The army marched.

  We had returned Magneblade to Boston immediately after the fight with the Buffalo Griidlords.

  We were left in a difficult position while he healed. The Falling was nearly at an end but not quite. There would be a few days, maybe short weeks, before the Falling concluded and the locked Orbs began their descent.

  The city of Boston held a key. We had gathered enough fragments, the last coming from the battle with New York that brought Chowwick’s story to a close.

  With Magneblade out of action and Olaf the greenest of all possible rookies, it was easy to determine that we would struggle to compete for an Orb. But the prize of a locked Orb, or even the lofty notion of winning the Griid-Crown, were quarries that none, from myself to Balthazar, could give up on.

  So the decision was made. We would conclude our time in the Wilds with our armies. Locked Orbs fell quickly, suddenly, and at greater distances. Griidlords were essentially never accompanied by armies when pursuing the locked Orbs. The speed cost of bringing an armed force under the Footfield would essentially cost the opportunity to take a locked Orb. We needed to move faster than that to have a chance at winning one.

  But the time before the locked Orbs would give Magneblade time to recover. We would still be trying to contest one with a total rookie at Shield. But we couldn’t surrender the opportunity. Not just because of the gargantuan prize, but because of the price we had paid to gain the last key fragments. Because of the price Chowwick had paid to furnish us with the chance.

  The column of men marched—soldiers, horses, wagons—in a line across the snowy landscape. Vaelstrom and Magneblade remained in Boston. Tara, Olaf, and I provided the Field to move the large force.

  Dirk rode his horse as I jogged easily.

  Olaf was somewhere toward the middle of the column. He was still starstruck with himself. He had clearly not come to terms with his new power, his status. He had been walking around in a dreamlike state for the last few days. I feared he regretted taking the suit. I feared he blamed me for driving him to do so.

  Tara took up the rear of the column. She too was difficult company. She was deeply distracted. Her mourning for Chowwick seemed deeper than the rest of ours.

  I had still not figured out when Dirk had arrived in the camp. I could only imagine he had come out with one of the supply trains driven by me or one of the other Griidlords.

  As the thought struck me, I spoke it. “Dirk… what brought you out here? You’re not part of the army. When did you come out?”

  He said, “Yinz didn’t notice me? I came out with a Griid-train. The clan has settled in well on yinz lands, and now there’s discord a-brewin’. Some of my folk, the women mostly, want to stay put. They reckon we’ve got a nice spot, secure and safe as it probably gets for us, not so far from the homeland. They know yinz’ll need builders for your castle and hands to work and guard yinz lands. There’s arguments cooking up about just staying put and forgetting about goin’ down to Houston. I had enough of it. I needed to get away from the noise.”

  I said, “Dirk, as much as it pleases and delights me to think that your folk might stay put, you can’t honestly think I’ll buy that. You came all the way out here, to snow, the cold, the war, to get away from some arguments? That’s not very Jaxwulf of you. What’s the real reason?”

  Dirk screwed up his face and said, “You know, you can save yinz-self and myself an awkward conversation by just believin’ me. I’ll give yinz another go at it. I can pretend yinz never said that, and yinz can just say, ‘Oh, Dirk, what a marvelous idea, I can’t imagine a finer honor guard for my castle than the fearsome Jaxwulfs or a finer beddable housemaid than a Jaxwulf maiden.’ Then I can say, ‘Yinz can have us for cuttin’ and fightin’, but keep yinz hands off the asses of our maidens.’”

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  I laughed without reservation at his clowning. “Really, Dirk, what brought you out here?”

  He said, “I have the vaguest notion yinz have a vague notion yinz-self.”

  I felt my heart rate finding a slightly higher gear as he said it. “Is it something to do with Racquel?”

  Dirk smiled thinly. “Aye. I had a rendezvous with the fiery lady herself.”

  I shook my head, amazed. “You met with her? Out here, in the wilds, with all the chaos and fighting and Griidlords stalking every hill and copse?”

