A Caravan South

The south end of Beregost had given itself over to wheels.

Beyond the last tight houses, wagons stood in rough lines with canvas tied down, crates stacked shoulder-high, and oxen stamping in the dirt.

Drovers shouted over one another. Harness bells clinked. Somewhere, a mule threw back its head and brayed loudly enough to make three merchants wince.

Maeril stopped where the packed street gave way to the churned dirt of the wagon yard.

“Ah,” she said. “Mud, wheels, shouting men, and animals with opinions. Civilization has peaked.”

Rishi looked across the wagon yard. “It appears functional.”

“You would like that part.”

“I respect work that moves.”

She gave him a sideways look. “If you start respecting the mud, I’m walking alone.”

He inclined his head, accepting the warning.

Maeril pointed toward the center of the yard.

“There.”

A broad-shouldered man in weathered leathers stood beside a wagon, one hand on his hip and the other pointing at a cracked wheel hub. Gray threaded his short beard, and a long knife hung at his belt.

His low, hard orders sent a waiting drover and another worker moving at once.

Two guards stood nearby, eyes forward, shoulders tight, with the practiced stillness of men trying not to be given the same order twice.

Maeril smiled.

“That one owns the problem.”

They crossed the yard.

Maeril stepped into the pause after the man finished explaining precisely what he thought of the wheelwright’s parentage.

“Excuse me,” she said. “You look like a person whose morning has developed enemies.”

The man turned.

His eyes moved over Maeril first—horns, cloak, stitched wardwork, heavy pack—then Rishi: staff, wrapped hands, stillness, attentive posture.

He did not smile.

“Darran Velkos,” he said. “Velkos Road-Trading. If you’re selling charms, blessings, prophecies, or safe travel poems, keep walking.”

“Tragic,” Maeril said. “My prophetic poems are excellent.”

“We are looking for work,” Rishi said.

That changed Darran’s face by a finger’s width.

“Road work?”

“Southbound,” Maeril said. “Paid. Ideally with fewer broken wheels than this one suggests.”

Darran looked past them to the wagons, weighing his need for help against the shape in which it had arrived.

“Five wagons. Beregost to Nashkel, then through Fang Pass. Crimmor after that, if Tymora has coin on us and the mountains keep their hands to themselves.”

“Fang Pass,” Maeril said.

“You know it?”

“Just enough to dislike.”

“Then you know more than some.” Darran jerked his chin south. “Narrow pass. Bad wind. Worse rock. Bandits when they’re hungry, monsters when they’re bored, and merchants complaining in every weather. Two blades backed out this morning after hearing ‘Fang Pass’ near breakfast.”

“Cowards?” Maeril asked.

“Practical people with families,” Darran said. “Hard to blame them. Harder to replace them.”

Rishi looked along the wagon line. “What protection do you already have?”

Darran’s gaze sharpened. The question mattered more than any claim they could have made.

“Enough to get in trouble,” he said. “Not enough to enjoy it.”

He nodded toward the lead wagon.

A half-orc woman stood with a spear against her shoulder. Her plain mail was well cared for, and she had the relaxed posture of someone who did not confuse ease with unreadiness.

One tusk was chipped. One ear had a notch through it. Her eyes had already measured Rishi and Maeril twice.

“Kora,” Darran said. “My sergeant. If she tells you to duck, you duck before wondering why.”

Kora lifted two fingers without changing expression.

Darran looked down the wagon line, his gaze carrying tally, worry, and irritation in equal measure.

Rishi followed it over wagons, animals, lives, and too few hands Darran trusted when trouble found the road.

He turned back to Darran. “What do you need from us?”

“Someone who doesn’t panic when the road gets teeth.” Darran looked between them. “And someone who understands that wagons are not protected by standing near the prettiest crate. People first. Animals if you can. Cargo if there’s still time.”

Rishi nodded once. “Lives first.”

The answer did not earn trust, but it made room for it.

Maeril leaned against the wheel that had begun the morning’s trouble. “I can read weather, ward, burn, freeze, and, most importantly, make unpleasant people reconsider their life choices.”

Darran looked at Rishi.

“I fight. I heal,” Rishi said.

Maeril made a soft sound. “Severe understatement.”

Darran considered them.

“And you?” Maeril asked. “What kind of employer are we about to regret?”

“The kind who pays if you do the work. Food on the road. Bed when an inn has one. Hay when it doesn’t. Flat pay, no cargo percentage.”

“Number,” Maeril said.

She smiled pleasantly.

He gave the smile no trust at all. “Two hundred gold each. More if the road becomes unreasonably hostile and you keep it from eating us.”

Maeril blinked once.

Rishi looked at her. “That buys ink.”

“That buys a rude amount of ink,” she said.

Darran said, “Interested?”

Maeril held up a finger. “One more question. What is in the wagons that will make people foolish?”

“Copper ingots. Worked tools. Cloth. Lamp oil.” He pointed down the line. “And people.”

Rishi looked toward the last wagon.

A woman in a travel cloak was tightening one child’s scarf with more force than the scarf deserved. An older relative sat near the step, one hand clamped on a walking stick, glaring at every shouting drover as if noise itself had overcharged her.

The younger child clutched a wooden horse and watched a nearby ox with deep suspicion. The older stood close enough to pretend not to be frightened.

Maeril’s expression changed enough for Rishi to notice.

“Passengers?” she asked.

“Family heading south,” Darran said. “They had reasons to leave. I did not ask whether those reasons were convenient.”

“And they are yours while they ride,” Rishi said.

Darran nodded. “They are. Crates complain less, but I protect both.”

Kora, from the lead wagon, called without raising her voice, “Crates usually run slower.”

Darran did not look back. “And argue less.”

“Only until someone packs them badly,” Maeril said.

Kora’s mouth moved almost enough to be a smile.

Maeril looked at Rishi.

He looked back. There it was: not just coin, road, or south.

People.

A woman tightening a child’s scarf. An old relative with a face like unpaid debt. Drovers pretending fear was irritation. Guards with tight shoulders and careful hands. A caravan master counting lives among the cargo because that was the only way to keep it all moving.

The road south was no longer only theirs. It had witnesses now, and weight.

Rishi inclined his head to Darran. “Then we will travel with you.”

Maeril offered her hand before Darran could answer. “Two more guards, then. A stubborn monk and a brilliant witch.”

He clasped Rishi’s forearm next, his grip firm, scarred, and practical—not exactly a test, or not only one.

“Be here before dawn,” Darran said. “Kora sets watch order. If she dislikes you, survive until Nashkel and she may reconsider.”

“I heard that,” Kora said.

She looked them over again, then nodded toward the wagons. “Show up ready. I don’t wait for heroes.”

Maeril’s smile brightened. “Good. We misplaced ours.”

Rishi picked up the side-bundle he had taken from her pack. Maeril shifted the remaining weight, then pretended she had not needed to.

As they walked back through the wagon field, the noise seemed different.

Still wheels, mules, merchants, crates, mud, leather, and morning arguments—but now some of it belonged to them.

Maeril glanced toward the southern road. “Well. We found coin.”

“We found work.”

“Same thing, if one is optimistic.”

Rishi looked back once at the wagons.

Darran had returned to the wheel. Kora moved down the line of guards, correcting straps, spear grips, and posture with the grim patience of a woman determined to make the road disappointed.

Tomorrow, they would all move south together.

Maeril followed his gaze and softened by the smallest degree.

“Staff and spell?” she asked.

He looked at her.

Then at the wagons.

“Yes,” he said. “For now, staff and spell.”