PreCursive

  The gathered forces moved out almost directly after Hook’s dramatiou. Which made sense, when you thought about it. We were still in the nds where the Loyalists had set off what Hook had abruptly started calling the ‘Break Stones’.

  We o put distaween ourselves and the horde.

  With orders to make their way to the dual cities of Elderwyd Ttec by whatever method they saw fit, the gathered forces departed on their own. There were thirty-ohered Noe agents, and they pretty much all left indepely. There were a total of twenty-seven regur Uprising soldiers as well, with a majority being from the Order. At Hook’s suggestion, they decided to assist the destine campaign against Elderwyck by f an impromptu band of ‘meraries’. It was as good of a cover as any a bunch of stealth novice ground-pounders and Cssers could hope for.

  Renauld went with them, to act as their healer. The two of us said oodbyes with promises to meet back up iy. Because I was one hundred pert going to be part of the campaign.

  Eventually, it was just Hook, Sylvia, and I in the clearing where we’d all met up. The nominal head of the Noe Division had kept us back from departing together. My thoughts were he was going to be keeping an eye on us, as a favor to Grey.

  Turns out, I was only half right.

  “You two are ing with me,” Hook said pointedly. “We’re going to be making a detour before we make our way to Elderwyck.”

  I exged gnces with Sylvia, letting her speak first. “What are we doing?”

  “We o go warn the Hill Tribes about the horde,” Hook said grimly. “If we don’t, they’re going to be caught off guard when a literal army of bloodthirsty beasts rolls through their nds. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live with the deaths of thousands of is on my hands.”

  “Fuo,” I said, almost instinctually. “Lead the way.”

  “Hold your horses there, Hangman,” Hook said, sounding mildly amused despite the seriousness of our situation. “A few instrus first. We’ll be approag a powerful local power by the name of Thunderheart, which I know at least one of you is familiar with.”

  I almost asked him how he khat, before I realized that Sylvia had likely made a report about it. For a moment, I wondered what else she had reported about me and my as before I’d joihe Division, but kept quiet.

  Surprisingly, I didn’t care much about the possible breach of privacy. There were more important things at stake than my secrecy.

  “Whisper is ing because she’ll have weight with them, being the daughter of local figure of legend like Grey,” He my…partner, I suppose I could call her. “Hangman because he has es to a lost member of theirs. An important o that. You two are not to approach them as Whisper and Hangman. Rather, you will be ag as Sylvia and Nathan Hart, the retly married daughter and apprentice of Grey of the Shadowed Sun.”

  I abruptly flushed under my mask, as Sylvia almost squirmed in embarrassmeo me. “Is there anything you people don’t know?! And we’re not married!”

  God, it had only been a few days since we’d e to an agreement and it already felt like every interfering old fogey we knew had figured it out. I glowered at the dwarven ander.

  “Suck it up,” Hook said, unphased. “It’s only a small fi, and it’ll help in otiations.”

  iations?

  “I thought we were only going to be warning the tribes about the horde?” I asked, fused. “What do we have to iate about?”

  “Well,” Hook drawled. “Since everythi out the window, it doesn’t hurt to talk about this. The Uprising was already intending to approach the Hill Tribes. They’ve staunchly refused to take a side in the war, even though we know they have sympathies with the Sculpted. Historically, it’s gone badly for them when they’ve joined in on ‘lownder’ flicts. However, now they don’t have a choice, because the Loyalists made it for them with this shit. They’ve just unleashed the rgest horde of monsters Vereden has ever seen on their aral nds. I don’t think even the Chaos Gods ever fielded a force this rge against us.” Hook shook his head. “I’ve been out of tact so I ’t ask, but I would be unsurprised if the thought of approag the Principality for assistance wasn’t rolling around in at least one of the leadership’s heads.”

  I’m sure Grey would be ecstatic about that. Having to possibly ask Anguis of House Savoy for military assistance would probably grate on him like nails on a chalkboard.

  “What the hell are the Loyalists thinking?” I wondered out loud. “This is going to turire p on them. Hell, it might turn another p ohis is just…” I trailed off, at a loss for words.

  Surprisingly, Hook looked troubled as well. He took a deep breath. “I don’t know,” He admitted. “This is beyond anything we ever pnned for. It’s pletely out of character even the most strident war hawk with the Loyalist and.”

  “Could it have been something that came from Leonard Ashran?” Sylvia piped in uedly. “The man has shown an affinity for monsters in the past.”

  My eyebrows shot up at the suggestion, uanding where Sylvia was ing from. That…made a bit of sense.

  Hook’s face fell even further. “Gods, I hope not,” He said tiredly. “If he is, I’m going to have to be the oo tell Leopold that his brother is one of the worst war criminals in the history of Vereden.” He shook his head. “But enough talk. We have work to do.” He reached into a pou his armor and withdrew a familiar ball of flesh-colored putty. Applying it with experienced hands, Hook altered his face with the FAT to such a degree that he was unreizable. “I’ll lead the way to the Thunderheart settlement. Ohere, I’ll step bad act as a guard. You two will be the face of these iations. It should only take us a day of travel to reach them. Let’s go.”

  As the three of us plus Fade took off, I briefly wondered about our ck of supplies. But then again, I’d noticed that people with an active Status just needed less food and water than someone from Earth did in a survival situation.

  I’d just been fing and hunting for the st week, after all.

  I could just do more before we reached Thunderheart.

  ………………………………………………..

