The Northshield soldiers spent three days hurriedly converging at the bridge over the Great Yellow River. This place was a killing ground in every sense of the word, and an ideal place to lay an ambush.

The bridge itself was over a kilometer long and wide enough to support heavy traffic between the capitals of two duchies, as well as a number of towns and cities along the route.

On either bank there was a half a kilometer wide clearing, which had become overgrown in these past couple of years. Beyond this open space was a dense forest. Whoever decided to cross the bridge would be completely exposed and out in the open, while their enemies would be hidden and free to act.

Northshield troops were informed that they were waiting for a Silverhound diplomatic or intelligence delegation, which was trying to pose as a merchant caravan. The late arrivals only got to hear that the group was well trained and well armed, which was why the thousand-man-commander called everyone over, and set up such an over-exaggerated ambush.

Nine hundred soldiers were lying in wait in the shrubbery on both banks of the grand river. Inside a particular bush half a dozen men were killing time before they met the enemy. The soldiers had just arrived, and weren’t up to speed with everything that's happened.

“Isn’t this a bit too much? I heard that the enemy doesn’t even have a hundred men.” A youth asked his squad-mates with some confusion.

They’d just arrived, ate and were then promptly sent to hide in the bushes; which was insane! The scout’s report stated that the enemy would arrive tomorrow, so why not relax a bit after a forced march?!

“I heard someone say that these guys killed commander Andersen’s cousin a couple of days ago,” a friend of his pitched in with a piece of gossip he had heard.

“Yeah, they said that Commander went bananas when he’d got the news. Trashed his tent completely and shouted at his honor guard.”

“Shut up. Commander wouldn’t have gathered us here if this was just a personal issue,” the five-man-commander shushed his subordinates.

He wasn’t so certain about the thousand-man-commander, and he had no idea whether anyone was listening in on them, but letting these boys flap their tongues could land them all in trouble with their Hundred-man-commander.

“Yeah, I heard that the entire squad was wiped out by a single person in less than a minute.” Nate’s disembodied voice came from an adjacent bush.

When he heard one of his subordinates spew out such crap, Von, the five-man-commander, just rolled his eyes, even though he felt like slapping the lad.

What was the idiot doing when they were fighting? Let alone killing one hundred, killing ten men in a battle was not an easy feat in skirmishes with less than two hundred combatants. Single-handedly wiping out all of the enemies was the kind of rubbish you might hear a drunken bard say. Those leeches never saw a real battlefield, and never did an honest day’s worth of work in their life.

“Are you sure it was one man? Did you hear it from the scouts?” Lah, the youngest squad member asked, not daring to believe such outrageous news.

“My cousin was with the scouting party that saw the battle, so I’ve got first hand information.” Nate winked knowingly from his bush.

When he heard this Lah whistled in amazement. “One man, huh? He must be one huge bloke...”

“Don’t whistle! Are you an idiot?” Von hissed, wanting to throttle the idiot.

“What? It’s not like they can hear me.” Lah barked back without bothering to lower his voice.

“But the commander might hear you, you birdbrain!”

“Oh, sorry,” the youth subconsciously lowered his voice. “But still, for nine hundred strong to set up an ambush for a single bloke... This ambush can easily decimate an elite thousand-man squad, let alone fifty people.”

“I heard the enemy was an assassin.”

“I heard he was a Mage.”

Hearing his squad saying more and more preposterous things Von finally snapped.

“You idiots!” He growled, “How could an assassin kill one hundred men in a frontal battle? And who’s ever heard of a Mage going around, killing people with a sword? They lob a ball of fire at you and whoosh! you’re gone. The scouting team must have been completely drunk that day.”

“Who cares whether or not they are drunk or blind?” Ian, the only person that didn’t say anything, suddenly joined in. “What’s important is that we were lucky, and got the easiest job.

“All we gotta do is to cut off their escape route, and make sure them soldiers can’t reach our archer boys on this bank. We’re just taking a walk, banging our swords and shields, easy money. There’s no way a caravan can move backwards to make a break for it. At least that’s what I reckon…”

“This plan’s even crazier than what the scouts reported. We have two hundred people here with a mission to walk across that huge ass bridge?” Nate muttered in disbelief.

“Pipe it down.” Lah hissed. “Do you want to be at the front lines against a person that wiped out a hundred-man-squad all by himself?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake…” Von took a deep breath. “Look, that’s just a rumor from the scouts. There’s no way a man can wipe out that many people alone and leave no survivors.”

“Kale, how much longer do we have to wait? We’ve been sitting in these bushes, listening to these losers rambling for hours…” Someone from the neighboring bush chimed in.

“You guys heard the same report we did. They should be here tomorrow, but we’re not certain they don’t have scouts or something. So pipe it down! If they discover us because of your loud mouth I’ll let the commander know.” Von said, standing up for his own. All he managed was to cause everyone in the vicinity to frown.

