Sixteen Feet of Steel Chapter 25

*Before…

Nicole gets one too but it’s a massive thing called an arbalest.

I look at her. “Are we expecting a dragon?”

She shakes her head. “No but a ship or ships perhaps.”

It seems like a lot until she and Taylor are talking and I get the idea.

Nicole doesn’t fire; she uses her Squire’sknight to pull the bow back to reload in moments if need be and with Taylor firing it takes on a whole other significance.

Jessa’s the easiest with mostly getting a sharpening of some of her things as well as a travel quiver pack like Taylor she just gets a lot of extra arrowheads.

Then we’re out and headed to meet up with the twelve squad of soldiers assigned to Nicole and again I’m a little awed at her getting the responsibility and Lady Marybeth is meeting us with her apprentices and a healer’s wagon.

Then we do a final check before we head to the Iron Rhino’s docks and we get loaded to go which takes hours and I actually help and not just let the porters or the troops do it.

It’s late or rather really early in the morning when we pull out with the iron rhino on the first run out west of the day here.

I should be tired and exhausted but this is the best that I have felt all week after all the things going on in my head and I’m standing leaning on the doorway of our car looking out as we’re passing through the city and building up speed more and more.

*And Now…

I’ve never seen this until coming here and I’ve only been on it once but I love the Iron Rhino. The speed and the click-clack of us traveling with not just great speeds but with a whole series of carts and things from the things for our mission to supplies bound for other places and so very, very many things.

It makes me smile as I hang onto the railing and lean out the car for the longest time before pulling in and feeling the light warmth of the wind from our speed on my face.

Nicole grins at me. “You look better.”

“I feel better, at least distracted from all the other stuff. Besides this Rhino is just so amazing.”

Taylor’s reading and has things out for writing too. “It’s a work in progress for certain but the few steam roads has changed just about everything in the free lands since it’s started.”

I sit as a Steam-road steward comes in with a cart with tea and kaffet as well as sweets and she clips it in place with a clamp to the side of one of the many poles and she serves out drinks and I have a mug of kaffet.

The way I feel travelling, the air whipping past and the chill it’s actually perfect and I take a few dwarven biscuit crisps.

They’re a sweet treat biscuit-crisp flat but raised from cooking in the oven and these are really common in the fortress and have molasses in them making they rye dark and there’s some spices in there too for warming the blood. They’re good for energy being so densely sweet as well.

I eat and enjoy the sweet treat and the ride.

There’s still just something thrilling about all of us being carried off into the night like this.

I would read but it’s too much fun.

We pass lights in the night and the darkness. At first it’s the well lit towns and bigger holdings and estates.

Then it’s getting to smaller and smaller groupings of lights like little villages and the like.

We’re making such amazing time i can see how this would change everything.

And then we pass under a hill… a large hill but we pass under it through a large bricked tunnel and that shaves off just a lot of time when i think of trying to go around it and there’s likely more hills on either side of things.

And then we’re making it through a heavy wood and we have bridges over gullies and big concealed dips in the land.

I do like the fact that I am not the only one of my friends that is thrilled by doing this. Which means this is still pretty new or rare.

I do feel sorry for some of the troops that are feeling excessively travel sick.

I’m very fortunate that has never been an issue for me.

Well so far at least my experience with boats in truly untested though.

We make good time and we stop off in Black-Briar Barony and that’s to pick up goods and Taylor’s getting things from the baron for messages and for The Post and we’re not really getting off except to stretch our legs.

We’re here getting refilled with water as well as coal.

I walk the Rhino’s paddock a sort of a raised ramp structure with an almost like dock built for it and I can see that this is all recent construction here. Same goes for the many offices that I can see as well as several warehouses that are here.

This has been good for the township and the barony I expect.

I follow Nicole as she walks and we stop at a little shop built into the office area and we get kaffet. Yes there’s some on the Rhino but this is local patronage and that has it’s own providence in what we’re doing.

We walk and talk and i ask her about the place.

“Not much to tell really they’re a friendly barony here and Lady Tatiana was coming this way with the steam road so she made a deal.”

“It seems to have worked out.”

“Black-Briar’s rich with minerals and we get coal from them as it’s in the hills nearby and they produce a goodly deal of tin here too and we can help them with getting finished goods to market as well as some of their fine goods.”

I’m nodding. “Honestly I’d as a ruler would have done the same.”

I look back at the food stand we just left and they’re busy.

Passengers and troops but workers too are going here and all those spin off businesses.

Nicole says. “You might have that chance yet, who know if we get your family back into Lyonnes then I could see Lady Tatiana have serious thoughts of getting a steam road to Lyonnes.”

I think about that. “It’d likely bring a lot of trouble with it.”

Nicole nods. “It still does here. There’s a lot of nobles contesting things with the routes and what may come to pass it’s also been a draw for the unlawful by trying to bar the steam roads and then launching attacks.”

“We’re not going to see that are we?”

“Not likely we’re running too heavily armed.”

I laugh. “That’s true. I thought we were going to war.”

Nicole looks at me. “We might yet, I think that there is definitely trouble out there of some kind and that we’ll likely find it.”

I frown at my cup of kaffet. “I really hope it’s not a plague. I had enough with that experience.”

Jessa slips up beside us. “It’s not plague, we’d have had the birds this is something that happened fast and still might be happening or might be fatal like an attack that stopped birds from being sent.”

I look at the men at arms and the other things we have on the Iron Rhino. “You’ve all pretty much guessed this far haven’t you?”

Nicole nods. “Only it could be a thousand different things in truth.”

Jessa nods. “Hence us being sent out.”

“And I’m going along because I’m?”

Nicole says. “An asset we didn’t have.”

Jessa says. “In need of seasoning.”

Taylor’s there. “In need of goodwill and reputation. You doing things for Lady Tatiana and The Free Kingdoms shows folks and naysayers who you are.”

I’m nodding and smiling some now. “I just don’t want to be extra weight.”

Nicole looks at me. “And you haven’t been, you came to us barely a sprouted seedling but you have held your own especially with the village and that big battle with the goblins.”

Taylor says. “Though we still have hours yet so maybe you might wish to crack those tomes if you can.”

I nod some people can’t read while moving. I’m lucky that I can and spent some times when we’d travel passing the too familiar miles with a book. “I can try that.”

We head back to The Iron Rhino and we board it and I head to my bags and my books and ask the steward. “Is there a place where I can study?”

“There is the Captain’s office I will ask if you can use them sorceress.”

She heads off and I start to skim the books with me and get then in my arms in an order that i want to read them at and she comes back and she gestures for me to follow.

