As I woke up raindrops were falling down on our tarpaulin in an constant onslaught. It was quite comfortable under my blanket but I could feel the cool air as I sneaked a peek from under my blanket.
The wounds were hurting noticeably less than last evening, but I still felt drained.
With an conscious effort I propped myself on my elbow. Caroline was sitting under the tarpaulin, fully armored and with her hammer laying on her lap. She was monitoring the surrounding forests.
“Morning!” she whispered nodding at me with a smile.
“Morning.” I yawned.
Milly was somewhere behind me and the next heap of blankets ahead hid Tilly. Behind her had to be Loraline then.
Something warm sneaked along my waist from behind, pulling me back gently. I let myself pull back and came down next to Milly who slung her arms around my waist. I got hold of my blanket and dragged it with me.
“Good morning.” Milly nibbled at my earlobe.
“Morning Milly.” I covered myself with my blanket again.
“Morning Milly.” Caroline waved shaking her head.
“How are your wounds doing?” Milly groaned while she snuggled against my back.
“Still drained, but they will be gone in a few hours.” I relaxed enjoying her embrace.
“My thigh still hurts badly. The rest is fine though.” Milly’s left hand moved up near my boobs while her left hand went down.
“Can you walk today?” I focused to keep my voice calm.
“Don’t known. The cut was pretty deep.” Her hands stopped just at the point where I started to want more.
“We could make a stretcher to carry you until you’re better. W-We sshouldnnt resstt thhhe whhh...” I stopped before it got really embarrassing.
Caroline shot us a dirty look. I blushed furiously. Milly giggled.
Milly simply let her hands where they were. My heartbeat was noticeable and a decided to keep quiet for now.
After a while I felt some mana return. It disappeared again soon, but from the next bunch of mana a rest remained.
I felt way better thereafter. Milly still kept up her tantalizing hold, occasionally teasing with her fingers.
After a while Tilly and Loraline started to stir.
“Let me fix some breakfast.” I started to get up.
“Owww.” Milly pouted as she pulled up her blanket again.
I got some of our provisions from my backpack, enough for everyone. We won’t have a fire anyway.
Soon Tilly and Loraline woke up as well. We sat under the tarpaulin eating while it was still raining. Milly joined us as well. Her thigh was still hurting as far as I could see.
“We should build a stretcher.” I looked at Milly.
“I can walk.” Milly gave me a fierce grin.
“We will see.” I shook my head.
“It will take longer to heal if it still hurts.” Loraline gave me a curious look.
“What?” I locked eyes with her.
“How are you moving like you’re not hurt anymore?” She furrowed her brows.
“It’s magic. We had faster than normal healing from the day we arrived. None of the wound we had festered. As our magic awoke the healing even got faster, it consumes mana though.” I pulled up my shirt showing the cut at my chest.
“It looks completely healed! May I look closer?” Loraline looked at me with wide eyes.
“Feel free.” I nodded at her.
“I’m envious!” She got up and knelt by my side.
“I’m good to go as well.” Tilly drank a swig of water.
“There is just a scar!” Loraline shook her head in disbelieve.
“Healing magic is rare!” Tilly smiled smugly.
“It is.” Loraline shook her head again.
“Let’s decamp and get ready for the day.” I got to my feet.
We packed all we had, our tarpaulins last and started our way up the range again.
A few hundred meters later Milly stopped after gritting her teeth all the way.
“Let’s make a stretcher.” I helped Milly to the ground.
“It will slow us down!” Milly furrowed her brows.
“I’ll tie you to the stretcher if you don’t comply.” I took off her backpack.
“I Dare you!” she glared at me.
We cut down two small trees and used some rope to fashion as stretcher for Milly and her backpack.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
After tying down a struggling Milly to the stretcher we continued our way up the mountain.
She didn’t earnestly resist and tried to wiggle suggestively at me every time I was looking. At least she avoided moving her injured thigh.
We were much slower and had to rest frequently. We switched who was carrying the stretcher frequently as well.
About an hour before noon the rain stopped and after a while the clouds parted.
The trees changed to more and more conifers as we continued up the mountains.
We took a larger break a few hours past noon.
“Tomorrow it will be much steeper than today.” Loraline looked south.
“Will we go west or east of that mountain?” I went over and hugged her.
“West will be easier. East will be difficult, at least at this time of the year.” she looked at her feet.
“I’m glad you’re with us.” I looked down north. The coast was still visible.
“As soon as we’re past these mountains I can’t help you anymore.” Loraline sighed
“You can. You’re the one who knows that much about the plants. We should take anything edible we find on our way.” I sat down on a large boulder patting at my side.
“I’m useless in a fight, it was just just ..” She sat down beside me.
“It’s hard the first time, but next time will be better. You even managed to act on your first fight to the death.” I laid an arm around her shoulder.
“I never learned to use weapons like you did.” She laid her head on my shoulder.
“You’re still the best archer we have. And you will learn what you’ll need.” I pulled her closer.
“Well I known my way around in the wilderness a bit.” she looked up to me solemnly.
“You’re strong, Loraline. You get where you want” I cracked a smile.
“I have to work hard!” She pressed her lips together.
“We all started to help ourselves in a fight at some point. Remember neither of us was born that way.” I felt her tension loosening a bit.
We continued carrying Milly until the late afternoon. The ground got steeper by the hour. We continued a while after the suns were down. A while later we found a place where jutting out rock protected from the rain.
