Chapter 229: A Home Is What You Make It

The reality was settling in that I was alone. It felt odd, as there should have been no other human within thirty miles of me. My new home was about a thousand feet up a rocky slope from the water. Only a few bare bushes dotted the path down the slope. Lines of white foamy waves crashed below, and a hint of cold, salty air reached me.

Behind me was the dense forest from which we had come. I walked into the cave, pulsing earth speak to map the barely lit space. My new home was a tiny cave carved out of rock, about ten feet wide and fifteen feet deep. The entrance had an overhang, protecting it from wind and weather but, more importantly, preventing it from being spotted from the sea. A heavy door, painted the same texture and color as the rock, provided the only security.

The small room was orderly and packed with furniture: a bed, desk, shelf, six casks, and four large chests. On the desk were heavy goggles and a long brass spyglass covered with fine runic writing. These were the devices I would need for my watch. The shelf held a dozen worn books, and checking the titles, I found they were mostly stories, probably brought here by Hounds to relieve boredom. One book was a log book for sightings, which I paged through.

The index had the silhouettes of various ships from numerous kingdoms. The logbook extended back five years, and it appeared that only one entry a week was common. Most of the entries noted ships, but every few months, a monster sighting, such as a kraken, was noted. It seemed the bay was named Kraken Bay because it was a breeding ground for ocean beasts. Fortunately, the records indicated that spawning time was in late fall—half a year away.

Clodius’s clear and neat handwriting noted all the orcish fishing vessels by the time of day, size, and direction they were headed. Even though I had been given no training for this posting, I could figure out my duties just from his logbooks. Curiously, I did not see any entries for the shoreline activity he had noted. I guessed making a daily entry for the mere folk was not worth his time.

I found a scroll case containing a detailed map made from thick paper and saturated with preserving wax. It took me a moment to locate the lookout and what I assumed were marks for two other lookouts in the bay, one fifty miles north and the other about seventy miles south.

All six casks were filled with water, and there were jugs to carry fresh water up here from the forest. The last fresh water we passed on our way here was two miles back, so I silently thanked Clodius for his effort in filling these before he left.

The bed had heavy wool blankets and a shredded straw mattress. It wasn’t uncomfortable when I tested it. The four large chests were separated into weapons, foodstuffs, bedding, and tools and materials for setting and maintaining the traps. I left the room and walked the hill, noting where the traps were with my earth speak.

The ridgeline extended north and south, and my station was not at its tallest point. The sun was currently dipping on the horizon, so I grabbed the goggles and spyglass to test them. I spent some time planning my best vantage point and making sure the lens wouldn’t be reflected by the sun during the day and give away my position to ships.

The goggles were heavy with bulbous lenses and reminded me of aviator goggles. I set them aside and used the spyglass. Holding it up, I quickly figured out how it worked. The lens apparently magnified about ten times without channeling aether into it. When I channeled aether into it, it added another factor of ten, about a hundred times magnification.

I scanned the water as the sun set and then focused on the beach, watching the surf and crabs on the rocks. Waiting for the sun to set, I checked my message book. Centurion Sergius had only written a single line: “Confirm one orc fishing vessel sailing north tonight. Should pass around midnight.” This confirmed that there was another sentry south of me. It also confirmed that they were suspicious of the orc fishing vessels.

I took out Zyna’s anchor stone. Now that I was alone, I would have to take it out after sunset in case she contacted me. I had never been on the receiving end of a message sending, so I was not quite sure what to expect, but I would check diligently every night.

At sunset, I used the goggles and was slightly shocked. I had expected the image to be black and white. Instead, it looked like midday, with the sky being a cerulean blue and the sea a navy blue. I was fascinated as I focused on the rocky, sandy beach below. The nocturnal activity had numerous crustaceans scurrying over the rocks and numerous fish trapped in the tide pools. I scanned up to the horizon but couldn’t see the far shore.

