Toll on the Road to Zarfen
When Johan declared that he would go to Count Zarfen, Iaon nodded as though he had made a wise choice.
"An excellent decision. I would advise delivering your respects to Count Bartok with all due courtesy, then making your preparations and departing promptly. Will you be hiring mercenaries separately, Sir Johan?"
"!"
At her words, Johan belatedly confronted a very practical problem. The elf knights had the servants and slaves stationed on Count Bartok's estate to rely on; Johan had exactly one slave and one wolf to his name.
As things stood, it wasn't merely his dignity at stake — it was genuinely dangerous. The closer they drew to Count Zarfen's domain, the more mercenaries and bandits would swarm the roads.
Avoiding unnecessary fights meant putting on a decent face.
"...Might I ask the guild to arrange some capable mercenaries for me?"
"Of course. I'll see to it at once."
Iaon smiled and nodded. In matters like these, connections were undeniably convenient.
Keeping more than twenty mercenaries on retainer cost four imperial silver a day. Compared to a knight's fee it was dirt cheap, but it was a hit all the same.
He'd been spared only by the hefty purse of silver earned from the subjugation — otherwise he would have had to join a merchant caravan as hired muscle just to make the journey.
And then there was this...
"That knight is the Troll Slayer?"
"He looks perfectly normal to me."
"Not what I expected, honestly."
"Right? I figured he'd be twice that size at least."
Above all, though the subjugation had ended mere days ago, not a single mercenary dared covet Johan's authority. The more experienced a mercenary, the better they knew when to keep their head down.
"Master, wouldn't it be wiser to simply purchase more slaves?"
"Hmm. I've been considering it."
Goiden had a point. Given the money, traveling with slaves or servants beat hiring mercenaries — they were simply more trustworthy.
The problem was...
They're expensive.
Johan was holding a sum of money wildly out of proportion to his station, thanks to his war record. Buying up battle slaves wholesale and building a war band out of them left a bad taste in his mouth.
"Speaking of which, Goiden, you seem in rather good spirits."
"Could it be anything but the fine weather, sir?"
Goiden looked absolutely delighted. The reason was simple.
No Swetlgrud, no Swetlgrud slaves, no guild servants — this time, at long last, he would score points the way a tongue curls around a morsel in Johan's own mouth!
Even if other slaves joined later, he resolved to give his utmost — to claim the role of trusted senior retainer, and to avoid being relegated to common drudgery.
The road to Count Zarfen's domain retraced the route they had taken into the city. He had traveled it once before, but climbing back along it now, the atmosphere had shifted entirely.
"Sir Knight. Something is very wrong out here."
After entering a nearby village to requisition some provisions, the mercenaries returned with grim faces and reported to Johan.
Count Zarfen's domain had been deep in open war when Johan slipped out of the siege, but the flames had not yet spread as far as Lutzbeck. Apparently, however, the fighting's aftershocks had crept south before anyone noticed.
Lutzbeck and the surrounding villages alike were wound to a fever pitch, every nerve strung tight.
"Is it that bad?"
"Yes, sir. We should proceed with far greater caution from here on."
The house waging war against Count Zarfen was House Abner — a powerful county descended from court nobility. Count Zarfen's house was a respectable imperial county in its own right, but it seemed to be losing the contest of strength.
A war between two lords in the empire's southwest, dragged out so long that it had drawn the attention of the lords of the Kingdom of Erance all the way down to the merchant guilds of the city-states south of the mountains!
Wars in this age were fought not so much between nations as between domains. The kingdoms were a fiction; the lords within them were effectively petty sovereigns clutching their own small states.
And when a war like this dragged on...
"Master. It might be wiser to turn back."
Goiden spoke up carefully. As a former peddler, he knew all too well the dangers of passing through a region where a lordly feud was festering.
Plunder!
There was no such thing as systematic logistics in this world. Armies bought from camp followers when they could, and when they couldn't, they went straight to pillage.
Mercenaries might nominally defer to a lord's authority, but that only held while their bellies were full. A mercenary with an empty stomach and a war to survive did not restrain himself for the sake of the future.
"You think so?"
"Frankly, Master, at this point I believe Count Zarfen ought to have sent an escort procession for you. That would be the proper custom. The fact that he hasn't means that..."
"...He's in a far worse position than I assumed."
Ordinarily, when inviting someone from afar in such troubled times, the host would dispatch an honor guard — a display of capacity, proof that they could afford the guest.
Count Zarfen had not done so. No — he had been unable to.
I thought visiting him in his hour of need would pay dividends. Did I overreach?
Misfortune was only leverage up to a point. If the man was so straitened he had nothing to offer at all, the trip meant nothing. Johan found himself thinking it might have been wiser to seek out the flush coffers of Count Bartok in the Kingdom of Erance.
But the decision had been made, and his letter had already gone out. Backing out now would cost Johan nothing but his standing.
"...Still, we don't turn back. I said I would pay him a visit, so a visit I shall pay."
A knight's honor mattered precisely here. Having promised to come calling and then withdrawing, Johan's name would cheapen overnight.
Goiden nodded. A slave's duty ended exactly there — to advise, and thereafter to obey his master's will.
