Colmbe was a poisoned mass of dirt sketching along a massive river. The town had grown up around the river- there may have been farms here once, but not in a very long time. No, this was a trade station, a set of docks, saloons and caravansaries with only a tiny handful of permanent residents. Colmbe was a place you pass through on business. And its main visitors were the voyageurs.

They were rough men, and they were almost all men. Some few women amongst them, or those who didn’t fit so neatly into one gender or the other. But most of the voyageurs were bushy beards and long mustaches perched over hide clothes. Given the weather, no few of them opted to wander about nude, or nearly so. A scandal elsewhere, but here, well, nobody seemed to have imported any damns to give about fashion. Nude or not, they were all armed. Mostly knives, strapped to a waist or leg or even the upper arm. Many kept stout sticks about them. Duane imitated their choice of arms.

“You have a history with the voyageurs?” Mazelton asked. Duane didn’t answer. His bleak look said enough. Mazelton figured it couldn’t hurt to imitate him, so he strapped his belt knife on and pulled a long stick out of the wagon. It was going to be used for some carvings, but… eh.

Policlitus lead the wagons into a caravansary, yelling back and forth with the staff over feed and care for the aurochs.

“Don’t buy much here. Don’t leave the caravansary if you can manage it, but if you do go out, go with a few people and don’t buy much.” Policlitus counseled.

“Sharp traders?”

“The sharpest this side of the Great Clans, but that’s not the issue. Most of the stuff they have is meats, furs, and rare plants and animals. Less commonly, they have been known to collect interesting people too. So best to be careful around them, and better still, don’t let them know you have money.”

“Understood.”

“The exception to that is, there is a Sky Runners factor here, so if you want to send a letter, now is a good time. Or if you wait a week or so, we will be in Cold Garden, which is a small city. They have basically everything you will need to get ready for the push through the mountains.”

“Oh, good to know. So, to be clear, we don’t want to sell cores here, or buy cores?”

“Nope. In fact, if you take a look at your wagon, Duane took down the Trifolium this morning. I don’t want them thinking there is anything at all interesting in this Caravan.” Policlitus gave Mazelton a look.

“I think I can productively spend my time writing Danae a nice long letter to go in the post tomorrow morning.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea. You do that.”

Mazelton really did try to do that. They had pulled into Colmbe right at sunset, the golden lights picking out the hovels and dram shops in lurid, saturated color. The shops had big signs on them, some spelling out their wares, others simply painting their promises on clapboard. A lot of wine bottles. Food. Companionship, at competitive rates. Theoretically, it was his kind of scene. He shuddered a little.

He didn’t want it to be his scene any more. It just seemed so empty. He set up his tent and his little desk near the wagon, willing to tolerate the noise of the courtyard over the bed bug ridden hell that was a bed in the inn. Probably a shared bed too, and not in a fun way. Smelly bastards who considered washing your feet before bed excessively soft.

He loved his cozy little tent, and his wonderful folding cot. A few days sleeping on the dirt taught Mazelton the true meaning of luxury. It was being warm, comfortable and safe, with a full belly and no trouble finding a place to relieve yourself.

He started to write to Danae, and jammed up on the first word.

Beloved

But was she? Or rather, did she love him? Mazelton desperately sifted through the carefully preserved letters. No, no declarations of love, from either of them. Just their hopes that love could bloom in a prosperous union. But Mazelton knew this feeling of old, and it was love. He had fallen in love with Danae.

Mazelton stared blankly at the letters. He had fallen in love with Danae, some time since he left Sky’s Echo. Somehow. He searched his memories, trying to think how it could have happened. His eyes caught his sketch of his dream cabin and choked back a sobbing laugh.

He hadn’t fallen in love with Danae. He had fallen in love with his dream of Danae. It took him almost half an hour before he could pick up the brush again.

Dear Danae,

I thought I was well prepared for life on the trail, and in some regards, I am pleased to say I was right. My tent is wonderfully dry and comfortable, my cot even moreso. I can provide my own light and heat, and the food is… not good, but nourishing and in adequate quantity. The company is more variable in quality, but I suppose that's true anywhere.

In truth, most of the journey has been staggeringly dull. I am including a number of drawings and paintings of the journey, and you may judge for yourself. They will be on top, in roughly chronological order. But it would be misleading to describe the journey as a whole as dull.

Stuck again. What could he even say? Machines that a dry mind had built to hunt gods and devils stalk the lands. We found a seed vault that may be worth a fortune… or nothing at all. I have a radical new understanding of core polishing on both a technical and personal level. We may all die soon, and the potential causes of death are increasing by the day. Oh, and there is some sort of crazed cult getting set up in the mountains not too far from us, so there’s that bit of good news. I know because there are two cultists in the caravan and they keep trying to recruit me.

I think I would prefer to let my pictures do the talking. I have seen wonders and horrors out here, Danae. I have seen things I never conceived of. I drew a sobak, a spirit beast of the Two Souled Tribe. Look at it run! I’ve never seen anything like it. Or here, some excellent ducks, quacking and discussing life and dreams together. But most of all, at the very end of the pictures, I included sketches of the home I want to build behind your farm. They are all kinds of different ideas, some practical, most not. But I want you to know that you are on my mind. That our home together is on our mind. That I long to see you, and be with you.

I don’t know how we will fare in the mountains. I know Policlitus (our caravan leader.) is looking more than a little worried. But I will make my way to you. Even if all I have is my tools and the deed, I will make my way to you, and build what I have dreamed of so many nights. With you.

