Early the next morning I was awoken by a page sent to inform me that I needed to be downstairs soon. I shooed the young boy on his way, and began to dress myself. I elected to go with light white cotton pants and shirt covered with a chain armor and then a half plate breastplate over the chain. For armaments I strapped on my belt and sword, along with a knife with sheath tied around my thigh, a quiver of arrows on my hip, and a short-bow held with a clever knot on one of the arrows in my quiver.

I went downstairs and met my biological parents at the entry way.

"Good morning Mother, Father," I said respectfully as I came up to them. They turned around and my mother rushed to hug me tightly.

"Be careful, okay?" she said with worry in her voice. My father also looked worried, but less so. He knew that I would be exposed to danger but he also knew that I would be surrounded by one of the finest armies on the continent. That didn't stop accidents or assassinations from being able to occur, but I was as safe as he could ask for in my day-to-day activities. And in combat I would be with Gerald and his honor guard. I would see combat, Gerald would make sure of that, but it would be in as controlled a setting as war could be. Unless something truly horrific happened and we got routed.

"I will mother, don't worry about me. I have been training for this and Gerald will probably be annoyingly attached to me," I said with a small smile, which she returned. She finally let go after Jarrod pried her off of me and I embraced him next.

"Do us proud Zer," Jarrod whispered in my ear, pounding me on the back once and letting go. A man of few words, I could respect that. I nodded to them both and then stepped out into the courtyard where Gerald and his men were busy prepping the mounts. I walked over to my mount, a gift from my Father for my birthday. It was a handsome destrier named Cobalt and he was magnificent, the perfect match to my size.

I spent a few minutes getting to know Cobalt and letting Cobalt get used to me, helped along by a liberal bribe of apples supplied to me by a nearby footman. Once the horse was eating out of my palm and swishing it's tail lazily, I started to pet his head and then the flanks until he let me get around to his side without seeming to become skittish. Sure, I probably could have just saddled and mounted Cobalt, he was a well broken horse, but I preferred to get to know the multi hundred pound four legged creature that would be responsible for carrying me into combat.

I finally put the saddle on Cobalt and mounted. I rode him around the courtyard for a few minutes before dismounting and moving the saddle to a better position, tightening some of the straps and remounting. I nodded to Roderick as he rode up and together we rode over to Gerald, who was surrounded by a flurry of activity and his own honor guard. "Morning Sir," I said as we rode up, and Roderick saluted crisply.

"Gentlemen, lets get this caravan moving," Gerald commanded, tossing a lazy wave at Roderick and I. After much clattering of hooves and shouting, we left through the inner gate that lead towards the Aurelian pass. I waved back at my frantically waving Mother as I rode by and smiled slightly. I could get used to being missed by my mother.

The journey to our destination passed by without much trouble. Since we were leaving so early, we would be able to make it to the first camp by night-fall. To protect ourselves and the army during the journey, Gerald had planned the trip to happen in stages. Our vanguard - filled with heavy infantry and archers - had left the day previously and should already have the first camp set up. With them were a bunch of earth mages and engineers, so we would be entering into a small fort build to protect the encamped army from the elements, and serve as a fall-back position in case of emergencies. We would be establishing these little forts and leaving a few thousand man complements behind to protect our supply lines.

Since the Royal Highway was built directly to the Aurelian border, we would have swift travels the whole way there, and the forest surrounding both sides of the road was magically kept at bay for around 500 feet. This did not stop us from being ambushed, but did make it so that any ambushing forces would have to cross over 500 feet of relatively open ground before getting to us. The fact that Gerald had Greenward Rangers out in the brush, generously on loan from the Greenward Duchy, made it very unlikely that any ambushing forces would go unnoticed for long. Add on top of that the outriders and our own rangers from Hexenguard out there meant that there was a lot of detection for our forces.

As we road along, luckily at the front of the column so that we did not have to deal with all the dust being kicked up, I considered the terrain around me. Agile Valley is a beautiful place, and in the height of summer it was fecund and lush. The valley petered off around us into hardscrabble rock and trees tenacious enough to maintain their life by questing through the stony soil. This was the furthest I had ever been this far north and for all its monotony, I still found the terrain to be very interesting. There were unique shapes that the rock's took that reminded me of other things, like one particular rock that looked like a hand with one finger pointed at the sky or a pair of trees with a rock face behind it that kind of looked like a face smiling down at us. It was eerily similar to watching clouds with Gerald when I was younger.

We maintained out pace for several hours until eventually our outriders met the outer pickets of the fort our vanguard had established. Roughly an hour after that we came into view, and though I was sure it had not existed there before, there was a eight foot high wall dressed with melded stone and packed with dirt and debris. The square edifice was roughly half a mile long by half a mile wide and would support our entire party plus the vanguard. We rode in through the open portal that led to the center of the fort. There were obviously no heavy iron or wood doors since those would be troublesome to lug around, but I saw on the opposite side a large stone slab had been cleverly rigged so that if someone cut through a thick rope, it would seal the entrance.

