Dear Diary,

I don't know what the weirdest thing is; that there are people more bigoted than Larry Lancaster, that Larry's supporting me against them, or that he's looking to me as an authority figure.

World no make sense. Make world make sense.

So yesterday we took a little longer than Lancaster thought we would to get to the next farmstead down the road. When I saw the lights, I stepped up beside him. "It seems a little weird that there's a farmstead just about exactly one day's travel down the road."

He chuckled a little. "It's not accidental, commander. With the snow we're marching not much slower than a farmer's wagons would move if the road were clear. The farmsteads right on the main road here are spaced to take advantage of that; nobody wants to sleep outside if they have to."

"So, what, they have a side hustle as inns?"

He shrugged. "One or two, I believe. Most of them just trade favors, although I'm not sure how they keep track." He shot me a crooked smile. "For some reason I didn't pay much attention to that before."

"Before?" He looked a little uncomfortable, so I said, "don't worry about it. What do you mean 'main road'? I haven't seen any other roads."

His smile got a lot less lopsided. "Do you know how to tell the difference between a road and a field under two feet of snow?"

"No?"

"Neither do I, really, but I've travelled this road when it wasn't covered in snow. Trust me, they're there."

I laughed, even if somewhere inside my brain was screaming about Larry Lancaster making actual funny jokes rather than bigoted bullshit humor. "I hope they are, since you're the one who knows the route, after all." I shook my head before he could reply. "No, that's not really fair. I do trust you, or I'd have someone else leading. Even if I'd have called bullshit if someone told me I'd be saying that today a week before Yule."

Lancaster veered a little further away from the road, waving at his units to keep breaking trail as he did. I followed, assuming he wanted to talk to me about something without the troops overhearing. "A week before Yule, indeed. A week before you utterly destroyed two armies by yourself."

I shrugged, still not really comfortable with what I'd done that day. "Yeah. I guess so. So you're toeing the line because you think I'm gonna shank you if you don't?"

He looked over as we plowed our own path through the snow. "That had crossed my mind well before Yule, but... no." He heaved out a sigh. "No. If you were going to 'shank me', you'd have done so that day I punched you in the throat. Maybe that day in Doctor DeLeon's class. But..." He trailed off as we got close enough to the farmstead ahead of us to see lanterns hanging in front of the doors of the buildings rather than just a few floating glows in the distance. "Sorry, commander, but I suspect this will have to wait." He nodded to the central farmhouse, where someone had stepped out of the door; a fairly big man followed by two other big men. At least, each of them filled the door pretty well coming out of it. I guessed it might just be a tiny door or some shit.

"Who goes?" The guy shouting sounded less threatening and more querulous; like he thought he really didn't want the answer.

"May I, commander?"

I nodded. "They probably recognize you more than any of the rest of us."

Lancaster called out, "column! Halt!" Then he kind of hop-jogged forward, the only way to really move at more than a slow stagger in the snow. "Hello the house! Laurence Lancaster of Lancaster House, with the Phileo City Expedition to Lancaster House!"

The big guy in front half turned, and one of the two behind him pulled a lantern down from beside the door and handed it to him. The big guy walked to the edge of the area in front of the house that had been cleared, then held the lantern up and to the side, peering through the dark. Eventually he nodded. "Master Lancaster! You may not wish to come closer; our house is beset by sickness!"

I couldn't resist the opportunity, I stepped up behind Larry and called out, "that's why we're here! We're from the Academy and we're here to help!"

What? It's a classic line, even if they wouldn't really have gotten the 'from the government' or 'from home office' versions.

The moment I spoke, the big guy, who'd been sort of hunching over trying to make himself smaller than Larry, reared back and called, "who is this woman, Master Lancaster?"

The way he said the word 'woman' gave me an urge to step to him and ram something unpleasant up his ass, so I took a deep breath and let Lancaster handle it. "She is Cadet Tabitha Diaz, High Priestess of Loki, Councilwoman, and Commander of this Expedition." It was weird; it had been a while since I heard Larry get that full on 'the steel rod up my ass says you're not fit to breathe my air' tone in his voice, and hearing it directed at some sexist asshole caused some serious cognitive dissonance.

"High Priestess of who?"

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By this point we'd gotten to an almost conversational distance, so I pitched my voice to carry to the guys next to the house and answered. "I'm the High Priestess and Champion of Loki. How many of you are sick?" He shot me a booger look and turned back to Lancaster. "Oi! I'm talking to you here. What's your name?"

"Master Lancaster, are you going to let this woman speak to me this way?"

I had like one more iota of patience, and I used it looking at Larry and saying, "is this guy, like, important or connected or something? Because he is starting to damage my hard won calm."

Funny; I'd never seen Larry even attempt to fast talk someone. I'm not sure if that's what he decided to do, or it just seemed like it from his sudden tension. "Farmer... Davis, was it?"

"Yes, Master Lancaster."

"I'm certain you noticed the troops marching East, back before winter set in?"

The big man, who I realized just then looked like the kind of guy who'd been muscle-heavy in his youth, but gone to seed a bit, replied, "Yes, Master Lancaster. Your father stopped here with his Volunteer units. Something about New Amsterdam planning to attack Phileo?"

"That they were. That they did." Lancaster let that dangle there, and Farmer Davis took the bait.

"Your father lead the defense?"

