“Do Rehvites really wear these?” I asked, gesturing to the ridiculous half-mix of armor and clothing I was draped in. I had a full helm on, enclosing my whole head and hiding my features, as well as a thin breastplate, chain mail, and pauldrons, but that was where the sensible parts ended. On top of the chest armor, I had a black robe with a Rehvite triangle symbol emblazoned into the chest, and all that protected my legs was the same variety of light chain mail that I had on my torso, which was also covered in dark pants. I guess this allows good freedom of movement, but I have to question how protective it is, I thought, at least I have a decently thick sword.

“They do,” Vaozey replied from inside her own helm. She was wearing the same thing, along with a sword on her hip instead of a mace. I wanted to ask about that, but there wasn’t any time as we quickly walked through the streets in the dead of night, accompanied by some Awrehrehzha city guards. Due to concerns that the city might be under enemy observation of some kind, we couldn’t launch our military caravan at a normal hour and were instead using one of many secret tunnels to leave the walls. I had a rough idea of where we were going, so when the guards led us behind a building and opened up some cellar doors to reveal a tunnel I wasn’t surprised.

“Inside,” the one on the left muttered.

“Thank you,” Vaozey replied.

“No need to thank us, Zownayveht,” the guard smiled. “Good luck to you and the ihlzheyv both. The gods are on our side.” Vaozey had been keeping my identity under wraps for a while, but enough rumors were floating around that it was decided there would be a soft disclosure once I was outside city walls, stating that I was staying with Mawyeyz. It wouldn’t work forever, but it would give enough of an excuse to keep me out of the public eye that it would confuse any spies. Once we descended, the doors closed behind us, and I lit up a light orb so we could see.

The tunnel was almost a kilometer long by my estimation, held up by wooden supports whose state of disrepair made me nervous. Being underground was one thing, but the notion that the ceiling might collapse on me at any second if I moved the wrong way was enough to quicken my walking pace. When we emerged out the other end, the near-freezing night air felt great as it sapped away the excess heat that had been building under my armor. I could have tried to cool myself with magic, but the power draw was still a bit too high for continuous casual use, even with my “partial visualization” technique from the lasers applied to it.

“Is it going to snow at some point?” I asked. I actually still wasn’t sure about the word I was using for “snow”, since it was very uncommon and I had only heard it in passing one time in Kahvahrniydah, but from Vaozey’s body language, it seemed she understood me.

“Not here,” she replied, her voice echoing inside her helmet. “It snowed a bit in Bowpahraan, but usually it’s only the northern half of Kownohk that gets snow in the east.” Interesting, I thought, I hadn’t really considered it, but maybe this planet has less axial tilt than Earth. The fact that the length of days hadn’t shifted much despite the seasons changing supported that fact, since we were far enough from the equator that it would have been noticeable on Earth.

“At least there’s that,” I grunted.

“Let’s go,” Vaozey said. “We’re heading due north. You can make another orb if you want, but make it flame-colored.”

“No, we should move in the dark,” I replied. “Can you see?” I could see in the ambient light level well enough, but I knew my night vision was better than average.

“Yeah, I can see,” Vaozey confirmed. “Let’s go.”

“Who goes there?” a voice called out as we approached the meeting point.

“You seytoydh well know who,” Vaozey called back, and a few of the soldiers near the gathering point relaxed. “How many are here?” she asked.

“Twenty-seven,” the man replied, gesturing for us to approach. “Twenty-nine now.” So we have to wait for nine more to arrive, I thought as we walked up to the wagons and their beasts. Of the five, one was uncovered, and two had the sounds of sleeping humans coming from inside of them. Everyone else looked at us because we were the only ones wearing helmets, and Vaozey sighed.

“Did you do a sweep?” she asked, and a few of the other soldiers stiffened, recognizing her voice.

“Yes,” someone said. “Doesn’t look like we were followed.”

“You had better hope not,” Vaozey said, pulling off her helmet and indicating that I could as well if I wanted to. “I’m pretty sure the two of us would survive an ambush, but the rest of you might not. Did we get everything on the requisition list?” I removed my helmet as well, drawing a few nervous looks, then followed Vaozey as she took inventory of the contents of the wagons.

