No. 471 Daeeung Escort Mission (2)
The man standing squarely across the road was, at a single glance, one of the Green Forest brotherhood — a bandit, in other words.
And as if to confirm the guess, more of his kind came bursting from the undergrowth one after another to gather at his side.
What was more, the stirrings of movement and the weight of watching eyes pressing in from every direction made it plain they had long since set up their ambush here.
"..."
The party's tense gazes converged on the escort leaders.
This mission had no fewer than three escort-leader-class fighters attached to it, Go Hyeon-woo among them, and of the three, Escort Leader Kang was as good as the man in charge.
He had lost to Go Hyeon-woo in their sparring bout, but he had eaten the escort bureau's rice longer than anyone, and in experience there was simply no comparison.
And indeed, Escort Leader Kang had clearly lived through scenes like this more times than he could count, for not a flicker of tension rose to his face.
He singled out a few escorts and stepped forward.
"Follow me."
So Escort Leader Kang led the men out, and the sight of them plodding straight toward the enemy lines looked, if anything, foolhardy.
One man among the bandits carried himself with a presence far fiercer than the rest — the chief of the Green Forest Stronghold that sat astride this very pass.
"Escort Leader Kang. Been a while."
"No trouble since we last met, I trust?"
"Us? Same as always. No trouble is a good thing, no?"
The chief was playing the jester — for a Green Forest man, 'trouble' meant getting killed or maimed, didn't it?
The ronin escorts, wound tight over when a fight might break out, went slack at the sight of the two men trading words like old acquaintances.
Mousy spoke up.
"Is that what this is? They take a toll and wave you through?"
"So it would seem."
"Heard tell of it, sure. First time seeing it with my own eyes, though."
Such was the long-standing way of things between escorts and bandits.
A caravan did not come and go by the same pass just once or twice, and the Green Forest Strongholds and river strongholds met along the way were never just one or two either.
Blades may well have crossed the very first time they met, but bleeding each other dry profited neither side.
And so paying a reasonable toll and passing in peace became the standing custom.
Much like the money pouch Escort Leader Kang was handing over at that very moment.
Taking the pouch, the chief asked,
"Strange, though — the cargo looks lighter than usual today. And far too many escorts......"
"That would be because we are moving something of particular importance."
"Something important, eh...... Sounds like a fine score to be made."
So asked the chief, half in jest.
The Green Forest Stronghold lived comfortably off its steady tolls — but if those wagons held wealth enough to feed them for life without another day of banditry,
the balance they had so carefully maintained might well come crashing down.
Escort Leader Kang's reaction, however, was the very picture of composure.
"Important things are not always valuable things, are they?"
"Haha, fair enough. We've no mind to gamble against a force that size, either."
From where the chief stood, this caravan came guarded by twice the usual number of escorts, each one formidable in his own right — a genuinely threatening prospect.
Victory was far from assured, and even if it came, the losses would be ruinous.
Had the cargo been worth such a gamble, he might have staked his life on it — but as Escort Leader Kang implied, the goods might hold little worth in coin.
Better by far, then, to keep the friendly arrangement alive and keep living off the tolls.
The pouch, just a touch heavier than usual, had surely helped nudge that judgment along.
The chief jerked his chin over his own shoulder.
"Crossing that pass again today?"
"Given the choice, a familiar road is the better road."
"...If I were you, I'd think twice."
His tone, friendly from start to finish, had turned abruptly grave — and a puzzled Escort Leader Kang asked,
"And why would that be?"
"Word from Geoung Stronghold went dead a while back. Even the lads I sent over on errands never came home."
Geoung Stronghold was the bandit lair perched on the next pass, the one this caravan had yet to cross.
The two strongholds were something like cousin neighbors, with comings and goings between them — so a one-sided silence could only mean 'trouble' had struck over there.
Escort Leader Kang returned a grave, formal bow.
"My thanks for the warning. We will weigh it carefully before deciding our next move."
"See that you do. Right, you dogs — we're off!"
The chief led his Green Forest men away, ebbing off the road like the tide.
Escort Leader Kang did not set the caravan moving at once. Instead, he called the other escort leaders together.
There was Escort Leader Jo, a shade less seasoned than Escort Leader Kang — and then our very own Go Hyeon-woo. Escort Leader Go, that is.
Kang laid out the situation in brief.
"—As such, if some calamity has indeed befallen Geoung Stronghold, the odds of trouble while crossing the next pass run very high."
"And yet we have no real choice in the matter, do we?"
It was Escort Leader Jo who said this.
He pressed on.
"The cargo must be delivered a moment sooner rather than later, and there is no margin of time for a detour."
"Hmm... Even so, safety comes first, no?"
Push through at the risk of danger — or forgo the deadline and play it safe?
So stood the opposing views of Escort Leader Kang and Escort Leader Jo.
Then Go Hyeon-woo, who had been listening in silence, opened his mouth.
"Might I offer my thoughts?"
"Speak your mind."
"If those who seized Geoung Stronghold have set their sights on this caravan, they will hardly wave us through simply because we take the long way around."
"One way or another, then, a fight cannot be avoided."
"Just so."
