Disclaimer: I own none of these characters. :3 I just manipulate them to do my fancy.
Also: I'm sorry this chapter took such a long time to put up. Seriously, I'm super sorry. Here's the next installment though. It's not too terribly long but it should do.
Tortallian Camp:
Kel woke to the sound of sparrows gently chattering among themselves. She kept her eyes closed and listened to their sweet sounds and pretended she was still asleep. Her horrible habit of waking before the sun had come to nip her in the butt. With the weather so bad waking when the sun wasn't there to take a few degrees off of the chill was torturous.
Rolling over onto her stomach she pulled the covers tightly around her. She was cold. She had gone to be in a layer of three night dresses and had a mound of blankets on here but that didn't seem to keep the cold from soaking in like water into a rock. It came in slowly and made most of her night miserable.
Opening on bleary eye, she looked around her tent. Some sparrows sat on the back of her desk chair with their feathers puffed out and the becks in their chests. The rest of the sparrows were spotted around her bed looking the same fashion as the sparrows on the chair. Jump, the silly thing, had begged late in the night to crawl under the blankets with her. He was curled behind her legs where they bent. She didn't mind some much that he was there. It only added to the warmth.
She knew she needed to get up. It was only that her warm clothes seemed too far away from where she was right now.
She was devising a plan to somehow get the clothes without getting out of bed when Tobe, several times larger with all his layers on, enter her tent to make sure she was up.
She knew that she was blessed to have him.
"Mornin', Lady. I hope you slept well. I'mma light these candles for you know. Why ain't you up yet and dressed like I am?" He crossed to begin lighting the candles. Kel followed him with her eyes as they were the only thing visible from her blanket fortress.
"Tobe," She mumbled, "Would you get my clothes for me? They're on the desk."
Tobe looked at her and chuckled, "You should just sleep with 'em in the blankets like I do."
He brought her clothes to her and left her to get dressed for the day.
When she exited her tent she looked to the horizon. The sun was gently rising and bringing beautiful color with it. Red's and Purples flared over the mountains and seeped into the deep blue of the night sky. The horizon looked like a water color left in the rain.
A few of the soldiers were up and already busying themselves around camp. Some were practicing fighting. Others were talking to each other and some were feeding the animals.
Kel sniffed the air; she smelled food. She smiled and found the mess tent.
After eating and talking among the soldiers and few knights she left the mess tent to go to the council tent. She had to be briefed on last night's patrol.
Inside the tent was warm. All the bodies inside made it that way. When she entered all the men gave her smiles or welcome. She smiled back and said a good morning before she took he seat at the head of the oak table place in the center.
Maps and compasses and mugs full of hot cider and wine littered the table. Someone pushed a mug of the cider into her hands. She drank it thankfully.
"Okay, men," She looked at their faces, "What do you have for me?"
There was a sigh from Dom. He looked at her, "We have no idea what they are doing. We're watching the Scanrans like a vulture watches a dying beast but they aren't doing anything. Our spies bring us back nothing as well. Those Scanrans either know we're here and that we have spies, and therefore are keeping their mouths shut, or they truly aren't doing anything." He relaxed into his chair with another sigh, "I seriously doubt that they aren't doing anything since this is a war."
Kel made a face. How could they not know what the army was doing? King Maggar, who had managed to escape deaths iron fist in the last war, had employed a new and very fierce general into his army. General Jahk was a hard a terrifying man that loved war. When Kel got her assignment to take her small army to the valley where the man hid his army and seek out what he was doing, and then thwart that idea, she didn't know that her work was cut out for her. She was pretending she was troop support for an army already in the area. Obviously he was onto her.
"We have to change tactics, men." She pointed to the map where Jahk's men were settled, "He's in there smiling at our ignorance and we need to crush him."
