The journey back to Windscar took most of the day. Subin’s group reached the settlement shortly before sunset, when the market streets were still crowded with merchants finishing their business and wagon drivers searching for places to spend the night. News of the recovered wagon had already reached Garrick Voss, and a messenger was waiting near the Association office to guide them inside.
Garrick stood beside a table covered with regional maps, speaking to a patrol captain. When Subin entered with Yerin and Ara, he dismissed the captain and turned toward them.
“You found Holt?”
“And the person who paid for his wagon,” Ara replied. “Venn Arlo’s commercial account covered the hire. The wagon has been recovered outside a mining village, but the cargo is gone.”
Garrick’s expression hardened. “Then Venn has more explaining to do than I expected. He arrived in Windscar an hour ago.”
“Where is he?” Subin asked.
“Here. He agreed to answer questions, and I thought it would be better to hear his explanation before rumours spread through the trade houses.”
Garrick led them into a smaller meeting room. A thin man in his late thirties sat on the far side of the table, his travel coat folded beside him. He looked tired rather than frightened, but his fingers kept moving over the rim of a cup he had barely touched.
“Venn Arlo,” Garrick said, “these are the people who followed the freight trail north. They found the wagon hired under the name Corlan. Its payment came through your account.”
Venn looked at Subin. “I was told you were investigating the iron shipment dispute.”
“That was where we started,” Subin replied. “The treated iron we found elsewhere appears to be a separate matter. Your account paid for a wagon used to transport it. We want to know why.”
Venn exhaled slowly. “Because I arranged a transport service for a client who called himself Corlan. I did not know the name was false when I accepted the request.”
“You’re a licensed broker,” Ara said. “You know the difference between arranging transport and concealing a shipment.”
“I do. And I made a mistake.”
His admission came quickly enough to surprise Garrick.
Venn explained that he had been approached several weeks earlier by a merchant seeking help moving treated iron between private workshops. The merchant claimed the material had been purchased legally but needed temporary storage while its final destination was settled. Venn had been promised a generous commission for arranging transport without involving the larger freight houses.
He had accepted the work.
At first, the arrangements had seemed ordinary. The client paid an advance, supplied a description of the cargo, and asked Venn to find a contractor willing to move it. When the buyer requested that the crates be listed as machinery parts, Venn had objected. The client assured him that the bars were components intended for equipment manufacture and that the description was merely a commercial classification.
“Why didn’t you ask for the supplier’s name?” Subin asked.
“I did. He said the purchase had been made through a private trade agreement and that the supplier did not want its commercial terms circulated. I should have refused to proceed without proper details. Instead, I accepted his explanation because the payment cleared and the commission was substantial.”
“That explains your involvement,” Yerin said. “It doesn’t explain the false permit.”
Venn rubbed his forehead. “I arranged the payment for the wagon, but I did not create the permit. Corlan was supposed to handle the local registration. When I later learned that the cargo description had been altered and that the permit was incomplete, I tried to contact him. He stopped answering.”
“And you left Windscar,” Garrick said.
“Yes. I had been asked to inspect possible storage sites in Millhaven and Northfield. I went to check whether the cargo had been delivered where it was supposed to go. By the time I reached Northfield, the crates had already moved. I became concerned that I would be blamed for the whole arrangement, so I continued north to find the client.”
“You could have returned and explained that,” Garrick said.
“I know.” Venn lowered his eyes. “I thought I could settle it privately and avoid losing my licence. Every day I stayed away made returning more difficult.”
Subin watched him carefully. Venn’s fear seemed genuine, but fear did not establish innocence. The broker had willingly accepted an arrangement with incomplete information, ignored warning signs, and then avoided the authorities when the consequences became clear.
“Who was the client?” Subin asked.
“Corlan was the name he used when we discussed the transport. I met him twice in person. The older man in the dark coat attended one of those meetings.”
“Did you know him as Master Veyr?”
Venn’s eyes lifted sharply. “Yes. Corlan called him that. I never learned his full name.”
“What did Master Veyr do?”
“He handled the decisions. Corlan negotiated the price and spoke to the contractors, but the older man decided where the crates would go. He was the one who insisted the cargo be stored until he gave further instructions.”
Ara leaned forward. “Did either man tell you where the iron came from?”
“Corlan said it was purchased from a private workshop. Master Veyr said it was part of an unfinished equipment order. Neither gave me a supplier I could contact.”
“Then why did you accept the work?” Yerin asked.
“Because the commission was nearly three times what I would normally earn for that amount of transport.” Venn paused. “I’m not proud of that answer, but it is the truth.”
Garrick crossed his arms. “You will give a full statement and cooperate with the regional inquiry. Until the authorities determine whether you knowingly assisted an illegal shipment, you will not arrange further freight contracts involving treated iron.”
Venn nodded. He did not argue.
Subin had expected another evasive answer, perhaps another name or another uncertain destination. Instead, the broker had finally admitted the basic facts: he had arranged the transport, accepted suspicious terms for personal gain, and lost control of the shipment when his client disappeared.
The remaining question was no longer whether Venn had participated. It was what had happened to the iron after the crates left the Northfield depot.
“Do you know where the shipment was meant to end up?” Subin asked.
