Chương 511: Churn Milk

Rolly and Squirmie were taking turns scooping up the delicious frozen dessert from a large bowl. It was cold enough to instantly give them brain freeze, but they couldn't stop eating. Delbert and Signe were eating from much smaller bowls with no discomfort. She had watched nervously as he took his first bite and relaxed as he smiled.

"Oh, this is so tasty. I think I could eat this every day." She'd relaxed after that. Her mother had always told her that in the war to win a husband, the first battle should be waged against his stomach. Once that was conquered, it was only a matter of time. She tried to act nonchalant.

"Just an old recipe passed down from my great-gram. It is the least I can do to thank you for your hospitality here." Only a moment after Delbert had entered the room and begun dropping the temperature, Rolly and Squirmy had arrived with her churn and kitchen bag. Other workers carried in the rest of her belongings. Once she had her stool and bucket, Elsie and Bessie had surged to their feet, demanding to be milked.

Signe had been milking cows since she was three and efficiently milked Bessie, getting three gallons of thick, white ox milk. She transferred this to her churn, got Bessie settled, and milked Elsie. With six gallons of milk, she got to work, adding powdered fruit, crushed nuts, honey, barkspice, and a small white cube that she called coldjelly. With arms made strong from churning every day, she got to work moving the handle of the churn in a circle, mixing the ingredients.

Rough-carved runes on the side of the churn drew in the cold of the room, thickening and smoothing the concoction. After half an hour, during which Rolly and Squirmy sat impatiently with bowls in their hands, she declared the Churnmilk done. She had served Delbert first, and then Rolly and Squirmie. And then Rolly and Squirmie several more times. She was amazed that the little Fae princess ate more than her much larger companion, but her eyes mostly watched Delbert.

His approval of her Churnmilk was a huge first step. After his second bowl, he stood and asked to look at her churn. She nodded. Things were moving fast if he was already at this stage. Most husbands-to-be were interested mainly in the food an unspoken-for girl could put on the table, her axework, and the size of her dowry chest.

If they found each other compatible, they moved on to other things, including her skill with contract negotiation and the quality of the churn, cauldron, and loom she brought to the marriage.

"I'm intrigued by the runes on your churn, and the interplay of mana as it moves heat out of the churn and into the surroundings. I think the process could be upgraded."

"Heat? My churn has nothing to do with heat! It pulls cold from the icy air to stiffen the churnmilk so the ingredients mix better. Surely, any Ice Wizard knows this." He was running his fingers over the rune, oblivious to her consternation.

"I was quite surprised by what Ice Wizards know and don't know. I met a few when they came to visit. They scoffed at my theories, especially when I tried to explain thermodynamics and absolute zero." He took a seat on a bundle of hides she had acquired along the way to sell. Signe had no idea what he was talking about and wished to know more about his dealings with the Wizards from the North.

"They can be difficult to talk to, and are very proud of their knowledge. It makes them quite powerful. What happened?"

"Oh, they were rude, became nuisances, especially when I turned down their offer to fight with them. I can't abide rude people. Since they didn't believe in absolute zero and how heat and cold are related, I gave them a demonstration and froze them solid. I asked the Baron what to do with them, and he advised just keeping them in a freezer for now."

"Here? You have members of the council here?"

"Yes, would you like to have a look? They have the most comical surprised looks on their faces." Signe stooped to go through the door and followed him down a chilly hallway to a door covered in rime. Delbert pulled it open, and a blast of glacial air enveloped her, making her feel wonderful. Then she saw the three wizards. Without their robes, she could see how thin and frail they were, and their surprised expressions made her laugh. All three were in deep hibernation that could last for decades.

"I couldn't get them all the way to zero, of course, but I'm sure they got the idea. They rolled their eyes when they learned I was a Temperature Mage, but heat and cold are just different sides of the same coin. Knowing how to manipulate both gives a wizard more tools to work with. I prefer the icy temperatures, but when forced into a fight, I can use both." Signe didn't know what a Temperature Mage was.

The idea of utilizing both heat and cold seemed strange, but if Delbert could conquer three Ice Mages of the council at once, he was powerful and prime husband material.

"They make splendid sculptures to decorate your lair. I'd love to hear the full story of your encounter with them, and maybe you can explain to a poor farm girl about this thermo-something. It sounds fascinating." Delbert had rarely, and perhaps never, had anyone tell him he was fascinating.

"Of course. I'd be glad too." They returned to the larger room, and Signe disappointed Rolly by giving Delbert the last heaping bowl of churnmilk. The two checked on Raul, Bessie, and Elsie again and departed in search of dinner. All three oxen were sleeping soundly and looking content. Signe sat down as close to Delbert as propriety allowed at this stage. Raul winked at her and then began to snore as Delbert began to talk about entropy, heat death, energy transfer, and the interaction of temperature and mana.

