“I think that the Goat Lord knew what we needed,” Sophie said. “That’s why.”

Someone presented Anthony with a solution to his problem. That problem being Bob and Stella deciding to run off on their own to pursue their own against agenda. He would have been okay if they had said something. Bob had done more than any of them could ever count. If something that Sonya was doing had fed him up? He was going to talk to Sonya.

But Bob was gone. Bob had been through their rangefinder to determine how far away the other death knights were. Anthony heavily suspected that Bob was going to be searching for one of the other death knights. How the Continent was one of each of The sovereign Nations occupied each of the four quadrants of the continent.

When they summoned Bob, he went to a village far north in the Dwarven Kingdom where a death knight was located. Mork, the god of death, had chosen that. Anthony had also been called to that same location. He suspected his summons near Bob was because of Finley being one of the last surviving enlightened people on the continent.

Had someone summoned Anthony closer to the Orcs they encountered, he might not have succeeded. It became apparent to him that the gods had experimented with their locations to secure a victory, or if not, to find an easy early win.

In their time with Bob, The Caravan had come across the human death knight. Humanity on the continent occupied the lower eastern region. As the death knight could teleport, there was a powerful sign that it knew where to go. That meant that somebody on the opposite side had the wherewithal to command that death knight to head up to Plains Mount, and then later to where the green fang tribe was.

Anthony was putting the pieces together, with Valerie’s help.

Having disposed of the death knight summoned to the Dwarven Kingdom, they faced a choice. They had already run into the orcish death knight. They knew what power was. That one had. The orcish just at night, just like the human one, had a very good idea of how to find them. However, instead of having a gate spell, that death knight had created a composite warm dragon made of orc bodies.

It had used first one, then another, to attack them. It even sent a Herald after Bob inviting him to a one-on-one challenge. It had probably seen, or been able to review, Bob’s fight with a dragon at Gloucester. Though Bob did not give the killing blow to that dragon, he was there, and he had tied it until the dragon was eventually hulked to death by a sea monster.

If Anthony had to guess, he would have gone straight to the known quantity.

“Do you think he would go to the orcish death night?” He asked Valerie.

“I can see how that makes sense in a way.”

They were doing the thing where they convened to talk about the latest things that had gone on. Valerie had been Anthony’s adjutant for a long time. Then, they had a great idea to make her the queen, and somehow the legion had just accepted it.

Being the queen meant she got to pick where she wanted to be and nobody else had a good option if she wanted their setup changed. This meant in practice that she lived in the same building that Anthony lived in when they were back in Gloucester. This also meant that she had a party house that kind of felt like a lady’s dorm hall.

“I’m not saying that he would pick one over the other, but he clearly got an invitation to a single combat with this death. Knight.”

“Also, it’s the best speciesist. We don’t know that the death knight is an orc. It’s just really likely because they are in orcish lands. That’s the same as the one in the Elven kingdom. We don’t really know. We’ve just put those names there on purpose to be distinct.”

He gave her the flat look of a father that was expecting homework to be done hours ago. She smiled back at him.

“Whether it’s speciesist, we have to find out if Bob’s actually going to head out and attack one of these. Do you think he is going to do that?”

Valerie took the longest pause that he had ever seen her take in a long time. In that time, Anthony went back and refilled his water skin. Then, realizing that you could just grab a mug and that he needed to sit down, he did so. He always hated it when people would come into his house and not take their shoes off. It was his new equivalent to not taking his travel clothes off. It had just become second nature over the last year for him to have his travel cloak on with all the accoutrements. It was just so easy for him to put the little things together so that he could just travel seamlessly. He wasn’t used to this life where he could stay in one spot for a long time and even have a garden. Heck, he could sleep in three different beds on three different nights. He could even move around, as there were far fewer dwarves and humans than there were bets. But he didn’t.

When he recalled those days back on the road where their existence wasn’t secure, he had a rose-tinted glass cover over himself. He really hated that. That had been a rough time. True. He had fallen in love and got in shape and killed a lot of zombies, but he was not for that life.

Now? The legion called him in when they needed him to solve a problem. Now? He staffed a field hospital when he wasn’t in part of an enormous battle.

The life of a traveling Tinker adjacent warrior was a far different life than his current life. And he was getting a feeling that Bob’s discontent had something to do with their current situation.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

He needed some guidance.

“I think it’s equally likely that he’ll go for either death. Knight. If there’s anyone that can do that, it’s Bob. Now. The only question I have is which one can we get too fast? And don’t answer that because I know the orcish one is faster just because of its distance. Presumably it has sent no attacks on our ways for a reason. My best guess is that it takes time to create a dragon.”

Anthony knotted. She made sense. In a way that he could not really dispute, if they were going to get a dragon, it would take them a lot of resources. Just like how the airships took a ton of resources. It took nearly a half of a company to build up the airships that they use in the last battle. Although one airship was nearly destroyed, the effort proved worthwhile.

Even now, they were putting one in dry dock while four more rows. They would join the other six functional ones on the next trip. Cedric had made it a point to let them know they were going to be picking a destination within the week. Anthony pray it was going to be the same spot that Bob was going to. At the same time? There’s no way it’s for him to know and he was cursing that the man didn’t tell anybody his plans.