It’s an office and like I’ve heard with ocean boats made to have things fastened down. The place is large and I’m offered his sitting and receiving room. It’s nice with hardwood floors and paneling and several small pictures and a long rectangular schematic of the Rhino that is very carefully made and absolutely fascinating and gorgeous.

I’ve always loved schematic pictures and diagrams they have their own beauty.

There’s a couch and a table in front of it and i sit and make myself comfortable there and i begin to study the books.

The first is a lot of what Lady Tatiana has been teaching me it’s in depth a lot more but it’s mystical theory.

Non-adept powers come from the world.

It’s magic that had been imbued by creation itself and has grown under the direction of sentient peoples.

Like we all in some way know what fire is or water or light.

Well the very first beings what we’d call gods and elder beings were the very first ones to name these things and with naming things it instills definition. Definition begets believe of a thing.

Water is wet, nourishes, provides life etc.

Well this first language is the words of power, it is magic itself given definition.

And when you can know these words and speak them and put power into speaking them and to use that language to describe what they can and will do then that’s a spell.

The trick is to put power into speaking them.

And one has to have the born or much, much rarer study to learn how to feel magic in order to use it and to shape it.

This requires channeling.

The ability to move power from place to place within or outside of yourself.

And there’s excercises for doing this.

I read through those and there are several steps i can already do and now know how to do and I’m left with trying to gather my power and bringing it up through myself like breath.

One of the reasons why breathing and meditation is important I’m just figuring out.

Then it’s trial and error.

Taking mana, power and channeling it to breathe it out as I speak and form it into the words.

Only I repeatedly have to sound out these words...See you have to get the tones, the way that it was originally said to be filled with power for the spell to work.

Over and over again.

It takes me quite some time before I manage to work the spell to create an orb of light.

That’s was hard, it was like taking my power and speaking the words but saying them along with the words to wrap the light up into a ball like yarn the power of the magic actually gathering up the ambient light and magnifying it with energy derived from my own power.

Next was a candle flame...that was actually easier as I’m calling forth heat in the same way as light until it burns like a magnifying lens the heat literally burning the air and as soon as that tiny little bit is lit it is shaped through the spell and fueled by the mana required.

Learning it takes more power in the casting or attempts to cast for both of those than actually casting the correctly done spell.

I’m tired but feeling accomplished.

Actually I’m hungry and my head is doing that pounding thing where I have burned off too much of my food energy in my body.

We’re still moving but stunningly it’s gotten light out just past dawn.

I get up and put the books on theory away and I ring the chain for the steward.

She comes a few minutes later, she seems nervous...I can sort of feel that she has seen the many attempts at light and she’s smelling the air.

I suppose the candle flame attempts with the little flaming out flashes has left a sort of smell.

“Can...Can I help you Sorceress?”

I can feel the emphasis she put on what I am even though I’m not really even close to being worthy of the title.

“If it’s not too much trouble is there any food available?”

“Oh yes lady there is breakfast is being made for the troops right now actually.”

“Lovely I’ll be out shortly.”

“I can serve you here if you’d like.”

“No that’s fine I think I prefer to eat with my companions and the men.”

She nods and sketches a half bow like a page would and leaves.

I gather my books and things and I leave a note for the Rhino’s captain thanking him for the use of his study.

I head out and it’s really bright and hard on my eyes at first but we’re speeding through rolling hills and we’re heading definitely downwards it’s not drastic downwards but i can see the land behind up and it has this long, far and steady rise upland.

It was the same in the East kingdom when I visited my mother’s grandparents we went from the low eastern mountains down through foothills towards valleys and then the ocean.

We’re now doing this only going westwards.

I head to the car where Nicole and Jessa are at and Taylor plus some of the others and there’s a service cart there fastened to one of the railings and there’s tea and kaffet and this time I go for the tea.

Nicole looks at me. “Ouch?”

I nod. “I’m fair starved and have a headache like I’ve skipped two meals.”

Jessa passes me one of the remaining scones with clotted cream and some jam on it. “Eat you need it.”

I take it and it tastes lovely in that way that hunger can only spice things.

I sit after setting my things down and Taylor looks at me. “Progress?”

I nod.

He says. “We know, there’s been talk of lights from the Captain’s car.”

“I was learning to do a light spell. If you don’t do it right it doesn’t work or last long or pops like a bubble or unwinds.”

Nicole asks. “Can you make a flash of light?”

“Not one that’s combat worthy, though skimming there is one spell that is for that in my grimoire. I think that it requires more than the same things for a light spell.”

Taylor nods. “Still magelight is going to be plenty useful.”

I smile. “Good, hopefully that will help my reputation somewhat.”

They nod as do some of the others and I sit and drink my teas and watch things pass by with smaller stops that we pass by and the villages and even a few distant bigger structures like keeps and other buildings.

The Free Kingdoms are big.

There’s a whole other realm here, a whole other everything here than I knew of and likely most of mine and frankly maybe even The High King.

Oh I’m sure he likely knows of them since Lady Tatiana and him as distant Kinsmen and he likely knows of the dwarves and such too but knowing and seeing things in books and on maps is very different than being here.

Food comes as we’re hitting flatter ground and we’re actually slowing down some and I look at Nicole.

She shrugs.

Taylor says. “They slow to eat, it’s easier serving and less hard on those with delicate stomachs.”

That actually is a good idea.

The food comes and Nicole and the other knights and have the men served first and with the hottest of the food.

It smells so good to me right now and the stewards are pretty fast with things for the rest of us.

Bowls of porridge with dates and raisins and some nuts on the top with a dollop of cream and apple jam. Slabs of bread with thick rashers of bacon piled on them so that the juices and fat soaks into the bread, Beans with molasses in a small dish and greens as well and a small apple.

It’s a lot but they’re feeding us heavy so that we don’t have to use rations for a time after we depart.

For the officers and us there’s also more scones and clotted cream and jams.

I eat a lot, I enjoy every scrap of it all and go for more scones and cream and jam my body hungering for the sugars and the fats.

I overdo it a little and I’m yawning and Nicole pulls me over towards her on the seat. “Here you’ve worked hard get a little sleep and let things settle.”

It’s not a sexual thing but one of those caretaking friend doing a thing for friend things.

I settle and snuggle and get comfortable as I fall asleep with the gentle rocking of the Rhino on the steam road.

I’m pretty sure I slept like a rock for most of it and then I closer to waking dreamt of spells and working light and fire and all of that.

I’m stirred by Nicole. “Wake Chrissy we’re almost here.”

“Here?”

“Port Glorian.”

“Port Glorian?”

I sit up and dig at my eyes and get the sleep and the sand out from them and I can see a walled city in the distance and we’re passing farmland and clusters of houses and farming steadings and something I have never seen before?

