Chapter 52 - Just as red as this one

Two weeks had passed in a happy blur. The hides were cured and those that weren’t being immediately converted into simple saddles were packed onto wagons in anticipation of our move north to the iron ore. We now had nightly patrols of warriors with packs of dogs, huge shaggy things that would terrify people from back home, to ensure our perimeter and constant sweeps by trios of horse archers giving us more wide ranging protection.

There had been some grumbling at first but when the first raiding party to try and attack our herds had been stopped dead in its tracks, quite literally, the warriors began to appreciate the wisdom of it. I had four squadrons with fifty horse archers a piece and one of dedicated lancers intended to smash through infantry.

Klip had grinned almost as evilly as Kril when I explained how scythe chariots worked and asked him to forge the blades for mounting to the wheels of an expanding fleet of the primitive vehicles. More horses had been hunted down and broken to the harnesses, causing Kril to grumble as he had to spend gradually more mana on casting Rapid Growth to ensure we had enough food for our rapidly growing herds.

I slipped out of bed, gently untangling myself from Fay’s legs, and stood in the chill air of my tent. The hairs on my arms stood on end. I hurriedly dressed and lit a fire in the central pit with a thought. Putting a metal pan over the flames, a novelty for my tribespeople that was rapidly gaining in popularity, I pulled some sliced meat from a chest Fay had packed with ice. It was cut thin and I wasn’t too worried about it being partially frozen as I threw it into the pan and began to nudge it around with my dagger so that it cooked evenly.

“Add more. I’m hungry,” Fay muttered from beneath a pile of furs. I did as she asked and put a few more slices in to start sizzling.

“We can move today,” I said. I was excited to head north and start the next phase of mine and Kril’s plan. “How’s your stomach?” I asked.

“I don’t care, I’m ravenous!” she replied, looking over and smiling at me. Glimpse cawed from the roof of our tent and I checked his perspective to see what had made him cry out. Khan, Atas, Trikilo and Kril were all moving purposefully towards my home. I sighed.

“Looks like a command meeting is about to happen. You’d best get some clothes on, love!” I said and Fay crawled out of the warmth of the nest of hides with a series of quiet complaints. I admired her body as she slipped a red dress over her head and pulled it tight with a thin leather belt. She saw me watching and pulled the belt closed slowly, turning to one side as she did so and shooting me a smoky look.

“Enough of that! Here,” I passed her half the fried meat in a bowl and took the rest for myself. I’d come a long way from the badly smoked vile-bear meat I’d started out surviving on in this world. I still missed bacon though. The southerners had pig herds, so I was told, and I made a note to send some raiders out to steal some of the delicious beasts.

“Come in!” I called as my visitors arrived outside the tent.

“How do you do that? Is it Shikrakyn senses or something?” muttered Khan as he swung the flap aside.

“A man must know when to preserve the modesty of his wife!” said Atas with a smile. “Lady Fayala.” He bowed his head to her.

“None of that uncle Atas! Would you like something to eat?” she asked politely.

“Thank you,” said Trikilo. I fished out some more strips of aurox meat and put the pan back over the fire. Fay nudged me aside and took over shuffling the meat around so it didn’t burn.

“Today’s the day?” I asked eagerly as I sat down in my chair and received a round of nods.

“Palliat Pass is a two week journey with the wagons. It will get harder as we go north. The cold is already on us,” said Kril with a grimace. It was no colder than a mild winter day back home, the temperature was far enough above zero that the light frosts melted halfway through the morning.

“How much worse will the cold get? Are we looking at deep snow over the next few months?” I asked.

“No. North of the pass it gets a lot worse but where we’re going you rarely see more than a foot of snow,” said Khan firmly. A foot of snow sounded like a lot to me. It would interfere with our training and make forage for the herds, a useful supplement to Kril cheating with magic, much more challenging to find.

“How will the animals manage?”

“Mond, this isn’t the first time we’ve wintered in the north. We don’t do it unless we have to but it's happened often enough. We know what we’re doing,” replied Atas. “Klip is packing up his forge and we’re breaking down the town now. We’ll be ready to ride out before noon. We should arrive before the snows come and that's all we need to worry about.”

“Are the gathering parties from yesterday back?” I checked. We’d sent out groups to fill wagons with wood for fires and hunt some game to pad out our food supplies.

“Not yet but they’ll catch up by this evening. We’ll only move fifteen miles or so today. A light camp overnight then we start early tomorrow.”

“Excellent. Kril, I’d like us to take a chariot and scout ahead. I want flankers and a rear guard as well,” I ordered then rose to my feet. “Gentlemen. Once we get to the pass you’ll see the wisdom of it. We need to hold that place permanently.”

“We won’t become shit-sitters!” snapped Khan.

“Father! We’ll still live under felt and move the herds. We will just have to keep control of the iron and the wealth we can gain from it!” chided Fay. Khan glared at her before one side of his mouth quirked upwards.

“I’m proud of you, daughter. Your son will be a fine addition to our families,” he replied. Son?

“We don’t know if it’s a boy yet. It’s too early for those signs but my breasts already ache and that is a good omen,” Fay replied casually. I carefully controlled my reaction as a wash of emotion flowed through me.

“Thanks gentlemen. Kril, I’ll see you at the palisade shortly. Good day!” I ushered them out hurriedly.

