Hjorimir
Adventurer
Tæün: Reflections (Updated 11-1-04)
1 - The Bottom Line
The Great Road, Darion’s March
Lazzaro Balsorano smoothed his finely trimmed goatee and impishly smiled. Business had been good as of late. That business involved the transporting of rather illegal items for some individuals of questionable moral standards. With the profit he had acquired from that recent side venture he had managed to afford his latest expensive ensemble, which included a fine silken shirt imported from the Kishtü Empire and a broad-rimmed hat, in the latest style, complete with a long, blue feather from some exotic bird he’d never heard of.
His cousin, Alfeo, and he sat upon the first of five wagons that made up a trade caravan that slowly made its way southeast along the Great Road from the Ainurian Kingdom of Vor’Andur towards the thriving markets to be found in the Castulian City-States. The wagons creaked and groaned with the pitch of the road under their heavy loads of leathers and the thick steel armor crafted only in the west.
The armor was an especially hard to find commodity in the city-states, where the locals favored more refined trappings, wasn’t meant for the native Castulians; it was meant to sell to the mercenary levies they retained for their continued protection. Those mercenaries were mostly comprised of professional soldiers of Eduni and Fjoti stock with the occasional maniacal Vastil tossed in to keep things interesting. Besides maybe whores and spirits, there was nothing more valuable to a mercenary than the tools of his trade: the blade he used to keep his job and the armor he wore to keep his life.
But such things were far from the mind of Lazzaro that morning. If all went well he would be in the town of Wrensford by evening. There, Ewart Jardine, a merchant of no small wealth had been attempting to marry off his eldest daughter, Lysette, to Lazzaro for quite some time. While having absolutely no intention of courting the girl, Lazzaro appreciated the situation for an entirely different reason. Ewart had courteously extended Lazzaro the use of his private warehouse to store his freight. This had allowed Lazzaro to evade the rather costly tariffs, which were collected at the public warehouses, on behalf of the Marquis Jeannot Beauvais of Arlies.
The tariffs were for the use of the road and bridge maintained by the Marquis who owned the scir where Wrensford was located. The bridge was on of the few places one could cross the great Corandil River, whose deep, gelid waters meandered down from the Braetic Sea in the north along a wide, serpentine course before finally giving way to the dark marshlands far south of the frontier. There were, of course, other ways to cross. But they took one a bit too far off the Great Road or veered too close to some dangerous areas frequented by bandits and worse.
The Marquis, being aware of these facts, made sure to capitalize as much as he could. His heavy tax burden only added fuel to Lazzaro’s distaste for the Maqess, a people he found rather snobbish and, ultimately, boring. Besides, everybody knew that the Castulians were more sophisticated than anybody else on the continent of Emoria. And being half-Castulian himself he tended to lump himself in that category whenever convenient. Of course there were times were being Ainurian had its advantages as well. Lazzaro wore many hats in his line of business.
The road ahead made a shallow decline where it emerged into an open meadow before being consumed, once again, by the tracks of light forest that dominated the countryside of Darion’s March. Lazzaro, who had allowed the horses to take the reign as long as they kept to the road, was considering some of his more complex business schemes when he instinctively ducked to his side as an arrow imbedded itself in the crate behind the bench. There were already more arrows flying through the air and, if the screams he heard were any kind of indication, many were finding suitable targets in the shippers and guards of the Balsorano Trading Company.
With a curse he came to his senses and noticed the orcs streaming from the trees on both sides of the road. Unfortunately, in his evasion of the sniper, he had dropped the reins of his team, which slid off the wagon to the ground below. The horses screamed and attempted desperately to turn the wagon around where they promptly wedged it in a precarious side position blocking the entire road. Lazzaro cursed as he struggled to maintain his balance upon his violently, lurching seat.
The orcs fired a second volley of arrows that screamed through the air though few found their mark this time as the men had started to react. Some of the guards returned fire from heavy crossbows into the main body of the charging orcs, felling a few, before tossing them aside in order to prepare for the coming melee.
Lazzaro, intending to get his horses turned back around, whipped a dagger out as he leapt from the wagon and hurled it squarely into the gut of a charging orc. This put the orc into a running dive where it came skidding to a halt. This had pushed the blade deeper into its body where it formed a gory apex of skin from the small of its back. Lazzaro made a mental not to write the dagger off as a business expense.
Three orcs pounced upon Lazzaro’s position swinging large, curved blades. One struck true upon his shoulder where his blood seeped into his fine, white shirt. He sighed thinking of how much money that one cut had cost him.
