As morning broke, I found myself pondering the idea of forced marches. I had already done what amounted to one before, and here I was again. But as bad as it was for me, the villagers were feeling the effects even worse; they had walked into this forest surrounded by dead things; one step out of line or one slow step was met with uncaring violence or death.

The undead had also attacked us on the way out, just as soon as they had caught up. They were going to catch up again, simply because most of the villagers were done. They had no more left to give; when Karl signaled the halt as soon as the sun broke, at least half of the remainder of the village dropped where they stood.

This time there was no whistling, or singing, or fancy busy-work. We were all a little too tired for that. For my part, I could probably keep going, but the lack of uninterrupted sleep had really hurt whatever energy I needed to cast spells. I could maybe start a fire, or move a small object without my hands, but anything more and I would be out of gas.

Meanwhile the necromancer behind all this had a full day of rest, and could even now be using that to set a trap for us; I wouldn't put it past the vile human to have some kind of teleportation spell. A shame really, I'd love one of those myself; I could pop back home to check up on things. I could probably learn that spell the necromancer had used to punch a small hole in our dimension and cross the space... but the very idea gave me the cold shakes.

Of course, knowing how things seemed to work for me now, the teleportation spell I had the option of learning would be something worse and even more physics breaking.

Karl slumped down beside me. "Can you do something about this?"

I wasn't sure what he meant. "If you mean the lack of reinforcement here? The best I can do is a type of magical alarm. After that I'll have to sleep; I'll be completely out of juice."

"Right. Well, please do it anyway." He moved off, already gathering steam towards Ethan, from the looks of things.

Well at least he had said please. I gathered the energy and cast the spell, keeping an eye out for kids. The last thing I needed was for some kid to try and figure it out and turn their hair blue or something equally silly.

I felt the spell take hold, taking note of who and what 'belonged' and who and what didn't. Then I spread my own bedroll and sat back.

There was no guard set this time; which was good because there was no need to. Everyone settled down in a hurry, and the clearing we had taken over was quiet save for the occasional cough or stir. But I still found it hard to get to sleep, because the sun was out.

The easiest way was to block out the sun with something cloth-like... but I didn't want to do that because the disorientation of waking up to an attack would already be bad enough.

Instead I tried to distract myself; why was it so easy for everyone else to fall asleep? Was it just simple fatigue, or something else? The sun could equal safety and comfort in the minds of many. It was hard to believe such things as zombies and evil could exist in it, even when I knew better; even though I had experienced the dichotomy before.

What was it that tricked our minds so? What was the underlying cause of that, assuming the premise was true?

....I woke up to the jingle of mail and harness and whiff of the smell of steel and rampant body odor; armed men, and a lot of them.

I disentangled myself from a sleeping ida (When had she gotten there?) and rose just a beat before Karl and Ethan, and we headed toward the noise.

The sun was well past it's high point in the sky, and my energy reserves were likewise above half; if the men picked a fight, they would be sorry.

I made it to the edge of the clearing, took cover behind one of the dead trees, and risked a peek.

Damn; it was worse than an enemy, it was Captain Short and his men.

I cut the alarm right before his scouts walked into out clearing, mainly so the villagers could sleep peacefully. A bit of kindness which the glorious Captain himself did much to undo the moment he rode his horse into the clearing.

"Ah, there you are, Karl. We have been sent to assist you."

Karl winced as the pompous windbag's voice rang out, but he was more diplomatic than I'd have been in his place. "That's great, we could use it. Can you form a picket around our rescues, please? Preferably quietly?"

To his credit the windbag did take a look across the clearing before continuing in a tone that wasn't designed to wake the dead. "Why? Do you fear attack? What is the situation? Why are these people sleeping in the afternoon?"

"As you know, we rescued these people from a necromancer performing experiments into unlife upon them. Since, the necromancer has attacked and herded us; the people were already in poor shape from their ordeal, and the attack last night drained them utterly. So here we are."

"Well then, no fear. We will rout any attacker; just leave it to us."

Pompous jackass. His men didn't even have magical support of any kind - the necromancer would eat them alive. But feeding them into the grist mill first would allow us much more warning than my simple spell, and should turn the odds wholely in our favor. Was it wrong to think that?

It probably was, but it helped that the men and women set to be sacrificed were all volunteers.

But something was wrong; the count was off. There were far fewer soldiers here than there should be. I mean the dead forest made it hard to get a headcount, but there were simply too many gaps; if I had to guess, there were maybe fifty of the original hundred men.

I started counting as they passed by in the clearing, getting back to a now blearily blinking Ida and my bedroll. fifty four, counting the scouts I saw. I smelled something rotten, more rotten than the soldiers themselves smelled.

"Soldier."

The last soldier to pass stopped as if caught with a hand in the cookie jar, turning slowly at the sound of my call.

"Yes, Ma'am?"

"Where are the rest of you? Your company was a hundred strong a few days ago."

"I am not at liberty to say Ma'am."

Well that wasn't ominous at all. A dark suspicion started to worm it's way around in my gut; the man's eyes had been a little wild. Haunted, for lack of a better term.

