.
The forest grew thicker with every foot of elevation that we descended, as we followed that little river downstream toward the inhabited valley below. Not dense enough to form an actual canopy, of course, but the trees themselves became thicker. The aspens were giving way to maples and alders.
I was thankful that Dilorè and I weren’t riding with the others. The atmosphere had been very awkward after I revealed all of that about myself. Between Ceria and Bruna’s smug ‘I knew it!’ smirks and sudden loss of certainty among the others on how much to believe of what I had told them, I honestly didn’t want to have any conversations with anyone just then.
Allia suggested I stop flying full-time, considering how much I had done the previous day and overnight, so I found spots to perch and use fairy sense to spot monsters and wildlife instead, only flying to hop from one to the next. I did have to work a little bit a couple times to find ways for the team to navigate around rapids (which, with these mountain streams, often appear together with difficult to navigate terrain for horses) but I didn’t have much else to do. As I had noted earlier, the locals were clearly being diligent about keeping this area clear of monsters.
In the afternoon, I noticed the distant sound of a waterfall and followed that sound to a little glen where meltwater was falling from a good five paces high into a little pool.
It looked terribly tempting, and I needed a soak, but something in my fairy senses made me hesitate. The scene would have a very strong appeal to a naiad or mountain nymph as a home. Wanting to avoid stumbling into another fairy’s domain, I decided to give it a pass and coat with Water mana instead.
We neared the edge of the forest as the valley joined up with a larger valley, the tribal territory I had seen at night, and Allia decided to make camp there. Brigitte disappeared into the forest to hunt while the rest made camp.
Over dinner, we discussed our cover.
“If we’re riding into Berado territory, we certainly can’t say we’re on a mission for Aleria,” Allia noted.
“There’s no problem,” Talene stated. “Lady Dilorè found the perfect excuse for us during her reconnaissance. We’ll claim that we received a request to hunt a yeti.”
“Yeti?” I wondered. “Why’s that a perfect excuse?”
“They have a lot of valuable materials,” Talene answered. “Especially the pelt. If they are present on the mountain, then nobody is going to question why we came here. And you typically need a large hunting team, so nobody will question bringing eleven hunters to go after one.”
“Nine hunters,” I replied. “Dilorè and I are known faces to the Berado, after the things we did in Greenwater. We should stay out of sight when you’re interacting with the locals.”
Allia nodded. “Sounds good. But why didn’t we come down from Lisrau Castle Town? With a perfectly legitimate excuse like a hunting request, and no plan to travel through to the Amaga valley, they wouldn’t have stopped us, right?”
“We went up onto the mountain on the other side,” Talene answered. “We had no success, then decided to come here to look for local guides. The river seemed like a good route to get down to their valley.”
“Not bad,” Arken judged. “Covers most of the possible questions. Except, we wouldn’t have taken the horses very far up that mountain, unless there are paths that would work. We certainly wouldn’t have taken them into the snow fields.”
“After dark, I’ll go and look for a legitimate path and a base camp site where we could have left the horses while hunting,” I answered. “If I can find a route that a horse could do without the rider resorting to magic, then it makes a reasonable cover.”
“You’re supposed to be resting tonight,” Allia replied, with a dark tone.
“I won’t need all night,” I said. “I can finish it in a few hours.”
I could do it in an hour, but I naturally added on a little time to enjoy my private outdoor bath again.
In the morning, the mortal component of our party skirted the forest until they reached the cattle path Dilorè had found for them and used it to head into settled territory. It would become a crude road as they progressed.
In the meantime, Dilorè and I went off to scout, but this time we weren’t circling while in stealth to look for monsters. Instead, we went ahead to the town where the party intended to go. Hopefully, as long as we kept our wings out of sight and Dilorè wore her raiment over her armor, a pair of random adventurers traveling through wouldn’t raise too much notice.
The town sat alongside the “Western Trading Route” that ran south from Lisrau Castle Town, but no merchant wagons or pack animal caravans were lined up for admission. The road was mostly empty thanks to the Berado blockade.
It was a stockade town, but significant recent damage to the stockade had not yet received repairs. Despite the massive gaps in the town walls though, the standard guards stood at the proper town entrances, wearing the same uniforms I had seen on the troops battling the Amaga at the Greenwater.
We had landed up the road, out of sight of the town, and walked the rest of the way. The guards viewed us with obvious suspicion as we approached.
There was a sign above the town gate that said “Magrau”, presumably the name of the town. But we did not receive a friendly “Welcome to…” from the guards.
“Name and affiliation,” the older of the two, a man with hair streaked with gray, pronounced in a tone that sounded like he was asking for the password.
“Tia, Adventurer, no employer or guild at the moment,” I answered. I left out the surname on the half-chance my alias had spread to here.
