Chapter 14 - Part 1

CHAPTER FOURTEEN – A CHANGE OF SCENERY
The 10th of Sypheros, 993 Y.K., high above the Towerng Wood, en route to Greenheart

“Settle down,” Delegado insisted. “I’ve already used all the spell power I have for today to calm you down and there’s nothing else I can do about it!”

Feather squawked angrily, not impressed with the half-orc in the least. The hawk tried wriggling free of the reed cocoon that held it against the half-orc’s chest, and Delegado was forced to take a hand off of the pegasus’ neck to restrain the animal.

“F’test it, Feather!” the bounty hunter pleaded. “Calm down! You can’t keep up with these winged horses, otherwise I’d let you fly along with us!” The flying steed banked a bit in the wind, and Delegado’s hand shot back to its neck. “Son of a galig-eating goblin, we’re too far up in the air for you to pull this garbage, you stupid bird!”

Feather squawked again, not mollified in the least.

Some twenty feet below him, and about ten feet to the left, the stupid warforged monk was actually leaning over and peering down at the landscape. “Look how small those trees seem to be from up here!” Orphan said. The monk’s clothing rippled in the perpetual wind that existed at this altitude. “I still can’t get over it!”

“For the hundredth time would you sit down in your saddle?” Delegado yelled, feeling his stomach lurch. He hated flying, and today was the ninth day he had spent on the back of the winged horse.

“It’s only the twelfth time you told him,” Thomas laughed from above him. “Today at any rate.” The half-daelkyr hadn’t really started speaking more than a few words at a time until the day before yesterday, and then it was like a dam broke. Thomas babbled constantly now, and Delegado really wished that the man carrying the symbiont would just shut up.

“You think he’d be used to it already,” Delegado grumbled. His stomach flipped again. Oddly, if not for the nausea he’d probably be severely bored.

Feather squawked again, demanding to be let out.

Okay, if not for the nausea and the ticked off bird, the half-orc thought. At least when I’m riding a normal horse I can keep an eye out for things, up here there’s nothing to watch.

“There’s another river!” Orphan shouted.

“Whee!” Thomas said, guiding his pegasus into a loop.

Two more hours until sundown, Delegado groaned to himself. Then, thank every pretty little power there is, we’ll only be five or six hours in the air tomorrow. It was about eight hundred and fifteen miles from Merylsward to Greenheart as the crow flies – or in this case the winged horse, but over land there was no straight route, and it could take a year to walk it. Taking the roads that existed in the Eldeen Reaches would be a month even on the swiftest magebred light horse as one had to go south and then west and then north again. And Pienna had made it very clear, in a creaky, weak voice, that the three of them had to get to Greenheart and speak with Oalian as fast as possible.