Levi had managed, by so miracle of charm, swampberries and wood and sheer financial cheating, to reach the grand total of five silver stags.
As morning ca levi was ready to cheat the silver. even if it was gold.
from 5 to 4. Going back 5. Now was the mont for him to place 100 in the number and he did.
light ca shining in front of him 100 silver stags right there. he kept his copper pennies. even added a few silver just in case he needed it.
Finally Levi t with Harwin. He had only shown Harwin the hundred silver stags he promised. The rest he kept hidden, tucked deep inside his shirt, tied in an old rag his first self-made fortune, born of endless swampberries and wood an increasingly sharp sense of which markets looked desperate enough to pay.
After Harwin confird the coin was real biting into the silver like so caricature of a miserly rchant things moved quickly.
He and Levi went to White Harbor. This took seven days of journey.
As they moved to the crowded streets, warehouses, and taverns, spending the next few days bargaining for food, haggling for strong n, and desperately searching for wagons that hadn't already been snapped up.
Because it wasn't just them.
Rumors moved faster than coin. Other rchants so already from the North, others from across the Reach or the Vale had caught wind of the food shortage. The tale twisted with every telling.
So claid wolves in the woods had eaten the fields. Others swore that southern lords had kept every last grain in Oldtown. One man swore he saw a maester crying in the market square because even the Citadel couldn't secure flour shipnts.
Whatever the truth, the result was the sa: everyone was selling in the north.
Wagons, mules, oxen, n, salted ats, dried fish, hardtack, even spoiled apples all snapped up like winter had already arrived. Levi, used to lazy days in Bogwater and half-baked sches involving swampberries, was suddenly thrown into a feverish race against ti.
"I thought rchants were supposed to sit around counting coins," he muttered while checking the axle of a battered cart that had clearly seen better centuries.
Harwin, beside him, grunted. "Only if they have n like us doing the heavy work."
They finally secured twenty wagons, though many of them creaked like dying trees. The food was mostly grains, dried roots, lizard at , cheese, and a few barrels of beer or ale none of it fancy, but all of it vital. What people wanted wasn't flavor. It was survival.
And they found n. Not knights. Not even trained guards. Just n.
So were forr sellswords, others fishers from the harbor with strong arms and empty stomachs. Most ca with their own weapons: chipped swords, hand--down spears, or bows strung with fraying gut. A few owned proper gear. Levi had noticed one man in full steel breastplate, polished enough to reflect the torchlight. Another carried a halberd taller than Levi himself.
Levi stared at them wistfully. "One day... one day, I'll own a fine suit of armor. And a helm to match. And maybe even my own forge at Moat Cailin. Tears will fall from my eyes the mont I sell my first blade."
Harwin overheard him and raised a brow. "Better not cry near the forge. Armors don't like tears."
The nearby guardsn laughed, a few slapping their thighs.
Levi didn't miss a beat. "Better tears than blood. Besides, I've already shed my pride selling berries to grandmothers and woods to boatn. Honor's cheap. armor isn't."
"Fair," one man chuckled. "You've got the tongue of a rchant and the appetite of a beggar."
"More like the curse of a swamp-witch," Levi added with a mock sigh. "If I so much as sniff sothing nice, it turns into sothing cursed. Swampberries, lizard at, and cheese that tastes like goat regrets. May the gods pity my next al."
But it wasn't all jokes.
Securing n ant paying them sotis in advance. And so demanded more if they were to ride far north. Not just White Harbor to Mole's Town or Widow's Watch. No, Harwin's ambition and now Levi's dream lay further still.
Winterfell.
The fortress of the Starks. Ho of ancient kings. Surrounded by hungry holdfasts, half-starved villages, and stubborn northern clans. If they could make it that far, and if winter still held its breath, they'd make a fortune. Maybe enough to triple their silver. Maybe more.
But they had to leave soon.
Every mont wasted was another wagon from another rchant already halfway up the Kingsroad. And food, once plentiful, was now being taxed even within White Harbor.
The morning they set to leave, Levi stood atop one of the rear wagons, looking over the caravan of twenty carts. So were driven by hired hands, others by Harwin's own people. The guards marched beside or rode atop mules. Armor clanked. Wheels groaned.
He saw the steel again the gleam of it and let out a small, theatrical sigh.
"Soon," he whispered, "your shiny buttplates shall be mine."
Harwin, nearby, overheard and barked a laugh. "If we live that long."
Levi turned. "If I die, bury with so swampberries and hundreds of silver stag. So the gods know what kind of hell I've lived through."
Even more laughter.
But beneath the banter, Levi felt a strange weight in his chest. He wasn't just walking back to Bogwater with sacks of grain. He wasn't hiding behind Mae's hut or wondering whether his system could one day spawn a golden dragon.
He was leaving. With n. With wagons. With coin.
With purpose.
And in the farthest corners of his heart, a seed had taken root. Not of ambition, No. Levi was far too lazy for that. But of defiance.
If he had to cheat his way to glory, so be it.
But one day, he swore silently, he would rebuild Moat Cailin.
With food, with steel, and gods forgive him with swampberries and wood if that's what it took.
Reviews
All reviews (0)