Four months later, when the Goat caravan invited Derek to escort them again, he agreed on the spot.

Steward Vincent volunteered an extra gold coin on the fee—no small gesture. He even turned a blind eye to the bit of private cargo Derek brought along.

Familiar faces, familiar road; the journey ran smoothly from end to end.

Not a bandit in sight. Perhaps the last defeat had broken up that whole crew for good.

These deep mountains, where even noble power could not reach, simply could not support many mouths.

Only at the final village did Derek grow serious.

By custom, the caravan would stop here two days.

He found himself hoping that his judgment of the man had not been wrong.

Steward Vincent remembered the affair too, and couldn't resist a jab: "Don't get your hopes up. That mountain man won't show—I'd stake eight parts in ten on it."

He earned his living off the mountain folk's coin, yet held these poor, quarrelsome hill people in open contempt.

Derek gave no answer. If the man broke his word, it would be a minor loss and nothing more.

But he didn't think so. These eyes of his read men well.

Day one: no sign of anyone.

Day two: the whole daylight through, nothing.

Derek felt disappointment creep in. Vincent watched and privately shook his head—young men were better off learning a lesson or two.

He wouldn't be so tiresome as to gloat now, of course. Let the young man lick his wounds alone and taste the world's cruelty at leisure.

Derek stood at the camp's edge. The mountain folk, seeming to know the caravan would leave soon, came thicker than ever—

many hurrying in from other villages entirely.

Had he truly misjudged?

Derek wavered. The nobles of this world despised the mountain folk. He didn't share the sentiment.

That man had the air of a bravo about him—that was Derek's read.

"Bravo" was a neutral word. Men of that stripe might break laws, blunder, even do real evil—but they rarely broke a promise lightly.

Call it tuition, then.

Derek shook his head, hopes thinning.

He had just turned to go when a voice called behind him: "Derek! I've come!"

He spun—several figures were sprinting toward him, packs on their backs.

A smile bloomed across his face. Not for ten boar hides. Because the man had kept the appointment.

Moments later, Wood jogged up before him.

Derek noticed how Wood stopped half a step back—and how the others fell in behind someone else without thinking.

All at once, a familiar face stood out from the group.

Derek remembered him perfectly: this was the man who had charged at the very front and been run through several times. So he had lived.

Thud!

Bundles of boar hide hit the ground with a heavy sound.

"Derek. What was owed. I, Wood, don't lie."

Derek did not so much as glance at the furs, though they were worth a tidy sum in the lowlands.

"A man of his word after all. A proper man."

Derek said it loudly, and Wood's chest swelled—no trace left of the pleading figure from last time.

That was how a stout fellow ought to look.

Across from them, the mountain man Lloyd had been studying Derek the whole while.

He was curious about this fellow who had advanced wound salve to a stranger—curious most of all that the man seemed not even to see the furs at his feet.

That was not how noble knights behaved.

Lloyd had come merely to see a promise honored. Now another thought took root.

"Derek. My thanks for the trust. Do you dare come with me? I owe you a drink."

The invitation landed out of nowhere.

Wood couldn't hold it in: "Brother!!"

He had no love for lowlanders, but he'd taken a liking to Derek—and he assumed his brother meant to lure the man off, kill him, and keep his purse.

After a beat of surprise, Derek recognized the opening for what it was.

Trust was sometimes easy to win and sometimes nearly impossible.

If he declined, a golden opportunity might slip away.

The man did not look like a fool, and Derek had no habit of treating worthwhile chances as traps by default.

And above all—Derek rested a hand on his sword hilt, and smiled with perfect confidence.

"Why wouldn't I dare? One moment."

He beckoned Simon over from where he'd been watching at a distance. The squire had been tracking the situation from the moment a crowd approached his master—thoroughly alert.

"My lord. Your orders."

Simon's eyes fixed on Lloyd, his powerful frame radiating a quiet threat.

Four months on, he was stronger still.

"Have the men carry these hides off. And bring what I packed."

Derek made no move to check Simon's hostility—that too was deterrence, strength put plainly on display.

Sure enough, at the sight of Derek's man, every face in the group turned grave. Their memories of his soldiers were evidently not fond ones.

