Finally Found

Chapter 38 - Bel

The fighting's done for the day and we return to camp ready to turn in for the night. Another day of fighting though and we're no closer to finding Rhistel which will end this war, each battle feels pointless as it's not getting us anywhere. We're no closer now to returning to Hadlau than we were three months ago when we first got to the border.

As we enter our tent Kor and I start removing our armour to get comfortable for the night. I jump in surprise though when I hear crashing, turning to find the source I find Kor tossing his armour to the ground clearly not caring about removing and putting it away properly. Both of us are frustrated with the lack of progress we've been making recently particularly as Emmy is due to give birth any day now. She might even have given birth by now; we won't know until we get back to base where any letter might be waiting for us.

We haven't even managed to capture any of high-ranking officers who could potentially lead us to Rhistel. It seems that troops receive their orders from a command centre but none of them know where the orders come from so we can't follow it back to the source. There's not really anything we can do differently though we just need them to slip up somewhere so we can capture officers and extract information from them. We have been making plans to start re-taking Nerkise from Rhistel's control though, we'll start slow in taking it back though trying not to spook Rhistel into doing anything risky.

"Breathe Kor, breathe." I mutter wrapping my arms around him trying to calm him down. He's breathing heavily at first as though he wants to fight against me but after a few minutes I can feel him calming down.

"Just fed up with this." He grunts in frustration, "Want Rhistel's head." I can agree with that so I place my hands on his cheeks getting him to look at me.

"We will. Soon enough we will and then we can get home to our family." I tell him, we've been telling ourselves this every night for months. But we can't wish it into existence instead we need to fight for it.

"Any day now." He mutters pulling me back into a hug as we both start imagining what our baby might look like. I think about it often lately my dreams filled with the four of us together in Hadlau, or the castle, with our baby.

"Yeah just think there could be a letter waiting for us when we get back to the border. Just one more day out here then we can get back to base where Gods willing there will be a letter for us. And maybe our first look at our baby." I remind him as our last letter from Emmy and Lilas had promised a drawing of the baby as soon as they're born. We've been writing name suggestions to them as well focusing on names typically given to half-dragons due to their suspicions of the baby biologically being Kor's. Eventually we settled on Nazeph for a boy and Mirvonna for a girl along with some half-elf names in case they're wrong about Kor being the biological father, Sarrainne for a girl and Mardyr for a boy.

It's just a matter of us waiting for news now and I hate not being able to do more. Our last few letters have mentioned how difficult the pregnancy has been for Emmy over the last few months and with Lilas having to attend Council meetings everyday she's been mainly on her own without one of us being there for her. Now for the past month she's been on bed rest under the strict guidelines of Healer Fayeth and the team of midwives that she's assembled to help with the birth.

Having calmed down Kor releases me and goes to pick up his armour up checking it over quickly for any damage but he's got lucky and other than a few scuffs the armour is fine. Sighing he carries it outside handing it over to a passing squire to polish it and get rid of the scuffs before we head back out in the morning.

While he's out looking for a squire to sort out his armour I kick off my boots and throw myself down onto our cot. It's not the most comfortable thing I've ever slept on but it's not the worst either, at least in a few days we'll be getting back to the border where a proper bed is waiting for us. There'll be proper food there as well which I'm looking forward to. Stored blood doesn't compare at all to the fresh blood on offer at base.