"Is this your caravan?" Ullsaard asked. The man nodded uncertainly, and climbed down from the wagon at a wave from the general.
"You're the renegades, aren't you?" the merchant said, gulping heavily with fright. "Are you going to kill us?"
"Not unless you want us to," replied Ullsaard. He looked up and down the line of wagons filling the road, while other traders approached cautiously to hear what was happening. "I'm buying all of your stock."
"You're… buying our stock?"
Ullsaard nodded and waved his men on. They climbed up onto the wagons, shoving drivers from their seats. There were fierce shouts from up ahead. A harassed-looking second captain came hurrying along the line and saluted Ullsaard.
"There's a man refusing to give us his wagons," the officer reported. "What should we do?"
"Kick his cunt in," said Ullsaard.
"General?"
"Rough him up, but don't kill him, that should stop trouble spreading," Ullsaard growled. The captain nodded in understanding and set off. Ullsaard turned his attention back to the caravan master. "We're not robbing you, unless you refuse to sell us what you have."
"You have money?"
"Of course," laughed Ullsaard. "Why wouldn't we?"
"I heard you were all starving in the mountains," said the merchant.
"Homeless vagabonds, that's what Nemtun called you lot," added another from a safe distance. "Cowards and traitors, too."
Cries of pain cut through the hubbub from the head of the caravan, punctuated by snarled curses and sounds of a thorough beating. A sobbing call for mercy ended with a snapping noise that caused the gathering merchants to wince in fear.
"We're doing you a service," said Ullsaard. The merchant captain cringed as the general leant an arm on the shorter man's shoulder and smiled. "You should know that Salphorian rebels and hillmen are running amok in the mountains coldwards of here. They would rob you; we won't. As long as you give us a fair price, of course."
"A fair price?" This came from a young man not far to Ullsaard's left. "What do you think is a fair price?"
Ullsaard straightened, strode over to the dissenting merchant and rested a hand on his sword.
"We'll start with your lives and work up from there, eh?" said the general with a pleasant smile. "But don't get too fussy, I have no stomach for haggling."
The youthful trader retreated a few steps and looked at his fellow merchants.
"They warned us about this!" he said. "I said we should have brought more men, but you were all worried about the cost. 'Shut up, Lenruun', you said. 'We can handle a gang of halfarsed ruffians', you all said. Look where that's got us. I hope you're Askhos-damned happy now, you bunch of misers!"
"And you're taking our wagons!" protested another voice from the crowd.
"We'll pay for those too," said Ullsaard. He pointed back along the road. "Leskhan is only two days' walking that way, stop complaining."
There was an impromptu conference amongst the senior merchants, whose heads bobbed and beards wagged as they discussed the situation. The caravan master approached Ullsaard, urged on by approving glances from his companions.
"All right, renegade," he said. "We'll give you everything at seventy sindins on the askharin. That's nearly a third of market value. That's a good price."
Ullsaard leisurely folded his arms and shook his head.
"Sixty?" offered the merchant.
Ullsaard looked over his shoulder towards a nearby phalanx of legionnaires. They booed and shook their heads. The general's gaze returned to the merchant, who sighed heavily.
"We can't go lower than fifty."
"Half price will be fine," Ullsaard said with a smile. "Pass the word to your men not to interfere, and make sure the Nemurians don't start anything. Take any personal belongings with you. I'm not paying for anything not on your ledgers."
The merchants gave reluctant nods and dispersed back to their wagons and families. Rondin approached Ullsaard, cocking an eye at the merchants.
"I still don't understand why we're paying for stuff we could just take," said the First Captain. "This lot wouldn't even make the boys break a sweat."
"We're going to need all the help we can get if we're to beat Nemtun and the king," Ullsaard said quietly. "The last thing we need is word spreading that we're murderous, thieving bastards. We forage what we can, pay for what we take and act like proper legions. Lutaar would love to paint us as lawless brigands, let's not give him the chance. Things are going to be difficult enough as it is without having to worry about every common man and woman in Greater Askhor hating us. If we get them on our side, we've half-won the war."
"And what's going to win the other half?" asked Rondin.
"We'll starve Anrair and Enair into submission, and then chop off Nemtun's head. That should do it." Ullsaard slapped a hand to Rondin's shoulder. "Let's get these wagons off to Anglhan before any of these idiots start having second thoughts."
II
Wandering along the clean, paved streets of Talladmun, Gelthius was again convinced that he had made the right choice siding with the Askhans. Magilnada aside, there was nowhere in all of Salphoria that could match the size and achievement of an Askhan town. Gelthius had never seen one before, and it was amazing to him that only twenty years earlier, Talladmun had been little more than a fishing village on the Ladmun River. He guessed there must be thousands living here now, in stone and wood buildings, brought from quarries and forests at least a dozen days' travel away. In contrast, even Carantathi, capital of Aegenuis, Salphoria's current king, looked like a dishevelled collection of rough barns and mud-brick hovels.
It'd be easy, thought Gelthius, to slip away into the town and hide until this all blew over. He could be a shoemaker again. Even Askhans needed shoes. He was not young, but Gelthius was sure he could find another wife; he still had it in him to raise another son or two. He could start all over; put the cattle thievery, the debts behind him. Nobody would care, nobody would know.
But Gelthius couldn't bring himself to slip away. He wasn't much for thinking, he was the first to admit, but he hadn't survived in an uncaring world by being slow-witted. The general was a man with an idea, and that sort of person, once started, was hard to stop. And Gelthius had no doubt that if he abandoned his current mission he would end up getting caught out in the end. Somehow, Ullsaard would find him and make him pay for any disobedience. If there was one thing above everything that he had learnt in his time in the Thirteenth, it was the price of failure.
There was something else that nagged at him as he walked along the main road that led to the town's central district. He already had a wife, two sons and a daughter. It would not be right for him to forget them while he enjoyed the comforts of this Askhan life. If he wanted this, it was only right that he shared it with them.
Family was important to Askhans: legionnaires got pensions, farmers got money from the king when their crop failed; even a middle-aged shoemaker could expect the odd bit of trade thrown his way by the legions or governors if he really needed it.
He crossed the street, nimbly stepping between two lumbering abada, as he caught sight of the distinctive black robe of a Brother amongst the growing crowd of townsfolk. He was in two minds about that lot. The other men in his company had told him how the Brotherhood was the glue that kept the Askhan Empire stuck together. A word from a Brother could make or break a man, but they couldn't be bribed, couldn't be flattered, couldn't be tricked. They were, as third captain Leagois had put it, "straight as the Royal Way," whatever that meant.