Atgar returned to Pickdean with heavier steps than when he had first set out.
The trail into the hills had given answers, yet none of them brought comfort.
The Rangers had been cleared of suspicion, as he had hoped. Kalion had proven steady and true, guiding the company through the wild and helping uncover what truly happened. For that, Atgar was grateful.
But the folk who first took from his cookshop had not been hardened thieves at all.
They were survivors of old Pickdean, driven from their homes, living rough in the hills, and brought low by hunger. In their desperation they had stolen food, and by mistake taken the crate besides.
Atgar could not find it in himself to hate them.
Yet others had no such excuse.
The signs now stood plain before him. First the strange coin found amidst the rubble of his cookshop. Then the brooch discovered in the ruined camp. And at last the refugees’ own account of cloaked raiders bearing the same mark upon their garments.
A wheel crossed by daggers.
No random thieves. No wandering cutthroats.
Whoever they were, they were organized, marked, and bold enough to strike with purpose.
They had fallen upon the refugees, seized the crate, and scattered them once more. They had not searched for food. They had not cared for coin.
They had come for one thing.
The crate.
That troubled Atgar most of all.
Someone knew where it had been stored. Someone knew its worth. Someone had men ready to strike.
This was no chance robbery, no hungry raid in the night.
It went deeper than it first seemed.
The burden of the loss still sat upon his shoulders. Durin’s Folk Trading Company had entrusted the goods to his keeping, and he meant to answer for that trust.
The hills had yielded what truth they could.
Now the road led elsewhere.
To Bree.
To its watchmen, its merchants, and its inns where loose tongues wagged over ale.
Somewhere in that town, Atgar reckoned, someone had heard the wheel turning long before he had.
