"Be quiet, you moron," the deputy scolded the giant, before calling up the other bandits and starting to explain where everyone should be positioned.

Joric was still hesitating, while he glanced towards the road. Would he be able to do what these bastards were asking of him? Would he be able to pretend well enough for this?

No... he couldn't! His heart was beating so fast that it seemed ready to jump out of his chest. He turned around and looked at the deputy, ready to beg him not to send him there, but Nokozal gave him a big shove.

"Time to earn your keep, merchant," the giant smirked. "Get ready to walk towards the road, unless you don't want to walk ever again..."

"But... but I..." Joric was interrupted again, this time by the deputy.

"I've been easy on you so far since a rich farmer isn't supposed to have bruises all over. Don't make me change my mind that you have lost your use to us." The bald deputy added, "Now as soon as we see the sight of the first wagon turning around that bend in the road, you'll slowly start walking towards them and will do exactly as I told you to."

Joric looked at that deputy's scarred face for a moment, and saw in his eyes that he meant it. If he didn't go and do what he had been told, that bastard might really kill him right here. Giving an uncertain nod, he took a deep breath and turned around to wait for the wagon.

It didn't take long until they started to hear the usual creaking sound of wagon wheels. As the first wagon turned around the bend, Joric easily saw that there were two people sitting on the driver's bench in the front, with two more of them sitting behind on the wagon bed.

Huh... Why were all four guards sitting on the same wagon? Did they leave their other wagon back in Kirnos?

Just after that, he saw another wagon being pulled by a pair of horses turning around the bend. So there were two wagons after all...

However, to his and others' surprise, the second wagon also had two men sitting on the driver's bench, with another two sitting on the wagon bed. By now it was easy to see that all eight of them were wearing leather armors, and all of them - including the woman in the leading wagon - had the sharp eyes of an alert guard. Huh... Where was the merchant who was supposed to be the owner of the caravan? Why did he send the woman along with the other guards if he stayed back in Kirnos?

Wait... Maybe the merchant was smart and had bought leather armor for himself as well, just in case they were ambushed sometime. That had to be it!

"How are there so many of them..." one of the bandits muttered from his hiding place nearby behind a thick tree.

"Are you blind?" Nokozal growled. "This is our lucky day. We can easily take them with eight of us!"

"We will kill as many of them as we need to," the scarred deputy agreed, "and take the rest of them as slaves. But all of you, make sure not to kill the woman. It will be fun tonight!"

The nearby bandit looked at the deputy in surprise.

The bald deputy grinned. "Chief Torhan doesn't let us have any fun with the female slaves in his compound, claiming that he doesn't want us to damage his property, while he always keeps a couple of them in his own cabin! But that two-faced bastard is not here to stop us tonight, is he? As long as everyone keeps their mouth shut about it, we can have all the fun we want tonight!"

The giant smirked at Joric. "You do well out there, and we might even let you enjoy a little."

Stolen story; please report.

Joric barely controlled his disgust hearing them talk like this about a woman. He already knew that none of them had a real family, and had never known the meaning of love or loyalty, nor they ever would. But he would die before forcing himself on a woman, even if he wasn't already married and loved his wife more than his own life.

Before he could retort anything, the deputy raised a hand. "Now be quiet all of you, they are getting close." Then he looked at Joric. "Start walking right now, and do what I asked. We'll wait for you to stretch your hands above as the signal to begin."

Joric gave a shaky nod, not daring to mention the fact that it wasn't in his hand whether the caravan was carrying food or not. The wagons were getting close now, so he started walking with a faked limp in his right leg, to make it easier to believe that he had fallen off his horse and injured it.

Taking a deep breath, he kept walking towards the dirt road, but with each step he took, his fear continued to increase, with his heart beating louder than it ever had and his hands already shaking.

Could he really do this...? Could he really pretend to be a rich farmer stranded on the road, when all he really was, was just a slave who didn't even have the ownership of his own life?

******

~ Hyola ~

It had been a longer journey than she had expected, but now they were finally on the road, with their home only a day and a half journey away from here. Earlier in the day they had loaded up both of their wagons up to the brim with smoked fish when visiting the fish merchant in the north of Kirnos, while Feroy had paid the amount that was already overdue and bought today's fish on credit. However, it had taken a whole day to convince the merchant to sell them some more fish on credit, which is why they had wasted yesterday just for that and had to stay near the smokehouses last night.

She didn't know what was the exact amount which had been traded for the fish, but she did know that it was a lot of gold. More gold than she had ever seen in her life. In fact, she hadn't ever held even a single gold coin in her hand until now since she still hadn't been paid in coin for working as a guard, just like the others.

She did realize that the situation of the village was not great and Lord Kivamus was doing his best to make sure everyone had some work to do and had food in their bellies, but she still couldn't wait for the day when she would finally be paid her wages. Even the thought of having just a single gold coin in her hands was enough to make her heart giddy with excitement.

By that time more shops and vendors in the marketplace of Tiranat should be open once again, while new merchants were also supposed to start coming from Cinran - from what she had heard from others. That would mean she really would be able to buy something for herself for the first time in her life, with money which she had earned by her own hard work! With Calubo also earning the same wages, they might just have enough coin to put together to maybe become a family...

She huffed while glancing at the trees passing on both sides of the road. Of course, it wasn't like that idiot had asked her to marry yet! She didn't even know if they would even be allowed to live together in the manor. Likely not, she mused, since the male servants and guards lived on the lower floor of the servants' hall, while the maids and female guards lived on the upper floor. There just wasn't any other place to live in the manor where they could stay together.

She knew that some of the other guards were already married, with their families living outside the manor, and that they used to stay with them after their watch duties were over. But that was when their families lived in shacks in the village - which was before the longhouses had been made and their families had been shifted there so they wouldn't freeze to death in the winter.

Since all the longhouse blocks were already at full capacity, those guards had reluctantly started staying in the servants hall as well since there simply wasn't any more space for them in the blocks for them to live together with their families. Although it did mean that once the weather became warmer, those families would be able to return back to their shacks, and the married guards would be able to live together with them when they weren't on duty.

Hmm... Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea after all. She could also live in one of those shacks, couldn't she? Although she didn't even have any saved money so she could buy a shack. Wait... Were people even allowed to buy shacks in Tiranat? Likely not. But didn't that mean people could just build a new one and start living there? That could work, but it would take a lot of hard work to build a shack from scratch. She would have to talk with Calubo about it to see what he thought, but that wasn't going to happen until that idiot found the courage to ask her to marry!

She snorted once again thinking about that and absentmindedly gazed to the right towards the trees in the forest, musing about what it would be like to live together with Calubo in their own shack when she thought she saw some movement there.

"Did you see that?" she whispered to Feroy while pointing towards that direction.