The Merchant's Trail
A morning of errands at the forge that arms the guard, and an evening that turns into a night's ride north with three merchants who are carrying rather more than merchandise
TL;DR
A wire saw, a lead-lined box and a pair of bracers Aldo will not explain: the smithy that arms Beltran’s guard sold them all three. Casper brought worse news: Tazrih is hunting them out of Ashtara Walnut’s empty house, and Orvayne has begun killing men he only meant to question. Then Mikhail, asking after the Martyr’s grave as a pilgrim, found three Peren merchants who were not merchants. A night’s ride, a river ford and one extraordinary performance later, the party rode in through the gate of a walled town called Vigil, to be judged.
First seen
- Rafi: the assessor who vouched for three strangers, having never vouched for anyone
- Amomar and Samira: the escort’s leaders; merchants down to the plate under the cloth
- Vigil: a walled town on a forest lake, on nobody’s map
- Theresa Sarros, Venessa Hasek and Casimir Kasun: the three who do the judging
What changed
- The keep’s exit grate is cut: the way in is a way out.
- Tazrih is hunting the party, and the city’s crews are closed to them.
- Orvayne’s affliction has turned lethal; he killed a man over a debt.
- The Vigilites keep the secret of where Vëné is buried.
Left open
- What Vigil’s assessment measures, and what failing it costs outsiders.
- Why Aldo ordered the bracers, and for what.
- The name the Martyr’s enemies gave her, which the Vigilites will not speak.
- The obsidian obelisk in Vigil’s graveyard, standing on Mól-woven stone.
Synopsis
Haudh-Gwenn’s best custom smithy is a many-anvil place with its racks running thin, because it supplies the guard. Mikhail ordered a wire saw; Aldo added a lead-lined box big enough for a khopesh. The proprietor (weathered, sixty-odd, hands shaking and eyes failing) worked out for himself that shortening iron bars raises questions, and priced his silence accordingly. Then he recognized Aldo from an order placed some time ago and fetched a small ornate box out of the back: a pair of fine iridescent mesh bracers, supple enough to wear under leather. Aldo has not told his companions why he commissioned them, or when, or for whom.
They split the day. Koa took the saw to the grate at the sludge-keep’s exit tunnel, where centuries of corrosion had done most of the work, and wedged the cut bars back so the passage looks untouched. Casper brought the city’s news: the party’s disappearance alongside Whent is common gossip, and Tazrih (once freelance, tied to every underground crew in the city, now Beltran’s) hunts them openly from Ashtara Walnut’s old estate, which closes those crews to them. Orvayne has worsened since Whent went, and struck a man dead during an interrogation over a debt. Dwayne rode in to lay eyes on him, with word that Beltran has taken Ostrad by bloodshed for its grain.
Mikhail spent his own day in the merchant quarter as a pilgrim, asking where the Martyr is laid. Two young Peren hinted that they knew, and feared what a corrupt city would do with it; an older one tried to close the conversation, and Mikhail quietly gave him the name (Mikhail of the Valiant Few) and an account of what the company did during the attacks. They would leave at sundown from the northern gate. Tempers frayed badly that afternoon, and the three wondered aloud whether the rage that comes off the keeps is bleeding into them as it did off Whent.
The escort was a covered wagon, two draft horses and three Peren, and Koa heard metal chime under their loose clothes before the town was out of sight. When Mikhail carelessly worked a small spell they halted and made him swear on his honor that he served no part of the Arcane Congress and would repeat nothing of what he saw. He swore. They forded a river at a practiced crossing and came to a hidden pit-fire camp where three more armored Peren waited. Mikhail brought out the new lute and landed something near the best performance of his life; bread was broken, the camp wept, and the escort’s guard came down.
Before dawn the merchant clothes came off and the armor went on. Rafi rode alongside and told them where they were going: a home city called Vigil, and its people the Vigilites. He is an assessor, the party are the first outsiders he has ever sponsored, and nothing will be shared with them (including what they came for) until they pass an assessment of character that is not a fight. On the Martyr he was straightforward: Vëné and the Martyr are one and the same, and her mortal name is no blasphemy. There is a name her enemies gave her that he would not say aloud, and Aldo has heard it once already, in a fever. Peredhel holds her up as the model of sacrifice for the nation and uses her to justify its servitude system; the Vigilites hold that sacrifice is freely chosen and never demanded. Koa found his own creed in that, and Aldo took the party aside to call them fanatics, and to say that if one of the three fails, all three leave.
Past a lone homestead and miles of woods there is a lake, and on its far shore a stone-walled town watched by bowmen. Rafi vouched them through the gate. Inside: permanent stone under slate roofs, a ground for archery and close work, and an inner graveyard where a black obelisk stands on a base of Mól-woven stone. In the hall they were brought before three: a stern warrior in full plate, a robed and unhurried woman, and a strikingly young one standing between them who is clearly in charge and just as clearly new to it: Casimir Kasun, Venessa Hasek, and Theresa Sarros.