It appeared to be a simple mixture of tree sap and dirt, but the insignia the substance covered turned out to be much more interesting: the three ringed sigil of the Elta’Sahn Company. They’re Company deserters! I thought delightedly. Not only was I filled with a sudden surge of pride at shaking the unshakable faith of Company men, but the new information completely recontextualized the nature of our encounter.
“Greetings!” the lead man called out. He had pale brown hair pulled up into a top knot, suntanned skin, and a wide smile that revealed three golden teeth. “It’s not often we meet people traveling on foot through the Midlands. What brings you out this way?”
I straightened my shoulders and put on my best false smile as a cool surge of confidence washed over me. “H—”
“Hi, boys!” Lia answered loudly, taking a step forward to position herself in front of me. “We’re going on vacation! How about you?”
It took every ounce of mental fortitude I could muster to stop myself from laughing. The answer seemed to take their leader by surprise as well, but he composed himself quickly and gave her an amiable chuckle. “I suppose you could say we’re vacationers ourselves! We’ve all had a recent change of employment, you see, and are taking some well-deserved time off before we start our next ventures.”
“Oh, how exciting! We’re going to see the capital, ourselves. I hear it’s lovely this time of year!” She looked between the three men with a wide smile. “Do you greet all of the travelers on this road? That’s awfully nice of you.”
“That’s right,” he replied. “Seeing as you’re new to the area, I’ll let you in on a little piece of helpful information; the Midlands are dangerous this time of year. My friends and I have been protecting this road for weeks now! We heard word that there were bandits in the area, so we figured we’d offer our protection to travelers.”
Lia covered her mouth as she gasped. “Bandits? That’s terrible!”
“Isn’t it just?” he agreed with a grin. His eyes scanned past her and looked me over, lingering momentarily on my sword. “And who might you be, stranger? A hired hand for this dangerous trip, perhaps?”
I leaned out from behind Lia’s head and gave him a friendly bow of my head. “I—”
“Oh, him?” she interrupted again. “Lux here is my traveling companion. He may look big and scary, but he’s a real softie at heart. It’s good to travel with a friend like that, don’t you think?” She suddenly clapped and perked up excitedly. “Speaking of friends, we’re actually looking for some friends of ours that traveled down this way. If you’ve been here for weeks, you probably saw them!” I bit my lip to stop the grin that threatened to spread across my face; it was clear that Lia had decided to take control of the interrogation, and she had no interest in relinquishing any of the responsibilities to me.
The brow of the lead man furrowed as the question caught him off guard, and he recovered with a less-than-genuine laugh. “Well, we see plenty of people come through this way, miss. I’m not sure we’d remember—”
“It’s actually quite a lot of friends, now that I think of it!” Lia continued over him. “They were all traveling in caravans owned by Three Barrels Trading Company! Have you seen anybody come through this way recently that works for Three Barrels? Primes, it must have been at least...six caravans by now!”
The bandit leader’s hand flew to the longsword on his hip, and his backup drew their bows. “I get the feeling you aren’t here on vacation plans, miss,” he said with a snide smile. “Who are you, really? Did the trading company send you?”
A sudden flash of movement picked up on the edge of my Detection, and I spotted a wagon heading our direction from the north carrying a familiar group of passengers. Lia, Lyn’s wagon is coming. We should move this conversation off of the road.
I’m working on it! she chided me playfully. “Gentlemen, as I said, we’re simply on our way to our vacation in the capital. We certainly aren’t here at the request of Three Barrels to find their missing workers. Just as you are concerned citizens keeping the roads safe, and not Elta’Sahn Company deserters looking to shake down innocent travelers.”
The two bowmen in the road glanced at each other with terror in their eyes at the mention of the Company, but it only seemed to anger their leader. “We gave your caravaneers a simple choice: pay the road tax, or die. Do you know what they did?” He turned to his compatriots with a dark grin as if looking for an answer to his rhetorical question, but scowled silently as he found them with nervous, wide-eyed expressions. “They thanked us for our kindness and unloaded their cargo on the spot. Wherever they went after that is none of our concern.”
“So, where did you take all of the goods?” she asked, still as cheery as when the conversation had started.
“The time for questions is over,” he said, tapping heavily on the pommel of his sword. “You should have—”
“That’s not really going to work for me, unfortunately,” Lia cut in. “I still have loads of questions.”
“Enough!” the man yelled, stomping his foot in childish frustration. “You’ve lost the chance for—”
He was interrupted again, but not by Lia. A whistle, poorly disguised as some sort of bird call, echoed down from the tall hill of the northern sentry. His eyes flicked up to the lookout’s location, then down the road behind us.
“Oh, someone must be coming!” Lia clapped excitedly. “Are you going to talk to them too, or will you just have the rest of your men do it?” She drew one of her swords and pointed it at the hill to our right, directly at the location of one of the hidden bandits. “I’m
