The journey of ten thousand kilometers might begin with a single step, but Ulric was godsdamned if it didn't start to drag after a couple million of them. Especially when steadily warming temperatures and longer days meant that the snow pack was turning to slushy bullshit even as they marched through it.
They had journeyed, by his best reckoning, some seven days and damned close to six hundred kilometers since leaving their sheltered rest to wait out Winter's Last Gasp. Most of this trek was across varying qualities of ice and snow of an increasingly treacherous nature.
Ulric's snowshoes had come apart when he'd caught the tip beneath a hidden log and snapped the bracing frame when he reflexively tried to catch himself. Taipan had only laughed a little while, bent over with obvious hilarity, her humor cut off when he drilled her in the buttocks with a slushie ball at about seventy kilometers an hour. She had turned, ready to make war, and her protest died on her lips when she saw another dozen of the balls already prepared to go and saw Ulric, having waited to launch his attack until the outcome was a foregone conclusion, bouncing another pair of them in his hands. Realizing that she would likely die a martyr to her cause, she let the razzing about the broken snowshoes lie. The extra snowballs went unused as part of the peace treaty.
As per the plan, they deliberately avoided any contact with Celestin populations and kept to the roads less traveled to avoid coming into contact with any who might carry even the vaguest of rumors of an Iriel'en woman traveling with a Human man. Taipan's skin bleach had worn off substantially over the past three or so days and she had regained much of her lovely brown color. They would see to altering their appearance before they entered any subsequent townships, although that was a somewhat nebulous timeframe because the terrain had very definitely started to shift.
The forests were thinning substantially and several of the more Southern varieties that had been common around Seinajok had not been present in these scrubbier woodlands for several days. The gentle roll of terrain, already far less pronounced than in the Iriel'en forests, was distinctly leveling out, with only very mild rises to be found. As a result, the myriad streams that tended to flow between rises disappeared and the two of them were forced to boil snow for water more often than not. Taipan assured him that she would not struggle to find potable water upon the plains of the Legranel.
The Aes'r-Legranel, the plains folk of Orlethrem, eschewed fixed cities in favor of their migrating towns. They herded various forms of livestock over vast tracts of land between semi-permanent water sources that came available and dried up at differing times of year. They cultivated only a few crops, preferring to trade for grains and harvest as they moved. That was what made the time table for their arrival within any large gatherings of peoples uncertain: there was simply no specific village to be found.
At least game was still plentiful, the beasts rousing as the cold nights grew less brittle and the days took on a merely refreshing chill. In fact, game wasn't just plentiful it was becoming difficult to traverse the vanishing forests for coming across waking predators. Ulric kept his electromagnetic detection up and running for as long as they traveled and noted that many of the hidden forms were beginning to stir. Some of those were much larger than he cared to think about. Taipan made no bones about being glad to be gone from the woodlands in this season. She spoke with a trepidation about the aggression of beasts hungering from their long sleeps and anything that made his hardened Shadow nervous had his knickers knotted for truth.
Hunting as they traveled, Ulric was carrying a renewed supply of tradable goods on a newly fashioned sled, to support their cover story as a Trader and his guide, though Taipan was still fairly adamant about shedding her more obvious heritage for the near future. Too many questions might arise from the presence of an Iriel'en this far from the Deep Wood that wasn't actively part of the war effort.
There would be Hunters from his Shadow's homeland scattered about, but they would be carrying out the orders of Lord Brighteyes Iriel, youngest brother of Taipan, steward of Iriel and acting crown of Orlethrem while his father Bald'rt recovered from Bane poisoning. Ulric had sat down with the kid and listened to his plans and those plans had included a healthy dose of guerrilla warfare using Iriel'en scouts to dismantle Prespang's attempts to gather intelligence, move supplies, or know a night's sleep free from harassment.
As such, Taipan still needed to achieve a degree of anonymity within her brother tribes lands amongst those who would know to wonder at her presence. The former princess of Iriel would be bound to draw eyes.
It wasn't a problem yet, they'd seen nary a soul in the entirety of Celestin after departing Trachn'ir. The fallout from dismantling the slaver cartel had not caught up to them and that was excellent news. If they had done their task to completion, none would be left alive from that angle to trouble them. Ulric doubted very much that there would be any traveling between the Southern expanse of the Lowland Forest territories all the long way to the plains at this particular time and at their incredible pace. The rivers would be unreliable now, beginning their breakup and travel by boats, even ones rigged with skids, would be impossible for a few weeks until the ice floes cleared.
Time, at last, was on Ulric's side.
It had damned well better be, his feet were killing him.
Even the normally unflappable Iriel'en Huntress was weary of the hidden roads, or at least of spending so many hours each day upon them. Barely did they get their shelter up each night but before the two were snoring in their blankets, dead to the world. Normally they would be trading watches. Diligence had limits though and setting guard out in the absolute middle of the Lowlands wilderness, where not a single sign of civilization's touch could be seen for hundreds of kilometers, was rank paranoia. If Taipan wasn't afraid of getting attacked by ravening beasts in the night, that was good enough for Ulric. He met his bedroll with great joy and did not rise until shaken.
Both of the weary travelers were slightly eager though. They had broken free from the low scrub brush an hour ago and stretched out before them ran a vast plain. Even the Heaven's Reach Mountains, tall enough that they were visible from most places in Iriel and the Southern bounds of Celestin, could not encroach on the horizon of these endless fields of grass and prairie. To Ulric, the snow blanketed plain was as a canvas, ready for some protean artist to paint life onto the world. Even better, there, at a distance beyond his ability to judge clearly the exact location, was a trailing plume of smoke that Taipan said was characteristic for one of the traveling villages encamped.
