AO 6 Ch 20

A week later, the dreary dryness of the Badlands gave way to the equally dry Barbaric lands. Only this time, they were significantly colder. Even though spring had begun, there was still ice and snow stubbornly blanketing the landscape, yet to thaw. I wasn't sure when it had started, but I was certainly ready for it to end.

"How long are we going to be up here?" I asked, glancing at my travel mates.

The two goddesses had yet to return. Meanwhile, Diana had settled from being overly lovestruck to simply very loyal. I assumed she was still under whatever spell Ditzy had cast on her. Only now, it was tempered with my frequent refusals and her own survival instinct not to step on Maribelle's toes. That, or she had fallen out of the spell and was a fantastic actor, which I thought was the least likely option.

As for the missing Vel’shae, well, none of us were too worried. Eva was treating him like a cat that would just show up on our doorstep one day. Then again, there was no reason to be worried about a powerful Vel’shae with over 500 years of experience under his belt.

"We shouldn't be up here long," Zuri said. "On the positive end, your ice magic should work a little better. There are fewer natural elements trying to melt it." 

I made a face. If I used my ice magic, it would just make everything colder. I shivered and wrapped my manticore coat even tighter around me.

Aurelia, however, saw me shivering and found a new way to get cuddles. She parted my coat briefly only to slide partially in it with me before her body began to radiate wonderful, wonderful heat. 

"Well, at least you can get Aurelia to be affectionate when you're cold," Emlyn smirked. None knew of her softness, and I would leave it that way.

"Yes, that's it," I said with a smile. "Back to the topic at hand. How far away is this place?" 

"Probably no more than another day or two. But we'll have to be careful. I'm unsure how the locals are going to treat us," Zuri replied. 

I frowned. "What does that mean? Since we know at least one Northman, that means they're all cool with us, right?" I flashed her a smile, but also knew that they notoriously disliked magic, and I was a mage. 

"You can try and use his name," Zuri hesitated. "I think, however, you're going to find that's not as effective as you would hope. He was partially exiled, wasn't he? Even if he’s known around here." 

“Partially exiled.” I confirmed. “But he was a listener of his tribe?'" I hesitated, trying to remember the right term.

“I don’t know about ‘partially’ exiled.” Emlyn air quoted, "It would be more apt to say he was exiled with the chance of returning if he gained enough knowledge in the future." 

"Tomato, tomato," I shrugged, not particularly interested in the difference. 

"Yes, well, your 'tomato, tomato' reference is really only a preference on how you talk about fruit, not whether or not they would kill you on sight when you return to your home." Emlyn pushed.

"Well, when you put it that way, it sounds a lot more serious," I chuckled nervously. 

"Well, now that he's making jokes, we can assume he at least somewhat understands the seriousness of the situation," Emlyn said and then frowned at her own words. "I hate that that made sense.”

“Ard has certainly introduced some flexible thinking in all of us," Zuri agreed. 

"I think it's best overall if we don't mix too much with the local population. While I'm sure that Brusset is a wonderful person, Ard is a mage, and in keeping him safe, my preference would be not to fight people who have a penchant for killing mages," Emlyn held her hands up in surrender. 

"Fully agree. Just talking through it all since there's not much else for us to do until we get there." Zuri nodded.

"Well, if there's one thing Emlyn's good at, it's certainly talking." I answered. All of the anchors and even love puppy Diana gave me a look that told me they thought there was somebody else that talked more.

"Really? Even you?" I squinted at the woman.

"I might love you, but you are still obnoxious." Diana answered.

I opened my mouth in horror. 

Emlyn bent over holding her stomach as she laughed. "Even magically compelled, she thinks you talk too much.” She dialed it down to a snicker as money started changing hands between my anchors. 

"Wait, was there a bet? For what? How long until she disagreed with me?" I pointed at Diana.

"No, never. That would be completely unprofessional of anchors to bet on people disliking their mage’s strange habits." Emlyn answered.

I narrowed my eyes on my anchors. "Who won?" 

"Emlyn, of course," Maribelle reluctantly handed over a few gold coins.

"I told you not to bet against her.” Zuri added. 

“But you did too," Maribelle argued. 

"She hedged the bet," I smirked, watching the exchange.