Finding he didn’t at all like being alone with the three orcs, Lazzaro fell back in a tuck and rolled under the wagon where he popped to his feet with his short sword in hand. There he found himself on the blind side of an orc who was engaged with one of the caravan guards. He made a single, well-placed thrust sliding the blade easily between the ribs causing the orc to crumple to the ground with a gurgling moan.
***
The battle had been costly. While they did manage to route the orcs and send them running back off into the wilds, Lazzaro had lost five men in the struggle and all but a few others were injured, most of them seriously. They bandaged the wounded as best they could and gathered the fallen men before continuing on their way to Wrensford.
Lazzaro’s stop in Wrensford was brief and all business. News there told of a number of ambushes by northern orc tribes along the Great Road in the past weeks that were causing a great amount of concern for travelers and settlers alike. The town, as much as those who used their bridge, depended upon the trade for money and supplies. While orcs had occasionally been seen this far south, large marauding groups of them were literally unheard of. From what he gathered of those shippers coming up from the city-states en route to the kingdoms, the attacks had been even worse further down the road.
The fact that Lord Jeannot had only last year released a group of rangers from his service due to their status as a “superfluous expense” only served to make the entire situation increasingly bitter for everybody involved. Of course, living in Arlies, the Marquis himself was in no immediate danger from these orcish attacks so his position was quite understandable. Besides, the town guard should be more than sufficient to deal with any “unpleasantries.”
Quickly surmising that the town guard was in no position to do much more than keep the orcs from actually entering the town proper, Lazzaro turned his caravan back around and returned to his grandfather’s estate in Vor’Andur to discuss the situation.
***
Aranarth, Vor’Andur
Like many of their competitors the Balsorano Trading Company, a respected family business of brokers and shippers, relied upon the use of the Great Road to conduct their business between the Castulian City-States and Ainurian Kingdoms. So the news of the orcish attacks was taken quite seriously.
Amadeo Balsorano was Lazzaro’s grandfather and Patriarch of the family. He made all the final decisions about the family business and was, ultimately, responsible for their well-being. After hearing his grandson’s report of the ambushes that effectively closed the Great Road, he presented himself to the Traders Guild seeking their support.
What Amadeo got was a bunch of traders who, in true entrepreneurial spirit, didn’t want to spend the money necessary to hire the kind of men who could take solve the problem. They argued over the course of three days laying blame and responsibility on any number of individuals, agencies, guilds, churches, and nobles. The one thing they agreed on, however, is that somebody else was responsible for opening the road. And that somebody would have to foot the bill.
Having nobody left to turn to, Amadeo and Lazzaro appealed to the Æhüthian Mother Church. While not exactly an obvious choice, the Church did want to improve its reputation within the March where the splintering Quinterion heterodoxy had been steadily growing over the past two decades. They played the “many people are dying” card in their plea and were summarily rewarded the service of one Aramon.
Father Aramon Botan was a young priest who had come into his faith late in life after his young wife, Shara, fell ill and passed away. Vardacale, a missionary priest, had comforted him during her passing, helping him understand death not as life’s ending, but as a transition to the Eternal.
But this wasn’t what interested the Balsoranos about the dark robed cleric. What was interesting to them was the Sign of Merlutat upon the holy symbol hanging from his neck. Merlutat was one of Exustius Optivus, The Chosen Seraphim, The Burning Hand of God, The Five. Merlutat was, in fact, the Angel of Death.
Aramon lowered his hood, gave a surprisingly warm smile and simply said, “Hello.” He had short, bowl-cut blonde hair and remarkably light blue eyes indicating at least a trace of Fjoti heritage within him. He wasn’t a very large man, as the northerners tended to be. Instead his Ainurian origins shined through, as he was rather short being well shy of six feet in height.
Amadeo, always the friendly businessman, extended his hand and returned the greeting. An uncomfortable silence followed as they considered the priest and what exactly to do with him.
“Not what you expected?” Aramon inquired sensing their unease.
The elder Balsorano shook his head and gave a half-hearted smile. “Not exactly, Father. Please, take no offence. But when we pressed for aid and were informed they were sending a priest we were expecting something a little more…shiny.”
The cleric nodded in understanding. “I am not a member of the Preceptory. I’ve never even been trained in heavy armor or the use of a shield for that matter. Actually I’m something of a scribe.”
Lazzaro groaned.
