Chương 190: Day One Hundred And Eighty-Eight

Dear Diary, I get that if you've got beef with somebody, you tend to ignore any good qualities they might have, but it's still somewhere between shocking and embarrassing to have Lancaster know more about how to do something than me. So, as we made camp on a series of natural terraces in sight of the City walls, Saffron tagged me. So, shall I come pick you up this evening? I wanted nothing quite so much as to spend the night with my loved ones, but as I looked around I realized how unfair that would be.

I'm sorry, Kitten. I really don't think it would do the esprit de corps any good if I don't spend my nights roughing it with them. I see your point. Still, no reason I ought not do this then. A moment later, and she was there, her arms full of Menace, who launched herself at me the moment she saw me, shrieking,"Mama!" That got the attention of all the nearby Volunteers, and given how she'd worked with the Maids during training, most of them recognized her and let out a cheer.

She clambered up to stand on my shoulders, her arms waving as she twisted herself around as far as she could to wave at everyone. Meanwhile my two units had just started a fire going, with a pair of birds one of them had shot down right after we left the city on sticks close enough for them to cook without burning too much. It wouldn't feed everyone, but it would stretch our food a little further, not to mention being fresh cooked.

Lancaster's units had the uppermost terrace, since he'd been in front, and most of the other units were four to a terrace. I spotted Larry himself walking down the road, pausing at each terrace to talk with the Cadets there. When he spoke with Rider, Rosen, and Angel, I heard him saying something about sentries and clear space. When he finished talking to them, he walked down to our terrace. When he saw Saffron standing there, he nodded, then politely said, "Imperator Aetos."

She might not have been thrilled with having to talk to him before she even got to sit down, but she replied with a polite, "Cadet Lancaster." I decided to step in before things got too chilly for even Saffron to warm me up.

"Hey Larry. I heard you mention something about sentries?" He nodded, "Yes, Commander. While the hills west of Phileo are mostly free of any predators that might decide to try to make a meal out of one of our Volunteers, 'mostly' is not the same as 'entirely'. Also, the further west we go, the more likely we'll run across something that hunts at night, so we might as well start as we intend to go on. Unless you'd rather we didn't?" I shook my head.

"Nah, that's a really good idea. What do you think of twelve hours marching, twelve hours camped per day?" He shrugged, "your choice. The Cadets amongst us could probably do more, but we are marching through snow, quite a bit of it uncleared even on the roadway. Speaking of the road, can we rotate which units are in the lead? Both my units are near exhaustion with having to forge through the snow."

"Sounds good. I'll have these two," I nodded toward my units, "rotate up to the front, and bump the others back. That way we've always got our freshest unit up front breaking trail."

"That'll prevent us from going line abreast to scare up game as we march." I grimaced, "yeah. We'll still get some," I nodded to the two pheasants.

"But not anywhere near as much. Still, that's what we brought the food for, right?" He just nodded at that, then said, "should we find something brave or stupid enough to attack us on the march, how should we respond?" My first thought, just to straight up attack it and let it find out what happened when you messed with Phileo, died before I even opened my mouth.

"What are you thinking we'll see?"

"We'll probably see some wolves and mountain lions, but I don't think the winter has been harsh enough for them to attack a large, obviously armed group. If they do, they'll probably go for your group, since you're bringing up the rear."

"They're smart enough to try and take us out from the back to the front?" I didn't think they would be, but magic made all kinds of wacky stuff possible. Lancaster shook his head.

"No. Your unit is bringing up the rear; in a herd you'd be the slow, weak ones." A grim smile flitted across his face.

"I do wish I weren't all the way in front, should something like that happen."

"Aw, Larry, I didn't know you cared." He just snorted.

"More I wanted to witness someone or something else on the receiving end of your ire for once." That got a laugh out of Saffron and I, and even a little giggle out of the menace before she said, "Mama bad ath." It took me a second to translate that.

"Oi! Menace! Watch your fuckin' language up there." That got a giggle from Isnomi, a stone face so obvious Lancaster must have been hiding some kind of reaction, and a look of sheer disbelief from Saffron.

"Really, love? Given your typical vocabulary, I'm just grateful every word out of her mouth isn't profane, vulgar, or obscene." I rolled my eyes.

"Fine, fine. Don't come running to me when she can't get a job as a sailor because she cusses too much." Saffron poked me in the side.

"You are absolutely the one I'll come running to." I winced a little, more because she was right than anything.

"Okay. Wolves and Mountain Lions. Tigers? Bears?" The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"No tigers, thank Odin, but there are bears. Mostly black bears, and again they'll likely shy away from a force this large, but more likely to go for whichever group they focus on first than trying to take out the rear." I nodded.

"Please let the other cadets know about that, just in case. Anything else?" He shrugged.

"Not likely for another day or two, but there are always a few ne'er do wells that go bandit every winter, and once we get away from the City there's a whole list of possible beasts, mundane and otherwise. Many of the worst will be hibernating, but some won't. I'd say the biggest single threat would be some variety of wyrm. Wyverns, if we're lucky. A dragon if we're not."

"Well. Shit. Good to know in advance, then. By Dragon, you mean like the thing that hit the Aquarium last summer?" He shook his head, which relieved me until he said, "No, that was a marsh drake. Which puts it on the small size for a Dragon, although..." He trailed off, looked thoughtful for a moment, then asked, "did it breathe acid, or fire, or any other dangerous substance?" Just the thought of it made me itch, but I said, "some kind of flaming acidic gunk. My memory's a little foggy." He nodded.

"A marsh Dragon then, although those do tend to be on the small size for Dragons. Then again, mountain Dragons don't usually get all that huge before a Hero patrol takes them down."

