Necromancer: Kingdom Building with My Legion of Undead Knights

Chapter 224: The Stopover

One day into the journey and Darion decided that perhaps renting a carriage would have been more comfortable than staying on a horse back.

The saddle was hard, the rhythm of the horse’s gait was relentless, and his back was starting to ache in ways that made him miss the simple comfort of a chair.

His legs were kinda stiff, his thighs slightly sore from gripping the horse’s sides, and he found himself shifting constantly, trying to find a position that didn’t make his muscles ache a little.

The reasons were obvious: when he wanted to sleep or rest, there was no way to do it properly on a horse. You couldn’t lie down. You couldn’t stretch out. You couldn’t close your eyes without worrying about falling off.

The horse was a tool for travel, not a bed, and after hours of riding, Darion was beginning to feel every mile in his bones.

For the first day of their journey, they slept in a small barony not far from the road. It wasn’t a proper town, more like a cluster of buildings that had grown up around a crossroads, a place where travelers could rest and merchants could stable their animals.

The men with the wagons and the ones controlling the horses had definitely rested here before, whenever they took goods to a destination. It was a familiar stop for them, a known point on their route.

As night approached and they had covered quite a distance, they arrived at this place. The barony was quiet in the evening light, its buildings dark against the fading sky. A few fires flickered here and there, casting warm orange light across the dusty ground.

People sat around them, some telling stories, others eating, others just staring into the flames.

Darion, Seren, and Garren watched them as they passed. The people returned the looks, their eyes curious but not hostile.

They were used to strangers passing through, used to the sight of travelers with animals and wagons. A few of them nodded in greeting. One old woman raised a hand in a lazy wave. Darion nodded back.

At least they weren’t hostile, or at least didn’t seem like it. Darion remembered when he and Garren had entered the streets of the kingdom of Thandor, how they had been looked at, like beggars who had wandered into a noble’s banquet, like they didn’t belong, like their very presence was an inconvenience.

The guards had laughed at them when they mentioned Percvale. The merchants had eyed them with suspicion.

Here, in this small barony or settlement, it was different. The people were curious, yes, but not hostile. They looked at Darion and his group with the kind of interest you might show a passing traveler, not with the disdain of someone who thought you were beneath them.

Some nodded in greeting. They didn’t sneer. They didn’t laugh. It was a small thing, but it meant something.

Darion found himself relaxing slightly. He hadn’t realized how tense he had been until that tension began to ease. The slight fear of being looked at with hostility or something like that.

They arrived at their destination not long after. It was a large horse stable, or what used to be one, because now only two horses were there, feeding on hay in their stalls.

The building was old, its wooden walls quality reduced by years of sun and rain, but it was solid. The roof was intact. The doors swung freely on their hinges. It would do for the night.

"We’ll be passing the night here," one of the wagon men said to Darion, who looked around, taking in the place. The building was larger than it had first appeared.

There was a common area with a fire pit, a few rough benches, and enough space for everyone to lie down.

A man holding a bucket soon came out from behind a house at the back. He was older, his face lined with years of hard work, his hands calloused and stained with dirt. He looked at the wagon man with a smile.

"Another day of business, ay?" he said, his voice warm and familiar, at least to the wagon men.

The wagon man smiled as he got closer. "Yes," he said. "A good one too. Bought a lot of stock from Jiopk. This young lord here is the buyer."

The old man looked at Darion, studying him with sharp, appraising eyes. "A young lord, eh? Buying livestock for his lands?"

Darion nodded. "Something like that."

The old man chuckled. "Good to see young people investing in the future. Most of the young lords I see these days just want to spend their coin on wine and women."

Darion smiled politely, but his mind was elsewhere. He had been watching the exchange, noting the easy familiarity between the wagon man and this stranger.

They knew each other. They had done this before. But Darion hadn’t been informed of this on the road. He hadn’t even asked where they were going to spend the night. This man had just taken them to this barony and here.

And yes, it was a good thing. Darion couldn’t imagine staying in the forest, or sleeping there, or beside the road.

There would have been so much summoning and unsummoning of undeads because there would have been hungry thieves and dangerous animals after them.

Too much problem and so much being on guard and being on the lookout. This was better. This was safer. This was a place where they could actually rest.

The man owning this large stable, a place where people could also spend the night with their animals, looked at Darion and the many animals with him and smiled.

He counted them silently, his eyes moving from the cows to the goats to the chickens to the massive Moatts.

"That’ll be three silvers," he said. "I would have charged more because of the many animals, but eh..." He shrugged, a gesture that said he was being generous.

The wagon man looked back at Darion, a look that said: "Pay."

Darion looked at Garren and nodded. Garren stepped forward, his hand reaching into the leather pouch at his side. He unfurled the leather carefully, his fingers moving with care to pick out three silver coins.