  Hook set a fairly brutal pace as he led us through the hills and valleys of the tryside. All four of us were in a visibly heighteate of cautioe our speed. Even though Hook told us that most of the mohat had beeed from all the breaks were moving almost as a mass, there were still tons of monsters out here.

  Far, far more than I think I’d ever entered before.

  Roaming the tryside were massive groups of the things, with numbers well into the hundreds. We had to employ our steath abilities and evade them to the best of our ability if we didn't want to get swarmed. Hook told us that we had nothing to worry about, and that if we really got into trouble, he could ha, but...

  Even he was wary of these offshoots of the horde. All it took was one mistake, and a group of giant prairie dogs would tear out your throat.

  However, a sizable amount of the monsters were the mutants that I had noticed just after the first break I saw. By and rge, they were mostly crippled in such a way as to be helpless. But they were still aggressive, aill had to watch out.

  Just because a Dirtgnawer had no limbs, didn’t mean it couldn’t do its best to tear out your throat.

  As we found out.

  Man, that thing had beey determined. I’d been surprised at how far a limbless mole rat could leap.

  But I digress.

  The first thing that Hook had us do on our trek was visit the site of the Break Stone instaltion I had found. I led them back there as best I was able, to find that there was surprisingly more still standing than I would have thought.

  The unknown Loyalist soldier’s camp was beyond ruined, and the actual modified Ward Stone had been reduced tments and splinters. But the plinth it had been rotating on was still partially intact.

  Hook instructed me to copy down as much of the runic array on the plinth as I could manage so that the Noe enters could hopefully decipher the exact meisms behind it. I didn’t get everything, and I made sure that Hook uood that a majority of the entment had been lost with the stone. But I did as he asked anyway, while the other two tracked down as many shards of the stone as they could find.

  Of the Loyalist soldier that set it off, we found nothing.

  Frankly, I didn’t care what happeo him. It didn’t matter the reasons behind his as, not even if he had been bckmailed into doing it.

  He had still helped unleash thousands and thousands of monsters on an unsuspeg tryside.

  When we’d done all we could to catalog the site, Hook marked it down on a small map, a baderway.

  As we dashed through the Herztalian tryside on our way to Thunderheart, I couldn’t help but marvel at its beauty. This was some truly wild nd. Any traces you would expect of civilization were few and far between, with no roads or waymarkers to be found. Hell, I hadn't even seen any abandoned campsites. I think it was only thanks to the fact that we were all wearing literal armor that the rough brush and burrs didn’t shred the flesh, of those of us that were flesh ined.

  Amusingly enough, Sylvia pio me during the single night ed out on our travels that the brush was actually leaving streaks on parts of her exposed Mithril skin. She would have to spend some time buffing herself with a rag ter, to get the stains out. When I offered to help, unthinking about any possible otations, she became bashful.

  “Perhaps aime,” She told me, in a slightly embarrassed tone.

  It was only ter that I sidered the implications of one person essentially rubbing dowher, when they were involved as we were.

  Yeah…maybe when we were closer.

  Eventually, Hook stopped us just at the foot of another hill, turning to face the rest of our small group. “Alright, the Thunderheart settlement is just oher side. Cloaks off. They’re probably already aware of us, but I’ll fall back for now a you two do the talking. Remember, when you reach their gates, identify yourself and ask to speak to the cil of Elders. From there, proceed as I coached you.”

  Sylvia and I our nominal superior, and removed rey Noe cloaks to reveal the Order armor underh. Hook fell back as he said, positioning himself behind us. Side by side, Sylvia and I marched up to the ridgeline and looked out.

  Oher side of the hill was a long, low valley in whi Thunderheat had decided to y their hearths. Mostly ft and bordered by a small mountain range on the opposite side from us, there was a beautiful winding river that seemed tinate from a particurly tall peak. It looked like the settlement had been structed along the banks of the meandering river.

  And, well.

  Thunderheart’s stronghold itself was certainly ein.

  I meant that in the best possible way.

  Where Helstein was rge and imposing, this vilge was small. Where Helstein was mostly unadorohis pce was structed mostly of either wood, thatch, or earthwork. Don’t get me wrong, though. Even from this distance, I could tell that there was a certain sense of pride that the Thunderhearts took in their craftsmanship. I could see intricately carved motifs of various animals all along their walls, both inside and out, as well as delicate knotwork and thundercloud patterns. It was far more poputed than I would have expected, as well. I could see hundreds of people scurrying about the vilge, with a particurly rge amount of them w on the banks of the river. They looked to be hauling iher fish from the, oods from the longshipsed along the small docks the vilge seemed to have. From my high point, I could see a ring of standing stones arranged in a circle just outside of the eastern wall. The walls themselves were tall, wooden, and sharpeo a point with a number of watchtowers built along its circumference.

  And, uedly, they’d noticed us immediately, even from the distance we were at.

  I squinted from the light that was being reflected into our eyes, directed from mirrors set up ichtowers. Although my vision was being deliberately blinded, I was still able to see as a group of armored warriors saddled up on massive warhorses and immediately began riding out to our position.

  I’m guessing they didn’t want us to move.

  It had nothing to do with the longbowmen that I could see readying themselves on their walls. Certainly not.

  I really, really didn’t want to mess with anyone who thought they could hit a target with a bow of all things over a distance of several miles.

  Exging a gh Sylvia, we mutually airely non-verbally agreed to stay put.

  “Hmm…” Hook said, incredibly quietly. I could only just barely hear the dwarf. “They’re on edge.”

  That boded well.

  Guess we’ll see why soon.