Chapter II

Ohmac slings the heavy pack over his shoulder for the umpteenth time as he walks hurriedly to the stables. He had stuffed as much into the sack as he could, and the three flasks of powder which he had taken with him in a fit of paranoia dug into his shoulder uncomfortably, he would need the flasks to activate his regenerative powers, but a lot of people would still consider his actions a bit over the top.

Once the blood of a keeper like him, the red substance had been turned to powder with a secret method known only to Shrewsbury's company of ichor preservation. They had a monopoly on powder, so anyone who wanted to activate their powers without it had to drink the actual blood of a keeper which worked just as fine, but it didn’t keep well, often going bad within weeks despite having been frozen. The powderazation method Shrewsbury used allowed the blood to be stored for years on end without it going bad, which made it highly valuable.

Ohmac frowns as he sees someone leading his mount, Norman, a Rhinelander stallion his father had given him two years for his birthday out of the stables fully saddled. The culprit, a broad-shouldered man wearing leather armour, looked like a mercenary, but what would a mercenary be doing with his horse?

"Hey, what’re you doing?" Ohmac shouted at the broad back of the would-be thief, trying to run towards the duo but failing, his pack heavily limited his mobility.

The man turned around, upon closer inspection, Ohmac could see that he was carrying a bastard sword on his waist and had powder flasks in his bandoleer.

"Ah young sir, you finally got ready, that’s good, I'm Ralf von Guttenberg, your attendant for the foreseeable future."

"Father hired mercenaries to escort me? But he said he would send his best men with me."

"We've been in the Duke's employment for quite a while now, young sir, he trusts us."

"Oh, I see, thank you, Mr Guttenberg, but I can saddle my own horse, mind giving me the bridle?”

"You can call me Ralf, young sir" the mercenary stated, handing the bridle over to Ohmac who takes it from the burly man clumsily, the heavy pack still limiting his motor functions. He checks Norman's equipment, not trusting the mercenary to have saddled his horse properly when he doesn't find any apparent discrepancies, he ends the inspection by putting his pack into the horse's pannier.

"So, are you done?" asks Ralf, had been just standing there waiting for Ohmac to finish packing.

“Yeah, let's go,” they start walking towards the entrance, Ohmac struggling to compete with the longer strides of his attendant "are you a keeper?”

Ralf responds self derisively “Ares has blessed me, though weakly.”

“So you have Ares' might, I never met a strength-oriented keeper before, I myself am a regenerative keeper, a disciple of Bast" he responds fascinated, his father was also a keeper, though his powers were not of the flashy sort, him being blessed by Toth the god of intelligence and all.

Ohmac stopped talking to look, his mouth hanging loosely. Ralf seeing his expression laughs.

"This is a caravan, young sir, have you never seen one before?"

Ohmac humphs angrily "Of course I have, I'm just wondering why its here, you can't possibly be telling me that we will be travelling with them."

This outburst seems just seemed to amuse Ralf even more "What would we be our mode of travel then, young sir? Should we be taking the war carriages your family seems to love so much? You aren't thick young sir; you know that if we left like that the enemy would on to us within days."

Ohmac just harrumphs once more not answering; he should've thought of that before just blabbing his mouth off. Ralf keeps talking, though, answering his unspoken questions.

"The caravan will be heading to Aracnon. Before we leave, I'll introduce you to your other guards," Ralf points at a trio of mercenaries doing menial tasks, two of them were talking to different merchants, and the other was sitting on a boulder sharpening his blade with a whetstone.

Ralf called them over, all three of them dropped what they were doing to stroll over to him, one by one Ralf introduced them.

"Okay everyone this is our young charge, Ohmac Gera of House Gera, the heir to the Gobkav dukedom," Ralf turned to Ohmac saying, "young sir, these are Sven, our archer and scout, Georgie, our resident ex knight, and Kolo, a mercenary from the southern isles of the Hubuknav."

Ohmac looked at Kolo; the dark-skinned man was holding a long spearlike weapon; he had seen nothing like it in his relatively short life.

"What's that?" Ohmac asked him, pointing at the weapon.

Kolo looked at the armament before answering "It's called a naginata."

"Is it from your homeland?"

"No." Kolo's simple answers were starting to irritate him, but before he could ask any more questions, Ralf began barking orders at them.

“Hey, mount your horses, we’re leaving now!” Ralf shouted at them, Ohmac noticed that indeed caravan was starting to move. He mounted Norman and started trailing behind the caravan; the mercenaries quickly got into formation around him, Ralf and Georgie in front and behind him, while Kolo and Sven started trotting alongside him. He veered next to Sven; he seemed the most relaxed of the four mercenaries, Kolo was too quiet, Georgie was too intimidating, what with having a colossal longsword strapped to his back - how did that even work? - and Ralf seemed to have something on his mind. He was looking around the dirt track they were on as if invisible bandits were going jump out of the ground and attack them all.

