Spice & Wolf II by Hasekura Isuna

didn’t know what the precise problem was anyway.
    Lawrence glanced at Holo—a sign that she should stay quietly sitting in the driver’s seat—and hopped out of the wagon, hailing a nearby merchant.
    “Excuse me,” he said.
    “Hm? Oh, a fellow traveler. Have you just arrived?”
    “Yes, from Poroson. But what’s going on here? Surely the local earl hasn’t decided to open a market here.”
    “Hah! Nay, were that so, we’d all have mats spread on the ground and be trading the day away. In truth, there’s tell of a mercenary band crossing the road to Ruvinheigen. So we’re all stopped here.”
    The merchant wore a turban and loose, baggy pants. The man had a heavy mantle wrapped about his neck and large knapsack slung over his back. Judging by his heavy clothes, the merchant frequented the heart of the northlands.
    The dust of the road lingered on his snow-burned face. The many wrinkles and the tanned leather pallor of his skin were proof of a long life as a traveling merchant.
    “A mercenary band? I know General Rastuille’s group patrols these parts.”
    “No, they were flying crimson flags with a hawk device upon them.”
    Lawrence knitted his brow. “The Heinzberg Mercenary Band?”
    “Oh ho. I see you’ve traveled the northlands. Indeed, they say it’s the Hawks of Heinzberg—I’d sooner run into bandits than them when carrying a full load of goods.”
    It was said that the Hawks of Heinzberg were so hungry for wealth that wherever they passed, not so much as a single turnip leaf would be left behind if they thought it could be sold. They had made their name in the northlands, and if they were on the road ahead, trying to pass it would be suicidal.
    The Heinzberg mercenaries were reputed to spot their prey faster than a hawk on the wing. They would be upon a lazily traveling merchant in an instant, surely.
    However—mercenaries acted purely out of self-interest, and in that sense, they were not far from merchants. Essentially, when they behaved strangely, there was often something similarly unexpected happening in the marketplace.
    For example, a sharp jump or drop in the price of goods.
    Being a merchant, Lawrence was naturally pessimistic, but pessimism would get him nowhere, he knew—he was already on the road, loaded with goods. All that mattered now was how he would get to Ruvinheigen.
    “So it seems taking a long detour is the only course,” said Lawrence.
    “Most probably. Apparently there’s a new road to Ruvinheigen that heads off from the road to Kaslata, but it’s been on the unsafe side lately, I hear.”
    Lawrence had not been in this region for half a year, so this was the first he had heard of a new road. He seemed to recall that on the northern side of the plains that stretched out, there was an eerie forest that was the source of constant unpleasant rumors.
    “Unsafe?” he asked. “Unsafe how?”
    “Well, there have always been wolves in the plains, but it’s been especially bad lately, they say There’s a story going around that an entire caravan was taken two weeks ago—and the wolves were summoned by a pagan sorcerer.”
    Lawrence then remembered that the unpleasant rumors were mainly of wolves. He realized Holo was probably listening in on this conversation and stole a glance at her. A smile danced around the corners of her mouth.
    “How do you get to this new road?”
    “Hah, you’re going to go? You’re quite the rash one. Take this road straight, then turn right when it forks. Keep going for quite a while, then it will split again, and you bear left. Though peacefully whiling away two or three days here should be all right. It’d take but five minutes to tell if the mercenaries really are there, but by the time you saw them, it’d be too late. The merchants with fish or meat will have to head to a different city, but I’ll play it safe.”
    Lawrence nodded and looked back to the contents of his own wagon. Fortunately his cargo was in no danger of spoiling,