“How should we organize guard duty? Everyone needs about 10 hours of sleep.” Milly pulled her knees to her chest and slung her arms around them.
“We can’t do two person guards since we’re odd.” Tilly smirked.
“It’s you that makes us odd, now we’re even.” I shot.
“I’m trying to do serious work here.” she glared at Tilly and I.
“You’re even more odd.” I snickered.
Milly groaned.
“We could do five shifts of two and half hours. That’s ten hours for everyone.” Tilly was trying to hide a smirk.
“We only add two and a half hours to the night. At the moment time is something we shouldn’t waste. We should change that if someone is injured or we expect trouble. Two guards will see more than one.” I looked at the others.
“Sounds good for now.” Loraline nodded.
“We should put the ones with night vision in the dark shifts.” Caroline added.
“We should try to make more use of daytime. Today it got quite late.” I looked at Milly.
“Sounds good. Let’s make it so.” Milly got up.
“I’ll do the first watch.” I got up.
“It’s going to be cold tonight.” Loraline got her bedroll.
“Let’s sleep close together. It helps with the cold.” Caroline put her bedroll next to Loraline.
“I take the second watch.” Milly got ready for sleeping as well.
I took position where I could see all of the sleeping girls and started monitor the surrounding forest. There was a small clearing near this rocky outcropping.
After a while I started to use my heat spell once in a while, keeping my mana low enough for constant regeneration. I’ve been doing that all day to get a bit extra strength when needed or just anything else. No need to keep topped up over the day. My mana had bin grown quite a bit and with more mana there seems to be more regeneration as well.
It would have been nice to have a bit more powerful spells or more mana. At least the mana seemed to grow slowly, even if the growth had slowed down to a crawl.
Trying to guess the time by the movement of the stars I woke up Milly after about two and a half hours. I still have to work on that, since we were mostly indoors the last years.
I put most of my mana into heating up my bedroll. It didn’t do much, but it was better than nothing and the mana should be used nonetheless.
I fell asleep quickly. The day was taxing.
I was feeling good as I woke up. The others were already preparing our meager breakfast. I packed my bedroll and joined them after a few minutes.
The weather was sunny and the suns were up already. It was still cool so I spent a few mana for a warm place to sit down.
“Today we will probably reach the alpine pastures. Maybe there is snow here and there at this time of the year. We will need about two days with steady but much less incline before we reach the barren stone. This part is rather isolated, but to the west and to east herders with goats and cows will stay for the summer. There are no villages in the forest below, thus we won’t see anybody here soon. Farther up it will get more dangerous.” Loraline stretched her arms over her head.
“You mentioned we could go east or west around the mountain.” I got myself another strip of jerky.
“The west is more civilized and believed less dangerous. In addition the terrain is much better to traverse.” Loraline pointed west.
“The east is steep and we will have to climb at some point. We have to get higher up as well and it can be risky if the weather turns bad.” She pointed to the east.
Milly looked at me tilting her head.
“I would take the east route. At the moment our pursuers hopefully only have the direction we’re going. Going right over the mountain is nonsense. They will make the same assessments as we do probably and will assume we know this as well. I think they will assume we take the easier route as we are just some desperate girls running away in panic. We want east anyway and they will make a detour this way, giving us the chance to get a bit more distance. It depends on the terrain on the other side as well.” I looked north.
“I don’t know much about the other side. There is a glacier at the south side of the mountain as far as I have heard.” Loraline got to her feet.
“Maybe they even come over to the east route in the end. I think it the better move. The worst case is they come directly to the right side, but it seems we have a bit of a headstart. We may see them at some time when they cross the pastures.” I got up as well.
“Then let’s go.” Milly started to put on her backpack.
A few minutes later we were ready to move.
The steep mountain flank was dominated by fir trees. Rock outcroppings littered the terrain as well. The snow covered summit of the mountain loomed over the trees. This day we will cover quite some altitude.
I wonder if we get high enough to worry about mountain sickness. I had no idea about how high these mountains were and if the ridge we had to pass was high enough to cause problems. At least the western claws are believed to be have lower peaks than the east. Probably it would be the best to stay more to the valleys as we continue, at least for a while. Scaling one of the peaks should be off limits though, since they’re at least about 3000m since they’re snow covered throughout the year.
A while after sunset we reached the alpine meadows. We put up a tent with some stick beside a rocky outcropping. While we had our simple dinner the stars came out again. We kept the watches as they were. It was quiet around here.
Sooner or later we would have to start a fire. It was noticeable colder here, spots of snow covering the pastures. I wonder if we could use the heating spell for some extra comfort. Unfortunately it didn’t last really long. I started to heat the ground under the bedrolls from time to time during my shift.
I woke up Milly after I thought my shift was done.
“It’s warmer tonight than yesterday.” Milly yawned.
“I take your bedroll then.” I patted her head.
“Do that.” She slipped out from under her blanket, shivering.
“I put some heat spells on the ground under the blanket once in a while.” I crawled under her blanket. It smelled like Milly. I carefully snuggled between the others.
“Good idea. I’ll try to keep it up. Night Lilly.” Milly yawned
Even if were in a tough spot all in all I felt strangely elated leaving all those constraints behind which dominated my life in the last years.
“Night.”
I fell asleep soon after a taxing day in the crisp mountain air.