Tsaimath
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Chapter 214
🕑 Added 2019-11-18 17:00:05 +0000 UTC
While Lenore was on her scouting-trip, the rest of us waited around, some of the wolves spreading out towards the forest, looking for a good spot for us to set up our own camp. We would be here for some time, so having a good position to spend time while not going after the Centaurs was important, as was securing a supply of food and water.
Lenore soon returned from her preliminary flight, landing on my shoulder and merging into her hallow as soon as possible. Sitting down, I asked her to show me what she had seen and she did, letting me experience her memories.
The next moment, I was feeling my wings beat the air, riding the wind to rise into the sky, away from Morgana. The air was cold, the wind still biting, even if the weather was supposed to change soon, for now it was still winter. With a few more beats of my wings, I managed to find a current that carried my higher without additional effort and soon, I was able to look down upon the land from high up, high enough that I was unable to make out small animals on the ground. But that was just fine, I didn’t care about them at all, Morgana wanted to know about the centaurs. I had heard about those, we had even seen a few in Yaksha, but it seemed that they were doing something big in the area.
A few minutes later, I started to see the smoke of their fires and the outline of their camp, causing my to change my direction to get a better look. From above, the camp seemed to be created with a clear plan in mind, not as hashasaphardly as most other organised dwellings I had seen before. The only town that came close had been Kolyug, the organised troll-town following rigid lines, even seen from above, as if drawn with a straight-edge. The camp below me was similar, the tents organised in squares with wide path between them, even if the tents themselves were round, making it a little strange to look at.
As I got closer, I could see that further in the distance, more smoke was visible, hinting that there were more camps out there, far enough apart to not interfere with the others operations but close enough to respond to large battles. At a guess, it would take just a few minutes to get from one camp to the other, if someone like Morgana was in a hurry.
I let my eyes follow the paths between tents, noticing more and more details as I got closer, for example that the tents seemed to be organised in groups, seven tents surrounding one tent in the middle and that the whole camp was organised in a similar manner, seven groups of tents surrounding a group of larger tents with the biggest in the center. Unless the centaurs acted in a very different manner to most sapients, that biggest tent would house their leader. something that was always good to know.
After getting close enough, but not too close, just in case they knew of aerial scouts and took measures to send such scouts to the cook-pots, I started circling, looking closer. There were centaurs out and about, quite a few of them actually. Most seemed to just mill around, but I noticed that at the edges of the camp were guards posted and on the other pathway were patrouls, consisting of one centaur accompanied by what looked like a large, dark-furred wolf.
As I watched those patrols, I noticed that the whole camp was even more secure than I had first thought, the outer perimeter was ringed by low, pointed stakes, sticking out a small earthen berm that would make a direct and swift ground-attack suicidal.
After another circle, trying to figure out which tents were what, sleeping spaces, storage and all that, I decided that I had seen enough for now and wanted out of the cold, back into my nice comfortable Hallow.
Flying back took some more effort, the wind blowing against me, but I tried the trick I had used to keep the wind from annoying Morgana and me too much, using my magic to guide it around me. That made flying far more comfortable and easier. Long before my Astral Power dipped below half, I got back to Morgana, landing on her shoulder and shifting into my Hallow.
The memory ended and I felt myself blink a few times, the memory so much more vibrant and intense that it had been when we had shared before. Before, I had watched her memories, like an encompassing movie, now, I had been Lenore, not just watching her.
For a moment, I just sat, trying to digest the memory-stream I had just experienced from my lense and it was even more intense, having my own senses filter what Lenore had experienced changed things a great deal, what to her, was just the normal experience of flying was strange and exciting for me, what to her was just the smell of the wind, held mysteries of magic hidden inside.
But that wasn’t quite as important as making sense of the camp and I had to agree with Lenore, it seemed strange. The Centaur-camp looked like someone had used simple, almost primitive, materials and equipment to construct a highly organised camp, it didn't quite make sense. A civilisation with the level of discipline and organisation needed to develop and construct such a camp wouldn’t employ the individualised and chaotic crafting that resulted in the equipment she had seen.
But what she had seen changed my ideas a bit, even trying to attack those camps would be idiotic, unless I managed to do it completely from a distance, in a manner similar to what I had done to the nameless village. But I highly doubted that the Centaurs were weak enough to die from just that and unless they were completely stupid, they would have some sort of magical defense, to prevent enemy spellcasters from wreaking havoc. It was something I wanted to test, maybe by trying to scry into their camp, it was something I hadn’t tried in a while and it might be useful. I would have to try if I was able to use Lenore’s memory to guide my scrying, allowing me to gather intelligence from a distance.
“They found a good spot to make camp.” Windpaw, who had stayed with the rest of my group, told me. I hadn’t been able to hear their howls, but maybe they held back or used some sort of trick, something like a dog whistle, to keep the centaurs from hearing them.
“Lead the way, I’m done for now.” I told him, standing up. He quickly turned towards the forest and started running, not fast enough to leave us behind but pushing us. I cheated a little, using my blood magic to increase the strength of my legs, allowing me to keep up, but it used a bit of Astral Power. I had no problem with that, I didn’t plan to fight once we reached our destination, not this time.
The forest we reached felt strangely quiet, after the endless wind that had howled around us whenever we were outside and the soft bustle of the wolf’s den, the silent forest felt almost eerily in comparison. At first, the silence set me on edge, worrying that we were walking into an ambush, despite the fact that the other wolves had called us, but within a minute or two, I settled back into the mental feeling I had before reaching the plains, allowing me to take in the soft noises around me, the creaking of wood, the soft noises the needles made when moving in the wind and the myriad sounds of animals, scurrying away from the predators that invaded their little kingdom.
Realising that those sounds were there and I just hadn’t heard them, my ears to used to hearing the wind and trying to filter it out, that the absence of that sound and trying to find it had made me miss the other sounds around me.
With me sufficiently calmed, we continued and the spot the wolves had found was quite good, they had spotted a small cave in a hillside and apparently some of them had the magic to make it sufficiently large to house all of us. Not only housing, but giving us a very defensible position as well, at least if we added a hidden exit, if we ever got boxed in. Remembering the thoughts I had on magical defense just before, I called over Adra and pulled out my grimoire, looking at the alarm-spell it had included, trying to find ways to secure our own camp, before making testing if the centaurs had done the same.