By my estimation, it was forty miles at the narrowest point in the bay from the map I had found. The spyglass, when activated, was maybe seeing half the distance, if that. If the orc ships stayed on the far shore, then I would not be able to see them. Something seemed wrong, so I started to examine the spyglass in detail.

It was a clever design, and it would have been nice if they had shown me how to use the device before they left. The tubes of the device could be rotated, changing the rune’s alignment. There were three positions where the runes lined up. On the highest setting, I could barely see the far shore, and it was difficult to hold the device steady. A thought occurred to me, and I went to the shelf and pulled out something that looked like a rack to hold the spyglass.

It was a tripod, and I could slowly adjust the elevation and horizontal angle of the device. The problem I ran into was channeling my aether to activate the device. I was so used to holding the device to channel aether into it, which disrupted my focal point at a great distance. I used my dimensional space to carve out a level shelf to rest the apparatus on. Then, I practiced channeling my aether over a short gap into the device while scanning the horizon at each magnification setting.

The lack of instruction had to be a test. Maybe there wasn’t even an orcish fishing ship, but then again he said he expected it to pass my lookout around midnight. I retreated into my cave and decided it was too small and had no escape exit. If a creature found the lookout, the only thing protecting me was the heavy door. It was banded with rusty iron, but a giant could make short work of it.

Using earth speak and my dimensional space, I started to carve out another room in the back of the cave. The doorway was narrow, about half a yard wide, and I saved that slab of stone to use as a door. I deposited the excavated rock on the slope in a neat stack hidden from view of the water. I kept the size to match what people thought was the size of my dimensional space. I paused every hour to check the spyglass, finding nothing.

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The new room slowly expanded to be five feet wide and twenty feet deep, and I needed to rest from using my aether. I munched on a burrito as I checked the spyglass again. This time, I found the sails of a ship. A second ship was just a little behind, and they were extremely distant, near the far shore, and difficult to focus on at the highest magnification. Both silhouettes matched orcish fishing boats in the index. I spent another hour searching before writing my message in the message book.

“Two orcish fishing boats passed along the far side of the bay about two hours after midnight. Both sails appeared to be shallow water cutters.”

I closed the book and started moving the bed into my new room. It was an extremely dense and heavy wood, but if I planned to use the amulet, I needed to do so in a secure room. I could expand the room in the coming days if needed, but for now, I replaced the doorway slab, pulled a glowstone, and entered the dreamscape for a few hours to add books and get some weapons practice. When I woke, I checked the message book and didn’t find a response from the Centurion.

I checked the far shore again and found nothing as I slowly started to establish a routine for the next three weeks. The first thing I did was leave the black jade chalice on a shelf in my new secure room. Every day the artifact could transmute water into elven ambrosia. I planned to store the majority of it in empty bottles.

Every two hours, I would set up the spyglass and cycle through the magnification on the horizon. It took me about half an hour as I got more proficient using it.

The only interesting thing to do was watch the merfolk come ashore at night. The goggles were amazing, and I was even able to send an earth pulse into them to see the complex layers of runes that made them up. I wondered how common they were in the Empire and if I could purchase them somewhere.

The merfolk were awkward on land and focused on easy fishing from the tide pools that had trapped fish. Even with their alien fish-like humanoid bodies, I assumed these were the youth of their species.

My free time was spent enlarging the secret room, refreshing traps, and setting my own. As the room expanded, hiding the large stone blocks was becoming an issue, so I scattered them along the slope. I added a narrow descending escape tunnel into the rock, coming out on the slope and heading down into the forest. I did my best to conceal this second entrance and plugged it with a thin stone slab that I could break if I had bottomed out my aether. I also added two small ventilation shafts in the secret room, which were probably unnecessary since I left every two hours.

The final room was much larger than needed, twenty by twenty feet with a ten-foot ceiling. I admit I made the taller ceiling due to having a goliath friend—not that I expected Maveith to visit.

