In the end, ten of the mercenaries, including Jornian, and Meig came along with me to Wellswood. I helped Meig choose and pay for a horse for the journey. I hired a cart and bought supplies for a two week journey. Actually, Jornian arranged those things for us, and he did a first rate job of negotiating good prices and getting good quality and amounts of what we needed.

  I quickly decided he should get a bigger cut than the other mercenaries since he also kept the others in line for me. I would miss having the others in our group to lean on, even if it was only Emmon standing behind me for intimidation purposes, but I hoped we would be enough to help Kaarlo.

  I had sent a letter on to Kaarlo the day after I’d read his letter hoping it might get there ahead of us so he’d know we were on our way. I wanted to get to Wellswood as quickly as we could. In five short days after we’d arrived back, we set out from Holdstone. I could only hope we would not be too late to be of any good.

  Meig and I had purchased some warmer travel clothes since autumn had already fallen and soon the long nights of winter would follow. Nights where cooling off and an open fire wouldn’t be enough to keep us warm. Luckily, the weather was supposed to stay relatively clear. At least, that’s what the weather wizards were saying and I hoped it would be true, but we packed tents for everyone in any event.

  We set out early, having woken at dawn to be sure everything was loaded and ready to go. The men arrived on time and we set out on a cool, but clear day.

  The news on the road out was not good. We were one of the few travelers heading west. Many carriages and lone horses and donkeys were loaded down and heading to Holdstone with young families and terrified elders. The only young men we encountered were there to deliver their family members to safety.

  We shared campfires with these travelers and they told tales of hordes of goblins marauding through the country, looting and killing as they went. They told of more fearsome creatures attacking in the dark, but, honestly, I couldn’t tell if those stories were real or merely brought on by hunger, tiredness, or fear.

  We had to guard our supplies constantly and, though we fed quite a few children and lactating women from our fires, we needed to conserve our stores to be able to travel quickly like I wanted. We could hunt for food, but that would delay us and the gnawing in my stomach told me we needed to get there as soon as we could.

  As time went on and we got further from Holdstone, the groups of travelers were more bedraggled and less frequent. One woman we met will haunt me the rest of my days. She was muttering to herself as she walked, barefoot and muddy along the road.

  We put her into the cart and found some shoes and warmer clothes for her. The fall was coming into winter now and nights could be biting particularly as the air grew heavy with humidity. She didn’t want to go our direction and it took a little convincing that we’d find another cart going her way soon.

  She kept saying she had lost everything. Clearly she had since no one of sound mind would undertake a long journey barefoot and with only the clothes on their backs. But when I noticed she was lactating without a babe, my heart truly broke for her. Aelfie seemed to know she needed consoling and she curled up in the woman’s lap the moment we got her settled between baskets of food and supplies. The woman seemed to settle down and looked a lot less haunted as she petted Aelfie. And Aelfie being the little ham that she is stayed with her continuously until we found a cart going to Holdstone and bribed the family driving it to take her to St. Layan. I felt sure she could get some help and healing with them.

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  While she seemed whole in body, her mind was damaged and while the priests chanting and singing tended to grate on my nerves, I knew some found solace and peace in it. They were finally convinced when Meig and I penned a letter to the head priest to give a sort of introduction for them. They seemed happy to have a landing place in Holdstone as they had never been there before. I was just glad to have perhaps helped someone a little along the way. I was worried she wouldn’t give up Aelfie to me, but when we parted ways, she just patted her head lightly and got in the cart going the opposite direction. Aelfie gave her a little bark and she smiled and waved back. It was the only time I’d seen the woman smile.

  The villages along the road were putting up walls of spikes around themselves. New towers reached precariously high to watch for intruders from any direction.You’d have thought we were a marauding horde of goblins by the looks we got for going through their towns. It was a good thing we had our own provisions as no one was in the market to sell anything edible or any weapon of any sort. In fact, we were propositioned with the purchase of everything we had. I was nearly compelled to kill some man who offered to give his daughter to the mercenaries with us for some weapons they carried.

  Luckily, not a one said a word and Jorn let him know in no uncertain terms there would not ever be such a deal and should he offer again the Gods would reign down such misery in his life he’d live a half life begging for death. It was too good a scenario in my opinion, but I kept that thought to myself as it seemed to have changed the man’s tune right quick.

  They didn’t even provide fodder for our horses when we lodged in a barn for the night. Everything was tightly controlled and guarded. Up until then, when we were about half way to Wellswood, we had been able to graze our animals and save our grain.

  Now, at the start of our second week of travel, the countryside was blackened and soot covered the road and was soon a constant on our hands and faces. Where the land wasn’t a soaking swamp, everything was a burned out husk. What must have been barns and homes were gone, some still smoking. It was good we had brought plenty of oats and fodder along to feed our animals. Luckily, there were some fall tubers that grow in shallow ponds often found near the road that were untouched. We collected these to add to our supplies.

  A few days later, however, even the waters near the road looked evil. A quick water incantation confirmed that the water was poisoned. I couldn’t tell if it was just blood in the water or it there was also poison in it, but either way, we kept well away from the worst of it and waded out the clearer water to feed ourselves and our animals. Aelfie had a really good nose for this and was always eager to dive into the wet, so she could lead the group to some viable water to drink.

  I repeated my incantation over everything we took for drinking or eating, even from our stores, worried we’d been sabotaged in the night somehow. But, everything remained good, if starting to stale.

  Finally, on the twelfth day, over a week from our departure from Holdstone, the manor of Wellswood could be seen in the distance. I knew we still had some ways to go. The flatness of the land made it seem closer than it was and I had to urge everyone to keep normal pace or we’d tire and have to stop for the night, just shy of the village.

  As we got closer, we could see that the village was surrounded now by a sturdy wall of spikes. The manor which sat near the center of the village much like mine had in our village, had a couple tall towers. With my spyglass, I could see archers on it at all hours.

  When we were somewhat close, riders approached us from the town. Aelfie started barking her fool head off in a very undignified manner. As they got closer, I recognized Gavendor with two sizable, well-armed men with him. We swung off our mounts and approached each other.

  “Gavendor!” I said with pleasure at seeing my old mentor.

  “You've come! Thank the Old Gods!” he said in turn. We had an awkward moment. I wanted to hug him, but it didn’t seem in good form. We grasped wrists in the way of warriors greeting each other.

  “It’s good to see you,” I flushed with more emotion than I had intended.

  “And you. Come! Kaarlo will want to see you. I assume you have news from on the road,” he said.

  “And none of it good, I’m afraid,” I told him. He looked unsurprised.

  “What good can we expect these days?” he asked with a grim look. We went back to our mounts. I asked Meig to come with me ahead of the group and I told Jorn I’d work out our quarters and he should just press on with the carriage and rest of the men until he got there tonight. One of the men with Gavendor stayed with the cart and mercenaries and the rest of us cantered on ahead into the wide gates of the town that sat waiting open for us.