The soldiers moved past us and took up positions well out of sight and earshot; now that they were upwind I couldn't even smell them anymore. They hadn't managed full silence however, which meant that by the time they passed out of sight, most of our rescues were awake and watching. There were no cheers.

Ida stirred beside me. "Who are they?"

"Soldiers from the Duke of Ohio, sent to find out what happened to you."

"Well they did a bad job of it; you found us first."

I looked down into Ida's guileless face. "Well, we were sent by the Duke too - we were the scouts. The Duke cares about all of his people."

I hoped it was true.

At least for Ida it was. "That's good. I hope they find that necromancer... and kill him."

I couldn't deny the sentiment, or the fervor with which it was uttered. "The first thing to do is get as many of you out of here safely as we can. Then we worry about the necromancer."

Killing was probably too good for the necromancer, but I wasn't about to give a little kid ideas. "You should probably get some more sleep. We will be moving again soon."

It was clear by the lack of offer that the soldiers only had enough food and water for themselves, if they had any at all. Pastor Collins was going to have to provide another miracle. When he woke up, that is; how could he still be sleeping through all this excitement?

At least Ida wasn't complaining about being hungry. If she did I wasn't sure I could resist handing her some of my stash, even knowing how that would end. I supposed now that we were safer, I could test my hand at providing food. It would take a lot of power for me though, and I was loathe to use it that way. I decided to wait until Ida at least tempted me.

Karl was still occupied chatting in low tones with Captain Short - he knew how sensitive my ears were - but Matt got up and walked over.

"So, what do you think?" He whispered so that only Ida and I could hear.

Ida was already fast asleep again. "I think the good Captain Short slaughtered some Giants on his way here, and that's why he's a few men shy. Though how he managed to do that without losing his entire force is beyond me; the giants should have killed more without backup."

"Yeah, they should have been whittled down more if that were the case; let's not jump in half-cocked and do anything rash until we know for sure. Something doesn't add up here, but we don't know for sure what it is."

Well that was obvious; I just gave Matt my best stare coupled with some silent treatment.

"Right, right," he responded with a total brush off. "Now on to the real reason I came over here. You got any of that wine left?"

He wasn't doing much to calm my concerns. "You want to drink. Now?"

"What better time?" He replied, grinning, "We aren't really responsible for this shitshow anymore, and we're pretty safe. We got out without more than a few scratches. What's not to celebrate?"

He had a point. I dipped a hand into my bag and pulled the skin out, and flipped it at his head.

He had been expecting that and caught it, upending the skin and guzzling what I knew to be a moderately expensive and intoxicating wine with abandon. "Hey, not all of it you glutton."

He capped the skin and tossed it back. I should be more worried about backwash, but it was Matt, and I knew where he'd been. Of course, I wasn't going to dribble wine all the way down my front either; his armor was probably going to rust.

"I've got to admit, that's some good stuff. When we go back to that inn, you should pick up more."

I was on to him. "So you can guzzle it again? Next time you should buy your own."

He clapped hand to his heart, coincidentally finding the spillage. "You wound me, right in the heart! See? It's bleeding."

"That's not blood but it can be, Matt."

"Have I ever told you how scary you can be?" He asked with a grin.

"At least once a day," I spotted Karl coming over, Captain Short in tow. "Cheese it, the cops!"

Karl cracked a smile, but quickly hid it. "Anything I should know about going on over here?"

"Only some on duty drinking and minor mutiny," Matt replied; he was on rare form today.

"Outstanding," was Karl's dry response; he was too, apparently. "Think you can get suited up? We're going to wake the crowd, feed them, and get them moving."

"Sure, I can do that." Matt moved off, clearly not in any real hurry.

I didn't really blame him there. I hesitated to wake Ida again, she was sleeping so peacefully.

"Lady Muse."

I turned to find both Karl and Captain Short above me, almost uncomfortably close. At least only Captain Short was the one scowling - but he was displaying enough disapproval for the both of them.

"Can you send another messenger bird, updating our situation?".

"Um, sure. What is our situation, exactly?" It's not like I've been informed recently, and normally Captain Short would be the one getting a bird.

As hoped, Captain Short broke his silence. "I need you to send message to the castle informing the Duke that we have made contact and are escorting his citizens out of danger, and whatever you may have found out about this necromancer you encountered. And while you are about that, I'd be interested in any such insights you have in that regard myself; you have done well as a small team, but you may have left survivors in the deadened wood, and I intend to correct that."

Captain Short was a braver man than I gave him credit for being. "Do you want me to send that as well? That you want to look for survivors?"

Captain Short shook his head. "I have full authority over my command in the field. You may simply pass along my intent to the Duke. Karl, have your team ready to move; you seem more than capable of escorting the villagers to safety. Remember, directly to the Capital and nowhere else. Now if you'll excuse me I need to send runners to the other villages nearby, so they know the situation."

The good Captain turned his back on us and walked off, heading towards his horse, which he had ridden in a forest. Braver than I thought perhaps, but still a pompous ass.

