“Whiskey!” Zan shouted.
She turned around sharply. A mean look spread across her face, then vanished.
“You’re scaring away the animals… but I have mine, so no harm, no foul,” she replied.
“Looks like it. Can I help?”
“Do you have any experience in butchery?” she asked.
“Some. The elders in my village taught me to hunt. I know the basics. You can guide me through what I don’t know.”
Whiskey looked at the carcass. Mulling for a moment but knowing she did not have the time to overthink, otherwise, nature would reclaim the carcass and it would go bad, she said, “Fine. Let’s be fast, eh?”
Zan and Whiskey worked quickly together. With his prior knowledge under Whiskey’s guidance, Zan worked as well as he could to carve up the meat. Thankfully, the animal was not gigantic. Whiskey already having prepared salt-encrusted burlap sacks for store the meat, told Zan to toss the cleaved cuts into the storage sacks. With the summer heat, they were working against the grain for time.
“That’s good enough,” Whiskey said. “Normally, I like to carve up more, use everything, but we don’t have time. Thank you for your help. I gotta get this back to my people.”
“Not a problem at all!” Zan said. “Jiehong is near. Want to say ‘hi’?”
Whiskey was already thumping in the opposite direction. Her way of saying, ‘no.’
Returning to the main road without a lodestone having been located, Zan sighed. What was he to tell Jie? No stone, no woman — he clearly had a crush on — and no escape from the now encroaching shadows of the dimming sun; he and Jie slept through most of the day, he reminded himself. They would have to travel at night just to make it to Feathervale in the morning.
“Hey, find the stone?” Zan asked of Jie when he returned to the main road as well.
“Nadda. Nope,” Jiehong said. “You?”
“Nope. That’s not important, though. You’ll never believe it. I met Whiskey out in the woods. She was hunting an animal. I helped her carve it up.”
Expecting excitement, Zan instead saw Jiehong scoff. “You did not!”
“Did so!” Zan repeated.
“What on this mighty mean planet would Whiskey be doing in the middle of bum-frick south?” Jiehong asked, laughing.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Hunting. She claimed a kill. She must be traveling with some fighters. I dunno.”
Giving it some thought, Jiehong said, “And you didn’t let me know she was near?”
“She was in a hurry. I asked her if she wanted to meet you, but… well, she didn’t even reply. Again, she was in a hurry.”
“Well… hopefully we cross paths again.”
“I’m sure we will, bud. She is our fellow countrywoman. Her blade will be just as useful in the defense of our homeland.”
Together, the two friends resumed their march. But only so fast. They still needed to find that lodestone.
As a bit of a fateful coincidence, the stone issue resolved itself.
Walking only slightly further ahead in the road than when the Wardens contacted them, they saw the lodestone plain as day.
It was stuck in a tree’s trunk.
“Wish all of them were that easy!” Jiehong said, laughter coming heavily from him.
Zan could only roll his eyes at the stone. We had been searching so minutely — and it was right in front of us! A drunkard could’ve found it!
Approaching, Zan touched the stone and imbued it with energy.
“That’s it for me,” Zan said. “No more magic.”
“I haven’t seen the Slipstream. We might be awash for some time,” Jiehong replied, referring to difficulties they might encounter without magic.
“No matter. We have persevered before, we will continue to persevere. Though I wonder why the Slipstream is so irregular lately. Do you think it has something to do with the invasion?”
“Maybe? I don’t know why that would have anything to do with the gods, though. I doubt the Expanse is so powerful to alter the very refuse of the gods! Seems unlikely…”
Zan and Jiehong continued to chat about things for a bit. They did so while moving ahead, though. While on the road with nothing but the future ahead of you, it was easy to slip into idle chatter. With nothing more to do, the chit-chat became the only way to pass the time. Yet, as Zan talked more and more with Jiehong, he eventually developed a distaste for the chitter. Why? It was empty; he told himself. Jokes, stories… what did it mean when there were deeper issues among them worth discussing?
Yet what could he complain about? Jiehong seemed to throw himself into the Ranger-Knight work, taking it seriously. Maybe this was only because he spent part of his search time intoxicated, but… Zan could only bemoan his friend for so long.
“I thought it would be colder at night,” Jiehong said.
“Why? You’ve lived your whole life here. You know how it is during the summer.”
“Sure. I mean, like, we’ve moved away from our home some. I thought maybe the local weather might be more chilly.”
“No. It’s still summer. I don’t think weather works like that.”
Around them, black reigned.
But guidance of the stars gifted them illumination. The warm and humid night air filled with chirps from an assorted flurry of insects, as in the sky, the distant yet vast shape of one god or another floated lazily in the distance. Zan wished the god would emit some magic for them to use. Oh well.
“Is that Feathervale in the distance?” Jiehong asked.
“I think? Let me check with the Wardens.”
Zan pinged the Wardens for confirmation. With answer in hand, he told Jiehong, “Yeah! That’s Feathervale. I didn’t think we would already be upon it.”
“Let’s maintain our pace. No, sorry. Increase our pace. We don’t want to spend all morning giddying about like a couple of young mares.”
So, doing just that, the pair hurried themselves. Gradually coming closer to the town, Zan could not but help wonder what they would find. What was Feathervale like? Were its people friendly? What was the country like when not threatened immediately by war?
Alas, Zan would need to wait more to find out.
Approaching the city, Jiehong cried, “Wait. Those are siege engines. And a camp. Horses? Those are the rebels who passed us earlier. What is going on here?!”