Ignoring the men, Aramon pressed on, “None the less, I am certain I can be of some aid within the March. If nothing else, I can always perform last rites for the dead and ease the burden of sorrow.” His explanation, meaning to efface their doubts, only made them all the more depressed.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not entirely sure how that is going to help with the orcs who have infested the area,” Lazzaro interrupted.
“It is not for us to comprehend the Mysterion. We can only do as Æhü intends,” Aramon countered.
“Oh sure, I know that,” Lazzaro lied smoothly. “It is just that by bringing a priest of your particular, uh, function we may be sending the wrong message to the March; suggesting they’re all going to die or something.”
“They are,” Aramon agreed.
He was met with flat stares.
Going on the cleric added, “Not that I am saying they will necessarily die at the hands of these orcs. But they will die. Eventually we all do. It is a certainty.”
His emphasis upon ‘will’ was perhaps said with too much earnest. Unsure if the priest was attempting to be witty or not, they capitulated and returned to Amadeo’s estate where Lazzaro and Aramon prepared to return to Wrensford.
***
“See if you can find some people to help figure out what is really going on down there,” Amadeo suggested as Lazzaro packed his belongings.
“I certainly don’t plan on going it alone,” Lazzaro replied stuffing a long-bladed dagger in his left boot.
Aramon cleared his throat.
“Well, you know what I mean,” Lazzaro explained. “Anyway, if I must I can always hire a sell-sword or two before we consider anything risky.”
“I’m not sending you there to be a hero, Laz. I’m sending you there to see if there is a way to open trade back up. If even only for us,” his grandfather chided.
Lazzaro only shrugged as he continued his packing. “Perhaps we could store the armor shipment in Lord Jardine’s warehouse indefinitely. As soon as the road is opened we would be at least a week ahead of our competitors here in Aranarth. The longer it takes, the more the prices will have risen in the city-states and we will be able to recover most, if not all, of our lost profit.”
Amadeo beamed a smile at his current, favorite grandson. “I like the way you think. I will send the caravan back down as soon as I replace the men we lost. As it is, I have yet to speak with their families and compensate them for their loss,” he said sadly.
Aramon sighed, disapproving of the manner in which they reduced the death of good men into debts to be paid. There was always a bottom line somewhere with traders.
1 - The Bottom Line
The Great Road, Darion’s March
Lazzaro Balsorano smoothed his finely trimmed goatee and impishly smiled. Business had been good as of late. That business involved the transporting of rather illegal items for some individuals of questionable moral standards. With the profit he had acquired from that recent side venture he had managed to afford his latest expensive ensemble, which included a fine silken shirt imported from the Kishtü Empire and a broad-rimmed hat, in the latest style, complete with a long, blue feather from some exotic bird he’d never heard of.
His cousin, Alfeo, and he sat upon the first of five wagons that made up a trade caravan that slowly made its way southeast along the Great Road from the Ainurian Kingdom of Vor’Andur towards the thriving markets to be found in the Castulian City-States. The wagons creaked and groaned with the pitch of the road under their heavy loads of leathers and the thick steel armor crafted only in the west.
The armor was an especially hard to find commodity in the city-states, where the locals favored more refined trappings, wasn’t meant for the native Castulians; it was meant to sell to the mercenary levies they retained for their continued protection. Those mercenaries were mostly comprised of professional soldiers of Eduni and Fjoti stock with the occasional maniacal Vastil tossed in to keep things interesting. Besides maybe whores and spirits, there was nothing more valuable to a mercenary than the tools of his trade: the blade he used to keep his job and the armor he wore to keep his life.
But such things were far from the mind of Lazzaro that morning. If all went well he would be in the town of Wrensford by evening. There, Ewart Jardine, a merchant of no small wealth had been attempting to marry off his eldest daughter, Lysette, to Lazzaro for quite some time. While having absolutely no intention of courting the girl, Lazzaro appreciated the situation for an entirely different reason. Ewart had courteously extended Lazzaro the use of his private warehouse to store his freight. This had allowed Lazzaro to evade the rather costly tariffs, which were collected at the public warehouses, on behalf of the Marquis Jeannot Beauvais of Arlies.
The tariffs were for the use of the road and bridge maintained by the Marquis who owned the scir where Wrensford was located. The bridge was on of the few places one could cross the great Corandil River, whose deep, gelid waters meandered down from the Braetic Sea in the north along a wide, serpentine course before finally giving way to the dark marshlands far south of the frontier. There were, of course, other ways to cross. But they took one a bit too far off the Great Road or veered too close to some dangerous areas frequented by bandits and worse.
