Programming note: I am increasing my number of locked chapters, so for a while I will be unlocking one chapter a week every Saturday while posting two locked chapters, Tuesday and Saturday. Letting you know now so you don’t think I’m forgetting to unlock.
If I can maintain the two chapter a week output without trouble, I will go back to unlocking two per week after I have a stock of locked chapters built up. I want the leeway to continue unlocking chapters at a constant pace even when I get sick.
§
At first glance, our destination did not have to be as difficult to reach as we were making it. Just looking at a map, common sense would suggest it would be better to go to the place in Pendor closest to it and head straight north. After all, it was right there, only a few dozen miles north of the border. But those miles were an impossible distance, under the circumstances.
It’s nearly impossible to reach the Kasarene Highlands from the Pendor side. But that’s not because of mountains or rugged terrain. The peaks are high, but they aren’t so high you can’t cross between them. It’s because of the exceptionally dangerous band of territory that borders East Pendor along its northern edge, starting from the ridge of mountains where we met Shindzha and stretching all the way to the Hart River valley, creating a barrier as difficult as the Himalayas.
Our encounter with Áne of the Green Tower happened inside this band. The kongamato that the first recovery mission encountered, which forced them to divert toward the Hart Valley to get out of the Oserian Highlands, is another example. Having learned our lesson, our only remaining choice was to go around it.
Without the war, it would then make better sense to travel to the nearest safe point north of “Oto”. It would be a greater distance through the Highlands, but through less hazardous territory. But that safe point sat deep within rebel territory.
The commoners of Suldor, East Pendor, Lower Pendor and the other South Coast rebel territories, places that knew the Duchy, were aware that they were suffering under their rebel lords. They didn’t fight with their whole hearts. But the more loyal populace of the Parnans and their allies don’t know Pendor well, and they were now fighting on home territory. We had a lot of war to fight before we could send an expedition through that nearest safe point.
Thus, we would instead follow a route that would normally seem insane, given the distance we would have to cover. We were headed through the Kasarene Highlands the long way.
The dawn came as we returned to the camp with the expedition already awake and preparing to move out. Mostly, this meant they were busy putting the tack on their riding animals and loading up packbeasts.
Before we departed Narses to join the expedition, Benedetta had suggested we check if Lhan could ride a normal horse, because the expedition would be mounted. Since vampires can ride normal horses, I had mistakenly assumed a manifestation of the [Blood Effigy] could do so, as well, but Benedetta’s suspicion had proved correct.
But since obtaining a fairy mount at this late hour was out of the question, that meant she would have to travel on foot, just like the fairies when they weren’t flying. Fortunately, it isn’t unusual for the fairborn to have the same problem with mortal mounts as full-blooded fairies, so there would be nothing strange about this. Nobody would be galloping through the wilds, so this was feasible.
The Pendorian army contingent originally planned to use off-road models of their imitation Stanley mountain wagons, and that had been one of the issues of debate before I arrived.
In retrospect, it’s lucky the fairies prevailed. I don’t think the army quite understood just how rugged was the terrain they were headed into. One does reach a point where horses can go where machines just can’t.
But that wasn’t the reason the fairies were against bringing those things into the wild. It was because steam vehicles were sure to piss off the fairies living in the Highlands. Even though fairies are destructive to most alloys of iron, heavy enough quantities can sicken them, especially the powerful steel alloys that can stand up to their touch. If Tiana were a full-blooded fairy, touching Durandal would probably make her nauseous. Fortunately, Elders seem to have more tolerance for it.
The steam carriages of Pendor use large amounts of those powerful alloys in their boilers and engines, as do the steam locomotives. Which makes me marvel at the strong support Mother gave to their makers. I guess it goes to show how much she was willing to personally put up with for the sake of her duchy and her people.
Or, considering Tiana didn’t feel anything around them, perhaps Mother could simply tolerate such things more than weaker fairies.
I’ve just noticed I’m a little too easily referring to “Tiana” in third person. Am I already accepting the identity “Sen”, the juvenile form of my Elder name, and leaving “Tiana” behind as easily as I stopped thinking of myself as “Robert”?
This will give me an identity crisis if I think too much about it. And in the future, when I cease being essentially a proxy of Tiana and merge with her once again, I fear it might be wrong of me to push a different name and identity onto her personal image, so I should probably avoid succumbing to it. Or am I thinking such things out of a hypocritical sense of guilt?
Or perhaps a misplaced one. She’s me, after all. She’s just lacking a few memories. But given her current reality, I doubt she would see things that way, and that’s an issue for me.
Returning after everyone already woke was a slight miscalculation on my part. I had intended to return Lhan to her bed before the others were up. So I had to devise a different return strategy.
<You’ll manifest in the woods, Lhan,> I told her. <You’ll walk the rest of the way.>
<What do I tell them when I show up?>
<Just say you went out to scout around. It’s the truth, after all. Leave out the rendezvous with a hellspawn, and the rest is completely reasonable.>
§
We nearly couldn’t start because of me. Or rather, because of General Kosto. While we were forming up into riding order outside the stockade gate, he rode over and frowned down at me on foot when everyone else not a fairy was mounted.
