As the sun rose the following morning, Edwin and his party were already hiking through the woods near Newmark. Their assigned area was to the east of town, back the way they’d come from. Again, it was the direction least likely to have goblins, but even Leodin had made his peace with them being the new guys by now and refrained from griping about it. Then again, maybe it had also been the fight two days ago that had quenched his thirst for blood.

At one point, Salissa had been sure that she’d spotted movement between some distant trees, but a careful search revealed nothing. It was impossible to tell whether it had been an animal or just a figment of her imagination, but none of her companions gave her trouble over it. They were all tense, and after having stumbled into an ambush before, they were all perfectly happy to stop and check a few times too many than one time too few. Aside from that, the day went by without incident, and shortly after sunset, which was happening sooner and sooner as the days got shorter, the party returned to town.

They were the second to arrive, both the soldiers, who patrolled the area closer to Newmark, and Gerrit apparently having decided to go a little longer. Doren’s party, however, was already in the common room of the tavern they’d taken over – and they seemed to have had a more eventful day.

Borm looked up from where he was washing a bloody bandage in a bowl of water and smiled at the newcomers.

“Hey, look who’s back. Had a nice day?”

“We did.”, Bordan replied, his brow wrinkled. “But not as interesting as yours was, apparently. You okay, Hetta?”

The fighter waved off his remark, wincing when her freshly bandaged torso protested at the movement.

“I’m fine, mostly. Caught an arrow in the back. Those buggers had three archers; can you believe it? Good thing their aim is as bad as their arrows, or we would’ve been in trouble.”

Edwin scanned the room, checking the other party’s members for injuries. Aside from Hetta, everyone else seemed to have gotten away with superficial injuries.

“Any hobgoblins?”, Bordan asked.

“None, thank the gods.” Doren sighed. “I’ll hunt goblins as much as you want, but those things creep me out.”

Soon after, the others began to arrive, which meant that the conversation repeated a few more times until everyone was sufficiently reassured that they were fine. An hour later, washed fed and rested, the discount war council reconvened.

“After today’s encounter, we have one more point of contact north of here to add to the map.”, Vellis began. “With that, we are now reasonably certain that the nest is indeed south of here. The question now is how to proceed. Assuming that we are correct, and the nest is more than a day’s travel away, we will need to create a temporary encampment before beginning the final search and ultimately the attack. What I want to avoid is to waste an entire day moving and setting up camp with all of us, just because groups out searching wouldn’t know how to find it.”

The captain waved to the headman, who was accompanied by two more men than before. They were rougher looking than the bureaucrat, with the weathered skin of people who spent their days outdoors.

“I asked headman Fordwen to find people who might know the area. Good men, if we were to travel up to a day towards the south, is there a distinctive landmark we could use?”

The two men, hunters or loggers, Edwin assumed, shared a look. One of them scratched his beard in thought.

“Thunderoak maybe?”

“Huh. Too close.”, No-beard grunted.

A pause.

“The landslide?”

“Think the soldier means something ye can see from far ‘way.”

“Right.”

Another pause.

“If they just need ta see it, might as well just use half a hill.”, Beard said with a shrug and leaned back.

“Oi, good idea!”, No-beard said with a gap-toothed smile and turned back to the captain. “So there’s a big hill south of here, rises normally from one side, is a steep cliff from the other. If ye look at it right, looks like half of a proper hill. Half-a-hill, get it?”

He chuckled, then became more serious when he noticed that nobody joined in. “Anyway, it’s a bit further out, so we don’t usually go there. You can see it fine from afar though, so it should work for ye’s.”

“Thank you, that will be very helpful.”, captain Vellis said with a polite smile and turned to the adventurers. “In that case, I suggest the following: Me and my men march directly towards the hill in question, survey the area and establish an encampment in a defensible location. Your parties split up to search the remaining area close to town, then make your way to the hill and look for us by evening. The next day, we can extend our reconnaissance further out, and hopefully make some real progress on finding the nest. Opinions?”

He looked around, but nobody spoke.

“Sounds good.”, Gerrit finally said. “Just make sure you’re careful when setting up camp, we can’t be sure the nest isn’t near that hill too.”

“Of course, we will take utmost care.”, Vellis agreed, then turned towards the headman. “We are expecting adventurer reinforcements to arrive any day now. If you could fill them in on our plans and direct them towards the hill in question?”

“Of course!”, the headman said, puffing his chest. “You can count on me!”

“Very well. Then, unless anyone has something to add… the meeting is adjourned.”

--- ----- ---

The next day was much like the prior one, the area Edwin and his friends were searching now was even adjacent to the one they had explored the day before. Around noon, Leodin spotted something through the trees and hissed a warning, only to relax and stand up a few seconds later.

“You again!”, he yelled with a grin.

Edwin stepped out from the tree he’d ducked behind and had to smile as well. Exploring a potentially hostile environment for hours on end was tiring, and seeing a friendly face was a welcome break.

“Well, well, look who it is!”, Borm yelled back, and the two parties approached. “You guys get lost, or did you miss me?”

“Us, get lost?”, Leodin asked with feigned indignance. “Considering we’re clearly in our area, the only ones lost are you!”

As the youngsters were bickering, the party leaders, Edwin, Moss and Deld met a few steps to the side.

“Anything?”, Doren asked. Bordan finished drinking from his waterskin and shook his head.

“All quiet. You?” Another headshake.

“Good. As expected then.”, Bordan said.

“We had a good vantage point a short way back.”, Doren said. “Saw the hill. It’s still quite a distance, so I think we should go a little faster. I don’t want to have to look for the camp in the dark.”

“Sounds good.”, Bordan nodded. “See you there.”

The leaders reined in their youngsters, and with a waved goodbye they were off again. As the three parties were only heading in a single direction, their respective areas were quite different than usual: Long and fairly narrow instead of wide, which they were searching out from Newmark in a zigzag pattern. Bordan’s group increased their pace as well, and an hour later they got their first look at their destination as well.

“I thought the name was stupid.”, Leodin admitted as they gazed through the break in the trees. “It really does look like half is missing though.”

“I don’t have a lot of faith in peoples’ abilities to name things, but this restores it somewhat.”, Edwin said with a chuckle. “Did I ever tell you about the village named ‘Three Faces’?”

--- ----- ---

The sun was still providing plenty of light when Edwin waved to an army sentry to announce their presence, and they entered the camp. The soldiers had really outdone themselves. Edwin assumed that they had marched straight here, then immediately began to fortify the position, but in any case, it looked much better than he had expected. It was a collection of tents, more disorderly than usual because it was built between trees that kept them from being perfect rows, but each placed with care, so that soldiers rushing out in a hurry wouldn’t stumble over each other.

The encampment was butting up against half-a-hill’s cliff face on one side, and the others were at least rudimentary protected with ditches, stakes and long branches that were tied to trees like fences. They wouldn’t stop a determined assault, but they would take time to overcome, giving the defenders a few more seconds to get in position or funnel the enemy to where they did less harm. In the center of the camp, several small fires were already burning.

Compared to the times Edwin and his party had had to sleep outside, this was luxurious.