Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

CH783 Convoy Holdup

***

The Fortuna convoy heading towards the Frontier March wasn’t having the best of days.

Nothing particularly bad had happened to the convoy, but what was happening to it—depending on how one looked at it—wasn’t exactly good either.

As the convoy travelled through various domains to avoid Marquis Brandford’s sphere of influence, they gradually picked up vagabonds along the way—people desperate enough to join a convoy bound for the infamous Frontier March in the north-east of the Empire.

Initially, this wasn’t a major problem.

The convoy managed to reach Baron Corbin’s harbour relatively quickly and without any trouble.

Thanks to the boat bridge created by Alex’s hundred-man group when they had previously passed through the harbour to cross the Rotbark River, the convoy was able to cross the river exponentially faster than a group of nearly three thousand people should have been able to, especially considering the harbour’s poor facilities.

It was only after they crossed the Rotbark River that their ’troubles’ began.

Although they travelled with the intention of avoiding as many settlements as possible, there was only so much Sinia and Dalton could do with a crowd of their size.

Even the most incompetent scouts would have spotted them, as most of the group consisted of civilians who couldn’t conceal their tracks. Then again, given the convoy’s sheer size, it would have been difficult—if not impossible—to hide its trail even if they had wanted to.

Left with little choice, Sinia and Dalton decided to visit every border settlement and each domain capital they passed, informing the local domain lord and their retainers of the convoy’s presence to prevent any misunderstandings from arising.

That, in itself, wasn’t a problem.

The problem was that the domain lords they met—as though acting upon some prior consensus—each decided to hand over more vagabonds and destitute people from their territories, citing the longstanding Imperial order that such people were to be relocated to the Frontier March to help populate it.

Fortunately, most of the people handed over were merely impoverished peasants –beggars, at worst— rather than the petty criminals also covered by the Imperial order.

Even so, the entire situation felt suspicious.

Although such people were generally considered undesirable within their domains, domain lords had always been reluctant to comply with the Imperial order, as doing so reduced the population of their territories—and no domain lord willingly gave up their subjects.

Seeing them willingly hand over their people—including some useful slaves—planted seeds of suspicion in Sinia and Dalton’s minds.

Even so, the two Combat Masters leading the convoy neither tried to stop it nor informed either their commander, Saul Redwald, or their liege, Alex, of their suspicions.

After all, bringing more people into the domain would ultimately strengthen it, as the Frontier March inherently suffered from a low population.

The only issue was food and supplies.

Unfortunately, the domain lords did not provide any food or provisions for the additional people they were pushing onto the convoy.

In the words of the domain lords themselves, they were already doing both the convoy and the Frontier March a favour by handing over those people. Supplying them with food and other necessities would only hurt their own bottom line.

Thus, the convoy had no choice but to purchase what it needed from the various domains to sustain itself—naturally at highly inflated prices.

Every domain followed the exact same script, leading the four Combat Masters commanding the convoy to suspect that the domain lords’ true intention was to drain the capital their liege, Alex—the new Frontier March domain lord—had brought with him.

Without sufficient funds, it would become difficult for the new lord of the Frontier March to undertake any meaningful development projects, thereby ensuring the domain remained subordinate and dependent upon both the Frontier Stronghold and the surrounding domains.

At the same time, those domain lords earned a healthy profit in berserk stones and shards.

However, had that been the extent of their scheming, Dalton, Sinia, and the other two former BattleBane Combat Masters would not have minded too much.

After all, Alex had provided them with more than enough funds to support their convoy, which had now grown to over seven thousand people.

It was around the midway point of their journey towards the valley entrance that matters escalated.

The domain lords whose territories they passed through began attempting to use the convoy as a pawn in their territorial disputes after noticing that it possessed an unusually large number of powerful Silver to Gold Rank combatants.

Fortunately, Sinia, Dalton, and the other two Combat Masters had concealed their true cultivation. Otherwise, the situation might have become even worse.

Seeing through one domain lord’s attempt to use the convoy’s forces against a neighbouring rival, the convoy’s Gold Rankers used their superior strength to suppress the domain lord’s own troops, thoroughly crushing any further foolish ideas he might have entertained.

Or so they thought.

The sly noble instead sent word to his rival, claiming that a powerful force belonging to one of his allies was marching to raze his domain.

As a result, the rival domain lord confronted the convoy with open hostility when it attempted to pass through his territory.

Even when the convoy explained that they were merely passing through, the man refused to believe them.

Eventually, Dalton was forced to step in.

He captured the domain lord and gave him a thorough beating to make the man realise that, if the convoy had truly wanted him dead, they possessed more than enough strength to kill him outright. There was no need for deception or elaborate schemes.

As such, they had no reason to lie about either their origins or their intentions.

Only then did the rival domain lord allow them to pass.

However, while the convoy continued on its way, the scheming noble led his own troops in a flanking attack against his rival’s forces.

The ambush succeeded, allowing the noble to defeat his rival by exploiting the convoy’s presence, despite the convoy having done everything it could to avoid assisting either side.

Left with little choice, the convoy could only continue its journey.

Unfortunately, news of the incident spread ahead of them.

The domain lords whose territories they still needed to cross either refused them passage outright—forcing lengthy detours—or agreed to let them through only if the convoy first rendered them some service.

More often than not, this service involved dragging the convoy into a conflict with another noble or resolving a dangerous security problem within the domain.

The convoy steadfastly refused the former while reluctantly accepting the latter.

However, domain lords seeking help against genuine threats—such as dangerous beasts or bandit groups beyond the capabilities of their own garrisons—were few and far between.

Far more often, they simply wanted to use the convoy as a weapon against their political and territorial rivals.

That meant even more detours, further extending the convoy’s estimated travel time to the Frontier March.

Even then, as the scheming noble had demonstrated, avoiding direct involvement did not necessarily prevent other nobles from exploiting the convoy for their own benefit.

Left with no alternative, Sinia, Dalton, and the other two former BattleBane Combat Masters agreed that it was time to inform Saul and Alex so they could devise a solution.

***

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