Chapter 606: The Journey, as Planned

"Mama taught me to respect the grey and elderly." a third passenger, with multi-colored hair, on the roof spoke in an even tone. "Sekhmet, please apologize."

She sat cross-legged near the rear edge of the roof, her expression almost empty of emotion.

The various colors in her hair shifted slightly when the breeze caught them.

"My name is Agora, and I am but eighty-four years old. Still far from what you lads label me as." I let the words out on a long breath and kept the reins steady in my hands.

[Author’s Note: Agora being 80 is akin to a regular human being 60-ish or so]

The two Scarab Boros moved at their usual unhurried pace, broad padded paws finding easy purchase on the packed earth.

The path beneath us was smooth and well-kept, a pale ribbon of packed dirt and worn stone that had been rolled over by wagons and walked by travelers for longer than most living people could remember.

It was wide enough that two carts could pass each other with only a little care, and level enough that the wheels rarely jolted.

On either side the land opened into a broad, open plain of soft rolling hills.

Long grass covered the rises and shallow valleys, shifting from deep green in the lower hollows to a dusty gold where the sun struck the higher slopes more directly.

Scattered stands of trees broke the openness at irregular intervals—old oaks with thick, spreading crowns that cast wide pools of shade, smaller clusters of birch whose pale trunks stood out cleanly against the darker greenery, and the occasional solitary pine that had somehow taken root far from any proper forest.

The sky sat high and clear above it all, a deep and steady blue that promised no rain for the rest of the day.

A light wind moved across the grass in slow, continuous waves, with the dry scent of earth, the warmer smell of the Scarab Boros’ hides, and the faint metallic tang of the iron fittings on the harness.

In the middle distance the hills rose and fell like the backs of great sleeping animals.

It was the kind of road that invited a man to let his thoughts wander, because the land itself seemed to have decided long ago that nothing urgent was going to happen here.

"Good sir, please forgive my companions, as they are very excited for our assignment." The voice belonged to the woman seated farther back on the wagon roof.

She was exceptionally beautiful in the particular way that forced a careful man to measure his own thoughts twice before he allowed them to settle;

Long blonde hair that shone in the sunlight, red-pink heterochromic eyes that seemed to shift slightly whenever she turned her head, and a priestess-like dress that somehow managed to reveal a great deal of skin while still looking deliberate rather than accidental.

The fabric draped and parted in places that left little doubt about the generous endowments beneath.

I quickly moved and kept my gaze fixed on the space between the Scarab Boros’ armored shoulders.

My wife and daughters would have had very strong opinions if they ever learned that someone built like this had spent hours riding on my wagon.

The last of the roof passengers remained as quiet as she had been since the moment we first met.

She was petite and smallish, her hair done up in neat pigtails that framed a flat, watchful face.

And she wore a dark outfit that consisted of what someone in Thaad had once called a bandeau—a simple strip of fabric wrapped around the chest with no straps at all, leaving the midriff entirely bare—and a pair of shorts so brief and tight that her legs were left uncovered from the upper thigh all the way down.

The adventurers in Thaad were not any better, but for these girls, modesty, as far as I could tell, was a foreign concept to every member of the group.

And then there was the peculiar passenger sitting beside me on the driver’s box.

This one had a fine face and wore a short, sleeveless top marked with unfamiliar characters across the chest and a pleated skirt cut high enough that the black, tight briefs underneath became clearly visible whenever the wagon hit even a minor unevenness in the road.

The body beneath those clothes was muscle-bound and solid through the shoulders and arms, and a small beard darkened the jawline.

When I had first called this person a man, the entire group—including the quiet one with the pigtails—had reacted with sudden, sharp violence.

The air had changed in an instant, and their voices had risen.

The ponytailed lady’s hand had moved toward her weapons, so I had not repeated the mistake.

SIGH...

When we first met they had been far more polite... or at least somewhat polite.

***

"Hey, old fart!"

The leader-looking one with the high ponytail had called out to me while I was on the road, the wagon loaded with the goods I meant to sell in Thaad’s markets.

She stood in the middle of the road with the others arranged loosely behind her, one hand resting in a casual but ready position near the hilt of a blade. Her voice flew easily across the short distance.

"We are heading towards your direction to a place called Thaad, and we are too lazy to walk the entire distance."

That had been truly sad and concerning in equal measure. They were still roughly three hundred miles from the city gates.

I had been prepared to refuse the request until I got a clearer look at the suspicious figure standing among them—the muscle-bound one in the skirt and the sleeveless top with the strange characters.

But before I could finish forming the question, something cold and flat pressed against the side of my neck.

The ponytail woman was suddenly close enough that I could see the individual strands of her hair and the steady focus in her eyes.

"Old fart... do you want to taste the sharp edge of my blade?"

The others had also been offended at the same time. One of them mentioned, almost conversationally, how easy it would be to tip an old man out of his own wagon and keep the Scarab Boros for themselves.

Another simply stood in a way that blocked any easy retreat.

I decided at that moment that they were not ordinary bandits—bandits rarely bothered with this much conversation before the knife—and that arguing further was unlikely to improve the rest of my afternoon.

I let them climb aboard.

***

My journey had been planned, and for two full weeks, I had not encountered any issues until then:

This was because the road was good, the weather had held fair, and this particular stretch of land had been safe from both monsters and bandits for centuries.

The Scarab Boros set a steady pace that ate the miles without complaint, their heavy bodies moving in a rolling rhythm that became soothing after the first few days.

Only a few days more, and we would reach out destination.

I had begun to think we might reach the outer markers of Thaad without any real incident.

"Ah, we’re being surrounded, Zanya," the cat girl muttered from the roof, her tone very relaxed.

I turned my head in the direction her green eyes indicated, expecting perhaps a few small, hungry creatures that had grown bold enough to leave the deeper grass in search of an easy meal.

But what I saw instead made the reins tighten hard in my hands.