The gathered forces moved out almost directly after Hook’s dramatic announcement. Which made sense, when you thought about it. We were still in the lands where the Loyalists had set off what Hook had abruptly started calling the ‘Break Stones’.
We needed to put distance between ourselves and the horde.
With orders to make their way to the dual cities of Elderwyck and Tlatec by whatever method they saw fit, the gathered forces departed on their own. There were thirty-one gathered Nocturne agents, and they pretty much all left independently. There were a total of twenty-seven regular Uprising soldiers as well, with a majority being from the Order. At Hook’s suggestion, they decided to assist the clandestine campaign against Elderwyck by forming an impromptu band of ‘mercenaries’. It was as good of a cover as any a bunch of stealth novice ground-pounders and Classers could hope for.
Renauld went with them, to act as their healer. The two of us said our goodbyes with promises to meet back up in the city. Because I was one hundred percent going to be part of the campaign.
Eventually, it was just Hook, Sylvia, and I in the clearing where we’d all met up. The nominal head of the Nocturne Division had kept us back from departing together. My thoughts were he was going to be keeping an eye on us, as a favor to Grey.
Turns out, I was only half right.
“You two are coming with me,” Hook said pointedly. “We’re going to be making a detour before we make our way to Elderwyck.”
I exchanged glances with Sylvia, letting her speak first. “What are we doing?”
“We need to go warn the Hill Tribes about the horde,” Hook said grimly. “If we don’t, they’re going to be caught off guard when a literal army of bloodthirsty beasts rolls through their lands. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live with the deaths of thousands of innocents on my hands.”
“Fuck no,” I said, almost instinctually. “Lead the way.”
“Hold your horses there, Hangman,” Hook said, sounding mildly amused despite the seriousness of our situation. “A few instructions first. We’ll be approaching a powerful local power by the name of Clan Thunderheart, which I know at least one of you is familiar with.”
I almost asked him how he knew that, before I realized that Sylvia had likely made a report about it. For a moment, I wondered what else she had reported about me and my actions before I’d joined the Division, but kept quiet.
Surprisingly, I didn’t care much about the possible breach of privacy. There were more important things at stake than my secrecy.
“Whisper is coming because she’ll have weight with them, being the daughter of local figure of legend like Grey,” He nodded at my…partner, I suppose I could call her. “Hangman because he has connections to a lost member of theirs. An important one, at that. You two are not to approach them as Whisper and Hangman. Rather, you will be acting as Sylvia and Nathan Hart, the recently married daughter and apprentice of Greycton of the Shadowed Sun.”
I abruptly flushed under my mask, as Sylvia almost squirmed in embarrassment next to me. “Is there anything you people don’t know?! And we’re not married!”
God, it had only been a few days since we’d come to an agreement and it already felt like every interfering old fogey we knew had figured it out. I glowered at the dwarven commander.
“Suck it up,” Hook said, unphased. “It’s only a small fiction, and it’ll help in our negotiations.”
Negotiations?
“I thought we were only going to be warning the tribes about the horde?” I asked, confused. “What do we have to negotiate about?”
“Well,” Hook drawled. “Since everything went out the window, it doesn’t hurt to talk about this. The Uprising was already intending to approach the Hill Tribes. They’ve staunchly refused to take a side in the war, even though we know they have sympathies with the Sculpted. Historically, it’s gone badly for them when they’ve joined in on ‘lowlander’ conflicts. However, now they don’t have a choice, because the Loyalists made it for them with this shit. They’ve just unleashed the largest horde of monsters Vereden has ever seen on their ancestral lands. I don’t think even the Chaos Gods ever fielded a force this large against us.” Hook shook his head. “I’ve been out of contact so I can’t ask, but I would be unsurprised if the thought of approaching the Principality for assistance wasn’t rolling around in at least one of the leadership’s heads.”
I’m sure Grey would be ecstatic about that. Having to possibly ask Anguis of House Savoy for military assistance would probably grate on him like nails on a chalkboard.
“What the hell are the Loyalists thinking?” I wondered out loud. “This is going to turn the entire planet on them. Hell, it might turn another planet on them. This is just…” I trailed off, at a loss for words.
Surprisingly, Hook looked troubled as well. He took a deep breath. “I don’t know,” He admitted. “This is beyond anything we ever planned for. It’s completely out of character even the most strident war hawk with the Loyalist command.”
“Could it have been something that came from Leonard Ashran?” Sylvia piped in unexpectedly. “The man has shown an affinity for monsters in the past.”
My eyebrows shot up at the suggestion, understanding where Sylvia was coming from. That…made a bit of sense.
Hook’s face fell even further. “Gods, I hope not,” He said tiredly. “If he is, I’m going to have to be the one to tell Leopold that his brother is one of the worst war criminals in the history of Vereden.” He shook his head. “But enough talk. We have work to do.” He reached into a pouch on his armor and withdrew a familiar ball of flesh-colored putty. Applying it with experienced hands, Hook altered his face with the FAT to such a degree that he was unrecognizable. “I’ll lead the way to the Thunderheart settlement. Once there, I’ll step back and act as a guard. You two will be the face of these negotiations. It should only take us a day of travel to reach them. Let’s go.”
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As the three of us plus Fade took off, I briefly wondered about our lack of supplies. But then again, I’d noticed that people with an active Status just needed less food and water than someone from Earth did in a survival situation.
I’d just been foraging and hunting for the last week, after all.
I could just do more before we reached Clan Thunderheart.
………………………………………………..
