Forty men followed Ethan through The Gap less than a half hour later. A handful of Pahadi scouts with 25 Alpine Hunters to back them and ten Phallangites for any heavy work. The 16-foot-long spears were beyond awkward in rocky, rough conditions. But for larger beasts, there was still nothing better.

  They moved north, across what he hoped would soon be farmland. Lines of Labori were already hard at work picking stones, from fist-sized rocks to boulders that took a team of men to move. The smaller varieties ended up in waiting wagons, while the big boys were moved towards the boundary spikes. Carefully laid out wooden posts and lines that marked the edge of the farming node and the start of the clay fields on the river side, and mostly where the hillside began on the west.

  In a few years, the piled-up stones would make decent barriers against wildlife and snowmelt-caused flash floods. But this year they’d have to trust in the ditches another two dozen men were hard at work digging through the still half-frozen soil.

  Ethan bent his path, jogging lightly even in heavy armor over to one of the supervising Farmers. Though supervising hadn’t stopped him from getting his hands dirty. Literally in this case, they were mud-soaked up to his elbows.

  “Any problems, Master Farmer?”

  “Just the beasts as got riled up, Milord. The rest of this is normal. For virgin soil at least.”

  Ethan nodded, waving the troops, trusty Milo at the head of the scouts, to keep going. The Farmer continued, though he made an obvious effort to talk faster. “First plowing, in a week or so, is going to be a right bastard. Old growth roots and such, Milord. It’ll take three maybe four passes of the plow and then a controlled burn. But the soil’s right. Rich and-“ he nodded towards the ditch diggers. “-it goes deep it does. See how black it is, even at the bottom? That’s the best soil I’ve ever seen.”

  Ethan smiled. He liked hearing that. It was one thing to read a blue screen-

  -and quite another to hear a Farmer confirm it.

  “I will be there for the First Furrow,” as tradition dictated the Lord should cut it, “and in the meantime, we’ll just go do something about those beasts for you, hmm? Good luck Masters.” He offered in a much louder voice, turning and breaking into an easy jog.

  “Gods bless you Milord!” The Farmer called, his men raising a ragged cheer at Ethan's back. He kept jogging, but raised a hand in a genial wave backwards without slowing. The men had gotten a couple hundred feet ahead while he’d been talking, but he had the stats to catch up. A tier advantage was good for that sort of thing. He caught up right as the column made a sharp left turn and moved up a shallow draw, into the mountains proper.

  He moved to the head of the column, his breathing as steady and regular as when he’d been standing still. At least the winter hadn’t taken that out of him. They moved upward for a time, the draw, while considerably less steep than the valley walls, remained steep enough that a free hand was nearly required. Pushing against the ground or the frequent trees. Avoiding the Evergreens, still bright and bushy with their limbs frequently blocking sight lanes and hiding who knew what, in favor of the birch and aspens. The former frequently sporting taps and buckets, were still bare of anything resembling greenery. But the aspens at least had spots of sticky resin that in a week or so would be buds.

  They moved upward steadily, eyes well-peeled and on a swivel.

  And for a good reason. They saw at least a dozen snowshoe rabbits, their pelts still mostly white and showing clearly against the patches of brown and green. The draw petered out, dropping them onto a ridgeline for a hundred yards before they veered off again into a short meadow.

  Across a massive ravine, at least several miles wide and a quarter of that up, a dozen massive shaggy creatures, with great curved tusks that reminded him of some kind of hairy elephant, stomped their way through the remains of the snow, eating branches from pine trees.

  They rounded a rock face and found a small hidden meadow, protected by a cliff to one side and a stand of pine to the other. With the first shoots of green breaking through even snow in places on its wide expanse. And a dozen, brown, shaggy quadrupeds stared back at them, interrupted from feeding on those same shoots. Their ears were cocked, turned like a fox's towards them, for the briefest of moments, as shocked to see the humans as the humans were to see them.

  Then the stillness shattered and they bounded away, far faster than the horses they were of a size with.

  “The Gods Bless me. Did you see that stag?” Milo gasped. “Twelve points on that rack and he must weigh 800 pounds!”

  They stared after them, bows still at their sides, arrows undrawn. No reason to hunt them now. There would be plenty of beasts that wouldn’t run away. Or monsters.

  “There!” Milo muttered, his voice considerably quieter as he pointed, with an arrow, towards the bounding woods, where a cloud of green had burst free chasing pointlessly after the large deer.

