"They look happy, don't you think, Your Excellency?" Valeria told me, while helping me wash my hair.
"The little troublemakers have full stomachs" I replied with humor in my voice.
We were standing on some rocks next to the river, cleaning ourselves of dust and sweat, and what we were looking at were the echoes, the little drakes, whose bellies were swollen almost like barrels. They were rolling from side to side. Some were sleeping, and the last three, my puppies, as I had started to call them in my head, were still eating the fish they had helped hunt.
I looked away from the dragons to see the others, Aquila and the other fourteen Griffex, who were drinking, after some of them returned from the reconnaissance trip to the ruins.
I had sent Titus's group, his sister Cornelia and Gaius, to see if there was any sign of people in or near the ruins, but they had come back with negative news.
There were no people around, for several kilometers at least, so we were in a bit of a bind at the moment.
The need for food had been satisfied for the moment, but if we didn't find a way to store it for the journey… well, we'd have the same problem as when we arrived.
Especially since there were no people around to know where to go.
'Ha…, one problem at a time, Augusta, one at a time…' I got up from the rock while thanking Valeria, and headed towards Avidius and Claudius, who were trying to be responsible parents.
I couldn't hide my laughter in time when they turned to look at me, their chests held high with pride.
"It's impressive, Your Excellency, little Arsinosa can already say a few words, come on Arsinosa, repeat what we taught you" said Avidius excitedly.
I looked at little Arsinosa, encouraging her to speak.
"Hello… I'm… Ar…si.n…" It seemed like she was still having trouble saying Arsinosa, but it was better than I had expected.
"Hello Arsi, I'm Augusta, Au, gus, ta, Augusta" I replied, telling her my name syllable by syllable, so that she would learn it.
"Au, gus, ta?" she repeated slowly, and I just nodded at her with encouragement and a smile.
"Yes, Augusta, well done Arsi" I congratulated her genuinely, I was really happy for her, there was something I couldn't put into words, perhaps linked to her, that made me happy for her achievement of being able to speak.
They had begun to teach her to speak when she had cried out in surprise, a very human and childlike cry that had come out of her mouth when a fish that jumped out of the water had frightened her, while she was imitating the others who had started fishing.
Just another surprise, and proof that we were nowhere near home.
Arsi happily jumped toward me to hug my waist. I hugged her back and stroked the hair sticking out of her little helmet.
"She's really attached to you, Your Excellency" said Claudius, smiling at us.
"Perhaps…" Avidius began, to which I just stared at him, knowing he was about to make a joke.
He just raised his hands in surrender, which made Claudius burst out laughing.
"Humph" I grumbled at him, surely he was going to say something inappropriate.
"So, Your Grace, did you have something to tell us?" Claudius asked after a moment.
"Yes, I was looking for you so we could take a trip to the ruins, see if we could find something useful" I told them, then gently moved away from Arsi.
"Why don't you go eat with the girls? Look, Vanessa is over there grilling the fish" I greeted Vanessa who greeted me back. "See, she's over there. Go ahead, we'll follow you".
Arsi nodded enthusiastically and galloped slowly toward Vanessa.
"When do we leave?" Avidius asked as he turned toward the ruins.
"Let's eat first. It's already noon" I told them as we headed toward the small campfire we were using to cook. "It will be in the afternoon. You and Lucius, Julia, and Marcus will join me. I hope we can find something useful."
"Understood, Your Excellency" they both replied.
Five hours later, ruins of Sarnath
The journey to the ruins was short on the backs of the Griffexs.
I was honestly beginning to doubt whether we would find anything useful, the city was ancient, so ancient that some rocks had crumbled due to the wind we generated when we landed.
We had been searching for two hours now, finding nothing but dust and crumbling things.
"Your Highness! We found something!" Julia shouted as she came out of a large house. 'Perhaps it once belonged to some nobleman or merchant' I thought as we began to approach the "house".
"This way, Your Highness, this house has a fairly deep basement" Julia told me as she led us toward some recently removed rubble, which now revealed a staircase.
