It was around midday when the woods had thickened around the caravan as they pass through. The trees begins to slightly leans in close. The path narrowed and only a little bit of light managed to passed through the thick canopy. The sounds from the Rothbury river have faded long ago. Even the songs sang by the birds among the trees have fallen silent.
Yorrick noticed the shift to silence. In his opinion, silence was the best, except for moments like this. This does not bode well for the caravan. He was not the only person in the group to notice this as most guards and all mercenaries began to put their hands in their respective equipments.
They too, know what can happen when a lively woods suddenly turns silent. Some of the lead guards signs to the drivers of the cart, slowing down their speed, not in a whim but out of caution.
The silence stretched across the caravan. All of their eyes turning left and right. On guard on what may appear and surprise the group.
Without a warning, the ground ahead grumbled and a large root surged forward from the side of the path. The root—thick as a man's torso and slithering like a serpent—slammed towards one of the carts, but a guard reacted just in time. With a grunt, he threw up his shield, the blow smashing against his shield with a loud cracking impact.
The force lifted the guard's arm but he held firm, allowing him to deflect the root upwards, slicing through air before whipping back to where it came from.
"Beast!! Perhaps, some kind of plant!" someone shouted with a sharp voice from the rear who watched the exchange.
Even before the words had finished echoing, three more roots burst from the ground. One tore clean through the cloth covering of one of the carts, ripping it to ribbons and scattering it in the air. Another barely missed a horse, sending it into a panic. The third shot wide, retracting just as fast as it had attacked.
Yorrick, already in a low stance since the first cry, gritted his teeth. He shifted his feet slightly, his sword angled forward, ready to bite.
The ground at his left shuddered and then five roots exploded upward in a spray of dirt and stones. One of the roots lunged directly at him, as fast as the roots earlier.
With a sharp breath, Yorrick tilted his blade slightly, catching the root’s tip at an angle. The force shuddered through his arms, but the deflection worked. The root slid of the blade with a creaking of strained fibers. He twisted his wrist, using the momentum of the clash to realign his sword, and in a smooth vertical arc, he cleaved through the root as it began to retract.
The severed piece writhed on the ground like a wounded snake. Without hesitation, Yorrick stomped down hard, pinning it to the soil until it finally stopped. He lifted his gaze, scanning the chaos around him.
Most of the carts had pressed forward, wheels moving through the muddy path, drivers whipping the horses into a frenzy. Only a handful of guards and the mercenaries remained near the damaged cart, fending off the snapping roots. They weren’t trying to kill whatever was hidden underground. They were buying time, giving the caravan a chance to flee.
Yorrick understood at once. Stay too long, and you'd be a fertilizer for the damn thing. And yet, it was their job to buy time and also survive to receive the pay.
So he backed off, moving steadily after the main body of the caravan, his sword weaving sharp arcs in the air to knock aside any stray roots still daring to lunge at him.
His actions contains no heroics nor last stands. Unlike that cursed adventuring book, their profession only needs one thing. Survival. To complete the mission, and to receive their pay.
---
By morning, the caravan had finally left that root-like beast infested woods, the dense trees giving way to the open sound of running water. A small river runs its way across the land in front of them, its banks lined up with short grasses and a scattering of mossy stones. It wasn't much but after yesterday's chaos, it felt like a blessing.
Jonesy called a halt near the river’s edge, and everyone gladly obeyed. The caravan scattered in a loose line along the bank with drivers tending to their mounts, leading their tired horses and oxen towards the water, brushing down their bodies, and feeding them handfuls of grains and hays.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
The merchants and their hired hands gathered near the carts, counting cargos with wary eyes, checking every crates and bags for damages, muttering curses at every tear and missing strap they found.
The guards, meanwhile, have their own tasks. Some guards stood on guard, keeping an eye on the distant treeline where they came from, while others knelt beside the water or leaned against the wagons, grimacing as they worked on their gears. Some of them possessed dented helmets which were beaten back into shape with stones, some have battered shields which they patched with ropes and spare leathers, and some have torn chainmail which they hastily stitched together with whatever they could find.
Many of them bore the marks of yesterday’s encounter—scrapes and bruises, their armor punctured or torn—but thankfully, all of them escaped the woods alive.
As for the mercenaries, they clustered together a good distance from the others, naturally falling into an easy circle around Yorrick as if it became their little thing.
Gaesh and Urbhel, predictably, were already halfway into another bout of loud boasting.
"I counted at least seven roots, you dried-up treebranch," Gaesh barked, slapping his thigh and grinning wide enough to show the gap in his teeth. "Chopped 'em clean before they even knew what hit 'em!"