He asked what they might be burning, if they did not harvest the wood of their neighbors and his guide through Orlethrem's wonders informed him that all fires were powered by a near endless supply of dried grazing beast dung. The grassy stuff smoldered for hours and, in larger quantities flamed quite happily, if with a rather earthy flavor.
His next shock came when Ulric inquired as to how long it would take them to reach that migrant settlement. The answer? Two days. What his eyes had deceitfully judged as being, at most, a day's travel was instead a full one hundred fifty kilometers away, to judge the smoke trail.
Ulric was beginning to come to the conclusion that Varda might be significantly larger in surface area than his old dear Earth. Through what he would have considered a transcontinental hike, they had only truly passed through a scant couple of woodland biomes, a highland alpine forest, to a cloud forest to a highland deciduous forest to a lowland deciduous forest. Fears that their journey North would result in a lengthening of their stay with the Winter season were unfounded, they had not changed latitude enough to substantially deviate in that manner and even rough calculations from Ulric's knowledge indicated that Varda had to be at least double the radius of the Earth for that to be the case. Watcher's Tits, this world was huge.
Gravity had to be fucky then, didn't it? If the planet itself were so vast then its mass must also scale somewhat, even if the metallic composition was less. Or…could it be that there was a porosity to the world that did not exist in his old one? Good old Earth was basically solid rock for about two hundred kilometers down and then it became molten rock for another few thousands of kilometers all the way to a super fluid iron and nickel core that flowed to create the dynamo action that produced the protective electromagnetic shield that preserved the planet's atmosphere and life from being destroyed by solar radiation. If this world had no core it couldn't possibly generate its ionosphere right? Or, was this more impossible magical nonsense acting at an incomprehensible scale? Too many questions old man, Ulric told himself, with not enough data to even begin to answer them.
Abandoning hope that he would have any godsdamned clue how to reconcile the geography of his adoptive world with its gravitational field and geological processes he decided to focus on what he could handle: leaning into the harness of the sled while watching the hypnotic motion of Taipan's hips as she led them through the melting snow.
He made a mistake. He didn't realize that he was making it, but he should have seen it coming and, now, seeing was very much the problem. Ulric had been staring across a white expanse for the last few hours, his eyes searching for signs of trouble, for land marks on the endless plain, and for some indication that they were approaching their eventual target of this nameless Legranel caravan town. When they stopped to make camp, Ulric realized that he'd been ignoring the discomfort in his eyes and that he'd come up with snowblindness. Retinal overexposure. The snow reflected the ambient light, magnifying its brightness, and he'd had no protection to reduce the glare. The hurting had come to a head and his vision had gone blurry.
Releasing the handles of the sled and extracting himself from the make shift harness, Ulric realized that his seeing giblets were cooked. He slammed his eyes closed and felt immediate relief from the most acute pain but the deeper hurting stayed right there. Fuck.
"Taipan?" He called, his worry clear in his voice, "I did an oopsie."
He heard his consort's turn, her tread light upon the withering snow but not completely silent. At least, not right now when she wasn't trying to be stealthy.
"What is the matter, Glade Chief?" She asked, her musical voice carrying concern mixed with reservation that he might be playing tricks.
"I think I sort of burned my eyes staring at snow." He admitted, a little embarrassed at his novice mistake.
He'd done enough hiking in the snow in his homeland to know better than this. To cross a snowfield wide eyed for hours was a rank error and he was paying for it with his favorite sense.
Taipan's sigh drifted along with the wind.
"Is that all?" his Shadow said, relief lightening as she continued, "Ulric do not make me anxious like that. It will pass in a few hours, a day or two at most. I did not expect your eyes to be so sensitive, given how poor they are." She gibed.
Very funny, har, har, yes how droll, Ulric complained silently. They both knew his vision was top notch, it was his brain that was the weak link to his perception. He simply didn't know to recognize what he was seeing.
"Thank you Taipan, for your concern. You are a pillar of comfort." Ulric responded, drily enough that he was certain she would recognize that he was being sarcastic.
Her warm tone rang out, "You are most welcome Ulric Glade Chief. But you need not thank me for this, it is my duty to serve when my Honor struggles. I do note that I seem to need to serve almost constantly though."
Oh, this was just great. He had given a dog a bone to chew on and now she would tease him ruthlessly. He should have just kept his mouth shut and be blinded in peace.
"Perhaps this is a good experience for you Ulric. I have often warned you to better consider the sounds of the forests, the smells that may indicate prey or predators, and you have always had better fidelity from your magic sight with your eyes closed anyhow. This is a perfect opportunity to correct some of these deficiencies!" His Shadow declared, optimistically.
"Oh ja, das ist toll!" Ulric proclaimed with false enthusiasm, "Why didn't I blind myself sooner?"
He swore he could hear the woman grinning with her perfect white teeth, sharper than they ought to be, and her twitching ears that laughed without sound. He was wise to her games.
"There are gods of justice Taipan, and you will rue this day! Remember when you were blinded by that stupid skunk? No jokes from Ulric Einar, no sir. But now the shoe is on the other foot? Kicking away, she is." Bitched Ulric.
He felt her hand on his shoulder, patting him in commiseration, "Yes. But I am a Taipan and you should have known this." she told him without sympathy.