Maribelle handed Zuri coins that she then directly handed to Emlyn.

“I just ensured I wouldn't lose," Zuri flashed all of them a smile. "And besides, Emlyn didn't make good enough rules." 

"Well, next time, I'll have you make the rules," Emlyn retorted and then frowned as we all likely realized Zuri would make the rules to her own extreme benefit if we let her. Emlyn tried to grumble, but there was a giant smile on her face as she collected her winnings.

Diana, on the other hand, looked between all of us, confused. "Did I win something?" she asked.

"No, you didn't, Honey," Aurelia said, patting her on the shoulder.

"Except for the wonderful prize of loving me," I sighed dramatically. "Really, she's the real winner in all of this."

"Is it love if it's not real?" Emlyn asked.

"Absolutely not," I said with zero hesitation. "However, even false love for me has to be more enjoyable than love for most men." I held my head as if my genius was a burden, earning a full range of eye rolls from those present. 

As we floated along on my sheet of ice, I kept the platform low to the ground and moved slowly to avoid attracting attention from the barbarians. Regardless, we would have to loop around at least partially through the Northmen's lands, to reach the Garrish Fortress. This fortress was the capstone atop their kingdom and prevented the Northmen from invading. 

Going as slow as we were and low to the ground, it was no surprise that we attracted the attention of multiple animals. A large stag with a full rack of antlers stopped grazing to watch us. The beast was big enough that it felt comfortable slowly munching away while keeping an eye on us and didn't flee immediately. 

"You'd think he'd be scared of hunters," Emlyn said, watching the elk. "One that big would feed a family for a while."

"They have a certain respect for the wildlife and that one's probably been given free reign to mate and breed up and down this mountain. The Northmen probably won't hunt it until it starts to get old enough that it might fall prey to wolves.” Eva spoke up.

I turned to her, surprised. "You live far away from the North. How do you know so much about the Northmen?"

"Because they were once our neighbors," she said as if that fact was the most obvious thing in the world. "And there are plenty of books on them back in Zenovia. There's a couple of interesting lessons that every royal is taught based on Northmen ideologies. They're actually really interesting people. It takes a lot of rigid rules and strong wills to survive in this horrible climate."

"What kind of rules do the Northmen follow?" I asked, curious to learn more about their culture.

"The hunting rules, for example," Eva gestured at the stag that was ignoring us. "Because all Northmen benefit tremendously if the healthy and large specimens of the elk survive, then so too can the Northmen flourish. For that reason, they spend a great deal of effort tracking and documenting the beasts around their territory. The meat of a ten-year-old elk serves them just as well as that of a two-year-old."

"Oh yeah, we covered that." I squinted at Maribelle, trying to recall her lessons. "We do that for humans too, don't we? Wasn't there a noble..." I snapped my fingers trying to remember his name. Unfortunately, while I remembered the concept, who wrote the concept was beyond me. "What's-his-face. He claimed that we have to be more careful with noble lives to preserve them and let them stay alive longer to produce more mages. It's also why he argued that male-led harems were more productive."

Eva pressed her eyes closed. "That's probably debatable and partially for his own selfish interests," she hesitated. "But, yes, a similar concept. The Northmen take their necessity for food seriously," she gestured at the elk, "and they know that big elks tend to lead to more big elks. Thus, they do their best to preserve them so that they can have more big elks in the future. Fundamentally, it's the same breeding selection that Avente or Zenovia might do for chickens, only at a larger scale in the wild. And because it's in the wild, it has to be communally enforced. Otherwise, someone may take advantage of a big elk and kill it for themselves."

I made a noise of understanding and nodded along. "So if they let the big ones live, then also in the future when it’s older and no longer producing or protecting offspring, it can be removed. And in order for that to happen successfully, the Northmen have to enforce the rules and keep their fellow community members accountable." I offered.

She nodded along.

"That must be actually rather hard to enforce. After all, it's not like there are people following that elk, are there?" I frowned, looking around, worried that my words were about to somehow mystically summon a small army of Northmen. Even as a mage, that was not something I particularly wanted to face.

"Not in their territory, at least. No one's following them, but tribes are incredibly communal. They have to be in order to survive. So it's not like someone could kill this and bring it back to the village without anyone knowing." Zuri answered.