“Shameless bastard! You guys’ve been yapping your mouths for half an hour, and now you’re saying we're the ones making noise!”

“Shut up! I’m an officer!” Von shouted back.

“You’re just a five-man-commander and you have got the cheek to act like an officer!” One of the men muttered under his breath.

“What was that?” Von, the officer, said sharply.

“I said it’s a wonderful day to sit in these bushes here and–” The man that complained said jokingly.

“Shut your traps and wait. Soon folks will start dying, and I can only hope those folks ain’t us.” a real officer shouted, shutting them all up. He’d had enough of this stupid act.

***

The caravan had made great time as they approached the old bridge. Red loved and hated this place at the same time. He loved it because after crossing the bridge the caravan was scot free. He hated it because it was a natural ambush you had to walk into if you wanted to go to Silver City when approaching from the north.

Throughout history, whenever lords played their games in the region, this forty meter wide bridge was where armies of attackers would be broken. In times of peace, the stone bridge was overflowing with traffic. Nowadays it was just as empty as the surrounding roads. If two caravans were to cross it in the same week it would be considered unusually heavy traffic.

The clearings on both banks used to be well maintained, but the shrubbery and saplings had reclaimed them in the last couple of years.

Even though it was the middle of the fall, Silverhound had a milder climate than Northshield, and both the trees and the bushes still had their leaves.

The bank on which Red and his caravan stood still had some semblance of a clearing. The clearing was still more or less visible for two to three hundred meters, with only some shrubs that had grown unchecked this summer.

This side was maintained by the guards stationed at the bridge, to expose any potential enemies. The fact that Red could see shrubbery and vines all over the place was enough to make him feel uneasy.

After carefully looking the man found the source of his unease. Two guardhouses, which used to flank the bridge, were gone. What stood in their place was a pair of charred ruins. The signs of fire didn’t seem fresh, and there was greenery growing from the mostly collapsed buildings.

This obviously ain’t new… I’ll have to ask the old man to check what the hell happened here. Why would the ducal army abandon these checkpoints?

“Everyone stay sharp! This place reeks of a trap,” Red shouted a warning.

His men didn’t need it. Everyone was already frowning as they took in the surroundings. All of them felt uneasy, but the only way forward was to cross the bridge. Even if they went around they’d have to cross a smaller bridge, which wasn’t any safer. Quite the opposite, at least nobody could collapse this bridge under them…

“We’ll take a short break here.” Red hesitated for a moment before ordering the caravan to stop.

He went into the wagon transporting the Portable Mansion. He knocked using the previously agreed code, and a few seconds later the door opened in complete silence. Red walked down the hallway and into the study where the old man was still reading a book, albeit a different one this time.

“Yes Red, how may I help you?” the man asked while looking at Red. He leisurely closed his book, and placed it on the table.

“The guardhouses–” Red started, but the elderly man didn’t let him finish.

“Ah, yes, the old bridge guardhouses were burned down,” the caravan master said slowly. “We received the news about a month ago. Considering that it takes five months for a caravan to reach the capital from here, they’ve been like that for half a year or so.

“I was assured that the Duke had dispatched armed forces and workers to fix and upgrade the guard stations. Unfortunately that army will take a couple of months to get here. Owner said that the new plan is to build a pair of twin fortresses that will block and firmly control this road.” The man spoke calmly. It was obvious he was aware of this development, but for some reason didn’t notify Red in advance.

“Sir, should we wait for them here? We can hunker down and make a palisade,” Red asked as if he’d wanted to reinforce the incoming troops. In reality, this situation gave him a very bad feeling. His guts told him that those guard posts weren’t burnt randomly, and that whoever had done it had claimed this region.

“Redford? What the hell is wrong with you boy? We can’t settle down, twiddling our thumbs for months until the reinforcements arrive. Time is money,” the old man paused for a moment to calm down. “We have to cross the bridge now. Don’t worry. If anything happens, I’ll come out and intervene personally.”

The old man was somewhat disappointed with Red, but more or less understood what was going on. He trusted Red’s gut feeling. It was only because of that that he had decided to act personally.

“It would be an honor Sir!” Red said respectfully as he saluted.

With a Ninth Order Mage, who’s on the cusp of becoming an Archmage and that boy Wolf, we should be able to fend off even three hundred enemies without suffering too many losses. The only thing left to do is ask Sir Malcom for his aid if things escalate.

Archibald’s lessons:

Items are divided into seven different grades, namely: Least, Lesser, Moderate, Greater, Superior, Mythic and Divine. The methods of producing Mythic and Divine grade items are lost to history. Divine grade items are a thing of legends and even the Mythic grade ones are extremely rare and can’t be bought with money.