One wagon was dedicated entirely to food, and another entirely to weapons. The food was mostly barrels of preserved fruit and meat, while the weapons ran an entire spectrum. There were swords, maces, spears, crossbows, muskets, and even pieces that looked like they could be assembled into a small cannon. Many of the soldiers looked nervous around the black powder barrels, but Vaozey assured me that they wouldn’t detonate unless someone set them off. Stability in the formula wasn’t an issue once the mixing was finished.

The third wagon had replacement armor, ant “uniform scent”, and a bunch of other unlabeled containers and barrels of various sizes. Some of the contents turned out to be oil and equipment for de-rusting metal, but one quarter-size barrel in particular surprised me when I opened it. Inside was a pile of tiny wax balls, and when I removed one and looked at it under my light I saw a chunk of dull yellow and rust-colored crystal inside. I was about to pop the ball open to see if I was right about the contents when Vaozey put her hand over it.

“Yeah, it’s what you think,” she said. “That one there is also a… well, it’s similar to magic booster.” She pointed to a barrel that had a sickly sweet smell coming off of it. I popped the top and was nearly overwhelmed by the chemical scent that wafted out. That’s… formaldehyde and blood? Maybe more, I thought, quickly re-sealing the barrel.

“That’s strong,” I remarked.

“It’s the only way to make it keep for longer than a few weeks,” Vaozey shrugged. “Not pleasant to drink though, believe me.”

“I thought magic booster was illegal? I saw someone get killed over it on the way into the city,” I said. The soldier who was with Vaozey looked at me, then raised his eyebrows.

“That’s where I saw you,” he said. “You were with the-”

“Don’t say another word,” warned Vaozey, preventing him from mentioning that I had been mistaken for a prisoner.

“Sorry, right,” he mumbled to her before turning back to me. “This magic booster, as well as the extracted magic fuel pill barrel, were produced through soldiers and other individuals voluntarily donating their stomach cores,” he explained. “It is not legal for a civilian to produce or trade in any form of magic-enhancing product produced from a human body, and the merchant you saw was known to be trading in Rehvite-produced booster by passing it off as being made of bear parts.”

“So bear parts are legal?” I asked, curious.

“Yes,” the soldier confirmed, “however, they are quite difficult to acquire due to the danger that a bear poses, so they are often very expensive. That particular merchant was undercutting his competition by selling human-derived booster. His accomplice, the mercenary, sold him out.” Well that explains that, I thought, looking at the pills again, I should have thought of doing this, it’s very obvious in hindsight.

“We did a lot of testing in Bowpahraan,” Vaozey said. “It turns out that magic fuel in blood degrades over a hundred times slower when exposed to air than the solid fuel does, but that’s still pretty fast. The fruit juice that Koyl’s booster had made it last about twice as long in storage, but it didn’t prevent the blood from rotting. This stuff-” she tapped the formaldehyde barrel, “-keeps for around three months and doesn’t rot. It’s poison though, so it’s really only useful for recovering power after a battle. If you drank it during, well, you’d probably just spit it up or pass out.”

“It’s impressive,” I said, making her smirk. “I should have thought of the wax pills, I even had wax to work with. I was too focused on the idea of an injectable syringe.”

“Nobody’s perfect, but you’re right, it’s more practical than what you and the Rehvites had back then,” Vaozey said, sounding amused. “The pills aren’t great either though, feels like getting kicked in the chest when they finally pop.”

“I was going to ask about that,” I said, picking one up again and looking even closer using my light magic. A few of the other soldiers were watching now, their eyes looking closely at the purple-tinged light. I heard a few mutter “Vowzeysay”, but opted to ignore it. “This would last at least a few minutes in the stomach before the wax broke.”

“Usually two or three, yeah,” Vaozey agreed. “There’s a trick I use where I bite down on my cheek to get blood in my mouth, then bite the pill and swallow. Doesn’t always work though. You can bite them without blood, but if you’re not careful you’ll breathe out half the magic fuel in them. You have to bite and then breathe in and hold it.” So magic fuel doesn’t neutralize instantly on contact with air, I thought, mentally changing my notes on the properties of the substance.