Damned Elf. He heard her saunter off to start setting up camp.
Ulric tried to open his eyes and was rewarded with fresh stabs to his orbs. Groaning a loud, drawn out "Fuuuuuuck!", he squeezed them shut again and resigned himself to needing a blindfold for at least a little while. Getting his pack open wasn't much of a problem, fortunately. He had bigger issues when he tried to get the hide shelter sorted out. Loops to hold the support poles were going to be problematic, if he missed one the hide wouldn't stay taut and would hold water if rain or snow fell.
Fine, he told himself. This is fine. Not like there was anything to see out here anyway, just endless white bullshit nigh unto infinity. After the third time he missed a loop and had to start over his Shadow's chortles made Ulric grit his teeth. She was enjoying this far too much.
"Alright, well if you are quite finished dirking me in the back, can we maybe see about getting camp? At the very least there won't be so many kinds of monstrous beasty running around." He said.
Ominous silence answer him.
"Right? There aren't so many vicious critters out here are there?" Ulric asked, concern becoming evident.
He heard a cute, prim, cough before his lovely, black hearted wife answered, "The plains host a great many hunters, Ulric. [Sage Coyote], big [Gray Speckle Wolves], and, of course, several varieties of hunting cats. Lone [Savannah Prowlers] that are dangerous ambushers and [Maned Amberfang] who travel in largish prides are among the more worrisome. Of course, as the spring thaw takes hold, there will be numerous poisonous snakes, lizards, and insects. Ah! If we come across a [Swarming Dagger Horde] I will warn you we may need to set large grass fires or be overrun and devoured, the hive mind insects are next to unstoppable otherwise."
What great fun was Varda. A treat and a joy.
"Fine, whatever. This planet clearly wants to kill anyone who lives on it, I don't know why I thought it needed trees growing to do it. At least the grass doesn't try to kill you." Grumbled Ulric with resignation.
"Umm…" started Taipan.
"Oh you're fucking having me on now is what you're doing!" He challenged, irritably.
Laughing openly now while she ran the support poles through leather loops of their hide shelter, his Shadow told him through her giggles, "Oh you'll see yet Glade Chief. Or, perhaps not, if you keep staring at the Twins."
It was times like this he wished he'd kept his damned head down and hid himself away in the glade to grow old and die a bush hermit.
*************Trachn'ir*********************
Three forms entered the gate, receiving a few odd looks from the guards stationed there. They made a somewhat odd group, being that a tall, raptor-clawed Sauri male dressed in dark leathers, a lean, tawny, fierce-eyed Leor female with obvious belted long swords, and a diminutive Svartalfin in heavy plate armor that obscures his entire form, and toting a hammer as large as his own head were not typically seen traveling together.
"The rivers have broken with ill timing." Declared the Sauri, his low breathy voice not quite hissing.
The armored dwarf, scoffed, "Everything happens with ill timing for you. Leave off it Quert, we made fantastic pace, we're here near to three days earlier than we thought."
The Leor turned a predatory gaze around the city streets, starting to really bustle now that Winter's grip was relaxing upon the lands. They'd had to stop for the Last Gasp or freeze to death but, other than that, their mission had proceeded with satisfying alacrity. Holding a sword to the necks of their porters had that effect.
A husky low voice issued from the Leor woman "Will we have time to play? I think I can leave the two of you to find Gedrun and handle affairs."
The Sauri made a cross over his chest with his forearms, "No! Not again Yherska! Three times you stopped to play your little "games" and we had to kill guards or have them chase us from the townships. We are on the job, you save what passes for entertainment for your own time."
The dwarf nodded his agreement, banging his hammerhead off the cobbles to punctuate his statement as they sauntered through Trachn'ir's streets, "Agreed. I have no love for mindless slaughter and we did not need to kill those men if not for you. We go, together, to see to the job Yherska."
Baring her canines at her coworkers she muttered, "Fine. Damned straights."
They would find Trade Minister Gedrun, they would extract information about their targets, and then they would clean up the mess from disposing of the failure of an Ogran. Sav'ris Morion did not suffer failure and he had not made his empire allowing his black books to be exposed to light. Once that was done, they would see to finding the pair that had so incensed their most regular employer.
"I do not believe I have ever seen the Contractor so incensed." Remarked the Sauri, dispassionately.
"You don't say?" snarked the Leor, "He loses his heir to some nothing of a Valin declaring himself lord of nowhere and then has his third daughter's husband slaughtered like a pig in the wilds by the same man and his Brownie partner and loses Crowns in the flesh business over it to boot. You think he's not going to be out for blood there Quert? We can't all run cold like you."
"Enough!" shouted the Svartalfin, startling some nearby merchants from their huddled over their table as the trio strolled by, "I'll not listen to your racist slurs against Quert this whole trip, Sauri are warm blooded and you know it you sadistic goat."
The tall Sauri patted the dwarf gently on the helmet, "Thank you Ari. It is not her fault for her ignorance, if it isn't bleeding dear Yherska does not give it her full mind."
The Leor spat on the stones and the Svartalfin laughed at her. They all knew her habits.
As the three maneuvered through the city, they ignored the distance that passersby gave them. It was somewhat normal, they carried an aura of misfortune about them, as whoever they had been paid to find typically did not have a good day when they did. They almost always had a last one though.
