As it turned out, pulling a wagon the size of a small house was a hard thing to do.
By the end of the first long day of travel, Jadis’ muscles ached worse than they ever had before, except maybe for when she’d been near death after fighting the bone thief matriarch. But that victory had come at the cost of broken bones, so she didn’t see it as a fair comparison. Still, acting as a beast of burden for the team was definitely a full body workout and when it came time for them to stop for the day and set up camp, Jadis was happy that they didn’t have much to do thanks to some old friends.
As predicted, Jadis had not been able to pull the wagon at the speeds she normally ran at while carrying her companions in her arms or on her back. There was simply too much weight and the landscape too rough, even with the road they were following, to cover the kind of distance she was used to. However, she still kept up a steady pace that, while not breaking any speed records, was fast enough that the guards on their horses and with their own wagon had to press themselves to keep up. They didn’t exactly struggle, but Jadis was fairly sure that the guards had to have some kind of enchanted equipment of their own for them to keep up with her.
They encountered few demons as they rumbled along, mostly due to the fact that they were sticking to the cobblestone road that led north which was also one of the most used and patrolled roads in the whole of the Broken Hills. The few scattered run-ins they had with demons were so trivial that Jadis didn’t even slow her wagon to address them. Kerr, or in a few cases Aila, would shoot the demons as they approached, taking the time to hop off the wagon and cut the eye core from the bodies and then rush to catch back up with the wagon as Jadis kept going. Though on one occasion, as a quartet of twisted wretches leapt out from hiding to ambush them, Jadis simply kept charging forward and dealt with the problem that way.
No one bothered to check the crushed bodies for their eye cores. Poking around in roadkill would have been just a bit beneath them.
All in all, they made good time. Faster than a standard wagon with a mercenary team, Aila told her, though not by much. Which meant that they made it all the way to the fort on the edge of the Great Southern Forest that was run by Bernd’s Blades an hour or two before sunset. They could have pushed on and made a few more miles before dark, but considering the time everyone agreed that taking advantage of the allied mercenary company’s hospitality was a smart thing to do.
Jadis was happy to see that Captain Renz was still in charge of the fort. Aila’s uncles were there too, along with Volker and Specht and other faces familiar to Aila. Thus they spent that night in good company, relying on the supplies and shelter of the fort rather than their own. Since she was no longer a lost and completely clueless wanderer from the woods, Jadis offered to pay Captain Renz for the cost of the meals they ate.
Renz flatly refused to accept her coin. He, like many other mercenaries in Weigrun, saw Jadis’ victory over the Burning Rancor as a pivotal moment in the battle that had likely saved hundreds of lives, if not more. Providing her and her companions with a meal and a night’s rest was the least he could do.
Though, after being reminded of exactly how much three Nephilim could eat, he tempered that stance to one a little more conservative.
“We’ve seen a few more manticores in the forest,” Renz told Jay later that night. The man stroked his short beard as he talked, brow creased with worry. “And some other magic beasts we don’t often see this far south. Could be they’re ranging further because there’s less prey in the woods, or there could be openings in the territory for them. There could also be other dangers from the mountains pushing them south, anything from demons to greater magic beasts. The forest surrounding the mountains is not a friendly place these days. Take great care as you go that way.”
“Thank you for the warning,” Jay said with genuine appreciation. “I can’t promise we won’t do something reckless. It’s kind of our thing. But we’ll at least go into the danger with our eyes open.”
The next morning Jadis and her crew ate an early breakfast and got back on the road. Doing so filled her with an odd sense of nostalgia. Circumstances were wildly different compared to when she’d first arrived in the civilized parts of Weigrun, but to leave the fort with Aila and a wagon once more definitely triggered some déjà vu. This time, though, as Jadis entered the Great Southern Forest travelling on the same road she’d once followed to leave it, she had a literal wagonload of companions to go with her.
Travel through the forest with its towering pine trees was made easier by following the road, though Jadis still wouldn’t have rated it as actually easy, per se. The terrain was hilly and the road rough from years of disuse. Large branches and sometimes whole trees had fallen and blocked the road, necessitating they stop to clear them. And the Behemoth, as Jadis was starting to call the wagon, was just a bit too large for the road which made navigating turns and bends difficult at times. Jadis wasn’t sure how far they had gotten by the time it was late enough in the day to stop for the night, but at the rate they were going she was sure it was going to take twice as long to get back to the starting village she’d briefly lived in months ago. Maybe longer.
