A Soldier's Life
Chapter 227: For Shits and Giggles

Chapter 227: For Shits and Giggles

I waited while the fire burned—hoping those of the first floor roused. Would all my effort still result in needless deaths? Finally, screams erupted from the house, and five individuals rushed out. One was a guard, trying to pull on his leather jerkin while holding his belt with a sheathed sword in his other hand.

A sixth servant finally exited, and they all watched in horror as the villa burned and alarms erupted through the city for what I assumed was the fire brigade. I hope no one else was killed due to my machinations.

Two women servants were crying in each other’s arms, which didn’t help my mood as I slinked off into the night. People rushed past me to help quell the fire, but the villa was isolated in the city, and the fire shouldn’t spread. At least, I hoped I hadn’t just started a city-wide fire. I pulsed earth speak as I walked to make sure I was not being followed and returned to the Silver Inngot. In the urine-saturated alley, a few air shields got me back in my room.

A glowstone was revealed and lit the room. One of the Hounds was seated in a chair, and I could see the door had been forced open. My pack had its contents strewn on the bed. “Is it done?” he asked casually, maybe hoping for a reaction from breaking into my room.

I looked at my belongings on the bed and back to him. He didn’t seem to care about my privacy, so I didn’t care either. Anything important was in my dimensional space, and I wore the belt. “The children and the mother are dead.”

“You were not supposed to kill the wife,” he said dispassionately.

“And I wasn’t told I couldn’t,” I chirped back.

He shrugged and stood, “Did you start the fire?” I nodded slightly in confirmation. “Not a good time of year for it in the city. It has been dry, and you should have realized that by how little snow has fallen. You could have burned down the city. We leave in the morning, but the magistrate will probably come by and ask Centurian Sergius to investigate the fire.” He turned and left, but I found it hard to close the door and secure it again from the damage he had done breaking in.

I looked at the mess on my bed and began packing. Was he searching for the amulet? That would make sense, as Sergius was certain it was not in my dimensional space. So far, the Western Hounds felt more like a crime syndicate than the Empire’s guard dogs. I didn’t get much sleep in the few hours waiting for sunrise.

I was at the stables first and had Comet saddled and ready to ride while the Centurion and Hounds were still eating breakfast. As they came out to get their mounts, one of the Hounds returned from the city. His face and arms were covered in soot. Sergius looked at him pointedly, and he nodded.

Centurion Sergius addressed me, “It's a bit untidy, but you got the job done. I would have preferred the wife to be left alive in case we needed to make our point again, but what's done is done. You served the Empire well, Hound.”

We were soon riding out the gates, and I was ordered to ride next to Sergius. He pulled out two dark gray notebooks bound with straps. He untied and handed me one of the worn books. “Store that in your space. These are paired message-sending books. What is written in one will appear in the other.”

I took the notebook and paged through it before sending it to my space. All the pages were blank. “So, where am I going to be assigned?”

Sergius sucked on his teeth, getting his breakfast free before answering. “One of my watchers in Kraken Bay was killed a few months back. The man who replaced him is needed elsewhere, so you will replace him.”

Kraken Bay was in the northwestern part of the Empire and separated the Boutan Caliphate orc’s settlements and the Empire. The bay was also nearly eighty miles across, if I remember correctly. “So, I will just be watching for the orc invasion?”

Sergius laughed so hard it drew the Hound’s attention for a moment. “Part of your mission, yes. But there are four cities on the peninsula: Varta, Friedival, Brapo, and Othal. I will tell you through the book if I need anything done in those cities. You need to check it at sunrise and sunset every day. Whatever is written in it will vanish in two days.” I nodded as that was a very good security measure and also ensured the books could be used repeatedly without filling the pages.

“Will I be alone? And what do I do if the orcs invade?” I asked.

Centurion said exasperatedly, “Write it in the book! And, of course, you will be alone. We are stretched thin, and I have three thousand miles of border and coast to watch with less than a hundred Hounds!” I didn’t mention that he was using six of his Hounds as personal guards.

I rotated from front to back guard duty the rest of the day, giving me time to think. Sergius had mentioned four cities, all of which made up a rough box on the peninsula: Varta was one hundred miles north of Brapo, Freidival was one hundred miles west of Brapo, and Othal was about thirty miles west of Varta. It was a huge area for which to be responsible.

The Hounds tried to include me in their conversations as we moved west, now that I had proven myself, but I was only making short responses to their queries. When we made camp early, I took the opportunity to nap a little before sunset.

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Even with the ring of sustenance, I still needed a few hours of rest, and I got almost none last night. Centurion Sergius worked in the evening, going through a series of notebooks, reading, and writing. I took my shift on the night watch and didn’t sleep at all when I was off watch.

In the morning, as we prepared the horses, Sergius called me out, “Hound, I thought I told you that you needed to read the notebook at dawn and dusk every day!”

