Chapter 189: Not Exactly Roughing It

Chapter 189: Not Exactly Roughing It

As it turned out, pulling a wagon the size of a small house was a hard thing to do.

By the end of the first long day of travel, Jadis’ muscles ached worse than they ever had before, except maybe for when she’d been near death after fighting the bone thief matriarch. But that victory had come at the cost of broken bones, so she didn’t see it as a fair comparison. Still, acting as a beast of burden for the team was definitely a full body workout and when it came time for them to stop for the day and set up camp, Jadis was happy that they didn’t have much to do thanks to some old friends.

As predicted, Jadis had not been able to pull the wagon at the speeds she normally ran at while carrying her companions in her arms or on her back. There was simply too much weight and the landscape too rough, even with the road they were following, to cover the kind of distance she was used to. However, she still kept up a steady pace that, while not breaking any speed records, was fast enough that the guards on their horses and with their own wagon had to press themselves to keep up. They didn’t exactly struggle, but Jadis was fairly sure that the guards had to have some kind of enchanted equipment of their own for them to keep up with her.

They encountered few demons as they rumbled along, mostly due to the fact that they were sticking to the cobblestone road that led north which was also one of the most used and patrolled roads in the whole of the Broken Hills. The few scattered run-ins they had with demons were so trivial that Jadis didn’t even slow her wagon to address them. Kerr, or in a few cases Aila, would shoot the demons as they approached, taking the time to hop off the wagon and cut the eye core from the bodies and then rush to catch back up with the wagon as Jadis kept going. Though on one occasion, as a quartet of twisted wretches leapt out from hiding to ambush them, Jadis simply kept charging forward and dealt with the problem that way.

No one bothered to check the crushed bodies for their eye cores. Poking around in roadkill would have been just a bit beneath them.

All in all, they made good time. Faster than a standard wagon with a mercenary team, Aila told her, though not by much. Which meant that they made it all the way to the fort on the edge of the Great Southern Forest that was run by Bernd’s Blades an hour or two before sunset. They could have pushed on and made a few more miles before dark, but considering the time everyone agreed that taking advantage of the allied mercenary company’s hospitality was a smart thing to do.

Jadis was happy to see that Captain Renz was still in charge of the fort. Aila’s uncles were there too, along with Volker and Specht and other faces familiar to Aila. Thus they spent that night in good company, relying on the supplies and shelter of the fort rather than their own. Since she was no longer a lost and completely clueless wanderer from the woods, Jadis offered to pay Captain Renz for the cost of the meals they ate.

Renz flatly refused to accept her coin. He, like many other mercenaries in Weigrun, saw Jadis’ victory over the Burning Rancor as a pivotal moment in the battle that had likely saved hundreds of lives, if not more. Providing her and her companions with a meal and a night’s rest was the least he could do.

Though, after being reminded of exactly how much three Nephilim could eat, he tempered that stance to one a little more conservative.

“We’ve seen a few more manticores in the forest,” Renz told Jay later that night. The man stroked his short beard as he talked, brow creased with worry. “And some other magic beasts we don’t often see this far south. Could be they’re ranging further because there’s less prey in the woods, or there could be openings in the territory for them. There could also be other dangers from the mountains pushing them south, anything from demons to greater magic beasts. The forest surrounding the mountains is not a friendly place these days. Take great care as you go that way.”

“Thank you for the warning,” Jay said with genuine appreciation. “I can’t promise we won’t do something reckless. It’s kind of our thing. But we’ll at least go into the danger with our eyes open.”

The next morning Jadis and her crew ate an early breakfast and got back on the road. Doing so filled her with an odd sense of nostalgia. Circumstances were wildly different compared to when she’d first arrived in the civilized parts of Weigrun, but to leave the fort with Aila and a wagon once more definitely triggered some déjà vu. This time, though, as Jadis entered the Great Southern Forest travelling on the same road she’d once followed to leave it, she had a literal wagonload of companions to go with her.

Travel through the forest with its towering pine trees was made easier by following the road, though Jadis still wouldn’t have rated it as actually easy, per se. The terrain was hilly and the road rough from years of disuse. Large branches and sometimes whole trees had fallen and blocked the road, necessitating they stop to clear them. And the Behemoth, as Jadis was starting to call the wagon, was just a bit too large for the road which made navigating turns and bends difficult at times. Jadis wasn’t sure how far they had gotten by the time it was late enough in the day to stop for the night, but at the rate they were going she was sure it was going to take twice as long to get back to the starting village she’d briefly lived in months ago. Maybe longer.