Of course, Go Hyeon-woo was only saying what the strategy guide told him to.
A pointless detour would change nothing except to drag the dungeon clear out by a good long while.
Hence the instruction to throw his weight behind Escort Leader Jo's opinion.
Yet even setting aside that unspoken arrangement, it was an argument with plenty of merit.
As Escort Leader Kang pondered, Escort Leader Jo added his piece.
"Were these ronin not hired in the first place with exactly such situations in mind? And our strength is by no means slight."
"...Mm."
"Moreover, as you saw with the stronghold chief, they will not pick a quarrel without cause. And should one come, we are more than able to cut our way through."
"...Very well. We break through head-on."
Escort Leader Kang nodded.
Before long, the stalled caravan was moving again.
I watched the wagons roll and thought:
Of course, that was only half the truth.
The enemy would hold off only for as long as they had no idea what the cargo actually was.
Had the wagons been stuffed to the brim with gold and silver and the chief known it, the Green Forest men would have attacked with their lives on the line all the same.
And in exactly the same way, these ones knew precisely what lay inside.
And to take it back, they would not shrink even from death.
The caravan pressed on, and for a good stretch the crossing of the second pass remained uneventful, peaceful as could be.
But around the halfway point, Go Hyeon-woo swept a slow gaze over the surroundings and murmured, almost to himself:
"I don't like the feel of this. Best stay sharp from here on."
"...!"
Go Hyeon-woo ranked among the finest fighters on this mission.
The moment he gave warning, the others began drawing their weapons and readying for battle.
Sure enough, a short while later, several figures in black stood barring the road ahead.
If the men at the last pass had looked like bandits at a glance, these men looked shady at a glance.
Every last one of them wore black martial garb tinged with red, which made them shadier still.
The stirrings and watching eyes pressing in from all sides followed much the same arrangement as the pass before.
The difference was that layered over the movement and the stares came a killing intent sharp enough to sting the skin.
Escort Leader Kang studied the black-clad faces, and his own went rigid.
"...Men I don't know."
For a man who had crossed this pass more times than he could count, strangers meant the situation had lurched sharply toward the bad.
Negotiations would have to begin from scratch — and in cases like this, most negotiations collapsed outright.
Still, nothing in this world was certain until words were exchanged.
At Escort Leader Kang's glance, Go Hyeon-woo and a handful of the temporary escorts fell in behind him as if forming his guard.
Escort Leader Kang advanced on the enemy line, stopped at a prudent distance, and put the question to them.
"Good day to you. I was given to understand this stretch belongs to Geoung Stronghold."
"I am the new chief."
So answered the black-clad man who appeared to be their leader, his voice utterly devoid of feeling.
Just as feared, something very much like 'trouble' had indeed befallen Geoung Stronghold.
Knowing full well what answer would come back, Escort Leader Kang still held out the pouch on a thread of hope.
"I see. This is a small token of regard from our bureau to the new chief. We ask for your kind favor going forward — and for now, kindly clear the road."
The black-clad man took the pouch and nodded without so much as checking it.
"Received. Now leave the wagons and get lost."
"..."
"Do that, and you may yet keep your lives."
Escort Leader Kang did not so much as blink.
He had expected something of this sort, and a lifetime eating the bureau's rice had taught him such scenes more than once.
He answered, calm as still water:
"It does not look as though you mean to spare us even if we abandon the wagons and withdraw."
Had the cargo alone been the prize, there would have been no reason to flaunt bloodlust so openly.
They had blocked the caravan from the very start intending to kill every last soul and bury the secret with them.
"..."
The black-clad man held his silence for a moment — then abruptly closed the distance at a terrifying speed.
A pale streak of light came flashing in—
- CLAAANG—!
—and was stopped a hand's breadth from Escort Leader Kang's face.
Somewhere along the way, a heavy long saber had settled into his grip.
Escort-leader class for a reason — the man had genuine skill.
In the next heartbeat, Go Hyeon-woo strode forward and loosed a sword stroke; the black-clad man twisted clear of it in a flash and dropped back to where he had stood.
It looked like a clean evasion — until the black-clad men beside him crumpled to the ground in his place.
For Go Hyeon-woo had aimed his sword qi at them from the start.
"...!"
That they collapsed without so much as a whimper said plenty for how savagely they had been drilled.
The black-clad man spared the fallen not a glance.
"Attack."
- Ssssssssss...
From every direction, the black-clad figures lying in wait shed their cover one by one and tightened the noose.
Whether it was their signature footwork or not, a sound like serpents slithering over stone came ringing through the pass.
Tracking their every movement, Mousy and Woeful each growled a word of warning.
"Kim A-woo, get your head in the game."
"Stand there mooning about like before and your neck'll go flying."
"Yes, hyungs."
And even as they said it, the two of them settled in at my flanks, casual as you please, as though standing guard.
- Sssssss...
The gap between the drill-perfect men in black and the escorts narrowed and narrowed, until—
"Kraaagh!"
"Bastards!"
"Die!"
- CLANG-CLANG!
The pass erupted into screams and battle cries and the shriek of steel on steel.
[153] The Support Ate It All