Venn hesitated before answering. “The original destination was a workshop district east of Northfield. After the first delivery, Corlan changed the instructions. He said the buyer wanted the bars held temporarily at the old ore-loading yard. Later, he told me the final destination would be confirmed in person.”
“Did you go to the yard?”
“No. I was supposed to meet him at the broken weigh station, but he never arrived. I waited for most of the afternoon, then left when it became clear he wasn’t coming.”
“Why didn’t you tell the authorities?”
“Because by then I knew the permit was false, and I had arranged the transport. I thought I could find Corlan before anyone discovered the problem.”
Subin glanced at Ara. Their earlier discovery at the weigh station now had a straightforward explanation. Venn had been expected there, but Corlan had failed to appear. The broken clasp they found might have belonged to one of the men involved, but without a direct identification it was not worth building another theory around it.
“Can you identify Corlan if you see him again?” Subin asked.
“Yes. And Master Veyr.”
“Then that is what you will do if the authorities locate either man.”
Venn agreed.
Garrick called for an Association officer to escort the broker to the trade administration office. Before leaving, Venn turned back toward Subin.
“There is one thing I should tell you. The iron wasn’t ordinary scrap or raw material. Master Veyr inspected every bar himself before the crates were sealed. He rejected several pieces and ordered them removed. He seemed particularly concerned about the treatment along the edges.”
“What kind of treatment?” Ara asked.
“I don’t know enough about metallurgy to say. The bars were dark, with a finish that didn’t resemble ordinary forge work. The rejected pieces had rough patches near their ends.”
That detail matched the specialist’s preliminary description of the treated iron recovered at Old North Depot, but it did not reveal who had made it or why. Subin filed it away without drawing a conclusion.
Once Venn had been escorted out, Garrick sat down and rubbed his eyes.
“At least we know what happened to the payment and why the broker disappeared. He made a bad decision, then tried to hide it. That is enough for the trade authorities to act on without pretending we have solved every part of the shipment.”
“Can they find Corlan?” Yerin asked.
“They have patrols checking the mining settlements and the workshops that deal in treated iron. We also know the wagon was abandoned near a mining village, so they can begin there. It is their investigation now unless they find something that requires our involvement.”
Subin agreed. Their group had followed the trail because the shipment might have been connected to the dispute in Windscar. They had now established that Belric Dane’s iron remained secure and that the separate cargo had moved through an unauthorized arrangement involving Venn and a client using a false name. They did not need to chase every possibility themselves.
Garrick offered them a room at the Association residence for the night. Subin accepted, and the group spent the evening eating a late meal in a small dining room behind the main hall. For the first time in days, no one had to examine another ledger or question another innkeeper.
Yerin sat across from Subin, turning a spoon between her fingers. “You look disappointed.”
“I’m not disappointed.”
“You were expecting a fight.”
“I was expecting something that required a sword.”
Ara laughed quietly. “You followed a freight investigation across half the region. What did you think would happen? That the crates would grow legs and attack you?”
“If they had, the investigation would have been shorter.”
Yerin smiled. “You would have complained that they were too weak.”
“That depends on how many crates there were.”
Their conversation drifted away from the case. Ara described the regional specialist’s preliminary assessment of the treated iron, while Yerin talked about a training ground she had noticed near the eastern gate. She wanted to test her spear against several different defensive styles before the team resumed travelling.
Subin listened, occasionally asking a question, but his attention returned to the road ahead. The Great Passage was vast, and their recent journey had taken them through settlements that depended on trade routes, mines, and workshops for their survival. Problems like the freight case mattered because ordinary people paid the price when greed disrupted those systems. Yet Subin had never intended to spend his life following merchants and missing cargo.
He wanted stronger opponents, deeper regions, and a better understanding of the sword.
The following morning, Garrick met them at the residence entrance. The trade authorities had accepted Venn’s statement, and the broker would remain available for questioning. A patrol was being sent to inspect the mining village where Holt’s wagon had been recovered, while the regional office took responsibility for locating Corlan and Master Veyr.
“No new assignment for you?” Yerin asked.
“Not this time,” Garrick said. “You’ve done enough. If the investigation uncovers a threat that requires your strength, I’ll contact you. Otherwise, I suggest you leave the merchants to their own problems.”
Subin gave a small nod. “That sounds reasonable.”
Garrick smiled faintly. “I never thought I’d hear you say that.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
The group departed Windscar before noon. They had spent days following a trail of suspicious cargo, but the matter was now in the hands of people whose job was to pursue it. Subin felt no need to remain simply because the case still had unanswered questions.
At the settlement’s northern road, Yerin fell into step beside him.
“So, where now?”
Subin looked toward the distant ridges beyond the cultivated land. Somewhere beyond them lay a region the Association had recently marked as suitable for high-rank exploration. The route crossed open country before reaching a series of ravines where powerful monsters had been sighted.
“East,” he said. “I want to find something worth fighting.”
Yerin adjusted her spear across her back. “Then try not to finish everything before the rest of us arrive.”
“I’ll make no promises.”
She shook her head, smiling as she followed him onto the road.
Behind them, Windscar returned to its ordinary rhythm of trade and travel. Ahead, the land rose into unfamiliar terrain, and Subin finally had a reason to draw his sword that had nothing to do with paperwork.