Nearly 3 dozen carriages gathered at the edge of the city of Jameen, ready to make their way through the mountain. Nearly half of those carriages belonged to Umad, which were filled with all sorts of materials to be traded on the other side.
A few of those other carriages were from people who wanted to take their own carriage in the caravan and the rest of it was simple carts with people inside of it.
Ning and Shara sat in their own cart toward the back, surrounded by similar poor-looking carts that were filled with items as well, mostly food and drinks to keep them going through the rest of the day.
Ning and Shara too had a few similar barrels with food for them to eat while they were on this journey. It wasn’t just food for them, but also the horses that had to pull them.
Since the travel was going to take nearly 2 weeks, it was necessary.
A few people walked by their carts, explaining how things were going to go. This was first and foremost a caravan for Umad’s supplies, so he was the person that mattered here.
Depending on what they had been paid for, they would be given food and shelter regularly, but they would not be waited for should they decide to rest somewhere.
Another important thing was that no one was allowed to leave on their own even if their horses were not particularly tired. They all had to stay in a line, and never go out of rank.
If by any chance, bandits were to attack the caravan, the chances of which were infinitesimally low, they were all to stay in their carriages and carts and let the people who were paid to fight do their job.
Anyone who left their place would be considered to be working with the bandits and would thus be struck down as well.
After saying as much, the people returned to the front, and soon after a loud horn rang for a long time.
Everyone understood the meaning of the horn. The caravan had begun moving.
Ning sat at the front of the cart pulling on the horses’ reins to get them to start moving. The horses slowly walked, staying in line with the other horses and carriages.
Many people walked instead of staying in a carriage or a cart. The caravan was bound to move slowly, so they could afford to do that.
They left the city behind, traveling into the mountains. They had to go around the mountain on a slow incline as the horses couldn’t handle more than that.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
At this rate, it would take them a while to reach the top of the mountain, something they could have probably done in less than half a day if they were all alone.
Ning looked down the side of the mountain, watching the giant city they had left behind. It looked so small now, the houses tiny. People could barely even be seen.
Shara came out sometime later, asking to be taught how to handle horses in a cart. She was bored out of her mind from having to sit at the back.
Ning began teaching her all the ways to control the horses that pulled their cart. How to steer them, how to make them speed up, how to make them slow down.
Shara didn’t learn it all quickly and made some mistakes, but it was a single day’s teaching and she learned quite a bit. The caravan stopped at some point for a small break.
Ning fed his horses some water and gave them a few sugar cubes to keep them going. They continued their way up the mountain, but it seemed they wouldn’t be reaching the top.
Instead, about halfway up the mountain, they began traveling to the other mountain on the side of the large cliff. Ning and Shara traveled on the side of the cliff, attached to the wall. They had nothing to worry about.
To be fair, the others didn’t have much to worry about either, as the pathway was quite large.
And still, Shara could feel her heart beating faster and faster as they went past the cliff. She did not come out of the cart to look at anything.
Ning was going to ask what the issue was but then remembered about her parents. Shara’s father and mother had been said to have died falling from a cliff like this one.
It was unsure if that was the truth or not, but that was something she had grown up hearing and had a trauma surrounding it that she couldn’t let go of.
After making their way past the cliffside, they arrived at a wider area with rolling hills all around them. The sun was halfway down from the zenith and they still had a few hours before sunset.
And yet, the people decided to stop there.
They needed to set up tents and camps, so they were going to stop now.
Ning stopped as well and found a place to have the horses rest. The area was spacious enough that no one said anything when Ning off to the side to be further away from the main group. The ground was barren, but thankfully it was not filled with rocks. The horses could stay here and rest.
The horses were hungry, so Shara began feeding them food while Ning went to the sparse forest further down the mountain to the side to gather some firewood.
He returned sometime later while the sun was still in the sky and began preparing a small campfire for them to stay around.
There was still some time before either Ning or Shara wanted to eat, so Shara suggested that they train here in the spacious place.
“You want to train your spear here?” Ning asked, looking at the many people who were all occupied in their own thing.
“Yes,” Shara said. “Will that be a problem?”
“Hmm… no,” Ning said after some thought. “Let’s start.”
