Chapter 20
“Ah…ah…ACHOO!”
Two rows of heads watched intently as Avod released a trendous sneeze. The open flap fluttered loosely on the opposite side of the tent. Painfully aware of the attention of her officers, she tried to restrain her sniffling but failed.
I know they’re just being attentive to their commanding officer, but do they have to just stare at like that?
She sniffled again, trying to clear her sinuses. The source of her woes was the haze that clung to the bottom of the basin. The light winds that blew through from the north were insufficient to drive it away, and the high sumr heat made it all the worse. It hadn’t once rained on their camps since they had occupied the area, making the entire place feel like a giant pile of kindling awaiting that one spark to set it all ablaze.
“Have we fixed our fire problem yet?” She asked.
“We’ve cut down on the number of fires allowed in each camp,” one of her officers replied, “and we’ve ordered everything easily flammable placed far away from them. Things have gotten better in the main camp, but it still happens back in the training camps.”
Damned undisciplined whelps. Damned weather, too. She couldn’t make any sense out of it; neither could the mystics.
It did rain in the basin, but only in the eastern third where heavy clouds rolled down the barrier range. The rest was infernally hot and dry, and foraging parties were turning up with less and less. The fires that she supposed would have to inevitably spring up in these conditions destroyed food and other supplies, halting their once-smooth advance. It was as if soone had tied a gigantic rope around their collective necks and gave it a good yank.
“Did they carry out my instructions to set up separate supply relays with reliable soldiers running them?”
“Your orders went out right after you issued them, General. It’ll still take a couple of days for logistics to catch up.”
Avod tapped a finger against her hip. There was no point in shouting and screaming: she was confident that her trained soldiers were performing as expected. It would take them as long as it took.
The unasked-for delay still tested her patience, however. The southern arm of their advance was supposed to be subjugating the eastern portion of the basin while the northern arm ca around and started investigating routes north. The local tribes that fled ahead of the Goblin army’s advance refused to go south or north, so a great number of them now had their backs against a proverbial wall. It would be a good training experience for her troops.
“Anything new from the northern group?”
“A runner ca in yesterday, reporting that Zrol’s scouts located a toehold on the other side of the northern passes,” another officer replied. “They’re moving to secure the pass and set up camp on the other side. The main branch of the northern group has been reporting steady progress, but I suspect the next set of runners coming in will report the sa problems we’re having here now.”
Avod grimaced at her oversight. It seed sensible enough, before they realized the condition that the basin was in. Already-trained soldiers would lead the way, while newly inducted recruits would be sent to training camps in the rear. What resulted was chaos: the supplies being delivered over the pass to the west were being destroyed by the undisciplined, careless, and inattentive. The resulting delays would affect their efforts in the north and south.
“What about the Humans these local tribes are so damn scared of?” Avod turned her mind away from their troubles, “We’ve been creeping pretty close to the edges of the basin here.”
“Nothing,” an officer said. “I’m willing to believe that there’s Humans to the south since the Slane Theocracy was southeast of The Neck, but the north seems like nothing but baseless spooks.”
To a Hobgoblin, the gathered officers nodded in agreent. The tales of Human raids from the south closely matched the thods of the Slane Theocracy, but they had discovered nothing substantial about the Humans that supposedly occupied the lands to the north. The only sign that there might be anything there was an old road that was not maintained and had no signs of recent use. Perhaps Humans once lived in the north, and the re tales that lingered were sufficient to deter the cowardly tribes living in the basin.
“Maybe we should shift our main camp north,” Avod said. “I’d rather not wake up one day to the sight of Angels ransacking my tent.”
“Should be easy enough once our supplies are flowing again. Locals say that the river gets bigger the further north it goes, so forage’ll probably get better the further along we go. We’ll be able to link up with the northern group faster that way, as well.”
“Let everyone know, then,” Avod told them. “Recall that group advancing along that road going southeast, too. I don’t want to alert any of the Humans down south. We’ll finish up here and make our way out without any of them noticing.”
If not for the poor weather, their ti in the basin would have been as ideal as she had initially envisioned. There were plenty of tribes to fight and add to their number, but everything else made for a miserable experience. Barely a week into it, she already wanted her army to move on. Loitering here did not net them the resources she thought it would, and was instead leaving them with a deficit. So much for showing the quality of her army to Qrs and Ysvrith.
“How are things going on the western side of the pass, by the way?” Avod asked.
“No idea,” one of her quartermasters replied. “They keep sending supplies and equipnt over, so nothing should be amiss. Was there sothing you wanted changed?”
“No,” Avod shook her head, “just getting antsy, I guess. We’ve been on the move for so long now that not moving forward feels strange…and Jaldabaoth is still sowhere behind us.”
Her officers shifted where they stood, and she saw a few of them exchange surreptitious glances with one another. None of them had been part of the original group that had escaped Jaldabaoth’s hell. They had all heard the accounts and most of them saw the aftermath of the battle at the Ford, but it just wasn’t the sa as being subjected to what those who had suffered at his hands had experienced. They had co to join an army, and it was success that drove them forward, not the demonic spectre that lood to the west.
As their successes grew, so too did their collective ambition. Subjugating small tribes wasn’t sating their appetite for conquest anymore. They wanted sothing big – or at least they wanted the sense that they were headed towards so montous battle worthy of the army that they had raised. Jaldabaoth was a tale that they had left behind; now, they only looked for glory on the horizon.
She turned her gaze towards the officer in charge of the camp at the main army’s northern periter.
“How far have our scouts gotten along the river?” She asked him.
“The ones that have returned so far have followed the old road as far as the second bend north,” the officer replied, “where another river joins it. The ones that were sent further out haven’t returned yet, but it’s slow going. One in three Goblins probably get eaten by so wild animal or monster along the way…I can get sothing more substantial together if you’d like.”
“I’ve got a better idea, actually,” Avod said. “Since the next step is north through those passes and into whatever is waiting for us there, we should send word to Ysvrith. The Gnolls will be able to get everything we need done faster and better. Save for the forces that we need to finish up things in the east, we should move on and get to better lands.”
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