Jadis was happy to be able to say that she woke up in the morning. Not that she feared waking, but because it had been so long since she’d been able to say with certainty that it was, in fact, the morning. The small skylight in the cavern let through enough light to show that it was well and truly the start of a new day. Putting aside the oddity of her interaction with her pet demon hatchling, Jadis felt confident that today would be the day that her group of sexual deviants would finally be able to say goodbye to the tunnel system they had been lost in for who knew how many days.
As it turned out, she was wrong.
It ended up taking another five days following the long tunnel, stopping to make quick searches down promising-looking side caves before they finally found their exit. And when they did finally find it, they almost skipped it since it seemed like it had so little potential for escape. Fortunately, Thea had volunteered to squeeze into the tight confines of a tiny hole, leaving her spear and makeshift shield behind with Jadis while she checked the feasibility of escape.
The way out proved to be a cramped, contorted tunnel that Jadis’ bodies could barely squeeze their way through, but it was an exit and it proved worthy of suffering through the claustrophobia. Beyond the damp, lichen-covered walls of a channel that Jadis had to crawl on her belly to pull herself through was the underside of a partially uprooted giant pine tree, its many exposed roots acting as the only barrier to the surface world.
“Thank the gods,” Aila sighed as she kneeled in a bed of moss, her face turned up to the sun’s light filtering through the canopy high above. “I never want to go underground again.”
“You and me both,” Jadis readily agreed.
She had taken a slightly less elegant approach to enjoying her newfound independence from the confines of Oros’ underbelly. All of Jadis’ bodies lay fully stretched out on the ground, helmets off and limbs splayed wide, as they basked in the warmth of an afternoon sun filtered through the boughs of giant pines.
Eir knelt nearby, her hands clasped in prayer as she thanked her patron goddess for whatever role she might have played in their escape from the caves. Glancing at the red-skinned elf, Jadis had to stifle a grin at the way Eir looked in her new garments. Walking around in nothing but her skivvies had gotten old, so Jadis had cut a hole in a blanket and used some rope to make a belt for the cleric, giving her at least a passable attempt at a makeshift tunic. Wearing what looked like undyed rough spun cloth with a rope belt combined extraordinarily well with the image of a woman knelt in prayer, making Eir look like some kind of penitent eremite.
Of course, Jadis’ perverted thoughts couldn’t help but stray to how Eir had knelt before her the night before when they had been renewing their lover’s bond rituals, creating an entirely separate image at odds with the one the priestess presented kneeling among the tree roots.
“Okay, just stating the obvious here, but I’m pretty sure we’re in the Great Southern Forest,” Kerr announced, holding a fistful of pine needles close her nose as she breathed deeply. “That doesn’t narrow things down much, but it’s something.”
“That means we went north,” Thea quietly pointed out, glancing around the small clearing they were currently idling in.
“North,” Dys echoed as she sat up to look around. “But how far north? We were on the east side of Weigrun, forty or so miles from Far Felsen up the coast, right?”
“Right,” Aila nodded, getting to her feet. “The distance between Alawar and the border of the Broken Hills and The Great Southern Forest was around twenty miles, I think. So we’re sixty miles from Far Felsen, at a minimum.”
“So, what, we just start heading south now?”
“No,” Aila shook her head at Jay. “First we want to get our bearings, orient to some landmarks before we just start wandering.”
Jadis’ three selves glanced around the colossal pine trees surrounding them, the massive growths blocking out all vision of anything more than a few hundred feet beyond them.
“How?”
Kerr scoffed, clicking her tongue at Jadis.
“Bon sang, big stuff,” she chided. “Have you never climbed a tree before?”
With that, Kerr turned and began to quickly skitter up the side of one of the giant pines, her claws digging into the bark as she easily scaled the tree that had to be at least three hundred feet tall, if not more.
“Oh,” Jadis said mildly, feeling a little dumb.
Then, Jadis’ competitive spirit kicked in. Getting to her feet, Jay glanced over the tree, looking for a way to climb it too. She didn’t have Kerr’s claws so digging her fingers into the bark was out of the question.
Or was it?