The Blight Triad was regarded as one of the more efficient teams of hitters in recent Guild history. Only four failed missions to date and one of those was a suicide when their target found out that they had been hired, the others had run to distant shores outside their area of operation, that is to say, across the Sea of Storms. They preferred working for House Morion's Lord and cleared their schedule when a missive came in that he needed fixers to solve a little problem. Lord Morion had deep coffers and a keen sense of timeliness.
When the three arrived at the Trade Ministry they noticed a sense of urgency about the place. A few nervous interviews later, for the interviewees, not the interviewers, and they had their answer: it was a clusterfuck. Minister Gedrun publicly exposed for slave trading. House Wicker dissolved as his accomplice after having no less than two of its sons killed and directly tied to it by the confessions of the remaining members. Gedrun and all of his catch teams slaughtered within a week's time.
"Ill timing, I tell you." Declared the Sauri assassin Quert.
"Haah…Varda's Bones, this will not best please the Contractor. We have to send word by courier hawk. At once." Said the dwarf juggernaut.
Smiling, the Leor bladedancer ran her claw over her sword hilts eagerly, "Think what fun we'll have when we catch them! Worthy prey, after all this time."
The trio turned from the Ministry of Trade and made their casual way to the docks, where courier services would see a confidential message delivered at great haste, costs forwarded to the recipient, of course.
**************Legranel, Somewhere*****************
The hits just keep coming. They'd traveled most of a day only to find that their target was moving. The smoke plume grew fainter all day because the caravan had taken off. In the summer, the fire would be completely doused to prevent uncontrolled fires but in the Winter and the wet Spring, they were left to smolder, indicating to other caravans where water and sustenance might be found and indicating that a neighbor was nearby if they wanted to temporarily merged for trade, marriages, or to settle disputes.
Not having any better idea of where to go, since the caravan itself was impossible to see over that kind of distance, Taipan held their bearing and they arrived surely to find the charred remnants of a poop fueled bonfire. A stone well, or perhaps just fired clay bricks, provided clean if mineral laden water. Ulric was going to ask how they were going to keep a fire going but his nose gave him the answer when Taipan took their sled out for a brief turd patrol and returned with a host of patties ready for burning.
"It is the oils that the beasts produce in their gut you see, Ulric. Or don't see, sorry, I know that your eyes still hurt." Taipan instructed, with no small glee at his continued discomfort.
He'd regained his sight a day ago, thank you very much, but the ache in his sockets hadn't left completely and worsened when he kept them open in the incredibly bright afternoon sunslight. Ulric didn't know why his Shadow's eyes were immune to this beating but, somehow, they were just peachy.
"Oh just you wait Taipan. There will be great and terrible vengeance for your blasphemy against the Irony gods. The fall from the heights is greatest, oh my enemy." Ulric declared to his crouching partner.
Her smirk as she ignored his dire warning said that she did not believe him and she continued showing him how to start a fire using dried uber bison shit.
"The oils, they coat the cud so that it forms firm masses that may be passed from one stomach to another. These beasts have three distinct stomachs and two gall bladders. One breaks down the fats of the grasses, seeds, nuts, or whatever else they are grazing on, but the other applies this digestive oil as the mass passes through the gut. It keeps the resulting dung from absorbing water, both within the animal and without, once it has been passed. It is incredible how hardy those beasts are, they need drink only once every three days." Taipan taught with frank admiration.
Huh. He'd have never pegged her for a cowgirl. Well. Not in the agricultural sense anyway.
He knelt to join the Iriel'en girl and paid attention to her lesson. As much as she enjoyed giving him shit, literally on this particular occasion, having just handed him a patty, she did take her task of teaching him to be less of a greenhorn seriously. He mirrored her action, breaking open the dried patty to reveal the dense assortment of incredibly dry, for having laid under snow for months, digested shoots. These where then twisted back and forth to create a greater surface area before his Shadow used her fire steel to strike a couple of sparks that caught almost immediately to produce a hot orange flame.
Huh. Well, I'll be a damned, Ulric thought. The oil saturated fibers, loosened up like this, burned like a candle.
They placed their lit turds in the charred area where the previous fire had been and carefully assembled a small "hut" of other patties around the lit ones. In very little time at all, a joyful little fire was burning, hot, smoky, and pungent, if not gross. To be honest, the odor of the dung was not foul in the slightest, it almost reminded him of sage grass.
"It may be a good thing to rest here a day or so, Ulric." Advised Taipan, seriously this time.
"We have pushed hard, have exhausted most all of our prepared rations and we will need to replenish these supplies before we venture deeper into the plain. When these snows are finally gone, there will be a brief reprieve before a short season of plaguing insects unlike anything you have ever experienced." His Shadow shuddered at the thought.
"When the Twins sit low in the sky, both of a morning, and at twilight, the biting clouds will descend and only a dense smokey fire or heavy netting will dissuade them. Twice have I been caught in the open during this season and twice have I suffered for it. A third time I do not wish to countenance."
Ulric commiserated. The North continental trail he'd hiked had a similar phenomenon. Despite the long winters, there was no greater enemy of man than the Northern Black Mosquito and the swarming No-see-um.
"Fear not my delicate skinned Jam Fruit." Ulric told her, "I can put up a [Skyshield] to wall the little monsters out."
His Shadow blinked. Then she smiled, "Oh? Oh yes, that is true. I forget at times that you are gifted with magics. Then I leave this task to you Glade Chief, and gladly."
It wasn't often that he was able to garner his comrade's complete admiration so he put a solid check in the win column.
"We will not suffocate within this barrier will we?" She asked, suddenly concerned.
"No?" Ulric answered firmly.
