Chapter 5: Chapter 3: Guide

By morning, Hildesman had managed to convert one of his tarps into a crude knapsack. Into that he packed as much of his spare gear as he thought the girl could manage, plus most of his trail rations, his compass and some matches. If he had to distract a direbeast Francine should have enough supplies there to reach the city. He'd let her keep the rain cloak as a bedroll. All told, it was a small kit, but it was better than nothing. He’d fare better foraging than she would, if it came to it.

Francine herself turned restlessly throughout the night. Hildesman was wary to restart the fire, but he made sure to keep some coals banked and pushed toward her side of the fire. When morning's light started to seep through the trees to the east, he finally relaxed a hair and added a proper piece of fuel to reignite the heat. He prepared his camp kettle and some dried oats while the heat built.

Francine woke up when the firelog let out a particularly loud snap, and stayed awake when she noticed the sunlight and the kettle. "Mister Hildesman?" She asked, folding the rain cloak into a rough roll. "Why did you agree to take me to the city?"

Hildesman considered for a moment, pouring some hot water over a bowl of oats. "You think a person needs a reason to help a lost child?" He eventually replied.

"Uncle Pin seemed to think they did. Most of 'em, at least."

Hildesman didn't answer. When the oats were wet enough to mash into a meal he passed the bowl across the fire. Francine took the oats and ate them rapidly, then spoke again. “Mister Hildesman?”

"Yes?"

"Thank you for not needing a reason to help me." Hildesman looked over at her. She seemed to have lost some of the aura of panic that had been following her and replaced it with…something. She wasn't smiling but she looked content nonetheless. Relief, he guessed.

Didn’t say I didn’t have one. Just that I didn’t need one. He thought to himself. Instead of speaking, though, he merely poured out a cup of tea and passed it over the fire to Francine. She drank the tea nearly as eagerly as she had eaten the oat mash, but she winced when she finished the cup, wrinkling her nose and peering into the dregs. "I think your tea is spoiled.”

“No, it’s supposed to taste like that.” He replied, feeling a grin tug at the corner of his mouth. “Might be we just have different tastes.”

“You actually like this?” Francine pushed the cup back towards Hildesman, who wiped it clean and poured the remainder of the kettle into it for himself.

“It grows on you,” he offered, rather than agreeing outright. “But the real reason it tastes like that is because I know it’s safe that way.”

“How do you mean?” she asked. “You already boiled it to make the tea. Isn’t that enough?”

“Sure, most of the time.” Your uncle should get to the city more often. “But lately the Order’s chemists have been looking real close at the water from streams and lakes outside the city. Their theory is that all of it has a hint of Tessenium in it. Not enough to make you sick. But over time, they think it builds up. Causes all the weirdness you hear about in Exile caravans. Might even lead to direbeasts, too. Wells is safer, but trappers can’t dig a new well every night. So the Order, and a buncha chemists behind the wall, they all put their heads together and came up with a tonic you can add to water to make it safe.”

“Oh,” Francine answered. “Then…why don’t they make the tonic taste better? A little honey wouldn’t make it not work, right?”

Hildesman’s grin won out, and he chuckled. “No, I suppose it wouldn’t. But would you believe that this is the best-tasting of the tonics? I promise you, I tried ‘em all. Only one you can stand to smell is this one, let alone taste. And it don’t take much. Just a splash of it in the kettle. Some of the fellas back home will drink this instead of ale.”

“Blech.” Francine answered, poking her tongue out at the thought.

“Like I said, it grows on you. Starts to get to where normal water doesn’t taste right any more.” He poured the rest of the kettle over the fire.

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“Alright. We need to get on our feet for the day. I’ll clean up camp. You stay in earshot. That rucksack there isn’t the nicest one around but it should be sturdy. It’s got some gear in it. Might want to take the time to check through it, make sure you know everything you’ve got.”

While Hildesman quickly covered the fire and did his best to remove the signs that a camp had been lit here the night before, Francine familiarized herself with the contents of the pack, rearranging them. Twenty minutes later, they were both standing, boots checked and bags on their backs. As Francine turned to go toward the trail, Hildesman said “Wait, one more thing.”

He unclipped his steambow from its slot on his own pack and held it out to Francine. “You know how to shoot?”

Francine nodded solemnly. “Da insisted everyone in the stronghold know. Only ever used a black powder gun though.” She pointed to the long-barrel rifle clipped to the other side of his pack.

