Campfire
1596 Words
Our 14 dandy horses had overtaken the advance party of the wagons as we signalled to them that we would be taking a break after another 2 more hours of horsing around ahead together with the Adventurers which was nowhere in sight.
It seemed that they were intending to cover as much ground as possible as we saw the trail left by their wheels miles ahead of us. It seemed that these young people were happily horsing around too on the dandy horses that they had almost forgotten about us. Hahaha.
The dray horses were able to cover at least 4 miles in an hour and that's a bit faster than on foot. However, since the ground was relatively flat, the 4 Adventurers had managed to scoot their way ahead and seemed that it would be some time for us to catch up with them.
"Your Majesty, what do you think of these dandy horses so far? Any comments?" one of the Shadow units horses near me and asked. "It's a fine piece of machinery here. Looking at it and utilising it would be two different things."
"If only the wheels and this whole device would not rattle so much then it would be a comfort to ride. It's like the adult version of the balance two-wheeler back at the grocery store for sale."
I replied amidst the jarring feeling of the handlebars and the shock that I had received when the wheels hit a few uneven spaces on the wide-open fields. Other than that, I couldn't complain much since its much faster than even running and we could go on as far as we could and not even feeling too tired.
"That's right, Your Majesty, we would be improvising this device so that it would be using pedal power instead of leg power in the future."
"We had a concept made back in our guild and it looked somewhat like the hand crank sawmill that we currently have. Actually, the crank sawmill had been upgraded to be driven by pedal power and its much less tiresome than using the hand to crank them."
" It's less dangerous and the process is much speedier than before. With Old Jack's help, we were able to make an additional cogwheel where it is being pedalled by feet. The ratio would be much more than before."
The young engineer c*m Shadow unit explained to me as I nodded my head and at the same time watched where I was going since I was told not to hit any rocks they would render the Dandy horse useless.
I wonder if they made fatter wheels then it would eliminate the whole issue of bulldozing around the whole frontier with this contraption.
Up ahead we saw the Adventurers waiting for us about a mile away and when they saw us approaching them, they made a turn and headed towards some clearing on higher ground. It seemed that we had already passed the first town that they had encountered earlier — Aidi village.
It seemed that settling the matters at hand was of a priority than visiting other villages and to make some greet and meet session with them. We knew that we would be making those trips on the way back from Camp.
What a weird way to name a town or a village. Guess the person had run out of ideas on why to christen them anyway.
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"Your Majesty, we have passed Aidi Village and now in the middle of Broderbund, the town that had a water purification plant installed by a man that called himself as Fat Bastard, even though he was not fat at all. That's the town that had the mushroom farms grown underneath all of the houses."
Guy had somehow 'parked' all the four dandy horse a that they had ridden and leaned them against one another so that it would not topple over. I looked at how his simple act that showed his ingenious despite being an Irish Traveller's descendant.
The 14 dandy horses that we rode also was parked in twos as we watched Guy was preparing a top-down fire as well as a fireplace to prepare our meals and drinks later on. Since we had bread on the wagons and the wagons were still not being seen over the horizons, we deduced that the wagons would arrive sometime after dark
Besides, if they lost track of the trail left by the wheels, they would be able to see the glimmering light of the campfire and fireplace from afar.
As I sat down in my cloak that acted as a spread on the chilly ground, I can't help to reminisce the time when all of us were only runaways from Darlington and had met up through a small mishap. It had been 2 years over since I had left town and slept under the stars once again.
"Your Majesty, we would be preparing a tent for you to sleep under tonight. Even if there are no signs of rain but the morning coldness would somehow seep into our bones. Why don't you sit back and relax near the fireplace to keep yourself warm?" Eagle motioned to me as he suggested me to sleep under a tent which I gladly refuse him.
It's been a while since I've seen stars above me and I would not give it a miss. Since I had my cloak and also a change of clothing, I hung my Adventurers clothing on my dandy horse to air dry them near the fireplace.
Soon, the adventurers and the soldiers who were with me broke out their rations and showed me frozen pieces of poultry they thru had gotten from the cold storage. Provisions for the military was provided free of charge while those community would just need to pay the minimum for their purchases based on weight.
I laughed at them as they sheepishly took out cutting boards, cooking utensils and even a cauldron that they had hung on their dandy horses. They were lucky those clay cauldrons didn't break throughout their journey.
"Tonight's menu would be pottage and bread under the stars with lots of chicken meat, potatoes, shallots, garlic and celery." a shadow unit that taken up the role of the chef announced to me as I chuckled at their antics.
Soon, the chef had chopped up the poultry into bite-sized pieces and had washed them clean before frying them up in the cauldron with a little bit of animal fat.
Once the bite-sized poultry meat had been fried in a little bit of fat, some water from their leather skins that they had brought along was added into it as all the chopped ingredients were dropped inside and covered to boil it down.
Before long the contents inside the cauldron were gurgling and darkness fell over the frontier. From a far distance, we could see lanterns being lit by the two wagons which were equipped with incandescent lamps. This indicated the weary travellers would be joining us in a while bit and at the same time being able to savour the fine 'cuisine' they were prepared by the chef.
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"Your Majesty... You have a fireplace here and a campfire next to it and we could see those flickering fires from afar... We thought they you had stopped to visit at the first village that we passed but we saw the trails of those wheels left behind and guessed that you had given the village a miss."
Frank heartily said as he hugged Gwen's waist as they embarked from their wagons. The horses were watered and fed with horse bread that had been prepared by the bakers and had been filled with high fibre ingredients.
These horses, since they had not been carrying much weight behind them, had long been cooped up and only being used to make travels around the town's limits for transportation purposes.
As its autumn season now, the water meant for the horses were heated up near the fireplace and poured into buckets. The water would be warm enough and not too hot for the horses to drink and it's a delight for them since they don't have to drink plain cold water instead.
"Hey, Frank... This campfire sure reminds us a lot of the times when we just started off without any proper shelter back as a settlement in Gracehaven. Its been so long since I've seen stars above the skies such as tonight."
Frank sighed a huge sense of relief when he thought back of the memories that happened more than 2 years ago. "It sure goes a long way back then. Little did we expect that gradual changes make all of us into better human beings."
The fires of the campfire and fireplace crackled as if they agreed to what Frank had commented earlier as we sat down, cross-legged as we had our first ever meal out in the open ever since for such a very long time.
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