Since Jadis was fairly well worn out after a long day of pulling the Behemoth, her companions largely handled the work of putting together the camp. They’d chosen to stop in a small clearing, one made by the fall of a massive pine some years ago. Jadis was glad the several hundred-foot-tall tree had fallen away from the road and not on it. Trying to clear something like that from the path would have taken a lot of time, to say the least. As it was, the tree’s huge root system had torn up a section of the forest floor that had not yet been grown in, so there was space for them to make a decent sized camp.
Jadis’s three selves sat back and enjoyed the warmth of a newly made fire while her friends and lovers took care of everything. Kerr and Sabina worked together to convert the wagon’s one wall into an awning while Eir and Thea pulled out their bedrolls to set things up for their sleeping arrangements. Bridget gathered firewood while Aila set up the cauldron that Jadis had salvaged long ago to use it to cook their evening meal.
Across the fire, Jadis watched as Guard Captain Willa and her soldiers set up their own camp. Their own process was different from what her companions were doing, mostly due to the fact that they had to take into account their horses, not just themselves. The soldiers also set up tents, six small ones in total, that were just large enough for two people to squeeze into. Definitely a far cry from what Fortune’s Favored had for sleeping arrangements.
Once Kerr and Sabina had set up the awning, they’d taken out the barricades and turned one of the short ends of the wagon into a solid wall, the construction not taking much time at all thanks to the clever design of Norbert. The other walls, including the underside of the wagon, were covered by large tarps that hung from the awning on hooks. In less than half an hour they’d transformed the wagon into a relatively comfortable room that could easily hold all of them.
“The level of demonic activity hasn’t been too bad,” Willa commented, interrupting Jadis’ thoughts. “If it stays like this the whole way to the mountains, we should be there in less than a week’s time.
“Hopefully,” Dys replied. “But nothing ever goes that easy.”
“Have a seat,” Jay motioned towards the logs she’d shifted to circle around the large fire.
Willa nodded in thanks before taking a seat. The human woman wasn’t old, but definitely older than Jadis, she could tell. Maybe in her thirties, with light brown hair and bright blue eyes. With her helmet off, Jadis could see that she had thin lips and a small nose. She had her hair up in a bun, though wisps of it had come undone and fluttered around her face.
“Do you want to share meals?” Aila asked as she dumped vegetables into the large iron cauldron. “We definitely have a good stock of provisions.”
“No,” Willa held up a hand. “No, we were given more than enough of our own. But if we can use your fire, that would save some time.”
“So long as you help gather the wood, then I see no issue,” Aila said as she took out a wooden spoon to start stirring the pot.
Willa did just that, assigning two of her soldiers to help Bridget gather a large stockpile of fuel for the fire. Another two soldiers also reported a stream nearby, which they used to water the horses and also filled any canteens with, including Jadis’ and her companions’. In short order, the two groups had finished all the setup that was needed and all were gathered around the fire to eat and rest.
It was a large gathering, slightly more than twenty people counting her own, which led to a fair amount of good-natured talking and interaction between them all. Jadis did her best to learn the names of the various soldiers under Willa’s command, her thoughts briefly going back to how poorly she’d treated the guards who’d been with her back before the disastrous trip to Alawar.
She noted that most of the soldiers were human. Including Willa, eight of them were humans; Otto, Ada, Friedkin, Achim, Sofie, Gerd, and Lutz. Most of them looked similar to Willa and Thea, with generally lighter hair and complexions, though Sofie stood out since she looked more like Sabina with dark hair and dark eyes. It turned out her family was also from Volto, like Sabina’s father, which prompted the two to start a fast-paced discussion in a language that Jadis couldn’t follow but sounded Italian to her. Kerr easily slipped into their talk, her nature as a polyglot making it easy, though whatever she said made Sabina blush furiously and Sofie titter like a bird.
The other four non-human soldiers were Gunnar, Jaxton, Landry, and Nora. Since they weren’t human, Jadis found it a little easier to remember their names and faces, just per dint of them being so unusual to her sensibilities that were still firmly rooted in her Earth upbringing.
Gunnar was a shockingly muscular elf with bluish-green skin, bright green eyes, and almost white hair. He had the physique of a body builder, his arms literally straining the fabric of his shirt sleeves. Jadis was mildly amused to see how both Ada and Sofie kept eyeing him like he was the last slice of cake on the table, though the elf was either oblivious to their interest or purposefully obtuse. She couldn’t readily tell.
Jaxton and Landry were both orcs and, while not related, looked like they could be brothers with their matching haircuts, similar faces, and identical height. The two were big, brawny men who looked like they’d gotten their muscles from working for a living, rather than exercising in a gym like how Gunnar appeared. That was to say, while they lacked Gunnar’s definition, the two orcs were broad and thick. They were also both obviously interested in Bridget, both spending their time talking to her.
