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The Caravan Guild: the Ring Road and the Long Reach

No house, no city, no boss. The Guild carries everyone.

The Guild's country is a line, not a region: the Ring Road in solid gold all the way around the continent, and the Long Reach in dashed gold across the silt from Balic to Raam. Tap either one.

The families run the cities; the Guild runs the way between them. Its enormous mekillot argosies haul everything on the Ring Road, and its silt skimmers and long haulers are the only way across the gray interior. No army marches without Guild hulls, which is one reason armies don't march.

The Guild's chapter comes with your guide from day one, because the Guild's road runs through every region on Aerun.

In this chapter

• The Ring Road: fourteen hundred miles of everything.
• Distances and Days: the Guild's own distance board, and how to plan your trip in tendays.
• The Long Reach: five days across the silt instead of three tendays around the ring, plus the five rules of the lane.
• First Mark, Midreach, and Saltbone: the three waystations on the Reach.

Know the Guild

• The Guild crews free. There are no slaves aboard an argosy, and the Guild is proud of it. The cities' slaves work the ports instead, which is why cargo changes hands at the portage, and why the ports, not the road, are where freight slows down.
• The rate is the rate. It's posted, it's not negotiable, and nobody argues with the freight-master.
• The Guild holds your bond. The metal and components you checked at the gate travel under Guild bond to your exit city. See Arriving in Balic.