Camilla tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. The steam of her breath in the frozen winter air would have given her away regardless. The horses plodded along through the icy morning, snow crunching beneath each hoof fall as they headed north under the glowering sky. Ivan Petrovich rode beside her, mounted on a stallion that his hulking size made look like a pony. The Kislivite chuckled as he took a flask from his belt and swigged. 

“Not much sleep?” the big man rumbled with a pie eyed innocence which fooled no one. Camilla snorted at the poorly concealed jibe. 

“I don’t know how long it will be before I see him again,” she pointed out reasonably. There was no need to clarify who ‘he’ was to an old comrade like Ivan.

“You could at least try to be a lytal qwuiet abou dit. We worry it might start a ri-ot,” the Kislivite went on. Ivan’s three companions chuckled at the quip and several of the close by Imperials laughed nervously also. Ivan and his men were a good deal more rough and tumble than most of the Imperials, even if the force accompanying Camilla was largely mercenaries. 

“I WAS trying to be quiet about it Ivan Petrovich,” she said with a wicked smile. The Kislivite’s roared with laughter that startled ravens from the nearby trees. Camilla had bidden farewell to Cydric in the early hours of the morning, with the stern admission that if he got himself killed she would kill him. She didn’t pretend to be pleased about being separated, both from fear of what might happen in the battles to come and from a less articulate fear that Cydric might ultimately be happier in the respectable service of the Count. Such a life might not have room for a disreputable sellsword such as herself.

They rode at a steady trot, abandoning the road for less defined paths through the ice crusted woodland. Camilla never saw Ivan look at a map, but the veteran scout never showed a moment's hesitation in choosing this fork or that. Camilla wondered where the beastmen who usually haunted the Empire’s forests were. Perhaps they traveled southwards like birds, or perhaps they had their own villages in the dark secret places. Worse yet was the notion that something had drawn them off, and they were gathering in a horde bent on slaughter and destruction.

Ivan claimed it would take them two days to reach the high bluffs above Windbighter’s Bay. The Count’s force, larger but moving along better roads would reach Krondstat in a day and a half. There was no way to judge how long the Norscan’s would take to respond. Camilla was keenly aware that if the plan failed, she would be the woman who led a Count into disaster. Worse yet Cydric might be killed. Success had a thousand fathers, but failure a single author.

“You drink da?” Ivan said pressing a flask into her hands.

“It isn’t vodka is it?” she asked suspiciously, sniffing at the flask. Ivan made a disgusted noise.

“Vat is vrong vith vodka,” he asked defensively, it was an unfortunate sentence with his accent but it was probably on par with Cydric’s attempts at Tileian. Pride did not allow her to admit that her Reikspiel might be equally questionable.

“Last time I drank it we wound up lost a sea as I remember it,” she replied. Ivan threw up his hands in exasperation.

“It vas just da wan time!”
[@POOHEAD189]