Chapter Three Hundred and Twenty-Nine - Campground Ladies

Chapter Three Hundred and Twenty-Nine - Campground Ladies

Chapter Three Hundred and Twenty-Nine - Campground Ladies

We didnt end up setting camp so much as we just found a comfy-enough spot to rest and rummage through our packs for food. We had a bunch of Sylph rations that came in enclosed packages made of something like wax-paper with a few simple instructions written on the side.

The ready-to-eat meals were... edible.

On opening one of them (vegetable lunch, it was called!) I found a couple of little tin boxes and a small pouch with some water in it. The instructions said to pour the water into one of the little boxes, then apply some fire-aspect mana to the circle on the side of the box.

After doing what it said, I discovered that the box had little wires in it that conducted the heat through the package and warmed up its contents, producing a sort of stout soup with veggies and pasta.

The meal was fun to prepare, and a lot less fun to eat.

I think some of the metal might have rubbed up against the veggies because they tasted like tin.

Well, that was an experience, Amaryllis said as she chucked the meal package aside.

I shook my head at the casual littering and picked the tin up. In the end, we dug a little hole and shoved all of our waste into it. Amaryllis claimed that it was a good idea to mask our tracks a bit.

With a glance at one of our provided maps, and with another look at Awens compass, we aligned ourselves westward and headed off again.

We knew we werent going to make it too far, it was midafternoon already and Fort Middlesfaire was quite a ways to the west and around a little river, so we wouldnt make it there today no matter how fast we walked.

The hilly landscape levelled off after a while. That really just meant that there were fewer hills, but each hill was much broader, like a huge grassy plateau with drooping sides that were a bit of a pain to climb up.Finnd new chapters at novelhall.com

The grass reached up to mid-thigh, whipping against my legs with every step. It was actually kind of nice though. At some point we crossed through a huge patch of wildflowers, all of them white with pretty yellow dots in their centre. The air was filled with their perfume, and happy little bees bumbled past, fat with pollen.

My friends and I chitchatted as we walked along; there wasnt much else to do out in the open fields. All it took was a quick glance around to prove that we were all alone. Amaryllis went over the political implications of what had happened recently and tried to imagine what various factions would do now, Awen, when it was her turn, talked at length about her ideas. She was planning on building a wyvern-inspired flying machine one day, one fitted with a bunch of repeating crossbows and maybe some rocket-propulsion.

With all of our talking, the day slipped by. Wed done enough long-range trekking that I think our legs were going to be fine, but to someone unused to it, the long walk might have been exhausting.

By the time the sun was starting to set, wed crossed a good chunk of the distance between our landing spot and Fort Middlesfaire.

Thats the river, Amaryllis said with a wing over her head to shade her eyes.

Looks like there are some trees around it, I said. Should we camp near the bank?

If we can find a high, flat spot to set up our tents, I dont see why not. Well be able to gather some kindling at least, Amaryllis said.

We climbed up one last hill, then down the other side towards the riverbank. Being tucked between the hillsides provided the river with shelter from the wind, which meant that the trees growing around there had plenty of water and sun and not too much wind pushing against them.

My friends and I found a spot where a few big flat stones stuck out of the hillside. Someone had used the place to camp before, because there was a fire pit dug into the rocks and an old lean-to made of branches had been left off to one side. It had fallen apart, and the leaves on the branches had blown away, but it was a clear sign that someone had passed here once.

She handed me her waterskin, and I dutifully filled it up with river water, then pushed some cleaning magic into it to clean out anything too icky. Fish pooped in that water, after all.

Amaryllis predictions ended up proving true. An hour or so later, with the river thinning down until I could almost just jump across, we came upon a little village.

There was a squat wall around it, only about as tall as I was, with maybe two dozen homes on either side of the river. A bridge crossed the water, and further into the town was a long building with a mill and big stacks of wood cut lengthwise next to it. A sawmill, maybe?

The homes looked like pretty cottages, with wooden walls and thatched roofs with chimneys poking out here and there.

Do you think theyll have an inn? I asked.

Doubtful, Amaryllis said. It doesnt look like all that many people live there. Were on the frontier here, far from the centre of the Trenten Flats, this is hardly a metropolis.

Ah, maybe theyll have a general store, at least, Awen said. We could buy fresher food. Our rations are meant to be kept for a long time, but theyre not very tasty.

I nodded. And I want to meet the locals too. Maybe theyll know something about the ships were looking for?

Amaryllis shrugged. If we cant use their bridge, well have to go all the way around. No harm in stopping by, I suppose.

Grinning, I bounced ahead of my friends, flaring out a bit of Cleaning magic to freshen up. I hardly wanted to meet new friends while stinky and dirty. We reached the edge of the towns walls and found well-ploughed fields with irrigation ditches running all the way over to the river. There wasnt much growing except for some tiny hand-high sprouts of... something set a few centimetres apart.

Going around the fields, we made it to a big gate that was left wide open. The towns roads looked like they were shaped like an H. There were two roads with houses on either side, then the bridge in the middle of the town joined the two halves together.

When my friends and I walked in, we immediately became the centre of attention.

Cervid paused on the street, with some of them, especially the younger ones, running off to hide in their homes. No one called out to us or said a friendly hello, instead they watched us as if we were twenty-foot-tall monsters bent on eating all of them.

Undaunted, I pushed on through. It looked like there was a store on the other side of the bridge, one right next to a smithy and what might have been a church of some sort.

Hello! I called out to one cervid. A well-built man with a hat made of woven grass. He was carrying a stack of baskets which he dropped when I addressed him.

Warm welcome, Amaryllis muttered.

Maybe theyre shy? I asked.

You!

I spun around at the voice. It came from an older cervid lady, one carrying a cane which she was using to point right at me. Hello? I tried.

You! Strangers! She barked. Youre the ones who kidnapped my son!

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