A Soldier's Life - 238 - Follow the Trail (Patreon)

Chapter 238: Follow the Trail

I was heading northwest and knew this was some of the wildest parts of the Telhian Empire. Large swaths of land the Empire claimed but had no presence in. There were no roads for hundreds of miles and I was unsure where the blood compass was taking me. The weather remained humid as I jogged at a steady pace.

After a full day of distancing myself further, I relaxed from my paranoia of being pursued by Pathfinders. Vartholme, the nearest city in the direction I was headed, was 400 miles away, and according to my maps of the Telhian Empire, there was not a single settlement on my way there. Most of the land I had traversed today was lined with massive trees with impressive canopies. The buds had recently given birth to the new spring leaves and the humid air had a wonderful scent.

Spring also meant the migration of creatures north, some of them I would prefer not to encounter. At least I was three hundred miles north of the Spine of the World, the impressive mountain range that separated the northern and southern parts of this continent. Truly horrific creatures dwelled there, dragons among them.

My earth speak continued to be a blessing as I avoided a number of threats. Something I thought might have been a basilisk burrow the worst of the dangers for the day. Without my night vision goggles, I was going to have to sleep in one of the massive trees tonight as the moonlight was not going to penetrate the spring canopy.

The bark of my selected night’s accommodations looked like wrinkled skin as I climbed a tree easily the width of two men. The first decent-sized branch was fifty off the ground. A perturbed dark blue bird nesting nearby warbled loudly at me. It was going to draw attention, so I planned to kill it, but it soon settled down and graciously decided to share the branch with me after I didn’t threaten its nest.

I tied a safety line to the branch in case I fell during the night and sprinkled some myconid powder below. The spring crickets started their song as the sun faded. I ate a hot burrito and checked the blood compass. The pull was still faint, so I was still a distance from Aesop. I needed to think of my own counters to them tracking me.

The undershirt I was wearing had been soaked in my blood from the neck wound. I took out a glass alchemy jar and removed the shirt. I sprinkled it with some generic alchemical preservation powder and sealed the shirt inside the jar. I then wedged the jar in the fork of the tree. As long as the jar remained sealed, it should keep the blood mildly viable for a month or so to anyone trying to track me. It also wouldn’t be the only false trail I planned to leave.

I pulled on one of my long-sleeved black spider silk shirts. It stretched like spandex and was more comfortable than the standard Hound issue anyway. I settled in for a long night. The first disturbance was the thundering of a herd of centaurs hunting an elk. The chase was a distance for my perch, but the shadowy silhouettes matched my guess. Centaurs had good night vision, so I was not surprised by their night hunt and glad I was not their quarry.

The second disturbance during the night was a lumbering tortoise. At least, that is what the shadow looked like from a hundred yards away. It didn’t match any creature I had been schooled on by Hearne or read in my bestiaries. The night owls also had a very animated conversation across the woods. My own bed partner was bedded tightly down, protecting her clutch.

Morning couldn’t come soon enough. I thought I might take a side trip to check out one of the Hound caches. I missed my night vision, and maybe the cache would have a pair of goggles. I briefly checked into my dreamscape to put the map Aesop had shown me with the markers on the wall. The cache he probably went to was along the first river I was going to cross. Unfortunately, the map didn’t have a lot of terrain features, and I was not familiar with the region. Once I reached this river, I would have to cross it and follow it east and hope I stumbled across the cache. Then again, he could have been lying to me when he told me it was located near a forked tree.

I thanked my host for the accommodations, and I descended and continued northeast in the morning. I paused briefly where the centaurs had passed and inspected their tracks. There were seven by my count and heading south, the opposite direction from me. I continued at a brisk pace and just after midday I swore. The heavy forest suddenly ended and vast plains spread out before me. If I continued in this direction I was going to be in the open.

I spent some time looking at my map, and guessed the river crossing was sixty or so miles away. The terrain type was not too clearly marked on my Hound map. Rivers, mountains, roads, and settlements, yes, but how far would I have to travel in the open? Would I have no cover at night? If these were open plains, that meant the primary predators were bulettes, axe beaks, wolves, boars, and centaurs, according to Hearne. While I was confident in being able to handle one or two, if I were outnumbered, I would be in trouble and have nowhere to hide.

I considered trying to convince one of my passengers to help. After all it wasn’t fair they were getting a free ride. Only the First Citizen Mage would be useful and then she couldn’t keep up with my pace. I stared at the expanse before me, indecisive. The spring grass was just starting to grow and short. There was nowhere to hide, and only a twisted tree appeared every few hundred yards.

I sighed and started a quick tempo jog with long strides, checking the skies intermittently. The danger in the wilds could come from both above and below, and I no longer had the cover of the trees. I started to ration earth speak and just pulsed when something looked suspicious to conserve aether as I ran for air shields. For much of the run, the only dangers were irate prairie dogs. The lack of a dangerous encounter only unnerved me more.

