The dwarves had been as good as their word, and Dan managed to shave some time off his estimate of how long it would take them to leave the mountains. Their tunnels led almost directly south and managed to avoid having to climb higher elevations, which obviously meant they could cover a lot more ground. They didn’t directly lead to the cities in the southern lands, but by the time his company set foot outside again coming out of a tunnel for the last time, they were far enough in the foothills that it didn’t matter too much.

  He was driving them hard, he knew that. Dan himself had barely managed to get enough sleep since they started. But all of his soldiers had reasonable Con stats, and they could manage forced marches for a week or two. From the mountains, it was only a few days until they neared their actual destination.

  They avoided Veragles for now, since he’d decided that it would unnecessarily slow them down to be entangled there. Besides, he’d learned that the political situation was dicey, and without updated information, he wasn’t sure if he wouldn’t make some huge blunder by talking to people he shouldn’t or giving them information he shouldn’t. Who all did know about the base, anyway? No, better to avoid all that for now until he could catch up with Tim or at least get updated on his orders. Luckily, that was not too hard to manage.

  Instead, they’d headed on a more or less direct course for the disputed lands around and between Iliyan and Iliucin, thanks to the dwarves’ help. Their provisions were getting low, but there was enough forage and game to sustain them for a bit, and while water was getting scarcer, they didn’t have to worry about it yet. If nothing else, they had mages who could Conjure water, though he’d prefer they save their mana for other things. Still, it meant they’d made decent progress so far.

  Right now, Dan was leading his company through open, hilly countryside a few kilometers away from another minor city, noting the way the landscape was visibly getting more arid as they progressed. His hand was curled around the letter a Winged Drone — one of those sent with Owin’s first wave of reinforcements, he would have known that anyway — had delivered.

  It must have been a risk to send it, and he made sure the drone kept to the ground instead of the air for now. He assumed it had been strongly ordered to destroy the letter before letting it fall into anyone else’s hands. To help secure it against someone intercepting the letter, it was also written in code.

  Simply using another language would probably have been best, he mused. Unfortunately, whatever process decided which parts of Regina’s knowledge her drones inherited clearly didn’t value linguistic skills and didn’t seem to think more than one was necessary, so none of them actually spoke anything but Global. It would have been nice to know the other languages she did. He thought he vaguely recognized some things, on the rare occasion he’d heard them, but it wouldn’t be enough for writing letters. Instead, Tim had written his message in binary, with zeros and ones, like what you’d find in a computer — using bytes for letters. Even if people figured out the idea, others shouldn’t know which base was used and how many zeros made one byte. He had also used a simple replacement cipher, so once Dan had transliterated the letters, he had to go over it again and replace them so the most frequently used letter equated to ‘e’. Because of all that, the message was necessarily short and to the point, but he hoped it still provided the information he’d need.

  The general gist of it was easy enough to understand, anyway. It was the details that Dan was getting hung up on. He really hoped the others knew what they were doing. Then again, it should be exciting even if it all blew up in their faces.

  “Commander!” one of the scouts interrupted his thoughts.

  Dan blinked, mentally chiding himself for not paying enough attention, as he’d barely noticed the man melting out of the high grass at the side of the road. “Yes? Something to report?”

  “There’s an altercation about a kilometer ahead, sir! We didn’t get close enough to make out any details, but there were two groups of about platoon size.”

  Dan blinked again, glanced at the letter again, then raised a hand to order a halt to their march. “First squad, with me,” he ordered. “You as well, soldier. Lead us there, quietly and discreetly. Geoff, hold position here and pay attention to the scouts. Second squad, be ready to reinforce us on my signal.”

  The soldiers quickly did as instructed. Dan only lingered long enough to be sure his orders were fulfilled, before he headed off the road with the soldiers in the named squad — some of their strongest and also decent at stealth.

  Despite not having many trees, the terrain was surprisingly difficult and easy to hide in, given the craggy earth, differences in elevation, and persistent shrubs and bushes. He focused more on their approach, which was at least pretty easy in terms of avoiding notice.

  Of course, by the time they finally approached the location and joined up with the second scout, the fight in question was already over. It didn’t surprise Dan; at this level, such affairs were usually quick and dirty.

  “The battle concluded, Lord Dan, and the losers have withdrawn,” the scout reported. “Several bodies remain. The winners have taken their own dead.”

  “Alright, let’s go. Did you get close enough to see them? Describe the winners.”

  It was as he suspected, judging by the soldier’s report. And when they finally reached the clearing where the fight had happened, it was confirmed as well. The weapons and equipment that must have come from this group were plain and unmarked. The scout had seen no identifying features of any kind, beyond a generic set of light mail armor and a sword, spear and shield combo.

  The other side, on the other hand — the ones whose bodies still littered the cracked ground, half a dozen laying where they must have fallen — were obvious. Their equipment was actually a bit more diverse, which didn’t necessarily mean they were worse. After all, soldiers with good Classes and Skills used weapons that suited those instead of generic crap. But more importantly, they were in fact in uniform — even if Dan wouldn’t consider the vaguely dyed trousers and helmets much of a uniform — and there was at least one trampled flag he could see at a glance, of the kind you might attach to a spear shaft. The insignia on it, a spear behind a snarling feline monster’s head, was mirrored on some of the soldiers’ equipment. Dan had been briefed for this mission and immediately recognized it even without context clues.

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  The city-state of Veragles.

  Dan hesitated for a moment, resisting the urge to take out the letter again. “Leave it,” he finally ordered. “If and when we get a chance, we will let their people know, but since some of them got away, I am sure Veragles will be informed anyway. We need to report to Tim.”

  It took a bit more time, scouting the area and making sure there were no hidden surprises. The victorious soldiers had already departed, and Dan didn’t go after them. He wasn’t even sure what he’d want to find.

