The Foolhardies 180 Homecoming

Aura and I were b.u.mmed over the implications of the past few days. Luca was b.u.mmed because he missed it. Priorities, right?

I mean, he should at least have been p.i.s.sed that someone stole his face, but no, he was more p.i.s.sed that he didn't get to see it first-hand.

So, we skedaddled out of Shärleden as quickly as we could while stealing Aura away from her duties as Princess Aurana too which was a bonus in her opinion. Especially since Chris Pint was ceaseless in his attempts to flirt with her.

Besides, there were a lot of preparations to be made before the Foolhardies and I could make our transfer to Great General Garm's western army official. That meant a homecoming back to the home base for some planning and a little bit of R&R.

The trip back to Hoodwink Tower from the capital took roughly a week of night travel. We cut this down to half by having all four-hundred members of the unit travel during the day too. It was a harder march than usual but time was of the essence and no one was complaining as everyone was eager to see home for a few days.

Ty and I spent our days in school during the peak of Spring while regaling Arah of tales of our adventure in the Fayne.

Having Ty around really did make a difference. In fact, my nightly visits to the Fayne had gotten a lot more fun when I got to share them with him. Because of this fact, more than once, I was nearly tempted to invite Arah to join us, but that would be the height of foolishness.

Sure, Ty and I were enjoying ourselves with things like fairy revelries but we've had more than a few close shaves these past six months.

And thinking about that last campaign made me remember Dawn, the Dawn Breaker, Knight of the Sunspire Dominion. I wondered if I would see her again in the war. I hoped not. I didn't want to have to fight her.

"Stop s.p.a.cing, Dean," Arah chided. "All I can do to help is cram Mudgardian military tactics into your brain so I'd appreciate it if you paid attention."

Oh, yeah, after we told her of my new role as a tactician for the western army, Arah had made it her mission to instruct me on hundreds of military strategies from all over the world, past, present, and future. And I swear, those four days in Mudgard were akin to torture by information overload.

That fourth night, we finally arrived at Hoodwink Tower.

The tower had changed over the last six months. The dwarves Varda had hired to complete renovations of the broken battlements and tower wall had done a brilliant job restoring it. Not to mention the many new additions we'd added to it as part of my attempts at what was essentially SimCity.

It was in its early stages, for sure, but as I gazed out at Hoodwink Tower from the nearby hill, I could almost imagine the city Aura and I had talked about that one night on the tower's roof before our search for Ty began.  

The first thing you'd notice was the wide dirt road that skirted its way into the main gate of the circular fifteen-foot stone wall surrounding the tower itself.

We'd expanded the wall so the interior would be much wider than before. In fact, the s.p.a.ce was double the size now. This was done to accommodate the unit's barracks, stables, and the merchant shops that had started businesses in Hoodwink.

Speaking of merchants, in the last six months, several had proven to be reliable partners for the Foolhardies and for Hoodwink Tower in general. Chief among them was Shanks who doubled as a mercenary tank for my own fire team.

Shanks' was a good enough manager that he could be gone for weeks at a time and his shop would operate just fine. He had reliable people under him. But I sometimes thought that he just enjoyed hanging out with us, the last people who got to know his big brother, although I wasn't entirely sure if trolls could be sentimental like that.

While Shanks' general merchandise store sold everything from flower-scented bath soaps to black powder grenades, his armory continued to present a popular option for members of the Foolhardies who didn't appreciate the bra.s.s-grade scale-mail we provided them. Particularly, guys like Qwipps who liked to stand out.

Once, I heard him boasting to Barda that the padded hauberk he'd bought from Shanks' armory was, in his words, "As light as a sprite's wings and as warm as a pixie's bottom."

Besides Shanks' shops, there were other specialized stores too that had made their homes inside Hoodwink Tower's interior grounds.

The fiery-haired yellow-skinned hobgoblin, Kal Duenne, was a weapon-smith renowned in the Westmarch. He'd set up shop around the same time Shanks did, and now rivaled Shanks' for the top monthly earnings among the merchants.

