XXVI

Holding this force together while it fell back was like plugging a hole in a crumbling damn by jamming your finger into it, every time Emilia thought she had a patch in place that would hold the pressure would push through at another point, would cause another crack to form. She sighed as she looked at the report, this time about a supply wagon that had gotten mared in the much that was the edge of these damnable swamps. One of the horses that had been pulling the cart had stumbled when it had stepped into a low spot covered over by mud and had broken a leg. The poor beast had to be put down, unfortunate to be sure but the fact of the matter was that they had no time to care for the beast, as it was they had an advance force of Kurtz whitecoats hot on their heels. She had pulled her force out about three days ago, and it had taken the Kurtz army only a half-day to muster up a force to pursue, a force that from the reports she had gotten was nearly twice as large as her own, and had the look of fresh troops, unlike her own harried and harassed men, these men were likely from one of the two airships Adrian had not managed to down so they were fresh and had a fire lit under them, or at least under the officers driving them.

As such, she was currently up shit creek without a paddle or a boat. Sighing she looked at the contents of the wagon, now one short of its team. A single horse could not pull the massive load, unfortunately, and it looked like it was a mixture of medical and foodstuffs, meaning she couldn't leave it behind. She rubbed her temples and groaned to herself. “What is it this time?” she didn't look up, she didn't need to she knew that voice, she knew the way it squeezed her heart.

“Wagon lost a horse, and we are in desperate need for the items and supplies it carries,” she told him. Looking over at the man she smiled a bitter smile, “Want to donate yours?” she asked mockingly.

“If we need the supplies then yes,” he said, swinging one leg over the saddle and dismounting before reaching up and helping the small savage woman out of the saddle. Emilia blinked in surprise, years ago, before he had been captured he would have laughed at that, and told her to get one of her men to dismount, but now…

She didn't know how to deal with this man, he was Adrain but he also wasn’t, like a different man was wearing his face. Where she expected him to laugh he was solemn, where she expected him to get angry he only smiled. “Torin!” he barked, and a man came running out of the ranks of marching men up to him.

“Yes sir?” the rather large and intimidating Sargent stepped out of the column of soldiers and ran over. The leather contraption he had strapped to his forearm was a clever design, she would need to see who had done that for him, currently, it held the barrel of a musket sinched in its straps, allowing him to both carry and fire the weapon even with only one hand. He made an awkward salute, crossing the both of his arms, the musket only getting in the way slightly.

“There is a wagon near the back, it is in need of a horse if you would please,” he said, and handed the man his reigns. Torin nodded and running off he pulled the horse behind him, leaving Adrian and Isi walking.

“I’ll see if I can find you another horse,” she sighed, moving to wave over one of her commissioned officers but Adrian spoke first.

“No need,” he said, picking up the military march with ease, his long legs settling into the motion. “If the men can walk then we can aswell,” he said, and she heard more than a few murmured statements of approval from the ranks of men behind her. “Besides,” he said, “we will need every able-bodied man to be prepared, we should be reaching the edge of Gual’tor in the next three days, meaning that if there are roaming bands of marauders or bandits we will need to deal with them, I'm more rested than others.” she knew this wasn't true but she also knew she could never get him to admit that some things change and others, others stay the same.

“What was it like?” she asked, looking forward, guiding the horse out of formation and bringing it to stand in front of the two of them.

“What?” he asked, and she didn't look at him, she could hear the tension in his voice.

“I see,” Emilia said, and nodded to herself, some things weren't for casual conversations, and this seemed to be one of those things. Besides she had things to deal with, “as you were,” she said, and spurred her horse, riding to the front of the formation before climbing a small treeless hill and turning back to look at her troops, partially obscured by a fog that rolled off of the swamps. A long line of ragged men stretched as far as the eye could see, and past that somewhere was a convoy of wagons. Somewhere behind that, there was an army of Kurtz soldiers. The whitecoats had an advantage, one that couldn't be ignored, the question was when they would press that advantage. For the moment it seemed like they were content with letting ground troops follow her on foot, but at some point, they would instead load them up on those Airships and without a set of rotary gun, she had no reliable way to take out the Airships.

She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, and not for the first time wished Janus hadn't been deployed on the southern border. It had taken some time to wrap her head around being married to Janus, after all, she saw him more like a younger brother than she had ever seen Adrian as an older one. She had done what needed to be done, not that she took any pride in it, in fact, she had not been able to look at herself in the mirror for nearly a year, the guilt of the act churning her stomach. Hers and Janus’s had been a rocky start to the marriage, though over the years however she had grown to enjoy his more analytical side, in times like this he could have given her the answers she needed, on everything from the armies position to what to do about Adrian, after all, he knew Adrain better than anyone, including herself. She paused and wondered if that was still true, Adrain was nowhere near the man he had once been. You could see it in his eyes when he looked at you, a sort of hardening in his eyes, a jaded look to them that seemed to age the face, or at least whether it. Something had happened, perhaps the camps, perhaps something else, but whatever it was it had changed the man, made him someone new. He looked more or less like he used to, aside from those eyes and a collection of new scars that she was willing to bet were more extensive than she the few she had glimpsed. It was like another man was now wearing his skin, pretending to be Adrian, but not quite knowing all the small things that made him, well him.

Could she tell him?

No, not right now, she couldn't drop something like that, not after they had just barely gotten a sort of working relationship going again. Someday perhaps, but not today, she neither trusted herself or him with it, it would serve them both better if she just forgot it for the moment. Slowly she allowed her eyes to scan to the east, straight towards the city of Gaul’tor. Once it had been the capital of Helheim, a magnificent city that stretched wide across the plains directly in the center of the fertile breadbasket are of Helheim. It had fallen some three thousand years ago, a product of a civil war that broke out. While the king of Helheim was out of the capital rebels seized the city, capturing and killing the kings family before closing the gate and hanging them over the side of the wall. In his rage the king ordered the rebels destroyed no matter the cost. What resulted was a horror story on a massive proportion as troops attacked their city. Civilians and rebels were cut down left and right, indiscriminately and eventually, the city was retaken, but not without heavy losses on both the kings and the sides of the rebels, and that said nothing about the countless slaughtered innocents. So reproachful was the act and the sight that the king did not reoccupy the city, instead of setting it all to the torch and relocating the capital of Helheim to the farthest corner of the kingdom’s land, well away from Gual’tor.

Over time Gual’tor’s cursed influence had grown, so much so that none would dare to go there, for fear of angering the dead. It was nonsense, a complete fabrication. Emilia knew this, and yet she still couldn't help but look over towards the city’s direction, there was still a number of days before they could even so much as catch a glimpse of accursed city, and yet she still found herself shivering at the thought of leading her men through the crumbled walls, hemmed in by dead stone. Breathing deeply she pushed those feelings away, she couldn't afford them, she had to make sure it didn't get in her way, didn't get in the way of the job she had to do, after all, lives depended on her, and she was going to be damned if anything caused her to lose sight of that, be it for Adrian or fear, both would have to step aside.

At least until this job was done...