Chapter 10: Attollite Portas, Principes Vestras

Brian had been playing with the kennik children all morning by the time Charlotte returned from the outside. He was playing the 'monster' by growling and half heartedly chasing them in a sort of waddle forced by the low ceiling in the room. They would shriek in mock terror and scatter as he came close. Some of the bolder ones would try to circle around behind him, but would jump away from his slow motion lunges.

The sound of the double doors closing behind Charlotte caught his attention and he glanced over at her.

"Looks like the guild sent over a whole serving of soft boys." Charlotte announced as she went to grab her pack from the corner.

"What now?" All the children gave squeaky disappointed groans when Brian gave up the pretend chase.

"Soft boys," Charlotte repeated. "You know, soft eyes, soft hair, soft skin, soft lips, soft emotions... they look like they stepped off of the pages of a shoujo manga. Or, you know that movie 'Tropic Thunder'? The one where R.D.J. is a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude?"

Brian nodded.

"Yeah, in the beginning there's these fake movie trailers, one is for "Satan's Alley" where R.D.J. and Tobey Maguire play these gay monks. I swear the whole lot of boys the guild sent look like they just stepped out of a yaoi harem fanfic for that fake movie."

Brian chuckled. "Anyone we know?"

"No, I don't think so. But the way Mike was making eyes at the tall latin looking one I'm pretty sure he will get to know him before morning. If you catch my drift."

"Good for him. He's been working too hard. He needs some relaxation."

"If I were a fujoshi, I'd ask him if I could watch."

"You're not?"

"Good point. Maybe I am." Charlotte paused a moment to consider. "... no, doesn't do anything for me. I guess I haven't joined those ranks just yet."

***

Binna sat atop the tarp covered supplies stacked on the human's sled. Kurt's group had brought it with them early last week when they returned to the burrow with their new 'doctor'. It was an ingenious design which included two pairs of detachable wheels to convert the sled into a wagon if there was no snow on the ground. Binna tapped the heels of her new boots against the wooden box she was perched on.

The new group of humans that had arrived earlier in the week had also brought four more of the sleds with them. Theirs were likewise stacked high with supplies. Kurt and Brian had been waiting near the plateau every day in anticipation of their arrival. There was concern that they might be in danger from the long ones, so the human leader and ranger had been waiting to guide them. But apparently they needn't have worried.

Raph and several of the clan's scouts had been prowling the thick forest of the plateau on the lookout for stalking long ones while the humans waited at the top of the cliff where they could see their comrades coming early. But there would be no attack coming. Raph said that the only males left in the pack were juveniles and the entire pack was taking great pains to avoid coming close to the humans. Binna didn't quite know what to make of that. The terrors that stalked her very nightmares for as long as she could remember were themselves afraid? At least it spoke well of their chances to reach the old burrow when it came time to go.

The new group of humans included six 'sages' from the human's educational academy on their island as well as four more rangers who would be mapping the region. At Kurt's request and the grandmatron's approval the sages were studying in the burrow with the other storykeepers. Also at Kurt's request and the grandmatron's approval, Binna would be accompanying the humans on the next leg of their quest. The grandmatron had ordered Raph and herself outfitted by the clan to accompany the humans at least as far as the unnamed dwarven city they sought high in the mountains. She had said, if the humans were trying to do something about the miasma then all the clans should do what they could to assist. And if the humans only needed a guide and to share in the clan's knowledge then that was the least that they could do.

Binna had been unable to sleep last night. The anticipation of a journey of this magnitude simply didn't allow sleep to come to her. So she spent the night packing and preparing, and then aimlessly wandering the quiet nighttime burrow when there were simply no more preparations to make. In the early morning hours she spied Michael slipping out of the room assigned to one of the new human visitors, a dark-completed sage named Ramón. The two had been spending a lot of time together over the three days that Ramón and his fellows had been here. Binna didn't quite know what to make of that; two males acting like a mated pair. It wasn't unknown for females of the people to enjoy the company of other females, even sexually, after all they outnumbered the males nearly three to one. Sometimes there just wasn't male companionship available. In the deep past the kennik didn't pair, a single male would mate with as many females as possible, but of course that hadn't been true since the great war. Unrestricted mating would lead to overpopulation and starvation. Now mating was restricted to paired individuals only and because males were outnumbered it was rare for a male to remain unpaired beyond the year of their endorsement.

She had decided that it was just the way of the humans and didn't think much more about it. There were after all some young scouts which preferred each other's company on long patrols in the wilderness. It couldn't be said that there weren't kennik males who preferred the company of other males, at least until the year of their endorsement. Though even for them, as with all males, the day of their endorsement would inevitably mark the end of their youth and the time that they would settle down with a doe.

