For the rest of the ride, I felt like a battered old violin tuned too high, the strings and neck straining with each turn of the pegs; either or both threatening to snap at any moment.

I’d dug the hatchet out of the saddlebags and it now hung from a strap next to them instead, readily accessible. On the other side, a primed dragonet hung in its harness. I had the rest of the cartridge in my breast pocket, torn end folded over, ready to charge it and fire at a moment’s notice. Or, at least, at less notice than would otherwise be necessary. It would still take precious seconds to ram, every one of which I begrudged, but it was something. I was scanning the woods constantly again, put back up on edge by the run-in with the bear. Rationally, I knew that the odds of something happening were no higher than before, but too much of my body and mind were loaded with fear for reason to win out. We still stood to reach Tolkirch by evening, and I could sustain this until then.

The rain had started up again lightly, refreshing the trees' load of water. Steady dripping mixed with the sound of hooves on the road. For a mercy the tree cover was thick enough to gather the water into fat drops that didn't pervade the air in the same way as the rains in Nachberg, but over time they still saturated everything. In and out of the background noise, the sound of Kaczmarek humming rose and fell. She was... not a good singer. To torture the violin metaphor by stretching it further, it was a little like she was rasping a filthy, tattered bow over those straining strings.

"Immer, jäger, your tuning is awful," I groused, annoyance getting the better of me. I took off my hat to shake the rain off it by way of punctuation. The wet had my fingers freezing cold and senseless, and it wasn't helping anything.

"We're all wound up, boothead," she snipped back. "Moaning won't change that."

"It might persuade you to stop torturing that song, though," I said, frowning. Something rustled in the undergrowth next to us and my head snapped around, but there was nothing to see. A coney or a mouse, probably.

"It's not that bad," Kaczmarek said, looking away from the brush to fix me with a flat look. "And it's quieter than you."

I sighed, pushing loose hairs into my hat and jamming it down again. "I've heard better from four year olds at temple. Not even the good ones." The jäger winced.

"We can't all be perfect, Gefreiter Killing Machine. Hobbies: weapons for fighting, horses for fighting, history for fighting—"

"Oh, come on, let's not quarrel," the prince interceded. "Jäger, could you leave off humming for a bit? Schreiner, try to ease off a little. She's not wrong, you know, we are all on edge."

I dipped my head, staring at the back of Munter's head for a moment. "As you say, your Highness." Kaczmarek muttered her assent.

I forced myself to breathe in deeply, trying to shed the bad mood. I was about as successful as if I tried to shed the thin layer of water covering everything. I was cold, hungry, and skirting the edge of terrified, and none of those could be dislodged with just positive thinking.

Kaczmarek, at least, had stopped humming. The quiet of the rainy forest was a welcome reprieve.

The trees grew thick, here, looming close together and tangled in places so that even if you wanted to leave the road—though why any sane person would, I didn't know—you wouldn't be able to. A few muted bird calls drifted through the woods, their distance one of the only indicators that the forest ran on and on out of view. At times the gaps would align to form a clear line of sight cast out like a ray of light into the darkness, but they all were choked again by the forest sooner or later. Though the canopy let the grey—and occasionally golden—light of the day through, the Ostwald still had a claustrophobic pressure to it. The knowledge that creatures like the bear prowled its depths, and perhaps stranger things still, did nothing to remediate my initial worries at riding through it. It was beautiful, in places like the clearing where we had camped this morning even ethereally so, but deadly with it.

"A-ha!" Kaczmarek's low cry of triumph pulled me out of my gloomy worries. She dismounted with all her usual grace, heel thudding to the wet road with a muted splash and almost shooting out from under her as she tried to tug her other foot out of the stirrup. When she recovered she hurried to the side of the road, crouching to pull the weeds away from a half-hidden rectangular stone. I dismounted, more smoothly, and followed.

"Milestone," she said over her shoulder, grinning. "Only about seven kilometres left to Tolkirch." She stood, staring up at the canopy. She looked around, thinking. She... sniffed the air? "Should be there well before sunset," she declared.

