It hadn't been some random attack, a robber looking for an easy mark on the highway. It was quite by chance he had ridden around the back of the covered wagon in time to see Blathnaid giving three sharp owl hoots into the darkness - a signal for cohorts to bait their trap. They had a slick operation going, with Blathnaid infiltrating caravans in her guise as the helpless young daughter of the well-to-do local. It took some prior planning but having someone on the inside assured things went down without a hitch. Three men and a wagon with a broken axle pulled up on the side of the road, greasy with sweat and thoroughly exhausted. They waved Mannix down. "Got a problem?" the old trader asked, stating the obvious succinctly. "Aye, the axle snapped," the shortest of the three said, equally obviously, given the broken stave of wood lying on the side of the road. He was bald and slightly rotund. Beside him stood a curly haired fop with his hands on his hips, and a brute of a man with a face that looked as if it had been trampled by a herd of aurochs.