Your hopefully soon-to-be-beloved,

Mazelton

He stared at the letter a moment and then pushed away from the desk. It was shit, but he needed to clear his head before he could figure out how to make it acceptable. He grabbed his stick before heading out, just to be safe. He paused before he got out the door of his tent and looked at the stick. Long, straight, notch at the top. Stripped of bark and seasoned. It was the staff sling he got almost a year ago, and almost never used. In fact, now that he thought about it, he only used it for plinking trees out of boredom. Must have kept it in the wagon, just in case.

Some target practice seemed like a good distraction. He dug out the rope sling and a pouch of stone bullets. Maybe he could find a tree stump or something to aim at.

He wandered along the perimeter of the caravansary. Unlike fancier inns, it had no defensive walls. The perimeter was more conceptual than practical- the wagons formed their own walls, discouraging casual visits from the locals. The locals, what few there were, and the more entrepreneurial visitors were therefore not casual at all in their approach, setting up hawkers and procurers along the perimeter of the camp ground. There was a froth of low value, high volume trades going on. A few rads for a bar of soap, perhaps, or a thick fur discreetly traded for a carefully transported bottle of spirits. It got cold up in the mountains, and the burn of shame wouldn’t keep you warm. Mazelton saw it all and kept on walking.

The caravansary was oddly lit. In that it was lit- powerful light cores hanging on poles kept the campgrounds in stark light. The shadows of the town were deepened, almost blinding, with little islands of warm light hanging over the doors to the saloons. Bar on the ground floor, brothel upstairs. It was… efficient.

Mazelton stood on the edge of the caravan, his toes dipping into the shadows. Like he was on the edge of the world, leaning out into the vast empty. He wondered what it was like for Madam Lettie to look at something like this. To lack that sense of isolation from the world. He heard some thuds and loud swearing from the darkness and spun on his heel. Not his problem. Time to walk away. Then he heard a loud bellow, like an outraged bull auroch, and knew it was Duane.

Mazelton rushed over. Duane was throwing hands with five voyageurs. He had put his back to a wall to keep from getting surrounded, but they had him penned and were coming at him high and low.

Duane swung his short stick, a meter of wrist thick oak, at a thug on his left. One of the voyageurs went down with a scream, clutching a visibly broken arm. The opening was quickly taken by two attackers, one slamming his own baton into Duane’s ribs, another hitting his knee. Duane grunted but didn’t go down. Mazelton looked at the melee. Never shoot into traffic, that much he did remember. No way he was picking these pricks off with his sling. On the other hand, the sling was one hundred and seventy five centimeters of solid ash, and he could work with that.

Mazelton ran up behind the mob and swung low. Get them disabled and on the ground, then kill them if that’s the plan, he figured. He took out the legs of the biggest looking one with a sweep to the knees, then raised the butt of the staff high over head. As the man fell, Mazelton pulled the staff down after him, dropping his ass to his heels, one leg extended out to the side as his weight and the full strength of his arms and back smashed into the man’s ankles. The screams made fine entrance music.

Nobody talks in a serious fight. He remembered that bit of wisdom too. It seems the voyageurs knew it as well. Two stepped back and to the side, getting clear of Duane to focus on Mazelton. The last attacker was dodging in and out, scoring hits on Duane but not enough to put the big man down. Duane wasn’t landing many of his own. He was strong, but not fast or agile. Sooner or later, the damage would add up.

The two voyageurs rushed in, stripped to the waist, with buckskin leggings and silent moccasins ghostly pale in the dim light. They moved to flank him. Mazelton retreated towards the caravan, swinging his staff to keep them back. They kept after him, swinging and jabbing their clubs to try and distract him from their positioning. Faint hope.

Mazelton transitioned from a swing and a retreat to planting his rear foot in the dirt. He exploded off his back foot, extending his staff into a lunge, buried in the low gut of the fellow on his right. Before the guy on the left could move in, he recovered his luge and made a circle in the air with it. The man still standing leaned back to avoid the staff as it swung past his face, snapping back into position to continue the fight. He didn't notice the swing continued its curve, smashing down into his ankle. He screamed.

Once he was off balance, Mazelton dropped all pretense of form and simply beat him with the stick. Once he was down and groaning, Mazelton broke his leg and went to check on Duane. Duane dropped his stick at some point. He was sporting a nasty cut over one eye, but he had one meaty had around a throat, and the other was breaking the wrist holding the club that hurt him. His knee was busy gelding the poor bastard.

Mazelton waited until he was done, keeping an eye out incase of reinforcements. They had an audience, but nobody looked like they wanted to interfere. The thud of the body hitting the dirt seemed like a good cue.

“Are you done here?”

Duane grunted and picked up a whining voyageur, who was on the ground clutching his leg and hissing through the pain.

“I’m out. Stay away.”

“You travel through the deep country, you ain’t out. You in. In deep. You can beat us up, but you can’t run from yourself.”

“Can.” And a fist the size of an auroch’s hoof swung down and laid the man out again.

Duane had been a wonderful companion, never asking personal questions. So Mazelton ignored the little imp clawing at his heart and did the same. He did insist on cleaning up the wounds and patching him up as best he could though.

Mazelton looked at his sling when he got back to the tent. Better to have and not need? Mazelton considered writing another draft of the letter, put the light core in its blackout bag, and went to sleep. He did not dream.