97 Free City

Today was the twelfth day of their journey, which also meant that, according to the original plan, they should have arrived back in Saniya two days ago. However, they were still stuck halfway. By now, Ronnie's troops had pulled together once again, though the core of the team were still him, Berrat and Nahlen.

"Hey, Ronnie," Nahlen started. "This job's a chore all 'round, but it's been getting pretty bad in the last couple places. Are you sure we can finish this up with our handful of men?"

As he heard Nahlen's casual address, a small smile played around Ronnie's lips. Once he had realized the kind of danger their journey might entail, he had dropped his notion of provoking the less loyal part of the wolf mercenaries. Instead, he had spent some time to help build relations, with Nahlen especially. Luckily, the mercenary was a simple man, easy to please with wine, gold and flattery.

"That would be beyond my knowledge. Still, our king has decided that he cannot give any more help, so what can I do?" Ronnie shrugged his shoulders as he looked down onto the ground. Although the bog was cold and barren, the roots of the misshapen trees had spread everywhere; even the road they were traveling along was broken through from time to time. He wouldn't want to fall into the cold mud face first. Not again.

"I mean, it's great that you asked the boss for reinforcements, but is there really nothing else we can do?"

"No, I mean, his reluctance makes sense as well. Right now King Corco has to control a city of twelve thousand with only seven hundred men. Plus, around four thousand of them are prisoners. Any more reinforcements and in a few days we might not have a city to come back to."

Ronnie sighed.

"If nothing else, we have passed the worst of it already. While it is true that the villages have turned into fortified towns closer to the edge of the swamp-"

"And more and more violent," Nahlen added.

"-yes. Still, we managed to avoid armed conflict even at the very edges. Now all we have to do is get through the uninhabited south-east until we make it over to the Mayura river. From then on, our work will only get easier, since we will return back, ever closer to Saniya's influence. Just keep your men disciplined and we can get through our task without incident."

"I would not like to impose, but is no one else troubled by our bizarre surroundings?" Berrat asked. Since they had left their first village and regrouped, the young accountant had stayed next to Ronnie and silently recorded his conversations. Of course it wasn't as if Corco was spying on him. The whole thing had been Ronnie's idea, a preventive measure to make sure his new friend Nahlen would not be too trusting and involve him in any shady business.

"Bizarre?" Nahlen asked with a frown. A certain level of displeasure could have been expected, but the mercenary was even more annoyed by the accountant's insistent presence than Ronnie had assumed. Considering his reaction, he really was planning something, and his plot might be much more concrete than Ronnie had thought at first.

*Fantastic, more trouble.*

"The road. What else could I be talking about." Berrat sported a frown to answer Nahlen's. "How could there be such a well-maintained path in the middle of an uninhabited bog?"

"So it's some animal trail, isn't it? It's convenient at least. Over the last day, we've made much better headway than before." Waving his hand around, the mercenary tried to shoo away the accountant's worries like one would a fly.

"So what sire wishes to say is: There is nothing unusual about the unmistakable traces of habitation in the area?" Berrat stopped and turned, his fist stemmed into his side. Slack-jawed, he stared at the warrior, in disbelief at the man's stubbornness. Off to the side, Ronnie afforded himself a little smile. This was a strategy Corco had taught him. If your servants are fighting among themselves, they will be too busy to deal with you, even if they are disloyal. Even though everyone here knew that Nahlen was wrong and only insisted in his animal theory to oppose Berrat, Ronnie didn't even dream of breaking up their spat. It was best to keep the disloyal mercenary occupied.

"And I'm telling you it's beasts. What does a bean counter know about the wild anyways? You studied tracking in one of your bosses classrooms, paleface?"

An uncomfortable tension built between the men as the large, lanky mercenary built his frame up before the short accountant. Of course Berrat had no chance in a fight, so Nahlen could feel safe in his provocation. Thus, he kept pushing the paleface back with his presence, all the way to the edge of the road.

*Too much of a good thing,* Ronnie thought. Actual, physical infighting would only weaken their group and make their task that much harder. Just as Ronnie was about to step in and score some points with both sides, a shout from the front interrupted him.

"Commander! City up ahead!"

"What did you say?" Nahlen stared at his scout, who had been tasked to explore their path. Breathless, the man ran over and halted right before his commander.

"It's... a city. Just beyond the elevation over yonder, there is a walled city built into the swamp."

"What!? There was nothing like that on any of our maps!" Nahlen shouted in his scout's ears, confused.

"Animal trail, was it?" Content, Barrett grinned as he walked past.

"No matter what this place is, we should take a look at it first," Ronnie concluded the pointless argument with a frown.

Soon after, the three baffled leaders, together with their local guide, stood atop a small hill, or rather a tiny dam. The piled up earth formed a solid wall to redirect the ever-present water of the bog and create a somewhat drier area behind it. Since their current position was also halfway between the two major rivers of Sachay and thus the farthest place they could be from a water current in all of Chawir, the dams made the construction of a fortified town in the middle of nowhere actually possible.

Appropriately, a fortified town was exactly what they were looking down to at the moment. Rather than the ever-present log walls of the Chawir villages, they found themselves confronted by solid walls of wooden planks instead. Men in armor walked up and down along major walkways on top of the fortification, while the gate on the front was busy as well, crowded with people intent on trade and shelter.

"What do you know about this place?" Ronnie asked towards the beaconer who had been chosen as a local guide.

Despite the clammy bog around them, the man began to sweat, his eyes never leaving the walls before them.

"I... this mortal was unaware of such a construction within the marshes. This place should not exist."

Ronnie's frown deepened as he listened to the confused voice of the apprentice priest.

