Gudrun and her horse came to a stop. "Let's stop here, Gunnar, and rest the horses until evening." Gunnar looked around. They were at the base of a small mountain and the road led up to a low pass. Around them was decent grazing and a small brook. But no reason to stop. "No, we keep going. The horses don't need rest. I need to get you to where you are safe so I can return and fight. I'm not wasting time here."She shrugged, "You're in charge of course. But if we stop now, we and the horses will be ready to travel in the evening when the Baron's army arrives. Or, we can trudge up that mountain and meet them a little earlier, but be on exhausted horses and tired from fighting the trogs that have a camp in that pass. Also, one of us will die to a trog axe and the other will be taken captive. It's hard to see the exact ending."Gunnar sighed and led the horses over to the brook where he could strip them to graze and rub them down. "As usual, you only tell me the worst stuff at the end of your little speech."She grinned at him, "I'm trying to get you in the habit of agreeing with me without an explanation of what might happen. Talking about what might happen narrows the future. Remember when we went fishing and I told you the ice was thin and you'd fall through?"The boy shuddered. He'd ignored her, chopped his hole where he thought the fishing would be best, then fallen through and been trapped beneath the ice as the current moved him away from the hole. He'd thought he was dead until she took his axe, ran to a spot further down, and broken a hole down stream for him to crawl through. "I'll start a fire and heat some tea for you after I care for the horses. You said an army was coming?""I think so. Many people, but it is hard to see clearly. The Baron leads, but those who follow are more powerful and so hard to see. But one will do something terrible today.""What will happen?""The skies will burn. And he will do it because I ask him to."He could get nothing more out of her. He cared for the horses, started a fire, and saw she was huddling with her arms wrapped around her knees. She must have been pushing herself too hard. As usual.He sat behind her with the blanket covering both of them. He managed to get her to eat a little, and sleep in his arms. As evening came, he saw men and wagons appear over the crest of the pass. There was a flash of fire as they dealt with the Trogs and then raced down the mountain faster than he'd ever seen a horse run. She stirred in his arms. "Time to get the horses saddled, so you can return to the clan and fight."=====
The speed with which the the nobles of Gadobhra mobilized their people would have astounded many generals, and left nobles gaping with open mouths. Neither Billy or Layla had risen in ACME from lack of taking chances. Both recognized that while moving quickly to grab an advantage might fail, taking a long, cautious approach had a certain chance of failing. ACME wasn't a corporation that rewarded slow, steady gains. Those people would be stuck in middle management forever. Trying and failing might be forgiven, but not trying at all was a mortal sin. And in truth, if they two of them hadn't been sabotaging each other for so many years, they'd have made Vice President or higher far sooner. Working in tandem in Gadobhra, they made a good team and when decisions were made, they acted quickly.Their secret, as usual, was delegation to their workers and encouraging them be inventive. They'd long ago realized that many of them were up to far more than was apparent, and while they weren't sure just what was going on, they could take advantage of it by giving them leeway in solving problems. Today was no exception. Wagons were quickly being loaded with every war machine in stock, most of which were scheduled to go to various places in the Empire, especially the south. Ben assigned any worker not going on the expedition to a team that would begin building replacements and gathering the raw materials needed. With any luck, the new machines would be ready for delivery within the week.Along with catapult, onager, and ballista, several wagons were loaded with special ammunition that would be the bane of any creature of winter. The ACME version of Greek Fire was nightmarish, setting monsters on fire and covering them in the sticky, tar-like substance that would burn for minutes. And given a little time, a certain Butcher could make things far worse. Ozzy decided, wisely, to hold off doing that until the end of the journey. Moving fast overland with fragile explosives was a disaster in the making. Baron William had been nervous about even storing so many fire bombs in his city. A large ruin had been cleared of rubble and rebuilt with ten-foot thick stone walls, and the second story was converted into a water tower with an ingenious fire control system created by his personal engineers. If an explosion did happen, tens of thousands of gallons of water would pour down into the warehouse. Ozzy was just loading the last of the items in the warehouse when some interesting looking boxes caught his eye. "Now, what do we have here? I'm curious about the need for extra warning signs about something in a bunker filled with Greek Fire." A beautiful sign done in calligraphy stated, "Danger. Charged and