Simon crawled into a chest, and as he crawled out of the other side, he realized that was exactly what he’d crawled out of as well. That was weird enough, but he was somewhat reassured to see that it wasn’t the same chest. That might have meant that there was some ic at py.

  Going down the wrong path like that would be kind of funny, he thought as he slowly got to his feet and stretched his ag back. Even if it would kill the run.

  The chest in the dragon’s ir had been a weighty, ahing with rusted steel banding. It had been built to hold something valuable, like golden jewelry ious artifacts. The one he climbed out of, oher hand, was a flimsier thing, made for books or bolts of cloth; it didn’t even have a lo it.

  Simon looked down to the unfamiliar bde in his hand and studied the red leather scabbard. The thing was crisscrossed in gilt lines, and though most of the gems that decorated it were missing, it was easy to see that this saber had beloo someone very riportant. The thing was fanough that he almost pulled the slightly curving bde from its sheath to see if it was magical. It was only then that he realized he wasn’t alone.

  The light fall of rain had dulled all other sounds, but a word cut through the gloomy afternoon when someone yelled, “Heave!”

  Simon whirled around and uood a lot more about the se. He’d noticed the chest and a few of the crates o it, but now that he’d turned fully around, he could see that they weren’t alone. Someone had emptied aire wagon, and now the people who had done so were trying to push it out of where its wheels had gotten ihick mud.

  I was summoo this level to help people get their wagon unstuck? Simon thought, smirking as he studied the group. It seemed pretty ingenious, but he supposed that history turned on such things. He’d been hoping for a beast, but this, at least, was straightforward.

  The group didn’t seem dangerous. On the trary, they seemed almost helpless. Two wagons drawn by oxen had been pulled forward quite a ways, and everyone from those wagons was trying to get this one unstuck. The only people still ihe thihe driver and a woman with her child.

  Simon wondered if they were merts, but as he looked past them, he decided that they were probably refugees. The surrounding tryside was in rough shape. The fields had been pnted but never harvested, and the vilge passed, which had mostly been burned down.

  For a moment, Simon had sed thoughts as to whether this group, or whatever vilgers remained over there, were his priority, but he decided that didn’t matter. First, I help these people get moving, and then I check out over there. There’s no hurry. He’d long since learhat rushing new levels wasn’t a very good idea.

  He almost moved to join them, but when he looked down at himself, he realized. He realized he was still half covered in blood and quickly ducked. When no one screamed, after he waited for a few seds, he started scrubbing himself in mud to cover the bloodstains that reached his knees. He’d been sughtering a dragon for the best part of a day, and he certainly looked the part.

  “Put you’re bato men!” the same voice called out again. “We’ve got miles to go before dark. This is the st pce should be spehe night!”

  Simon igheir efforts and focused oing himself as dirty as possible. A few moments ter, he no longer looked like a blood-soaked maniastead, he merely looked homeless and downtrodden, which he saw as a serious improvement. Then he belted on the sword and walked over to help them out.

  When he approached the group, no oiced him right away. But whe close enough, it raised sudden shouts of arm, and several men put their hands on their hilts. Simon made no sudden moves. He didn’t o. No one in this group was a trained warrior. They were out-of-work tradesmen aoo young to grow beards. He could take all of them at ohout a single spell.

  “Who are you?” the man who had been calling time for those who were pushing and pulling ouck wagon. He was the most imposing of the lot, with a barrel chest and a loud voice that was used to being obeyed. He was also unarmed.

  “Just a traveler on the road, same as you,” he said calmly. “It looked like you could use some help.”

  “We ’t pay,” the man snapped, even as other people in the group looked at him with mratitude.

  “Who iimes,” Simon answered with a shrug. Normally, he would have left it there, but he could see these people were still unreasonably paranoid. He couldn’t say why, but if he wahem to trust him even a little, being selfless wasn’t the way to go. “I’d take a ride to the own, though, assumi it unstuck. How's that?”

  A few of the men ferred for a moment, and after a little yelling, they decided to let Simohem, though several people grumbled about what good he could possibly do. Simon ighose. He knew he couldn’t push this thing out of the mud. He did know they were doing it wrong, though.

