Three days of shared road had settled the two groups into something that worked. The Liger's repaired leg held at full tolerance, the actuator sleeve showing no heat buildup under sustained travel. Twice a day, Alex checked the readout anyway, because that was who he was. Sela's wagons rolled in the Mule's wake, her remaining guards rotating watches without anyone needing to tell them.
On the fourth morning, Sela fell back from the lead wagon and brought her horse alongside the Mule's cab.
She asked about the Arosaurer's autocannon feed mechanism, then about Rhian's aim, then about the Lanstag's thruster calibration. None of the questions had anything to do with the freight contract.
Alex filed the shift as post-combat ease. People got chatty once the adrenaline finally bled out. He'd seen it in Veridia, too, how the settlement loosened for a few days after a successful Titan deterrence run before everyone remembered to be worried again.
Rhian had no such reservations about any of it. She vaulted from the Arosaurer's open hatch to Sela's stirrup, landed with the casual disregard for gravity that only a ten-year-old could pull off, and started talking about river fish.
Sela listened like the girl had handed her a manifest worth memorizing.
The Mule's engine held its rhythm beneath them. Rhian leaned over the cab's edge, boots braced on the running board, wind pulling at her braids.
"So what do you actually DO, Sela? Like, do you drive the wagons yourself? Do you fight bandits? Do you have a sword?"
Sela's horse kept pace without flinching. She didn't look away from the road.
"I move things. Wagons, barges, guards, schedules. If something needs to get from here to there intact and on time, it goes through my books. I don't drive, and I don't fight. I make sure the people who do have what they need when they need it."
"But WHY though? You could do anything. You're rich, right? You could just… live somewhere nice and not have to worry about getting attacked by Jackals on the road."
Sela's thumb pressed flat against the ledger strap across her chest. The tapping stopped.
The Mule's tires ground over packed earth. Wagon leather creaked behind them.
"I was twenty-two when my father got sick. The Mining Guild offered us exclusive rights to the Stonefang haul. Fortune money, is what he called it. He told me to take it, said security was worth more than pride."
The skin at the corners of her eyes pinched.
"I didn't. I kept hauling for both guilds at the same rate, same schedule, same standard. Watched three outfits that did pick a side get swallowed inside two years when the wind shifted."
She exhaled.
"My father never forgave me. I've never regretted it. Reliable to everyone, owned by no one. That's the whole philosophy."
Her thumb found the ledger spine again. Two taps. Three.
Alex recognized the shape of what she'd just done. She'd laid out her operating principle the same way he'd explain a load-bearing spec to Ziya: here's the stress it was designed around, here's the failure mode it was built to prevent. Sela's whole business was an engineering decision she'd made at twenty-two and never revised.
He respected that more than he wanted to say out loud.
"Anyway. Enough about me, Rhian. You're the one who stowed away on a Zoid transport. That's the better story."
Rhian grinned so wide it scrunched her nose.
"It was the best decision I ever made."
"Is that so."
"Yep. Even the food's better now. Mostly."
The corner of Sela's mouth moved, barely.
"I'm glad to hear it."
She guided her horse a few lengths closer to the Mule's cab window, pitched low enough that Rhian wouldn't catch it.
(Days Later)
The road crested a long rise, and the foothills dropped away beneath them, opening the valley in one long sweep.
Ironwood Junction sprawled across the river's confluence with the Stonefang foothills, built in three tiers against the rising ground. The Canopy Quarter crowned the western heights, where massive ironwood trunks rose through layered platforms and walkways, their trunks thicker than the Mule's full wheelbase, their crowns stitching a living roof over the oldest districts.
Alex's eyes went to the engineering first: the way the platforms were bolted into the heartwood at load-bearing intervals, the cable stays running between trunks like suspension bridge rigging, the whole structure distributing weight the way a well-designed chassis spreads impact across its frame.
Below that, the Millworks clung to the riverbank, sawmills and forges and ore processing plants trailing smoke into the afternoon light. The Great Xylosian River caught the sun between them and threw it back in hard silver flashes. Eastward, pressed against the mountains themselves, Foothill Row stretched in a long utilitarian line: warehouses, salvage yards, Warden outposts, staging grounds for expeditions into the Chasm.
Walls of layered stone and Titan-bone composite traced the perimeter, studded with sensor towers and weapon emplacements. The main gate stood open, a massive arch of reinforced timber and steel. Past it, the checkpoint was more fortress than toll station.
The Mule's sensor pods picked up active pings as they descended the final approach: targeting radar, seismic monitors, comms traffic dense enough to register as a hum in the cab's display. Data scrolled across the console, and the casual rhythm of the road fell away from him like a loose bolt dropping once you cross the vibration threshold.
Ziya straightened in her seat. Rhian went quiet, which meant she was either scared or storing up questions for later. Probably both.
A Warden in the gray-and-green of the Ironwood detachment stepped into their path, hand raised. He wore the insignia of a Rank 6 Senior, his face creased by decades of outdoor postings, not a desk rotation.
The Warden took in the convoy, the Mule, the two damaged wagons, the reduced escort, and lingered on the empty spaces where guards should have been.
"Vantram. You're light."
Sela reined her horse to a stop beside the cab.
"We were hit three days out, Warden. Duskfang Jackals, coordinated pack. I lost four guards and a driver before these three stepped in."
Her thumb settled against the ledger and held there for half a beat, then released.
The Warden's gaze shifted to Alex, then Rhian, then back to Alex.
"Travelers?"
"I'm Alex Veridia, Rank Seven Warden, independent contract. This is Ziya Stonehand, my engineer and my partner, and this is Rhian."
The man's hand dropped from the halt position to his belt. He squared off a fraction less.
"Ironwood doesn't turn away Wardens, especially not ones who keep Vantram freight moving. Welcome to the city."
He waved them forward. The massive timber-and-steel arch groaned inward on counterweighted hinges, and the Mule rolled across the threshold onto packed gravel streets that smelled of sawdust, hot metal, and river water.
Sela guided them into Foothill Row's grid of warehouses and salvage yards, her horse setting an easy pace beside the Mule. The streets narrowed as they climbed toward the Canopy Quarter's lower terraces. Ironwood trunks rose through reinforced platforms overhead, and Alex tracked the joinery as they passed, how each platform was seated into the living wood with interlocking brackets that allowed for growth without losing structural integrity. Whoever had designed the system understood that a living material needed room to move.
Sela's estate sat behind a stone wall topped with sensor arrays, a compound of low buildings arranged around a central courtyard that was practical and defensible, laid out the same way she'd laid out the convoy's marching order.
"I've got rooms for all of you. Hot water, real beds, food that isn't ration packs. Stay as long as you need."
Rhian bounced on her heels, grinning so hard her braids swung.
"Real beds!"
Ziya's shoulders dropped, and for a moment the weeks of road showed in how she let that tension go.
"That would be really good, honestly."
Alex had no reason to refuse. He followed Sela through the gate.
Advance chapters on my p@tR$0n/Najicablitz.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter