Edwin crawled out of the tent, quietly closing the flap behind himself. He stood, letting his gaze wander across the sleeping camp. The moon was out, and in its silvery light Edwin could see almost as well as during the day. Sighing contentedly, he wrapped his cloak around himself and started walking.

He had never needed much sleep; four hours left him feeling as refreshed as a regular man might be after eight. Before the war, he’d simply gone to bed later or gotten up earlier, and during his team’s missions they’d rarely gotten much sleep anyway. Now, there really wasn’t anything to do. Since lying in his bed roll and listening to the snoring of his companions was boring, he had begun to go on nightly walks instead.

Like a shadow, Edwin slipped between tents and carts, winding his way to nowhere in particular while keeping well clear of the few fires still burning, where sleepy soldiers were warming themselves up to prepare for guard duty. There was something special about being awake when everyone else was sleeping. A lesser man might have called it magical, but Edwin didn’t use that word frivolously. He was surrounded by thousands of people, yet none of them were aware he was here. It was a welcome change from his regular life, where he couldn’t help but garner attention wherever he went. He had gotten used to it, had come to terms with the fact that a life as an anonymous adventurer simply wasn’t in the cards for him. Apparently, even if you controlled all the variables of your birth, you still had little control over the trials your environment placed on you.

Still, walking unseen amongst the masses was calming. Therapeutic. Edwin paused in the shadow of a supply cart, letting a patrol pass him by without noticing him. There was no reason to hide, it wasn’t like he wasn’t allowed to wander the camp at will. He likely wouldn’t even need to go through a lot of questioning, as a frightening portion of the army knew who he was. He suspected first banner to be behind his unwelcome notoriety.

Being the first ones to see actual combat and be rewarded for it by the general himself, the story of their encounter with the goblin nest had likely made the rounds in the fort quite thoroughly. If they had painted his involvement in the same light as Lieutenant Elm had that night after their arrival in the fort, it was no surprise that he continued to receive respectful nods from soldiers he had never seen before. It probably didn’t help that he was easily recognizable either, especially while wearing his armor.

Edwin reached the edge of the camp and stopped. He searched around, quickly making out the shadowy figures of the sentries. Keeping their town-sized temporary encampment safe was probably not easy, but he knew that there were several layers of security that he couldn’t see, with patrols and hidden sentries in the woods surrounding them. Not wanting to disturb the watchers, he turned around.

Taking a different path on his way back, Edwin passed by the mages’ area. There was still light in one of the coaches, shining through a curtained window. He was tempted to walk up and knock, to discover who else was burning the midnight oil and what important reason kept them up this late. Smiling, he continued on his way. Not tonight.

--- ----- ---

It was late afternoon when the pursuing division finally caught up with them, the sun already crawling toward the western horizon. From their position east of Giant’s Head, the cliff was little more than a black wall against the waning light, only just visible through the bare trees ninth auxiliary was concealed between.

They had only arrived a short while ago themselves, and moving every cohort to where they were supposed to be had taken time. Instead of the extensive earthworks their previous position had boasted, this time they only had a few shallow ditches, mostly to block the road.

Edwin stood up to his full height and craned his neck, making out the Marradi soldiers streaming through the woods as little splashes of color moving between the trees.

“Here they come,” he said, stepping back into cover. “And we’re out on the flank again.”

“At least this time there’s a real likelihood that we’ll get to fight,” Bordan answered. “Our line isn’t all that long, and the other flank is braced against the mountain. If they don’t want to grind their way through the front, this is where they’ll go.”

He was right, of course. Edwin didn’t know if Asher was warming up to the idea of them fighting, or if there simply wasn’t anywhere else to put them, but both adventurer cohorts were spread out over a wide swath of forest left of their front line. The road, where the center of their formation was held by a heavy cohort, was perfectly within the field of fire of the fixed ballistae hidden in the mountain above them. If the Marradi didn’t want to fight the entire battle with two-meter-long steel-tipped crossbow bolts raining on their heads, going around 5th division’s line far from the mountain was logical. If that happened, the adventurers would fight to slow the enemy down, falling back as necessary until reinforcements could strike the flanking force from the side.

Once again, Edwin was annoyed by how long it took for the battle to actually begin after both armies had turned up. They couldn’t travel in combat formation, so they had to spend some time rearranging once they arrived near the battlefield.

“Why don’t we just attack them when they’re still marching?” Leodin asked. “We’d only have to fight one cohort at a time instead of waiting here and allowing them to form up.”

“Any force strong enough to pose a threat to a division on march would be spotted by their scouts long before they got close enough,” Bordan explained. “On the other hand, a force small enough to evade detection would be too small to actually deal any damage. In general, that is.”

Bordan was quiet for a few seconds, then continued.

“It’s possible to slow them down though, engaging them with a force just strong enough that they have to abandon their marching formation to repel them. It’s called ‘delaying’, and it was one of our specialties when I was in the 3-1-3. It’s not easy to do though, so you wouldn’t try it with the fresh recruits that make up our light infantry. Basically we’d camouflage ourselves and hide until the scouts had gone past, then we’d ambush the first units of the train. We’d fight just long enough to force them to stop and bring up more troops, then disengage once we couldn’t safely hold them anymore. With at least two banners of good fighters it’s possible, but it’s quite dangerous. You still need to escape, after all, so you need a lot of stamina to be able to get away after fighting. It doesn’t really do any damage, but it can buy you an hour or two when you really need it.”

“Huh,” Leodin said, a thoughtful expression on his face. “That sounds like something we could do too, doesn’t it?”

“Probably,” Bordan said, nodding, “but you’d have to convince the general to let us try. Also, it’s a lot less fun than you might think, and very dangerous. Not to mention that you’ll be absolutely exhausted by the time the actual fighting starts.”

“Speaking of,” Edwin said, pointing. “Here they come.”