Anthony thought about how he would have addressed this. If he was going to leave, he would have told somebody. He knew Stella had probably left with him, but other than that? He wasn’t sure. Who else did Bob like?

“I got a question for you. Who else was Bob hanging out with?” Anthony said.

“That’s strange. I guess he was hanging out with the humans? But not mostly I saw him with Stella. I think we need to consider Bob as a lost cause. If we find him, great, but in this world,? We need to continue the war. We’re there without him.”

Anthony nodded. He didn’t want to admit it. Nobody wanted to admit it when they left somebody behind. Heck, Bob had sworn that he was going to see this because of the conclusion and that...

“Valerie, I think that Bob’s going to go after the death night. Seriously. I don’t know which one.”

“Why are you saying that?”

“I’m saying that because he’s swore an oath. And he doesn’t get off until we are all done with all the death. Knights. We’re not here to save the whole continent. I mean, we are, but that’s too big for the 14 of us. It’s too much to ask. Even though we’re chosen.”

He did what he usually did and got up to begin to Pace around.

“Even with us all being chosen, he needs to finish the job. I don’t think Mork will let him stop.”

“If you mean we should send someone to find him, we are stretched thin. Maybe this new delegation of warriors. From the Peace Turtles can do it, But I doubt it.”

“Do you really think that we could send warrior Nemo with his team? They do have the right set of skills to track them down,” Anthony said.

The other question was who to send with them. And Anthony. He didn’t want to admit it, but now he had to send Sophie. Sophie had just gotten a card that would let her find out where the death knights were. They couldn’t send her.

“We could send the monks. They all can move across the water. The sea turtles are all amphibious.”

Anthony slammed his hand down on the table. Several markers for the current location of the legion’s companies shifted. Valerie got up to move them.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Look, no one likes. Bob, less than I do. He is self-absorbed, and basically the only good thing about him is that he can bake magnificent cakes.”

Anthony had to give it to her. If Bob hadn’t left? They would have been dealing with his rants for probably another 2 weeks. And then he would be sullen and still be mad at Sonya. Perhaps it was a good thing. Or perhaps Anthony shouldn’t be looking at the silver lining right now.

“All right, so we send the monks in One direction. We hope that warrior Nemo can find Bob or track him down somehow. I’m sure that Bob is smelly. I’m also 100% certain that he’s got some ranger ability to cover his tracks, but he’s not going to use it because why would he want to cover his tracks? Only zombies will follow him.”

Valerie noted a long, refilling her glass and placing the last company where it belonged.

“If we do that, we’re going to have to send them the opposite direction of where we’re going. I think that Commander Cedric is going to want to send us to the South to deal with the orcish death knight. I don’t know if that’s certain. But I left it up to him.”

Valerie sighed.

Cedric knew what was going on. Anthony knew he could trust Cedric. They might have only known each other for about 2 months, but now, more and more, they relied on the dwarves to clean up. More and more. The dwarves received calls only when a problem required their expertise, thus hindering their ability to sell their services independently.

It was looking like the chosen were less important for the day-to-day missions and more important for the large missions that were coming up.

They were just moving so fast that Anthony didn’t know if he was going to catch up. And then once he caught up, would they be able to find Bob? Because what he had found out from Valerie was at Novaria with at least the size of Asia. The land mass was just vast. Without help? It would take them ages to find anyone. With help? With a fleet of airships? They could complete this before another year passed. He just needed to get to wherever that was.

He was so ready. Then he could rest.

The idea of setting up a labor and delivery shop somewhere and going back to what he knew best was more and more appealing every day. And if he was going to be doing that? He might as well set up a nursing school or medical school for all the dwarves that we’re getting out of the legion in order to repopulate the kingdom.

Anthony drained his water. Valerie grabbed both of their waters and filled them up again.

Hadn’t been so long ago that she had been a scared kid. Just doing her best. And now she was representing the hope of an entire nation.

Anthony had gotten terrible news. But they could do something about that. Eventually, they would find Bob and Anthony were welcoming him back with open arms. Anything else would be to piss on their time together. No one had to fight in an unwinnable war longer than they could.

Anthony had committed to Valerie. Valerie had committed to Anthony. They were in this together.

It just really hurt. And there was nothing you could do about it. Maybe he’d reached his own limit? Or most probably, he would reach it soon.

“I think that we will lose a lot more dwarves if we head straight for the orcish death knight.”

“Do you want me to talk to Cedric about this?” Valerie said.

“I don’t think it’s going to do any good,” Anthony said. “I think we will… more to the point, he’s the one in charge of his own people. I don’t know if there’s some other enclave of dwarves somewhere on a different continent that we can find, but... That’s a question for the queen to follow up on.”

Valerie was not amused. She had no grounds on ways to dispute his claims that something was her job. She knew that in time, he would transfer all of his authority to her in all manners. Eventually, she was going to be the one in charge. She might be afraid of it, and he could tell, but it was her kingdom.

It had never been his kingdom.

He might settle down there, but it had always been hers, and it always would be.

He just hoped that he could live up to it because he could already see the cracks forming.