My meals for the next few days consisted of whatever game I could bring down with my sling. It wasn’t much. In the short time between stopping for the night and falling asleep, I hunted what I could, and if I got a rabbit or a bird every other day, I thought myself fortunate. I still had a good supply of tea, sugar, salt, and oil, but a man cannot make a meal from those things alone. The lean meat of hares did not satisfy me, and if my clothes hung a bit looser on me for a few days, I attributed it to my diet.

For several long days, the scenery did not change. It seemed as if Clove and I followed an endless circular path, with the river always to the right of us, wide and gray between its brushy, gravelly banks, and to the left of us, the gentle rise of the rolling prairie. The hills were ahead of us. Their flanks were gray-green or purplish with gorse, and in the higher regions, clumps of buckbrush and nettleme grew. Regularly spaced towns and real inns were left far behind me.

The next courier station I passed was larger and better fortified. They sold me oats and journey bread, but other than that, they seemed as unfriendly as the last station had been. A full troop of foot soldiers was stationed there, with a score of cavalla. A small village of former penal laborers flanked the station, and were engaged in making more formidable the wall and ditch defenses that surrounded both station and village. If any engineering had been applied to the enterprise, it was well concealed from my eyes.

I gathered my courage and then asked for a meeting with the commander, and was shown into the offices of a very young captain. When I told him I was a second son and interested in becoming a soldier, he looked incredulous. I’ll give him credit for attempting to be tactful. He leaned back in his chair, looked at me, and then said in measured tones, “Sir, despite your birth order, I do not think the life of a military man in our region would suit you. Here, we endeavor to recruit our men at an early age, the better to shape them to the lives they will lead. Perhaps you would fare better in the west.”

“I am still short of my twentieth birthday, sir. And I know I do not look fit or able, yet if you will try me, I’m sure you’ll find me more capable than you might think.” Those words consumed all of my humility. My cheeks burned with shame.

“I see. Well. You look older than your years.” He cleared his throat. “Our resources here are limited, and right now our supplies must stretch to support the road workers the king has lent us for the fortification of this place. Much as I would like to take your oath and find you a place where you could serve both your king and the good god, I must turn you away. I do think you would fare better applying to one of the regiments in the west. In the more settled areas, a man may still serve his king and obey the will of the good god in less strenuous ways than the borderlands demand of a soldier.”

I heard the finality in his words. I knew he was attempting to let me leave with my pride and dignity intact. It was more than most folks had done for me on my journey. So I thanked him, and Clove and I went on. But as always, we rode toward the east and the mountains.

I came to a decision point when we reached the fork where the Mendes River joins the Tefa. I rode north for half a day, following both the road and the river. When I came to a new town with the ambitious name of Kingsbridge, I crossed the Mendes on the town’s namesake, and then halted, considering my options. If I followed the Mendy trail north, I’d have several options for enlistment. There was Mendy itself, a substantial bastion and one of our earliest strongholds on the plains. In its earliest incarnations, before we had come to open strife with them, Mendy had been a place for Gernian merchants to enjoy commerce with the Plainspeople. Traditionally, the Third, Seventh, and Eighth Regiment of foot called Mendy home, as well as Hoskin’s Horse. There was opportunity for me there.

My most sensible choice would have been to follow the river to Trade Post, or cross it and try to enlist at Lakegard or Laston. North offered me more opportunities. And yet, when Clove tossed his head and tugged at his bit in annoyance at standing so long, I did not follow the Mendy Trail. Gettys was the only Gernian outpost in our new direction. With the loss of Cayton’s Horse and Doril’s Foot, Gettys would be severely undermanned. Their misfortune might be to my benefit.

I did not allow myself to think that Gettys was in the foothills before the Barrier Mountains, the home territory of the Specks.

As each day passed, the land slowly changed. Trees began to appear, as scattered thickets and then as a solid forest that covered the hillsides. The quality of the road declined as it climbed higher into the foothills. The Tefa River was to my left now, and half the size it would be when it passed my old home in Widevale. I became resigned to sleeping outside each night and supplementing my rations with wild plants and whatever small game I could hunt as I traveled. The road was an anomaly here, a man-made thing that ran through a land that didn’t seem to recognize humanity’s reign. My journey seemed endless. At intervals I would see derelict wagons and other broken and abandoned equipment at the side of the road, the detritus of the road’s continuing growth. Several times I passed large cleared areas, where rags of canvas and other garbage spoke of a large encampment of men, probably for the penal crews building the road. The few other travelers I encountered were brusque, hurrying past me as if I were a threat. I encountered a train of supply wagons, returning empty from the farthermost road construction camp. The dust they raised was swept away by the endless wind. The quiet that flowed back after their passage seemed final. Winter and the snows it would bring had slowed all trade by road or water to a trickle.