  Instead, he took his squad back to the main column and got his company to move on, this time in a tighter formation and on higher alert.

  “Do you think this was genuine?” Geoff muttered, after he had quickly briefed him on what he had found.

  Dan shot him a sharp look, then turned to the lead scout again as he came up beside them. “We found traces of the attackers withdrawing in a south-eastern direction, sir,” he retorted.

  Dan nodded. “Keep an eye on them until they pass our outer scouting perimeter,” he ordered. “Don’t get drawn into following them too far.”

  He scout saluted and sped up to get ahead of the company. Dan turned to his second, who had wisely shut up and was contemplating his sword instead.

  “There will be more skirmishes, Commander,” he finally spoke up again after a while of silence. “Won’t there?”

  “Perhaps,” Dan replied. “We’ll be watchful. Don’t forget our primary goal, here.”

  Geoff gave him a sideways look, then glanced around them. “I think the prince’s secondary goal is to sow chaos and mistrust, isn’t it?” he muttered.

  “I’d say so,” Dan smiled. “And if he should tell us to fight someone, we will. For now, we need to catch up with the other reinforcements that were sent.”

  He could tell that doing so pushed his soldiers to their limits. They’d been traveling hard for a while now, and the prospect of potential combat at the end of the trip didn’t help. But Dan persisted. It wasn’t like he wasn’t getting tired, but as commander, he had to think of the larger picture here, unfortunately. They were needed, and his men were soldiers, they could deal.

  At least they had gotten some more information on the layout of the area, and a few landmarks to navigate. Dan had made some plans in the evening, but he was having to update them in his head as they marched. That was another aspect of command he had previously underestimated. Although maybe that was also because he was also cut off from the psychic link and any other officers or analysts.

  He tried not to think about that. It had only been a few days, but he was already starting to feel the absence. He’d been prepared for it, of course. It would probably be worse if he wasn’t. But he hadn’t really done this before. His respect for Tim, and the others, was steadily rising.

  They walked on for about an hour or so, judging by the movement of the sun that was lowering towards the horizon, when a flying drone found them. If they’d been in range for the psychic link, it would not have taken nearly as long and they’d have been able to easily communicate and send Swarm Drones between groups. As it was, he wondered if it had been ordered to scout. Dan called it down, watching with a bit of relief as it descended.

  “I’ll make sure no one saw that,” Geoff grumbled, walking off to talk to the scouts.

  Dan gave him a distracted nod, then cautiously approached the drone and started scratching its chin. Luckily, even in the absence of the psychic link, Swarm Drones were still Swarm Drones — loyal to the Hive and obedient to a fault. Recognizing him as a drone, it relaxed and butted its head against him slightly. Dan smiled faintly, then stepped back to be sure he hadn’t missed anything, but there was no letter for him this time.

  That was fine. He knew giving the Winged Drone detailed orders would be impossible — anything much more complicated than ‘fly there’ would backfire — but he could work with it. Instead, he left to quickly get paper and pen, and scrawled a few words onto it. Then he tied it to the drone’s neck and stepped back again.

  “Fly,” he told it, “to the biggest group of other drones around here. Let them take the message.”

  For a moment, he wondered if that had been too complicated, as the drone cocked its head and looked at him, before it crouched and jumped into the air, beating its wings. He watched it rise and skew to the side to drift off southeast.

  “Let’s go,” he told the others, then kept walking in the same direction. His company kept up with him.

  Despite his fears (or hopes?), they didn’t run into any other fights in the next few hours. Dan was considering calling it a day and making camp, so he could look for the other Imperial forces in the daylight, but it might be better to meet under the cover of night.

  He wanted to meet up with them quickly, but also be ready to fight. Enemies might have taken the base, but with his reinforcements, they would have enough soldiers to take it back and hold it. He assumed that was still the biggest priority.

  “Commander!” someone interrupted his thoughts. It took him a moment to place him as one of their mages. “There’s someone coming.”

  Dan frowned and raised a hand to halt the company. They were trampling down a dirt path right now, spread out a little further than he’d have liked. He glanced at the grove of trees to their right. Nothing. By the time he was looking left again, the air was shimmering slightly and then the light expanded to reveal a familiar figure.

  “Galatea?”

  She took a step closer, patting herself down — clearly an affected action, it wasn’t like she had a physical body at any time — and nodded. “Dan. Good to see you again. I’m glad I caught you.”

  Dan glanced at his company. “Take five minutes.” Then he stepped off the path to join Galatea. “Did you see Tim?”

  She smiled a little. “Not quite yet, but he’s next on my list. I spoke to others; things have gotten a little complicated around here, it seems.”

  “Then he’s still in Iliucin?”

  “Not for much longer, I’d guess.”

  Dan straightened up a little. “How can we help?”

  Galatea looked more serious as well. “I’ll guide you to the others. They’ll need your soldiers.”

  He frowned a little, noting her choice of words. “Are you going to participate in the fighting?”

  “What?” She grimaced. “Not really my scene. Besides, it’s not like you’ll need me. You’re perfectly capable of handling a fight, I’ll be doing other things with my time. Such as talking to people.”

  Dan tried not to deflate. “Fair enough, I guess.” It would have been nice to see Galatea in action. But he could understand that pushing her on it wasn’t the best move. “Thank you for helping anyway.”

  “Anything for my friends,” she grinned, but he could tell there was something heavier behind the words. “Now come on, I’ll catch you up while we walk.”

  Dan nodded and fell into step beside her, trusting Geoff to look after the soldiers. Regardless of why Galatea did what she did, she was their connection back to the Hive, to their Queen, and he found he really wanted that connection. He could only guess how Tim would feel; maybe it was a good thing Galatea didn’t want to be more involved.