With a prodigious vertical leap to give her a head start, Jay leapt into the air and grabbed hold of the pine’s thick, rough outer bark. One chunk came off the tree in her hand as her full weight hit, but her other hand held firm as she began scrambling up after Kerr. As soon as she got to the point where there were branches to grasp, Jay began launching herself along, forcing a cursing Kerr to struggle to keep up. Despite her lead, Jay managed to beat Kerr to the top of the tree by a few seconds, prompting more undoubtedly rude phrases in languages Jadis couldn’t speak.
“It’s pretty up here, though,” Jay pointed out once Kerr had simmered down and had draped herself over Jay’s shoulder, idly chewing on her ear.
“It is,” Kerr agreed.
The sun was starting to set in the far west, the great golden orb just barely touching the horizon. A sea of green treetops surrounded them, stretching on past sight to both the east and the south. To the north, the snowcapped mountains loomed far closer than Jadis had seen them in a while, their peaks casting long shadows. To the east, Jadis could make out a dark strip on the edge of the horizon she was fairly certain was the sea.
“Merde,” Kerr sighed, her green eyes taking in the landscape. “We went way further north than I figured. We’re probably a hundred and fifty to two hundred miles north of the border right now.”
“What, seriously?” Jay asked, startled by the assessment.
“Yes,” Kerr confirmed, pointing at the mountains. “I know that peak. We’re not all that far from where Kalters Wall hits the eastern coast. Considering how many curves and dead ends we took, I’m surprised we got this far. We must have been down in that pit for way fucking longer than we thought.”
“Well, at least we’ve got a bearing now,” Jay said as her other selves relayed the information to the others waiting on the forest floor. “At least I can run all out in the forest, unlike in those shitty tunnels.”
“So you’re saying I’ll get to ride you again?”
“Absolutely,” Jay easily agreed, matching Kerr’s saucy grin.
Once the two were back down on the ground, the group decided it was late enough in the day that there was no point in starting their long trek back to the city right away. Instead, they set up camp and discussed their plans on how they would proceed.
From what Aila, Kerr, and Thea remembered of the maps they’d seen of Weigrun and their own explorations, a small village, closer to a roadside waystation than anything else, should have been located somewhere in the Great Southern Forest to the southwest of their location. The village was, of course, abandoned, but the road was what they wanted to get to anyway. Following the road that led to the south from that village would be the quickest way for them to find their way back to civilization. Of course, they could just head straight south to reach the border between the forest and the Broken Hills. The mercenary companies in Weigrun patrolled the border constantly and had dozens upon dozens of small forts set up all along the demarcation line, so no matter what they would be able to find people who could help them get back to Felsen. Still, the road would be better for travel, so they would at least aim in the direction of the village to see if they could find the road.
While they talked, Jadis helped Kerr improvise some arrows to fill her quiver. With the sacrifice of some pigeon-like woodland bird, they even managed to fletch them, though they were far from professionally done. With a couple dozen crude arrows for Kerr and an ugly but functional shield for Thea, Jadis felt like the two were much closer to their full capabilities than not.
It was with a general sense of excitement and relief that they set out in the morning, the crisp fresh wind blowing at their backs from the mountains. Since they wanted to travel as fast as possible, Jadis had her companions ride on her backs so she could jog at a speed only she was capable of. Jay carried Aila in her arms while Dys did the same for Eir. Kerr rode on Dys’ back while Thea rode on Syd’s. At first Kerr objected to being carried around like a child in her words, but then Jadis started running full tilt and the only words out of her mouth were shouts and hollers of joy as Jadis treated her to the kind of speeds horses would have struggled to keep up with.
Over the course of the day they passed by signs of humans, or rather civilized creatures, having been in the area, such as cut down trees or camp remains, however none of it looked recent. They also came across bone thieves and bramble fiends, the now horrendously underpowered demons wandering aimlessly through the forest. Jadis was tempted to just run by and ignore them, but on Eir’s insistence that such dangerous creatures couldn’t be allowed to freely stalk the woods where they might happen across others less able to defend themselves, Jadis stopped to slay them whenever she came across the feckless demons. There weren’t that many, though, so they didn’t stop often.
At her current level of strength, the once frightening bone thieves were so non-threatening to her that she was almost tempted to capture another demon for study purposes. She decided against it, however. One little devil hitchhiking with them was enough for the time being.
