"So, welcome to Brand Camp!" Lark gestured grandly. "Home to all the people who have nowhere else to go. You've already seen some of the lodging accommodations."
"Yes," Able said, "and why do you appear to have permanent accommodations if this place is meant to house fugitives?"
"Right, say half our force is fugitives and the rest volunteers, for a lazy estimate." Lark attempted to illustrate with his hands. "We also house volunteers prior to operations if need-be, and ahm...I am a frequent volunteer?"
"And this camp is the center for operations?" Able glanced around.
"Not necessarily, but about half our force is already here, so." Lark shrugged.
"Are you taking me to meet the leadership?"
"Camp manager." Lark pointed at Able by way of explication. "I guess that kind of makes him a commander, but really, most of us are without military experience and reluctant to adopt imperial practices, so we just call him the camp manager."
"How does he manage discipline if that is the overall attitude?"
"He doesn't," Red put in mildly.
"It's just a word." Lark bristled at her. "We don't fancy sounding like Larbants and, for many of us, Dagobari either, that's all."
Red made no reply, but Able still felt it safest to ask nothing more.
All the shelters had been simple ridge tents, but as they now rounded a group of these Able could see a large pole marquee in a dip below where they stood. One side stood on poles while the other was tied to the largest tree in the whole of the grove. Lark skipped down the narrow path to it, while Able took his time with his knee.
The interior was already crowded with seven people before they added their three. Three makeshift tables of split logs were set up with more logs serving as chairs. A graying man with baggy eyes sat behind the largest of these tables at the far end of the tent flipping through a ledger and discussing something with two women standing before it. Three red-haired men who looked related to each other sat at the table nearest the door and appeared to be making calculations. At the final table sat a woman with remarkably long white-blond hair reading a book and eating a sandwich, periodically giving bits of it to the raven perched on her shoulder.
Behind her, a fairly lifelike charcoal drawing of a bear was sketched onto the smooth gray bark of the great tree. The quartz fragments that were pressed into its nose, ears, and claws shone from the flickering light of a dozen candles below. These were melted into place on a log stump directly below the drawing and were accompanied by fruit, biscuits, small wrapped packages, and tiny carved trinkets of wood and bone. Most were shoddy work, but a couple were impressive in their detail.
The trio stood in the center of the tent like decorative objects themselves until the two women ahead of them finished their discussion with the camp manager and turned to go. As they sidled past, the first one reached up and poked Lark's nose.
"Meep," she said as she tried to keep a straight face. Lark certainly couldn't, and he turned his hands over incredulously at her as she carried on then shook his head while laughing.
The second woman was content to simply put her hand on his arm. "It's good to see you on your feet again."
"Thanks." He smiled at her, then moved closer to the large table. "So, I brought Houser." He began pointing people out. "Able, this is our camp manager, Brave Edgewood. And this is our quartermaster Peaceful Leftbough and his sons Journey and Progress. And this is Raven Longfield, communications officer."
"I'm Raven," the woman clarified slyly as she ruffled her bird's chest, "this is Lucky."
"Pleasure to meet all of you." Able turned about awkwardly, as he found himself in the center of a round. It seemed that Edgewood was the only one uncomfortable with imperial military terms.
"So." Edgewood set down his charcoal and rubbed his tired eyes. "Houser. Lark's asked me about you more than once, and to the point of it, I never saw what benefit a Larbant chronicler would be to our camp, especially while the risk was clear as day."
Able looked around at the faces again. "Well, whether there is benefit or not depends on whether you want a recorded history of your Resistance or not."
"I have no interest whatsoever," Edgewood said. "However, I am but one person of the camp, and don't much like deciding there's no benefit for anyone else, especially when many will be facing their final winter."
"You got us through last winter," Lark protested.
"I had a third of the mouths I have now," Edgewood shot plainly back.
A grim silence settled over the tent.
Able looked over at the Bear, the darkness and defender, and its collection of offerings. "I can see how procuring and moving provisions to this location without attracting attention would take a wide-scale, concerted effort," he mused cautiously, "but surely you have the funds to do so?"
"Most of our funds," the father Leftbough spoke up, "go towards trying to keep those who have not yet fallen prey to this nonsense in their homes. The Larbants collect again, we steal it back, and round it goes."
"I see."
"And yes, of course, they are grateful and produce and provide for us as best they can," Edgewood took over, "but the lot of them are all the more strapped every day. My apologies if my optimism is lacking." This last point was made to Lark, who frowned and looked away.
His posture was stiff, his expression tight, and his breathing shallow. Right, given the stories, he had personally rescued many of the people here.
Able took a deep breath to clear the worry that had settled in. After all... "As to the risk, I have a personal commitment to neutrality and pacifism, although I understand the weight of my word may be insufficient."
Edgewood's eyebrows raised. "But I have more than your word. Sharp Fullbrook tells me you saved the Chief's mother. It'd be quite ungracious of us to turn you away."
"...I did?" Able floundered before he remembered Flower Hawking. Oh—of course a Hawking was heading this whole Resistance.
"Ha! I didn't do it—it wasn't me!" Lark crowed and pointed at Red, who was rubbing her temple.
"You didn't know?" Edgewood's eyebrows folded even higher, his saggy gray eyes wider.
Able raised his hands. "What I knew is they were all in danger, so I tried to convince all of them to seek safety. She was the only one who listened to me."
"How did you know?" Raven Longfield was rubbing her chin and squinting at him. "Fullbrook said you arrived ahead of Tanner."
"That is so." Able turned to look at her, then glanced at the others. God, he did hate being surrounded like this. He faced Longfield since she had asked the question. "Admittedly I did not know so much as strongly suspect. Tanner rode out of Aimsby in a state, and as I suspected he would stay to the roads, I asked Venture Bay to take me over the hills by pony."
