The meeting with the officers and other sergeants of the Ebony Hyenas was an interesting affair. Other than the Captain and Lieutenant Berger who I had been introduced to earlier plus one of the sergeants I had to the best of my knowledge never meet any of the others before. Sergeant Rupert Miles had been a corporal in the Swift Sword Point Mercenary company when I had been captured by them a few years ago. He had been put in charge of looking after the prisoners and had done a fine job of it from what I saw. The Hyenas had seventeen other sergeants and during the meeting, I at least got to know all of their names and was able to put a face to the two lieutenants I hadn’t met until then.

During the course of the meeting Captain Walker laid out the contract in more detail than he had with me previously and made us aware of the local players, not just our employer but also his neighbours and his family members. He also had one of his Lieutenants by the name of Robyn Morton brief us on the Under-Dwellers. It seemed to me as if he was just reading from some book on the subject but at the same time, it seemed to be a very detailed and hopefully accurate one.

He then had Lieutenant Steven Yeaton brief us on the route we were taking to Long Bank Manor, how long it was expected to take us and anything that might possibly delay us. As the meeting was breaking up he asked me to stay behind and when I did so he introduced me to sergeant Charles Erskine the company’s quartermaster who I had only briefly met earlier in the meeting.

With what had happened with Gerald Flick you might think I would be wary of him but this wasn’t the case mainly because of the regard I had for Todd Watermann who had been the quartermaster of the Brothers n Arms Mercenary Company before he had perished during our last contract. We hadn’t exactly been friends but he was an easy man to talk to and I had quite a few interesting conversations with him on a wide range of subjects over the years.

“As you can imagine with us moving out on the contract tomorrow Gerald has a few other things to take care of but as soon as he is free he will be coming to inspect your wagon to make sure it is in a fit state to travel with us. At that time I would like you to present him with a list of any supplies you might need and he’ll do his best to get them for you, though they might not be available until later in our travels. One more thing I hope you don’t mind but I’m temporarily transferring one of my privates to your scouts, Jacob Chandler is originally from Bincot Manor which is just next door to Long Bank Manor and he has cousins that live there.”

“Not at all captain I’m sure he’ll prove useful even if only when it comes to the workings of your company.”

“He isn’t as knowledgeable of the area as I would like his father's being a miller who did set foot outside the village if he could help it but it’s better than nothing and perhaps you or one of your men can tease more out of him than we managed to. He’ll also be the one driving your wagon if the quartermaster deems it to be in a good enough state to accompany us”

After the meeting, I head over to where the rest of the scouts were billeted to inform them of the upcoming visit by the quartermaster and the addition to our ranks. I then with their input drew up a list of supplies to hand to the quartermaster. Private Chandler arrived before Sergeant Erskine and I welcomed him to our little group before handing him over to Ian Young for the first of what I hoped were many informal debriefs about the area we were heading to scout.

By the time Erskine showed up three hours later the debrief was long over and after the wagon easily pass his inspection I handed him our list of supplies and he promised to have them ready for us by the end of the day.

We departed camp the following morning not quite as early as planned and made good time arriving at Long Bank Manor sixteen days later after an uneventful trip during which I was even able to get in some hunting in the no man’s land that sometimes exists in between some of the lordships.

Contract: Long Bank Manor (Under-dweller Pilgrimage), begins

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Objective: Keep Pilgrimage Route secure

Objective: Guard the entrance to the underground cavern the Under-dweller Pilgrims will be staying in during daylight hours

Objective: Protect Pilgrims, if necessary

Objective: Protect Long Bank Manor and its inhabitants from Pilgrims and anyone else who wishes it harm, if necessary

Objective: Return to base

You have Slain (Level 2 Boar)

You have Slain (Level 3 Boar)

Class skill: Archery (Apprentice ) => Archery (Journeyman)

The damage you deal with bows and even crossbows has increased

+15% damage dealt by your arrows/bolts

You have Slain (Level 4 Badger)

By the end of the journey, most outsiders couldn’t even tell that Private Chandler hadn’t known any of the others much previous to that and Ian had managed to squeeze every last drop of information about the manor from him. It wasn’t all that much it turned out but it was at least a start. We also had time on the journey to get to know the rest of the company that we had temporarily joined and many friendships had developed.

One such being that between me and Sergeant Nathan Bryson, like myself he had been around horses almost from birth though he had sworn off them at some point after a younger brother had died after falling off one. He was also new to the company having joined it a month or so before me though he had been a sergeant in another company for a few years before that.

Upon our arrival, the captain and his lieutenants left to attend a meeting with our current employer sir Reginald Moor while everyone else was treated to dinner courtesy of the local villagers. They returned over two hours later with an individual in tow who I presumed to be either sir Reginald Moor or one of his advisors. He turned out to be neither when Captain Walker introduced him to us as Luka Pandoe the manor current Reeve.

The Reeve escorted us to where most of the company would be staying during the contract, two small hastily erected fortlets situated close to either side of the entrance to a small underground cave system where the various groups of passing under-dwellers pilgrims would be sleeping during the daylight hours.

The event that initiates the pilgrimage wasn’t to occur until that very night and the first visitors weren’t expected for seven to eight days so they had plenty of time before that to settle into the fortlets and make any repairs or renovations the Captain might feel necessary encase things turned ugly. This also give me and my scouts time to familiarize ourselves with the local area and get used to scouting at night a thing I had never engaged in. Thankfully Ian Young had at least read a small booklet on the subject and shared its contents with me and the other men.

Half our horses had thrown shoes on the journeys here and so before we headed out on our first scout of the area which the captain within an hour of our arrival at the fortlets had asked me to perform as soon as possible. I personally checked all our horse's hooves and sent private Eric Pen off to pay a visit to the local blacksmith to have his horse's left back leg reshoed. I also enquired with the captain if the locals could provide me with someone to show us scouts around the area.

His response was that his lordship had promised to provide him with one tomorrow and asked that his scouts had a look around his territory today without one. Perhaps he didn’t want anyone to influence our first impression of the area or simply no one was available until tomorrow. Either way, once Pen returned with his horse and I had a quick chat with him about the local blacksmith we headed out. For our first trip, I decided to keep us all together and search up the river from the fortlets as far as the edge of the lordship.

From what I was led to believe this would be the direction the under-dwellers would be coming from and the most likely avenue any trouble might find its way to us. We didn’t run into any surprises on our trip, not that we were expecting to. We arrived back at the fortlets before dark and I ordered Ian Young to rest for an hour or two before attempting to retrace the first quarter of our earlier route alone in the dark.

I did this mainly to get a clearer sense of the difference between working in daylight and at night without having a large party to worry about. While waiting for him to return I had a look at the night sky to see if I could find the comet the under-dwellers revered. It took me a while but I found it, a bright ghost-like ball of what I am told is ice with an equally glowing tail passing along the middle of the palest of the two moons that orbit Telondia.