“Too heavy for you to travel with. This is pretty much the same. Only thing you need to remember is it takes a second to shoot after you pull the trigger. The water needs to superheat. The safety catch is just behind the grip there.” He passed her a small metal box. “Spare ammo. The bow holds three cartridges. After you fire all three, pull this lever to open the chamber. The old cartridges will be too hot to touch, so just tip ‘em out. Kick some dirt on ‘em if you have time. One last thing,” he pointed to a long cylinder attached to the stock at an angle. “This holds a battery. Should be enough charge in one cell to fire probably six or seven shots, then you’ll need to swap it out. There’s a spare in the ammo box. If you need to fire more than two batteries worth, I’ve done something very wrong. But if you do, oilpods will work too. The little handlight in the knapsack has a few. Any questions?”

Francine familiarized herself with the safety, opened the chamber, inspected the levers and to Hildesman’s surprise, took the battery out, examined it curiously, and placed it back into its cylinder. When she had checked the whole steambow, she shook her head. “Good. If something happens, you hide first and let me deal with it. This is only for if we get separated. We clear?”

“Yessir.” Francine said. Hildesman nodded. “Alright. Let’s get under way. If we’re lucky, we might even see the beacon tower tonight.”

Hildesman was surprised by the rapid change in Francine’s demeanor. She seemed to stand straighter. He knew the spindle-thinness hadn’t faded with just two solid meals, but she walked with more fortitude, and her mood even seemed more assured compared to the panicked white-eyed child who had stumbled into his camp scarcely ten hours hence. Well, sis always did say kids surprise you. He thought to himself.

The first morning he set an easy pace, trying to give the child a chance to recover. Even so, by the time they broke for lunch, he more than expected her to be short on breath and footsore. Instead, he was shocked when she stood up from the brief rest even before he did, commenting that she wanted to see the city as soon as possible. Hildesman readjusted his estimate of her. Whatever she had learned on that stronghold farm, she was resilient.

After lunch, he slowly increased their pace over the course of the afternoon, until he found the speed that would tire but not exhaust Francine. It turned out to be not too much slower than his own relaxed pace. If he was in a hurry, he could double it, but this would see them in town a whole day sooner than he predicted, and only one day later than he had hoped when not guiding a lost youth.

That evening, Hildesman picked a camp site, then passed Francine the hatchet from his pack. “Nothing bigger than the handle,” was all the instructions he needed to give before she set off to collect fallen branches and twigs for the fire. Lacking one of the standing stones he had used to shelter the night before, Hildesman began to drag some of the larger boughs together into a makeshift lean-to, when Francine burst into the small clearing, hatchet in one hand and a single branch, half of it relieved of its branches, in the other. She whipped her head first one way, then the other, until she saw Hildesman, hand already drawing his bolter as the bough fell at his feet. He pointed to the small amount of lean-to he had been able to construct already, and Francine obligingly crawled into the shallowest part of it, leaving her branch on the forest floor but handing Hildesman the hatchet as she went past.

It was another thirty seconds before Hildesman heard what Francine had. My hearing must be going. He thought. Or else she found an echo chamber in the forest. The sound repeated again a couple seconds later. Whump. Direhawks. He still couldn’t see their outlines against the sky, but he kept turning his gaze in a steady circle as he crossed to where he had stowed his pack, setting his hatchet on the ground next to it and unclipping his rifle by feel. Whump whump. The pair was together this time. Two sets of heavy wings tore the night sky somewhere to Hildesman’s north. Rifle in his hand, bolter in his left, he moved at a carefully measured walk to some trees that provided cover from that line of view. There, he put his bolter into its chest holster and carefully took a ready stance with the rifle low. He fixed his gaze northward.

Whump whump. Whump whump. The first direhawk came into view, just a shadow marked against the fading light. Its massive body was supported by a pair of oddly short wings, each scarcely longer than the chest was wide. To compensate, the wings were nearly the entire length of the body, the pinions reaching out beyond even the creature’s tail. Hildesman had always thought direhawks looked like some grotesque mockery of a dirigible wrought in bone and feather, and the outline of this one reminded him why.

He stood stock still. The direhawk he could see was flying to the east, and if it continued its path, it would miss the camp. Hildesman held his breath, tracking the lumpy shadow as it continued on its track. Whump, whump. His heart plummeted as a second shadow came into view. The mate. It was flying a good ways south of and behind its partner, and it would pass close enough to see Hildesman unless he took cover. He cast around. Francine’s eyes gleamed from under the lean-to, nearly like a cat under nightfall. It was too far away and it would risk Francine being seen if the hawks noticed his movements. He looked the other direction. It wasn’t much, but there was a fallen tree there. He could fit under it at a crawl.

He picked his moment. The second hawk would pass behind the canopy of an old-growth elm in a couple seconds as long as it kept pace. When it did, he dashed to the fallen log and hit the ground at a controlled roll, coming to rest just on the other side of the log. Hastily, he pulled himself back under it.

Before he could hide himself fully, heard an inhuman shriek from the direction of the first hawk. He had been seen. “Thrice Damned.” he swore under his breath, and rolled back away from the log, coming to one knee with his rifle at his shoulder.

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