A Day from Gora and Travelling

As we left the beauty and majesty of the ornamental entrance to Gora this morning and turned left we walked along a well made roadway.  It had all the hallmarks of a Dzarraf road - the paving was precise and the surface level.  I noted this to Mullory, and he confirmed that this section of road is maintained by my people.  It's part of a wider highway which runs to the south, and off to the nearby Dzarraf realm of Riviga Kiziph.  My people have a long history with Riviga, more so than the other great delves of this land, we've stood shoulder to shoulder in war against common enemies, and we've co-operated with each other wherever we could.  He did point out, though, that the Hznaman also make roads much like this one.  He believes that many Dzarraf think they only use cobbles to make roads but this is not true.  Some of the finest highways in the country are made by the Hznaman, using stone they cut and laid themselves.  He thinks his people are no better and no worse at this kind of masonry than the Dzarraf - but did agree that there is a kind of snobbery among his people where there is a craving for the exclusivity of Dzarraf-worked stone.

As we moved along the road, taking it a little easy as we were in the company of other traders and enjoying the flat and easy road surface, we discussed the detail of this journey.  Mullory seems to have planned out our route carefully.  We followed the road southwards for the best part of a day, before we reached a small and quite new settlement.  This place used to be just a series of camping sites that the traders used, he told me, but in the last few years solid structures have been built.  The trader's stopover has acquired the name 'Pinnell Camp', he was unsure why.  We will reached here an hour ago, and both the local inns were full.  For tonight we'll be camping among the traders.

The camp sits on the road's turn-off.  The main Dzarraf road continues south, but is less well maintained from this point, and a second, well worn road leads off to the east.  This runs down to the plains of Caldonacia, the Hznaman land beyond.  This road runs eastward for several miles before gently curving away to the north.  It eventually it meets the main trade route down to Scourt Hills at the eastern foot of the Gora mountains, but we're not taking that route.  Just as the road starts to turn north, there is another turn-off that heads south-east, one that is less well used, and it is the route we shall be taking.  This will be much more secluded, and it runs through an arm of lower mountains and eventually meets the River Jallar, which it then follows until it meets the main road north of the town of Saltley.

When we go along this road, Mullory warned me, we must be vigilant.  There are known to be Oggar that live here, and we may also run into Ogruks too.  The traders do not like to use that road because of the danger of attack.  We have no trade goods, so we're expecting to be left alone - although it does no harm to take care.  The road from that turn off to Saltley should take us three days to walk.  It makes the journey at least one whole day shorter than taking the north road through Scourt Hills and then south once again down the highway.

Once we're in Saltley the plan is to spend a day or so replenishing supplies and to look for any work that may be available to a team of our ability.  After that we'll head out along the southern route, a road that leads to a town called Sparren Marsh, which is in the wetlands, but the road is quite dry, he assures me.  The highway here will allow us to pick the pace up considerably, it would take three days for traders with heavy loads to make the journey from Saltley to Sparren Marsh, but we should be able to do it in two with a brisk pace.  We may even purchase some horses to speed our progress.

The north-east road out of Sparren Marsh leads to Fornan Bay.  If we're on horseback by then we'll make this last leg of our journey in a day.  What happens after that is unknown.  None of the others have made any plans that far ahead, and we may be delayed on the road by any work that we pick up.

I've overcome my fear of the outdoors, and of Hznaman traders and of camping in the rain.  So I'm pretty sure I can master my fear of horses.  I've never worried about sitting in a cart behind a mule (I've often not enjoyed it, but I've never been actually apprehensive about it) but sitting on the back of a huge horse is an intimidating prospect.  Well, I'm here to experience more of life, so I'll go through with it if the others do.