There are mounded hills with a wall at the base like for a yard mostly in stone only five feet high or so and there’s houses and buildings all build on the sides of the mound hill and a bigger, very big house or lodge like place in the tops and I can see in the one we pass that’s closest double doors inside the hill mound.

“Dwarves?”

Taylor answers. “No, they’re called rises. They’re family steadings that are very old but they’re build so they can be defended as high ground from ancient raiders and also made to be bairns and storehouses and the walls at the base are in case of years of bad flooding they’re not too tall but they’re heavy with clay and pitched cloth and stone usually thick enough that they’re water proof.

I nod. “That’s amazing, It’s smart too. We do nothing like this back home Lyonnes has a few hills and such but we’re mostly flatlands, grazing and grain.”

Jessa looks at me. “Wheat country.”

I nod. “Wheat and barley and we have a few other things for the bulk of the grain we produce.”

Taylor laughs. “Ale and beer country.”

I smile. “Not as much as you’d think, not of merchant qualities we had one in the township called Red Lion which brewed a red wheat beer but nothing like I think are in the bigger cities.”

He looks at me. “Lyonnes wasn’t big?”

I shrug. “That’s a matter of perspective. Home was situated with a set of small hills and a large rocky one that our castle was built into. The rise was the King’s road and was at the top of the hills and all along it were the houses of my Father’s men and the wealthy merchants and the like down those hills were less and less wealthy homes and a few small shops and few places to eat or stay or to drink and such but no more that a few hundred homes and then there was the town of Lynonnes which was at the hill that was at the end of our little chain and that’s where the temple and its related structures were built on the top of the hill and it was the place where the town courtyard was at and the largest of the markets and the guard house and other places like that and the rest of the town spilled out from there and down the slopes.”

Nicole asks. “How many folks?”

“Close to five thousand at the last census for the entire capital region including the castle.”

They’re quiet for a few moments.

I sigh hard. “And no city walls, and not a lot of stone or brick works we built with a lot of wood and resin board.”

Nicole looks at me. “Resin board?”

I look at her. “Uhm...yes...it’s woven straw like for mats but soaked in a glue that we used to make then it’s fired in large oven kilns and dried hard under low heat. It makes for light but strong building sheets and sometimes beams.”

Jessa says. “Sounds elvish or something we don’t have this here.”

Taylor asks. “Is it flammable?”

I nod. “About the same as soft wood but worse because once it starts it burns hotter.”

Jessa looks at me. “Ouch and you still use it?”

“It’s very warm in the winters, it’s also waterproof as well. Resin roofmakers are one of the best paid guilds we have the roofs never need replacing.”

Nicole asks. “Never?”

I nod. “Save massive snow so they break or fire they never rot, they get bound together every hot summer together more and more. Even the nobility have resin roofing though often with some sort of fancied covering.”

Taylor asks. “Like?”

“Tarps glued on with another resin often with their house symbols or with merchants their company sigil or coaster.”

Nicole’s smiling. “Do you know how to make this stuff?”

I shake my head. “Not at all. The guild is pretty well guarded and respected resin wood masters make all sorts of things.”

And I sigh again. “But there’s a very good chance most of the town burned as well as Lyonnes castle.”

Jessa and Nicole are rubbing my back in the way that friends do and Nicole says. “The land is the people, things we can rebuild.”

Jessa says. “Aye and I’ll help as best as I can.”

Taylor says. “It sounds like a nice bit of country I’ll definitely look forward to seeing it.”

Which really is they all saying that they’re with me.

And I can’t help but smile wide at what they’ve said and what I’m feeling.

“Well then I’m going to have to work extra hard at getting better for all of us.”

We all just sort of stand together as we’re pulling into Port Glorian.

It’s pretty new, or it looks it.

A lot of the stone looks new and it looks like quarried sandstone or something to that effect and there’s things that I can plainly see that would make this a good trade town and port as we slowly chuff and puff through the town.

Paved streets and very well made ones with ample drains, and street gutters, roofing of clay shingles over anything else and there’s a sea facing wall that is very, very high...no not a wall it looks like the fiefdoms castle or fortress built to be able to repel sea invaders and block weaponry from warships and provide a windbreak for a good part of the city.

We ride the steam road slowing down more and more with children running beside us laughing and pointing in excitement.

If I was them I’d likely have done the same thing really.

We end up losing them and pull into the sort of same arrangement that is had with the Iron Rhino back at Lady Tatiana’s fortress where we stop up against a sort of net assembly and there’s other things in the dockyard area that are here to take the engine and to turn it around after it’s disconnected from the rest of things.

The Rhino trumpets the steam horns and that’s our orders to disembark.

That takes some time and for our part we are met by Lord Danin Caldwell an older knight that I will admit has a fair amount of grey and girth to him. But he’s friendly enough and i can see a keenness to his eyes. He’s smart, and from the few scars and weather through life things that I can tell about him he’s capable.

Actually looking at him I can’t imagine tall and strapping at all. Not much past five and a half feet tall and sporting the shoulders and torso of a man born stocky like a rock I’m sure he’s one of those folks that worked his way through things to get where he is.

He looks to us and more to Nicole than the rest of us.

Yes he outranks her but in the bigger scope Nicole is Lady Tatiana’s squire.

We do a round of introductions and I manage to follow through with a curtsey to Lord Caldwell and my old rank and title isn’t mentioned. I’m officially just Page-Sorceress Christiana. We actually don’t go further than that with things keeping the focus of things with Nicole and Lady Marybeth is getting the bulk of the attention being a full lady knight and a healer as well.

She is dressed nicely for the situation with flatteringly cut clothes a skirt and she’s wearing a sweater knit to show cleavage combined with her undergarments that are definitely lifting her in that way.

It’s an odd feeling really seeing all of the reactions from the other angle of things and having that sort of feeling in my head of wondering just how I compare.

And it’s not so much me adjusting to this either there’s still so many things that I find odd being a woman and I am visited by it every day in one way or another.

But this isn’t that.

It’s more like this being like I would compare myself to some of the men and lads if I haven’t changed.

I look around some as the conversation goes on without me and it being mostly Lady Marybeth and Nicole and Taylor with Jessa and I hanging back.

Nicole asks. “Have you heard any word from up there at all since we left?”

Lord Caldwell shakes his head. “No not yet, I sent out some of the rangers I had here close to call four days ago and I sent a boat up with some volunteers but with us only having two caravels to ward off any raiders and the like.”

Nicole nods. “Well hopefully we’ll meet up with both of the groups and all will be as well as the light and the gods favor.”