“What about the last two wagons?” I asked, putting the pill back again.

“Mobile barracks,” the soldier with us said, showing the inside of the one with sleeping humans inside. They were laying on cots, as well as a few hammocks strung along the wagon cover's supports. “We’ll be moving all day and night and sleeping in shifts. Twenty-four people will be active at all times, up to twenty-six at times since there are thirty-eight of us. I assume you can sleep on the road, sir?”

“Yeah,” I replied. Though it looked far from the comfort of Vaozey’s guest room, and would be a bit noisy, I could adapt.

“Let’s wait for everyone else to arrive before we do anything else,” Vaozey said, then she turned to the soldier with us. “Let’s finish doing the inventory.”

“For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Zownayveht Svaaloyweyl,” Vaozey began to the group of soldiers just before dawn. The sleeping ones were just about to change out with twelve more of their peers, so it made sense to do it while everyone was awake. “For those of you who do, I’m Vaozey. I’m not your commander on this mission, that would be Shahpao to my left, but I am his commander, so if I give you an order you’ll be doing it.” There was a murmur through the crowd.

“Quiet,” Shahpao ordered, and the murmur ceased. As I had found out, Shahpao was one of the original residents of Kuhtehsh, though he looked mostly the same as everyone else, especially since we all wore similar disguises.

“Now I’ve made it no secret that I’m not exactly fond of Rehv or the people who tend to follow him, but I want to assure you that this will not be an issue on this excursion,” Vaozey continued. “We are here to accomplish a single goal that has very little to do with bickering about gods or religion, so I would advise that we keep it to a minimum. Yuwniht, take off your helmet again.” I had put my helmet back on at Vaozey’s request earlier to aid in her speech, so when I slipped it off the few soldiers who had been asleep finally saw my face.

“This is Yuwniht Lihyveyz,” Vaozey said, gesturing to me. Again, there was a murmur through the crowd. “What? Speak your piece now, I don’t want interruptions.”

“He doesn’t look like the-” one woman began to say, and Vaozey glared at her so hard that I thought her eyes might pop from the force she was exerting on them.

“I don’t look like the statue,” I said, stepping forward. As I did, holograms burst into existence around me, making me appear as though I was wearing sleeves and a crown made of fire, in addition to having long glowing hair. The Rehvite symbol on my chest glowed fiercely, and I even added some glowing red rings around the irises of my eyes for effect. They made it hard to see, but that wasn’t the point. Air whipped around me, and I raised my left hand, opening it to reveal an orb of bright white light that shone with so much energy that it was hard to look at. Then, all at once, it was gone and I lowered my hand.

“Seyt…” someone swore quietly. The sentiment seemed to be shared by everyone. I guess Vaozey was right, I thought. Almost the entire display had been her idea, a way to not only prove my identity but make an impression. The glowing eyes in particular were something she insisted upon.

“As I was saying, this is Yuwniht Lihyveyz,” Vaozey continued. “Our task is very simple: He’s going to Zihzehshesk to kill the Rehvite leadership and end the civil war and we’re helping him. I’m assuming none of you have any problems with that seeing as you’re Mawyeyz’s people, but I’d advise you to speak up now if you do.” There were some glances shared between the soldiers, then one stepped forward.

“How are we supposed to invade Zihzehshesk with under forty people?” he asked.

“By being smart about it,” Shahpao said. “We’re going to meet up with a smuggler in Duwbkaav to get across the ocean undetected, then we’ll be moving offroad once we’re on the island.”

“But the city walls-” the soldier protested.

“Will not be an issue,” Vaozey said. “You have all been given false Rehvite identification. Some of you might be more familiar with these than others. Memorize the combination for the tool you’ve been provided and discard that part of the guide. If you can read Holy Inscription, you don’t have to memorize it, just figure out what values the text in your identification is referencing. Ideally, we won’t be fighting at all, but the riskiest part of this journey is going to be crossing into Rehvite territory for the first time and that’s also one of the first things we have to do.”

“Did you really kill the head warrior by cutting his head off with your bare hand?” someone called out. The voice sounded female, but I didn’t see who said it because it came from the back.

