It was stunning. The land was fertile, if still half frozen. The fertile part of that boded very, very well. The frozen? Well, it would just mean more work. Together with Moro, Adjutus, and one of Adjutus’s former captains — a man named Altior — Rogue had traveled ahead of the caravan to scope the land out and look for an area worth settling. And they’d found it.

Between the spiring tops of the western, Heiligtumshügel Mountain Range — actually, they could probably name these mountains something else — there were foothills with narrow valleys in between, springs and rivers carving their way through the lowest points of elevation and plowing great gorges and canyons through the rock there. And there were caverns gaping open where the mountain springs were fed by lakes hidden in a cave system that Rogue didn’t dare to spelunk without the appropriate preparation. The land was varied, wild, and ever-moving, but it would be safe here with food and shelter readily available or easy to create with the necessary effort.

They’d start out living in the caverns until homes could be constructed for everyone. Homes would be built in small clusters and otherwise spread out, ensuring that everyone had the land they needed to farm without stripping it of the natural resources they’d be relying upon especially heavily in these first few years while they created their own resources, specifically the forests that would provide timber and game for hunting. Many of the foothills would need to be terraced to make farming easier, so striking the right balance with the population density would be critical right out of the gate.

But this was it. This was the place. They just needed to find the best path for a caravan of wagons bearing elders and children to follow, and it was looking like the best way was to follow a gorge down to the base of one of the great mountains and then around to a narrow pass between that mountain and its neighbor. The pass was narrow and steep on both sides but unbroken with little by way of obstacles that they’d need to overcome. The other side of the pass came to a river, and following the river upstream a ways to where the tributaries were narrower and less deep, it became much easier to cross. Someday, they’d construct bridges to make trade easier. From there, there was another narrow pass, this one more treacherous, but that was the last obstacle between Rogue’s scouting party and the caravan; it was also the obstacle that had prompted Callida to send out their scouting party in the first place.

“What do you think?” Rogue prompted Moro, and the latter nodded with a small smile of approval.

“I want to live right there on the top of that hill,” Moro declared.

Rogue followed Moro’s finger to an average-looking foothill with a rocky section peppering one, especially steep side. “Why that one?”

“I want to live on the edge with all the rock. No one’s going to be terracing that side, so no one’s going to be building anything there that will obstruct my view of the valley.”

Rogue chuckled. “You know, I think we have time for you to go plant a flag before we’re due back to meet up with Adjutus and Altior.”

“Done,” Moro declared and began scavenging a nearby bush for a branch he could convert into a post and tie a strip of cloth on. The foothill was deceptively far away. It took nearly two hours to reach and summit, but Moro proudly planted his flag in a spontaneously constructed mound of rocks. “Yeah. This is nice. Alright. We can head back now,” Moro said after a moment spent appreciating the view from his future home. “I’m coming back for you,” he added, pointing to his makeshift flag.

Rogue squeezed Moro’s shoulder as they turned to head back down the hill. “You chose well.”

“Yeah, thanks, man. So where do you want to live?”

Rogue laughed. “You should know better than to ask me that. I’m living wherever Callida says I’m living.”

“Ah. Good point.”

***

Even with the carefully planned route, it took the caravan a full week to get to the identified settlement grounds. Rogue was feeling the urgency to begin their farming efforts as March became April, but Callida knew that everyone needed a day or two to recover from their rather arduous trek.

“Rogue, you can’t expect your soldiers to be in shape for a battle when you’ve been marching them for weeks. Another day or two won’t break us, and people will be in better shape to work then.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, and Callida rumpled his long curls.

“We have bigger things to worry about.”

“Like what?”

“Well, where are we going to find shelter until we build houses?”

“Like I said, there’s a lot of natural caverns.”

“And how many of us will that sleep?”

“I’m not sure.”

“And what is everyone going to eat until we have crops to harvest?”

“We’re going to have to hunt or forage,” Rogue said with a tired sigh. “We have people assigned to do the hunting and foraging already.”

“What about food distribution and cooking?”

“Good point. It would probably be a lot more efficient to set up a handful of kitchens to feed everyone from… like the wolf pack in the wastelands.”

“That would support your building and farming efforts too,” Callida agreed. “Less people tied up trying to make food for the day. What would you need for that?”

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“Cooks, and ingredients, and working kitchens.”

“How many people can a single kitchen reasonably feed?”

“Well, in the wolf camp, our one kitchen fed a little over two thousand people, but you remember how massive and well established that kitchen was. Realistically, one kitchen for every five hundred people would be more doable, but still ambitious.”

“Hey, Rapax!” Callida called and waved the ex-commander over.

“Yes, General?”

“Did we ever get an accurate final headcount?”

“Oh. I think Arum has the exact stats. I just remember that we have about three times the number of civilians to ex-soldiers, and about four thousand soldiers that stuck around for the whole trip.”

“So sixteen thousand people total?”

“Give or take,” Rapax nodded.

“That’s so many people to feed. Sixteen thousand people… that’s thirty-two kitchens to staff with cooks, hunters, and foragers?” She looked up at Rogue who grimaced and nodded. “We need to make that a priority. And we need to spread out or we’re going to overwhelm the local game population.”

“Yeah. I’ve thought of that,” Rogue nodded. “I think, tomorrow, we’re going to have to split people up by what skills they declared and then send them out in groups to establish their own camps.”