Diur and Pasrue were riding a magnificent pair of white stags, magical beasts who would probably be more in their element in the Highlands than any other creature here, and the mortals were all on horses, except Graham, who was riding a tamed monster called a forest mare. He normally avoids riding, since he’s too big for most animals, but Melione told me that Serera had brought the beast to him and he couldn’t say no. It was huge, like an exceptionally large draft horse, so it actually suited him quite well.
“Won’t you ride with someone, Miss Hiléa?” Kosto demanded while glowering down from the saddle.
I guess I can’t blame him. He, his sixteen Pendorian soldiers, the six members of the Hero’s Party, and the seven non-fairy members of the Faerie contingent other than me were all mounted on horses and other beasts, and there I was on foot. Of course, he wouldn’t like it.
I forced myself not to shrink and stood my ground. “I can’t ride a horse, General.”
His horse was visibly nervous of me. Couldn’t he see that? It would turn into what Robert called a ‘bucking bronco’ if I tried to ride it.
I explained, “I can only ride on one of those white stags or on Graham’s mount, General. The stags would be weighed down with a second person, and the forest mare will probably not let a second rider on.”
Graham must have worked with that beast before this day. He would have had to deal with its pride, first, which he almost certainly had done with brute force. I really wish I could have seen it.
“I might get her to mind, Miss,” Graham rumbled from nearby. “Could be a delay though. Have to teach her some manners, first.”
I rolled my eyes, choosing to ignore Graham’s contribution, then told Kosto, “General, in the terrain where you’re going, you and your horses can’t keep up with me. There’s no point in me slowing myself down with a riding animal.”
Fortunately, nobody realized that, as a fairling, Pasrue could ride a regular horse just fine, and didn’t need to use a white stag. I’m sure she was pleased that Diur had given her a beast matching his, and would have resented it if they pressured her into giving it to me.
“We’ll be at least at a trot whenever we can,” he insisted.
That’s going to be almost never, I wanted to retort. This man had no idea what the terrain was like, didn’t he?
I pressed my lips together and looked away, forcing myself not to roll my eyes again, because Sen didn’t want me to be ‘childish’, then looked at him once more and told him, “General, would you please watch me for a moment?”
His brow furrowed, and he was about to respond, but I didn’t bother waiting. I used [Water Step] like a staircase to climb into the air, just inches higher than everyone’s heads, then used it to dash forward toward the trees at the edge of the clearing.
I never had this ability when I was alive. Nobody was going to teach a slave that she was actually hiding powerful innate skills, and I probably died too young to learn them, anyhow. It was Fan Li who ‘deduced’ my skills and made me learn them in the Spirit Core.
But now that I can do it, I have to admit, I love it. Running at five times the speed I could run on the ground with empty air below my feet is insanely fun. A bubble of laughter wants come bursting out of me every time I do it.
I stopped at the edge of the clearing and turned around, calling, “Were you watching, General?”
All the riders lined up back at the fort were gaping my direction. This skill was not one of the ‘spells’ that their magician used, and no magical being in this world flew by running through the air.
He had no further objections.
§
We reached the valley where I had told Shindzha to go in the evening after requiring a full day to ascend into the mountains, traverse a long ridge, a sort of extended saddleback that would carry us the fastest through the first few miles, and descend at last by following a mountain stream that eventually met it. That took an entire day of journeying.
My own actual life experiences had not included anything like this. My whole universe consisted of the plantation where I grew up and the path up into the mountains where we harvested wood for things that banana trees aren’t suited for. You can make a rough cloth from the old banana trees, and you can make mulch, and use the leaves for cooking, but they’re next to useless as firewood or lumber. But that was the absolute extent of my ‘travels’. I never went on any sort of journey.
So the Kasar Pass which was so like where we harvested hardwood was familiar, but the wide open vistas to both sides as we followed that ridge were a brand new thing. As were the scenic views like the sheer rock face to one side of that stream and the valley ahead that was filled with a sea of mist that blotted out all but the tops of the trees. I had never seen anything this magical before.
We had been over all this territory last night, as a [Blood Effigy], but without manifesting a body so that we would have eyes, I hadn’t seen it. What I experienced then was more like seeing what Sen, or rather Robert, called ‘3D terrain’ on a screen.
Experienced that way, it had been interesting. In real life, it was absolutely amazing.
I could feel Sen’s thoughts as I thought it, and I knew she was happy for me to be able to experience such things, which gave me a weird feeling. I always feel a little awkward when she’s feeling sorry for me like that. Yes, I know I had a pretty lousy life, but still…
Anyway, we found a good spot big enough to camp thirty-nine people and their horses while it was still light, with Serera’s fairies approving the site. Nobody asked me, but I went ahead and slipped into the woods, then de-manifested and did a quick run all around the area to satisfy myself that it was okay.
I re-manifested and emerged from the woods, freaking out the sentries, then learned I was supposed to know a ‘password’ and had to wait for Serera to come vouch for me, and deliver a lecture.
I guess, all-in-all, the first day of the expedition went okay. But I knew it wasn’t going to stay that way for long. I had met up with Shindzha during my survey, and she already had bad news for me.
Once Serera wound down, I pursed my lips, trying to decide how I should say it. She recognized that I had something to say, because she sighed and asked, “What is it, Miss Hiléa? You clearly have a report?”
I nodded. “I do. It looks like we have an escort we didn’t ask for.”