I only stopped to drink and when the sun began to fade, I excavated a hole to spend the night in. The rich, rock-free soil would probably make incredible farmland, and my earth pulses during the day had shown ancient structures buried with time. There were too many creatures that hunted from the air at night to risk continuing my trek. I felt vulnerable on the plains and didn’t sleep at all. Neptune’s Tear was exceedingly bright tonight, and it felt like it was trying to shine a spotlight on my location.

Once again, morning was welcome, and I continued. When I reached the muddy banks of the wide river, I decided to burn aether to make air shields to cross the rather than swim. The river looked shallow, and I quickly found a narrow crossing of just fifty yards. Once on the other side, I guessed the Hound cache was east. I followed the river for a few miles before giving up on finding it as the blood compass was pointing more north than east. I had only seen bushes growing along the shore, and I hadn’t seen a single tree. If the Hound caches did exist, I would have better luck finding one closer to the city with more landmarks to triangulate the position of the map.

I noticed structures in the distance and confirmed on my map that there were no Telhian settlements out this far. The spyglass showed the buildings as being in a dilapidated state. Maybe a failed settlement, and there was no smoke from fires. I gave the ruins a wide berth as I continued along my predetermined path.

My luck finally ended late in the day. I caught movement and confirmed the shark-like parting the earth was headed toward me. It was a land shark, commonly known as a bulette. The first time I encountered one, I was able to gut it with my dimensional space. At this moment, I only had a corner of my space available to slay the creature.

The only good news, if it could be called good news, was that it appeared smaller than the one that had almost taken my life a year ago. I laughed as I remembered Herne’s lecture on these monsters—run! Don’t engage, just run. Their exoskeleton was impervious to normal attacks, their jaws could cut through metal armor with ease, they could burrow faster than a man could run, and they could leap over forty feet in the air. I had witnessed the last myself but guessed it only cleared twenty feet.

If the bulette did not leap into the air, it was going to be extremely difficult to pulse earth speak and use my dimensional space to kill it. I started sprinting perpendicular to the land shark’s approach. It slowly started to veer toward me, confirming I was its target. Although Hearne said you couldn’t outrun a bulette, I was going to try and hopefully lure it out. I pumped my arms and sprinted. I hoped the bulette would surface and give me a clear target.

My boots pounded the grass as I ran. I was slightly surprised when the bulette did not seem to be closing. I might even be outrunning it as its fin appeared slightly smaller when I craned my neck. It was hopeful thinking, but maybe I could fatigue the bulette, and it would give up its pursuit. Of course, after forty minutes of running recklessly in the open, I attracted the attention of a pair of aurochs.

Aurochs looked like monstrous buffalo. The Telhians had domesticated some herds to raise for their hides to use in legion armor among other things. Auroch meat was also a common staple of the diet of nobles. I think these two were males and they seemed to think I was challenging them in their territory. Hearne had said if you left these herbivores alone, they generally left you alone. I raced toward the larger of the two, and it accepted my challenge ad charged. It was still confused after I used and disc to vault over it, and the bulette reached it.

The emergence of the bulette scared the other auroch into flight. The exploding earth confused the aggressive male, and it was no match for the bulette as its jaws closed on the haunches, gorily cutting off the hindquarters. I couldn’t be sure the bulette wouldn’t pursue me after its entree, so I raced back while its back was turned and it was devouring the auroch. My dimensional space overlayed with the head and I relaxed when the behemoth’s legs gave out.

My heart returned to a normal tempo, and soon, the collector was out and forming a major earth essence. Most of the auroch had been consumed, and the collector failed to draw anything from it. The earth essence was immediately consumed, the chalky taste dissolving in my mouth. It marginally increased the range of my earth-speak pulses.

I rested, rehydrating as I sent thanks to Fortuna. Soon after, I started following the compass. The excitement was much more limited over the next three days as I made my way northeast. Some oversized vultures circled me for a time. Five men were riding horses west who did not appear to be Hounds or legionnaires with the spyglass. I passed the ruins of a fort where the stone blocks appeared to be fused together with magic. And I was trailed for a day by a pack of five normal wolves who found easier prey I did not see.

I finally reached a worn road cutting the plains. I was fairly certain that this road heading southeast would lead to Vartaholme. I didn’t know much about Vartaholme other than it had a dungeon and was relatively isolated. That meant if I took this road in the other direction, to the northwest, I should reach the city of Ogala.

My blood compass was still pulling me northeast, but the pull had intensified. This meant Aesop was likely in the city of Sagren, less than fifty miles away. I removed the last of my Hound armor, dressed in the common clothes I had received in Hound training, and started walking Ogala. I could really use a bath.

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