Since Jadis was fairly well worn out after a long day of pulling the Behemoth, her companions largely handled the work of putting together the camp. They’d chosen to stop in a small clearing, one made by the fall of a massive pine some years ago. Jadis was glad the several hundred-foot-tall tree had fallen away from the road and not on it. Trying to clear something like that from the path would have taken a lot of time, to say the least. As it was, the tree’s huge root system had torn up a section of the forest floor that had not yet been grown in, so there was space for them to make a decent sized camp.

Jadis’s three selves sat back and enjoyed the warmth of a newly made fire while her friends and lovers took care of everything. Kerr and Sabina worked together to convert the wagon’s one wall into an awning while Eir and Thea pulled out their bedrolls to set things up for their sleeping arrangements. Bridget gathered firewood while Aila set up the cauldron that Jadis had salvaged long ago to use it to cook their evening meal.

Across the fire, Jadis watched as Guard Captain Willa and her soldiers set up their own camp. Their own process was different from what her companions were doing, mostly due to the fact that they had to take into account their horses, not just themselves. The soldiers also set up tents, six small ones in total, that were just large enough for two people to squeeze into. Definitely a far cry from what Fortune’s Favored had for sleeping arrangements.

Once Kerr and Sabina had set up the awning, they’d taken out the barricades and turned one of the short ends of the wagon into a solid wall, the construction not taking much time at all thanks to the clever design of Norbert. The other walls, including the underside of the wagon, were covered by large tarps that hung from the awning on hooks. In less than half an hour they’d transformed the wagon into a relatively comfortable room that could easily hold all of them.

“The level of demonic activity hasn’t been too bad,” Willa commented, interrupting Jadis’ thoughts. “If it stays like this the whole way to the mountains, we should be there in less than a week’s time.

“Hopefully,” Dys replied. “But nothing ever goes that easy.”

“What, uh, what’s up with the demon in a jar hanging from the front of your wagon?” Gerd asked Thea as he motioned with his spoon towards the indicated demonling. “It looks alive...”

“It, um, it is,” Thea said, clearly uncomfortable.

“Why? Seems like an unnecessary risk.”

“It’s something of a trophy,” Syd inserted herself into the conversation, leaning in closer to Thea’s side. “We picked it up when we killed a bone matriarch.”

“Took the egg right from its body,” Dys continued, grabbing the man’s attention along with the interest of some of the other soldiers. “Really big fight, just the tw—three of us. Had to drop a literal avalanche of trees on it to kill it.”

Dys told the story of how the “trio” of Nephilim had managed to kill the demon matriarch, successfully distracting the soldiers away from awkward questions that Thea wasn’t prepared to answer. The brunette gave Syd a grateful smile, which Syd returned with a wink.

As she winked at her meek little lover, Syd noticed a conversation going on a little further away between the guard captain and another soldier.

“Two soldiers per watch,” Willa said to Otto, the man apparently acting as her second in command. “The nights are getting longer this time of year, so we’ll go on standard rotation, two-hour rounds for each pair. And don’t let Jaxton and Landry on watch together again or they’ll wake up the whole camp with one of their silly arguments.”

“We’ll take on some of those watches,” Syd said, butting into the conversation between the two. “No need for two of your people to stay awake while two of us are doing the same.”

“We can handle the watch,” Willa insisted. “We are your guard escort.”

“Fake guard escort,” Syd shot back. “I think we all know that you aren’t here for our protection, and we don’t really need it, either. I’m not saying we do all the night watch ourselves or anything, just that you let us handle some of it at least.”

Willa sighed, her shoulders rolling back for a moment.

“Fair enough. Which watch do you want?”

“We’ll take the second watch,” Syd told her. “And the next after that. Your people can handle the first and last, right?”

“Agreed,” Willa said with a nod, clearly pleased with the arrangement.

As Syd settled back on her seat to let Willa and Otto resume their conversation, Thea leaned in closer to Syd and whispered in her ear.

“W—why those two watches? Second and, ah, third are the w—worst.”

“Because we’re going to need some privacy to recharge our rituals,” Syd whispered back. “And I don’t want any interruptions from guards who might still be awake.”

“Oh,” Thea replied, a blush spreading across her cheeks. “B—but, ah, some of us can be so, um, vocal.”

“Yup,” Syd nodded before giving the former guard a wicked grin. “Exciting, isn’t it?”