I actually bought Luca's new broadsword from Kal, and he'd made it extra special with mechanisms that would have made my fight with fake Luca much harder if the hashas.h.i.+n had known about them.

It wasn't just me either. A lot of my subordinates went to Kal to buy new weapons or for repairing their favorites.

Edo, in particular, tended to come by pretty often to have the shadowblade of his glaive re-sharpened. Guys from Ashley's squad often dropped by Kal's to get their s.h.i.+elds repaired too.

Perhaps the second most important shop in our growing town was the Apothecary run by the undine, Lilipold. In the last six months, his shop was always running out of stock of healing potions.

From the reports, I gathered the cause was almost always due to Berrian needing stock for treating injuries born from either Edo's or Azuma's training.

Only a month ago, I remember Jensen telling me, "You're building the hardiest bunch in the Fayne, Commander, that's for sure."

To which one of his fellow flag carriers asked, "Shouldn't we be getting hazard pay just for showing up to training?"

For the exotic luxury goods you couldn't find in the Westmarch, there was Luc's material goods shop, which provided a really big draw among fellow merchants around the region who were in need of Starfall spices or Dominion-exclusive pelts or even Hermitage-forged steel.

Luc, who was a very savvy pixie, also provided me with a secondary service. His dealings outside the Trickster Pavilion territory allowed him to retrieve information pa.s.sed among merchants that normally wouldn't have reached a military officer's ears. Luc offered me these little tidbits in exchange for removing the import tax and sales tax from his exclusive wares.

It was an easy trade. I could live with the lesser income but the intel was priceless depending on how we used it.

The last notable shop in Hoodwink belonged to the gnome, Fantasimo, who owned an artifacts appraisal shop. His shop was extra special because it drew in crowds one might not normally find in a frontier town like ours, the n.o.bility of Westmarch and even courtiers from central.

The one bad trade-off is how every time a notable person of high rank visited, I was required to greet them and offer them elf-tea or some boring c.r.a.p I often pa.s.sed down to Aura. She was really good at social stuff.

"Welcome home, Kid!" Zarz Mildew called from just outside the main gate into Hoodwink Tower. "Hope you brought some good news."

"When have we ever brought good news after a long march?" Qwipps interjected.

This prompted a chuckle from most of us as there was some truth to his words.

I rode Myth Chaser all the way up to the portcullis gate and said, "We're going to be busy, Zarz… but first, how about a meal."

"Kitchens are already cooking, boss," Zarz said happily.

I grinned appreciatively at the gnome, who, in the last six months had made himself defacto seneschal of Hoodwink Tower, and I didn't mind that at all. He had a knack for managing the day to day business, and he still had time to tinker with new inventions he and I cooked up.

Then I looked over my shoulder to the four hundred soldiers marching behind me. "A hot meal and free booze for everybody!"

This proclamation was met with raucous cheers that made other tower visitors waiting to enter through the gate look at us with startled faces.

We didn't get any work done that night either. There was too much revelry going on to the point that I'd be surprised if there was a single sober soldier among the men.

And while the soldiers made a mess of their barracks and the tower itself, my officers and I had escaped to a more relaxing spot inside the newly opened Nowhere Inn by the lakesh.o.r.e.

Aura, Luca, Edo, Varda, Ashley, Qwipps, Azuma, Xanthor, Thor, Ty, Pike, Thom, Enna, Berrian, Zarz, Shanks, and I were all gathered around a long wooden table enjoying the company while digging in on specially prepared meals courtesy of Zephyra and her siblings.

I glanced around the common room that looked much like the old inn we'd visited in Undercroft, but newer and with nicer looking furniture.

It was around this time when Varda raised her mug and called for a toast.

"To the commander and his new promotion!" she yelled.

There was a round of cheers, some catcalls, even some genuine praises from the group. Honestly, it just warmed my heart to have them all around me like this, and it was moments like this one that really drove the point home, the Foolhardies had become my family.

Man, if I only knew what would happen to this family in the coming war, maybe then I would have refused Darah's mission. Maybe things wouldn't have turned to sh*t.