He nods and frowns. “Normally it’s not unusual to not here from that corner of the lands especially with bad weather seasons those will even drive the birds to ground but this has been too long. I would have sent more men but we can’t spare them with raiders and their regular duties.”

Nicole gives him that warrior’s armclasp. “Well that’s why we were sent my lord.”

He nods and he smiles and then we’re being led through some streets that are actually still part of the fortress but without that large walls that I’ve come to expect more like out buildings like workshops and storehouses and things that look to be serving both the city and the fortress.

He’s chatting about local things and events mostly with Lady Marybeth and Taylor who seems to have a fair deal of respect as a post courier….aaah I see that’s one thing we are doing and that is getting a chest of post and we’re loading that in the wagons and Lord Caldwell is generous with some extra rations just in case there are folks that are in need and to make our lives easier as well small apples and dried seaweed? It smells very off to me and some is jarred and then there’s hard sea bread cakes that would break most folks teeth and dried and smoked fishes wrapped in cloth and sealed tight with wax.

Lyonnes is nowhere near water so all of this is exotics to me.

We don’t stop as we’re walking through the town heading out to use as much of the time as we can and walking here right now to save the horses.

Jessa and I walk together through the town and she and I both move a little faster to get to this seller and that seller and we end up buying some pears and some cured up cheese and drop a little of our own coin into the pockets of the locals as we’re going.

It takes maybe a glass before we’re off and we’re clear of the town gates and mounting up and getting onto the wagons and riding off through the countryside of Caldwell fief.

This is nice country.

Shining sun and the ocean and the shore.

Away from the processing smells of the ocean the breeze is delicious to me and sort of fills me up.

It’s rolling low hills and farmlands with good roads. Not paved but filled with shore stones over a lot of sand that lets water drain away enough that they’re not soup.

Low houses and cottages are the norm here with mortar and stacked stone with moss and much more common sod sides, thatched roofing seems common here too more that the tiles of the township and things here look nice, rich even in ways with hanging wash, good stacked fences or hedges and here and there I see small boats, drying nets and traps, gardens and small windmills for the use of a small farm to either pull water or grind grain or both.

Time slips by as we go and we’re seeing more of the same and bigger fields and farms where this is a bigger business than just feeding folk and then more clusters of farms and houses and things and we pass smaller roads and lanes.

More and more of the same so I get myself comfortable in the back of our wagon and i start to get back into reading and trying to decipher more.

It is harder, much, much harder to do in the back of a wagon with everyone marching, talking, jingling.

However it’s profoundly easier to stop working at the magic itself and read up on theory.

How and when to channel, how variants of spells work and then there’s whole chapters of application.

And from what’s written here over and over a good fifth of all magic ever performed is variations of the basics and applications.

It’s fascinating and as someone that’s done sort of these things already with her adept powers I have all these ideas running around in my head.

I write them down actually in one of my empty notebooks and trying to picture in my head what I will need to do and how to try and to do it.

I don’t get totally absorbed either.

I will stop and watch things going on or smile and laugh a bit a something someone said that was funny and there’s some things that Jessa who’s close by me will point out.

A garden with really large yellow squash that in a pleasure to see.

A garden with a lovely fence of wicker that is all covered with climbing peas and beans.

A blossoming field of red clover and I smile and sit up and I smell that sweet and lovely smell and that actually had Jessa and I cutting a sack full of them and adding it to our stores and that leads to her and I running to catch up with our people and her and I hike ahead and since we’re in friendly country we are safe to do so and we end up doing what a Ranger does in friendly country with nothing to hunt for or to track after and that’s forage and gather.

Borage, Cress, Dandelion, King’s Spinach and in a salt water tide kissed stream that leads in and out of the sea she introduces me to Sea Beans or Crows foot greens and Goose’s tongue but a plant that pulls in from the sea on the coasts and is a green but full of salt.

We do have the time to do this a fair bit as we’re not moving fast not with all the men and gear and wagons.

We march and ride and march and ride and we only stop to rest the men and the horses and to eat a good but cold lunch. Even a short rest takes time when you have to factor in things like privy breaks.

Nicole and Taylor are looking at a map book and Nicole calls me over.

I got over and she’s looking at a map and there’s marking with the roads and well and there’s a symbol for a bairn and there’s some other symbols beside it.

She says. “This is a guild bairn for the wagoners, carters and cattlemen it’s maintained by them and us and this is where I’d like to get us too.”

I nod. “Makes sense it’s bound to have a well and maybe some other things.”

She nods. “The problem is that it will take us a few hours to get there past nightfall can you make enough light for us until then?”

I nod. “I can, I’m rested enough I think.”

She smiles. “Good they we can cover a lot more miles this way.”

I smile back. “That’s one of the reasons that I’m here.”

Nicole gives me a one armed hug. “It’s more than that Chrissy but I’m going to use that all the same.”

“Well I’m going to go and study and seriously study so I think I’ll head up the road for some lengths and get some quiet.”

She looks at me. “Can’t do that in the wagons?”

“It’s too distracting to use real magic there in figuring the new things out from the grimoire here and I’m not sure that I want to be doing new spells here with the troops and the animals.”

She nods. “I’ll defer to you on that but take Taylor with you.”

“Taylor?”

He nods and smiles hopping off. “No worries I’ll stay well out of your way with things and all that.”

“Okay then let me get my things.”

I go and get my books and some of the gear that i want to take with me from my things including my bedroll and my ration pack and i meet up with taylor and we leave ahead of the train and we set a good pace for hiking.

We crest a hill and I see Jessa/Hawk up ahead by quite aways and with her being a ranger of course I didn’t see her leave.

“Hawk’s gone out?”

Taylor smiles as he’s walking with me. “It’s good practice in uncertain times and all plus our pace was getting to her.”

“Really?”

“Hawk’s one of those folks that needs to be moving at their own speed. The train is not to her liking sometimes.”

“Her home sounded bad.”

He’s nodding. “There’s a lot, a lot of bad things that happen down that way. I’ve been down through once but with the Lady and that’s because I was the cook’s peeler and it made an impression. Granted these are other folks with other ways and are as different to us all as the Silk Islanders or The Dwarves are but still...a lasting impression on my wee years and well then there’s all the tales from travellers and merchants and then there’s the words of folks that lived it like Jessa.”

I look at him. “Home, across the mountains there’s places where women aren’t treated that much better.”

He looks at me. “There’s still some of that here. It seems very equal and balanced but there are folks that hate anything like that. Hate women not being chattel and hate a woman in power or with it and even hate folk like the Dwarves who have a very equal society.”

I start literally jog hiking down the hill letting the slope do most of the work and he keeps pace. “Well they are older than us.”