Derek pretended to notice none of it. He turned with a smile. "You won't mind if I bring one attendant?"

In a situation like this, what difference did one man more or less make?

Lloyd nodded. If this fellow had the courage to walk into the hills with him, he was worth befriending.

Simon called men to haul off the furs—and retrieved the private cargo before Steward Vincent could so much as react.

He returned with a wooden crate over his shoulder.

Ignoring the curious stares, Derek pressed forward himself: "Let's go."

Lloyd gave his men a silent nod and led the way.

The caravan camped not inside the village proper but on flat ground outside its gate.

Lloyd's own home village lay a good distance off; having rushed here, his band clearly wasn't marching back through the night.

They had made camp nearby—

three crude hide tents around a fire already burning.

At Lloyd's return, five or six more men materialized from the shadows.

Derek counted quietly. Ten in this little band, right here.

By mountain standards, that was no trifling force.

Out here the folk clustered a hundred or so to a fortified village at most; at the other end, lone families scraped by entirely alone.

Mountain survival was brutal. Nobody stayed who had anywhere else to be.

For Lloyd to hold ten strong men to himself marked real capability—and this was likely not his full strength.

No band turned out in force for anything short of a job.

The men in camp didn't seem to recognize Derek.

But their eyes were unfriendly. They had plainly marked him as easy prey.

Lloyd said nothing at all, giving the impression that he truly had lured Derek out here to butcher him.

For mountain folk who answered to no law, killing him to vent old grievances was hardly unthinkable.

Simon's hand was already on his sword. One word, and he would spring into action.

Derek, for his part, looked entirely unconcerned. He laughed aloud, found a tree stump, and sat.

"Chief... whoever you are. Enough theater. Sit. Talk."

From his manner, you'd think he was lounging in his own parlor.

Lloyd raised a hand to still his restless men, walked over, and sat down across from Derek, open and unhurried.

"You're not afraid?"

"Afraid! Of what?" Derek shot back, laughing. "You strike me as a genuine figure—but these mountains have penned in your eyes.

"The world holds more than the rats and vermin you've met so far. And should you harbor other intentions—this sword and I will simply cut our way home."

Lloyd said nothing. One of his men couldn't bear it.

"Watch that tongue, outlander! Say the word and your grandpa here will butcher you where you sit!"

Derek didn't respond. Simon did—dropping the crate and drawing steel in one lightning motion.

A flash—

THRUM!

The longsword stood quivering in the earth at the man's boot—its edge had kissed the hide toe, and the point sat buried an inch deep.

That power. That speed. That precision.

Every mountain man present sucked in a breath, disbelieving.

The strongest men they knew could wrestle leopards and outrun elk.

Craft like this, they had never seen in their lives.

"Do not confuse me with the refuse of the nobility. This world breeds heroes in every age—why does Louis wear the crown? Why has the name Perez endured in the Northern Province for generations?

"The nobility has its trash. It also has its true heroes. I—Derek von Ferreira—am not the trash you've met."

Derek sat there, letting Simon's display do its work, steady as a mountain himself.

"I came to make a friend. Don't test me like this a second time."

Lloyd's face had gone dark. The slap stung, no denying it.

But as Derek said—he was no trash either.

And whatever hidden contempt he'd carried in with him had evaporated completely.

In this world some men fear power, some worship gold, some dread death.

But all men, without exception, look up to the strong.

Here and now, Derek was the strong.

Lloyd lowered his head—and never even noticed how much of his presence had drained away.

"My apologies. Outlanders have never once been kind to us, so... my apologies.

"My name is Lloyd. I would be honored to call you friend."

Derek knew better than to press a won position. He signaled Simon. "Open my gift for Chief Lloyd."

Simon first walked to the mountain man who'd issued the challenge—still frozen stiff by that sword-stroke—yanked the blade out of the ground without ceremony, turned with his chin high, and pried open the crate.

Layers of wood shavings packed the contents; Simon peeled them back to reveal parcels wrapped in oiled paper.

He lifted the pieces out one at a time and, at Derek's silence, unwrapped them.

A longsword of deep black, its metal sheen rippling in the firelight.

SHING!