It was almost a two-minute descent, somewhat bumpy, the stairs had been covered with some debris when Lucius, who was in the middle of the group, accidentally hit the wall.
I didn't really blame him for the delay, despite his repeated apologies, the place was dangerously rickety, and any bump would send chunks of stone tumbling down.
"We're here" Julia said. Ahead of us, a metal gate was open, lit by torches.
The whole place was filled with freshly removed debris.
"I think we've found the solution to storing food, Your Excellency. Come and take a look" said Marcus, who appeared from behind the rusty door.
Then we entered the place.
"This is… it seems we have been lucky, Your Excellency" said Claudius, who began to approach some ceramic urns, some were broken which revealed what they were storing, salt.
"It's… salt, sea salt, Your Excellency" he said again, tasting a little with his finger.
"Does anyone know how to prepare dried fish?" I asked everyone, and it was Marcus who raised his hand.
"I, Your Excellency, my uncle worked at the docks, urgg" he said with a grimace of disgust.
I only raised an eyebrow at him, we were used to him being exaggerated.
"Don't be dramatic, honey, it was only a few months that you helped him" Julia said, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.
"Don't say that, love, you know what I suffered with him, the smell, the guts, no, no, unpleasant memories, go away" he began to whimper.
"Haaa…just tell the others how to do it and I won't make you clean fish" It seemed like my words were magic, he stopped whining right away.
"As you command, Your Excellency" he said, standing at attention.
"…fool…" Julia said, covering her face with her hand, while the others chuckled.
"Oh, before I forget, there are some more rooms around the corner" he said as he pointed us to a column that led to a hallway.
"There are some pots and other iron things, utensils, unfortunately they are somewhat rusty, but they can be fixed, and there are some barrels, I don't know if it's water or wine, I haven't checked them yet" Marcus said as we moved forward.
The next few hours passed in a blur. The first thing was to bring the necessary salt in the urns to where the others were, so they could begin preparing the fish for drying. According to Marcus, it would take about two days to prepare them so they wouldn't spoil.
We made several trips to bring the rest of our things, some of the best pans and pots, which according to Claudius could remove the rust better, we also brought scraps of wood to make a small warehouse to store the fish during the salting process and finally, the wine, which seemed to have lifted the spirits of the others in the camp, especially Gaius and Julius, who had started dancing with happiness.
And so we spent the next four days, preparing the food, water and wine, which we stored in urns that we had emptied of salt.
We didn't know how long it would take us to get to a town or city with people, so we filled all the urns we could with supplies.
But fate had other things in mind.
On the morning of the fifth day, Lucius, who had been in charge of leading the reconnaissance trip with Vanessa and Valentina, had arrived with worrying news.
"Yes, Your Excellency, we believe we counted between thirteen and fifteen thousand people, divided between riders, who seemed to be mounted on an animal, a little shorter than a Griffex, which physically resembles the Imperator sentinel, without wings or its horn, and people on foot, with more people on foot" he said with a firm voice, although he was clenching his fists very tightly, Vanessa and Valentina, they did not seem any better.
"And they're coming here?" I asked, while watching them, 'Are they angry? But why?'.
"Yes, Your Excellency, their path is in the direction of the ruins" he responded quickly.
"Anything else?" I asked, wanting to know what had bothered them.
They looked at each other, almost agreeing on what they were going to say.
'This could be bad…' I thought, they are not the ones to beat around the bush, well, Septimontians in general don't.
"We saw…" He took a breath to calm himself before speaking more firmly and with a steely look, the one that came when you hated something or someone.
"We saw several of those mounted on the horse whipping those who were left behind, I think, I think there were even women and children among those they beat, we also saw how some died like that" he finished saying angrily, this had moved them, I saw it in their eyes, they had wanted to act, but their responsibilities had brought them back.
When he finished speaking, everyone fell silent, then surprise, disbelief, and anger adorned some faces, but before anyone could speak, I took my greatsword and stuck it into the ground, drawing everyone's attention.
"Get ready!".
That was all I told them, and they understood.