Sundry Measures

"It was you, wasn't it, that was talking to the caravan boss?" Soren fixed him with a hard stare.

Quinten felt profoundly uncomfortable under that gaze, but he kept his cool. The rest of the Company didn't have to know about his troubles with the Aurum. "Yes it was. We were stopped in the city by some former- acquaintances of mine. I wanted to make sure the caravan master didn't know anything about them." The caravan master was actually an Aurum agent himself, but like all such low-level agents, promise of a little extra payment allowed Quinten to moderate exactly what he told his superiors. It wasn't much but it was better than nothing.

"Guild politics." Soren turned that piercing gaze away, and Quinten felt a little more easy.

Soren had been with the Company almost longer than Han and Kol, had known Cassandra Silverhand back during the war even, and was her good friend. Quinten couldn't afford the halfling to doubt his loyalty to the Company. He was still to new, and the little band of mercenaries was tight-knit. The twins had accepted him as a fellow trouble-maker, and the rest of the company were close behind, but any problems this early on, and they would turn away. He needed them, more than they knew, more than he could admit to himself.

It was good to have friends, after growing up in a place where everyone was a rival and everything a ploy for power.

"Just so you don't get the Company involved, Quinten. I know don't you associate with your family anymore, but we can't afford to offend anyone who might give us a job right now." Soren seemed almost to catch Quinten in his thoughts. Then with a quick laugh Soren punched him. Since Quinten was a good couple of feet taller than the halfling, the punch landed on his hip, but it was still more powerful than he expected. Halflings might be the size of children, but they were adults, with adult strength. "Don't worry too much Captain, I'm just joking with you. If your Guildhouse family posed a threat to the Company, Cassandra would never have let you join. She's the sharpest woman I've met in my life."

The little man gave a piercing whistle and leapt nimbly to the top of a covered wagon. He leaped of the side a second after his riding beast soared down and under him, landing with a light bounce in the saddle and guiding the creature back into the sky.

"Our people used such creatures as scouts as well, though they were too small for us to ride." Valasar had approached him as the halfling left, his great cloak billowing slightly in the cool breeze coming down from the Rathbain mountains. His hood was pulled over his scaly head, so only his snout and some of his pointy teeth her visible.

"How does that work?" Quinten asked. "If you have no riders, how can the birds give any information?"

"Our shamans perform a ritual that allows them to Borrow the eyes of the creatures, so that whatever the flyers see, the shaman sees also. And now a question for you, Captain." The lizard-man cocked his head to one side, not unlike a bird.

"Shoot."

"Shoot what?" Valasar crouched suddenly, pulling a short javelin from his pack and looking around. Quinten stifled a chuckle.

"No, I mean, ask your question."

"Oh." Valasar returned the javelin to its place and resumed walking at the Captain's side. He gestured to the countryside. "Look here, your dwarf-friend tried to explain this to me." The lizard man gestured to the caravan. "How we move so quickly past the countryside, when the caravan moves so slowly."

Quinten took stock of the road himself. The caravan was moving slowly, slow enough that many were walking alongside the carts at an easy pace, but just off the road the countryside blurred past. He was used to the phenomenon, but it was slightly disconcerting if you thought about it.

"Well", he said slowly, "I'm not a wizard myself, but I'll see if I can explain it a little more clearly for you. Your people believe that the land has spirits correct?"

"Yes, the gods are in all the world." Valasar nodded his head, a quick little jerk, a kept listening.

"So the way someone explained it to me is that the Roadways Guild convinces the ground on the roads that it should act like a river, carrying people faster in whichever direction, like the current of a river carries a boat."

"But the road does not move."

"Yes, but we do, and all the river-ness stored in the ground comes out when we travel on the road. I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but basically it works out so that we can cover thirty miles or so in an hour at this pace. That means that even though Sternguard is a good four hundred miles from Sharn, we should get their in no more than two days of travel or so, maybe a little more if the roads are bad. It's once we get off the Wayroads that travel slows down."

"That is very powerful magic." Valasar rumbled in appreciation.

"Yes it is, and it costs a fortune to keep up. The spells used on the roads need constant upkeep, and their are roads like these all throughout the Five Kingdoms. The other guildhouses and the Kingdoms pay it because it's so useful."

Heljah came up, huffing and puffing, next to the other two. While most could keep up fairly easily, the short-legged dwarf was having a bit harder time of it. Dwarves are stubborn, and she wasn't about to complain about the speed of the caravan. She was going to complain though.

"My explanation was much more precise and including quite a bit of interesting history. I don't know what's so hard to understand about it." she hugged.

Valasar looked alarmed. "My apologies, I did not mean to cause offense." He tried to make himself shorter, lowering his head until it was almost down to the dwarve's level. Quinten laughed.

"Don't worry about it Valasar. Heljah, I'm sure your explanation was wonderful, but you do tend to forget not everyone has been around as long as you. Even the Captain is only my age."

"Among the dwarves, eighty is no great number. I'm practically a youngster, yet." But the dwarf glowed with pleasure. Among the dwarves, age gained you veneration and respect.

"But among us you are venerable and a sage." Quinten also bowed low, and the dwarf maiden stopped for a second, blushing furiously. After a moment she ran to catch up with the lizard-man and the half-elf.

"Don't you try to butter me up, Quinten, or I'll tan your hide, I will!"