The Exiled Duke's Lottery system

Belhorn’s yard contained thirty-one wagons, roughly eighty people, twice as many animals and enough shouting to suggest that nobody involved trusted anyone else to hear properly.

Aldis arrived at the first light.

Four people followed him.

Durn,Thorne,Ghara and Pib.

They crossed the yard heading directly toward the man everyone else seemed to move around.

Belhorn was sixty, perhaps older, thin as a fence post, and carried a short stick that he used for pointing rather than walking. He stood beside a wagon with one boot on the wheel hub, watching three men argue over a load of grain.

He noticed Aldis before Aldis spoke.

"You’re the one drinking with my teamsters."

Aldis smiled.

"I have been drinking with everybody’s teamsters. Yours complain the least. That is how I knew whose yard to come to."

Belhorn stared at him.

"Flattery is free."

"I’ve heard worse things said about me."

"What can you do?"

Aldis did not hesitate.

"I can count. I can load a wagon so the cargo doesn’t shift and tell at a glance when a barrel is going to roll over."

Belhorn looked past him.

Aldis followed the movement of his eyes.

"The big one lifts."

Thorne remained expressionless.

"The dwarf mends."

Durn gave Aldis a brief look.

"The orc can handle anything with legs."

Ghara’s expression suggested she was considering demonstrating that statement on Aldis.

"And the goblin?"

Pib folded her arms.

"The goblin can fix anything you’ve broken that no one else has been able to repair.

Belhorn glanced at all five of them. "That’s a lot of talking," he remarked.

Aldis grinned. "I hear that from plenty of folks."

"Get in the yard and we see if you are worth the coin"

Belhorn watched them for two hours then gave them work.

Thorne was sent to the loading ramp with a man named Ostry, who had spent nine years loading wagons and looked deeply offended at being given help.

Forty minutes later, Ostry stopped working walked across the yard and said something quietly to Belhorn.

Belhorn nodded once.

Thorne remained on the loading ramp.

Ghara was sent to the animal pens.

A four-team stood waiting beside a wagon.

No instructions,no explanation.

She examined the harness.

Then started working just when she had nearly finished when one of the teamsters noticed.

"You’ve got that wrong."

Ghara looked at him.

"The setup is different."

"The rear pair first."

"That’s not how I’m used to doing it."

"Then get used to it."

Ghara looked at him for a moment then undid the first section.

"Show me."

The teamster showed her once.

Then harnessed the team again, this time, his way.

When she finished, the teamster checked the work.

Then walked away.

Belhorn had been watching from across the yard.

Ghara noticed.

She did not acknowledge him.

Pib disappeared beneath a wagon.

The brake shoe had cracked.

Two men had already looked at it.

One had declared that the entire assembly needed replacing.

Pib spent twenty minutes underneath.

When she finally crawled out, her arms were black with grease and dust.

She then kicked the wheel once.

"Try it."

The teamster pulled the lever.

The brake caught.

He released it pulled again.

Still working.

Pib wiped her hands on her trousers.

"There."

The man stared at the mechanism.

"What did you do?"

"Fixed it."

"I can see that."

"Then why ask?"

She walked away before he could answer.

Durn was handed a wheel, and that’s when things almost went south. The felloe was cracked, and two spokes were loose. It had been propped against the fence for a week, everyone agreeing it’d be cheaper to replace than fix.

Belhorn tapped it with his stick.

"See what you can do."

Durn glanced at the wheel, then at Belhorn.

"Just see?"

"That’s what I said."

He crouched beside it, and within fifteen minutes had the wheel apart.

Aldis, paces away with a tally board in hand, pretended to count sacks but kept an eye on him.

Durn stopped, his attention snapping to the hub—and Aldis immediately understood why.

The cut on the hub was rough, obvious to anyone who knew their craft, and the spacer tacked on later was a lazy patch for a mistake, not a real fix.

He could repair the wheel, swap out the damaged section, and tweak the spacing in the process—ending up with something far better than anything in Belhorn’s yard, and proving just how much he really knew about building but that seemed unecessary.

Durn stared at the hub for a moment before picking up the spacer and setting it back in place. Aldis let out a slow breath as Durn fixed the cracked felloe, tightened the spokes, and finished repairing the wheel. When he was done, he rolled it over to Belhorn and propped it against the fence. "That will hold to the river," he said.

Belhorn gave it a careful look.

"Past that?"

"I would rather not trust it."

Belhorn crouched.

He ran his fingers along the repaired section then he looked at Durn.

" Do you know how long has that wheel been leaning there?"

"Nope."

"A week."

Durn said nothing.

Belhorn placed his stick beneath the rim and rocked it.

"And you had it apart in fifteen minutes."

"It is a wheel."

"It is a wheel two men in this yard looked at and walked away from."

Durn shrugged.

Belhorn still kept staring at him.

"Where did you learn?"

"From my father."

"And him?"

"His father."

Belhorn held his gaze for another moment.

Then pointed toward the wagon line.

"Third wagon."

Durn nodded.

"Do not touch anything I haven’t given you."

Durn looked at the wheel.

Then back at Belhorn.

"I wasn’t planning to."

Belhorn snorted.

"That’s what worries me."

An hour later, the remaining three arrived.

Vale led Renna, with Elenwe trailing behind as they walked into the yard without so much as a glance at Aldis’s group. Aldis stood by a stack of crates, while Durn busied himself with the third wagon. Ghara tended to the animals, and Pib had vanished somewhere under another vehicle.

Belhorn made his way toward them.

"And what business do you have here, sir? Or are you also here for a job? If so, what can you do?"

Vale thought for a moment.

"I can walk."

Belhorn gave him a long look.

"Carry."

"Stand watch at night."

Belhorn’s stick tapped against his boot.

"Can you fight?"

"If I have to."

"You won’t have to."

Vale waited.

"I’ve got four men for that," Belhorn said. "and they’re paid more than you."

"Fair enough."

He pointed with the stick.

"This is where the road gets rough. If something happens, you do what those four tell you."

"Understood."

"Can you follow orders?"

Vale met his gaze.

"Yes."

Belhorn considered the reply.

"That’s the first useful thing anyone said today."

He gestured toward the ninth wagon.

"You’re on that one. Your two friends go with you."

Elenwe glanced his way.

By sunset, they had all gathered in Belhorn’s caravan, and that was enough. The caravan set off on Friday before the sunrise passing through the northern gate took twenty minutes.

The sergeant stepped out of the guardhouse, strolled along the length of the caravan counting those walking beside the wagons, then moved to the front to exchange a few words with Belhorn.

Belhorn laughed as the sergeant stepped aside and waved the train forward.

Soon the wagons rolled on, one after another, passing beneath the northern arch and everyone sighed a relief completing the first phase of their mission.

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