Chương 36: On Horseback

Riding a horse was harder than it looked. Burr was well-trained, but it was my own lack of skill that posed the biggest problem. With a slew of apologies, I slowly learned the commands and got myself onto the saddle, and we trotted off at a respectable pace. It was about the same as a slow jog, but not as fast as a gallop. Horses, after all, could get tired very quickly. We took the road through Slowbend, which attracted a few gazes, but soon, we were off, trotting across the fields and heading northwest.

The sappers estimated it would only take about a week to reach Castle Urcia at this rate. We rode late into the night. Towns were spaced far enough apart that you could travel all day between them on horseback and not have to camp in the wild if you didn't want—which I wished we'd done on our first journey to Castle Urcia, but evidently, we hadn't got the timing right. There was also, of course, the problem of us not all having horses back then.

The towns were evidently spaced for horseback riders, not for travellers on foot. That meant, on the first day, we bit the bullet and rode well into the night until we reached a town in order to get the timing right. But the sappers promised that they'd pay for my room and board—they could put it directly on the Warlord's tab if we stopped in a town that didn't have a garrison and we had to use an inn.

"Keep your wits about you," they instructed me.

"Orcs could be making more and more incursions deeper into Gate."

"How do we deal with them?" I asked.

"We wait for reinforcements," the first sapper replied.

"But for now, that's not your job. Your job is to learn and grow stronger, and hopefully, become a sapper." The second sapper added, "Don't get your hopes up, kid. You're late, and most of the good squads will have already grouped up. I don't mean to be a downer, but you may be heading back this way in a few weeks." I winced and nodded.

"Right." Internally, I told myself that it wasn't a lost cause yet. I didn't have as early of a start as the other candidates for this year, but that didn't mean I just had to give up. No, there was plenty I could do to get myself into the SAP still.

"If nothing else, you'll get yourself a horse riding Skill if you have to ride there and back," said the first sapper. We arrived at a town around midnight. I didn't know exactly how deep into Gate territory we were or where the orcs had started raiding, but at the moment, this village was free. There were a few villagers with makeshift spears watching it, along with a few Dupes in a watchtower, and even late into the night, the civilians were working on a palisade wall.

We stopped at an inn and slept until the crack of dawn, scarfed down breakfast, then continued on our way. Last night, I had been cautiously optimistic about how I was handling horse riding, but then I woke up, and muscles I didn't even know I had were aching. Worse, at the end of the second day, I found that my inner thighs had been chaffing pretty horribly. I stopped at a store in the town and found a riding salve, which, according to the clerk, was a relatively common product.

Either I'd get used to riding or I wouldn't, but the salve helped. The process continued for a few days as we crossed the countryside. There was no sign of orcs at first, until, on the fifth day, we passed a burning homestead. The elderly were dead on the front porch, bodies still smouldering, and there was no sign of anyone else.

"Keep moving," the sappers said.

"The orcs will be around here somewhere."

"Did they return to a Labyrinth?" I asked.

"There's a good chance of it." I almost wanted to beg them to stop, but we didn't have to. We found the party of orcs a few hours out, dragging their prisoners slightly northeast along the road. They were deathly silent until they saw us, at which point they began screeching and calling us 'sameface' as loudly as they could. It was like they wanted a confrontation.

"Stay back," the sappers instructed me, and I didn't have to be asked twice. From what I understood, they were both Titanium-tier—they were, after all, high-ranking sappers. If they could use Arts like Aldhelm's, then I didn't want to get in the way. The problem was, their Arts weren't as obviously visible.

They couldn't conjure storms or shoot fireballs, but the sapper with the sword had an Art that made all the blades of the orcs' weapons resonate and become unwieldy, then unleashed sharp blades of invisible cutting force everywhere. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. It didn't kill all the orcs, and the prisoners were mostly untouched.

The second sapper used his axe to cut down the other orcs with brutal efficiency, temporarily transporting himself to other locations—which included teleporting in front of the orcs and cutting off their escape. In a matter of seconds, all the orcs were dead. We brought the prisoners with us to the nearest town, where they would be safe. The farther west we travelled, the less signs of the orcs there were.

We met a hunting party of Dupes who were heading east to track down the orcs, but as far as I was concerned, the front lines had just shifted west. We'd lost ground, and more orcs would be coming to hold the ground they'd taken. On the sixth day, we encountered a small orc raiding party, which we dealt with in what probably amounted to thirty seconds. They had been pushing deeper into Gate territory.

