nearer to the gate, he saw the moat. It wrapped around the wall, dark water sitting lower than the road, with stone edging that looked worn smooth in places. Calubo leaned slightly to see better—and something moved under the surface. A pale shape, fast, then gone. He caught a glimpse of rows of teeth in the creature's mouth, and his stomach tightened. He sat back without thinking, shoulders tense. If a man fell in there…

He didn't finish the thought. He didn't need to. The wagons slowed as they reached closer to the gates. The road here was wide—dozens of feet across—split by purpose. On the left side near the entry gate, people waited to go in. On the right, others flowed out in a steady stream, carts and foot traffic moving under the watch of guards.

There were separate queues: one line of what seemed to be local residents with bundles and baskets in their hands, another two lines of smaller merchants carrying handcarts or balancing loads on their heads, and three different queues of wagons waiting in line for their turn. Pydaso guided them into one of the wagon lines, and their second wagon eased in behind them.