Chapter 22

As much as Nil and even Lavender tried to downplay the incident ashore they were alternately berated and fussed over by Makro and Fobie with Jarrah hovering around in the background. Everything settled down considerably once it was confirmed that nobody, with the exception of Lavender's bruised knuckles, was hurt.

"Why didn't you see this?" Jarrah demanded of the twins. They blinked back at her in surprise.

"I thought you didn't believe in their foretelling," Nil grinned at his slender blonde sister.

"It doesn't matter what I believe," she huffed. "They should have seen it coming." The contradictory logic of that statement seemed to completely escape their fair healer, but it didn't with everyone else. Makro hid her smile behind her hand while Nil coughed to cover a laugh.

"The gift always comes and goes as it wills," Fobie answered.

"But very recently it has barely come at all," Deimie admitted.

"As if something is blurring our vision," Fobie nodded.

"It may be that there was no real danger so it didn't come," Deimie offered. "But we cannot be sure."

"Something blurring your vision?" a puzzled Nil asked. Both twins nodded in unison.

"We think it is the baby," Deimie pointed to Fobie's flat stomach. "It is like we have to see around someone, like when you are in a crowd."

"That's ... curious," Nil muttered. "A rather inconvenient time for that to happen."

"It's not her fault!" Fobie said defensively.

"She can't help it!" Deimie added. "Besides if anyone is to blame it's you."

"Of course," Nil soothed. "She? You know it's a girl?"

"Of course we know," the twins said. Then Deimie continued, "Makro will have your first son; all of our first born will be daughters." Hearing that Makro sobbed and rushed over to Fobie and threw her arms around her sister.

"I am so sorry, Foe!" she sniffed.

"There, there," the younger sister cooed as she rubbed Makro's back. "We knew what bothered you and we thought nothing of it; you shouldn't either. Your time will come soon; we saw that before. We're not exactly sure when, but it will be soon enough." Makro sniffed again, broke the embrace and smiled at the slender redhead, then locking eyes with Nil, sauntered over and plopped down in his lap.

"You like that I will give you a son?" she cooed wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Son or daughter matters not, just so long as they look like you and not me," he grinned. "That goes for all of you by the way." All four of the women laughed out loud; even Jarrah and Rabszolga smiled.

"He will be handsome, just like you," May playfully slapped the back of Nil's head.

"Only a mother, a woman in love or the blind would think I'm handsome," Nilsen responded dryly. "I look far too much like Father." This earned him another swat.

"Your opinion is of no consequence," Makro sniffed as if in disdain. "He will be exceedingly handsome, and look just like you." The smiling twins nodded behind her.

"Poor bugger," Nil said and picked Makro up and put her on her feet while deftly ducking another swat. "But that's neither here nor there. What I do know is we have work to do. Captain," he looked over at Marc, "it will be a day or two before we can move out so given we know there are some less than desirable elements in this town I would suggest we double the guard on both the ship and the wagons already unloaded."

The guard captain nodded. "Already done, My Lord," he said. "In fact, from here on out we will assume we are in hostile territory."

"I doubt it's that bad," Nil responded, "but it can't hurt to act accordingly. Better to be careful now than sorry later. Still, the quicker we get going, the better I'll feel. Let's get to it!"

The day after next they were ready to leave. Nil spent most of the morning reviewing their instructions with the ship's captain.

"Wait about fifteen days," he began. "If we're gone that long my guess is we won't be coming back until we're finished. After that it would be a good idea to hit a few of the ports along this coast. We don't have much information about this area and, to be honest, if all the rest are like this one there probably isn't much we care to know, but that's information in and of itself. Any information is better than none.

"We figure it will take two, maybe three ten-days to get there; once there another three to five to get done what we need and then another two to three to return. The earliest you should return is seven ten-days from now. Hopefully we won't make you wait overly long in this dump.

"But if we aren't back after twelve ten-days, set sail and head home. The king will need to know what's happened." He left unsaid the assumption that a much larger force would probably be returning soon afterwards.

"We will leave markers where and when we can," he continued. "Also we will be talking with the locals whenever we can. It should leave a reasonable trail to follow if needed."

With that they bid farewell to the ship's crew and its contingent of marines and headed out of town on the one road that appeared to be going directly towards the mountains.