The scabbard eased back to bare steel—a faint pattern winding the length of the blade.

"A fine sword!"

To mountain folk, any weapon was precious.

And this one was, on top of everything, beautiful.

Derek's handiwork, naturally—partly because Little Tru and his fellows truly had improved, and partly because these had been polished for exactly this occasion.

That workmanship, that quality, that presentation—five silver a blade?

No. Ten silver to start—and if I don't like you, not for sale.

Lloyd stood a cut above the ordinary mountain man, but his horizons only stretched so far.

By the time Simon laid all five swords out in a row, you could hear the man's breathing turn heavy.

His eyes might as well have been nailed to the steel. They would not come away.

Even knowing full well Derek wanted something, he could not have refused.

It took him a long while to strangle the urge to simply seize them.

"Knight Derek. What is your meaning here?"

And there it was—carrot and stick. Let a man be hero or bravo; he bows all the same.

"Friendship. Whatever else may be said of Derek von Ferreira—to friends, he is never stingy."

Lloyd found himself nodding. The generosity, at least, was sitting right in front of him.

"Friends, then. From this day, you are Lloyd's friend. If trouble ever finds you, speak my name—it still counts for something in these mountains."

Lloyd had meant to put a little swagger on it—then recalled exactly how this man's soldiers fought, and wisely swallowed the rest.

What did Derek actually want?

The fur trade?

No. Without a patron standing behind it, that trade could never last.

Even if he'd wanted it, it sat far down his list—and would require dragging Baron Ferreira in besides.

Derek wanted exactly two things:

Land. People.

Could a mountain man—a mountain bandit—supply either?

Legally? Never. But Derek had no need of legal.

To rise in an age where great nobles and the crown held every resource, a man either joined them—or built a new track entirely.

The former was closed to him, for now.

The latter... was not necessarily impossible.

He didn't rush to open his heart. With gifts like these exchanged, everything that followed would flow easily enough.

Rabbits went up over the fire; the band broke out their stores.

Between food and drink, Lloyd probed a few times—still assuming Derek was angling for the fur trade.

He was rebuffed each time.

When all had eaten and drunk their fill, the others stayed trading tall tales around the fire.

Derek invited Lloyd to walk with him. The chief understood at once.

The two men strolled until the camp fell well behind.

Lloyd's expression turned grave by degrees. The friend's price was coming—he only wondered whether he could pay it.

"Lloyd. This robbery trade of yours—how's business?"

Lloyd had long since braced for his trade being known; his face didn't move.

"We scrape by. This is no trade artery—we take small merchants, nothing more. Goods cost dear in the mountains. It keeps us fed. Barely."

"Heh. 'Keeps you fed'—that I believe. Mountain prices—fair enough. But these hills hold more than small merchants, don't they?"

Derek knew the ways of nobles and royal officials far too intimately.

Every caravan alive ran on connections.

Without backing, a merchant couldn't move a single step.

Nobles and officials never needed threats. One tool sufficed: the toll station.

Royal law set the tax at one part in ten.

But every gate collected, and every checkpoint charged—

and nobles and officials planted private checkpoints like seed grain. Haul goods one stretch of road and your costs doubled; haul them another, they doubled again.

What profit survived that?

Yet for every clever lock, someone forges a cleverer key.

Merchants great and small took to the mountains, hunting the narrow trails.

The truly secret routes ranked among a trading house's core assets.

No—these hills were not short of fat sheep.

They were merely too big for Lloyd's teeth.

A few short sentences, and Lloyd had gone completely silent.

"A suggestion, friend. Consider scaling up. These caravans can hardly comb the wild mountains looking for you afterward.

"When you need to move the goods, price them low—plenty of merchants will hold their noses and buy.

"Weapons—I can supply.

"Even proper military training—I can help with that too.

"Well?"

Lloyd's head snapped up, and the words escaped before he could stop them: "You want to absorb my band?"

"No, no. Merely friends helping friends. And if you ever felt like sweeping up a haul of people on a raid beyond the hills—I pay well for people.

"You buy weapons; I make my margin.

"The training alone comes free—a testament to our friendship.

"We've only just met, I know. But I find that shared interests make a friendship remarkably durable. Wouldn't you agree?"