"We're going to need new lookouts and a new front line," I muttered.

"They're working on stabilizing the situation first," one of the sappers told me, and we kept riding.

"Then they'll worry about stopping the smaller incursions. But once they break the front lines, orcs always split up and loot the countryside as much as they can. If they have a Black Captain, they'll regroup when it's time to fight again." By the seventh day, I was pretty confident on horseback. I could control Burr's speed pretty well, and I knew when to lift myself up in the saddle, and how best to grip it with my legs when we were just riding normally.

By no means was I an expert, but at least most of the aches were gone and I wasn't about to launch myself off Burr's back with the wrong movement. It took us a total of eight days to return to Castle Urcia—or the edge of the estate. There was no sign of any orc within a day's walk from the castle grounds, though. We were pretty far from even the new border, and it was relatively safe, but I guaranteed the sappers were also contributing. We passed the border fence of the castle estate without a hitch.

I didn't recognize the guards, but then again, the chances of me recognizing the guards who I'd seen when I arrived at the estate the first time I was here were pretty slim. I couldn't have named any extraordinary features if I tried. We followed the path into the estate. Instead of the groomed fields that I'd seen last time, most of the grass was withering. It wasn't late enough in the season yet for the first frost, but the grass knew when its time was coming. But the fields also weren't empty.

There were a few camps scattered across the estate where non-Dupe refugees took up residence. None of them were Path-walkers, as far as I could tell—they were just normal people who had escaped from the front lines. At least here, they were relatively safe. After a few minutes of riding, we passed a deep pond and an orchard, and finally, the castle came into view on the top of a hill.

It had a curtain wall around the outside, protecting what looked like barracks and other living quarters for the staff, and then an inner wall higher up the slopes of the hill. Finally, at the very center, a keep stood taller than all the other walls, with octagonal towers on its corners. Orange flags with ravens on them fluttered in the breeze, and sappers in silver armour patrolled the outer wall. Most of them wore orange of some kind, and their armour had less blue markings than the senior sappers.

When we reached the gate—a raised portcullis—we rode our horses inside, and the sappers led me to a stable, where we deposited them.

"Burr will be yours as long as you're here, kid," said the stablemaster—a Dupe who wore no armour. He did, however, wear a necklace with a steel pendant hanging from it. I glanced back at the other two sappers who had brought me here. They pushed aside their cloaks, revealing similar pendants, only theirs were made of what looked to be titanium. It was hard to tell, but it was a slightly different colour, and it certainly wasn't silver.

"So, take care of her," the stablemaster continued.

"I'll have my lads do the heavy lifting, but make sure to come here every once in a while to brush her down, and"—he handed me a purple carrot—"make sure to feed her every once in a while." I took the carrot and fed it to Burr. She gobbled it up with a slightly crazed glee in her eyes. Once she finished, she gave a pleading neigh, and I said, "Sorry, girl. I don't have any more." Then, I turned to the stablemaster and said, "I'm afraid I don't know how to brush a horse."

"They can show you later if you pass your examination," one of the sappers who had brought me said.

"Come with us."

"Where are we going?"

"You're going to meet the Drillmaster," they said. They brought me through the inner wall, then to the central keep of the castle. Up close, if I had to guess, it was about seven storeys tall. We took a stairway up the inner wall, then crossed over to the keep on a drawbridge and entered through a side door—supposedly, we wouldn't have to bother the guards and cooks that way, and it was more direct. They led me through the hallways of the keep.

It was dark, and the only natural light came from thin windows and arrow slits. At some point, this had probably been a lord's residence. Hadn't they said something about it belonging to the Ealdorman? Regardless, the rooms of the keep had been repurposed into offices for the staff. They all had thick doors, which were closed at the moment. When we reached the end of the hall, we stopped at a door. One of the sappers knocked, and the door swung open, revealing an old Dupe—perhaps about fifty years old.

His hair was starting to go gray and he had a neatly-groomed beard.

"Good afternoon, Drillmaster," the sapper said.

"We bring a new recruit." The Dupe chuckled.

"You two don't need my permission to find a recruit. As long as he has an Art, a recommendation from a thegn, and your approval, he can attempt the exam."

"Since it was so late in the acceptance wind, we figured that he had best see you personally," the second sapper said.

"This is Levi. He doesn't know very much, and it's probably for the best if you explain a little to get him on his feet."

"Well, Levi," said the Drillmaster.

"I don't have much time. But I think I have enough that we can get you sorted. Come in."