The wagons were slow and the road was dusty and it was generally conceded that when it came to travel going by ship was definitely the preferred method. Mostly it was monotonous and boring but there were some things of interest along the way. Surprisingly the people were friendly and helpful, a complete change from their seaside brethren. Most thought this strange troop was crazy for trying to find the mountain giants, but at least the closer they got to those imposing peaks the wild stories about their denizens faded and were replaced by ones that held more than just a shred of truth. The Kushitic ― at least the correct name of Lavender's people was known ― were universally considered reclusive, aggressive, and standoffish, but there didn't seem to be any real fear of them. It was evident there was very little commerce between the two peoples.

The locals were very interested in the "junk" they were carrying as trade goods and were willing to trade almost anything for just a few of the tinker's wares: some pots, pans and a kettle or two. It was obvious there wasn't much trade with the seacoast either. This wasn't all that surprising since for the most part they seemed to be a happy lot; they were also dirt poor and had very little to trade with. It amused and repelled Nil that at each village he was offered sometimes up to a half-dozen of the local village girls in trade for their wares.

It wasn't until Rabszolga pointed it out that none of these girls seemed at all displeased with the prospect of being sold to the foreign traders. She surmised they were probably "surplus" to the local population with little prospects for a husband and home and were bored to tears with "rooting for rutabagas". Enough so that life as even a lowly concubine didn't seem all that bad.

Nilsen vowed that this part of the trip would be a state secret if he could help it. It wasn't hard to imagine a slaver posing as a trader picking up hundreds of golds' worth of female flesh with just a couple of silvers worth of trinkets. Those girls might think their life boring but he was pretty sure they'd change their minds if they were forced to spread their legs for a copper a pop at some hellhole whorehouse.

He had to admit most of them were more than just a little attractive and while he had no inclination to sample the local cuisine ― his needs being taken care of more than adequately ― their guard contingent was under no such restriction. He cringed to think that on their return trip they might very well be bombarded by justifiably irate fathers demanding husbands for their now-sullied daughters. He didn't feel it was his place to interfere with their dalliances, but he did remind them of the potential consequences.

"What you beget, you take care of," he informed them.

"But, Lord," one protested, "what if they aren't ours?"

"Oh, if you can prove the child isn't yours, you'd be under no obligation," he replied. "Of course you'd have to prove it wasn't yours if you laid with the girl, and remember we can tell if you're lying." It was a veiled reference to the twins. Nil was pretty sure Deimie and Fobie couldn't actually tell if someone was lying, especially now that their talent seemed to be waning, but the soldiers didn't know that and probably wouldn't believe it if they were told. Most of these men had been in Jeevelian service for many seasons and the stories about the Demons had taken on a life of their own becoming a "truth" that was more real to them than the actual truth could ever be.

Jarrah was treated as the member of the royal family she was. Makro also since she was still a princess and their lord's consort to boot, the fact that she was salidin-bound notwithstanding. Lavender would have been respected for her prowess as a warrior even aside from the fact she was both consort and mother to an heir. The twins were in a completely different category; they were of the royal blood ― that was true ― but there was a great deal of, if not fear then at least unease due to their supernatural talents. The soldiers were glad to have them along for the perceived advantage these talents might bring but they were also very glad that their lord had the two little witches bound and bedded to himself. True or not, they believed Nil had them under his control and therefore "safe." This amused the twins to no end.

Considering the swath the guards were cutting through the local population as they traveled, Nil wouldn't be surprised if each guard had one or maybe two extra companions to take home on their return trip. He just hoped the ship was large enough to take all of them.

Notwithstanding their guards' extracurricular activities, the journey from the plains into the foothills and eventually the mountains themselves went smoothly and without incident. Although not ostensibly so, military discipline was enforced even as the signs of human habitation became less frequent and no evidence of banditry was seen or heard of from the local populations. Nil didn't keep a set watch schedule for himself but it was apparent to the soldiers that he spent as much time up at night as they did, if not more. Even though this wasn't expected ― after all they wouldn't have given up the lush bodies he had to keep him warm at night ― it was noticed and appreciated.

They were handpicked professionals and the possibility of any one of them actually sleeping while on guard duty was infinitesimally small. Add to that the fact that their lord and prince ― not to mention his seven-foot-tall shadow and her toothsome beast ― could show up at any time of the night brought that possibility to near zero.