The worry proved justified. A band of some forty mercenaries had blocked the road. They had crossed paths with mercenary companies a few times before, and each time the others had backed off, finding Johan's party too much trouble.
These men were different.
The hunger to gamble big — to take a fat prize even at real risk — smoldered in their faces and their eyes.
"Halt! We hold the command of the venerable Count Abner and keep order in this region by his authority. In the Count's name we levy a toll. Hand over your goods and your arms."
"Do you have a sealed writ of passage?"
"Ha! You think we carry papers around like clerks? Look at this banner. That alone is proof enough."
The mercenaries jabbed fingers at their own banner, and Johan's hired men murmured quietly among themselves.
"Don't know them. They're nobody famous."
"That was my read too."
There was no way to tell whether these were Count Abner's direct retainers or deserters gone rogue. And even if they truly held contracts with Count Abner, there was no reason whatsoever to tolerate a shakedown like this.
"I am Johan of House Eitz. The warriors behind me are mercenaries hired under the name of the Kettana Merchant Guild of Marcel. Even Count Abner himself would not sanction such confiscation."
"So you defy the Count's command, do you?"
Crossbowmen among the mercenaries raised their weapons skyward — a gesture of threat and intimidation. Johan growled in a low voice.
"Karamaf!"
"?"
The enemies wondered what the man was barking about. But by the time they understood, a massive wolf was already bearing down on their flank.
Grrrrowl!
"Kill the crossbowmen first, Karamaf!"
Johan roared and hefted his spear. The point of his newly fitted weapon — forged fresh after the subjugation — gleamed razor-bright.
Thud!
The first to die was the loudmouth who had sassed Johan. Before the man could even move, Johan hurled the spear clean through his body. He wore plate-reinforced armor, but the spear punched through it like wet clay.
"You mad knight son of a b—"
Before the curse could finish, Johan was already among them. The sheer menace rolling off the hulking knight raising his arm atop his horse was such that more than a few mercenaries involuntarily wet themselves.
Then the slaughter began.
Like a wolf tearing into a flock of sheep, Johan threaded through the mercenary ranks, butchering them with mace and longsword. Every flash of steel sprayed blood; every dull crack broke someone's skull open.
Six or seven died in the blink of an eye.
Once their formation collapsed, the mercenaries scrambled backward in terror. From Johan's standpoint they were practically begging to be killed — the only way to stop a mounted knight was to close in and attack the horse.
"Ch-charge! Support Sir Johan! Now!"
Johan's hired men, still reeling from his sudden onslaught, hurriedly joined the fray. Arrows flew, and a crash of bodies met a wall of screaming.
Thanks to Johan rampaging like a madman at the front, the battle was almost embarrassingly easy. All they had to do was strike the backs of the fleeing mercenaries' skulls.
Shff!
"!"
A prickling chill ran down Johan's neck and he snapped his head back. A bolt hissed through the space where his face had just been. One of the mercenaries retreating behind him, it seemed, had reloaded his crossbow.
Crunch!
"GRAAAAGH!"
The man was dealt with at once — Karamaf leapt and tore him apart. Against Johan, the true threat was never a knight's blade but precisely this kind of ranged attack. Thanks to Karamaf, Johan could commit to the melee without a shred of worry.
"Catch the runners! Not a single one escapes!"
Johan had no intention of letting the rest slip away. Why leave men alive to become future trouble?
His hired mercenaries understood this too, and sprinted after them at once. Deserters were one thing — hired men had to die here, all of them.
"M-mercy! Mercy! I have a fam—"
"A wife, is it? Don't worry, I'll look after her real well!"
"Please! Please spare me! I only did what the captain told me—"
"Heh heh. The captain told me the same thing."
Once the butchering was wrapped up, Johan asked:
"Karamaf. Anyone get away?"
Grrr.
The wolf's — no, the monster's — sense of smell was astonishing. Even if mercenaries were hiding somewhere nearby, Karamaf would know instantly. Johan turned to a handful of mercenaries still clinging to life.
"Are you men hired by Count Abner, or deserters? Swear the truth, and by the gods I give you my word — I won't touch you."
"W-we deserted."
"Why?"
"O-our wages were in arrears..."
It was a ridiculous notion — the winning side with unpaid soldiers — but hardly a surprising one. You only squeezed payment out of a lord once he'd been brought utterly to his knees. As long as Zarfen held out stubbornly like this, the attackers had nothing to strip from him.
"I see. So you've nothing to do with the Count."
"F-forgive us for the deception. I-I only wanted to leave, but the captain..."
"It's fine. I deceived you too."
"?"
Thud!
Johan swung his mace and finished off the survivors. Men he had no reason to keep breathing.
"Grab the loot and pack up fast! We're clearing out of this area."
"Yes, sir!"
Despite the sudden fighting, the mercenaries wore bright expressions. The spoils did that. Plunder taken off enemies was a mercenary's most dependable income.
Besides, watching Johan fight, they couldn't help but find the man reassuring. Forget the danger — riding alongside a knight like this meant a proper cut of the take.
A good employer pays on time, every time, without skimping. An even better employer hands his mercenaries the chance to line their own pockets.