The journey of ten thousand kilometers might begin with a single step, but Ulric was godsdamned if it didn't start to drag after a couple million of them. Especially when steadily warming temperatures and longer days meant that the snow pack was turning to slushy bullshit even as they marched through it.
They had journeyed, by his best reckoning, some seven days and damned close to six hundred kilometers since leaving their sheltered rest to wait out Winter's Last Gasp. Most of this trek was across varying qualities of ice and snow of an increasingly treacherous nature.
Ulric's snowshoes had come apart when he'd caught the tip beneath a hidden log and snapped the bracing frame when he reflexively tried to catch himself. Taipan had only laughed a little while, bent over with obvious hilarity, her humor cut off when he drilled her in the buttocks with a slushie ball at about seventy kilometers an hour. She had turned, ready to make war, and her protest died on her lips when she saw another dozen of the balls already prepared to go and saw Ulric, having waited to launch his attack until the outcome was a foregone conclusion, bouncing another pair of them in his hands. Realizing that she would likely die a martyr to her cause, she let the razzing about the broken snowshoes lie. The extra snowballs went unused as part of the peace treaty.
As per the plan, they deliberately avoided any contact with Celestin populations and kept to the roads less traveled to avoid coming into contact with any who might carry even the vaguest of rumors of an Iriel'en woman traveling with a Human man. Taipan's skin bleach had worn off substantially over the past three or so days and she had regained much of her lovely brown color. They would see to altering their appearance before they entered any subsequent townships, although that was a somewhat nebulous timeframe because the terrain had very definitely started to shift.
The forests were thinning substantially and several of the more Southern varieties that had been common around Seinajok had not been present in these scrubbier woodlands for several days. The gentle roll of terrain, already far less pronounced than in the Iriel'en forests, was distinctly leveling out, with only very mild rises to be found. As a result, the myriad streams that tended to flow between rises disappeared and the two of them were forced to boil snow for water more often than not. Taipan assured him that she would not struggle to find potable water upon the plains of the Legranel.
The Aes'r-Legranel, the plains folk of Orlethrem, eschewed fixed cities in favor of their migrating towns. They herded various forms of livestock over vast tracts of land between semi-permanent water sources that came available and dried up at differing times of year. They cultivated only a few crops, preferring to trade for grains and harvest as they moved. That was what made the time table for their arrival within any large gatherings of peoples uncertain: there was simply no specific village to be found.
At least game was still plentiful, the beasts rousing as the cold nights grew less brittle and the days took on a merely refreshing chill. In fact, game wasn't just plentiful it was becoming difficult to traverse the vanishing forests for coming across waking predators. Ulric kept his electromagnetic detection up and running for as long as they traveled and noted that many of the hidden forms were beginning to stir. Some of those were much larger than he cared to think about. Taipan made no bones about being glad to be gone from the woodlands in this season. She spoke with a trepidation about the aggression of beasts hungering from their long sleeps and anything that made his hardened Shadow nervous had his knickers knotted for truth.
Hunting as they traveled, Ulric was carrying a renewed supply of tradable goods on a newly fashioned sled, to support their cover story as a Trader and his guide, though Taipan was still fairly adamant about shedding her more obvious heritage for the near future. Too many questions might arise from the presence of an Iriel'en this far from the Deep Wood that wasn't actively part of the war effort.
There would be Hunters from his Shadow's homeland scattered about, but they would be carrying out the orders of Lord Brighteyes Iriel, youngest brother of Taipan, steward of Iriel and acting crown of Orlethrem while his father Bald'rt recovered from Bane poisoning. Ulric had sat down with the kid and listened to his plans and those plans had included a healthy dose of guerrilla warfare using Iriel'en scouts to dismantle Prespang's attempts to gather intelligence, move supplies, or know a night's sleep free from harassment.
As such, Taipan still needed to achieve a degree of anonymity within her brother tribes lands amongst those who would know to wonder at her presence. The former princess of Iriel would be bound to draw eyes.
It wasn't a problem yet, they'd seen nary a soul in the entirety of Celestin after departing Trachn'ir. The fallout from dismantling the slaver cartel had not caught up to them and that was excellent news. If they had done their task to completion, none would be left alive from that angle to trouble them. Ulric doubted very much that there would be any traveling between the Southern expanse of the Lowland Forest territories all the long way to the plains at this particular time and at their incredible pace. The rivers would be unreliable now, beginning their breakup and travel by boats, even ones rigged with skids, would be impossible for a few weeks until the ice floes cleared.
Time, at last, was on Ulric's side.
It had damned well better be, his feet were killing him.
Even the normally unflappable Iriel'en Huntress was weary of the hidden roads, or at least of spending so many hours each day upon them. Barely did they get their shelter up each night but before the two were snoring in their blankets, dead to the world. Normally they would be trading watches. Diligence had limits though and setting guard out in the absolute middle of the Lowlands wilderness, where not a single sign of civilization's touch could be seen for hundreds of kilometers, was rank paranoia. If Taipan wasn't afraid of getting attacked by ravening beasts in the night, that was good enough for Ulric. He met his bedroll with great joy and did not rise until shaken.
Both of the weary travelers were slightly eager though. They had broken free from the low scrub brush an hour ago and stretched out before them ran a vast plain. Even the Heaven's Reach Mountains, tall enough that they were visible from most places in Iriel and the Southern bounds of Celestin, could not encroach on the horizon of these endless fields of grass and prairie. To Ulric, the snow blanketed plain was as a canvas, ready for some protean artist to paint life onto the world. Even better, there, at a distance beyond his ability to judge clearly the exact location, was a trailing plume of smoke that Taipan said was characteristic for one of the traveling villages encamped.