  This group ushing it as hard as they could and then giving up, each time, it would slide forward slightly and then slide back again into the same ruts. It was a plete waste of time, and after doing that two more times, they let him try it his way. So, one small push at a time, he got them synched up until they were rog the thing bad forth. After that, it was just a matter of seds before the whole thing gave, and the wagon moved forward once more.

  It got stuck twice more in the broad puddle before it escaped immediately, but a few mier, it was stopped round and the top of the small hill, and everyone else was busy loading it back up with all the goods that had been removed. The more Simon studied those goods, the more he decided they were refugees, and the less he thought they were traders.

  He struck up a versation with some of them, and slowly, the picture started to e together. As expected, he was ba Brin, not so far from the capital, as it turned out. He was unsurprised to find out that there was another war for succession taking pce, though this time at least it wasn’t between the prind a duke, but between the prind federation of southern barons and ts that thought they were being mistreated.

  “Sounds plicated,” Simon remarked, not pletely feigning his disi.

  It was important stuff, and he should know it, but in this rain, it was all he could do to cope with the idea that no matter how many times he tried to make peace rein in Brin, war returned. It was a stant problem.

  That made him refle what it was Hedes had pnned with her eborate path. He had no idea how anything could lead to pea a nd like this.

  Gradually, the topic turned from the broader flid who was usurping the rights of whom into the more specific horrors of where they were at currently. “You keep gabbin’ about who’s owed what instead of getting a move on, and the bandits are sure to settle that question for you e nightfall,” the presumptive leader growled. “The sooner we cross the river and head north, the better I’m liable to feel.”

  Simon uood his point. In hard times, the only things that proliferated were rats and bandits, which weren’t much more than rats in human form, acc to some. He’d tried to show them mer the past because he knew most of them would bee det human beings again when whatever troubles had caused their situation were past. He’d even paid a few for expediency. These days, he felt more ined to end them on sight, but fshbacks of that awful version of himself he’d seen so retly kept him on his best behavior.

  When it was all said and done, Simon took a spot on the damp buckboard he driver. It didn’t shield him from the rain, but there was no more room in the back with everyone else. That suited him fine.

  I still have some gold, he thought to himself. Whe where we’re going, I’ll get some hot wine and a warm bath and chase the chill away. Where they were going - that eion, as it turned out.

  “It ain’t been decided,” ultimately, the gray-bearded driver fessed. “Away, that’s all we know for now. To somewhere in Duke Brin’s nds. The te King’s nephews have stayed entirely out of this war, and they’re strong enough to maintain the pea at least that small er of the world.”

  “Well, if things fall apart, we always go west and keep on going until we get to Schwarzenbruck,” Simon answered with a ugh, suddenly grateful that he hadn’t killed the Duke in the final version of that flict so long ago. The man was a scumbag, but had he done so, it was likely he would have made this level that much worse.

  That sparked an idea in Simon’s mind, aarted to go down the rabbit hole of exactly what might be influeng what when the driver o him shot him a dark look. “Don’t even joke about that pce. Its very name is cursed.”

  That’s a bit of a stroion, Simon thought, taken aback. He let the topic shift back to the roads and the weather, which seemed to be the driver’s favorite things to pin about, but he definitely po revisit that topic ter if he got the bsp;

  He never did, though. As the sun started to set, not long after that, one of the members of the wagon ahead of them whistled aured to the right. He and the driver turo look but initially saw nothing. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, though, he saw motion in the ruined vilge, armed motion. There were almost a dozen of them that Simon could see spreading out he edge of the vilge; some had swords, and others had bows, but all were armed.

  The road that they were on was a windy one, and the bridge was only just visible in the distance, but with overloaded wagons and tired oxen, it wasn’t like they could just drop the hammer and outrun whoever roag them. No, they had to follow the road, which meant they’d get even closer to these assholes before they got further away.

  “Guess I didn’t get you guys unstuck fast enough,” Simon thought with a sigh.

  “What do you mean?” the driver asked, looking at him nervously.

  “I’m saying, this is my stop,” Simon said, hopping off the side of the wagon and walking out into the field. “Drive safe. I’ll do what I .