Taylor laughs. “Oh aye indeed and that includes our Lady, she someway and somehow in between the races of man and dwarf and elf. I don’t know what she’d call her folk or if she even has them in truth but she’s well over five hundred years old.”

I gape at him. “No!”

“Aye a very reliable dwarven friend says he’s seen a picture of her in the dwarves own High hall in a portrait that captured the birth of the current Dwarven King.”

My mind is reeling at that...what she must know.

“She doesn’t look that old.”

He stops. “No she doesn’t but then again it’s said that the elves don’t die of natural cause.”

I stop and take a drink of my water skin. “I’ve heard and read that too.”

We take a breath and then hike hard and fast for a good hour and I figure at the pace of the train that I’ll have a few hours to study before they catch up and I find a nice area to set myself up at and that’s under some trees in the shade and I settle in and I use my little metal on a chain charm to boil water in my mug to make some tea.

I set out my bedroll so I’m not sitting on the ground and Taylor keeps watch while I go and make use of the bushes at a discrete distance.

The it’s settling in and going over spells.

Deciphering them and sounding out each bit of power, and how much each one takes and all the trial and error over and over.

Gods it’s like cooking and baking with real recipes but if you don’t know things like how the hearth burns, moisture, what you’re cooking with, the kinds of wood...and then there’s the art to it...feeling the same right measures when things are listed in drips and pinches.

It’s why spells have formulae...ways of telling the caster the mage how to speak those words, how much power to use to shift this one variable to another to another to push the world together...mold it to a desired effect.

Like a Puff of wind.

Like seeing further or closer by using power to shift the way light comes to you...Farsight spells and The Alchemists lens.

It’s like looking through Alaan’s lab lenses without needing one.

And the rest is studying the Mystical lexicon with words and phrases but the basics as well with letters and numbers.

My memory trick coming into play with that and helping me learn and hold it there.

And my own two new spells….they are not big by any stretch of things but a small very light touch of my candle flame spell and Puff of wind to create a puff of warmed air and I try that in a few strengths before I get things to where I want them...which is hard but it’s very satisfying to use it to warm my bedroll like it was hung close to a fire.

And the power wasn’t too hard.

All the foundation casting and figuring it out was taxing and harder but that’s fine.

And the second spell was easier just focussing the heat from the spell as it gathers from around us to fill into the water in something that has water...Not boiling but hot...steaming hot. I experiment on my tea...it takes very little to do this but again it’s the figuring out hot to do this with the right amount of power.

Taylor had gone out foraging I think and he was watching me for awhile after I had heated my tea and literally nearly baked in it’s skin one of the pears I had taken out from my bag.

“That smells good can you make me one?”

I jumped a little, he’s very quiet.

I don’t even know how long he was there for.

“Sure, it’s just something I’m trying out.”

“Can you burn someone with that?”

“No, not at this level of power.”

“Even sustained?”

“No, the energy is small so it will get sort of soaked up first...and there’s rules to how magic affects living things.”

“Oh?”

“It takes more power to alter or damage directly focused magic on the living as each person’s soul has a threshold of energy that you have to crest.”

“Sounds complicated.” Taylor says.

I nod. “It is but basically everyone has a certain level of living resistance and you have to overcome that which takes usually a lot of power.”

“So…?”

I conjure a candle flame. “I could burn you with this but I’d have to do it just like using a candle or a burning taper of wood. To actually make you burn and light afire with your flesh I’d have to spend nearly twenty times more power.”

He nods. “But your lightning?”

“It’s as far as i have been told and read an affinity, like a talent and that lets me use my natural electric and that around me both with the laws of magic and with a much easier cost than say another mage.”

“So when you through lightning?”

“It’s still lightning, I’m just gathering and in control of the power. I’m not making it spontaneously do things inside of something I still have to fuel it with my powers and grow it and control it.”

“So you can create magic that changes the world and that can be used to affect people.”

“Exactly I change or create conditions. Doing magic on the living is massively hard.”

“Is the pear alive?”

“No, it’s potentially alive.”

“Potentially?”

“Well I could plant it and it’d have a fair chance of growing.”

“But if it was on the tree?”

“Spells directly on it like me baking it would take more energy.”

He takes the pear juggling it back and forth to cool it and once he can hold it he eats and I do too.

I’m doing this more; We’re both slurping hot juices in order of keeping them from spilling.

Taylor looks at me. “You should rest when they catch up to us.”

I grin at him. “I plan on exactly that.”

We sit and relax and we talk about things outside of all of this.

Taylor’s keep-born, an orphan left at the citadel and he was found on a wagon full on thatching bound into the keep and that’s how he got Thatcher and he did do that work along with a hundred other jobs but he is a journeyman thatcher within rights to the guild.

His first name came from a story he had heard that he kept grabbing at any fanciful cloth he had found or had come across as a small infant.

He’s cheerful and he’s grateful since he was allowed his name and wasn’t set to be bonded to some laird or farm like in some fiefdoms.

He’s a free man and making use of all the things he’s been given...a name, words and letter, number and a chance to explore his life for his talents.

“Lady Tatiana is generous.” I say smiling. “She’s been so with me.”

“At her age I think she can look at someone and weight them pretty well and see things in us just from experience alone that we could dream of seeing in ourselves.”

I’m nodding. “I would be in a lot worse shape mentally without her, and all of you.”

He grins. “I know and I’ll be calling in those favors in the future.”

“Oh?” I say it chuckling sort of amused.

“Oh aye, I can see myself getting to a point where I’m going to want to see the land over the mountains and I’m not going on some light little jaunt I’ll want to at least take my boots off at your hearth for a year minimum.”

I laugh. “As long as you keep your feet washed then it’s a deal.”

I tell him some things about home and it’s mostly what Lyonnes Castle was like and the grounds and things that we did and what we had there.

And he actually has his book out and he’s taking notes.

I smile as I’m watching him and talking. “Notes?”

“Well I want to know what’s what so I can raid your wine cellar and the larder.”

“Given what’s happened I’m going to wager taylor that there won’t be anything left.”

“Oh nay Chrissy, I’m going to wager someone will have moved in. There’s always someone that’s moving in when it comes to noble’s lands and for Lyonnes it’ll be in particular a thing as you have all that water under you and the high ground too.”

“The high ground didn’t help us.”

He looks serious. “Yes there is that and I’m going to have to say someway or somehow they cheated, used magic in some way because a force like you said...there’s no other way they would have seen or at least heard them coming especially with battleknights.”

And that has me thinking a lot sitting quietly and drinking my remaining tea trying to figure out just what they might have done and how they did it.