  He said, “Aye. She’s from a long ways off. It was a chance for some parley.”

  I paused, considering my words. I said, “What’s she into, Dirk? What are you into? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were Greenmen, but you and your men slayed them by the dozen for me, and Racquel fought the Greenman himself at my side.”

  Dirk spat at the mention of the Greenmen. He said, “Yinz know I want to see change, want to see a better world for my children and the ones who come after them. I never quite rightly know what to do with yinz. Yinz are richer than God, so yinz are one of them. Yinz are a lord now, so yinz are one of them. But yinz always give off the whiff of one who cares about the man in the street. I saw how affected yinz were when we stopped at that village on our way up the mountains. Yinz give me trouble deciding what to tell yinz.”

  I said, “I’m not about to turn you in, Dirk. You’ve become one of the only people in this world that I half think of as a friend. Just don’t tell me you’re planning on bombing the Tower of Boston, and I won’t say a word beyond us.”

  Dirk grimaced slightly. I found myself hoping dearly that he wasn’t planning an act of terrorism. He said, “I fuckin’ hate the Greenmen. Fuckin’ hate ‘em. They’re an easy lot to hate mostly, and most folks will hate ‘em right up to the day they change their minds and join ‘em. Yinz gotta see, I have more reasons than most to hate ‘em. I want change for the world, want to see the orders that are in place broken down and replaced with something that means more happiness for more people. Yinz might feel one way or the other about it, but I think yinz can at least appreciate the sentiment.”

  I nodded, saying nothing, expressionless.

  He said, “So it might seem fair enough for yinz to assume I’m drawn into the folds of the Greenmen. Yinz might find it easy to imagine me in the ranks of those foul bastards. But the problem is that they make it worse for right-thinking folk like me. The Greenmen call out to the beaten-down commoners, the upright nobles, the contrarians and revolutionaries, all the folk that someone like me needs to make this change happen. But they poison the well. Yinz saw what they were doin’ in the hills—lootin’ and killin’ and rapin’. That does no good for the cause. It turns people away from us. Apart from being just plain villainous. They do more than that as well.”

  He turned to me, looked right into my eyes. “They promise the world. They promise the people anything they want to hear if it’ll motivate them to join ‘em. The sun and stars and the moon as a bonus. They’ll tell one village the opposite of what they’ll tell another. They’ll say whatever it takes to bring people in, ‘cause they’re not about what they say they’re about. There’s other motives driving those bastards. I don’t know what it is, but the result is simple. They rob the souls that would come to us and poison all the others against us.”

  I said, “And who are you?”

  Dirk raised an eyebrow, almost amused. “Who are we, m’lord?”

  I said, “Are you the Blue Men?”

  He flashed a smile at that. He said, “We’re nothing so grand or organized. But there is a web out there. Maybe not a web, maybe it’s an ember. There’s a fuckin’ something out there that’s growin’ and gettin’ ready for something. It’ll take a spark to turn it into something more than that. There are vague plans, little associations. And it’s not gonna build itself into something, it’s gonna take the sweat of those who really care to get those wheels turning.”

  I said, “And that’s what you were doing with Racquel?”

  My heart thrilled at the thought that she might have been near us. My stomach lurched too. Throughout the Falling I had distinctly felt a dread each time I saw Footfields in the distance. Each time I imagined she might be among the opponents we’d face. I didn’t want to imagine what I would have done if I had been forced against her.

  Dirk eyed me, saw my thoughts wandering. He said, “I’ll bet yinz that new castle of yinz that I know what yinz thinkin’ about.”

  I smiled, but my cheeks reddened slightly as well.

  He said, “It wasn’t just revolutionary madness and intel I got from the lady Racquel when I met her.”

  My eyebrows rose of their own accord.

  His hand went beneath his clothes and came back bearing an envelope.

  He said, “I got a little communique for yinz as well.”

  He held the envelope out to me, and I took it with hands that had suddenly started to shake.

  Gilgamesh [Grimdark LitRPG] | Royal Road