Chapter 71 — The Escort Contract
The posting had been pinned to the guild board for nearly a week before Arlen finally worked up the practical courage to consider it seriously — not because the work itself seemed daunting, but because of the sheer scale of time it demanded.
Escort Contract — Merchant caravan, Voss Trading House, seeking guard escort to Ashford’s Crossing and return. Estimated three weeks travel each direction, one week’s stay at destination for business. Total commitment approximately seven weeks. Confirmed Awakened preferred given cargo value and distance from guild support. Reward: 200 Silver, plus lodging and meals provided throughout.
Seven weeks was longer than any commitment Arlen had made since registering at the guild — longer than the boundary expedition, longer even than his solo exploration of the unmarked valley. He turned the posting over carefully, weighing it against his training schedule, his ongoing quest work, the steady rhythm of a life he’d built with such deliberate patience these past months.
He raised it with Garrett first, curious whether such an extended absence would meaningfully disrupt his progress.
"Seven weeks," Garrett repeated, studying the posting with a critical eye. "Long commitment. Though I’ll say this — Ashford’s Crossing isn’t a place many adventurers from this region get proper reason to visit. Bigger trade city, sits along the river route east of here. You’d see considerably more of the world than the Ashen Frontier’s borders usually allow."
"Would the time away hurt my training?"
"Some. Not irreparably. You’ve got a solid enough foundation now that a few weeks without formal drilling won’t undo months of work." Garrett handed the posting back. "Might do you good, honestly. Real travel, real distance, seeing how a different guild branch and a different city actually operate. That’s its own kind of education."
He accepted the contract two days later, meeting the caravan’s organizer — a sharp-eyed, businesslike woman named Yselde Voss — at the guild hall to finalize the arrangement.
"Three wagons, six guards total including yourself," Voss explained, laying out a rough map of the intended route. "Cargo’s mixed — finished goods heading east, raw materials we’re bringing back. Ashford’s Crossing sits along the river, considerably larger than Greyhaven, proper trade hub for the eastern territories."
"How dangerous is the route?"
"Reasonably safe, most of it. Established trade road, regular patrols along the first two weeks. The stretch through the eastern hill country gets less oversight, which is exactly why we’re paying for proper guard escort rather than risking it alone." Voss studied him with the same appraising attention Torv had once shown, weighing a new customer’s worth. "Confirmed Awakened, I understand. Good. That matters more in the hill country than anywhere else on this route."
They departed four days later, the caravan’s three heavily laden wagons rolling out from Greyhaven’s eastern gate in the gray early morning light. The other guards proved a mixed but generally capable group — two seasoned mercenaries who’d worked the eastern trade routes for years, a younger Rank D adventurer named Corin eager to prove himself on a longer contract, and two more guild-affiliated guards Arlen came to know properly only after several days of shared travel.
The first week carried them through terrain Arlen already knew reasonably well, the outer edges of the Ashen Frontier gradually giving way to unfamiliar countryside — rolling farmland, small villages he’d never had reason to visit, the trade road itself widening and improving the further they traveled from Greyhaven’s more immediate influence.
The trouble began on the ninth day, well past the borders Arlen recognized, when the road narrowed to cut through a stretch of dense woodland the caravan’s guides referred to simply as the Thornback Wood.
"Wolves out here, sometimes," one of the mercenaries, a weathered man named Dask, mentioned as they entered the tree line. "Nothing the guild would flag as dangerous, usually. Just keep alert."
Arlen kept alert regardless, calling on Hawk’s Eye periodically to scan the surrounding trees, and it was that habit, more than any deliberate warning, that gave him the first indication something was wrong — a flicker of movement too coordinated, too deliberate, to be ordinary wildlife.
"Something’s tracking the caravan," he said, moving up alongside Corin near the lead wagon. "Not obvious yet, but it’s there. Multiple, moving parallel to us through the trees."
Corin’s expression tightened. "Wolves don’t usually shadow this long without committing."
"These aren’t behaving like wolves."
Voss, overhearing from her position near the front wagon, called a halt to the caravan’s pace without slowing entirely, the wagons drawing tighter together at her sharp command. "Guards, positions. Whatever’s out there, I’d rather face it prepared than caught strung out along the road."
The attack came moments later, breaking from the tree line on both flanks simultaneously — not wolves at all, Arlen realized immediately, but a pack of Rank 2 razor-boars, their tusks longer and considerably sharper than the ordinary forest variety, moving with a coordinated aggression that suggested genuine pack-hunting instinct rather than simple territorial defense.
"Six, at least!" Corin shouted, already drawing his blade.
Arlen moved to intercept the nearest boar bearing down on the lead wagon’s exposed flank, Enduring Vitality steadying him as he planted his feet and met its charge with a clean Edgeline Strike that opened a deep gash along its shoulder. It squealed, veering off rather than pressing through the pain, and he pivoted immediately to support Dask, who’d found himself caught between two more of the creatures.
The fight sprawled across several tense minutes, the caravan’s guards working to keep the boars from reaching the wagons themselves while the drivers struggled to hold the frightened horses steady. Arlen called on Storm Step once, closing distance fast enough to intercept a boar that had nearly broken through toward the rearmost wagon, the burst of speed carrying him into position with barely a heartbeat to spare before his blade found its mark.
By the time the last boar broke off and retreated into the trees, dragging a wounded companion with it, the caravan had come through with only minor injuries — a shallow gash along Dask’s forearm, a badly bruised shoulder for one of the drivers thrown from his seat during the chaos.
"That’s not typical Thornback Wood behavior," Dask said, breathing hard, binding his own wound with practiced efficiency. "Razor-boars don’t usually hunt in packs that coordinated."
"Might be displaced," Corin offered. "Something pushing them out of their usual territory, same as what happened near Millbrook, if the stories about that are accurate."
Arlen felt a familiar unease settle into him at the comparison, though he kept his expression carefully neutral. "Worth reporting properly, once we reach the Crossing. Guild there should know if something’s disturbing the wildlife along this route."
Voss, surveying the caravan for damage, nodded grimly. "Agreed. For now, we keep moving. I don’t want to make camp anywhere near this stretch of woods tonight."
They pushed on for several more hours before finally making camp well clear of the tree line, the mood considerably more subdued than the easy, confident rhythm of the journey’s first week. Arlen took first watch without being asked, Hawk’s Eye and Shadow Sense both kept active despite the effort it cost him, unwilling to let the caravan’s vigilance slip after what they’d just survived.
He wrote briefly in his journal before finally allowing himself rest, the entry shorter than usual given his lingering exhaustion.
First real combat since the timber camp, and the first genuine danger of this contract. Razor-boars, coordinated in a way that shouldn’t be typical for the species. Dask thinks something’s displacing them. I think of Millbrook every time I hear that word now, though I have no real reason to connect the two beyond old, understandable caution.
We’re still ten days from Ashford’s Crossing, by Voss’s estimate. I’d hoped the danger on this route would prove manageable, ordinary. Tonight reminded me that even a well-traveled trade road holds real risk, especially this far from any guild’s immediate protection.
I intend to stay alert. Whatever’s ahead, on this road or in the city waiting at its end, I’d rather be prepared for it than caught assuming the worst was already behind us.
He closed the journal, the camp settling into a tense, watchful quiet around him, and found sleep slower to arrive than usual, his mind turning over the coordinated aggression of the boars with the same careful, unsettled attention he’d once given the strange behavior reported before Millbrook — hoping, without much real confidence, that this time the pattern meant considerably less than his instincts feared.