I blinked. I still had no idea how she could tell the time without seeing the sun, but I was glad there wasn't much further to go. It lightened some of the pressure, too—this close to the city there should be fewer large predators. Hunters would have taken most of the prey and pushed them away.

"Why do we call them milestones, anyway?" Kaczmarek idly asked, scrambling back up into the saddle with all the elegance of a spider trapped in a bathtub. "We’ve been on the unitary system for ages now. Shouldn’t they be… kilometre stones or something?”

The prince laughed. “It doesn’t really roll off the tongue, though, does it? And besides, people are slow to change. I warrant they’ll still be called milestones in a hundred years.”

“I won’t be around to see that, I don’t think,” the jäger replied. “You know what they say, your Highness, only cowards make it to thirty in this business. Over a hundred might be a bit much.”

“Ah, reach for eternity, jäger, reach for eternity,” the prince joked. “You might just attain it.”

Kaczmarek groaned. “The only thing that feels eternal right now is this ride, your Highness. I haven’t been able to feel my legs for days.”

***

As we approached Tolkirch, the slow rise and fall of the terrain gave way to steeper ascents and fewer falls, the ground beneath the forest becoming pocked with eruptions of rock more often, or carved into ravines by the run of seasonal streams—in full flow right now, swishing around the horses’ ankles every time we crossed. At intervals the road itself became a river as well, shallow water sheeting down a hill across its surface. The paving here was well-maintained, shedding water to the sides as often as not, but at times there was too much water for it to matter.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The city itself made a relatively sudden appearance. Like Kurnich, the forest had been cut clear in a wide area around the walls. Unlike Kurnich, Tolkirch was perched atop a rocky spit. The mountains of the Freibergen—the geography, not the polity—threw out a low loop towards the east, smaller peaks than in the main range by far, but rocky and rising sharply in long spines like the teeth of a fat cogwheel.

The waters of the Weitwasser river tumbled through the valley between two of those spines, here, Tolkirch’s peninsula jutting out into the water. Enclosed on three sides by the mountain-fattened river and with an economy based on mining the ridges for iron and precious metals, the city boasted near-unbreakable fortifications. The sole access by land was sealed off by a titanic curtain wall of locally-quarried stone, near five metres thick and at least twice as high, though I wasn’t sure the exact numbers. The towering structure would be vulnerable to cannon fire—but who would bring siege artillery up these escarpments, and if they did how would they find place to bring them to bear? The forest thinned abruptly as the earth gave way to rock on the ridges, to be sure, but scraggly trees still dotted the landscape up to the edge of the killing field.

I stared up at the fortress absorbed in thought as we rode up the winding road leading to the great gate in the centre of the wall, standing wide open. I squinted up against the light rain, trying to make out the banners flying over the towers.

“Those are Immer banners, Kaczmarek, aren’t they?”

She side-eyed me. “Just how bad are your eyes? Yes, no Torries here, thank the Heavens.”

“They’re good enough to stand in line and shoot,” I dismissed her comment. “Thank you, jäger. I didn’t expect them, but many things have happened that I didn’t expect.”

“Why didn’t you expect it?” His Highness butted in to ask.

In answer, I gestured at the natural castle fortified further by man ahead of us. “Would you like to take that city, your Highness? It’s far too much work for an invader, sir. Tolkirch exports iron and stone by barge down the Weitwasser, and imports near all its foodstuffs back up the same. It can’t be starved out unless you can blockade the river, sir, and then if you can it won’t offer you a strategic advantage unless the war truly drags on. You can’t feed your troops off it, sir, and we wouldn’t feel the lack of iron for a while yet. The way Torrea is acting, your Highness, they don’t want a long war.” I was gesturing more animatedly by the end, the prospect of a reprieve from the rain and a chance to talk about something interesting doing wonders for my mood.

“Why’d we put a city here anyway, then?” Kaczmarek asked. I shrugged.

“We don’t put cities anywhere, do we? Iron is iron, and barges work well to carry it. I’m sure it used to be farms and fishermen a long time ago, before the mines started to work.”

The jäger stared at the gate, now very near, and shook her head. “Still seems dumb, any way you put it. Eh, well.”