He asked what they might be burning, if they did not harvest the wood of their neighbors and his guide through Orlethrem's wonders informed him that all fires were powered by a near endless supply of dried grazing beast dung. The grassy stuff smoldered for hours and, in larger quantities flamed quite happily, if with a rather earthy flavor.
His next shock came when Ulric inquired as to how long it would take them to reach that migrant settlement. The answer? Two days. What his eyes had deceitfully judged as being, at most, a day's travel was instead a full one hundred fifty kilometers away, to judge the smoke trail.
Ulric was beginning to come to the conclusion that Varda might be significantly larger in surface area than his old dear Earth. Through what he would have considered a transcontinental hike, they had only truly passed through a scant couple of woodland biomes, a highland alpine forest, to a cloud forest to a highland deciduous forest to a lowland deciduous forest. Fears that their journey North would result in a lengthening of their stay with the Winter season were unfounded, they had not changed latitude enough to substantially deviate in that manner and even rough calculations from Ulric's knowledge indicated that Varda had to be at least double the radius of the Earth for that to be the case. Watcher's Tits, this world was huge.
Gravity had to be fucky then, didn't it? If the planet itself were so vast then its mass must also scale somewhat, even if the metallic composition was less. Or…could it be that there was a porosity to the world that did not exist in his old one? Good old Earth was basically solid rock for about two hundred kilometers down and then it became molten rock for another few thousands of kilometers all the way to a super fluid iron and nickel core that flowed to create the dynamo action that produced the protective electromagnetic shield that preserved the planet's atmosphere and life from being destroyed by solar radiation. If this world had no core it couldn't possibly generate its ionosphere right? Or, was this more impossible magical nonsense acting at an incomprehensible scale? Too many questions old man, Ulric told himself, with not enough data to even begin to answer them.
Abandoning hope that he would have any godsdamned clue how to reconcile the geography of his adoptive world with its gravitational field and geological processes he decided to focus on what he could handle: leaning into the harness of the sled while watching the hypnotic motion of Taipan's hips as she led them through the melting snow.
He made a mistake. He didn't realize that he was making it, but he should have seen it coming and, now, seeing was very much the problem. Ulric had been staring across a white expanse for the last few hours, his eyes searching for signs of trouble, for land marks on the endless plain, and for some indication that they were approaching their eventual target of this nameless Legranel caravan town. When they stopped to make camp, Ulric realized that he'd been ignoring the discomfort in his eyes and that he'd come up with snowblindness. Retinal overexposure. The snow reflected the ambient light, magnifying its brightness, and he'd had no protection to reduce the glare. The hurting had come to a head and his vision had gone blurry.
Releasing the handles of the sled and extracting himself from the make shift harness, Ulric realized that his seeing giblets were cooked. He slammed his eyes closed and felt immediate relief from the most acute pain but the deeper hurting stayed right there. Fuck.
"Taipan?" He called, his worry clear in his voice, "I did an oopsie."
He heard his consort's turn, her tread light upon the withering snow but not completely silent. At least, not right now when she wasn't trying to be stealthy.
"What is the matter, Glade Chief?" She asked, her musical voice carrying concern mixed with reservation that he might be playing tricks.
"I think I sort of burned my eyes staring at snow." He admitted, a little embarrassed at his novice mistake.
He'd done enough hiking in the snow in his homeland to know better than this. To cross a snowfield wide eyed for hours was a rank error and he was paying for it with his favorite sense.
Taipan's sigh drifted along with the wind.
"Is that all?" his Shadow said, relief lightening as she continued, "Ulric do not make me anxious like that. It will pass in a few hours, a day or two at most. I did not expect your eyes to be so sensitive, given how poor they are." She gibed.
Very funny, har, har, yes how droll, Ulric complained silently. They both knew his vision was top notch, it was his brain that was the weak link to his perception. He simply didn't know to recognize what he was seeing.
"Thank you Taipan, for your concern. You are a pillar of comfort." Ulric responded, drily enough that he was certain she would recognize that he was being sarcastic.
Her warm tone rang out, "You are most welcome Ulric Glade Chief. But you need not thank me for this, it is my duty to serve when my Honor struggles. I do note that I seem to need to serve almost constantly though."
Oh, this was just great. He had given a dog a bone to chew on and now she would tease him ruthlessly. He should have just kept his mouth shut and be blinded in peace.
"Perhaps this is a good experience for you Ulric. I have often warned you to better consider the sounds of the forests, the smells that may indicate prey or predators, and you have always had better fidelity from your magic sight with your eyes closed anyhow. This is a perfect opportunity to correct some of these deficiencies!" His Shadow declared, optimistically.
"Oh ja, das ist toll!" Ulric proclaimed with false enthusiasm, "Why didn't I blind myself sooner?"
He swore he could hear the woman grinning with her perfect white teeth, sharper than they ought to be, and her twitching ears that laughed without sound. He was wise to her games.
"There are gods of justice Taipan, and you will rue this day! Remember when you were blinded by that stupid skunk? No jokes from Ulric Einar, no sir. But now the shoe is on the other foot? Kicking away, she is." Bitched Ulric.
He felt her hand on his shoulder, patting him in commiseration, "Yes. But I am a Taipan and you should have known this." she told him without sympathy.
