?With Karl, Hawk, and the sword all adding heat to the cave, it warmed up quickly, and they were able to comfortably hang the hammocks using Rae’s web to attach them to the walls.
There would be no sleeping on the cold floor for his group, and they could get away with a minimal watch, as there were artillery battalion patrols ten metres outside their door.
As they finished dinner, Karl noticed that the patrols were lingering outside the entrance to the cave, which was located about a metre above ground level, and four metres above the cavern that they were in.
The stone walls of the cavern were already warm, not frozen by the suddenly frigid air outside, but with the flames they were using for heat, Karl suspected that the guards were lingering where the warm air was venting before moving on with their patrols.
It had to be torture to keep walking by while the group was roasting meat and cooking up a stew, but the majority of the scent would go up the air vent in the chamber and be filtered through the trees instead of flowing out the main entrance to torture the patrols.
Rae took the entire night watch, ostensibly because she was sleeping most of the afternoon after they arrived at the base. In reality, it was mostly because she enjoyed watching everyone gently sway in her web hammocks.
The hammocks were comfortable, and with the flaming blade set against one wall, the room was luxuriously warm all night until Rae fell asleep as Lotus started breakfast to the accompaniment of the sound of artillery fire.
As promised, they had started the bombardment of the Frost Giants promptly at dawn, so Karl turned up his radio to listen to the morning broadcasts.
They had a scout team in the mountains, looking down at the valley with high-powered binoculars, and they could see the majority of the region well enough to target the shells. They had also determined that the number of Frost Giants had grown again overnight, but mostly on the weaker side of the spectrum, trainees at the Awakened and Ascended Rank, not their Commanders.
That was a relief to the artillery, as their shells didn’t do much to the Commander Rank Frost Giants, they had to call in the Elites, or wait for them to engage in melee combat with the Holy Magic enhanced soldiers to be able to kill them without relying on large amounts of luck.
“Are we going to go out and scout?” Dana asked as they packed up after breakfast.
“Not yet. The Giants are building some sort of defensive structure right now, and the artillery is going wild on them. Even if we wanted to go out, there isn’t anything that we could do except dodge shells.” Karl explained.
Then he unplugged the earbuds from his radio and turned up the volume, so everyone could hear what was going on with the messages.
For the next few hours, it was the same pattern of radio transmissions as the main line. Just target, fire, target, fire. Then when it was almost time for lunch, and Tessa was about to unpack their cooking gear again, the reports slowly began to change.
The Frost Giants were no longer coming out of their bunkers, they were hiding behind stone, snow and barriers, with a blinding snowstorm raging all around them to hide troop movements. That wouldn’t stop the bombardment, but it would make it impossible to tell if the enemy was building their strength for an offensive.
“Once we finish lunch, I am taking us to the far side of the valley to check the mountain passes and the next valley for Frost Giants. That’s still within the range we agreed to work, and it’s pretty obvious that they’re up to something if they’re keeping a Blizzard active along the entire north end of the valley.” Karl informed the others.
“We’re not leaving them to their fate, are we?” Tessa asked cautiously.
She was a priestess of the Red Dragon, The God of War, and anything deemed cowardly in battle was anathema to her faith.
“No, we will actually be closer to the enemy lines when things do go sideways, but I want to be coming in from a flank that I know is clear, and not crossing no-man’s land with a bunch of terrified infantrymen in a snowstorm.”
With lunch finished, and their gear packed, Karl headed to the camp after stuffing bits of moss in his ears as earplugs against the noise of the artillery.
He stopped at the supply tent and got a notepad and pen so he didn’t have to remove his own from his pack, then wrote a mission description for the Battalion Commander to read.
There was no way they were going to be able to have a discussion here beside the artillery, so Karl just handed him the letter with the crude map on it and patted him on the shoulder to say good luck.
Dalton nodded and waved him away, letting Karl rejoin his team and head into the hills.
The reports were that the snow storm was spreading, coming in from the Frost Giant’s side of the border. However, with all the strange atmospheric anomalies, and the Ice Magic of the Giants, nobody knew if it was a natural storm or a massive artificial one.
[What do you think, Hawk?] Karl asked as the bird floated high in the sky, barely a black speck in their vision.
[It’s a natural storm, the wind is carrying the clouds this way, and I can feel the cold moisture already. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing in it. I keep seeing shadows, but they’re too far for me to tell what might be casting them.]
[Keep an eye on them and let me know when you can tell what is casting shadows in the snow storm. It might be nothing, it might be something important. Chances are, human eyes can’t tell that there are even shadows to begin with.] Karl reminded him.
Their route quickly took them into the hills, and that was where their smooth progress ended. The paths were narrow and steep, winding along the side of cliffs, while a river gorge made up the bottom of the canyon.
“Do you think that something might try to move down the river? I mean, they could freeze it over, right?” Dana asked, directing her question at Lotus, who would be more knowledgeable about the weather than anyone else here.
“They probably can with their ice magic. But we can see the river from here, and this path would be a nightmare for Frost Giants to navigate, so it’s better that we don’t follow the river ourselves.
I mean, we will because that’s where the canyon goes, but not along the river itself.” Lotus explained, with a gesture along the path.
They walked at a careful pace, not wanting to lose anyone down the hill if the path under the snow was loose or icy, and by the time that it got dark, they still had an entire kilometre to go before they had made it up the valley’s length.
“Alright, there is a path between the mountains ahead, according to Hawk, which will lead us back into the other valley close to the Frost Giant lines.
There are no caves on this side of the fault, it’s slate and not limestone like the other side of the hill, but Rae can make us a double walled tent in the trees, and we will call it a night.” Karl instructed.
Rae was happy to run ahead of the group and test her theories on a double walled fort. You couldn’t see out of it, so her and Hawk were on night duties in the cold again, but it would be warm, and sheltered from the increasingly frigid winds.
They were just about to finish their scans and head into the fort when Hawk sent a final sunset update.
[I can see what’s casting the shadows. It’s Frost Giants in white suits, hundreds of them. They’re hidden in the snow, but they can’t hide their shadows.]
[Where are they headed?] Karl asked.
[For our valley. The one that the artillery is making a mess of right now.]
An exceptionally loud mess, Karl noted, now that they were so close to the edge of the bombardment zone.
[I will call it in.]
[Battalion Command, this is team 95988. We have spotted reinforcements on the other side of the mountains, headed for your bombardment zone. Two hundred plus Frost Giants in snow camo outfits. Strength unknown.] Karl broadcast.
[Received.]
It was probably better that Dalton let go of the mic button at that point. It would never do to curse that much over open airwaves.