"Seven?" Urbhel snorted. "You probably counted the ones I killed too, you old goat! I skewered nine m'self, and that’s not countin’ the one that tried to eat yer boot!"
"You drunkard, you couldn't count to nine even if you had fingers to spare!"
Their voices grew louder, overlapping, each trying to outdo the other with wilder and wilder numbers. Yorrick sat through it for a time, polishing his blade in steady, even strokes, but when Gaesh started claiming he’d killed a "full forest worth" of roots, Yorrick decided he had heard enough. He tuned them out, letting their laughter and shouts fade into the background like the sounds from the river.
A moment later, Jesh sat down beside him, flopping on a flat rock with a soft grunt. Her robe was crumpled.
"Didn't know you had some real moves with that sword of yours," Jesh said casually, a slight smirk tugging at her lips. Her voice carried a tone of amusement.
Yorrick didn’t look up. He continued polishing, the cloth whispering over the blade’s surface. "Didn't know you watch others during a battle."
Jesh shrugged, picking at a stray thread on her cloak. "Well, all mages have prep time before firing off their spells, yeah? We don't get to just flail around like you lot. We have those spare moments to read the field, choose where to strike... or just, y’know, watch who's doing the fancy work."
Yorrick gave a small, humorless chuckle under his breath. "Heh."
The sound was light, almost lost beneath the sounds of the river and the distant noises of Gaesh and Urbhel still arguing about their imaginary kill counts.
He worked a little longer, the rhythmic motion of the cloth on the blade was calming. For a little while, at least, the river would provide their group a short and needed rest.
---
It was the seventh day of their travel. The sky had began to darken, casting long shadows across the road ahead. Yorrick watches as the path curves leading them towards the edge of a broad and plain forest.
Unlike the dense woods they had encountered two days ago, this one seemed perfectly ordinary. It has just a simple stretch of trees. To most eyes, it was just a normal forest, the kind of forest that most people would just call "the woods". It was nothing to be feared, hopefully.
With Tiverton just ahead, there was a sense of relief among the group. Another frontier town, another chance to restock, trade, and get their bearings before the final leg of their journey. Then it would be nothing but open roads, heading deeper into Loutland, and they would finally receive their pays.
“Alright, everyone, listen up!” Jonesy, the leader of the merchants, called as he went up to the front of the caravan. “We’re approaching Tiverton. We’ll rest there tomorrow, trade what we can, and stock up on supplies. For tonight though, We’ll stay here, just outside the woods, and head towards the town fresh in the morning.”
He paused, his eyes scanning the horizon as if he could already see the town ahead. “We’ve got to be careful crossing through there, though. Night travel through forests is risky. Plenty of things that can hide in the dark, and we’re not exactly in the mood for another root beast to show up, eh?”
The guards and mercenaries exchanged tired glances at that. Everyone remembered the trees’ attack. No one wanted to experience it for the second time. Gaesh, always the first to mock, muttered under his breath, “Not that we’d let a root beast get the better of us, right?”
Urbhel smirked, raising a brow. “Well, I'm not sure about you but we won't let the root beast get the better of us.”
Jonesy ignored their banter. “I mean it, though. Rest up here. Then tomorrow, we move at first light. We’ve got one more day on the road after Tiverton and we’re out of Kidia, and then it’s just a couple more before we hit the end of this job.”
The caravan came to a stop beside a small clearing at the edge of the forest. It wasn’t much but it would do for the night.
The drivers immediately went to work, reining in their mounts, giving them a well-deserved rest, and feeding them with grains. As for the merchants, they dismounted and began to unload their carts. They then began discussing among themselves which items they should trade in Tiverton.
The mercenaries, on the other hand, began to gather around the campfire. Each unpacking their bedrolls and rations. Gaesh and Urbhel, as usual, were talking about their adventures from the past few days. This time focusing on their near-misses with the root beasts.
They boasted loudly, each trying to one-up the other. Though it was clear from their tired faces that neither of them had the energy to keep it up for long.
Yorrick, as usual, stayed silent. He just watched them with detached amusement as he leaned against the side of a wagon, cleaning the edge of his blade once more.
As their bantering continues, Yorrick's mind flew to who knows where. For a moment, everything felt peaceful, he just hopes that this peacefulness would continue.
Info Dump #16:
- "Magical beast" is a term not limited to animals gaining magical powers but also to plant-lives that have learned to hunt, move, or think. Although the specifics of what can be called a "magical beast" varies across the states. All agree that something is a magical beast if they possess magic and strength beyond than most men.