I remember General Lancaster's 'do not fuck with me' look, and if Larry's wasn't quite the same caliber, he'd definitely studied it. "In fact, no. He was to have lead the counteroffensive, but treachery by New Amsterdam lay him low before the battle began."

Dismay painted Davis' features. "Lord Lancaster has fallen?"

"In point of fact, fell, but was Revived by her wife," he nodded to me, "before the battle ended. In point of fact, because of the two of them, Phileo City and Camden Yards suffered only three casualties during the battles at the walls of Newark and Camden Yards."

Farmer Davis looked a little lost. "What... what trickery did she employ?"

Something about the way he said 'trickery' finally burned through that final bit of patience I'd so carefully saved. I stepped right up in his face, ignoring the whine and a slight painful tug when I Co-Located in front of each of the guys backing him as well. "It was a really subtle trick, I'm not sure your pitiful farmer brain can handle it. Wait, no, that's not fair to farmers. Most of them are pretty bright. I guess you're the exception. Anyway, please do try to keep up as I explain." I leaned in close to him, and his two bodyguards, who looked enough like him that they must be sons or nephews or something, tried to step forward. Each of them got a quick and dirty course in exactly how fast someone can take you to your knees using nothing but some leverage on a pinky and wrist.

Farmer Davis half turned when he heard his guys hit the dirty snow, putting his ear in optimum whisper range. "I killed them all. Thousands and thousands of them died screaming when I spilled their fucking guts on the snow. In the space of a few minutes I turned the gates of Newark and the forest north of Camden Yards both into abattoirs. Messy, bloody ones. Now, I get that you might doubt me. Hell, I doubt me most of the time. But believe me when I say you need to think real, real, carefully about the answer to my next question."

The only sounds in the courtyard were the groans of Davis' guys and his own heavy, shaking breath. Eventually, after a long moment, without turning to look at me, he said, "what question?"

"Do you need a demonstration?"

I couldn't really tell if the freezing rivulets running toward his chin were tears or sweat, but after a long moment he whispered, "Master Lancaster, sir?"

Lancaster's reply held at least as much frustrated venom as my own question. "The words you seem to be failing to find are, 'no, Ma'am'. Perhaps followed by, 'is there any way I can assist you, Ma'am, if you're feeling particularly intelligent."

Davis turned to me and whimpered. "No, Ma'am?"

I gave him my best proud Mama smile, patted him on the cheek, and said, "excellent. Now, lead on to where your sick people are."

So, it turns out that Farmer Davis didn't even really know how many of his people were sick. Part of that ignorance? Because apparently he hadn't checked in the 'ladies' rooms' since the first woman died. This farmstead held more people than the first one we'd stopped at, and apparently they'd managed a really fucked up kind of quarantine by putting all the sick men in one bunkhouse and locked the women in 'their rooms'. The 'sick' bunkhouse had twenty three corpses. The 'healthy' bunkhouse had fourteen live bodies, all of them infected, most with symptoms mild enough they could hide them. Or maybe they all just agreed to lie to Davis, I dunno.

We cured all the men, including Davis and his sons, then set Davis and his sons to digging graves before heading through the farmhouse; it only had one story, but that story sprawled a bit. Davis himself had a suite to one side of the main room, his sons had one room each to the other side. Past the main room was the kitchen. One door, which stood open just a crack, led to a pantry, then steps down to a root cellar. The other door, which had a lock, a latch, and a board nailed over it all keeping it closed. I Mana Bladed my way through that and stepped into a scene from a horror flick. A couple bodies lay sprawled in front of the door, and from the smears of blood on their side they'd tried to batter it open before they collapsed. When I stepped into the room, I heard coughing from behind a curtain to my left. Behind that I found a twenty something dark-haired woman sitting on the floor, hunched over a tiny body. The rest of the women in the curtained off area lay on bunk beds built into the walls, looking way too much like catacombs.

Rage flowed through my veins instead of blood. "No." I reached out through the sudden irrelevant utter darkness, touched the tiny flame trying to escape from the child in the woman's arms. "Live." It settled back into the body it had tried to leave, and the child screamed and coughed. I Cured them both, Healed them both, then cycled through everyone else in the room. I checked the other two curtained off alcoves with beds, but they held nothing but corpses.

"Lancaster?"

His voice filtered into the room from the kitchen. "Yes, Commander?"

"Deal with Davis."

Larry stood in the doorway, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of stepping into the room. "Commander?"

"If I have to, I won't... I can't..." I closed my eyes, tried to block out what I'd seen. "What I do will not be justice."

"I'm not sure if anyone else between us and Lancaster House will have done any different." He paused, then corrected himself, "any better."

"Then you'd best get used to sorting them out, because you will be gentler than I will."

"I'll deal with him, Commander."

I nodded. "Thank you, Larry."

He murmured, "de nada," as he left on the task I'd sent him on.

We stayed the following day to make use of the farm's slaughtering pen, because we needed to top off our food supplies. I didn't see Farmer Davis again. Probably for the best. Any time I needed to speak with someone from the farm about something, Lancaster sent me the elder of Davis' two sons. I stayed with the women until it came time to bury their dead, then helped with the burial.

I don't know whose wedding tackle had been nailed above Davis' bedroom door. Didn't ask.

I guess I trusted Larry more than I thought.