Bridget’s flustered responses to their attempts at getting to know her only seemed to encourage the two. Jadis couldn’t blame them, Bridget was cute when she was flustered.
Nora was a gnome with bright orange hair and more of those strange blue designs on her face and arms. She was also the only full mage of the guard contingent. She still wore the same scale armor as the rest of soldiers, but instead of carrying a spear and shield, she wielded a wooden staff with strangely shaped metal ornament on the end. It looked almost like a gyroscope to Jadis, except with more pointy bits sticking out at different angles.
Jadis couldn’t help but ask about the staff, which prompted a long conversation about arcane magic between the gnome and Aila that Jadis had some trouble following the longer it went on.
“I’m a sorcerer,” Nora said in her sing-song accent. “I don’t mind telling you that my spells are all about lightning. I use this staff as a focus to empower my spells. If I pour some of my magic power into it and let it circulate through the enchantment pathways I can increase the power of my first casting by twofold. It also has an enchantment built in that improves my range significantly. Very useful against the creepy crawlies I don’t want to get too close to. Or the flying ones.”
“But if you’re channeling lightning magic directly through the staff, doesn’t that mean you’re regularly burning out the enchantments on it?” Aila asked.
“Oh, absolutely,” Nora chuckled. “I have to turn this staff in for repairs once a month! It’s not cheap to use, but it’s not my coin going to fix it either, so I can tell you I don’t hold back! The captain doesn’t complain either, since my first shot usually cripples if not outright kills the strongest demon that charges the group. I don’t have the magic to fire off many bolts, but I make life a lot easier for the boys.”
“Of course,” Aila agreed. “First strike spells can make all the difference in a challenging fight. However, how do you handle the magic power usage to magic recovery ratio on longer expeditions?”
“Well…”
Jadis kept one set of ears on the discussion between the two mages, but since she lacked any meaningful input, she ended up focusing on other conversations around the campfire. There was a lot of talking, with topics varying from demons and magic beasts to life back in the Empire’s big cities compared to Weigrun, to talk of friends and family. One topic in particular though grabbed Jadis’ attention.
“What, uh, what’s up with the demon in a jar hanging from the front of your wagon?” Gerd asked Thea as he motioned with his spoon towards the indicated demonling. “It looks alive…”
“It, um, it is,” Thea said, clearly uncomfortable.
“Why? Seems like an unnecessary risk.”
“It’s something of a trophy,” Syd inserted herself into the conversation, leaning in closer to Thea’s side. “We picked it up when we killed a bone matriarch.”
“Took the egg right from its body,” Dys continued, grabbing the man’s attention along with the interest of some of the other soldiers. “Really big fight, just the tw—three of us. Had to drop a literal avalanche of trees on it to kill it.”
Dys told the story of how the “trio” of Nephilim had managed to kill the demon matriarch, successfully distracting the soldiers away from awkward questions that Thea wasn’t prepared to answer. The brunette gave Syd a grateful smile, which Syd returned with a wink.
As she winked at her meek little lover, Syd noticed a conversation going on a little further away between the guard captain and another soldier.
“Two soldiers per watch,” Willa said to Otto, the man apparently acting as her second in command. “The nights are getting longer this time of year, so we’ll go on standard rotation, two-hour rounds for each pair. And don’t let Jaxton and Landry on watch together again or they’ll wake up the whole camp with one of their silly arguments.”
“We’ll take on some of those watches,” Syd said, butting into the conversation between the two. “No need for two of your people to stay awake while two of us are doing the same.”
“We can handle the watch,” Willa insisted. “We are your guard escort.”
“Fake guard escort,” Syd shot back. “I think we all know that you aren’t here for our protection, and we don’t really need it, either. I’m not saying we do all the night watch ourselves or anything, just that you let us handle some of it at least.”
Willa sighed, her shoulders rolling back for a moment.
“Fair enough. Which watch do you want?”
“We’ll take the second watch,” Syd told her. “And the next after that. Your people can handle the first and last, right?”
“Agreed,” Willa said with a nod, clearly pleased with the arrangement.
As Syd settled back on her seat to let Willa and Otto resume their conversation, Thea leaned in closer to Syd and whispered in her ear.
“W—why those two watches? Second and, ah, third are the w—worst.”
“Because we’re going to need some privacy to recharge our rituals,” Syd whispered back. “And I don’t want any interruptions from guards who might still be awake.”
“Oh,” Thea replied, a blush spreading across her cheeks. “B—but, ah, some of us can be so, um, vocal.”
“Yup,” Syd nodded before giving the former guard a wicked grin. “Exciting, isn’t it?”
368