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"Welcome to Fort Jarrod, My lords," said the Major in charge of the vanguard force, a Knight from the Order of the Heart who I had seen around Castle Heart and both headquarters a few times over the years.

"Ah, Major Julien. The fort looks fantastic and your naming sense is as impeccable as always. I am sure that Duke Jarrod would be very honored to have a random fort in the middle of nowhere named after him!" Gerald commented, and the Major laughed warmly. "In fact, you'll be able to inform him yourself, as the Duke himself is headed to the front to advise," Gerald added a few seconds later, and Julian looked like someone had poleaxed him.

"Oh do not worry Major Julian. My father has a very great sense of humor," I remarked from behind Gerald, and suddenly I felt every eye on me. It made me kind of nervous, but I continued resolutely, "Why, once I heard a man tell him a joke in the street, not realizing that he was addressing the suzerain overlord of his realm, and my lord father The Duke laughed so hard that he decided to have the man only whipped, instead of executed!"

The major paled further and began to sweat as our party moved on to their assigned location. Gerald and Roderick, both of whom knew that I barely knew my father, shared a glance with each other before breaking out into laughter. We all knew that Jarrod would not care one whit that the fort was named after him - he might even feel a tad honored to be liked enough by his vassals to have someone do such a thing. Or he might just think that the Major is another ass kisser, and by the end of the war Major Julian might become Major AssKisser. I sensed a new hereditary title in the future. But it was amusing for me and Gerald to make the man sweat, and so we did so. It was a long and boring day on the road after all.

As we rode into the center of camp, I noticed that the Mages and Engineers had managed to construct a second wall roughly in the center, also at about eight feet high, and included a tower at each corner reaching twelve feet in the air. It was not a massively impressive fortification, but it didn't have to be since it was really just a strong point for logistical caravans to stop at. Still, it was an impressive feat of military engineering, and I knew that it was likely that the mages left behind to station these fortifications would continue to add to them out of sheer boredom if nothing else. In the center of the entire camp stood a rough Pele Tower, which would house our party while we were here, and the fort commander and mages when we weren't.

The Pele Tower was sixteen feet in height and seemed to be made up of two floors plus a crenelated roof. Rough windows and doorways were left in the melded stone, and I could see that the Mages were in the process of adding to the structure. I imagined that after the war was over, this would serve as the beginning of a long trade route between Agile Valley and whatever feifs were captured on the other side. It occurred to me that the office of records and land management in both the Royal and Ducal capitals would likely have years of work ahead of them to sort our domain boundaries and borders. I did not envy them at all.

As we drew up to the tower our party reigned our horses in and dismounted, with footmen rushing in from every side to take control of the mounts and lead them to a roughly constructed barn nearby. Some enterprising souls had managed to actually cut down and drag some nearby trees over, and the barn was constructed of mage cut and mage kilned wood. It smelled very strongly of pine-sap, and I suspected it was from the process the mages used to kiln their wood. All around me the activity and bustle of camp life continued as I heard a group of blacksmiths toiling at their craft from the back of wagons turned into mobile forges. Even after just a day there were repairs to be made, horses to be re-shod, and all sorts of maintenance that was required to keep an army of this size on the move.

"Lets go Zerial," Roderick called out to me and I turned to find him in a rough circle of dirt-and-stone with his sword held at the ready. I sighed to myself and drew my own blade, lamenting my aching butt cheeks and thighs as I moved.

We faced off against each other and I caught a dagger Roderick threw underhanded to me. Without a word he drew another dagger and held it in his off hand while I flipped the one he gave me over by it's point and then flipped it again to catch it by it's hilt once more. It wasn't showing off, it was getting used to the balance of the blade. Not that anything I did would be showing off when compared to the ass whipping Roderick was going to deliver to me over the course of the next few hours.

Once I brought my blades into a ready position, Roderick attacked. He lead with his long sword point first and I deflected it with my long sword, catching his backhanded swing on my knife and delivering a counter stroke with my own long sword over his outstretched arm, point driving towards his heart. He twisted away from the blow and brought his knife around towards my rib cage, which I stepped back from and then parried his long sword which had completed the circle he created by banging into and sliding off of my long sword. I shot forward to deliver my knife into his gut only to have him check my rush with a well-placed kick to my foot that brought me up short and nearly made me stumble.

He punished that error and brought the hilt of his sword down towards the back of my head. I decided to commit to the movement and rolled forward, past his descending hilt. As I came to my feet I spun in a tight circle, whipping my long sword out and forcing him to check his own advance towards my unguarded back and bat the sword away. I followed up by stepping into his guard and making a series of short rapid jabs with the dagger that he deflected while circling towards my long sword arm to keep me from gaining leverage or bringing it's point around.

We continued this back and forth for the next several minutes until he eventually disarmed my long sword and held his dagger to my neck. We had been fighting at a ferocious pace, and had drawn a crowd of soldiers who looked on with enjoyment at the excellent practice bout. Roderick invited them to come face me one at a time with their chosen weapons, and I knew from the malicious gleam in their eyes that none of them would pass up on beating the dukes kid in practice.

I sighed and got ready for a long, late evening.