Hook set a fairly brutal pace as he led us through the hills and valleys of the countryside. All four of us were in a visibly heightened state of caution, despite our speed. Even though Hook told us that most of the monsters that had been created from all the breaks were moving almost as a mass, there were still tons of monsters out here.
Far, far more than I think I’d ever encountered before.
Roaming the countryside were massive groups of the things, with numbers well into the hundreds. We had to employ our steath abilities and evade them to the best of our ability if we didn't want to get swarmed. Hook told us that we had nothing to worry about, and that if we really got into trouble, he could handle it, but...
Even he was wary of these offshoots of the horde. All it took was one mistake, and a group of giant prairie dogs would tear out your throat.
However, a sizable amount of the monsters were the mutants that I had noticed just after the first break I saw. By and large, they were mostly crippled in such a way as to be helpless. But they were still aggressive, and we still had to watch out.
Just because a Dirtgnawer had no limbs, didn’t mean it couldn’t do its best to tear out your throat.
As we found out.
Man, that thing had been pretty determined. I’d been surprised at how far a limbless mole rat could leap.
But I digress.
The first thing that Hook had us do on our trek was visit the site of the Break Stone installation I had found. I led them back there as best I was able, to find that there was surprisingly more still standing than I would have thought.
The unknown Loyalist soldier’s camp was beyond ruined, and the actual modified Ward Stone had been reduced to fragments and splinters. But the plinth it had been rotating on was still partially intact.
Hook instructed me to copy down as much of the runic array on the plinth as I could manage so that the Nocturne enchanters could hopefully decipher the exact mechanisms behind it. I didn’t get everything, and I made sure that Hook understood that a majority of the enchantment had been lost with the stone. But I did as he asked anyway, while the other two tracked down as many shards of the stone as they could find.
Of the Loyalist soldier that set it off, we found nothing.
Frankly, I didn’t care what happened to him. It didn’t matter the reasons behind his actions, not even if he had been blackmailed into doing it.
He had still helped unleash thousands and thousands of monsters on an unsuspecting countryside.
When we’d done all we could to catalog the site, Hook marked it down on a small map, and we got back underway.
As we dashed through the Herztalian countryside on our way to Clan Thunderheart, I couldn’t help but marvel at its beauty. This was some truly wild land. Any traces you would expect of civilization were few and far between, with no roads or waymarkers to be found. Hell, I hadn't even seen any abandoned campsites. I think it was only thanks to the fact that we were all wearing literal armor that the rough brush and burrs didn’t shred the flesh, of those of us that were flesh inclined.
Amusingly enough, Sylvia complained to me during the single night we camped out on our travels that the brush was actually leaving streaks on parts of her exposed Mithril skin. She would have to spend some time buffing herself with a rag later, to get the stains out. When I offered to help, unthinking about any possible connotations, she became bashful.
“Perhaps another time,” She told me, in a slightly embarrassed tone.
It was only later that I considered the implications of one person essentially rubbing down the other, when they were involved as we were.
Yeah…maybe when we were closer.
Eventually, Hook stopped us just at the foot of another hill, turning to face the rest of our small group. “Alright, the Thunderheart settlement is just on the other side. Cloaks off. They’re probably already aware of us, but I’ll fall back for now and let you two do the talking. Remember, when you reach their gates, identify yourself and ask to speak to the Council of Elders. From there, proceed as I coached you.”
Sylvia and I nodded at our nominal superior, and removed our grey Nocturne cloaks to reveal the Order armor underneath. Hook fell back as he said, positioning himself behind us. Side by side, Sylvia and I marched up to the ridgeline and looked out.
On the other side of the hill was a long, low valley in which Clan Thunderheart had decided to lay their hearths. Mostly flat and bordered by a small mountain range on the opposite side from us, there was a beautiful winding river that seemed to originate from a particularly tall peak. It looked like the settlement had been constructed along the banks of the meandering river.
And, well.
Clan Thunderheart’s stronghold itself was certainly no Helstein.
I meant that in the best possible way.
Where Helstein was large and imposing, this village was small. Where Helstein was mostly unadorned stone, this place was constructed mostly of either wood, thatch, or earthwork. Don’t get me wrong, though. Even from this distance, I could tell that there was a certain sense of pride that the Thunderhearts took in their craftsmanship. I could see intricately carved motifs of various animals all along their walls, both inside and out, as well as delicate knotwork and thundercloud patterns. It was far more populated than I would have expected, as well. I could see hundreds of people scurrying about the village, with a particularly large amount of them working on the banks of the river. They looked to be hauling in either fish from the, or goods from the longships arranged along the small docks the village seemed to have. From my high point, I could see a ring of standing stones arranged in a circle just outside of the eastern wall. The walls themselves were tall, wooden, and sharpened to a point with a number of watchtowers built along its circumference.
And, unexpectedly, they’d noticed us immediately, even from the distance we were at.
I squinted from the light that was being reflected into our eyes, directed from mirrors set up in the watchtowers. Although my vision was being deliberately blinded, I was still able to see as a group of armored warriors saddled up on massive warhorses and immediately began riding out to our position.
I’m guessing they didn’t want us to move.
It had nothing to do with the longbowmen that I could see readying themselves on their walls. Certainly not.
I really, really didn’t want to mess with anyone who thought they could hit a target with a bow of all things over a distance of several miles.
Exchanging a glance with Sylvia, we mutually and entirely non-verbally agreed to stay put.
“Hmm…” Hook said, incredibly quietly. I could only just barely hear the dwarf. “They’re on edge.”
That boded well.
Guess we’ll see why soon.