Chapter 117 - Unexpected Driver

Chapter 117: 117 - Unexpected Driver

Morning came cold and grey over the southern road. Marcus had been awake long before first light, standing on a low ridge with twenty Bloodfang mercenaries spread through the forest around him, every man already in position.

They had left camp before dawn, exactly as planned. Kael knew nothing about it, and Marcus meant to keep it that way until the job was finished, since by the time anyone in camp understood what had happened, the cargo would already be divided and hidden.

Marcus studied the road again. The information had been precise: three mana-powered cargo vehicles, a wealthy merchant moving valuable resources south, and only a small escort. Enough money to keep the Bloodfang Wolves comfortable for months.

That was what he had been telling himself since leaving camp. One last good haul and the pressure lifted. Food, repairs, Crowns for the men, and enough left over that nobody could claim Marcus had led the company into ruin after Arquenay fell.

He raised one hand, and the mercenary beside him stopped moving at once. Marcus kept his eyes on the empty road while he gave the final instructions.

"Nobody acts until I give the signal. We stop the vehicles, remove the drivers and escort, take the cargo, and leave. No unnecessary killing."

The man nodded. "What if they resist?"

"Put them down. Don’t chase anyone who runs."

Marcus had no appetite for corpses. Dead merchants drew far more attention than frightened ones, and House Clairmont was already watching them too closely.

Adrien Clairmont had been the only part of the last few days he had not foreseen. Marcus had assumed the new lord would send soldiers eventually, yet the boy had turned up in person, walked into their camp with barely any protection, and offered a contract as though the whole business could be resolved across a table.

It had been a good contract, which was precisely why Marcus hated it. Accepting meant becoming somebody else’s sword again, with orders, limits and another man deciding when the Bloodfang Wolves moved.

He had spent too many years building the company to hand that authority to an eighteen-year-old lord simply because his family now owned the ground beneath their feet. Marcus pushed the thought away as movement appeared farther down the road.

"Positions."

The word travelled quietly through the trees. Men lowered themselves behind rocks and trunks, two Rangers climbed into the perches prepared for them above the road, and six fighters shifted closer to the barrier they had built during the night.

A heavy trunk lay hidden beside the verge, roped between two trees, and the instant the convoy passed the right point it would be hauled across the road behind them to close off the easiest retreat.

Marcus watched the first vehicle emerge through the morning haze, larger than an ordinary passenger carriage, built from reinforced wood and metal, with a wide enclosed cargo compartment behind the driver’s position.

A mana engine beneath the chassis gave off a low mechanical hum as it rolled forward.

A second followed several lengths behind, and the third came shortly after, exactly as promised.

Marcus counted one driver in each vehicle, with several armed men riding along the flanks of the first and last, nowhere near enough to trouble him.

He waited until the third vehicle crossed the marked stone beside the road, then dropped his hand. The rope snapped tight, the hidden trunk scraped across the dirt behind the convoy, and almost in the same breath four Bloodfang mercenaries rolled the second barrier down the slope ahead.

He waited until the third vehicle crossed the marked stone beside the road, then dropped his hand.

The rope snapped tight, the hidden trunk scraped across the dirt behind the convoy, and almost in the same breath four Bloodfang mercenaries rolled the second barrier down the slope ahead.

The lead vehicle stopped hard. The second nearly struck it before its driver hauled on the brake, while the third halted with its mana engine whining beneath the chassis. Bloodfang mercenaries came out of both sides of the road before anyone could turn around.

"Bows ready! Nobody moves!"

Mana flared from the two Rangers above the road as their bows manifested into their hands, arrows already nocked and aimed down at the convoy. The escort reacted just as quickly, several of them beginning to manifest their own Items, though the Rangers already had clean shots from above.

Marcus came down from the ridge with several men behind him, making certain the guards could see how thoroughly they had been surrounded.

"Don’t make this harder than it needs to be."

One of the escorts surveyed the slope, then allowed the Item beginning to form in his hand to dissolve before it fully manifested. Marcus pointed toward the verge before any of the others could make a worse choice.

"Weapons on the ground. Then move away from the vehicles."

The escort hesitated only briefly before obeying. Those who had already manifested their Items dismissed them, while the others stopped their manifestations entirely and moved away from the vehicles. Trained guards usually recognised a fight that had already been lost.

"Drivers too."

The driver of the last vehicle climbed down first and the second followed with both hands raised, though the man driving the first vehicle stayed in his seat. Marcus’s expression hardened.

The driver wore a dark travelling cloak with the hood pulled far enough forward to hide most of his face, and for several seconds he did not move at all.

"You. Down."

One of Marcus’s men shifted closer when the driver stayed where he was. "I said get down."

This time the driver moved. He stepped from the vehicle without hurry and landed on the road in front of Marcus, with no manifested Item in sight and his hands loose at his sides.

Something in that composure bothered Marcus. Every other man down there was watching the Rangers above them, while this one was watching him.

Marcus took another step forward. "Remove the hood."

The driver did not stir. Irritation climbed through Marcus’s chest, since he had taken enough risks coming here without some merchant’s servant deciding to test him.

"Take it off."

A hand rose toward the hood and the fabric slid back. Black hair appeared first, and Marcus stopped as the face beneath it came clear, one he had seen only a few days earlier across the table in his own tent.

Adrien Clairmont looked straight at him.

For one instant Marcus forgot the cargo and the twenty mercenaries ringing the road.

His mind raced through possibilities, hunting for how Adrien could have known where they would be and why the lord himself had been sitting in the driver’s seat.

Nobody spoke. Several Bloodfang mercenaries recognised him a moment later, and Marcus caught it in the way their posture changed as uncertainty spread through the men nearest the vehicle.

Adrien betrayed none of it. He simply stood in the middle of the road, surrounded by awakened mercenaries, as calm as he had been walking into their camp, his gaze fixed on Marcus.

"I expected more from you, Marcus..."