Chương 26: Cliff

Blick woke up just before light, to the sound of boots on loose rocks. The morning wasn't quite visible yet so he couldn't actually make out who had come to his camp. Not thinking much of it he had assumed one of their scouts had stumbled upon him during their patrol. With a welcoming of a little grumbly "hello" he climbed out of his hide hole. The dark silhouette jumped in fright and turned fast in Blicks direction.

Before he knew what was happening he heard a light SHWIK THUMP and spun to the side as he was nearly knocked off his feet. A strong spike of pain preceded a spike of fear as he looked down and saw the arrow sticking out of his shoulder. Immediately deciding to get away he turned and sprinted into the wood. Not far in he spun around a larger tree and threw himself up it with a reinforced clawed hand and froze. He heard the shuffling below him as the person began tracking him.

Knowing he wouldn't be tricking a pride scout for long he waited till the man passed below the tree he was in. Letting go he dropped right on top of the man. With a grunt and a gross crunch the man stopped moving. Blick took another minute to stand perfectly still and listen to his surroundings. Accepting there was nobody else lurking around he ripped the arrow from his shoulder with a grunt. Placing a hand on the wound he pushed and focused on closing the hole. It didn't take long and it didn't wear him out.

Mostly he was just furious. Lifting the body off the ground and looking a little closer he couldn't tell who this person was or why he would have attacked. Taking the man's cloak, bow and arrows, he finished searching the man for anything useful. If he was being hunted he needed to be more careful. It was while he was walking back to the river bank that he realized he hadn't ever used a bow before. With a shrug he just kept going, that was a problem he could definitely solve later.

Reaching the water he cleaned the blood off himself. This trip just became more complicated.

"Found em boss, took me a couple hours but seems like he found a small campsite and someone got the drop on em. Stripped em down and left em layen in the dirt. Trail leads off the cliff to the south."

"That makes six we've lost. Any word from your cousin?"

"Nothin sir, not sure if they found em a spy but ole Artemis has always been reliable. If we started losing men and lost contact with em in the same time, then he's prolly been found out and they know we are lookin for em. Couldn't get much more from em as he don't know much more."

"Why south of the cliff? Nobody has ever found anything out that direction. It's probably the worst path to stage an attack too. Is it just a long ass flanking maneuver?"

"It would be the dumbest fighting position. Either they have the worst captain, or we need more information."

"Alright, shift your scouts south and we will make a plan to follow them down the cliff. I'll keep our main force on our side of the river until we are down. New goal is to capture anyone we can for information. I need to know if this is an attack."

Trying to remember how many days it took him to reach the cliff back then was a difficult task. He had been exploring and discovering so much and still working under the assumption of large predators waiting around the corner to eat him. He knew that he was probably ahead of the main force by a few days at least because he could just sprint while they had wagons and animals to tend. He had a lot of extra time to explore before they even set up a base to work from.

He definitely got curious how they would pass the cliff when they came to it. A simple climb for him with his reinforcements and clawed hands, would be a challenge for the three or four hundred person group. They would figure it out if they didn't already have a plan in place. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Where to start… he never crossed the river so it had to be on this side.

This search would take a long time without some way to remember where he had already looked. A few moments later he looked with a nod at the stack of pale rocks beside the tree he was starting his search from. With that out of the way he began walking as straight a line as he could manage away from the river and into the woods.

"Leave a detachment of 50 soldiers to watch the wagons and animals up here. Let them know they will be on their own for a couple of weeks and give them a scroll. If they stay far enough from the cliff it will be very unlikely they are found by the enemy scouts. The rest we need helping the engineers on building this elevator system they came up with. We need to tackle this cliff project expeditiously or we risk being caught in a vulnerable spot."

Fitz was finalizing the plan with his second in command while they stood at the edge of this massive cliff. Taking a long look out over the sea of treetops gave him a perspective he almost didn't even like. One of those holds a gate. Just one.

"This is going to take a lot longer than I expected." The original plan held, but with extra security near the river because for some reason now they had enemy forces in the forest.

"The scouts reported almost open combat regularly along the first mile on our side of the river. You think they are looking for this thing too? It could have been leaked."

"No idea sir. Not sure how anyone respects to find this thing tho. Look at all those damned trees. The creature claimed it traveled for several days upriver before finding this cliff. So are we looking at another 10-15 miles out? With no wagons and the only clear path is the river bank. Do we risk the fight and troop right down the river?"

"Actually I think I have a better idea." Fitz smirks and explains the plan. Two days later the Crater force split off. One team for rear supply guard, and one team for expedition and forward base. The forward team made it down the cliff on a series of ropes and scaffolding anchored into the cliff like a giant set of stairs. The engineers took a full day setting up a four man lift with logs and rope they lowered themselves down with and drilled some holes to place 7 foot logs in.

Cut down the middle, each log made two flat steps. 5 feet was inside the cliff to make sure they could hold the weight of a soldier. It was a site when it was finished. A line of over 300 soldiers slowly walking down a flight of stairs hanging off the edge of a cliff nearly 200 feet tall. The expedition had time so they didn't rush the decent and nobody fell. That alone was a miracle in Captain Fitz eyes. The next step really displayed how fast a dedicated force of 300 men could work.

They built nearly 40 rafts made of downed trees. Loaded maybe eight or nine soldiers on each one and pushed off. Floating down river was faster than walking and left no trail. They were exposed for miles but would disappear into the wood when they went far enough. It took them less than a day from cliff decent to exiting the river. Fast and efficient.

"They floated down river? No wagons or animals? There is no way they are planning to walk that size force into the kingdom and attack without their supply caravan. What the hell is going on?" The leader of the Versale forces threw a rock off the cliff in frustration.

"So we are just two days behind them if we don't consider how long it will take us to walk the distance they floated."

"Yes sir, they will likely get where they are going and be able to dig in whatever base structure they need before we reach them. It's going to be a more formal conflict than we hoped."

"Ok let's get down there and find them. Forward scouts fan out and cover the first 3 miles our side of the river. They can't travel more than a few days without establishing some form of base to hunt and feed themselves. Let's figure out how far they went and set up our own forward base."