Damned Elf. He heard her saunter off to start setting up camp.
Ulric tried to open his eyes and was rewarded with fresh stabs to his orbs. Groaning a loud, drawn out "Fuuuuuuck!", he squeezed them shut again and resigned himself to needing a blindfold for at least a little while. Getting his pack open wasn't much of a problem, fortunately. He had bigger issues when he tried to get the hide shelter sorted out. Loops to hold the support poles were going to be problematic, if he missed one the hide wouldn't stay taut and would hold water if rain or snow fell.
Fine, he told himself. This is fine. Not like there was anything to see out here anyway, just endless white bullshit nigh unto infinity. After the third time he missed a loop and had to start over his Shadow's chortles made Ulric grit his teeth. She was enjoying this far too much.
"Alright, well if you are quite finished dirking me in the back, can we maybe see about getting camp? At the very least there won't be so many kinds of monstrous beasty running around." He said.
Ominous silence answer him.
"Right? There aren't so many vicious critters out here are there?" Ulric asked, concern becoming evident.
He heard a cute, prim, cough before his lovely, black hearted wife answered, "The plains host a great many hunters, Ulric. [Sage Coyote], big [Gray Speckle Wolves], and, of course, several varieties of hunting cats. Lone [Savannah Prowlers] that are dangerous ambushers and [Maned Amberfang] who travel in largish prides are among the more worrisome. Of course, as the spring thaw takes hold, there will be numerous poisonous snakes, lizards, and insects. Ah! If we come across a [Swarming Dagger Horde] I will warn you we may need to set large grass fires or be overrun and devoured, the hive mind insects are next to unstoppable otherwise."
What great fun was Varda. A treat and a joy.
"Fine, whatever. This planet clearly wants to kill anyone who lives on it, I don't know why I thought it needed trees growing to do it. At least the grass doesn't try to kill you." Grumbled Ulric with resignation.
"Umm…" started Taipan.
"Oh you're fucking having me on now is what you're doing!" He challenged, irritably.
Laughing openly now while she ran the support poles through leather loops of their hide shelter, his Shadow told him through her giggles, "Oh you'll see yet Glade Chief. Or, perhaps not, if you keep staring at the Twins."
It was times like this he wished he'd kept his damned head down and hid himself away in the glade to grow old and die a bush hermit.
*************Trachn'ir*********************
Three forms entered the gate, receiving a few odd looks from the guards stationed there. They made a somewhat odd group, being that a tall, raptor-clawed Sauri male dressed in dark leathers, a lean, tawny, fierce-eyed Leor female with obvious belted long swords, and a diminutive Svartalfin in heavy plate armor that obscures his entire form, and toting a hammer as large as his own head were not typically seen traveling together.
"The rivers have broken with ill timing." Declared the Sauri, his low breathy voice not quite hissing.
The armored dwarf, scoffed, "Everything happens with ill timing for you. Leave off it Quert, we made fantastic pace, we're here near to three days earlier than we thought."
The Leor turned a predatory gaze around the city streets, starting to really bustle now that Winter's grip was relaxing upon the lands. They'd had to stop for the Last Gasp or freeze to death but, other than that, their mission had proceeded with satisfying alacrity. Holding a sword to the necks of their porters had that effect.
A husky low voice issued from the Leor woman "Will we have time to play? I think I can leave the two of you to find Gedrun and handle affairs."
The Sauri made a cross over his chest with his forearms, "No! Not again Yherska! Three times you stopped to play your little "games" and we had to kill guards or have them chase us from the townships. We are on the job, you save what passes for entertainment for your own time."
The dwarf nodded his agreement, banging his hammerhead off the cobbles to punctuate his statement as they sauntered through Trachn'ir's streets, "Agreed. I have no love for mindless slaughter and we did not need to kill those men if not for you. We go, together, to see to the job Yherska."
Baring her canines at her coworkers she muttered, "Fine. Damned straights."
They would find Trade Minister Gedrun, they would extract information about their targets, and then they would clean up the mess from disposing of the failure of an Ogran. Sav'ris Morion did not suffer failure and he had not made his empire allowing his black books to be exposed to light. Once that was done, they would see to finding the pair that had so incensed their most regular employer.
"I do not believe I have ever seen the Contractor so incensed." Remarked the Sauri, dispassionately.
"You don't say?" snarked the Leor, "He loses his heir to some nothing of a Valin declaring himself lord of nowhere and then has his third daughter's husband slaughtered like a pig in the wilds by the same man and his Brownie partner and loses Crowns in the flesh business over it to boot. You think he's not going to be out for blood there Quert? We can't all run cold like you."
"Enough!" shouted the Svartalfin, startling some nearby merchants from their huddled over their table as the trio strolled by, "I'll not listen to your racist slurs against Quert this whole trip, Sauri are warm blooded and you know it you sadistic goat."
The tall Sauri patted the dwarf gently on the helmet, "Thank you Ari. It is not her fault for her ignorance, if it isn't bleeding dear Yherska does not give it her full mind."
The Leor spat on the stones and the Svartalfin laughed at her. They all knew her habits.
As the three maneuvered through the city, they ignored the distance that passersby gave them. It was somewhat normal, they carried an aura of misfortune about them, as whoever they had been paid to find typically did not have a good day when they did. They almost always had a last one though.