  The arrow was placed too string, and along with nearly 30 other bows, let loose a volley.

  Better than half missed the small, waist-high, emaciated green figures and Ethan made a mental note to work more ranged training in. But the ones that didn’t miss destroyed their targets.

  Not just killed, the arrows tossed the smaller bodies sideways like rag dolls. Then another flight went out, even less successful with the green creatures screaming in fright and anger, dodging and turning back towards them.

  But less than ten made it to the waiting spears, and none passed them.

  “Best check the wood’s Milo.” Ethan offered, looking down with distaste. “Care to wager on a smaller rift?” They were maybe tier 1 goblins. And skinny as they were, they’d not have survived the winter.

  “Yous wants my purse yous can have it Milord. No need for an excuse.” The man offered as he began to run ahead, his bow already back in its fur-lined case and his spear in hand.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Ethan chuckled. It was a bit of a sucker bet. And indeed, it took him less than 5 minutes, and 4 dead goblins to find it.

  “Tier 1 Milord. But weak like. Damn near Basic.” Still, he looked at the rift like Ethan might look at a pile of parchment work.

  “Leave it for now. I’m sure Sir Conner can find some trouble makers in need of an, hmm, adjustment in attitude.”

  Milo choked on a laugh. “Didna think the man hates anyone so much.”

  “Well, he can run it himself if he’d prefer.” Ethan returned dryly.

  “Oh look, he's found a few problem children!” Milo snickered as he turned away, carefully stepping over and around piles of filth and weeping wounds on the once majestic trees, where the foul creatures had gnawed on their inner bark for sustenance. He wondered how many would die, and what it would do to the meadow behind them.

  Damn goblins.

  No reason to let it get worse; he’d have to send someone tomorrow.

  They continued onward. Crossing the meadow, but stopping abruptly at a patch of small grey grey-green spikes pushing through a bit of snow and dead grass. Almost like lances, if fuzzy ones.

  “Spikenard, Milord.” The Pahadi scout Cato, one of Leo’s original 5, explained. “It’s worth ten times its weight in silver it is.”

  “I’ve not heard of it.” Ethan admits.

  The scout shrugged, moving forward very gingerly, placing his feet with precision on rocks and rare bits of bare ground. “No reason you would have. The nobility prize it for perfumes.”

  Ethan’s eyebrows shot up. Perfumes were as good as spices for value versus weight. He glanced down at the plant with a suddenly proprietary smile. Then froze as the scout continued, carefully digging around the base of one of the 10-inch-tall plants. Not the best looking one either.

  “But that’s a sucker’s game. The Imperial College offers half again as much. Medicinal it is, and maybe magical too.”

  Ethan winced. That was good but… He’d have to fight Blake for it no doubt.

  The scout pulled a fat, hairy root from the ground, then, with care, trimmed about a third of the smaller, pale pink and brown rootlets from its side onto a thin piece of hide. A thick, musty, sweet scent began to fill the air. Something like the expensive incense Temples used, or what he imagined a high-class courtesan might. Funny how those two went together.

  The scout replanted the partially denuded root with some nearby dead leaves, half sludge after the winter and even watered it from his drinking gourd.

  Then he moved two over and did the same again. In a patch of 20-odd plants, he harvested three-quarters but only the same small portion of each. “They grow slow Milord. A handspan of years before this patch will be ready again, and only the uncut quarter. But it’s pure, steady profit.”

  Ethan nodded, not even tempted to harvest the lot. This was his land; he’d not destroy the long term for short-term profit. He pulled a bit of branch free from the ground and carefully carved a 1 onto it. Year one after founding. It sounded rather fine. He added A.F. to the stick and pushed into deeply into the ground at the side of the patch.

  “Very good Master Cato! Very good! A pitcher of Beer for you tonight, and a cup for the rest.”

  A ragged cheer met that offer, and more than a few backslaps to the scout. He was going to be very popular tonight. At least until the beer ran out.

  “When we’ve something better to reward you with, you’ll get it.” He offered, well aware of the profits the man had just given him. Both here and elsewhere if they could find more. And he would be looking.

  “Ah, Thank yous Milord!”

  They moved onward through the white, brown and beginning to be green world while birds of prey circled overhead and beasts of a dozen species appeared and disappeared into the rugged lands around them. Arrows arced out to kill predators or rift escapees that got too curious, from a pair of bipedal brown skinned and tusked Orcs to a carnivorous centaur. A man’s chest on a lion’s body and with a lion’s head.

  No one mentioned skinning that abomination.

