Chương 79: To The South

I stood in front of nearly twenty regular Dupes. My sapper squad stood behind me. All in all, there were three squads of six, plus me and my squad, which made twenty-two of us in total. Folding my hands behind my back, I said, "You've all been briefed by your sergeants, correct?" They all nodded and muttered half-hearted confirmations. Wincing, I said, "At the moment, I am your acting lieutenant. I know we may seem short on numbers, but we have a few advantages on our side.

For one, the orcs don't know we're coming. They don't travel wearing their armour, so they'll be less protected when we do reach them. On top of it all, we have a squad of sappers with us." No one said anything, but by now, word had probably gone around. We were just trainees, not full-fledged sappers. We didn't have any blue on our armour yet.

"This is the 294th, my first battalion," I said.

"I wouldn't make you do anything I wouldn't do myself. I'll be on the front lines with you, leading the charge. If we stick tight and move quickly, we'll slip a dagger into their ribs before they even know what hit them." I paused.

"In the Autumn Attacks, we were the one battalion that held the line. We have a legacy to uphold now." At that, there were a few mumbles of approval.

"You're starting to get better at these speeches," Sage whispered.

"That one felt like it could have gone better," I whispered back.

"Sound more sure of yourself next time," Anchor said. I cleared my throat and faced the squads.

"Stick with me. We ride south to the boglands. I'm told this amounts to our battalion's total supply of horses, and you all have had some experience riding them. I expect this to be a quick ride, but we'll keep our eyes open. If the situation is too dangerous, I am authorized to pull back and preserve as many of us as we can—and I will pull back if we can't win. It's better to preserve lives than honour." I climbed up onto Burr's saddle, then slotted my feet into the stirrups.

"On your mounts. We're moving out." ~ ~ ~ We couldn't afford to ride hard before we reached our destination. The horses had to be ready to ride into battle if needed. Still, the boglands were three days on foot. On horseback, it wasn't nearly as long. We crossed over the snow-covered fields south of Slowbend, keeping away from the trails and staying low. If there were any orc scouts, we didn't need them seeing us and deciding we were an easy target. Most of us rode with our armour on.

Although armies of mortal men couldn't travel wearing their full armour without exhausting themselves, our Strength and Vitality helped us carry the weight. There were only a few who preferred the bow, who didn't wear armour—and, of course, Sage. The fields flattened out the farther away from Slowbend we rode. The hills smoothed, giving us less cover, but allowing us to see much farther as well. There was no sign of the orcs.

"Look for trails in the snow," Anchor said.

"It hasn't snowed recently, and we certainly haven't marched armies through these lands. If you see tracks, they're orc tracks." We turned west slightly. The orcs would've moved beyond the heading the scouts had found, and I wanted to cut them off if we could. Close to the Thelea river, the land was barren—no one had dared to even try farming it, even if it may have been fertile. It was too risky. But the farther west we travelled, the land changed.

Instead of wild grass and bushes, stalks of dried, unharvested wheat grew in patches. The snow-covered and wilted stems of tubers sprouted at the edge of the patches, and a burnt-out farmhouse stood in the distance. It wasn't new destruction by any stretch—this was the aftermath of the autumn invasion last year.

"Was it really the best idea for the orcs to attack in the fall?" I muttered. Sage said, "They don't seem to care. They have enough food by looting our lands, and it's not bitterly cold in the south. Especially not for orcs." She was riding on the back of my horse at the moment.

"I suppose," I said.

"The orcs just left all this food, though. I thought Lord Ceonwin was worried about them using the lands for themselves."

"In the summer, perhaps," Anchor said as we passed a headless scarecrow.

"They will loot everything they can before taking matters into their own hands and trying to work the land."

"What about before they had our lands?" I asked.

"I mean, what did they eat in the Bane-lands? They do have to eat, right?"

"They do," Sage replied.

"The Bane-lands connect our lands with the old eastern empires," Elf said.

"I can't say for sure what happened to those empires. Rumour has it the orcs took them over." The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Others say they made an alliance with the orcs," Romance said.

"And they've been providing food and other supplies."

"An alliance?" I asked.

"With who? How would you make an alliance with the orcs? I mean, if Mugreth was any indication, they'd stab you in the back at the first opportunity." Anchor shook his head.

"Nah. You can't deal with the orcs. But if it's true that Kharzon has returned…" I grimaced. Like Lord Ceonwin had asked, I hadn't spread the word around about the rift-forges being re-lit or the so-called Dark Lord. But no matter how little anyone said, word still travelled.

"These eastern empires, what are they?" I asked.

"Like, are they men? Orcs? Something else entirely?"

"Men," Brawl said.

"But their men are corruptible, just like our men." I nodded." If they haven't been conquered."

"If," Anchor said.

"All we have is speculation." I inhaled sharply, then dipped my head. He was right.