“Their own towns?” Callida supplied. “Rogue, we can’t support that many people all at once with no infrastructure, and we’re not going to be able to construct a city all at once. These ‘camps’ need to be permanent. Those thirty-two kitchens? Maybe one needs to be located in each town — five hundred people, give or take, to a town and the surrounding area. That’s sustainable, right? Or do we need to break it down further?”

Another heavy sigh. “We need to map out the area and divide the groups up.”

“Let’s deal with that tomorrow. For tonight, where did you say those caverns were?”

There were multiple caverns, and they were tall and wide enough to make the mountain seem hollow. But they weren’t deep enough for that to be the case, in fact, they were barely deep enough to sleep everyone without entering the narrow cave systems beyond the caverns.

The caravan split up, and everyone claimed a space, setting up campfires to cook over and bedrolls as the sun fell low in the sky and cast long shadows that made the stalactites above and stalagmites below appear ominous, like the teeth of a giant beast. Callida was feeling uncomfortable. Maybe it was the eerie ambiance or the close quarters with people she’d largely been avoiding all this time or the fact that they now had to do all the things they’d been procrastinating doing, but whatever the reason, she was finding it hard to wind down for the night.

The boys weren’t making it easy for her either. The triplets kept trying to run away and explore, and losing a toddler in a cave was a parent’s nightmare. That, and the twins were cranky. With the help of her husband and commanders, Callida managed to keep the boys corralled at least. And soon night was upon them. As much as they protested, all of her babies knew that sundown meant sleep. Callida had seen to it that their bedtime routine remained strictly timed with the sunset every night despite traveling, and soon, all five babies were yawning and rubbing their eyes. The boys got a rough sponge bath, a change of clothes, and their teeth cleaned before being wrapped in blankets and laid out in age order across a single, slightly oversized bedroll. They were used to the sounds of the camp around them as they drifted off to sleep.

“What are you thinking, M’lady?” Rogue asked once the boys were all settled and the rest of the caravan began efforts to prepare for bed.

“I’m still puzzling about how to break up the caravan into groups,” she said. “Do we want do divide them by skill sets? Or does it make more sense to let them choose their own neighbors? We almost have to send a small company of ex-soldiers with each group to provide manpower, but do the soldiers then have to stay in the settlements they help build or should they be allowed to return to where they have comrades? It’s just more complex than simply optimizing a mix of skills and abilities.”

“Maybe we’ll have to ask the people tomorrow about what they want to–”

Someone screamed, cutting Rogue off. It echoed in the high-ceilinged space, and people everywhere stood up to look around for the source of that scream, including both Callida and Rogue. There was a commotion somewhere near the back of the cavern, but Callida couldn’t see what was going on through the people thronging around it.

“Rapax?”

“I’m on it, General.”

Callida watched as Rapax wove through the camp and picked his way through the crowd beyond her scope of vision. He returned a few minutes later, wearing a thoughtful frown and shaking his head. “Report?”

“One of the kids dipped into the caves and came back with an exoskeleton of some creature that he chose to prank his mom with. That was the scream, but the skin was… other-worldly.”

“Commander?”

“Well, it’s huge, General. It was about as long as I am tall.”

“What is it from?”

“A giant bug?” Rapax guessed with a shrug.

Callida’s brow pinched together as her eyes carefully swept the walls and ceiling of the cavern. “Stay wary, and keep an eye out for anything… strange.”

“Are you worried?”

“About the skin? No, but something made that skin, and we know almost nothing about it: where it lives, what it eats, if it’s territorial, if it has friends….”

“I get the point, General,” Rapax said with an easy chuckle. “I’ll spread the word through the ranks, but there are enough of us here, I don’t think we have too much to worry about. An animal would have to be pretty desperate to walk through a mass of humans this large.”

“The animals here probably haven't seen many humans before,” she countered. “Their behavior will be unpredictable. Just–”

“–keep your eyes open. I know,” Rapax finished for her. “Should I assign a night watch while I’m at it?”

“Wouldn’t hurt.”

“I’ll set it up.” Rapax left to do just that, and Callida sat back down on the bedroll that she shared with Rogue.

“Callida?” He prompted, probably because she was still scowling.

“Let’s try to get some sleep.”

They arranged themselves on the bedroll with Rogue on his back and Callida curled up in the crook of his shoulder as per their usual. “Are you going to be able to get any sleep?” Rogue asked, earning points for his perception. “Do you want help drifting off?”

“I’ll be alright,” Callida lied. “Thank you anyway.”

“You know you’re a terrible liar.”

“Yes, I know,” she sighed.

“But you don’t want to sleep too deeply in case your concerns have merit?”

“Something like that.”

“Hey.” His finger found her chin and lifted it to bring her lips up to his. “It’s going to be alright.” It was funny to her how people always did that, promising an outcome they had no control over for the sake of being comforting. She was guilty of the same artificial confidence from time to time, and, despite knowing it was an empty promise, she was comforted by it — more by his desire to comfort her in the first place. Callida shifted to more easily close the gap to his kisses, and Rogue soaked up every iota of connection that she’d allow. “Primordials, Callida. I would kill for a room with four walls right now,” he whispered when she pulled away.

“Mn,” she acknowledged, tucking her chin into his shoulder again. “That sounds nice."