The ex-mercenary, who had been sitting on the bench next to her, immediately became alert. "What did you see?"

Hyola pointed towards the right. "I think... I think I saw someone between those trees. But I'm not really sure..."

Feroy peered into that direction for a few moments, before he suddenly gave three short whistles, which was their pre-agreed signal to prepare for a possible ambush on the road. Immediately, Hyola brought the crossbow which had been put under the seat, and started loading it using the goat's foot lever, with a bunch of crossbow bolts kept ready next to her.

A single glance to the back told her that the guards sitting on the wagon beds had also picked up their swords, although it was still inside their scabbards. The second wagon behind them, on which Tesyb and Yufim were sitting had also become alert and Yufim already had his bow held tightly in one of his hands with an arrow in his other one.

However, there still wasn't any real reason for them to stop in the middle of the road so they continued moving, when they saw a man stumbling out of the forest towards them.

Hyola's heart began to beat faster thinking there was an ambush, but no one else came out of the forest. The young man with haphazardly cropped black hair was walking with an easily noticeable limp in his right leg, and looking towards them, he raised his hand to stop them. Most of his clothes were muddy and looked to be heavily repaired, and he seemed like he hadn't gotten to eat well in weeks.

Feroy sharply looked around them for a few moments, before he pulled the reins gently to slow down the horses when they reached near the man who was close to the muddy road by now. Finally, the ex-mercenary stopped the wagon completely, with their other wagon following them to a halt. Hyola had also been looking around and didn't see any other person nearby, so perhaps it really wasn't an ambush after all.

She looked carefully at the unknown man. Why was he here? There wasn't any other wagon in sight, so he couldn't be another travelling merchant. With his dirty and damaged clothes, he also didn't look rich enough to be a merchant anyway. As the man reached the road, she saw that his hands seemed to be shaking a little. Maybe he was just feeling too cold? It was still quite chilly after all.

The man slowly limped close to their wagon, and looked at them with pleading eyes. "Kind sir, my name is Joric. I would... I would like your help to return back to Kirnos. Would you be... be kind enough... to take me back there?"

Hyola frowned looking at the man who was favoring his right leg while standing. Why was he talking like that? Nobody spoke like that these days. The man was certainly in a bad position here, and wouldn't be able to reach Kirnos easily on his injured leg, but he was still acting way too polite... She thought of asking this Joric a few things about that, but on the ex-mercenary's gesture, she kept quiet and let him do the talking.

Feroy looked at the man from up to down. "Firstly tell me what happened to you? Why are you standing here alone in the middle of nowhere?"

"You see..." Joric hesitated while glancing to the left from where he had come from. "I am a farmer... Yes, a rich farmer!"

"A rich farmer?" The ex-mercenary repeated with his eyebrows raised high. "I don't see any farms around here, do you?"

Joric glanced to the side once again, where there were only the tall fedarus trees around them, with no plowed fields in sight. "Uh... it's a... a new farm! Yes!" He pointed to the side with a shaking hand. "It's... It's some distance away... That way."

Hyola was starting to get a feeling that something wasn't right, but this man didn't look like a bandit at all. What would he be able to do by himself against the eight of them anyway? He wasn't even carrying a sword, for Goddess' sake! Maybe she was just overthinking it when there was nothing to worry about and this was just a desperate man who needed some help to get back to his home.

Feroy stared at the man for a moment. "A new farm you say... How did you even get here from Kirnos?"

"Oh, did I forget to tell you, kind sir?" Joric gave a nervous laugh. "You see, I had a horse. Yeah, a real good horse! But it broke its leg, and I badly injured mine too when I fell down. Then I had to put down the beast in the forest and now I can't walk back on my own..." The man glanced to the left once again before looking at their wagon beds. "Actually, what are you carrying there?"

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The ex-mercenary tilted his head, while his eyes had started to look around at their surroundings again. "What concern would that be of yours, Joric?"