"Go send someone to announce our arrival," he ordered Nahlen. Maybe there would be more challenges for Corco's rule than some simple bandits. Soon after, the sent mercenary runner returned from the walls with bad news.

"They say they're not bound to welcome a foreign army. They say that the free city of Harkay will not yield to threats."

"Free city? Did Medala have something like that?" Confused, Ronnie looked around the crowd.

"They do not," the beaconer replied first. "How would they have handled their dead without the support of beaconers from Saniya? Which shrine is in charge of the rituals? Could they be heathens, perhaps?"

With a worried look, Ronnie took out the telescope he had been given for emergencies. A closer inspection of the walls gave the alchemist some clues as to where the surprise town might have sprung up from. The walls looked more than just solid. The wood wasn't the almost black color he had found in other villages. Instead, it was a much lighter shade, closer to oak or pine. Whoever set up the town here, they hadn't used local materials, at least not for the walls. More and more worrying. For a while, Ronnie fought his own courage, as he weighed his options. In the end, he made a decision which was unusual in its boldness. However, he couldn't go back home without at least some understanding of what they were looking at.

By the time he, together with a group of mercenaries for defense, had reached close enough to the gate for a conversation, the wooden doors had already been shut, with the panicked commoners left outside to stumble around in panic. Up top, the walkways of the walls were filled with activity as well, though from this perspective it could only be heard, not seen.

"The great Hieronymus Bombasticus, official in service of King Corcopaca Titu Pluritac, demands entry to the king's lands!"

For a while, Ronnie's voice lingered over the surroundings, while the men up above continued their preparations for war. Finally, a warrior's helmet peeked over the walls and answered the request.

"We know no king! Harkay is an independent town, untouched by the greedy lords of Saniya! We will defend ourselves to the last, so you best be on your way!"

For the moment, Ronnie managed to suppress his frown. He needed to make a good first impression. In the end, it seemed like all the men of Harkay had done was resist Sawo's tyrannical rule, so maybe there was room for communication.

"Rejoice, brave men of Harkay! For the evil Lord Sawo has been defeated! Order and justice have returned to Saniya, in the form of King Corcopaca! We humbly request entry and a conversation with Harkay's leader, to reconnect your fair city with Medala and reward his bravery in these trying times."

"No doing, lordling!" the now irritated helmet shouted from above. "Harkay is doing fine all by itself. Official Bombacu would be advised to leave before we open fire!"

At this point Ronnie could suppress his frown no longer. As he turned to leave, he left one final message for the men atop the walls.

"In that case, I hope you will not be surprised by the king's reaction. Order and justice can be soothing to the virtuous, but they can be just as fierce to the vile."

As they rushed back, away from whatever weapons the Harkay warriors planned to attack them with, Nahlen came closer to Ronnie to speak into his ear.

"That helmet is a problem."

"No more than a little bit of rough sea. Watch him turn docile once we bring over a proper army," Ronnie smiled.

"No, I mean, that's a metal helmet, solidly built. Where does a village inside a bog get that kind of equipment? They wouldn't have bought it in Saniya, right? And it's not as if the villages up to here have had any blacksmiths either."

With a nod, Ronnie took out a rolled piece of sheepskin from his pocket. "Hold still for a moment," he said as he walked around the mercenary to use his back as a table. Luckily, this wasn't the first time they had done this, so Nahlen didn't complain. His table secured, Ronnie unrolled the unfinished map of Chawir he had been tasked with. Just another part of his duties. He took out the ruler and compass as well, and began to sketch in the rough position of the new city with a coal pen, as well as the road which had led up to it. While he did his work, the alchemist had time to think about the events of the last few days.

Considering the existence of Harkay, it had been no wonder that the villages farther from Saniya had been so unruly. Normally, they would be dependent on the town for all supplies beyond wood and basic foodstuffs, but with the existence of a second city on the other side of Chawir, their increasing autonomy began to make sense. Now the only question left was: Where did Harkay's citizens come from, and who supplied them to build such a solid settlement right under the nose of Saniya's lord?

As he rolled the map back up, Ronnie sighed again.

"Finished," he said as he tapped on Nahlen's back. "Commander, send two runners each down every single road around the city. We need to find out where they lead."

"Yes, sire. What will we do about the town, then?" Nahlen called one of his adjutants with a wave, to relay the orders.

"We will ignore it, walk past and continue our work."

"What? But..." Unwilling, Nahlen stared over to Harkay, surely thoughts of treasure beyond the walls on his mind.

"No, this is an order. Conquering a city is not part of our mission. Not to mention, how many people would live in a city this size? At a rough guess, maybe three thousand or so?"

Since he wouldn't receive an answer even after seconds of waiting, Ronnie considered the silence confirmation and continued.

"Since there's so many people, how many soldiers could this city field? Maybe three hundred, plus almost a thousand levies? How would we ever storm that, even if none of them are cultivators? Even if they are not and our storm is a success, with our losses it might be impossible to finish our actual task. Will you really risk the lives of your men for your own greed, Sir Nahlen?"

Just as Nahlen wanted to speak up, his adjutant had arrived, aware of their conversation.

"Oh course not," the commander answered with his eyes still glued to the solid walls. At least for now, he couldn't act willfully. Not if he wanted to keep the loyalty of his men.

"In that case, we will ready for march again and get beyond the town's sight by nightfall." Ignoring the mercenary's greed, Ronnie walked away, back towards the rest of their troops. As they had marched ever deeper into the king's new lands, more and more trouble was piled up. Although Corco was the nominal master of Chawir, there was much work to be done if he ever wished to truly possess it.