“Dee, Same” Dilorè stated, for similar reasons. We had discussed it on the approach.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “This is a strange place for unemployed adventurers to show up these days. What brings you to the Gado valley?”
I was about to make something up, but Dilorè beat me to it. “Gado valley? We seem to have crossed a border. We heard there might be some ancient ruins in Lisrau, up in the Great Wall. We’ve been wandering around up there a while, but came back down for supplies.”
The man snorted. “So there’s still people chasing that rumor?”
The younger guard, a sandy-haired teenager to look at him in puzzlement. The older guard told him, “Years ago, some scholar claimed he found a gold foil scroll describing some ancient group of temples. For years, adventurers have been climbing to the higher altitudes, looking for some hoard of treasure and scrolls that’re supposed to be there.”
“Is Gado valley outside Arelia?” I asked, now that I understood Dilorè’s gambit. “We weren’t sure exactly how far south we had come.”
“Aye,” he replied with a dark tone. “You crossed the border about ten miles north of here. And it would be best if you head right back over it.”
I blinked, taken aback by his tone. I’ve certainly run across rude town gate guards before, but I was feeling borderline hostility from this one.
“We plan to do so, but we need to buy supplies first,” I answered, wrinkling my brow at him. “Are you implying you won’t let us enter the town?”
The man crossed his arms and raised his chin slightly. “We need to be careful of strangers, Ma’am. The situation in this valley isn’t good right now.”
“Especially adventurers,” the younger one chimed in. “They could be working for the outsiders.”
“Outsiders?” I echoed, curious.
“It’s nothing, Ma’am,” the older one declared, glaring at the younger one, who now looked uncomfortable. It was pretty obvious that he had just said something he shouldn’t.
“Well, I can understand people being on edge here,” I answered. “The damage to your town’s walls can hardly be missed. I assume things have not been peaceful here, lately. Was there a monster surge?”
The man’s frown deepened, as he answered, “It isn’t any business of strangers, ma’am.”
“I see,” I replied, then raised my brow and noted, “What about my previous question? May we enter the town, or not? If not, can you point me in the direction of the next town? We’re not familiar with the neighborhood.”
The man let out a sigh, then told the younger one, “Escort them to the market, Keet. Then escort them out of town when they finish their business.”
Returning to us, he ordered, “Stay with Keet while you do business, ladies.”
I nodded and said, “Thank you.”
The young guard named Keet had a very different attitude than his boss, so it wasn’t the bother that having that glowering uncle following us would have been. And we didn’t have to do anything secretive. Frankly, our only purpose here was to get an advance look at the situation in town before the rest of the party arrived. Or to warn them if the situation was bad and they shouldn’t come. So Keet ended up being more of a handy guide whom we didn’t have to pay for.
I was actually leaning toward telling Allia to stay away. With the way the guards reacted to a couple women with swords, how would they react to nine adventurers on horseback?
We passed a number of burned-out buildings and new construction on the way to the market. While we waited for a dry foods vendor to pack up our orders, I asked our escort, “Keet, what happened in this town, anyway? I’ve seen a lot of damage.”
The guard hedged with an “Um…”, no doubt fearing getting in trouble with his boss.
But the shopkeeper didn’t know the game plan, apparently. He told us, “It’s those damned Berado, ma’am. After we drove ’em out of town, they came back with more men and tried to take it back.”
I had thought until that moment that Keet and his superior were Berado militiamen. Their uniforms appeared to be the same design the Berado were wearing. So these people had rebelled against their invaders? Were the guards wearing Berado uniforms to try to trick their enemies?
Keet looked alarmed at the shopkeeper’s words, but didn’t say anything. He just watched our reactions.
We finished up our purchase of hardtack, jerky, bacon and dried fruit in the shop and left. Before leaving that morning, we had spread out our existing supplies into the saddlebags of the other party members so we would be ‘short on supplies’ the way we were claiming. We had room in our packs for the new stuff.
“What was that about Berado?” I asked, pretending ignorance while we continued to the fletcher shop to buy crossbow bolts. “Are there Berado here? I thought they lived farther south?”
Keet was finally talking now that the cat was out of the bag. “They came over the pass last year and took over, ma’am. Our chieftain had to flee into the mountains. But our neighbors the Amaga beat them, so the chieftain came back and we started fighting them again.”
I groaned inside. We had just walked into another local war. Although I had benefited a lot from helping out in the last one, I warned myself I must not let myself get sucked into another one. Not when I had a lead on Amelia’s whereabouts.
“Can you win?” Dilorè wondered.
“We’ll keep winning as long as the mountain pass stays snowed in,” he said. “Once they can send reinforcements, it’ll be harder, but we’ll keep fighting.”