"So, the whole 'breathing deadly shit' is the difference between drake and Dragon?" He shrugged and nodded, "there are other differences, but for the most part, that's how they're identified."

"So what do mountain Dragons breathe out?" This time it was his turn to shudder.

"A blast of sharp crystals, like a wave of sharpened sand. At normal temperatures, those crystals melt into an acidic compound." I reached down and scooped up some clean snow to make a snowball. As I handed it up to the menace, I said, "so the weather's an advantage to us then?" He shot me a flat look and said, "body heat."

"Oh, shit." A tiny voice from above my head called out, "angage!" Even Lancaster laughed at that. From behind me one of my Sergeants called people in for dinner, so I nodded and said, "you mind letting the other Cadets know about the local hazards on your way back up front?" He nodded and turned to head out without another word. I put an arm around Saffron, who was still giggling about Isnomi calling out my swearing, and walked her back to the fire.

I looked at the Sergeant who had been overseeing our pup tent setup and said, "set up watches for these two units, please? We're going to be doing twelve on, twelve off until something interrupts that. I'd really rather not lose anybody to a sneaky cougar or some... something else like that." He replied, "yes, ma'am," then set about grabbing up around a third of the Volunteers, most of whom he set to watching the side opposite the road, but at least a few on the downhill side of the terrace and the road itself.

Meanwhile my head rang with giggle as Saffron thought, I'd best watch out, I've heard there's a cougar attempting to ambush me and steal away my virtue. I pulled her in for a kiss, then settled down on a big rock nearish the fire, pulling her onto my lap. Seeing Saffron on my lap, and noting that Saffron's lap was, in fact, empty, the menace scrambled down to grab her seat. Sadly, your dubious virtue is being protected from cougars by a little menace right now. Dubious virtue?

I mean, you're certainly not a virgin, what with yon menace exiting your hoo hah a less than a year back. That got a laugh out of her.

"Speaking of, barring acts of god, I would like you to be back for a certain celebration." She nodded to the menace, who'd been trading waves with the Volunteers.

"Gotcha. Will do, come hell or high water." After that we just sat there vibing until she leaned against me with a sigh and said, "we need to be getting home, love." I hugged them both to me.

"I know. I love you." She returned the hug with interest and said, "I love you too." The menace stood up and said, "I love you three!" before throwing her arms around our heads and head-bunting us. Then Saffron stood up, and they were gone. Not even finding my pack mostly full of wrapped up sandwiches from Drivers' made up for not having them there to eat with, but it was, at the very least, enough to pick my mood up off the floor.

Dinner eaten, I slipped off my jacket and crawled into my tent, making sure to make space for the Sergeant I'd be sharing with. I laid my folded up jacket down as a pillow, pulled the army blanket over me, and drifted off to sleep. Weird dream. Well, slightly weirder than normal. I'd decided to take a look-see over the rocks at that big oblong of grass. I could just barely see it around the rocks, but now that I took more than a little time looking, I saw a few green patches mixed in with the rocks themselves.

After spending maybe half the night pondering those green patches, I spent the rest mostly watching the western sky, trying to see if I could still see the stars when false dawn lit up the sky behind me. I woke to the Sergeant shaking my shoulder.

"Time for breakfast, ma'am." On the one hand, wearing my clothes to sleep meant the blast of cold air when I flopped my blanket back wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. On the other hand, it was still pretty fuckin' bad. I shuddered and crawled out of the tent, the Sergeant starting to break the thing down behind me.

"Sergeants?"

"Yes, ma'am?" they chorused.

"Your two units will be moving to the front of the column today. We're going to be rotating you guys through, taking turns on breaking trail for the rest of the column." I might have caught the slightest sigh from the one breaking down our tent, or it might have just been a blanket floofing. At any rate, all they said out loud was, "yes, ma'am." The highlight of the rest of the day was when the head of the column startled a small herd of deer.

Mutual startling aside, the units near the front on that flank managed to take down a couple decent sized deer. That put everybody in a much better mood come dinner time, when pretty much everybody in the expedition got at least a little fresh cooked venison. Bill's idea, to share any big hauls across the whole expedition; little ones like the pheasants barely had enough meat for the unit that took them to get anything more than a mouthful.

Of course, that had all the troops on the lookout for more wild game, which is probably how they spotted the gryphon as it dove at my units. Well really more to the point me, since I stood a few steps to the side of the units. On the one hand, I think it might have been dead before it reached the ground, what with half a dozen crossbow bolts hammering into it, not to mention the Fire Bolt I instinctively fired off right into its chest. On the other hand?

Getting hammered into the ground by a couple hundred pounds of avian-feline hybrid is not something I'd recommend for your next winter outing. Thankfully Angel and Rosen showed up before I really had done more than lever the damn thing off of me, and managed to team up to Shape a Heal Injury beefy enough to clear up everything except some minor bruising. Worst part, which I found out that evening? Gryphons, at least the bigger ones, are obligate carnivores, and carnivore meat isn't terribly tasty.

Okay, I didn't like it. The menace, who visited along with Saffron, took one look at the head of the thing, which my unit had insisted on keeping as some kind of trophy, and got all weepy. For the first few moments after she saw it, she just clung to me, but before I could figure out how to explain 'self-defense' to an eleven month old, she leapt to the ground, sprinted over to the trophy head, and started punching the shit out of it, yelling, "Bad! Bad! Bad bid! Bad!"

By the time the guys in the unit stopped laughing long enough to intervene, their trophy had got mauled into near-unrecognizability. After giving it one last kick, she toddled back over to where Saffron and I sat, grabbed up my share of the tough, gamey meat of the thing, and started eating with every indication that she loved it. Weird kid. Then again, my kid, so what else should I expect.