They did wake him for dinner, and after another night of rest they all enjoyed a breakfast on the castle walls together before Bayle rounded all of them up to head back to the fort.“No horses this time?” asked Ollie with a grimace as he rubbed his inner thigh exaggeratedly.Bayle shook his head. “No, they’ll need them for messengers and scouts while the Tusinians start to gather strength here again. We’ll be on foot, all the way back to the fort. After that I’ll be gathering information until we can head out to do more work.”“We?” asked Pyotr.“Yes. I’ve seen how all of you operate. It’s a waste to send you on more standard missions. From here on I’ll be working with you personally, or sending you on special assignments myself.”“Will all of them involve trudging through a mile of shit?” asked Marcus.Bayle smiled a bit at that. “More than you would expect. The good thing is you’ll have larger breaks between assignments Though I may send you on a few smaller jobs like titled hunts if they come up.”Michael raised an eyebrow at the thought of a titled hunt being a ‘small’ job, but he supposed that compared to sieging a castle and sealing a rift the characterization wasn’t entirely inaccurate.He lifted his pack and tightened the front straps with a quickly whispered spell. “Let’s get moving. I’m hoping to make even better time than we did on the way here.”They got on the road, and did seem to be making a good pace. When they reached the site of the battlefield where they’d fought the Carrion King, Michael saw small patches of green growing up where the ground had been trampled and even a small flightless bird nesting in the skull of a horse that seemed to have been picked mostly clean. It was still a rough sight, but seeing those small signs of renewed life made him feel better. He gently removed his icon of the divine from his neck and kissed it gently before saying a small prayer for the fallen. (...)