Approaching the Gozen Gate

"Our affairs are our own!" the captain shouted from his perch atop the city gates. "Vacate, wretched merchants, or be run through!"

Wagonmaster Bren turned to Lynia in the coach seat beside him. "The Gozen Shogunate are normally so welcoming of the Caravan… this is not the usual guard. There must have been an upset since we last visited."

"An upset?" Lynia asked.

"They are not one whole nation, the Gozenjin," Bren explained. "Most attempts at unification fail for one reason or another. They refer to themselves as the Shogunate, as if there is only one Shogun in charge, but there are several, and the territory changes hands all the time, whether by diplomacy or much worse."

"And you believe this town has been taken over."

"Taken over, maybe. Just as likely they gave it up willingly to avoid more bloodshed. It's not a banner I've seen before, though."

Nestor and his horse trotted closer. "Wagonmaster, if I may," he growled.

"What are your thoughts, Nestor?"

"I see no army before us," he began. "A single captain atop the gate, and two sentries flanking. That cannot be enough to hold the town. There were hundreds when last we arrived. I see no such hundreds now."

"What you're suggesting…"

His eyes shifted beneath the blindfold as his head turned subtly towards the gates. "This town was taken in a military victory, for certain. But a costly one. Their numbers are too few to put up a resistance now, and their captain is bluffing."

"It does look like the city has been under siege, recently," Lynia interjected. "So I propose we assemble the Wagonsguard and make to charge them. If Nestor's theory holds, and it is only those three men, they'll yield before we've come within a sword's reach."

"That's a formidable 'if', Princess," replied Bren, pinching the bridge of his nose, "and you assume these men believe in yielding and pleading for their lives. It is my experience that they do not. If we do charge them, we shall certainly need to kill them." He turned back to his captain. "Nestor, are you certain you see no more soldiers?"

"It is difficult for me to tell, in the daylight," said Nestor as he adjusted his blindfold, "but there seems to be a party approaching."

At the crest of the hill north of the city gates, a small detachment made itself seen, their banner not matching that of the town guards in front of them.

"I do not expect they've come to negotiate," Bren remarked. "And we're about to be caught in the middle."

"Time to pick our side, then, I suppose," quipped Lynia, before sounding the bells of the Wagonsguard.