Some time after noon, the group stumbled across the village they had been looking for, Thea spotting the clearing it was built in. The unnamed village was, as expected, completely abandoned and in poor condition from a couple years of neglect, but as promised it was built on a road leading southwest. Not bothering to loot any of the crumbing structures, they elected to simply travel on, making as much distance down the path as they could before nightfall.
With a cleared road to run on, Jadis was able to make even greater time as she carried her companions along with as much speed as she could reasonably sustain. By nightfall, Jadis estimated that they had travelled more than half the distance to the border and probably would have been there already if travel through the untamed woods hadn’t slowed their progress down. Jadis hoped that night would be their last time camped out in the wilderness before they made it back to Felsen and a warm bed.
A bed that hopefully had a few of her companions still in it.
“So, when we get back,” Dys addressed Kerr and Eir as they jogged along the road the next morning. “I know I’m planning on taking a break and sleeping for, I dunno, maybe a week? But after that, I was hoping we might be able to go on more outings together.”
“You were?” Kerr replied, a bit of surprise in her tone.
“Yes. Like, as a team. On maybe a more regular basis. If the two of you are up for it. Which I could understand if you aren’t, considering this whole insane adventure we’ve been on, but—”
“Damn right I’ll go hunting with you again,” Kerr cut Dys off. She squeezed one of her arms around Dys’ neck. “I was worried you wouldn’t want to partner with me again since I was the one who suggested this igrya of a mission in the first place. Besides, if you think I’m giving up on this stat boost and thigh-quivering fucking if I can help it, you’re as dumb as you are sexy.”
“I also would be loath to cut our ties now,” Eir spoke up from her spot in Dys’ arms. “I was assigned to be your healer by the temple, but even if they took that assignment away and gave it to another, I would still remain by your side. It would take the word of my goddess to dissuade me.”
“Thanks,” Dys said, feeling just a little emotional over the sincerity in her two companions’ sentiments, even if they had two wildly different ways of expressing their affections. “I, uh, I’m really glad to hear that. I like having you two around.”
As Dys hid her embarrassment from Eir and Kerr who both fawned and teased her in their own unique ways, Syd thought over what she was going to say to Thea.
Jadis had decided she liked Thea, the shy guard having proved both her worth and her dedicated loyalty. Hells, the woman had literally thrown herself into the jaws of a hydra to protect her. How couldn’t Jadis trust the guardswoman after that?
The problem was, as reliable and kind and cute as Thea was, her loyalty was at the very least split, since she was a soldier who served the Empire, and more specifically, Magistrate Vraekae. Jadis wasn’t as upset over the Magistrate’s interference in her life, not after some time to distance herself from her initial reaction and the obvious benefits she’d reaped from it in the form of Eir and the guards, but still. If Thea was dutybound to follow Vraekae’s orders, then Jadis wasn’t sure she could offer Thea a spot on her ‘team’, as it were. But she also didn’t think she could ask the career military woman to just abandon her position and oath to take up arms with her as an independent mercenary. At least with Kerr, she was already an independent and thus was free to do as she pleased, and Eir wasn’t actually part of the same power structure and had no conflict of interest by wanting to stick with her. Could the same be said for Thea?
“So, Thea,” Syd started, drawing out her words a little as they ran along. “When we get back to Far Felsen…”
“Ah, yes?” Thea replied, her voice betraying nervousness.
“Well, I’ve been thinking it over,” Syd said, “and I want to talk to you about a few things. Is there any chance—”
Syd’s next words were cut off as Aila caught Jay’s attention, pointing to the slivers of the sky that could be seen through the trees ahead.
“Do you see that? I think that’s smoke! Something’s burning!”
Her attention immediately switched to the potential for danger as Jadis focused ahead, seeing the dark clouds of black smoke billowing through the trees in the distance. Without hesitation Jadis picked up her pace from a jog to a sprint. In a few minutes they crested a pine crowned hilltop and were able to look down through the trees to the edge of the forest, their sightline along the road unobstructed.
There, at the edge of the forest where the strange broken hill landscape began, a wood-walled fort sat, flames engulfing its watchtower while disjointed, inhuman shadows roved around and through the clearing. The smell of burning wood and charred flesh filled Jadis’ noses as the winds shifted, carrying the column of smoke their way. Even as she watched, a creature with too many wide, burning wings rose up from the center of the fort and let out a chilling wail as it began flying away, heading to the southwest.
The demons had gotten to the border forts first.
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