Journey to the Volantis (2)

Nevertheless, if she was confident in going in and out of the Volantis alive and well, then he wouldn't really care about her reasons or assurances. It was not his business, and certainly, he would be poking his nose where he shouldn't.

Something in his suspected that she had some Sealed Artifact that would hide her from the prying eyes of the clergy of the Church of the Dragon Gods in the worst case. If she indeed had some Sealed Artifact, then the only thing needed was to change her clothes, and she could even go to a place like Volantis.

In the end, most of our journey was relatively quiet; only a few days ago, we had passed through the Fortress City of Mantarys and would be very soon arriving at the Volantis through the Demon Road.

Most of the journey was pleasant, though, aside from having nothing to do because there was really nothing to do on the journey. Of course, the sole thing to entertain himself was either talking with the Melisandre or with their carriage master, Stanyor, the person leading their carriage through the Demon Road.

Fortunately, he brought with him some books that he needed to pass through the boredom. Another thing, during the journey, the constant time he was spending together with Melisandre made them get to know each other rather well...

But that was the result when they were living together in the same wagon; people tended to get closer if they didn't end up outright killing each other. Fortunately, the wagon that he rented was rather large, so that wasn't a problem. 

In the front, there was even small cabin for the coachman so he could sleep within the cabin, even though it was modest, it was better than nothing. If not, then this entire thing would cost him more than one hundred gold coins. 

And today, like any other day that they were on the journey, Valkorion was reading some tome that he took from the library while the red priestess was meditating or praying; it was rather hard to tell as she constantly had the same expression on her face.

He knew better than to disturb her during the time she was either praying or meditating, as he rather focused on the time that he was reading. He suspected that the Pathway that he was walking on would, on the later line, give him access to Magic Spells, so he started studying in advance.

Valkorion knew that his Pathway wasn't something from the Lord of the Mysteries novel, like most of the Pathways that were in the Faerûn.

Even if, in some cases, his Pathway didn't contain a Sequence, which allowed one to use Magic, the knowledge itself would still be immensely useful when dealing with other Magicians and Spell Casters that he would encounter during his life.

Having extensive knowledge about Magic and Spells would allow Valkorion to better counter the Beyonders using the Spells and Magic. That alone was already invaluable because it would greatly elevate his combat prowess on a more subtle side.

After another ten minutes or more, he suddenly realized that the carriage wagon had stopped in its tracks in the middle of the road. Something like this could mean only one sole thing...

Problems on the road and the problems on the road were typically either monsters or bandits.

Sometimes, for the more unlucky people, both of them.

And as Valkorion predicted, suddenly, the coachman started hitting on the wall of the wagon, signaling them that something had happened. Valkorion left Melisandre in the wagon, as he exited the wagon carriage and closed the doors behind him. 

As he stepped outside, he looked at the coachman Stanyor and then looked in front of him, as he noticed several figures surrounding the carriage. He counted seven of them, and neither of them were Beyonder; that was something that he could tell with a single glance.

'Bandits... or brigands? Two of them look like former soldiers, but certainly not from the Freehold, most probably the kingdoms in the north...'

All of the men were wearing ramshackle pieces of armor, something that was most probably scavenged from the defeated and killed foes because there was not even a hint of standardization. 

Almost all of their armor were either made from leather or some random part of the metal pieces that they managed to scavenge that were still in good shape. Most of the bandits were not the smartest people around, so they usually squandered all of their money on alcohol and whores, not really investing it in better equipment.

Always hoping to plunder something from the corpse of an unaware traveler.

Valkorion was already wearing his Hunter Outfit that he purchased from the Dwarven Forge Master Goti Hammerson, and his right hand was already on the Excalibur. Neither of the bandits had weapons of good quality. He even saw one bandit whose weapon was rather rust, so they were not even taking care of their equipment.

But what could one expect from the bandits?

Still, the two brigands looked better armed compared to the rest of the bandits, and their stances were more solid and experienced. It was also clear that either one of the two was the leader of the robbing scum...

Brigands was a term that was used by the Faerûnians for the former soldiers who deserted from the army and went to play bandits. Robbing and plundering people traveling through the roads, was a rather common practice for some of the nations.

In Westeros and Northern Essos, it was a really widespread practice. 

As he was observing the bandit group, one of them stepped forward, most probably to coax them to beg for their lives and leave their everything precious, as was the typical practice of the bandits.

Not like these people were anything even remotely connected to the true meaning of the word "trustworthy". 

"Now her..."

Before the bandit, who appeared to be the leader, could finish the sentence, suddenly, a runic blade was stabbed through his head; Valkorion kicked away the corpse of the bandit as he drew the sword and swung it in the air to get rid of the remnant blood.

He didn't wait for the bandit to finish his words as he used the moment of surprise and started slaughtering them like cattle they were. Within the territory of the Valyrian Freehold, the Beyonder bandits and brigands were almost non-existent because the Legion and Beyonder Teams were periodically rooting them out.

Unfortunately, such wasn't the case with the rest of the world. 

Sometimes, when the bandit group was led by powerful Beyonder, they would become local warlords and even proclaim their own sovereign territories or whatever. Some were dangerous, and some were not; still, some bandits really became Kings in every single meaning, but such cases were exceedingly rare.

Due to these cases, most Kingdoms and other nations were rather careful when dealing with this problem. Once a bandit group became too powerful, they would cull it down at any cost.

Valkorion rushed toward the second bandit that was only five meters from the one that he slayed and slit his throat with one precise slash of his sword.