“Hey Sven, Ralf said were going to Aracnon.”

Sven looked at him as if he had asked the stupidest question imaginable, but he squared his jaw and answered anyway. Maybe this was a bad idea? Sven seemed pissed.

“Yes”

Ohmac decided to push on though, Sven might be pissed off right now, but he seemed like the only one likely to answer his questions “But why, isn’t Evanstien closer? It’s going to take weeks to get to Aracnon at the pace we’re going.”

Svens jaw relaxed as he realised Ohmacs concerns were of the logistics of their journey rather than the whining of a child, he answered, his voice a lot less strained now “Multiple caravans have left before us, going to nearby cities, like Evanstien and Bisolvon to muddle the trail, the enemy can’t possibly follow all the caravans that left and still have substantial forces to kidnap you.” Sven’s answer was concise and full of useful information, had his father really gone into all that effort to keep him safe? Well, it did make sense, he was the only heir of Duke Bryon of Gobkov, a dukedom that had been standing for three centuries. His father would never let himself be the last head of the Dukedom.

Sven continued were he left off, “Besides Evanstien is in Duke Bryon’s territory, it would be the first place the kidnappers will look for you, Aracnon, however, is the biggest free city in the kingdom, it isn’t in the territory of any dukedom, being owned and run by several powerful merchants instead, most of whom owe your dad a favour or two.”

Ohmac took several seconds to digest this new revelation, it did make sense, but at the end of the day the two-week journey it took to get to Aracnon still made him nervous, if Sven were to be understood correctly, all the decoy caravans would be going to nearby cities, and Aracnon was the city farthest from the dukedom relatively unless of course…

“Sven, is there a decoy caravan heading for Forkejaj?”

Sven didn’t take any time to digest the question before answering, “Yes, there is, why do you ask?”

“But that city isn’t close at all; it’ll take months to get there!”

Sven answered his outbreak with a humph, “I don’t know the inner workings of Duke Bryon kid, don’t ask me to divine his thought processes.”

That stopped the conversation right there, Ohmac went back to contemplating his fate for the rest of the day, asking himself all sort of question but not getting any answers.

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At dusk they stopped to set up camp in the middle of a cove of trees, the caravan was relatively near, full of merchants and their servants working to prepare for the upcoming night, Kolo was at the fire. Evidently, he was in charge of cooking the food that night, chopping up onions and carrots they brought with them to make soup.

Ohmac sat down on one of the logs Georgie dragged to the campsite, Georgie and Sven were having a conversation across the fire from Kolo, Georgie like always was taking care of his sword, oiling it with a piece of cloth. Ohmac was staring at the fire when someone sat next to him; he looked around to see Ralf, with his signature leather armour. Why hadn’t he taken it off? They sat there not taking to each other for a while neither wanted to break the silence. In the end, it was Ohmac who broke it, “Why didn’t you take the armour off?”

Ralf looked at Ohmac heavily before answering, “where I'm from, you don't take your amour off until your absolutely sure you’re safe.”

Ohmac followed up the answer with another question, “where are you from then?”

Ralf hesitated before answering, Ohmac was just about to tell him that he didn’t have to answer when he started talking “Waterbury,” he sighed before going on “it was a nice city before it got destroyed in the blood rebellions a couple of years ago,”

“Oh” Ohmac looked down not wanting to look at the expression on Ralf’s face, the blood rebellions were harsh times for the kingdom, especially for the dukedom of Munster, the blood banks in the city of Waterbury waged a rebellion against the duke of their city; duke Nile of Munster, who was famous for his lavish spending of money and enslavement of weak keepers, turning them into blood banks.

In the end, the king had to step in and put down the rebellion. His Majesty then stripped the duke of his position for his negligence and executed him right there in the city square. His daughter of seventeen winters, Aralia had inherited the position, and she could be considered even worse than her father, if not for the innate evilness of her family than for her indescribable incompetence, she had driven the dukedom into poverty within six months, and her subjects had felt the blow, many left and those still living there out of circumstance were living hollow lives “Sorry about that, rest assured not all dukes are that bad my, fath..”

Ralf interrupted him before he could finish his sentence, “Yeah I know, I would’ve never accepted your fathers offer otherwise,” Ralf smiled at him before getting up to get the food Kolo had just cooked. Ohmac also got up to get the food, shaking his to get rid of the heavy atmosphere their conversation had brought about.

Ohmac looked at the bread Kolo was giving Ralf, sombrely. Ugh, more gerghi, couldn’t he catch a break!