Lark's head snapped up to look at him and an approving smile slid across his face, but he did not interrupt.
"When I saw the mutilated bodies in the town center," Able continued, "it seemed clear to me what Tanner would do next."
Longfield leaned back with an intrigued smile. "Hey, Hot-shot, you should drag this one up to the Eagle's Heights next time you're at it."
"Only if he wants to," Lark replied firmly. A strangely relieving stand for him to take.
"None of this changes my opinion," Edgewood broke in. "Lark told me you both had discussed this idea of you being traded back along with our captives?"
"Yes." Able gladly turned back to Edgewood."It seems to me they would be less suspicious of me if they believe I was held against my will."
"I like how he thinks," Longfield said...apparently to her bird, then to Able said, "and we may finally find some ground on that exchange, as Reeve is concerned we might execute his men in retaliation for the Birchurst murders, or so my source says."
Able turned to her again. "How is it that you negotiate with him?"
"He has an indentured woman whom he allows off the grounds to have secret contact with one of my agents. Said woman is my little sister, and she tells me a lot more than he'd like, I'm sure."
"Given this," Edgewood resumed, "I might agree to the plan, as well as allowing you to collect the stories of anyone who wants to give them. However, we will need to oversee anything you're told, so you'll need to be supervised, and I'm just going to make it perfectly clear right now that I am a very busy man and am not going to babysit you."
"I don't think Red would let you even if you wanted to," Able replied. "She's quite taken with me."
Lark laughed.
Red didn't. She had the makings of that dark frown again. "You think that's funny?"
"No," Able replied quickly then swallowed. "I'm taking social cues from the wrong person, I suppose."
"No, you're not! Everybody loves me." And Lark seemed correct, as the Resistance members were all smiling if not chuckling.
Longfield smiled impishly. "I'll fight you for him, Red."
Red only needed a glance to show she would not be taken up in this foolishness, and Longfield only batted her eyelashes in response.
"Are you volunteering, Raven?" Edgewood said quite seriously.
"It's my purview, isn't it?" She twirled a lock of her long hair around her fingers. "Sure, I'll have an aid keep an eye on him, and I'll attend to anything he collects."
"Attend? You mean censor and confiscate?" Able hoped he didn't sound as defensive as he felt.
"Do I?" She smiled coquettishly. "What do you think my job entails?"
"Er...you receive and dispatch missives, make judgment calls on who is in need of what intelligence and when..." Able did not like how she watched him so keenly as he tried not to stammer. "...oh. Oh, you also develop ciphers, don't you?"
"Tsk." She turned to her bird in overwrought disappointment. "He missed one. How sad."
"Sad day," agreed the raven in a surprisingly clear voice.
"Aw, Lucky, why is it a sad day?" Lark piped up.
"Sad day. It's dead." Lucky bobbed his head up and down.
"It's dead?" Lark pressed his hands to his heart and looked unconvincingly stricken. "What a tragedy."
"Tragedy," the bird agreed and cocked its head to eye Lark.
"You train birds to talk, then," Able said before that went any further but could not think of any reasonable military application for this. "Uh..."
"No, that's just my hobby." She waved her hand with a chuckle. "No, what I also do is oversee and, with the Leftboughs' assistance, outfit and compensate our runners. But no matter—you thought of the important one, clever thing. How would you fancy making a cipher with me?"
Able glanced at Lark, who was only watching on casually. Good thing he appeared unconcerned with this incessant flirting. ...very good thing, as Able also felt a bubble of disappointment.
"I was rather thinking I'd forgo taking any notes entirely." He gave Lark a meaningful look. "In fact, perhaps it is best I 'lost' the journal I was already keeping."
Lark answered Able's look with a grin. "Sure, I'll take care of that for you. It can keep the other one warm at night." He just had to put it that way.
Longfield sighed then folded her hands and set her chin on them. "Well, if we're going to be all sensible and not give me extra work, I suppose I cannot argue." She shrugged. "I'll still require you to check in with me and tell me what you learned. It'll be your word against my aid's."
"What happens if I learn something I, uh, shouldn't?" This seemed downright probable at this point.
"Try not to," she suggested with a sweet smile.
"Good." Edgewood had sat down and was looking through a sheaf of paper. "If that's all settled, I have others waiting." He gestured to the tent opening where several people were immediately pretending they hadn't been watching the proceedings with curiosity.
"I'll show him the rest of the camp," Lark said to Longfield. "You'll send your aid along when you get a chance—who?"
"Ehn, probably Cherry. What's one more pigeon, yeah?"
"Right, I'll keep my eye out for her."
Longfield favored him with a smile. "Mm-hm, good to see you again, Cutie."
"Likewise, Madam." Lark bowed gallantly then placed his hand over his heart to salute the raven. "Lucky."
"It's dead," the bird surmised.
"You take better care of that ass of yours this time," Longfield called after Lark as he turned to leave. "You know how we feel about it."
"Absolutely nothing befell my ass last time, I assure you!" And with a laugh, Lark herded Able past the foursome that had been waiting outside the tent.
Once outside, Able took several deep breaths of the uncrowded air as they walked. It felt almost like he was returning to full size, the cramping tension draining out of his shoulders and into his fingertips. He turned his face into the breeze frolicking between the trees.
"Don't worry about Raven," Lark said. "She's always like that. Never did learn to act her age."
"That sounds familiar," Red muttered.
Able started at her voice, all his relaxing undone. He had lost track of how close to his back she was.
"It was an observation, not a value judgment," Lark retorted."Anyway, that went better than you expected, yeah?"
A smile touched Able's lips without his permission. "You know me well."
"I think you know me pretty well, too." Lark grinned.
"Yes, yes, lead on." Able's smile got straight away from him, and he shook his head as he followed Lark down the next trail.