Chapter 35 : THE RIDE SOUTH
The force moved before first light.
Forty riders emerged from the barony's southern gate in formation, their horses' breath visible in the cold air, their equipment checked and rechecked during the predawn hours. Aldric led from the front—not because tradition demanded it, but because the route existed only in his memory and couldn't be delegated.
The pace he set was faster than standard cavalry movement. The Campus Invictus graduates had endurance past normal limits—a consequence of the enhancement that had transformed them from competent soldiers into something more. They could maintain this speed for hours without the fatigue that would break conventional troops.
Edvard rode beside him for the first two hours without speaking. The veteran's presence was steady, reliable, the anchor that kept the formation stable when Aldric's urgency might otherwise push them past sustainable limits.
Finally, as the sun cleared the eastern horizon, Edvard broke the silence.
"You're afraid."
The observation was direct, the kind of assessment that came from years of reading commanders under pressure.
"I'm certain," Aldric replied.
"Which is worse?"
The question hung in the cold morning air. Aldric considered it—the difference between fear and certainty, between anxiety about unknowns and knowledge of exactly what was coming.
He didn't answer. The pace said everything words couldn't convey.
---
[Road South — Day 1,067]
The force covered ground that should have taken weeks in days.
The enhanced endurance of the Campus Invictus graduates meant fewer rest stops, longer riding hours, a sustained effort that conventional cavalry couldn't match. Towns and villages passed in blurs of activity—brief stops for supplies, shorter stops for intelligence, then back on the road with the urgency that Aldric's pressure demanded.
Toma kept the primary corridor running smoothly, his independent authority exactly what the distributed command structure required. Harren managed the secondary corridor with the steady competence he'd shown since the Fire Elemental hunt. The force moved as a cohesive unit because the training had prepared them to move as a cohesive unit.
But questions were inevitable.
At the second night camp, Toma approached Aldric directly. The corridor lead's expression carried something that wasn't quite suspicion—more like the calculated evaluation of someone who needed information to do his job effectively.
"The men are talking," Toma said. "Riding into Cintran territory with no orders. No stated objective. A lord who looks like he knows something none of us do."
"I do know something," Aldric acknowledged. "Something I can't fully explain."
"That's not enough for a force riding toward a foreign kingdom."
"No. It isn't." Aldric met Toma's eyes directly. "There is a person in Cintra who needs extracting before the south closes. Everything else—the timing, the route, the urgency—follows from that. The person's identity and location will be provided when we're in position to act."
"An extraction."
"Yes."
"From a city we have no authority to enter, against opposition you haven't described, with a timeline you won't specify."
"Yes."
Toma was quiet for a long moment. The campfire crackled between them, casting shadows across the corridor lead's weathered features.
"You've prepared us for three years," he said finally. "Everything—the training, the enhancements, the command structure—it was all building toward this."
"Yes."
"Then tell me one thing. Is it worth it? Whatever we're extracting, whoever we're saving—is it worth what this might cost?"
The question deserved an honest answer. Aldric gave him one.
"If we succeed, it might save more lives than anything else I could do with the resources I have. If we fail—" He paused. "If we fail, nothing else I've built matters anyway."
Toma studied him for another long moment. Then he nodded once and returned to his corridor without another word.
The questions had stopped. The trust remained. Whether it would survive what was coming was another matter entirely.
---
[Cintran Border — Day 1,074]
The Territory Sense dropped to zero the moment they crossed.
Aldric had prepared for this—the familiar awareness that had guided him since his first days in the barony simply stopped functioning outside his own borders. The sense didn't diminish gradually or fade with distance. It vanished, replaced by the ordinary perception of someone navigating unfamiliar terrain without supernatural assistance.
The loss was disorienting. He'd grown accustomed to knowing the ground beneath him, sensing threats before they materialized, understanding geography with certainty that bypassed normal perception. Without it, he was operating on preparation alone—memorized routes, studied maps, intelligence gathered over three years of planning.
What didn't diminish was the dread sense.
The pressure behind his sternum reached maximum intensity as the force crested the ridge overlooking Cintra. Not a direction anymore—the sense had stopped pointing south when south became here. Instead, it registered as pure urgency, the sensation of an event already in motion that couldn't be stopped, only navigated.
The city spread below them in the winter dusk—larger than any settlement the border soldiers had seen, its walls encompassing districts that could swallow the entire Varnhagen barony. Smoke rose from thousands of chimneys. The harbor was visible in the distance, ships at anchor, trade continuing despite the war everyone knew was coming.
"It's a big city," Harren said quietly.
The observation came from someone who had grown up in a farming village, who had served in a minor barony, who had never imagined standing on a ridge overlooking a capital that would be burning within days.
No one answered him. The silence communicated everything words couldn't convey.
---
[Ridge Observation Point — Night]
Aldric studied the city until he had confirmed every detail his preparation required.
The gates were positioned exactly as the games had indicated—south gate facing the Nilfgaardian approach, east gate opening toward the harbor road, north gate connecting to the mountain passes, west gate serving the agricultural districts. The palace was visible at the city's heart, its towers catching the last light of sunset.
Somewhere in that palace, Calanthe was preparing for a war she couldn't win. Somewhere in the servants' quarters, a young woman with ash-blonde hair was living the last ordinary days of her life.
Ciri. The name he'd carried for three years. The objective that had driven every decision since the funeral. The person whose survival mattered more than anything else he could accomplish with the time he had left.
The smell on the wind was wrong.
It took Aldric a moment to identify it—the particular scent of smoke that wasn't coming from chimneys. Something was burning in the southern districts, something that shouldn't be burning yet. The timeline was accelerating.
"We move at dawn," he said. "Eastern servants road entry. The route I've mapped requires precision timing. The window will be narrow."
Edvard moved to stand beside him, looking at the same city, seeing different things.
"You've never been here," the veteran said. It wasn't a question. "You've never visited Cintra, never walked those streets, never seen those gates. But you know exactly where we're going."
"I know exactly where we're going."
"How?"
The question deserved an answer Aldric couldn't give. He'd never explained the transmigrator knowledge to anyone—not Lady Marta, not Brennan, not even Edvard who had earned the right to understanding a hundred times over.
"Trust me," he said instead. "For three more days, trust me. After that, either it won't matter or you'll understand everything."
Edvard was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded once, the motion sharp and final, and returned to organizing the camp.
Trust, freely given. The most valuable resource Aldric possessed, and the one he was about to spend completely.
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