“You’re pregnant?” I hissed as soon as they were gone.

“Of course! The wedding was perfectly timed!” She winked at me and I wondered how much the date had been quietly planned behind my back. Kril had wanted to stay for longer at the cull but Khan and Atas had both urged me to split the herds and move back to Mondit for a day or two before I agreed…

“That’s… that’s great!” I said. And I genuinely meant it, somewhat surprising myself. “How long? Christ, we need to get all the baby stuff! Bottles and blankets and a cot! We need a cot! I’ll get the carpenters to work on it as soon as we reach the north!” I babbled. Fay laughed gently and came over to take my face in her hands.

“The women will make all the arrangements and why would we need bottles? It’s so strange, my alien husband, to hear a man speak like this. Tonight you can get drunk with your captains and boast about our child's future glory, that’s all you need to worry about.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was sick every morning for the last week. I told you to be gentle with my breasts when we made love. Are men in your world completely ignorant about such things?” She raised an eyebrow at me.

“Ah. No. Just me I guess.” Cogs clicked into place and my shock was replaced with a deep glow of happiness but it was laced with fear. Jenny and I had lost a son and it had been the end of our relationship. My marriage had died by inches over many months but from that moment on our divorce had been inevitable. The thought of losing Fay filled me with terror.

“Go you lump! Find Kril and scout our path. I’ll be riding in a wagon for the trip rather than walking and there’s no point in you travelling like an invalid as well!” She kissed me fiercely and then spun me about and slapped my arse to send me out the tent.

As I stumbled outside I took in the hustle as the camp was broken down. Half the tents had been taken down and were being packed into wagons while teams of warriors and women moved on to those still upright. I waved lackadaisically at the warriors who called out my name and raised their fists at me as I passed them. I was still in a fugue state when I reached the palisade. I found three chariots hitched to horses and a dozen horse archers waiting nearby.

“You’ve found out you’ll be a father before,” muttered Kril as I took my position behind him on the chariot. “What’s got you so soft in the head?”

“Nothing.” I wasn’t going to rehash everything only for Kril to smirk and mock me for feelings I had no control over. These people, my people, were brutal about life because life was brutal to them. I’d have loved to see Kril try to blend in on any city street back home. He’d be in a fight and then arrested, or just arrested for shouting at women to cover their skin, in less than ten minutes!

“Don’t worry boy. She’s strong. A bit slender but her mother bore seven children and three reached adulthood.” His surprisingly gentle reply didn’t do anything to assuage my fears. Bloody infant mortality rates! How the hell did we discover penicillin on Earth? If only I had bothered to pay attention to that kind of shit when I’d had all the knowledge in the world just an internet search away!

“Thanks,” I muttered. “Let’s move out!” I called and the chariots lurched into motion, keeping a safe distance from each other so the whirring metal blades sticking out of each wheel were a safe distance apart.

We moved north and Glimpse flew back and forth between our scouting party and the rear guard of a hundred horse archers. For ten days we spent our days like this, throwing up temporary camps, most people sleeping in or under the wagons, and moving on again as dawn lit the sky.

On the eleventh day flakes of snow began to fall around noon but Kril laughed and cracked his reins. As we sped over one of the many low hills that covered the steppe I finally saw our destination.

A narrow gap, perhaps fifty metres wide, lined with almost sheer walls of smooth stone. It couldn’t be natural. This was a feature made by man to create a level road through the hills that rose up behind the mouth of the valley.

The sheer walls were perhaps twenty metres high. We’d have to patrol along them to stop us being bottled up in the pass. I marked a couple of places to build watchtowers to provide some oversight over the area.

As Kril drove the chariot into the mouth of the canyon that I was convinced was artificial, the sound of our wheels bouncing off the stone echoed back to us from every direction. He pulled us to a halt and hopped off, then scurried over to a shadowed cleft in the otherwise smooth wall and disappeared into the cave. I trailed after him cautiously, my hand on my knife. The last time I’d wandered into a cave I’d nearly been eaten.

“Give me some light!” he called and I summoned a ball of white fire ahead of me. The narrow entrance tunnel opened out into a large space, several metres wide, that stretched away into darkness. The walls were perfectly smooth and above the entrance was a lintel that was carved with beautiful images of the local wildlife.

I moved past the entrance and summoned another ball of fire. Hollow doorways left gaping black shadows along the walls, the rooms beyond them missed by my fire and left in the darkness they’d known for however many years. Dozens of them on either side marched away into the hill as the main tunnel gradually sloped downwards into the earth.

Running a hand along the nearest wall confirmed that this place had not been made with primitive techniques. The stone was polished smooth and there weren’t any tool marks as my fingers brushed along. Kril emerged from the darkness carrying a lump of red rock and held it up to me.

“This what you were hoping for?” he cackled, the noise filled the space and echoed back and forth.

I turned it over in my hand and looked closely at it. It might be right?

“I’ll need to check with Klip but I think so. How much is there?” I asked.

“Cast another fire that way!” He pointed deeper into the darkness and I summoned a ball of white fire as far away as I could. The main chamber narrowed as it sloped downwards but the walls reflected red light and the floor was covered in lumps of what I desperately hoped was iron ore.

“There’s dozens of these tunnels, all just as red as this one!” Kril said with a grin.