I had an alchemy station in the room and used the cooking thermal stone for heat. I was fairly comfortable and usually tracked one orcish fishing vessel every other day; sometimes, they operated in pairs. The only messages I got from Sergius were to confirm sightings of other Hound sentries.

All the work had distracted me for three weeks, but I was feeling the press of loneliness and boredom. I almost wished for Sergius to send me something to do. I had thought more than once about the merchant’s wife and children in my dimensional space. The risk of taking them out was too great. A Hound could visit me, and also, right now, none of the three could identify me which I preferred. Still, I was tempted just to have someone to talk to.

On the morning of the 23rd day, I finally got an order from Centurion Sergius that was not checking on the fishing ships.

“A First Citizen has betrayed the Empire. She is being protected by two legionnaires as she flees. Hound Hercule will bring you a blood sample of the First Citizen. Track and kill her. They arrived in Varta three days ago and are expected to be heading south near you on their flight from the Empire’s justice.”

I studied the message for a long moment before writing:

“Why isn’t Hercule tracking them?”

Immediately, words appeared on the page as Centurion wrote them. “Hercule lost them in Varta, and they are racing south but are on foot. Hercule needs to be elsewhere. I cannot spare a full Pack, and they should be passing within fifty miles of your post.”

I stared at the page for a moment before writing, “When will Hercule be here? Will he be taking over the post? Are there any spell forms in the targets I should be made aware of?”

I stared for minutes until the words started to scrawl across the page. By his penmanship, I could tell he was getting irritated with me. “Hercule has elsewhere to be and will not assume your watch. Hunt them quickly and return to the sentry post. The First Citizen is a water mage. She can cast true spells and has innocuous spell forms as well. Hercule will be there in the morning and can tell you more.”

I was about to ask another question but paused my quill above the page and eventually closed the book. I sensed there was something more to this, but Sergius wasn’t going to tell me. For the last three weeks, I have been blind to what is happening in the Empire. The spring thaw had started, and that meant war was coming.

I spent the night making sure my secret room was concealed, rubbing stone dust into the seam. I hauled the heavy bed back to the common room. If Hercule was not replacing me, I assumed that meant I could take the goggles and spyglass with me. An hour after sunrise, a lathered horse climbed up from the forest. Hercule dismounted heavily, clearly exhausted.

As he talked, I noticed his teeth had been shattered. He talked with a hiss, “Watch out for the bitches guarding the First Citizen. The legionnaire with the staff is more dangerous than she looks. The shorter blonde one is a pest with her spear too.” He pulled a bloody rag from his belt and pressed it into my hand.

“What did the First Citizen do?” I asked, placing the fabric into my prepared blood compass.

Hercule barked angrily. “Doesn’t matter. Just follow your orders. Burn the body of the First Citizen so Centurion Sergius can confirm the task is complete.” He relaxed a little, “Her spell form is a large bubble of water that can stop arrows. If she touches you, she can drain your strength and take it for her own. That is all I know.” His agitation told me he was not up to the task of hunting these three—women. Yes, he had identified all of them as women. Maybe he thought his masculinity was affronted by losing to them. He spat, “The horse is yours, and I will walk back to Freidival.”

I looked over at the horse. It looked to be a good mount but had been pushed too hard for too long. I had only used a portion of the bloodied cloth and placed the remainder in my dimensional space. The pull was very faint as I activated my compass, but it gave me a direction of pursuit.

Hercule descended into my little cave, probably to rest. It irked me as I heard him rummaging through my chests, but even if he found the room beyond, I had already emptied it. I decided to leave before he asked where the spyglass and night vision goggles were.

I led the horse down the steep slope and walked him two miles to the spring, where I got my water. I rubbed down the mount and used my farrier kit on the mount. The warhorse seemed to relax, realizing it would not be pushed again so soon.

I treated his saddle sores and stored the saddle and tack. Then, I took a lead line and started to jog in the direction the compass was pulling me. The horse trotted happily behind me without a rider.

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