"Sure, I'll do my thing."

I waited until he was out of earshot then turned to Karl, who had apparently been waiting for me to say something. "Anything you want the bird to say?"

"Just what Captain Short said, and that we are altering course to go straight to Columbus."

"We will still need food and water."

Karl nodded, looking pained. "We're going to have to rely on Pastor Collins at least once more, but We have orders to go directly to Columbus so we're going. If there is another village or town on our straight line, we can stop there for provisions, but I don't want these people out here and our responsibility any longer than necessary."

That was fair. "But..."

"But nothing, Muse. Remember why we're doing this."

Right, we were doing this for access to information; information which was even now pouring into Columbus and kept under lock and key, away from the majority of the populace. Eyes on the prize, and not haring off after justice of one kind or another - no matter how bad the current situation was. I wasn't sure I agreed. I wasn't sure I could agree.

"...Right." But I could act like I did.

Karl looked like he wasn't buying it, but he let it go in favor of going to wake other people up.

I just had Ida. That was enough. "Wake up Ida."

She groaned and stirred. "come on Ida, wake up. It's time to get ready to go."

Ida sat up and stretched. "Already?"

"Yep. Pastor Collins is going to conjure food and water again, we're all going to eat, and then it's back on the road for us."

"Ugh, I hate that bread," Ida confided.

"I'm not fond of it myself," I admitted.

Ida came fully awake whipping her head around. "What about the soldiers?"

"They are going to go back into the forest and look for other survivors - people we couldn't find yesterday."

Ida grew chillingly somber. "They won't find anyone."

I couldn't lie to her, and didn't like the idea of sugarcoating it. "Probably not. But they are going to try."

Pastor Collins was grumpy this morning, by the looks of things, but he wasted no time pulling out the symbol of his new faith and getting to work. I started casting my spell as Ida skipped off to get her bread.

Then five minutes later I joined the line, my own spell cast and my gear packed, and everyone else awake including the kids. Joining at the end of a very long line was a small price to pay, especially when the line moved quickly. A hunk of tasteless bread, a single earthen cup of water, and the person was on their way.

Once I had mine we simply settled into an order for march and set off.

I couldn't resist a wave at Captain Short just as he went out of sight; the man still barking orders.

I assumed Karl gave the good captain a full brief of what we encountered, but maybe that was uncharitable of me. I should have made sure, for all that it would cement my reputation as a busybody in at least one mind.

We turned right almost immediately, and almost immediately after that the forest started showing signs of life for us. One of the biggest things I noted, and the thing that put me most at ease, wasn't the shoots of growth and plants, or the occasional leaves scattered on the trees, but the chittering of the squirrels disturbed by our passing and the off and on snatch of birdsong.

We passed another ten men of the Captain's watching the picket of their horses. Which made sense, of course, and also made me wonder why Captain Short still had his. But it wasn't my problem.

We weren't out of the woods yet. I kept my guard up; anyone who could use spells to appear somewhere else could certainly come at us here. I wasn't sure ten men was enough to watch the horses, but if they were spread out enough they shouldn't get overwhelmed. And they certainly were, and alert besides.

I was more trusting to Phil and Thomas. I was using my own senses as well, but they were in better position to ignore our rather vocal charges.

"Can you show me a trick?" Case in point, rather chatty kids. Billy needed to relax. Maybe not to Ida levels, but just a touch. Speaking of which Ida was ghosting along beside me as best a human kid was able, which was at least better than the adults were managing.

Anyone was going to hear us coming well before they saw us coming. Karl didn't seem that worried. Even the villagers were standing tall; some were even beginning to smile. It was too soon to rest easy, but it felt wrong to remind them of that as well... so I said nothing.

"I'm not that kind of magus," I answered Billy finally. "Besides, I'd rather keep the power ready to defend us all against danger."

Billy stared back up at me with artfully guileless eyes. "But aren't you strong enough to do both?"

Why that little....

Ida sprang to my defense. "Don't be stupid, Billy. Would you really want her not able to cast her shield or wind things?"

Billy hemmed and hawed a bit, but at least he was mostly silent.

Being in my usual position in back was never more nerve wracking than with kids walking alongside me.

"Hey, guys? Why don't you go ask Ethan? I'm sure he knows a trick or two."

There, two birds, one stone.

Billy was gone before I finished the sentence, but Ida spared me a suspicious glance before looking behind us before nodding once and following. Watching not just two, but an entire flock of kids (as Billy had gathered his friends along the way) swarm Ethan was more than a little amusing.

It was kind of nice not worrying about our course at least, though I didn't like not knowing everything going in. I didn't like feeling as if Karl wasn't telling me everything anymore.

Matt bumped me gently. "I still know that look. You're thinking too much."

I shrugged. "Probably."

"Well, relax or I'll drink more of your booze; I need someone to help me out here. Also, good setup, I'm liking this."

We both watched as Ethan proved he was better at entertaining kids than I was, doing more with crappy third rate magician tricks than I managed with real magic.