Chương 420: 415. The Compound - I

~ Tesyb ~ Tesyb's boots were still damp from the morning dew on the undergrowth, while the forest floor continuously kept trying to steal his footing with roots and slick leaves. Two days out from the village, everything smelled the same—wet bark, crushed leaves, rotting twigs—until his legs started to feel like they belonged to someone else. Feroy hadn't let them settle on the first day.

He'd kept them moving with only short stops, the kind where a man could swallow a mouthful of water, wipe his face, and then hear, "Up." Tesyb had watched shoulders sag, watched men shift straps on their packs and tighten their grips on spears as if the wood might hold them up, and yet, nobody has said no. They all knew what they had left the village for, and nobody would let fatigue come in the way of taking revenge and removing a danger to their home.

The thirty guards had been split the same way as Feroy had ordered right from the beginning: three teams of 10. Feroy led the first group on the left. Hudan led the second one on the right. Tesyb had the third group which walked in the middle of the others. Even now he kept glancing at his own group without meaning to, checking faces, checking breathing, checking for the quiet signs that someone was going to start lagging but pretend he wasn't. The second day had been easier.

Feroy had said that they had covered the targeted distance the first day, so they could take it easier from now—only a little though. When they reached close to Kirnos, the air felt different, the sharp smell of salt hanging in the air. But there was no time to relax, and they didn't. Joric was with them too. He wasn't a guard—all of whom were super fit and muscular—but he had still been able to follow the guards at their pace with only a few complaints here and there that he was tired.

But he had still been working as a laborer for the past few months, so he was fit enough and he knew the importance of this mission, so he didn't slow them down. He was the one who had to show them the way north, but he hadn't been able to find any good landmarks to identify the path. There were trees all around them. Wherever Tesyb looked, it was either the usual lofty Fedarus tree, or some other ones he didn't recognize, coupled with a lot of shrubs, bushes and the other present undergrowth.

The recent rains had given a boost of growth to the forest, and it had made it difficult to see too far, even during the day. By afternoon, they had circled around the general region in the north of Kirnos a few times to find the path going north and Tesyb was wondering if they were lost. He was going to suggest that they should stop to make a temporary camp for the night when Joric held up a hand and brought them to a halt.

He squinted at the trees for a moment and pointed at a big one which had broken in half, and had started to rot.

"That's the one! I can't forget the stench near that tree when I was coming here with the bandits to plan that ambush. There was a half eaten carcass there last time—the bandits had made me go and check to see what was there—I can't forget that tree. The path to the compound should be somewhere close." The guards spread around and, soon one of them gave a holler. Tesyb followed Feroy and the captain and saw a narrow track cutting through the undergrowth, running north. It wasn't a road.

It wasn't even a proper trail. Just a trodden line where feet and hooves had gone often enough that the ground held the shape. The soil looked packed in spots, and the plants along the edges were bent back or broken in ways animals didn't usually do, but a rattling wagon traveling through the path would surely do. Joric glanced up at Feroy.

"This is the way to the compound. I'm sure of it." Feroy didn't step onto it. He looked at it like it was a trap laid out in plain sight. Then he gave a short nod.

"We go north." They started moving again, but not on the track. A few dozen feet off to the side, parallel to the worn line, using the trees for cover like they always did. The three teams kept their spacing, each line a little staggered, so anyone looking from a distance would have trouble counting them or seeing the full shape. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Tesyb kept his eyes moving.

The track stayed in the corner of his vision sometimes, then vanished behind brush, then reappeared. He couldn't tell if it curved or if they were the ones curving to avoid patches of thicker growth. The light began to shift as the day wore on, the sun sliding lower until everything under the canopy looked dim and cold. By the time it was nearing evening, Tesyb had started to wonder if Joric had been wrong. Not about the track itself, but about where it led.

They'd been following it north for hours, and there had been no sign of the scouts, or the compound. No movement, no call, no mark left behind where only trained eyes would notice. Were they really going in the right direction? Could Joric have been mistaken? They would have wasted a whole day if he was. He didn't say it out loud though. Feroy would hear it in his tone if he did, and that would be enough to earn a disapproving look. Tesyb swallowed and kept walking. Then he heard it.

A sharp, controlled sound from up in the trees—just once, not loud, not meant to carry far. Not a bird. Not an animal. A signal. Tesyb froze with the rest of his team, his hand tightening on his weapon. Joric looked around.

"Is that...?" Feroy didn't hesitate. He turned his head slightly, listened to the call again, and answered with their return signal, just as quiet and precise. A heartbeat later, something shifted above them. Leaves stirred. A shape moved down the trunk of a thick tree with practiced care. One of the scouts dropped to the ground with barely any sound, landing in a crouch. He straightened slowly, face partly shadowed by the hood of his cloak, before he put the hood down.

His gaze went past Feroy and swept over the three groups. Then he let out a breath that sounded half like relief and half like disbelief.

"I've been waiting for you all," he exhaled. His eyes tracked the lines again, counting.

"You all came later than I thought, but damn! You've come prepared!" Hudan stepped forward.

"Report!"

"Finding this track wasn't easy. We wasted a full day following any path which looked like it might go there. But once we saw the signs of wagon ruts on the ground and broken branches on both sides, we found the compound just by walking parallel to it. Easy enough." The scout tilted his head toward the north.

"We've been watching the place for the past week, but it's good you came now. Our supplies were getting low." The scout looked over at the captain, then back to Feroy.

"We can't go out to hunt or gather near the compound. Not without risking being seen. So we watch from a good perch in the trees in teams of two men—twelve hours each. Then the other team comes up and the first one rests. Don't worry, we only change shifts when it's dark, so no one at the compound has any idea that we are there." Tesyb watched Feroy's face. He didn't show much, but his eyes sharpened at the word compound.

"How far is it?" the former mercenary asked.

"About a day and a half walking through the forest from here," the scout continued.

"And... we know for certain now that it's not the only compound Torhan has." The guards listening from nearby shifted a little, weight moving from one foot to the other. Tesyb saw many of them glance toward the track again, as if trying to see farther through the trees than it was possible." Another compound?" Hudan grunted.

"You sure?" The scout's voice was steady as he answered.

"We've seen a group of men moving north from the clay mining compound on horseback every few days. They aren't heading to Cinran or Ulriga through these forests, that's for sure. It'd take too long and wouldn't be worth the trouble. Which means this track connects to at least one other compound managed by Torhan." Tesyb's mouth went dry. Just how big was this bastard's operation.

There was a good chance that he was a son of the Baron of Kirnos, and likely had some support from his father Lord Farodas for everything—perhaps even to sell drugs to visiting merchant ships in Kirnos—but another compound? Did it also have lots of slaves working there, guarded by dozens of bandits? And what if that second compound wasn't the last one either? Feroy's voice was flat.

"It could be the place where they gather and process veydril. The plant it's made from only grows in dense forests like this one, and drug running pays enough to make it worth sending horsemen between the compounds through this forest and to take the ready drugs from there to Cinran." Tesyb looked at him.

"Should we also raid that compound then?" Feroy made a small motion with his hand, cutting the thought off.

"We'll decide later when we know more." He looked back at the scout.

"Did you see Torhan there?"