The Marquis, being aware of these facts, made sure to capitalize as much as he could. His heavy tax burden only added fuel to Lazzaro’s distaste for the Maqess, a people he found rather snobbish and, ultimately, boring. Besides, everybody knew that the Castulians were more sophisticated than anybody else on the continent of Emoria. And being half-Castulian himself he tended to lump himself in that category whenever convenient. Of course there were times were being Ainurian had its advantages as well. Lazzaro wore many hats in his line of business.
The road ahead made a shallow decline where it emerged into an open meadow before being consumed, once again, by the tracks of light forest that dominated the countryside of Darion’s March. Lazzaro, who had allowed the horses to take the reign as long as they kept to the road, was considering some of his more complex business schemes when he instinctively ducked to his side as an arrow imbedded itself in the crate behind the bench. There were already more arrows flying through the air and, if the screams he heard were any kind of indication, many were finding suitable targets in the shippers and guards of the Balsorano Trading Company.
With a curse he came to his senses and noticed the orcs streaming from the trees on both sides of the road. Unfortunately, in his evasion of the sniper, he had dropped the reins of his team, which slid off the wagon to the ground below. The horses screamed and attempted desperately to turn the wagon around where they promptly wedged it in a precarious side position blocking the entire road. Lazzaro cursed as he struggled to maintain his balance upon his violently, lurching seat.
The orcs fired a second volley of arrows that screamed through the air though few found their mark this time as the men had started to react. Some of the guards returned fire from heavy crossbows into the main body of the charging orcs, felling a few, before tossing them aside in order to prepare for the coming melee.
Lazzaro, intending to get his horses turned back around, whipped a dagger out as he leapt from the wagon and hurled it squarely into the gut of a charging orc. This put the orc into a running dive where it came skidding to a halt. This had pushed the blade deeper into its body where it formed a gory apex of skin from the small of its back. Lazzaro made a mental not to write the dagger off as a business expense.
Three orcs pounced upon Lazzaro’s position swinging large, curved blades. One struck true upon his shoulder where his blood seeped into his fine, white shirt. He sighed thinking of how much money that one cut had cost him.
Finding he didn’t at all like being alone with the three orcs, Lazzaro fell back in a tuck and rolled under the wagon where he popped to his feet with his short sword in hand. There he found himself on the blind side of an orc who was engaged with one of the caravan guards. He made a single, well-placed thrust sliding the blade easily between the ribs causing the orc to crumple to the ground with a gurgling moan.
***
The battle had been costly. While they did manage to route the orcs and send them running back off into the wilds, Lazzaro had lost five men in the struggle and all but a few others were injured, most of them seriously. They bandaged the wounded as best they could and gathered the fallen men before continuing on their way to Wrensford.
Lazzaro’s stop in Wrensford was brief and all business. News there told of a number of ambushes by northern orc tribes along the Great Road in the past weeks that were causing a great amount of concern for travelers and settlers alike. The town, as much as those who used their bridge, depended upon the trade for money and supplies. While orcs had occasionally been seen this far south, large marauding groups of them were literally unheard of. From what he gathered of those shippers coming up from the city-states en route to the kingdoms, the attacks had been even worse further down the road.
The fact that Lord Jeannot had only last year released a group of rangers from his service due to their status as a “superfluous expense” only served to make the entire situation increasingly bitter for everybody involved. Of course, living in Arlies, the Marquis himself was in no immediate danger from these orcish attacks so his position was quite understandable. Besides, the town guard should be more than sufficient to deal with any “unpleasantries.”
Quickly surmising that the town guard was in no position to do much more than keep the orcs from actually entering the town proper, Lazzaro turned his caravan back around and returned to his grandfather’s estate in Vor’Andur to discuss the situation.
***
Aranarth, Vor’Andur
Like many of their competitors the Balsorano Trading Company, a respected family business of brokers and shippers, relied upon the use of the Great Road to conduct their business between the Castulian City-States and Ainurian Kingdoms. So the news of the orcish attacks was taken quite seriously.
Amadeo Balsorano was Lazzaro’s grandfather and Patriarch of the family. He made all the final decisions about the family business and was, ultimately, responsible for their well-being. After hearing his grandson’s report of the ambushes that effectively closed the Great Road, he presented himself to the Traders Guild seeking their support.
