The sight of the boy being pursued instilled Garinor with rage. It was like watching himself under the same peril. Before the driver even finished his question, Garinor climbed awkwardly off the caravan and withdrew his sword with purpose.
The boy misunderstood the gesture, but the others on the caravan jumped off too and called out for the horse to be still. Confused and terrified, the boy slowed the horse and came to a stop. “You have to run!” he trembled. “They’re gonna kill me!”
“What did yer do, lad?” asked the caravan driver.
“Nothing! I promise! They just appeared and tried carting me off! With swords!” he added, shying away from Bogren.
“Onboard, lad, quick,” said one of the men, while another gave the horse a hearty slap on the rear and sent it sprinting off again. “And you, idiot, put that sword away and go back to your silk.” Luckily they all turned to watch the incoming pursuit and didn’t see the warrior Bogren fumbling aimlessly trying to get the sword back into its scabbard.
As one unit, the troupe hopped back onto the caravan and got it moving again in moments so when the two men on horseback arrived it appeared as if they hadn’t even stopped. They hailed the caravan driver.
“Any you seen’d a boy come by?” one of them asked. Bogren thought the man sounded utterly stupid.
“Saw something, anyways,” he admitted. “Wen’ by so fast I couldn’ even tell what it was.”
“Go, Dascal, go!” shouted the other horseman and the two then galloped off west as fast as they could.
The caravan driver wasted no time pushing the horses into a faster trot. He went as swiftly as he felt he could without endangering the merchandise onboard. Two of the other men tended to the boy, but were unsuccessful getting a coherent story out of him. He fell to sobbing and wouldn’t speak for a while. Garinor wished he could reach out and offer comfort to him, but his own life was in jeopardy and he needed to maintain his harsh exterior. However, considering the actions of the caravan men, he wondered if he couldn’t just tell them his plight.
About an hour later, they arrived in a town that was marked all over by stone buildings, some dyed with muted colors. When the boy saw where he was, he offered his sincerest gratitude and sprinted off the caravan, then disappeared.
The driver brought the caravan to a stone warehouse near the northern end of town. Inside, they removed a crate of iron rods and loaded a few small boxes of jarred food. When the patrolman in the storehouse asked, the driver reported another wagon would come by in a couple days’ time to take the king’s shipment.
After that, they ventured northwest at a reasonable pace. The sun traveled lower in the sky as evening approached. When it touched upon the horizon and the first stars glittered into the twilight, the village of Fellanin rolled into view.
The caravan was taken to its docking place for the night and the men scattered about the town to either set up lodging or to find a good tavern. None of them even bothered asking the grumpy Bogren if he wanted to join them, though they didn’t leave him with the wares either.
“I don’ leave the silk!” he belted out.
“Yeh?” said the brawniest of the men. “Well I ain’t stayin’ ‘ere wi’ you and you ain’ stayin’ ‘ere alone.”
Bogren then remembered he was supposed to break away from the caravan at this point so he pretended he was going to put up a fight then conceded. The other man insisted Bogren lead the way and once the main door was closed and a padlock was set into place, they went their separate ways.
It didn’t take long for the warrior Bogren to shed his many layers and return to the boy Garinor. He found an empty barrel on the side of someone’s house and dumped everything inside, except the short sword, which seemed too expensive to throw away. Though he and his friends had often pretended to wield swords at one another, holding one in his hand made him feel uncomfortable.
He needed now to find a place to he could sleep before the next leg of his journey to the castle.