  And as they traveled, there were no complaints if they stopped every now and then to harvest an odd plant or three.

  Kutki was a low-growing leafy plant with purple saw edges to them with a greyish brown, finger-thick root that showed yellowish green when cut. It was apparently even more finicky and slower growing than Spikenard. But even at a quarter of the value, he was happy to stop for it.

  The first keeled leaflets of an orchid patch led to a very different harvesting method. The scout simply pulled them up, wholesale and removed a plump tuber of a root. One of two, with the other being a gnarled, ugly thing that the scout carefully replanted. Three-quarters of the patch was harvested again, with a marker to give it another hand span of years before returning for the other quarter.

  “You can eat it Milord. Not the best tasting, but it puts pep in your pecker and Nobles’ll pay for that. Grind it up into a powder and it travels well enough.”

  That they did. He nodded along like a woodpecker. Seeing coins in each new plant patch.

  The scout spent a few minutes cleaning the cold, wet mud from his hands on a pine branch before they moved onward. And nearly lost his hand to a wolf as he reached toward a small ball of purple flowers.

  He reacted quickly, slamming the hide-wrapped wooden buckler strapped to his left arm deep into the beasts mouth, leaving it retching and unable to bite down, while his right pulled a spear-shaped dagger from his belt and slammed it into the beast's chest.

  Struggling with it for a half second, before three other spears pinned it to the ground.

  Ehtan let out a breath, pulling his spear free and wiping it on the beast’s coat. It was a cheap, if nerve-racking, reminder of what they were here for. Medicinal plants were all well and good, but not at the expense of Cato.

  Ethan paused. It's very, very nice coat. Above damn near plum flesh. He ran a hand through it for a second to check, then swore softly. Catching Cato and Milo’s eye he shook the hair, and watched as flesh jiggled beneath it.

  Grim looks covered both their faces as Cato began to skin it. It was a prime pelt. Even with the extra holes.

  He moved up, climbing onto a chest-high boulder to scan the surroundings. The trees were smaller this high up. Gnarled and tough to survive these heights, but rarely more than half again his height. And with more snow holding on up here, the greenery was coming back even slower.

  “Pst. Milo. Whas wrong?”

  “Don’t yous spit on me! Jus ask like a normal slob wills you?”

  “Sorry. But whas wrong?”

  “Ha. Use yous eyes! Do this beast look half-starved from a long winter?”

  “Na. Looks plump like. Might be tasty.”

  “Might. But hows do you suppose he got that way? Yous think there’s lots of prey running about in the deep snow?”

  “Yes? How else he gonna get fat.”

  “Yous a smart ass, yous know that? Means he’s eating something, that was eating something, as still grows in da winter.” Their was a moment of silence, and Ethan had to struggle to keep his face blank. “It means rift leakers yous fat head!” Milo finally let out in exasperation.

  “So? Rifts everywhere. Whas so surprising about that?”

  What indeed. Ethan mused. Amused despite himself. Though he didn’t show it. They didn’t need to know how good his mind stat-boosted hearing was.

  “Haaa, yous make me despair. Yous know that? Fat wolves means lots of fat baby wolves. Lots of fat baby wolves means lots of adult wolves. And lots of adults means?”

  “Means wes about to earn our pay…” The younger man gulped.

  “Yous finally gets it.”

  Cato appeared beside Ethan a few minutes later, his hands clean of blood courtesy of the remaining snow. He handed Ethan a few small fuzzy green leaves. “Eat them. Not worth much, but Primula leaves will keep you healthy. Better than rose hips.”

  Ethan tossed one into his mouth, chewing slowly. Somewhere between spinach and dandelion greens, if with a slightly peppery aftertaste… and a bit slimy. Not the worst thing he’d eaten.

  “Wolf shouldn’t have been alone.” He offered quietly.

  The scout nodded. Gesturing with his chin downhill, and towards a stand of scrub like Birch tucked between two descending ridgelines.

  “A scout. And not from a small pack either with our luck.”

  And wasn’t that just the truth? “Go after them or prepare a stand and bait them?”

  “Bait.” He responded immediately. “Don’t know how many, and the sightlines in there are too short for bows or the long spears.”

  Ethan nodded. He’d assumed the same. But he’d not neglect a scout's opinion of terrain. Just the same, he glanced around and shook his head. The stand of boulders they were in would have to do. Up hill was more snow and meadow. Down was narrow draws and steep descents.

  “Best be about it then.”

  ___