Nilsen was just doing what all natural leaders do: leading by example. The lowest trooper in any army may not understand it but every one of them would react instinctively to it. As a result as they drew closer to their mysterious objective, discipline was tight and morale was very good.

The climb into the mountains themselves was much less arduous then Nil had at first feared. The roads petered out to become mere cattle paths and then to barely discernable swatches that were distinguishable from the surrounding countryside only by the lack of rock or vegetation. Still, the inclines were gentle if persistently upward and the wagons had little trouble as they progressed.

It was perceptively cooler and everybody except Lavender had taken to wearing the fleece lined jackets they had brought. While they shivered, she strode around in just her linen shirt and trousers under her fish-scale armor. Normally she wore little more than a simple mail shirt for protection but it had been pointed out to her by a devilishly grinning King Dent that mail didn't stretch very well and by now that had become a necessity. It felt to her like her stomach grew bigger every day and she was becoming as big as a cow no matter that Nil reassured her every night she was getting more beautiful as every day passed. Although she still had almost half a season to go before she was due she confided to Jarrah that most Havila women rarely got much bigger than she was already; she was afraid if she kept expanding at this same rate she wouldn't be able to move by the time the baby was born.

"Really?" Jarrah asked. "I'm surprised, to be quite honest. I would have thought your people would become quite large, given your stature and all. How big are your babies normally?"

Lavender couldn't answer that exactly; birth was a very private thing among the Kushitic with only the parents, siblings and the clan geneticists seeing the baby for the first few ten-days of its life. She tried to show with her hands how large her brother had been when she saw him directly after birth.

"That's a little on the small side for someone as large as you are," Jarrah mused. "But then you haven't seen many of them so it's not exactly what I would call a representative sample."

Lavender could only shrug and say everyone seemed to think he had been normal.

"You don't know if your mother carried him for the full twenty-seven ten-days would you?" Jarrah continued.

"Twenty-seven?" Lavender asked, shocked. "Certainly you mean twenty-four, maybe twenty-five. Our healers would never allow a woman to go past twenty-six; the baby would be too large for proper birthing."

"Twenty-five ten-days are normal for your people?" Jarrah sounded incredulous but she quickly recovered. "To answer your question we consider twenty-seven to be about normal. Certainly within ten or twenty days either way. Twenty-four would be highly unusual and the baby would be very premature. This is ... interesting. Would you mind if I examined you?" Lavender nodded with a frown. "Good. Let me wash up and we'll go into your tent. This shouldn't take very long."

Later a worried-looking Nilsen tracked her down.

"I can't tell you anything more than I told Lavender," Jarrah said. "Her pelvis is a little narrower than I would have expected, but that's not unusual for a first-time mother. That doesn't mean there will be any trouble with the baby but if what Lavender told me is correct, it is very curious."

"How so?" a somewhat relived Nilsen asked.

"As you know the normal gestation for a human is about twenty-seven ten-days." Nil nodded; he hadn't been the most attentive student in school but he knew the basics. "I wish Momma Nesho or one of the healers from the Guild was here but to the best of my knowledge that is pretty much standard everywhere and yet Lavender says the period for her people is only twenty-four to twenty-five ten-days." Nil looked puzzled and raised his hands in silent question.

"It's different, you idiot," she snapped. "Why would it be different? Why would they be different from everybody else? It's like their abnormal height: different and puzzling."

"We know why they're tall," Nil answered, ignoring her insult. "They purposely breed themselves for it. Could that have something to do with this difference also?"

"I don't know," Jarrah admitted. "Maybe, but I don't see how."

"Maybe you'll get your answers when we meet them," Nil continued. "But the only thing I care about now is if Lavender and the baby are going to be all right."

"Oh, I'm sure both of them are going to be fine," Jarrah waved off his concern. "To be safe, I want her to be seen by one of the more experienced healers or midwives when we return home, but I wouldn't worry about that now," she replied as she shooed off her somewhat mollified brother.

"For not being used very much, this path is in fairly good shape," Nil remarked to Lavender as they ascended through one of the deep mountain passes on their sixteenth day of travel.

"It is one of the old roads from before the Change," she replied. "Nothing big will grow on it."

"Really?" he answered. "I didn't think there were any real roads left. I thought they were all destroyed."

"According to our legends, our mountains were barely affected by the Change."