Because he’s right.

And we all know that.

I need to know more.

I need to know a lot more than just spells and magic but who and what could have done this.

And why?

Nicole and the column catch up with us and i take my place with them on the wagons and I rest.

I force myself to rest by literally recalling when I was tired enough to sleep and get comfortable enough and wrap myself in my bedroll and drift away.

I’m woken by the smell of kaffet and we’re taking a break and it’s getting dark out.

Nicole’s there and she’s smiling at me. “It’s your turn to shine Chrissy.”

I nod and yawn and take a drink and another and another before eating one of those dwarven molasses biscuits and washing it down with more kaffet.

“Are the men eating?”

“We’re going to, a quick bite.”

“Bring me some of our apples while they’re doing that.”

She nods and sends someone and I get a thick glove on with the bag in hand and I walk through as folks are resting and I cook or near bake them a hot apple each and warm the cold sliced meats in their sandwiches.

I’m getting looks of surprise and some shy smiles.

It’s been a long day and we still have a lot of time before we’re where we’re going to rest.

It’s not too long before we’re off and I’m lighting the way.

Light spells ahead but along our column too as we’re going and that actually seems to be lifting moral some and we are making very good time.

Even so it’s a good long trek to get to this bairn.

Jessa’s there and there’s feeling of pure pleasure from the men as she has a big outside fire going in a pre-built hearth and there’s things on spits and snare lines and even dangling over coals to slowly cook from hooks and we can see lights in the bairn itself.

Food cooking, water gathered in buckets, troughs filled and the lanterns and this small hearth in the bairn itself lit and going.

The place warm and dry and nothing to do but to stop and make camp.

Jessa’s more popular than the bawdy tavern girl with the deep cleavage and the ready wink.

And there’s some respect too, she did this a lot of work without being asked and a welcome and unexpected surprise and so much like what folks think of rangers.

Nicole was smart and there are fed soldiers of those with us and rested ones too for the first watches and the rest of it is still work.

Making the sleeping arrangements and the watches, cleaning gear and setting things to air, using the water inside the bairn and the jakes out back.

The food is good especially as we add our own pots to cook the rest of the food. Greens and some root vegetables as well as cooked potatoes.

Jessa had caught a small deer and that has been roasting along with skewered bits as well as a rabbit and several squirrels. She has some wild onions roasted over low ebb coals along with some wild fennel and soon we eat.

Talk and rest.

I even go through and warm beds before our men fall into them and I do the same for Jessa and Nicole and Taylor.

I do the same for my own but I’m up for an hour longer than they are writing and trying to figure things in my personal book.

When I do go to sleep it’s tinged with memories and possible nightmares but thankfully I am tired enough to not get too deep into those dark places inside of my mind and heart.

Morning comes quite early with leftovers being made and strong kaffet.

Nicole is up and she is oiling and tinkering with her rig and I get two mugs and I joint her in tuning her squires knight. I cast light so we can see inside it better and she grins at me.

“Sleep enough?” She asks.

“Yes and no, Taylor and I talked about home and the attack so that lingered and I’m still tired from things and all the travel but I am fine just sort of getting my road legs again.”

She nods. “Well this time it’s easier than last time.”

I drink and nod. “Well yes despite all of my powers and changes I’m in better conditioning than I’ve ever been.’

Nicole grins. “I’ve noticed, I wasn’t going to say anything.”

I laugh a little. “Well thank you for sparing my feelings. Truth be told in the ranking of my family I wasn’t expected to wear a lot of armor or to fight that much just more or less be passable and if i was really, really ambitious to win my shield.”

She’s nodding. “Well training home is usually pretty serious.”

I nod. “We could do some when we’re done this.”

Nicole nods and grins. “That’s a good idea. It’ll wake the men up some more too.”

We finish and we’re up earlier than some of the men at arms and other with us and after using the jakes and another kaffet Nicole and I actually start with a few warm ups...a few dozen sitting crunches, push-ups, squats, jumping spreads and leans and then we face off and if we hadn’t had a woken audience then we have one as soon as my sword meets hers.

I’m not even going to say this was a fair match.

Nicole is stronger than me even with my power going through my muscle and she’s far better a swordswoman than I am she’s not just better trained too but she’s much more experienced as well.

She treats me like any strong and experienced squire would treat a talented page.

I know I’m doing well compared to what I’m used to and I give it my all first few rounds of touches happening to me with me not using my adept boosting and just me going on skill and then as we keep going I’m using my powers and Nicole is still keeping me at bay only there are bursts where I get through and take it to her enough that she is on the defensive.

I still score no touches though.

And Nicole gestures other takers on with nods and come hithers with her blade like an arms master and I’m taking breaths in and then find myself facing some of the men-at-arms who do politely ask and we do serious drill in sparing together.

Nicole faces Lady Marybeth and as much as the Lady is a knight as well as a healer and her blade skills are better than mine she’s no match for Nicole.

Nicole is a battleknight, sure she’s a squire but there is so much power and strength is what she needs to do that she is filled with raw strength that’s been honed since she was a truly young girl.

Outside of her Squire’sknight her power and her speed is explosive.

And that’s the real secret.

Squire’s knights and battleknights are war machines and they can wreak sheer havoc on the battlefield and turn the tide of many a battle but those pilots are knights, and they are the elite of the elite from willpower to learn and sheer conditioning.

They are almost as deadly outside of their battleknights.

Stronger, faster and can fight for longer in heavy armor than any normal knight or man-at-arms.

I’ll admit Nicole is a joy to watch.

And she’s smart too.

Just a few strokes of all the power she can bring...the rest is finesse and she doesn’t press it like she could have it’s still practice and it’s still with a woman that she can take.

She has the fight go on until Lady Marybeth calls it and they salute each other and there’s some weapon tapping in applause.

Nicole and her shake hands honor intact and she looks at me. “Can you heat us some bath water?”

“I was thinking the same thing myself.” I say with a grin.

Nicole calls out loudly. “Clean up, finish eating and square everything away we’ll be leaving post inspection within the hour!”

Inspection surprises some but we get it all done...cleaned up and fed, clothes, uniforms, armor and gear ready and she gives everything a good and professional going over before we leave. We even had the bairn cleaned and tidied and firewood replaced and gathered and the ashes from the fires emptied into the jakes.

I’m learning too.

I was a prince, a third son and still a prince while I knew folks did these things this is the first time that I have done this or seen it done professionally.

All the men in my family would have liked Nicole and respected her.

Light alone my brothers might have seriously offered marriage if they had seen her fight and known of her family crafting battleknights.

Okay this has me wondering of those things with Nicole in mind.

