Chapter 1329: Rain and Rot(1)
There were a thousand different ways to die or suffer on the road, and Vilon was well on his way to experiencing them all.
First came the exhausting torment of keeping one eye open through the midnight watches, which soured a man’s sleep until his mind turned to grey sludge. Yet, a restless sleep was always preferable to the kind that started in the dark and never ended. Then came the lingering hunger, the constant scramble for salt-pork or stale hardtack, the rancid stench of unwashed wool, the biting mountain cold, and the endless, sucking mud.
But above all else, there was the rain.
This was no petulant, merciful pissing of a summer cloud; it was the ice-cold shower of a furious giant. It poured down in relentless sheets, tearing through the canopy of the trees, churning the road into a brown soup, and drumming against their leather and iron armor with the force of a thousand wooden switches. The fat drops stung and bit at every inch of exposed skin, pelting Vilon’s hands, streaming into his eyes, and freezing the tips of his ears.
Water trickled down his hair, pooled in the hollow of his collarbone, and thoroughly soaked the linen shirt beneath his breastplate. His riding boots were entirely waterlogged, squelching dismally with every step, and the freezing fabric made the nipples on his chest ache with the cold.
What use did the five gods have for nipples on a man anyway? he grumbled silently, his teeth chattering. Purely to suffer the winter wind, it seems.
Yet, it wasn’t the cold that broke Vilon’s dignity so much as the mud. A treacherous patch of clay caught his heel, and a second later, he took a face-first dive into the mire.
"Sir!" Owen’s voice bellowed out. Even through the roaring curtain of the storm and the howling wind, Vilon could feel and hear the worry in his tone.
Gods keep him.
"It’s all right!" Vilon croaked, pushing himself up onto his elbows, thoroughly humiliated. He spit a thick glob of black sludge off his tongue. "Just gathering myself an early supper, that’s all. Don’t mind me."
"Come now, Ser!" Rosh roared from the side of the baggage wagon, his coarse red beard plastered to his cheeks. "It’s raining tits out here! Turn your face to the sky and you’ll get yourself a proper bath for once!"
Vilon would have given a week’s pay to punch the mocking smirk right off the mercenary’s scarred face, but they had a broken axle to contend with.
"Come on, boy!" Rosh shouted, waving Owen over to the wheel. "Heave with me!"
Owen said nothing, though the gaze he threw the red-haired sellsword was icier than the northern rain. True to his monstrous size, the boy planted his boots in the clay and heaved with such terrifying strength that the side of the heavy wooden cart rose half a meter into the air.
"Try not to take another bite of this realm’s dirt, Ser!" Rosh jeered.
Vilon replied by spitting another mouthful of grit onto the ground. Shivering and cursing every god in the heavens,in his mind for Owen was listening, he hoisted the spare wheel, lined it up with the protruding wooden arm of the axle, and slammed it down with his full body weight. This time, he didn’t fall. The timber gave a loud, satisfying crunch, and the wheel slid home.
The hardest part was finished. Grabbing a heavy, smooth stone from the grass, Vilon used it as a hammer, driving the locking pin deep into the wood with heavy, rhythmic blows until the iron rim kissed the frame of the wagon.
"It’s done!" he gasped. "Bloody hell, it’s done!"
He didn’t stick around to watch the cart settle back into the mire, though he heard the heavy, wet thud behind him. Pulling his sodden cloak over his head, Vilon bolted toward the large, canvas-covered wagon where the rest of the caravan’s merchants and guards were huddling for warmth. With a desperate leap, he scrambled inside.
Instantly, the relentless pounding on his skull ceased, replaced by the heavy, comforting smell of dry wood, old grain sacks, and human sweat. A moment later, Rosh and Owen trailed in behind him, both of them dripping wet, shivering, and thoroughly beaten by the elements. Vilon, however, was the only one who looked like he had been rolled in a pigsty.
"Did you get yourself a proper hug from mother earth?Perhaps a bath is in order to wash yourself of her touch." a soft, high-toned voice mocked from the shadows of the wagon bed.
Wet, frozen, and aching, Vilon would have very much welcomed a real hug from someone. But he knew he would never receive a shred of warmth from Martha. In truth, he was surprised the girl was even speaking to him; it was their first exchange in many days since that tense night around the campfire. She had lost all professional interest in Vilon the moment she realized his purse was entirely too thin to buy any of her particular wares. Instead, she had found a far more profitable mark in Rosh, becoming the sellsword’s constant nightly companion, much to the extreme discomfort of anyone unfortunate enough to pitch a tent nearby.
Vilon had the distinct misery of sleeping in the wagon right beside them. It had been a very long, loud night.
