Chapter 15: Returning

If Rel had been watching my back before, after the monster chased us across the river, she was practically glued to my side.

On one hand, it was nice to know I was appreciated. On the other, she really wasn’t making it easier to walk in the darkness. Every few steps her leg would bump mine, almost sending me stumbling in the darkness.

I gave her a look after the third time it happened, but even with the moonlight, I didn’t know if she could see me. She certainly didn’t change her behavior. I swear, the whole lost ducking thing was much cuter when she wasn’t stepping my heels.

In the end, I gave the order to light torches. Everything in this jungle probably knew where we were anyway, after the giant spinomonster thing chased us across the river anyway.

“We need to move faster,” I said as Llen and two others pulled out simple torches. “We ‘re running out of time before dawn, and the last thing we need is the venomous hummingbirds to wake up while we’re grabbing them out of the tree.”

That certainly got them moving, and bought me enough time to look over my shoulder at Rel. The woman looked completely unapologetic about practicaly walking on my calves the way here. Her eyes weren’t even on me, instead she was still staring out into the darkness, hand on a long knife.

“Hey.” She didn’t turn when I spoke. I snapped my fingers in front of her face. “Hey!”

Rel blinked, eyes flashing in the firelight as she turned that gaze to me. “Yes, Mistress?”

I grabbed her by the collar, pulling her close. “Stop standing on my heels.” I took a step back as she blinked rapidly, cheeks coloring. “I appreciate it, really, but be a bit more aware of the situation at hand.”

She nodded quickly.

I turned, raising an eyebrow at the rest of the group. “And why aren’t we moving people?” I clapped my hand once, the sound echoing sharply though the darkness. “You think I’m leaving without some feathers just because we get there after sunrise?”

Len and the others picked up the pace, even as the Len himself leaned over towards me with a concerned look on his face. “You, uh, know they’ll attack us, right, Lady?”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “You know, Electra and I hunted our first batch of hummingbirds in the middle of the day.” And didn’t that sound ridiculous to say even though I knew that they were venemous little bastards in this dimension. “I wonder if you lot can live up to her standards?”

Len’s eyes winded slightly, before he nodded. After that, there was a bit of a fire in his movements. After all, and I smiled.

I wasn’t going to tell them that we’d only ended up in that situation because of my own mistake.

In under a minute, the torches were lit, and we struck out into the darkness once more. This time, I was able to see the ground beneath my feet, so even though we were heading farther away than initially planned, we made much better time.

“Len.” I fell in step beside the scout, helping him beat back the underbrush.

Well, I tried to help, anyway. For some reaso even in this new world with magical creatures and substandard nutrition, I was the shortest person around. It just wasn’t fair, I tell you, where were the dwarves?

“Yes, my lady?”

We kept our voiced quite, and I didn’t distract him from picking out our path more than necessary. “Are the monsters near the village normally this aggressive?” I asked. My sole encounter with something that large had been over a month ago, back when I was first getting my footing in Silverwall. In a city with well, walls, I hadn’t been too concerned about the monsters of the jungle.

The recent bandit attacks had shown that my own walls were much more fallible.

“Depends.” Len shrugged. “Usually, they don’t like come near round people, Lady. Da never told me why.”

“But?” I prompted.

“Sometimes they get a bit more…angry.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Round this season, actually. Every year, like sunrise and sunset. Lots a’ moving and fighting.”

I frowned. “They migrate?” I asked.

“What’s a migrate?” Len turned towards me, eyes lighting up. “Is that some new kinda beast from the outworld?”

I blinked, before shaking my head. “No, nothing like that.” I chuckled. “We don’t have big monsters like that spiny beast we ran across. Migrate just means that the entire population moves, usually from season to season.”

“Migrate.” He tasted the word. “Yes, Lady, think they probably all ‘migrate’ round this time.”

I nodded, rubbing my chin. That could put a damper on my plans. I’d never cared much about history, but even I’d heard that herds of buffalo and things like that could trample through fields if they were in the way of their usual migratory routes.

I think I saw a TV special about elephants migrating from a preserve reacently. I liked to put on the news while I was tinkering around with my robots.

“Ah, My Lady.” Len started.

I turned back towards him.

“Why aren’t there any big monsters in the outworld?”

“Hmm?” I rolled my eyes, turning back to the jungle. “We killed them all, or something.” I smacked him on the back. “And if you don’t pick up the pace maybe ‘Lectra and I will do the same thing here. So double time it, soldier!”

“Yes Ma’am!” He darted off into the jungle. “You don’t need to kill no monsters here, Lady!”

“Wait for the rest of us!” I shouted. Shaking my head. “Honestly.” I glanced over my shoulder at Rel. “Honestly, he reminds me of you?”