ready. Don't touch!"Jon and Cham were helping him load the wagon and immediately moved to open the boxes. Cham grinned, snapping the wires holding the lid on with his fingers, "Well, this place is empty of flammables, so let's find out." He lifted the lid and whistled.Jon carefully looked in, seeing a dozen carefully pack wands that glowed. "These are new. We've been carving fire wands and staves and selling them to students for years, but these suckers are charged up." Ozzy picked one up, "Yep, I can feel the mana. This has about ten-thousand points of flame mana in it. Wonder what the hell it does?"A voice from the doorway said loudly, "It will give you blisters on your backside, all three of you, and I'll put them there personally. Didn't you read my sign? A man puts a warning and an alarm spell on something, and of course that makes some people even more curious." The three of them turned to see Master Caldrius in the doorway.Ben and Cham got behind Ozzy, who simply raised an eyebrow at Caldrius. "Damned right it does. You should have put them in a corner underneath a pile of old rugs."Caldrius shook his head and sighed, "I will try that next time. But to answer your unasked question, when I learned that this town produced the high-quality, low-cost Fire Staves and Blast Wands that are flooding the markets, I saw a way to train my large gaggle of new Fire Mages. I've been pushing them to expand their mana pools and what better way than to charge up these magical items. A small way to pay back the Baron's patronage. But, the experiment was overly-successful. These weapons are quite more powerful than I expected, a credit to their construction and the runes carved into them."Caldrius pointed at the open crate. "Now please, put that down, and reseal the crate. There are runes on each crate that will keep the wands from accidentally triggering. They are charged and each has one of a number of spells already placed upon them. Any idiot could used them, and I see three idiots in this room, a bad combination."Ozzy was immediately intrigued, but did as asked and resealed the crate. "So, these belong to the Baron?""They do indeed."The Butcher grinned, "Well, Baron William is off to save a few thousand refugees from the Winter War from being eaten by giants from the north and we leave in an hour. I don't suppose you'd like to come along and bring your toys?"Caldrius brightened up immediately, then shook his head. "I would love too, but sadly, must stay here. Iggy has a cold and shouldn't travel, and my apprentices should not journey through the Empire until the political climate settles down. In Sedgewick, they are invisible, not so anywhere else." He looked at Ozzy, then at the cases of charged wands. "The Baron is leading this expedition?""Yep. As you mentioned, the political climate is a bit unstable. He was ceded a bunch of worthless lands along the northern border. With a bunch of Summers getting loose, that's all lush grassland and fast growing forests now. Prime land with no one living there, except for a band of invading barbarians who can't go home. It get's more complicated because Ben found out they are the descendants of Empire citizens that fled the swarm hundreds of years ago. That makes things complicated."Caldrius laughed, "Oh, so much worse than that. If he doesn't act, he will be accused of not protecting his lands from invaders, and of not protecting poor refugees. If he lets them stay, he's opening up the land to any other squatter. And there will be nobles who trace their lineage back to those people who will insist on going north and claiming land. It doesn't matter if the paperwork is there or not, an hour to let the ink dry and they'll have copies of ancient land treaties ready to give to the courts. Yes, he has to act immediately, but how is a quandary I'm glad I don't have to solve."Ozzy pointed at the crates, "How about you solve part of it by letting me take all that firepower for testing? It belongs to Baron, and if any idiot can used them, I'm sure I can find a few dozen qualified candidates."The old mage wagged his head sadly, "Now I really want to go with you. Fine, fine. Take those toys, but I want a report on how well they work from each person that uses one. Consider it your homework."Ozzy didn't need to be told twice, "You got it, Professor. Let's get these loaded boys, and no, you can't test them until we get there."Jon and Cham sighed, "Disappointing, but can we at least get a couple each? How cool is it to run at a bunch of giants shooting fireballs from each hand?"Caldrius chuckled, "Are you sure you aren't Fire Mages? You have the proper attitude."Jon grinned, "Just simple lumberjacks, sir, and we may play at being Forest Princes on the weekends."He eyed the two of them, "Would you like to be? There are some amazing synergies between Wood and Fire aspects that could be interesting to experiment with."They looked at each other and bowed low, "Your humble new apprentices will be ready to learn to blast shit with fire, as soon as we get back."Caldrius waved at them. "Off with you then. I will smother my disappointment at not burning giants by having a second piece of pie. It's pie day at the tavern and I should get going. Betty's pies go quickly with so many hungry adventurers in this town."