“I did. The stones you asked me to gather are under your saddle.” I replied cooly with my back to the man. He had written that he needed seven fist-sized rocks before we departed in the morning. He narrowed his eyes as he lifted the saddle. There were his seven stones. He actually grinned rather than be annoyed. Konstantin trained me, and it was going to take more than scribbling in a book to trick me.

Sergius tossed six stones into the woods and put the seventh into his saddle bags. “Very good. When we get to Forgabua tonight, Hercule and you will head to Tranha to take the portal there to Brapo. He will escort you to replace Damian. Check your book every night for new orders.”

Our pace increased during the day, and when we reached Forgabua in the evening, Hercule had us continue north another six miles to a small town.

I found out he had a mistress here, and I was left to my own devices in the town with no inn. The town was tiny, and the largest building was a mill. They used a water wheel to grind grain, but it had a stable attached. The structure was empty, and with it already being dark, I decided it was best to ask for forgiveness rather than find someone to ask for permission. I assumed my Hound regalia would be enough to keep anyone from being discontent.

The axle for the mill was disengaged, so the sound of water greeted me inside. I rubbed down Comet and fed him some grain. The mill was ancient and needed some lumber replaced as I explored the empty structure. Eventually, I settled next to a trough of running water that I guessed was used for laundry. I decided to use it to clean the buried coins of the Gallos Empire. I couldn’t spend them in the Telhian Empire without drawing suspicion, but I was suspecting my time in the Telhian Empire was growing short.

The water was freezing as I stirred the coins in the wide basin. It was so cold that I only superficially cleaned the coins before stacking them twenty-five high for easy counting. My best guess was someone hid all these coins under that massive rock when the First Legion conquered the city and no one who was party to the concealment survived the conflict.

It took most of the night, but in the end, I had 3,408 coppers, 608 silver, and 37 gold. It was not a fortune by any stretch, and there were no large coins among them, but the Gallos coins were slightly larger than normal Telhian coins. I stored everything in a thick sack and returned them to my dimensional space. I munched on a burrito before napping on and off.

Before sunrise, I led Comet out of the mill and waited outside the small hovel where Hercule’s mistress lived. Hercule was up but was working energetically on his farewells to his mistress. It made me wonder how Renna was doing.

When he exited, he acted less of an ass for the morning ride, but by noon, he resumed his belligerent attitude. He pushed the horses harder than needed as it was a two-day ride no matter our pace, and rushing was not going to change that. We stayed in a barn that night, and Hercule ignored the farmer’s plea to look into giant moles that had destroyed his crop in the fall.

I didn’t say anything, but that night, I walked the fields and killed three of the creatures. There was a fourth that I could see with my earth speak pulse, but my dimensional space couldn’t reach it. It was a shame that I couldn’t get close enough to them to use the collector.

When I returned to the barn, Hercule spoke, “You don’t sleep much.” I couldn’t tell if it was a question or an accusation.

“I never needed much sleep my whole life. Drove my parents crazy, but makes me a good Hound,” I replied, climbing into the loft. He grunted and rolled over and then ripped a long, wet fart. It would have been funny if that had happened with someone in Castile’s company. Instead, I found my temper flaring.

Since his back was turned, I made some noise to keep him up for a few minutes, snagged his canteen that was hanging on a hook, and added the bowel purge potion to it. I rested happily that night.

It wasn’t until mid-morning on our ride the next day that Hercule drank from his canteen. I could tell at first he was trying to hold it in, as the gurgles of his stomach were audible to me. When he figured it was going to be impossible to contain it, he leaped off his mount and feverously tried to undress. He didn’t make it.

I held in my laughter and asked in a concerned tone, “Did you eat something fouled or get water from a pasture?” He couldn’t respond as he got his leggings off and was painting the side of the road. The half-elf’s potion had worked as advertised. From there, the pace was much slower on the ride to reach Tranha, for which the mounts were grateful.

We showed our bone Hound tokens at the portal office, and the displacement mage would make a special gate opening in the morning for us. The Hound token’s power surprised me, and if Hercule hadn’t needed to use the baths so badly, we would have left that evening. Instead, I got to spend the night in a quality inn and finally get some a few hours of consecutive of sleep.

In the morning, a disgruntled displacement mage opened the portal, and Hercule led us and our mounts through it. He was still walking funny, and his Hound clothes were damp, but I felt no guilt whatsoever. A few merchants rushed through behind us, taking advantage of the off-schedule gate opening.

As we appeared hundreds of miles away, my eyes started to adjust, and a familiar voice rang out, “Arrest that man! It is Fortuna in disguise. Shackle him before he steals your luck. He is a danger to himself and every nightmarish creature in the Empire!” Hercule was drawing his sword as one of the legionaries guarding the portal barked his comment at us.

“It's Good to see you too, Mateo.” I smiled as I started recognizing a few legionnaires around the portal, who returned my smile.

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