“Force magic can be used to-” I began.

“War stories later, if there’s time,” Shahpao commanded. “We will be stopping occasionally to hunt and preserve because our supplies will not last the whole journey. If you are on food prep duty you can feel free to socialize then. Otherwise, keep it quiet and minimize the chatter while walking. The only reason we’re even having this discussion now is because we’ve already ensured this site is secure.”

“Is this a suicide mission?” another man asked.

“Why would you think that?” Vaozey asked back.

“How are we going to get off Mehtsiyah afterward?” the man asked. “Even if we don’t get detected on the way in, how do we get out?”

“At worst, we hijack a ship,” Vaozey said.

“We don’t have any yihzhae,” another man said. “All of us are-, well, all of us are talented with magic, but none of us have naval combat experience.”

“Do you think I had experience when I assaulted the noypeyyoyjh?” Vaozey scoffed. “Do you think I was ready and fully trained for what I encountered when we re-took Awrehrehzha? I thought I might die both times, but I still went, because I knew it was the right thing to do. If you’re meant to live, you’ll live, so don’t even think about failing. Success is your only option, do you understand? You’re not allowed to fail. Keep that in mind.”

“If that isn’t enough, you can also consider that I’ve beaten the followers of Rehv in their home territory before,” I said. “Compared to that, stealing a ship is trivial, especially if it’s crewed by civilians.” There was another murmur through the crowd, and then a man with a large diagonal scar across his face stepped forward.

“How many of us have to live for this to succeed?” he asked.

“It’s not a suicide mission, I told you already,” Shahpao replied.

“That’s not what I asked,” the man said. “We’re probably going to lose some people; how many can we afford to lose? At what point do we retreat and regroup?” The other soldiers seemed to agree with the question, at least if I was reading them correctly.

“So long as Yuwniht reaches Mehtsiyah Island, there will be no retreat,” Vaozey answered. “Roydlow himself commanded that the leadership of the Rehvites die, and he also commanded that the noypeyyoyjh be assaulted twelve years ago. That means that so long as we get him to where he needs to be, we’re probably going to win.” I didn’t like her logic, but she had already explained it to me before we even suited up into the armor. I still believe we should retreat if we lose more than fifty percent of our people, I thought, but I suppose it depends on how useful they prove themselves to be.

“Roydlow is actually real?” someone asked. “I thought only Rehv was real. I know Lord Tawl said-”

“Alright, enough,” Shahpao said, holding up his hand. “The point is, none of you are dying in vain unless we’re all so useless that we can’t even leave the mainland. The fighting shouldn’t even start until we get to Mehtsiyah Island if we do our jobs right. Helmets on, next shift of sleepers in the wagon, let’s get going.”

Traveling in a large and organized group was very different than traveling on foot alone, or even with a small group. At sometime around noon the shifts of guards changed again and I was told to jump into the back of the sleep wagon and grab a spot. Nobody wanted to go before me, so I picked a cot near the exit and slipped my helmet off, getting into position to nap while still in my armor. As predicted, it was hard to get to sleep, but by the time I had woken up again after sundown and had to rejoin the humans outside I was at least half-rested. We also ate on the go, and any “business” that needed to be done was done quickly by jogging ahead of the caravan and finding a bush.

Three days went by quickly, and in the mid-afternoon of the fourth day we set down some distance from the road to do a bit of hunting. The only thing in the area plentiful enough to catch were monkeys, and though Vaozey did a good job of hiding it I could tell that the idea of eating them was still unpleasant to her. Since I was a VIP I was assigned to stay with the wagons and assist in the cooking and preserving, which gave me time to listen in on the conversations around me. I still kept my helmet on, though, just in case someone walked by our camp. We weren’t in Rehvite territory yet, but we were getting close.

Most of the chatter that went on was about how everyone disliked monkey meat because it was “stringy”, but there were a few others that were more interesting. For one, the Rehvist soldiers all took some time aside to pray in shifts, and I was able to overhear a bit of their mumbling well enough to figure out that they were all asking for Rehv to not let them die for helping me. Vaozey was at the camp as well since she was also a VIP, and when I asked her if I should tell them about the incident with the old woman to settle their minds about it she was torn. The conclusion of that discussion was that she would mention it to Shahpao and see what he thought since he was a Rehvist and had a better idea of the implications.