She loved the way his eyes flashed as he got excited. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. The orc tribes were on the move, and Chief Darkdeath had his hands full. Orc leadership depended greatly on being a mighty fighter who could battle through pain and injuries against any challenger. This assured the tribe of a strong leader. Not a smart leader, and often so bull-headed that they had no ability to compromise.

To keep order, Darkdeath had personally challenged the top thirty-seven chiefs and beaten them soundly and repeatedly. The horde followed him now without question. But they expected him to do things traditionally, beginning with an attack on Fort Higgling. Named after the thirteenth Emperor, the Fort had seen countless battles in the past. A successful Orcish Invasion started with the Fort, and win or lose, moved past it to the smaller towns to the south.

Not taking the fort meant the horde would be caught between reinforcements from Fort Higgins and the reinforcements sent in by teleportation from Greenburrow, two hundred miles to the south. Greenburrow wasn't a fortress, just a large town where the beef, grain, flour, tallow, and hides produced by the southern farms were sold to buyers and shipped north. If market conditions were good and the mages manning the teleporters were reasonable, some merchants would ship by teleport to profitable markets.

It was a long way to the markets in the north, and shipping by wagon train had its own problems, many of them with green skins and tusks. The further south one went, the more profitable it was to ship by teleporter. Or it had been until most of them were destroyed or damaged by the Dragon of Winter. This was bad for many small towns, now having to rely only on the main road that snaked through the heartland. It was very good for Greenburrow, Midland, and Blackrock, who had the remaining teleporters in the south.

The southern heartland of the Empire was separated from the north by a range of mountains with few passes. The main pass had a well-maintained road with a Legion fort at either end. From Hogshead Pass to the southern jungles was a thousand miles of flat, open prairie and small forests with good soil and water. The heartlands were bordered by dense forests and hills on the western side, and by the Escarpment five hundred miles to the east, where the land dropped away to an unforgiving desert.

Farming in the south was easy, with mild to warm temperatures and steady rainfall. The locals joked they only had to toss seeds out the window and then concentrate on raising enough kids to help harvest in the fall. Ranching was easier, with good grazing, and the herds were cheap to raise. The cost was in getting the meat to a market. There were tales of massive cattle drives where brave cowknights took herds through places no herd had ever gone. The stories were popular with bards.

Also, with the orc tribes, who remembered the tales as ' The Season of Endless Meat.' While small herds were taken north to supply the forts in Hogshead Pass, no huge cattle drive had happened in generations. Convincing the tribes to move south through the forests and ignore Fort Higgins had taken as much energy as welding the tribes together in the first place. On the eve of their departure, it was brought up once again.

"We must attack Higgins. It is traditional and pleases the gods. The gods will abandon us if we don't please them." Darkdeath had pointed at the long line of wagons transporting dozens of new war engines.

"The God of War has blessed us with his weapons. He'd be displeased if we didn't use them properly. And attacking Fort Higgins is dumb."

"It is tradition!"

"And dumb!"

"Yes, tradition and dumb. We will charge and hit the walls with our clubs and shake the world. No one expects the tribes." The speaker got backhanded by Darkdeath, knocking him off his stool and either unconscious or dead. Everyone present noted the speed and decisiveness of the attack. Darkdeath grew stronger by the day. His tusks were large and the envy of many other chieftains. It was beyond belief that he had joined the tribes as a pinkskin warrior and battered his way to lead the horde.

"Look, numbskulls, I'll go over it again. Everyone expects us to attack Fort Higgins. Even if successful, they'll send an army through Hogshead Pass and another from Greenburrow. We'll command a battered fortress, have a hell of a party, and then fight a long siege. We do shitty in sieges. Most of you will hop the walls to charge at the Legion with clubs." Many nodded at this wisdom, jumping from the walls was fun. But others were coming around to a new way of thinking.

"The Empire is busy fighting Winter in the north. A lot of their troops will be tied up. And they've lost a lot of their teleporters. Including Fort Higgins. That makes it easier to take, but it's useless to them as a resupply point. It will guard the north, but we don't care about the north. Not yet, maybe in a few years and a couple of generations of new warriors. If we hit Greenburrow hard and fast, we take away their ability to send in a new army. They have to go to the Midlands, over three hundred miles away.

That's where the big scrum will take place, and we'll be well fed and ready for it."

"But... tradition?" Darkdeath stared around the room, his eyes glowing and his muscles swelling.

"There are enough cattle in the pens of Greenburrow to feed our army for a year, and ten times that much in the surrounding ranches. We will return to the old tradition: The Season of Endless Meat." The new/old tradition sounded pretty good to everyone present. They prepared to march south and the start of a new war.