As we reached the gate a pair of arquebusiers stepped out to block it with officious attitudes. I sighed internally. From up here it was clear to see we were the only travellers for kilometres, and doubtless the guards were bored out of their minds. In my experience that led to one of two things: they waved everyone through as quickly as possible so they could get back to their card game, or they dragged things out to entertain themselves. These two did not look like they wanted the former.

“State your business,” one of the guards demanded. A corporal, by his insignia, the other just a soldat.

“Travelling,” I succinctly replied.

“For?”

“To get to Szekerya. Can’t a man get about his homeland any more? The war’s behind us, lads.” My impatience was seeping back into my tone more than I’d like, but it was hard to keep it out.

“Ha’n’t you heard, then? Bleeding Torries popping up all over the place like mushrooms.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the Weitwasser. “Word come up the river a couple days back. How’d’we know you’re not with them? Some devilry they use.” He spat to the side, prompting a grimace from the prince.

I sighed heavily, not bothering to keep this one inside. “Do I not seem Immerlandish enough for you? I don’t speak a lick of Torrean except what’s the same as the Scriptures, man.”

“Why are we delaying?” The prince broke in. “I should quite like to get out of the rain, the sooner the better. Yesterday would be best, in fact.”

“Sorry, son,” the guard said, affecting a sympathetic tone. “Can’t let you in just on your word. No idea how the devils work, y’see.”

I rubbed my temples and then reached into the inside pocket of my coat, rummaging for a moment before withdrawing a folded paper. “I think this will explain everything, man, and then I’ll thank you to get out of my way.”

The guard carefully unfolded it, pulling back his right hand to leave in just his left. He made a show of scanning it before folding it back up and passing it back to me. “You should’a started with this, sir!” He said cheerfully. “No problem, go right on.” He stepped out of the way, nudging the soldat, and waved us by.

I clamped down hard on my annoyance. “Much obliged, man.” I nudged Munter forward, the prince and Kaczmarek following close behind. Before we were even through the gate, His Highness started to ask a question.

“Why–” he spoke before I hushed him, touching a finger to my lips. We rode another ten metres out into the main street in the city proper before I dropped it and he spoke up again.

“Why’d he let us through? I saw what you gave him, and it was just a blank sheet of cartridge paper! There was nothing on there meaning anything.” The prince sounded equal measures confused and indignant.

“Quite right, your Highness, but what mattered wasn’t so much what was on the paper as what was in it, sir. And in this case, what was in it was a full gulden, sir.”

The prince sat bolt upright in his saddle. “Bribery, gefreiter?”

“Yes, sir,” I affirmed blandly. Kaczmarek laughed quietly. “Tolkirch is a merchant’s town, sir. The mayor is nobility, in name at least, sir, but the merchants and the guilds are the ones that pull the strings, sir. Guards like that man are small people, sir, enjoying any power they get. We have the paperwork to get through officially, but he would have fought us at every step, for his own enjoyment, and there are a lot of steps in a town like this. Much easier and faster to grease his palm and be done, your Highness. Quite like diplomacy, really. Sometimes it’s easier to cede something you don’t really need to get a wild terrier off your heels.”

“I see. You mention the guilds again. Is this sort of thing common?” He probed.

I shrugged. “Happens everywhere, your Highness. Not just in merchant towns. The wheels of Empire just turn a bit more slowly here, the wheels of Commerce a little faster. Kurnich was so close to Nachberg that the wheels of Empire turned very fast indeed, and we still had a little difficulty there.”

The prince shook his head. “I hope we can make all the wheels turn faster in time, then. If Torrea doesn’t throw a spear through the spokes.”

“Yes, sir,” I fervently agreed. “We can all agree on that.”

Kaczmarek cleared her throat. “Politics aside, is this where we stop?” She pointed across the street to a promising sight: a tall stone building with warm orange light glowing behind the shutters, a stable abutting it, and a sign hanging out the front. “Hauler’s Rest”, it read, beneath a pokework image of a barge drawn by a team of horses. I felt some of the tension leave my shoulders.

“That it is, jäger, thank you.”