The Blight Triad was regarded as one of the more efficient teams of hitters in recent Guild history. Only four failed missions to date and one of those was a suicide when their target found out that they had been hired, the others had run to distant shores outside their area of operation, that is to say, across the Sea of Storms. They preferred working for House Morion's Lord and cleared their schedule when a missive came in that he needed fixers to solve a little problem. Lord Morion had deep coffers and a keen sense of timeliness.
When the three arrived at the Trade Ministry they noticed a sense of urgency about the place. A few nervous interviews later, for the interviewees, not the interviewers, and they had their answer: it was a clusterfuck. Minister Gedrun publicly exposed for slave trading. House Wicker dissolved as his accomplice after having no less than two of its sons killed and directly tied to it by the confessions of the remaining members. Gedrun and all of his catch teams slaughtered within a week's time.
"Ill timing, I tell you." Declared the Sauri assassin Quert.
"Haah…Varda's Bones, this will not best please the Contractor. We have to send word by courier hawk. At once." Said the dwarf juggernaut.
Smiling, the Leor bladedancer ran her claw over her sword hilts eagerly, "Think what fun we'll have when we catch them! Worthy prey, after all this time."
The trio turned from the Ministry of Trade and made their casual way to the docks, where courier services would see a confidential message delivered at great haste, costs forwarded to the recipient, of course.
**************Legranel, Somewhere*****************
The hits just keep coming. They'd traveled most of a day only to find that their target was moving. The smoke plume grew fainter all day because the caravan had taken off. In the summer, the fire would be completely doused to prevent uncontrolled fires but in the Winter and the wet Spring, they were left to smolder, indicating to other caravans where water and sustenance might be found and indicating that a neighbor was nearby if they wanted to temporarily merged for trade, marriages, or to settle disputes.
Not having any better idea of where to go, since the caravan itself was impossible to see over that kind of distance, Taipan held their bearing and they arrived surely to find the charred remnants of a poop fueled bonfire. A stone well, or perhaps just fired clay bricks, provided clean if mineral laden water. Ulric was going to ask how they were going to keep a fire going but his nose gave him the answer when Taipan took their sled out for a brief turd patrol and returned with a host of patties ready for burning.
"It is the oils that the beasts produce in their gut you see, Ulric. Or don't see, sorry, I know that your eyes still hurt." Taipan instructed, with no small glee at his continued discomfort.
He'd regained his sight a day ago, thank you very much, but the ache in his sockets hadn't left completely and worsened when he kept them open in the incredibly bright afternoon sunslight. Ulric didn't know why his Shadow's eyes were immune to this beating but, somehow, they were just peachy.
"Oh just you wait Taipan. There will be great and terrible vengeance for your blasphemy against the Irony gods. The fall from the heights is greatest, oh my enemy." Ulric declared to his crouching partner.
Her smirk as she ignored his dire warning said that she did not believe him and she continued showing him how to start a fire using dried uber bison shit.
"The oils, they coat the cud so that it forms firm masses that may be passed from one stomach to another. These beasts have three distinct stomachs and two gall bladders. One breaks down the fats of the grasses, seeds, nuts, or whatever else they are grazing on, but the other applies this digestive oil as the mass passes through the gut. It keeps the resulting dung from absorbing water, both within the animal and without, once it has been passed. It is incredible how hardy those beasts are, they need drink only once every three days." Taipan taught with frank admiration.
Huh. He'd have never pegged her for a cowgirl. Well. Not in the agricultural sense anyway.
He knelt to join the Iriel'en girl and paid attention to her lesson. As much as she enjoyed giving him shit, literally on this particular occasion, having just handed him a patty, she did take her task of teaching him to be less of a greenhorn seriously. He mirrored her action, breaking open the dried patty to reveal the dense assortment of incredibly dry, for having laid under snow for months, digested shoots. These where then twisted back and forth to create a greater surface area before his Shadow used her fire steel to strike a couple of sparks that caught almost immediately to produce a hot orange flame.
Huh. Well, I'll be a damned, Ulric thought. The oil saturated fibers, loosened up like this, burned like a candle.
They placed their lit turds in the charred area where the previous fire had been and carefully assembled a small "hut" of other patties around the lit ones. In very little time at all, a joyful little fire was burning, hot, smoky, and pungent, if not gross. To be honest, the odor of the dung was not foul in the slightest, it almost reminded him of sage grass.
"It may be a good thing to rest here a day or so, Ulric." Advised Taipan, seriously this time.
"We have pushed hard, have exhausted most all of our prepared rations and we will need to replenish these supplies before we venture deeper into the plain. When these snows are finally gone, there will be a brief reprieve before a short season of plaguing insects unlike anything you have ever experienced." His Shadow shuddered at the thought.
"When the Twins sit low in the sky, both of a morning, and at twilight, the biting clouds will descend and only a dense smokey fire or heavy netting will dissuade them. Twice have I been caught in the open during this season and twice have I suffered for it. A third time I do not wish to countenance."
Ulric commiserated. The North continental trail he'd hiked had a similar phenomenon. Despite the long winters, there was no greater enemy of man than the Northern Black Mosquito and the swarming No-see-um.
"Fear not my delicate skinned Jam Fruit." Ulric told her, "I can put up a [Skyshield] to wall the little monsters out."
His Shadow blinked. Then she smiled, "Oh? Oh yes, that is true. I forget at times that you are gifted with magics. Then I leave this task to you Glade Chief, and gladly."
It wasn't often that he was able to garner his comrade's complete admiration so he put a solid check in the win column.
"We will not suffocate within this barrier will we?" She asked, suddenly concerned.
"No?" Ulric answered firmly.
