Book 3 Ch 22: Enemy’s Enemy’s Enemy

They camped that night several miles from the next rift. Michael felt that the last two were very close to one another. Definitely within one mile, but perhaps even closer than that. He was starting to gain some more precision in his ability to tell where the rifts were and what kind of dangers they contained. There were nuances to the dread they seemed to fill him with and those nuances seemed consistent enough that he could track them.

Michael woke before the rest of the camp and began his morning with his prayers and training. He could feel the warmth of the gods’ attention on him even though they were maintaining the quiet he’d grown used to over the last few months. He wasn’t sure he really missed the gradually building whispers, but their ubiquity had grown familiar and he felt a bit of emptiness without them.

Hu approached Michael as he was working his way through his mace swings for the morning.

“Aren’t you worried you’ll be without strength when we actually approach the rifts?”

“No. I have more recovery titles and deeds than anything else. Lately I’ve been finding it hard to even break a sweat after an hour of intense training.”

“Well that I’m jealous of. I get some recovery from my title as a knight, but not enough to keep me from tiring. Yesterday’s efforts alone have me craving an actual bed.”

“If we’re lucky you’ll be on a pallet by the day’s end.”

Hu chuckled. “I’d take a pallet at this point. Some nice straw with a cloth over it. Sounds like a dream.”

Ollie was yawning as he approached them, his canteen floating to his mouth for a sip of water as he wiped some dirt off the base of his staff.

“Talking about beds?”

They nodded.

“I had the best bed. Emu feather mattress, silk sheets I stole from an ex, pillows fluffy as a koala’s ass.”

“Emu feather? That’s a thing?”

Ollie shrugged. “I liked to keep things local.”

“What’s an emu? And a koala?” asked Hu.

“Big fuckoff bird that runs around kicking people and a bear that lives in trees.”

“They sound like something we’d see come out of a rift,” said Hu.

“We should all count ourselves lucky that there have been no rifts to Australia,” said Michael.

“I’m pretty sure that people here like bombshell blondes and beautiful beaches just as much as everywhere else. Not like they’d only have to deal with the wildlife.”

“Fair enough, but I feel like given this world’s luck they’re more likely to get a flood of box jellyfish and bird-eating spiders than blondes and beaches.”

Ollie frowned and looked at Hu. “You all do seem to have shit luck. I’d still risk it for the beaches though myself.”

It wasn’t much longer before the rest of the camp was awake and they were able to get moving toward the remaining two rifts again. The militia members were all in high spirits, as was Hu. Laird didn’t seem the high spirited type, but his frown was no deeper than the previous day, so that likely amounted to a positive mood for him.

Hu went to scout the rifts while the rest of them waited and readied themselves for a fight. One of the rifts had a familiar feel to it, and given what type of portal would feel familiar to him at this point he guessed that it was one of those that held the horned men within it. The other was unique, as they all had been, but felt sizeable.

Hu returned quickly with a wide smile on his face.

“It looks like the rifts may be doing the work against one another for us,” he said.

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“Explain,” said Laird.