The other interesting chatter all had to do with “Vowzeysay”, who I remembered as a figure from the book of Rehv that was referenced by the albino in Vehrehr when I showed my light magic. I did work my way into one of those conversations to ask about it, and the woman who I ended up talking to summarized the story for me. Vowzeysay was, supposedly, a human who lived around the year 500 or so in Dahmpiyah, at least according to the story. Rehv gifted him with knowledge of light magic much like mine, which he used to try to spread the word of his god among the people. It didn’t work though, despite seeing the “miracle” in front of their eyes the Dahmpiyahns were too stubborn and proud to accept them, and Vowzeysay was martyred along with his whole village. As punishment, Rehv erased knowledge of light magic from the world but promised to return it in time.

When the hunting parties came back with fifteen monkeys, I expected the preparation to take a while, but I was pleasantly surprised. The soldiers were very good at skinning and butchering the animals, and it only took an hour before we had some basic meat racks set up inside a couple of tents. Since we were staying the night to allow the smoking process to complete, once everyone was fed the soldiers inevitably started to get a bit rowdy. I was worried that someone might overhear us, but Vaozey said we were deep enough in the woods that it was pretty unlikely.

After a series of gambling games in which small amounts of money changed hands, the soldiers’ activities inevitably drifted to more violent outlets for their energy. Games in which rocks were thrown between two people and hits were scored on points, games in which one person tried to keep a bone away from others by any means possible, and other such pseudo-combat practice started to be played around the makeshift camp. Someone even brought out a stringed instrument that had apparently been smuggled in with the combat gear and began playing it, singing some strange song about giant humans throwing boulders at castles. From the way some of the words were pronounced in order to get them to rhyme, it sounded Dahmpiyahn.

Finally, and inevitably, people began picking up wooden clubs from the weapon wagon, disrobing, and forming some circles to have fights. Shahpao observed from nearby to make sure that nobody was seriously hurt but otherwise didn’t say anything, as this was apparently normal behavior for his soldiers. The fights were a good display of the soldiers’ weapon skills, which were better than I expected. About four-fifths of them probably would have been able to beat me in a sword fight to first blood if no magic was used, and the ones that couldn’t would have come pretty close. Someone finally noticed that Vaozey and I were watching, and called us over.

“Come on,” the female soldier beckoned, grinning even though she had dried blood spattered over her face and body from her fights. “Let’s see how good you are.”

“He’s not as good as most of you,” Vaozey replied as she walked over. “Not with swords, anyway. I’ll be glad to throw you all around if you want though, just help me get out of this breastplate.”

“You worried you’ll kill us by accident?” a man asked me.

“No,” I replied. “Vaozey is right, most of you are better than me with swords, I really only use mine as a way to hit with a sharp edge. All my blocking and parrying is either very basic or done with magic.”

“We can make an exception for you, come on,” the man grinned. “Nobody’s expecting to beat you, we’re just having fun. Nobody here can beat the Zownayveht either, and she doesn’t even use a weapon.” Not even her mace? I wondered, glancing at Vaozey. She had removed her sword, along with her breastplate, and was working on taking her chain mail off when she turned around to look at me.

“Just do the same thing you did back when you sparred with me years ago,” she said. “Barehanded, no magic.”

“You used to spar with him?” one of the female soldiers asked, and Vaozey smiled.

“You might not think it if you saw his swordwork, but Yuwniht here is one of the best barehanded fighters I’ve ever seen,” she replied.

“Better than you?” the woman asked. Oh, I see where this is going, I thought, putting my helmet down and unlatching my breastplate.

“Why don’t we find out?” Vaozey jabbed, giving me a look.

“Do you not use a mace anymore?” I asked.

“You’re not the only one who learned a few new tricks,” Vaozey replied, grinning widely. “Come on, let’s see how I measure up after an entire war’s worth of practice. I’ll even let you use that light magic you like so much, I’m that confident.”