"It gets more and more interesting," I mused. The community that's both self-policing and self-enforcing wasn't something we had in Avente, nor did I think that it existed in Zenovia, either. 

"Yes, well, I think enforcement could be a problem, but it's sort of a situation where everyone has a stake. Ergo, everyone wants to be able to feed their families and their next generation, and everyone sort of pitches in with the policing and enforcement. And it's really just about getting everyone's self-interest aligned," Eva said. "That's why it's a topic taught even in the royal palace of Zenovia. Because while you haven't really delved too deep into country politics, getting everyone's self-interest aligned is kind of a marvel." Eva smirked.

"I guess when you put it that way, I can understand why it would be interesting to study a community that works by getting the nobles and peasants to want the same outcome," I said.

Eva chuckled. "That's one way to look at it. Though I don't know how many of the Northmen would qualify as nobles.”

“Well, there have to be some that are, I don't know, leaders or scholars, not necessarily grunts with sticks that go out hunting every day." I looked around the group for confirmation.

“Ard, every Northman can hunt. Though I think you could say that, yes, some of them might play other roles as well. But no, they all hunt. That stereotype is accurate. Brusset is probably the closest thing to a scholar that they have." Eva replied.

My mind flashed to the massive bear man, and I somehow tried to superimpose his frame and image with those bespectacled, scrawny scholars that I had seen in the capital. "Oh, well. No wonder no one tries to invade the North," I chuckled. "The land isn't worth fighting them if those are their scholars."

Maribelle gestured about. "It's too hard to plow year-round. Well, maybe at some point the frost gives in long enough to turn over the top few inches. But I doubt that lasts very long."

Our talk about the Northman had been a nice distraction from the cold. But a chill wind swept through and found every gap in my coat, trying to push its cold air in and steal away my warmth. Holding my coat tighter, I tried to seal it up as best I could. Aurelia doing her best to be my heater.

"Well, while this is fascinating," I emphasized, "Zuri, can you bring out the map and give me your best guess on how much longer this is going to take?"

My Trevis anchor smirked and pulled out a map. She was only wearing her kingdom blues at the moment. All of my anchors were in kingdom blues, but she had a constant glow of light magic off the surface of her skin, making her glow like a dark-skinned goddess.

I was sure that even more light magic was operating inside of her, keeping her nice and toasty. Anchors were really too lucky. Though they couldn't throw massive blasts, create mountains, or other fun magic tricks, it would be nice to never really be concerned about how heavy something was or the temperature outside.

Not that I would trade away being a mage. After all, one of the reasons I had all of these amazing women in my life was that I had the wonderful opportunity to bind all of the anchors to myself. I wasn't a greedy man, but if someone tried to take them away from me, I would fight tooth and nail.

"Not much longer, Ard," Zuri reported, glancing between the map and the mountains around us. The barbaric clans weren't only cold, but they had rapidly shifting elevation. Carriages and horses, once I was excluded, weren't able to cross the land, pretty much at all. It was only thanks to a few passes that we could do any trade with the Northmen.

"Good," I said, relieved. “Diana, this is where we part ways.” I turned back to the doe-eyed woman.

“You can’t.” She pleaded.

“You’ll be fine. Just ride some lightning back to Garrish and live your life.” I had been going back and forth on what to do with her, but dropping her off before we went into this battle was best, otherwise she was a liability that I didn’t want to drag around.

As for letting her go sooner, I was too worried that she’d snap out of it and tell someone in Garrish our plans.

She started crying and I turned to Emlyn.

“What? You’re breaking her heart, at least be a gentleman about it.” My anchor huffed.

I knelt slightly. “Look, Diana. It isn’t you, it’s me. I’m an idiot and I just can’t see us together. Go, live your life as best you can and make me regret this for the rest of my life.” I tried to encourage her.

“What if I don’t want to?” She looked up through teary eyes.

“This needs to be mutual and it isn’t.” I shook my head. “Off with you.” I shooed her away.

She took a step back and Emlyn helped me by putting herself between the two of us. “Go, before I make you.”

Diana glared at Emlyn, but the anchor seemed to have broken some of the spell as the Garrish mage stepped on a small bolt of lightning and floated off the ice platform, glancing back at me before shooting off into the distance.