What Amadeo got was a bunch of traders who, in true entrepreneurial spirit, didn’t want to spend the money necessary to hire the kind of men who could take solve the problem. They argued over the course of three days laying blame and responsibility on any number of individuals, agencies, guilds, churches, and nobles. The one thing they agreed on, however, is that somebody else was responsible for opening the road. And that somebody would have to foot the bill.
Having nobody left to turn to, Amadeo and Lazzaro appealed to the Æhüthian Mother Church. While not exactly an obvious choice, the Church did want to improve its reputation within the March where the splintering Quinterion heterodoxy had been steadily growing over the past two decades. They played the “many people are dying” card in their plea and were summarily rewarded the service of one Aramon.
Father Aramon Botan was a young priest who had come into his faith late in life after his young wife, Shara, fell ill and passed away. Vardacale, a missionary priest, had comforted him during her passing, helping him understand death not as life’s ending, but as a transition to the Eternal.
But this wasn’t what interested the Balsoranos about the dark robed cleric. What was interesting to them was the Sign of Merlutat upon the holy symbol hanging from his neck. Merlutat was one of Exustius Optivus, The Chosen Seraphim, The Burning Hand of God, The Five. Merlutat was, in fact, the Angel of Death.
Aramon lowered his hood, gave a surprisingly warm smile and simply said, “Hello.” He had short, bowl-cut blonde hair and remarkably light blue eyes indicating at least a trace of Fjoti heritage within him. He wasn’t a very large man, as the northerners tended to be. Instead his Ainurian origins shined through, as he was rather short being well shy of six feet in height.
Amadeo, always the friendly businessman, extended his hand and returned the greeting. An uncomfortable silence followed as they considered the priest and what exactly to do with him.
“Not what you expected?” Aramon inquired sensing their unease.
The elder Balsorano shook his head and gave a half-hearted smile. “Not exactly, Father. Please, take no offence. But when we pressed for aid and were informed they were sending a priest we were expecting something a little more…shiny.”
The cleric nodded in understanding. “I am not a member of the Preceptory. I’ve never even been trained in heavy armor or the use of a shield for that matter. Actually I’m something of a scribe.”
Lazzaro groaned.
Ignoring the men, Aramon pressed on, “None the less, I am certain I can be of some aid within the March. If nothing else, I can always perform last rites for the dead and ease the burden of sorrow.” His explanation, meaning to efface their doubts, only made them all the more depressed.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not entirely sure how that is going to help with the orcs who have infested the area,” Lazzaro interrupted.
“It is not for us to comprehend the Mysterion. We can only do as Æhü intends,” Aramon countered.
“Oh sure, I know that,” Lazzaro lied smoothly. “It is just that by bringing a priest of your particular, uh, function we may be sending the wrong message to the March; suggesting they’re all going to die or something.”
“They are,” Aramon agreed.
He was met with flat stares.
Going on the cleric added, “Not that I am saying they will necessarily die at the hands of these orcs. But they will die. Eventually we all do. It is a certainty.”
His emphasis upon ‘will’ was perhaps said with too much earnest. Unsure if the priest was attempting to be witty or not, they capitulated and returned to Amadeo’s estate where Lazzaro and Aramon prepared to return to Wrensford.
***
“See if you can find some people to help figure out what is really going on down there,” Amadeo suggested as Lazzaro packed his belongings.
“I certainly don’t plan on going it alone,” Lazzaro replied stuffing a long-bladed dagger in his left boot.
Aramon cleared his throat.
“Well, you know what I mean,” Lazzaro explained. “Anyway, if I must I can always hire a sell-sword or two before we consider anything risky.”
“I’m not sending you there to be a hero, Laz. I’m sending you there to see if there is a way to open trade back up. If even only for us,” his grandfather chided.
Lazzaro only shrugged as he continued his packing. “Perhaps we could store the armor shipment in Lord Jardine’s warehouse indefinitely. As soon as the road is opened we would be at least a week ahead of our competitors here in Aranarth. The longer it takes, the more the prices will have risen in the city-states and we will be able to recover most, if not all, of our lost profit.”
Amadeo beamed a smile at his current, favorite grandson. “I like the way you think. I will send the caravan back down as soon as I replace the men we lost. As it is, I have yet to speak with their families and compensate them for their loss,” he said sadly.
Aramon sighed, disapproving of the manner in which they reduced the death of good men into debts to be paid. There was always a bottom line somewhere with traders.
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