"We can't worry about that then, when there's nothing we can do about it. Right now, we have our mission. Let's not get distracted." ~ ~ ~ We didn't make fires. If there were orc scouts around, we couldn't alert them to our presence, and the last thing we needed was to send up a column of smoke. It meant we ate cold rations—salted meat and travelling groats. In the summer, it was common enough to carry flatbreads, or to simply forage for our food, but in the winter, our rations were far less interesting.

We each had a pouch full of guardgrain, which was a specially-bred groat that kept well in damp, dark places without going rotten, and a pinch of it could fill a man's stomach. It wasn't as good for horses, though, and part of my job was managing logistics. Instead of armour, two of the Dupes from the third squad carried saddlebags full of feed for our horses. That way, we could still move quickly while keeping our mounts well-fed. Burr, however, disagreed about what she wanted to eat.

That evening, when we stopped for the evening to rest, we settled down on a trail through an abandoned farmer's field. Although it was a trail, it hadn't been well-travelled at the best of times, and at least it was open. I could do headcounts quickly, and we could see threats approaching. But Burr kept trying to dig up the carrots at the side of the road. She dipped her head down, then sifted through the wilted stalks with her lips, before tugging up a half-frozen-half-rotten carrot.

It was purple, and at first, I'd had a hard time telling the difference between this world's carrots and turnips, given how stubby the carrots were. But this was probably what Earth's carrots had looked like in the past, too. Barring, of course, the rotten and frozen part.

"Don't eat those," I whispered to Burr, patting the side of her neck.

"It's not good for your stomach. There's a reason even the orcs left them behind." In truth, I'd never seen the orcs eat much, but I hadn't ever heard of them eating vegetables. It was a wonder they didn't all drop dead from scurvy. Burr whinnied, then tossed her head, making her mane sway.

"Sorry," I said.

"But when we get back to the castle, I'll get you an onion." She far preferred onions to apples. Crazy horse. Even though I knew she couldn't understand me, I pushed the rotten carrot off the trail with my boot, then filled my hand with the oat-feed we'd brought for the horses and held it out. In retrospect, it was a mistake, because she ended up lapping them off my hand. When the wind blew past, the wetness made me far colder than I wanted to be.

"Next time, you eat out of the bag," I whispered with a laugh. It wasn't that big of a deal. My Vitality was high enough to handle it.

"It's bad luck to talk to your horse as if it were a man," came a voice from behind me. It didn't belong to any of my squadmates or anyone I knew by name, but it was a Dupe's. I turned, looking at an average Dupe. I couldn't tell exactly how strong he was, but all of our men were Iron-tier. He wore his hair in a ponytail, and he had slightly more gaunt cheeks than the others.

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Before Dupes go loopy and lose their souls, they start talking to things that don't listen," the Dupe said. He was about the same age as me, but there really wasn't anything remarkable about him. His hair was long and in a ponytail.

"It's bad luck, puts you at a higher risk of becoming a soulstealer." I snorted.

"Well, that may be. But since I'm already a soulstealer, I don't imagine I can really lose my soul again." Maybe that was just conjecture. But the whole 'Dupes going crazy' business seemed to only happen once, and it was still quite rare. I had yet to meet another Atoning.

"Perhaps," the Dupe said. He gulped.

"I'm Barley."

"Barley," I replied with a nod.

"How'd you get that name?"

"Because I'm plain."

"I'm Levi."

"We all know who you are," Barley said.

"And—I'm sorry, sarge, I didn't mean to be snappy, but the news has travelled. Technically, I'm filling your position in Romance's squad." I nodded.

"You'll do fine. Romance seems to know what he's doing."

"He hasn't led us astray thus far. But it's bad luck to fill the shoes of a soulstealer." Barley paused.

"Is it true that the Dark Lord has returned? Apparently, you have an ear for Lord Ceonwin's counsel." I pressed my lips together and sighed.

"I don't know anything definitive. Don't stress about it. Focus on the mission and on doing what we can." But that wouldn't have satisfied me as a response if someone had said that to me. I added, "I meant it when I said I wouldn't lead any of you into an unwinnable fight. We win here, and we win the next fight and the next, and we just have to keep winning until the war's over and whatever's going on is resolved."

"And we can make that much of a difference?"

"I don't see why not." The how was the bigger question, but I didn't say that aloud.

"Now, listen to Anchor, and don't worry about that. Get some sleep before your watch." ~ ~ ~ I took the last watch, which meant I had to be up early next morning. It wasn't as difficult to see as I thought it might, out in the wilderness and the dead of night. The sunlight reflecting off Welkinmere was enough to see by, even if it was just barely brighter than moonlight.

When the first glimmers of sunlight peered over the horizon, I squinted at the horizon, then glanced at my watch-mates—which included Anchor and a few other Dupes.

"You see that?" I whispered, pointing to a lump slinking over the fields in the distance. I meant it mainly for Anchor, because he had the highest Perception of all of us.

"I see it," Anchor said.

"It's alive, that's for sure."

"Let's check it, then."