When it came to the humans, Michael seemed to prefer other males exclusively. Binna simply accepted that humans were different and as the sexuality of her own people was of secondary importance to her the sexuality of humans was even less so. But even so, she couldn't deny that Michael positively glowed with contentment when he finally emerged from the brambles to join the others outside the perimeter.

The new sages would stay behind at the burrow to learn dwarven and to study the storystones. The new rangers were already off mapping the southeastern pass. Kurt, Brian, Charlotte, and Brent had gathered at the sled just outside the main entrance to the clan's protective brier. Raph was already at the mouth of the valley leading to the southeastern pass teaching some scouts how to use the 'clacker' Brent helped him make. It was a simple device to construct, just two polished round stones or two similarly polished hardwood balls attached to each other with a length of string. However, as simple as it was to construct the process of swinging the balls in such a way that they would rapidly strike each other was no easy thing to learn. With the arrival of Michael out from the protective thorny barrier the party was nearly complete and was only waiting on their new doctor.

Akansha was running late. She had been trying to teach the vinetenders how to perform healing magic. There were a few kennik in every generation who had a talent with magic. They would inevitably be trained as vinetenders and use their magic to help guide and grow the brambles that protected the burrow. Of course the magic needed to control the growth of plants was tiny when compared with the magic needed to heal a wound. Because of that healing magic hadn't seemed like something that the kennik would be able to learn. That was until Binna told the story of how Michael and Kurt had worked together to help Brian. The prospect of being able to pool the energy of many kennik to perform a healing ritual was something that they didn't want to pass up.

Akansha, being the most experienced and knowledgeable about the process, had volunteered to try to teach them the skills they would need to accomplish a communal healing ritual. Her final lesson had run long, but eventually she emerged on hands and knees out of the low tunnel through the bramble barrier.

***

"Crawling on hands and knees isn't very becoming of a lady." Akansha didn't really feel as offput as she sounded, but muddy hands and knees really required some sort of comment.

"You're too tall 'Kansha, Michael and I were able to crouch our way through." Charlotte showed off her clean hands.

"That's the price I pay for my statuesque beauty, I guess." Akansha busied herself brushing the mud off her greaves and gauntlets.

Kurt gave Akansha a moment to clean herself up and put on her scarf and long soft leather trench coat before speaking. "Alright, everyone's here except Raph, and he'll meet us as we exit the valley and head up the pass. Brian's going to pull the sled since he's the strongest, but the rest of us will give him a break every couple of hours or as needed. So, Brian speak up if you need a break."

"Will do, boss."

Kurt continued, "We're not expecting any danger here in the valley, or in the pass leading up to the plateau. Once at the plateau we will be in the territory of the gnoll pack we encountered previously. The kennik scouts have indicated that the gnoll pack is deeply fractured and will likely avoid us, but we can't take that for granted." Most of the group already knew this, but Kurt always liked to level set to make sure everyone was on the same page and had an opportunity to ask questions.

"The plateau valley is long and heavily wooded. It's mostly north-south in nature, and we're heading to the extreme north end. There's another pass there leading deeper into the mountains, but we're interested in the dwarven trading post called Teh'del-dum located near that pass. Our kennik friend here," Kurt nodded towards Binna still situated atop the supply sled, "will lead us to the site."

"The trading post is at least partly intact and the kennik had dug out additional warrens inside that they had to abandon because the gnoll pack moved into the plateau. Akansha, this is for your benefit, our map indicates that this trading post is connected to a small unnamed dwarven city further into the mountains and that's our intermediate destination. We're likely to have to remove multiple deadfalls as the dwarves seem to have used them liberally to block access further into their territory. The guild believes that the deadfalls will be common only on the outskirts of the dwarven territory and things should open up as we get deeper. Obviously we can remove the deadfall stone by hand, but we're counting on Charlotte to be able to clear the stone for us."

Charlotte perked up at the mention of her name. "I'm better with air elementals, but I can usually get earth elementals to do what I want too. Moving stone shouldn't be too hard."

Kurt scratched the back of his neck trying to think of anything else, then continued. "That's pretty much it. It's not much of a plan and there's plenty of unknowns, but from what the guild leadership back at the beachhead says, as far as they know we're the group which has made the most progress so far. That feels pretty good, so let's be safe and keep it up. Does anyone have any questions before we set off?"

Seeing that there was none Kurt shrugged and said, "Alright let's move out then. Brent, take the point position please. We aren't expecting trouble, but let's not get sloppy."

(End of Chapter 10)

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Written by Charles Caplan, all characters and situations are fiction.