The Thorian Sagas. 1. The Trader.

Everything changed at Weldon, when they picked up three more tributes and changed horses, later that following morning.

The three young women; pale, delicate beauties with straw colored hair, seemed to be as terrified as Erianne had been when she had first seen him.

They saw this giant of a man with a shock of close-cropped black hair, so unlike their own men; heavily armed and ready for trouble…expecting it even. He was intimidating in every way as he’d met with the council.

Stoker did nothing to dispel that feeling at first, so Erianne took it upon herself to approach the three of them as Stoker signed for them.

She walked over to them, and led them across to the carriage, sitting just inside the gate of the city.

She identified herself to them as Erianne, the tribute from Dorian, learning their names, letting them see that she was one of them, despite being different in her appearance. She was the one who gave each of them a single claw necklace from Stoker’s pocket, telling them the importance of wearing it; identifying them as ‘tributes’, and that they were under this man’s protection. Whatever that meant to them.

They knew what they’d heard.

Stoker stood back and let Erianne be the ambassador to assuage their fears, though that would be likely to take some time, if it happened at all. He would have to remain remote from them. There was already a personal bond that Erianne and he shared that these tributes could never be part of, but that must also be pushed into the background for the moment.

Erianne stayed with them in the back of the carriage for the first hours out from Weldon, spoke with them and told them what she had learned and seen, as well as heard in the two days she had already been with Stoker. She answered all of their questions; settling their worst and most immediate fears. After all, she did not look to have been harmed.

They eventually relaxed; losing their worst fears and were soon able to trust her; knowing that she was one of them, facing the same fate, while being so unlike them with her darker skin and black hair. They were able to ask her those questions most concerning them about what awaited them.

Erianne admitted that she did not know all of it, either, but that she had learned to trust this man, despite his rough exterior and brusque manner of dealing with the elders in the city they had just left.

'Nothing they had heard about Thorians should be believed', was the way Erianne told it, but they would need to find that out for themselves. His appearance to them in their city had been for the benefit of those councillors, to keep them on edge, and in line.

Outside of the city and at their first stop, they would see a far different kind of man.

Erianne slowly saw their irrational fear of him, turn to curiosity as they watched him driving the horses. He coaxed them along, always considerate of them, speaking softly to them, encouraging them, walking them often, as he led them over difficult stretches of the road, as well as to ease his own cramped muscles; but ever vigilant.

She answered what she could of their many questions, telling them what Stoker had told her; that they would not be harmed, but would be protected and would be living in privilege from this moment forward.

It was difficult for them to believe, of course. After almost two hours of sitting with them, she indicated that she would ride with him now, and give him the benefit of another pair of eyes to watch for an animal leaping across their path, or of a sudden boulder that had rolled off a rock outcrop, or of a mud-hole in the road.

They watched her climb forward to join this Thorian, and to sit with him; trusting him. She was made welcome, sitting close beside him as his arm pulled her close and lifted a fur hide around her. She often looked back at them, smiling, glad to see that they’d already made friends with his dog, who reveled in their attention.

The closer they got to their first stop, the more the woodlands thinned out, with piles of cut logs ready to be hauled away for building, or to repair bridges; slowly giving way to a hint of the farmland that would begin at Slough, their first stop after leaving Weldon.

In another day they might begin to relax better when they saw how they would be greeted when they got to Slough; and would be greeted as welcome and privileged guests in that Inn, just as she had been in both Coniston and Torver.

This time, however, she would not be able to be so close to Stoker as she would have liked, and as he would have like too, as she continued to learn about him and about herself.

She detected that thought of his, and let him see her own thoughts, knowing that they were able to see part way into each other’s minds.

She would miss that more intense mental and physical closeness they had shared when she had been alone with him, and without a friend.

This Dorian; Erianne, seemed to have no fear of him, and he had been only gentle with any of them as he had seen to their comfort in his carriage, speaking kindly to them as he had seen to their comfort before they had departed from the city.

They would pause to eat and to change horses as the hostlers at the Inn at Slough checked over the carriage. He would make up his mind about what he would do at that time, depending upon what they told him and what he would see for himself.

One of the horses seemed to have a shoe that needed to be re-set. That, would delay them.

If they had to stop here for the night, he would not be able make up the time he had lost because of the bad weather leaving Dorian, but he became less concerned about that. Around him, things seemed to happen for a reason, and he would not question that.

It would be asking too much of his passengers to push on to the next station of Leeming Bar, the station midway between cities. If he did that, then they might all be obliged to spend the night in the city of Sinden, and he didn’t want to do that. The councillors and women there, would learn too much about him as they spied on him and watched his interactions with these tributes.

If they stayed in Slough, it would also allow them to relax as they needed to, and to learn from Erianne what they needed to know about him and about other Thorians they would see there.

Slough would be the better halt, and then they could bypass Leeming to stay the next night at Trafford, making a brief stop at Sinden, the following morning, to pick up four more tributes before going on, essentially as they had done at Weldon, leaving two tributes to be provided from Fenn to make up their number of tributes.

He would be half a day or maybe a full day later than he’d planned on, getting to Saltash.

His loaded wagons and shire horses would have already left by then with a different driver, and with an armed helper with him to take on those Frexes, in the wasteland.

Gareth would wait for him and the tributes at Golden, no matter how long he was delayed. They would exchange the carriage for the wagons, with the tributes perched high on the front wagon, atop his merchandise and well out of harm’s way, though they would not know that, seeing only certain death coming at them constantly over the hours, from all sides.

No light carriage with his vulnerable cargo of tributes could safely traverse those wastes between Golden and Fenn. Gareth would bring the light carriage back to Saltash, or Peter, his helper, could.

Monique and her fellow warriors would need to meet Gareth. He would be their trader from this time forward, so Peter could drive the carriage back to Saltash, and then see to it being returned in stages, to Dorian, ready for the next load of tributes, the following month.

There would be a different Thorian chosen for that, too. Stoker’s time for doing that was expiring. This would definitely be his last run.

At Saltash, they would rest for the night at a hostel by the river, and then continue their journey on to Fenn, transferring to the trading wagons at Golden, when he caught up with them there.