"Ah... well, haha," Joric gave a skittish laugh once again while shifting his weight to the other leg. "Oh, you know... I would have to sit on the wagon bed, wouldn't I? And if you are carrying any food, I wouldn't want to squish it by sitting over it."

Feroy frowned at the man, with his sheathed sword already in his hand. "You are forgetting that I haven't even agreed to let you join us, not that we have any reason to go back to Kirnos again."

Hyola was also confused. Why would this man care about damaging their food at the moment, when he should only be thinking of how to get a ride back to his home? It would be very difficult for him to walk there with his leg injured. Wait! Wasn't it his right leg which was injured? Then why was he putting more weight on that one now...? Maybe the guy was just confused about which leg he had hurt? No, that wasn't likely, unless he wasn't really injured at all...

She looked carefully at his face and noticed that his eyes were still darting around, just like a deer which was being chased by an adzee and was scared for its life. But why would this man be scared right now? And from whom? Their two wagons were the only thing in the vicinity with any other humans, and Joric had willingly come to them to ask for help. It wasn't like there was anyone else nearby whom he would be scared of, right? Right...?

Joric quickly glanced to his left once again, before looking nervously at Feroy. "Uh... Because... That is..." Then he began fidgeting once again and didn't give any answer.

Hyola's heart had started beating fast by now. Something didn't feel right... What if there really was someone else here...? She clenched the crossbow tighter in her hand and started looking carefully at the treeline on the right side of the road, from where this so-called farmer had come from.

However, she had to glance back at Joric when she noticed that he had suddenly raised both of his shaking hands above himself and interlocked them together, while looking even more scared now.

What? Why was he trying to stretch his arms right now? Huh... She suddenly had a premonition that something bad was going to happen. She immediately looked back towards the forest once again and thought that she saw a glint of metal behind a tree in the light of the setting sun on their backs.

It had only taken a few moments for her brain to process all this, when she realised that she must have seen the reflection from a sword and this had to be an ambush! She was going to scream about it to warn others but before she could open her mouth, Feroy pulled his sword out of the scabbard and yelled loudly.

"Ambush!! Take cover!"

******

~ Torhan's Deputy ~

~ A few moments ago ~

"Why is this idiot walking so slowly?" Nokozal growled from nearby.

"Be quiet," he scolded, before turning around to look at the approaching wagons. "Joric is meant to be walking slowly, remember? Since he's supposed to have injured a leg?"

The giant grumbled but didn't reply.

Soon they saw Joric reach the wagons, which slowly came to a stop near him.

He was still very surprised to see that there were eight people with the wagon. From what their informer in Kirnos had told them, they were supposed to have four people in total. One of them should have been a merchant and another an unarmed woman, which meant the caravan was only supposed to have two real guards to defend them. That had seemed so easy, but somehow, there were eight people on the wagon right now, all in leather armor. It meant there were at least six guards with them, even if the merchant and the woman couldn't fight. He wondered how the informer had gotten it so wrong. It couldn't be that the informer had lied to them knowingly, could it?

He had been working for chief Torhan for nearly a decade by now, so he knew very well how bad his relationship was with the young master Lanidas. The Baron of Kirnos favoured his chief a lot for some reason, and he was why they had such good access to the village, but Farodas was getting old now, and more and more of the village was being run by Lanidas these days. It couldn't be that the young master had bribed their informant to give them false news, could it? He could certainly see it happening with the chubby face of Lanidas laughing at them right now.

He gazed at Joric who seemed to be busy talking with the man sitting in the leading wagon and still hadn't raised his arms above him to give them the signal to attack. Did the wagons not have any food at all?

"What is taking him so long?" Nokozal snarled before looking at him. "I'm telling you, we should attack right now!"

"You will stay right where you are until I give the order to attack!" he scolded Nokozal. "I am not going to risk my men unless we know we are going to get good loot from the caravan!"

Nokozal clenched his fists and glared at him for a moment, reminding him of an angry bear, before he raised his sword a little higher in anger, making him fear for his life thinking the giant was going to attack him, but thankfully, the huge bastard turned to look towards the caravan once again.