She stumbled and I caught her wrist. “You okay?”

“M-me?” She asked. I squinted. “He reminds you of me?”

I huffed playfully, helping my favorite minion back to her feet. “Of course, you’re both cute.” By then, Len had gone maybe twenty feet into the jungle and beat us a trail to follow. “Hard workers too.”

I gave her arm a squeeze, wouldn’t want her thinking I was going to replace her or anything, but really, a girl could get used to having good help. It was such a refreshing change of pace.

Speaking of changes of pace, with our newly motivated guide, we managed to make it to the secondary clearing with an hour or so before dawn. The men carrying torches stayed farther back as I made my way to the too clean ring of trees in the middle of the dense jungle.

It was hard to see in the darkness, but it looked much the same as the clearing that I’d thrown Electra into to get our first batch of hummingbird feathers. A carpet of lush flowers, and a single twisted tree in the middle.

And on that tree sat the birds.

Their feathers were so bright that they reflected the torchlight as though slick with oil. I shook my head. “How’d I ever mistake you for a normal hummingbird?”

“My Lady,” Rel said. “We’re ready.”

I nodded stepping back. “Let’s get it done, then.”

I watched as my men split into two groups, the first, with Len at the head, pulled on thick leather gloves and wrapped scarves, dampened from their own canteens, around their faces.

Those were the bird catchers, and they carefully picked their way across the clearing. I drew back from the puffs of glittering poisonous pollen that drifted up through the air, but we’d done our research. As long as you walked carefully, most of the stuff wouldn’t get up to head height, and what little did was easily blocked by some…personal protective equipment.

Lessons learned from Earth, at least in part.

I watched as the three of them went up to the tree without the hummingbirds so much as stirring. Quickly, like picking apples, Len and the others plucked the birds from the branches, stuffing them into the bags.

“No more than one per pouch!” I called. “We don’t want them pecking each other to death after all this trouble.”

After all, why buy the milk when you could get the whole cow?

At that thought, the second group, wrapped up much more tightly, started cutting into the carpet of flowers with a set of long handled shovels. The bed was separated into neat squares, each one packaged back in the chests we’d brought with us.

I sighed. “It’s almost a shame.”

“What is, Mistress?” Rel leaned against my shoulder.

I opened my mouth, before shutting it with a snap. “Nothing.” I shook my head. “I was just feeling maudlin for a moment, I mean really.” I pressed a hand against my brow. “When it comes to broken eggs and omelets, I’ve down far worse than rip up an ecosystem for my own benefit.”

I turned away from the jungle. They were just birds, after all. “That should be enough!” I called over my shoulder. “We’re moving out before any of the rest start waking up.”

“Think some of them are.” Len lifted up one of the small baggies when he came out of the clearing. It wriggled slightly.

As if there were a bird inside, beating it’s wings weakly against the fabric.

I stared for longer than I should have, before letting out a sigh. “Be gentle with them,” I said. “If they spend too much energy, they could die before we get them back.” I snapped my fingers twice. “Good work people, now let’s get back home before anything else big and spiky tries to take a bite out of us.”

“Mistress?” Rel’s hand came down on my shoulder.

I paused for a moment, before wrapping my fingers over her own. “Don’t worry about it,” I said in response to the silent question. “Just memories.” I shook my head, making sure to keep my thoughts firmly in the present. “It’s not important.” I had a job to do, after all.

Just like always.

Thus, flowers potted and birds gotted, we set course back for Lady’s Port.

Fortunately, the way back was much better, and the sun crested the horizon just as we made it back to the stables. For obvious reasons, I didn’t plan to bring venemous birds and their poisonous flowers into my town.

I nodded to Len and the others. “Good work everyone. I’ll handle getting Electra up to speed.”

“Ah, Mistress.” Rel stepped forward. “I can handle that, if you would like.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Rel gave me a look, her brown eyes tracing over my face with an inscrutable expression. “Yes, My Lady, I need to speak with her on some other things.”

A second eyebrow joined the first. I laughed. “I must have been busier than I’d thought.” Still, I trusted Rel to handle things. She’d never let me down.

I just had to return the favor.

With a nod, I went around, clapping the men and woman under my command on the shoulders. “Good work today.” I dug deep, it had been a long night, and put on a real smile. “I know it’s not glamorous, like kicking the shit out of marauders and bandits.”

The laughed. “Ah, it’s the least we can do, Lady. We owe you.”

“Here, here!” A woman wrapped her arm around Len’s shoulders. “We trust you, Lady.”

They gave a cheer.

Ah, another responsibility. Of course.

I was starting to…remember why I didn’t work with people.

I couldn’t stop from…

I turned, throwing a careless wave over my shoulder.

“I won’t let you down.”