Miccola must have ridden away quite a bit earlier than I could quit my long-winded High Scribe. However, Breva's swift legs closed the distance fast and I caught up to Miccola at the forest's edge.
A bank of an ice-bound river stretched before us. The ground was flat, coated in snow, poked through with twigs and boulders. A row of brown cat-tails marked off the river. They rustled in the breeze, mixing their fluff with the snowflakes.
A bit ahead, in the crook of a river bend, my new allies set up their camp. This camp was what Miccola was surveying with her lips pursed. I tilted my head to one shoulder to see what caused her dismay.
The rough-cloth tents, brown and gray, lined up in straight rows. Sharpened wood stakes provided a basic defensive perimeter. Even in the wilderness, it was a wise precaution. Tendrils of smoke trailed from the cooking fires. Breeze carried the smell of cheap foodstuffs that kept well through the winter—pickled and dried peas, porridge, cabbages, onions, tack—and hastily discarded offal. All of it was pungent, but Miccola wasn't new to business.
"Did it pass your inspection?" I asked at last.
Miccola muttered something incomprehensible.
"Guess your saliva is freezing. Let's see if they have something to thaw it."
We rode forward to talk to the sentries.
My riders streamed out of the forest in a column, then swarmed, impatient to stop for the night as the pale sun angled to the horizon. The ridiculously short day was drawing to a close.
We seemed to be in luck. The biggest man I had ever seen hurried toward us like he meant business.
"You reckon that's the deserter-and-strategist, who Pheodoxia fretted about?" I asked Miccola, watching his progress.
He moved swiftly, but with a threat backed up by size in each step. The shaggy fur hat and knee-length jacket enhanced the resemblance to the largest predator in these woods. If not for his size, I would have taken him for a woman, for he had the air of confidence normally not associated with his sex. I decided that I liked him.
"Did he pass your inspection?" Miccola needled me.
"Not yet. I'll wait until he talks about strategy."
She squinted at me suspiciously, but before she could share her conclusions, the man came close enough to overhear.
"Did your mother bed a bear?" Miccola asked him.
His brows were wider than my thumb, thick and darker than his hair and beard. I wouldn't have thought this attractive before seeing him. Frost etched any hair touched by his steaming breath with pristine white. It sparkled in his hat, collar, beard.
For all that hair, both his own and borrowed, and for how deeply his eyes sat under his brows, their gaze wasn't overshadowed. It must have been the color that made them shine so. I saw this gray everywhere I looked in Nortlungen. In its sky, its ice and its steel.
Rounder than they appeared at the first glance—because his brows were straight like arrow shafts—those eyes slipped past Miccola. He ignored her jape and looked directly at me. "Your Grandissima. Welcome."
His tone didn't imply a question, but I chose to interpret it as such. "You are correct, I command the Deadhead Company's women. Where is your Commander?"
He took his huge, fur-lined mitt off and bowed, with his bare hand pressed to his heart. I suppose it was to show that he didn't secret a killing blade in his sleeve. A nice thought, possibly a necessary precaution in these parts.
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Hearts in Zenith (Four Husbands and a Lover)
Fantasy||Reverse Harem Upbeat Adventure|| For content review purposes, please note that Ismar is 18 yo when the story starts and ages up from there. Powerful matriarchal clan, strong daughters and military glory are solid life goals. But whenever Ismar's m...