She is well known, well respected too, and her family does build battleknights and squiresknights so they are wealthy and they have status other crafter houses could never acheive save for illuminators and well famous swordsmiths maybe.

She must have a frightening number of suitors.

And that’s sort of entertaining.

Well not that entertaining as that has me thinking of myself.

Logically there will very likely be a time where I could marry, where I might have to marry.
And that leads to thoughts of sex.

Which when I’m not in the heat of the moment is a daunting thing as well as my place in the world and in a relationship as well.

It is a profoundly different thing to be a woman, here and especially back home.

And then there’s the chance I may never marry.

Like my mother...Well like the Sorceress.

There’s lots of men I think that have slept with her but none married her, not to my knowledge.

Light...For all I truly know of her and the ways that she traveled she could have had husbands all over this world.

Okay thinking about that has me entertained for a few hours as i try and imagine myself in relationships in all these places that are out there.

It makes me think of fun and good things in the world and that’s something that feels like something that i haven’t done in a long long time.

The land is getting wilder in ways, less folks and it’s less traveled and the roads are slowly but surely getting worse and less traveled.

And by close to midday we’re getting a taste of chill and cold winds off of the water and patches of clouds that are enough to make it chilly.

We stop just past midday once we’ve past a set of boundary stones and are in where Taylor calls Svengholt a lords fiefdom.

It seems just as good a place as any to stop and break and Taylor goes off to seek the road warden.

Apparently that’s some kind of border guard meet game warden and tax man as well as where the post get’s picked up and dropped off.

We’re not camping to make a fire but I work with Lady Marybeth and the others to make a hot meal and that’s using my electric with my little water heating iron to get a cauldron boiling in short order and we make oats with butter and I heat water for kaffet and tea and use my warming air spell to pull all the cooking heat and spread it throughout the camp and the men as much as I can.

I’m cheered by the feelings that are starting to bloom towards me.

They are less leery of me and my powers as they’re seeing small magics that are making things easier.

And well there are some thoughts from the men that I get when we’ve stopped...not thoughts but feelings. The kind that men have towards women and thankfully I’m not the only one being seen by the men as worthy of attention.

Though I can feel the respect as well especially since those feelings are tempered by what we did in drill this morning.

Taylor comes back with his travel case and we get ready and we head off. The road warden with him to more or less check us out with his own eyes and to shake a few hands and doff his cap before we’re on our way.

Four hours and some later we’ve crossed these lands and over through another boundary marker.

Another break and this time we’re met by this place’s Boundary Guards. A fief corporal and three men assigned to more or less the same tasks. We have a stop here as well and that’s to share information and the post.

Lord Caldwell’s rangers past through here yesterday making themselves known.

We’re gaining on them with our pace and extended hours.

But they still have nearly a day on us as they passed through hear in the early morning and we’re headed towards dusk again.

There’s no bairn this time for us to lodge in and we consult maps and we find a likely place to camp near a small river that leads to the sea where we’re told the water is fresh and there is a copse of trees that we can use for a windbreak.

I heat food and drink and as it’s getting colder I warm the others as much as I can during the break and we don’t tarry long as I’m told that the weather is going to shift.

Something from a lot of the talking with the Boundary Guards happens very frequently in the north west realms especially this close to the coast.

I’m not going to say bad things of those men but this is a very small fief a place called Reffain and the guards here have clothes of fief colors dyed wool and they have leathers that look old as well and weapons that in honesty are serviceable but they have the look of age on them like well cared for but their fathers and grandfathers might just have used them too.

The roads are also a good reason why.

We’re getting into the occasionally used by farmer roads and not like all the time but in the way that these are barely roads and could be called paths or tracks. There’s no laid stone and there’s no ditches and there’s ample ruts and puddles.

We get stuck twice in those with the wagons and I save the men getting slogged by the small puddle ponds by pushing them out using my magnet force.

And not long after that I’m making more light and we’re heading to the campsite.

A quarter glass before we get there it starts to rain.

Not heavy and hard but just rain and it’s enough to makes everything harder.

I drop only partially helping and I throw myself into things as we’re covering wagons with tarps and frames to make dry spaces and putting up tents with tarps.

Nicole has done this sort of thing before and she brought things that help immensely.

Several wooden beams in the wagon for the Squire’sknight and those get laid on the ground and are high enough to be off of it and boards to make a floor and then she has a tarp laid down as oiled cloth is used for tenting and a tarp over that for a large tent.

Between that and the wagons that have covering now we have dry places between the watches.

I cast light around several places and several times and help with warming things and drying things and getting food cooked.

We’re not fighting with fires tonight I use my powers to heat pans and pots and kettles with electric and we make soup with some of the things we have and are left from what’s gathered.

The bones from last night and breakfasts kills boiled hard, mushrooms from Taylor’s scouting time, cut carrots and neeps as well as potatoes, onions, barley and bitter greens and from Lady Marybeth’s own store a heap of ground peppercorns.

I use some of the fresh fruit we have left as well and one of the cooks makes a dough of butter, flour, oats, fat and sugar and we bake a crumble.

We’re all in good spirits if cramped.

I hear a lot that this camp could be a lot worse.

And usually is.

I’m getting toasted with leather jacks of tea and so is Nicole who is just as well thought of right now with the men as the tent she brought while fit for a commander or her status as Lady Tatiana’s squire was given up to the men.

Her and I and Jessa all end up on the wagon with the Squire’sknight under a lashed down set of oiled tarps to keep it dry and we pad that out with some trail blankets in the gaps and I have my wand as it were in a small clay pot and I heat it for us to have some warmth and I use the warming spell to make more heat and to have us warm and dry.

I’m up last with one of my books making and taking notes for a time and studying more of the magic letters and numbers and lexicon and committing it to mind before I sleep.

It’s early, very early when we’re wakened to the scream of horses!

There’s the shouting of the men and there are guttural screams.

Humanoid for certain but nothing that I have heard before.

We’re getting out of the wagon and a sword comes slicing through the tarps and it misses all three of us by far but it’s still an attack and not from one of our blades.

I give it a shove with my magnet force and I hear a grunt and very likely cursing.

Then we’re outside and half falling from the wagon as we’re under attack.

Several men wounded by arrows and it looks as things started the others took cover and the enemy charged in.

They’re ugly...five feet tall to six with swarthy yellowed skin and not the way some of the silk islanders look this is pale and that liver problems sort of yellow with pockmarks and ugly bones...all heavy looking but angular too. They’re dressed for war as well with laminated plates riveted to hardened leathers and good bracers and greaves with some having shields or small bucklers.

They are well armed too with swords made of burnished steel but I see several knives and likely other weapons on them and they all have helms in the metal caps with the hardened leather skirting.