"I slipped in the deluge by error," Vilon replied shortly, trying to squeeze a pint of brown water out of his cloak.
"Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t dive into the muck by choice," Rosh muttered, crawling inside and immediately wrapping a thick arm around Martha’s waist, pulling her head down against his broad chest. He glanced at Vilon, wrinkling his nose. "Though I do think the lady is right, Ser. You’d benefit greatly from a proper wash."
Do I truly smell that foul? Vilon thought, a sudden spike of insecurity hitting him. He took an inconspicuous, subtle sniff of his own collar. He couldn’t smell anything out of the ordinary... which maybe meant he had simply grown accustomed to his own. Perhaps that was bad.
"The next time we reach a tavern, I will consider it," Vilon said, feeling a familiar heat rising up his neck.
"Why wait for a tavern?" Rosh spluttered, bursting into a crude, barking laugh. "Outside, the five gods are pissing their bladders clean off! What better opportunity than this to strip down and stand in the road, eh?"
"Perhaps you could attempt the same with your own mouth wide open," Owen hissed, his voice cutting through the laughter like a dagger. "We would be a great deal happy from having a sight less insolence spilling from it.Do you not have any mind for the gods?"
Damn the boy, Vilon thought, his stomach dropping. Every single warning he had given Owen about picking fights with sellswords vanished into the damp air.
The wagon went instantly silent. The three other mercenaries lounging in the back of the cart stopped chewing their dried beef, their eyes narrowing into dangerous, hostile slits as they locked their gazes onto the squire. Owen, stubborn and massive as a bull, met their stares without a single hint of fear, his large hands clenching into white-knuckled fists.
One of the mercenaries reached idly for the hilt of his shortsword.
Before the cold iron could leave its scabbard, Rosh let out a sudden, roaring laugh that shook the canvas roof. He slapped his heavy knee. Vilon noticed he was shaking his head at his men.
"A fierce one, isn’t he?!" Rosh chuckled, flashing his missing front tooth in a wide, easeful grin. "Come now, lads, put your claws away. The giant boy is just protective of his master’s honor, and truth be told, my mouth could use a proper scrubbing after the ditch-water I drank earlier! If we cut each other’s throats in here, who’s going to push the wagons when the next axle snaps? Drink some ale and let the boy brood."
The tension in the wagon lifted as quickly as it had gathered, the mercenaries grumbling and settling back into their blankets. The hostility was still there, but at least it wasn’t about to come to violence. Yet.
Vilon let out a slow, silent breath, his eyes drifting down to his own waist. It was only then, as his pulse began to slow, that he realized his fingers had unconsciously wrapped tightly around the hilt of his own hunting knife, ready to bleed the room before the first drop of rain could dry.
But, of course, drawing steel would have meant a quick road to the gallows. Even if they somehow survived a closed-quarters butchery inside the canvas, they would be instantly branded as murderers and hunted down like rabid dogs by the royal patrols along the highway.
Slowly, the crew settled back into the shadows of the wagon bed. The thick, suffocating tension gave way to the mundane sounds of the storm, the rhythmic chewing of dried beef, the rustle of damp blankets, and the soft, teasing whispers between Rosh and Martha.
Vilon forced his stiff fingers to his chest, his heart still thumping a steady, frantic beat against his ribs.
The lullaby of the rain was getting more muffled and soft, like a woman’s night’s song. It could almost dull Vilon’s sense to sleep.
Indeed he could have, taken a few moment to rest and close his eyes.
Without warning, the heavy baggage cart pitched forward with a violent, squealing screech of its brakes, rolling to a sudden, jarring stop.Vilon’s hands shot out before his skull could hit anything.
Not everyone was so lucky.
’’Fuck!’’ Muttered one of the hired sword who had his head hit the wood.’’What the fuck is wrong with you?’’ he shouted at the coacher.
The mules outside brayed in protest, and a second later, the driver’s voice pierced the curtain of rain.
"Bloody hell! Whores and devils!" the coacher screamed into the gale.’’Gods be good!’’
Rosh’s smile vanished instantly. He unceremoniously dumped Martha off his chest, his eyes turning hard as flint as he edged closer to the front opening of the canvas, his hand gripping the heavy broadsword resting against his knee.
"What is it?!" Rosh roared through the rain, leaning his head out past the wooden frame. "What’s the hold-up, you old fool?!"
The driver turned back, his face pale and slick with rain, his hands shaking as he pointed a trembling finger down the muddy road ahead.
"There are dead bodies on the road!" the coacher shouted back, his voice cracking with panic over the drumming of the storm. "Gods’ be good. Gods’ be good.’’ The man continued to curse.’’A whole lot of ’em! Fucking Cut to pieces right in the middle of the highway!"
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