The carriage trundled along the road. Its passengers had forged documentation proving that they were registered merchants in the Merangal marketplace, and this hung from the carriage as it went on its way. The men inside the carriage were all hidden in hooded robes which concealed dangerous weapons.
“It’s no good,” reported a man in tattered robes as he boarded the carriage. “A breach ain’t an option, nope. The captain’s gear is earth dragon stuff. I’ve seen it around more often lately, and there’s no mistaking it. And based on the way he holds himself, I’m willing to bet he was a military man. Not the type you want to go toe-to-toe with, no sirree.”
The man, likely their scout, slumped into a seat in the corner as the biggest among them let out a sigh.
“But we’ve got options, don’t we?” continued the scout. “We’re pretending to be merchants. Isn’t that enough to get us through the gates? Why all this talk of trying to bust down the door?”
The big man finally saw fit to respond.
“Because we’ve already tried every other option,” he grunted. “Merchants, traveling bards... It doesn’t matter how we dress—we always get caught out. We tried saying we wanted to be residents, wanted to be soldiers. It didn’t work.”
Other scenarios included hiring women to charm the guards, and even pretending to be slaves fleeing from a cruel master. Not a single thing they’d attempted had worked, the big man explained.
“The moment we told a single lie, they turned on us. Could be we need more talented actors...but either way, we haven’t had a shred o’ luck. To make matters worse, that captain’s a smart cookie—he knows the law, and we can’t pull any fast ones, no wool over his eyes. So all we’ve got left is a full frontal assault. That’s it.”
“But the border station only blocks the road leading to the plains, right? Why don’t we just go off the beaten track? Make our way through the forests?”
“You wanna give it a shot? Be my guest. But if you ask me, the captain knows we can, and I’ll bet he’s prepared countermeasures for anybody who tries. The punishment for breaking into a border station? Execution by hanging. Same if you try illegally crossing the border by forest. Thing is, we don’t have a map for the forest, and we don’t have any intel. That makes it no different from suicide.”
“Intel, huh? But who would’ve thought that some info would go for so high a price? Makes simple theft feel like a fool’s game.”
All the bandits had turned to their current line of work when they’d fallen out of employment. They had stolen from homes and stolen livestock, and then they’d heard from their trafficking contact that someone was paying a very large sum of coin for any intel regarding the Baarbadal domain. The bandits had prepared their things and set off immediately, but they had found themselves stuck outside the border station for more than a week now.
“But who’s buying?” asked one of the other bandits.
The big man, likely the group’s leader, answered.
“I did some digging—thought it might come in handy. Looks like it’s not just one person. Until now, everybody who’s ever tried to cultivate the plains failed. But this new guy made it happen, he slays dragon after dragon, and now he’s a lauded duke. Not only is he rich, he’s expanded his territory and even come into possession of a whole damned salt plain. Then apparently he’s got some rare sheep over there that grow some really top-tier wool.”
At first, everybody had assumed that Baarbadal’s duke was a nobody—a duke in name and name alone, destined for failure. But now that he’d come this far, people couldn’t sit back and let him continue marching his path to success unimpeded. They wanted any dirt they could get on him, but that was the problem—nobody had any real information.
“All the spies who are sent to sneak in get turned away, and when we tried bribing the merchants that Baarbadal works with, they either ignored us or they just didn’t know anything. It’s like the place is wrapped in some kind of fog, and that bothers people. And then Baarbadal sends a noble to the royal capital to talk them up. Nobody knows what the endgame is... Do they want to join the prince’s faction? Do they want to start a new faction? Who knows. Whatever the case, the nobility is getting cold feet. But you know who else’ll pay a cart-load for intel? Our fine friends next door.”
Friends next door—a code among the bandits, and one that they used whenever they wanted to talk about the empire and anybody working with them. They, like Sanserife’s nobility, were hungry for intel and happy to pay for it. And when the bandits remembered how much they stood to gain, they thought of all the delicious food they could buy and the land they might purchase. It was enough money for all of that and a wild celebration.
“Given the situation, we’ve got no choice but to team up with the other groups looking to do the same as us,” continued the bandit leader. “But once we bust through those gates, all bets are off...”
They were enemies from the moment they breached, in other words. Making a ruckus might also make the job harder, meaning reduced rewards, but at the same time it was better than simply doing nothing. The bandits had already spent money on travel and food, and turning back empty-handed simply wasn’t an option anymore. The last remaining option was not one that any of them particularly liked, but they all knew it was all they had left.
The bandits thus turned their thoughts towards how best to rid themselves of their rivals once they’d gotten through the gates. And as their carriage trundled onwards, silence filled the air, filled with the dreams of bandits hoping for a big score.