Nicole punches one away and she draws her sword and I magnet shove some coming at us away and toss her her large round shield.

Jessa threw a knife at one of them and now she’s fighting with her two hand axes.

We’re actually already winning as we outnumber them by just a little.

I put more force into my magnet force pushes using it like a wave to send then off their feet as best as I can.

I see Taylor with four bodies of these things close to him while he’s defending our healers and Lady Marybeth.

His crossbow is being reloaded by one of the healers and he’s fighting with two large knives.

A couple of arrows come out of the dark and miss me!

I reach out and feel with the magnet force and slip into that sight.

I can see four of them out there with bows and using our lights against us so they can fire at us.

At me.

I can feel they know what I am and I’m dangerous.

And they’re not close to my folks so I lash out.

And point palm first and send a bolt of lightning flashing out their way again and again and again….each flashing wild line making a thrum through the air. A bolt each might have been overmuch with the rains coming down but I don’t know what these things are and I don’t want to take chances.

And there’s another coming in from a flank that said he thinks that he’s unseen with a sword in hand and he’s focused on me.

I can feel that and I light up the night with another lightning bolt out to him and he goes down with a thrum and crack.

It’s too easy.

Right?

And I don’t mean the fighting since once we’ve gotten our feet under ourselves and rallied we outnumber this small war band.

Fifteen or sixteen of them to twenty of us.

And we have some expert fighters.

Nicole covered in blood and gore from her three foes drenched in the rain started giving orders.

She asked me. “Chrissy! Call up some light strong enough to see far and brightly!”

I reach up with both hands and cast a light spell and put more and more power into it until it’s quite large and I push power in to make it last longer.

The entire countryside will see this.

It will warn these things but our people will know something has happened.

I’m looking at my hands as the light shows that they’re covered in black that’s washing off my hands and down my arms.

Soot...soot of some kind from the lightning I used.

Blackhand.

The literal legacy of what I am is all over my skin and makes it ten times as real.

I lower my arms and I’m staring at my hands as the black is washing off but darkening the grass at my feet and mixing with the blood that’s spilled.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see them burning despite the rain.

And oh Light and Gods I can smell what I did.

Burned, cooked flesh and friend body fats.

I can’t help it but start to thrown up and I manage to stagger to our cart and hold onto the side while I’m noisily sick.

Jessa is the first one to me as I’m spitting and she rubs at my back. “Chrissy, Chrissy are ye alright?”

“I’m not hurt but i’m not alright.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m a Blackhand.”

I look at her and she’s looking at me like I’m making no sense and I run my fingers through my hair slicking it back with the wet. “It’s alright, I’ll deal with it after we’re safe and we see to everything.”

She looks at me. “Alright but we will talk later, let’s not have stuff sit and fester inside.”

I nod a couple of times and I take a big bracing breath and I head to where these things are being hauled all together and into a line.

Nicole is coming over to the line with her clothes changed and a coat and a hood up to keep dry as possible.

She looks at me. “Are you alright?”

“No, what are these things?”

And that has us all stumped. They’re angular and pretty damned ugly looking and they have sharper teeth than us and that skin that looks so bad and off compared to what I’ve seen in humans and even dwarves, well muscled and definitely warriors with the gear and the weapons aren’t any kind of steel that I’ve seen.

I run my hands in the air over them feeling things. “The weapons are steel though I’ve never felt this kind before. They have some non magnetic bits on them mostly in…” I bend down and I reach for a hardened leather pouch and shake out coins onto their chests.

There’s an assortment and most I don’t recognize the strike of.

Jessa is looking at one of those blades and she’s cursing and moreso with seeing some of the coins.

Nicole and I are looking at her and Nicole finally asks. “What?”

“That’s Efreeti steel, it’s expensive and rare but it’s from the south.”

“Where in the south?”

“Unfortunately lots of places but this work...I’d place good money on a Dwarf telling it’s Kobold work.”

I look at Jessa. “Kobolds?”

She nods. “A race of underfolk like the dwarves but not dwarves they’re dark touched and look to these things like dwarves look to us. There was a war between the two a long time ago where they lost and were cast out of the northern realms.”

“That doesn’t sound good that these things have their weapons.”

“It’s not that’s a bad sign it means there’s a power with funds.”

Nicole says as she’s crouched looking through the coins I spilled out. “It’s the same folks as those Goblins we faced, there’s some new coins here and I think that they’re from The Middle Kingdoms.”

I’m looking and sure enough it’s a very similar mixture of coinage, actually more than what the Goblins were paid.

“Someone’s hiring dark race mercenaries...for what though, they can’t be here for me.”

We exchange looks that definitely said they might be and we continue to go through the gristly task of going through what they had on them.

Weapons, lots of knives and daggers, vials of what might be drugs or poisons and very bad food that’s dried but of very dubious origins.

We do find on one a small book.

And and map of the coastline and the lands here but one without much inland details and there’s a sketch drawing of some keep on a page with three fat wide towers.

I look at the others and we pass this around.

Lady Marybeth is looking at it. “That looks more like a monastery than a castle isn’t there one of them up in these fiefdoms?”

Nicole calls Taylor over and he looks it over. “That’s The Druid’s Keep in Rowan.”

I look at him. “You know it?”

“I’ve seen portraits in the castle. It’s an old druid place and a library I think. It’s right up near The Teeth of The Wyrm mountains.”

Nicole asks. “How far?”

Taylor looks at us. “Three days at least, I think that they’re cutting off any aid to it as they’re searching.”

Nicole looks at all of us. “Then that’s where we’ll be heading.”

Taylor looks at her. “We send back our badly wounded from this and word.”

She nods and looks at me. “Chrissy can you do more things with that light sphere?”

I nod. “I think so, what do you have in mind?”

“More height and more light, then setting it to flash messages like a lantern bearer.”

I nod and take a breath. “I can do that, one way or another I can do that.”

I have to.

She looks at me and it takes a second before I realize that she means now and she walks with me as I get directly under it and I reach inside and I push power and will up into the light sphere and send it higher...as high as I can and brighter.

Nicole starts telling me the patterns to flash.

[Invaders, Invaders on the land, aid needed at Rowan Keep, aid needed at Rowan Keep.]

I do that over and over and as dawn starts to rise I make the light bright as I can like a star flashing in the sky.

It’s still raining and I’m drained and aching from being drained but we’re all ready to leave and there’s oily black smoke rising from the bodies.

Nicole’s in her battle leathers and she offers me a hot drink.

“You ready to go?”

I drain the hot wine. “Yes, let’s go ruin somebody’s plans.”