“Think we’ll see her again?” Eva asked.

“She wasn’t even here long enough for any of you to get attached.” I waved her question away. “Blame Ditzy for all of this.” I grumbled, why did I have to break up with some random woman I didn’t even like? And why did it actually stab at my heart?

“Ard’s a softie.” Aurelia said. “I think Ditzy was testing him or testing Missy.”

Emlyn made a noise of understanding. “That actually makes sense.”

“What does? How was this a test for me or even Missy? That’s beyond far-fetched.” I said as they all gave me a look of disbelief.

Perhaps I was missing something, but that wasn’t important.

“Whatever, we’ll see the fort here in the next few minutes," I said, pointing ahead and to the left.

"Do you remember the plan, Ard?" Emlyn asked.

"Yup," I replied. "Get close, then I'm going to dig a tunnel underneath."

Zuri gave me a big thumbs up. "That should do it. They most likely have some magical defenses, but this fort is built to protect them from the barbarians, not you. It isn’t designed or defended for Avente to bring mages."

I nodded in agreement. "Yup, I'll be a big surprise. Especially when they're looking out their walls, wondering where we came from."

"Well, hopefully they don't end up doing a whole lot of looking," Emlyn interjected. "I'm not normally one for cloaks and daggers, but in this instance, I think I would vastly prefer finishing up before they realized we are even here."

Emlyn glanced out the side of her eye at Maribelle, who gave her a look of pure innocence.

"If you'd like me to teach you at any point, I'd be happy to take that task on." Maribelle gave a vicious grin.

I didn't know exactly what was going on between those two, but there was often a faint tension. Emlyn and Maribelle had mentioned some deal weeks ago, and though I had no details and wanted no details, I could only imagine the contents of said deal.

There was a high chance whatever was involved wasn't entirely kosher. Whatever their deal was, it was unlikely to be my concern if my two anchors were in agreement. The details didn't need to matter to me. I trusted my anchors with my life on a daily basis. There certainly wasn't any reason for me to inject doubt if there didn't need to be any.

The Garrish fortress loomed over the snowy hills ahead. It was a simple structure, even by fortress standards. Large, dark, red stone walls had been weathered and battered by ice until they resembled something more akin to being stained by the blood of thousands. Perhaps they had been. I had been given a history lesson; this fort was ancient, as were the conflicts between the Northmen and the rest of the continent. 

"This is my time to get going," Emlyn said, pulling a dark, heavy cloak over her shoulders. "Aurelia, you're coming with me." She motioned to the other woman, who merely nodded and  extricated herself from my coat before she gathered her own cloak around her. 

"Try not to do too much damage," I suggested. 

"We have to do enough to get their attention, even if that might be a little destructive." Emlyn gave me a long, measured look, to which I stared back with my own conviction. Finally, she sighed. 

"I'll do my best to limit the damage, and I'll try not to kill anyone," she finally promised. Pulling the cloak tight to hide her features, she set off from the ice sled. I glanced at Zuri, having never liked this part of the plan. 

"It's important in the long run, Ard. If Garrish never feels the pressure to rush up here and fix this, then we won't be taking pressure off the battlefields in the south." 

I didn't say anything. I just crossed my arms. 

Zuri sighed. "Emlyn said she wouldn't kill anyone." 

"Yeah, but I know in order to piss them off, she's gonna have to at least burn a few buildings. And while that may not directly kill anyone, it's certainly going to make a few lives harder." I really did not like this part of the plan.

But I had my own job to do. With the fortress up ahead and the sloping hill between here and there, I waved my hand and punched through the snow and the hard-packed dirt underneath. 

"If it makes you feel any better, they'll get to use the fort for shelter," Zuri said. 

"Uh-huh." I thought about that for a moment, pursing my lips. "Actually, you know what? That does make me feel better. Perhaps they can hold the fort for a while, and if we find any food, we're leaving it behind. We have plenty with the crates we already gathered," I said, feeling strongly about that choice. 

I didn't dislike the Northmen, in fact, I rather liked them. I had a long history of giving them free drinks at the inn. They were always willing to stand up and help out if a situation ever got too rowdy late at night. In some way, I felt like I needed to return the favor. Even if we had to involve them, I didn't want to inconvenience them, much less kill any.