Days 238-242 (216th-220th)

Day 238 (216th):
Before dawn, Set nudged me awake.
"They left. As soon as the sky lightened, they packed their stuff, got on their horses, and left. I was catching an underground rat and saw the whole thing."
I saw the truth of his words in the abandoned area of the shed. Vanity informed me they were very conflicted and had spoken with the King and Queen before packing and leaving.
"I think they spoke in code. Janesh said, 'It has happened.' The Queen told him, 'Proceed as instructed.' He acknowledged and they left. I was waiting to see if they might return when Set woke you. It does not look like they will be returning at all."
My sisters had woke while Vanity was speaking. They were just as confused as Vanity, Set, and I were. We could not understand why they would abandon us. The left behind emotions only spoke of confusion and doubt while their history just told us of duty and honor. We gathered our gear and got into the saddle. Their hoof prints were visible in the recently fallen snow. They were not headed west, but northwest, off the road. We did not follow them. We headed west, following the lightly covered road.
The sun was above the mountains when we felt many people advancing on us rapidly. We felt Janesh and the others at the front of the group. The tainted snow and land made reading them difficult. We did not stop. If they wanted to harm us, we were not going to make it easy for them. We did notice they split up. Some headed to the shed while others galloped along the road towards us.
A bit before mid-day, we saw them crest the hill behind us. We felt their urgency, but no indication of them wanting to hurt us. There was some anger, but mostly curiosity and confusion. We stopped and allowed them to catch up to us. Janesh was a bit angry, but kept it out of his voice.
"Sisters, why are you traveling alone? I left a detailed message for you to stay at that shed and wait for us. You could have run into trouble with no one to aid you."
We looked at each other in confusion. Lisa came forward.
"Janesh, Major, we saw no message. When we awoke, only your empty places were found. We have been abandoned before by someone meaning to trap us. That is why we headed out on our own."
Janesh looked at the other two. They confirmed that a message was written and left for us. Again, we told them we had not seen one. The group that had split off to go to the shed crested the hill at a full gallop. Their urgency glowed around them like fire. When they stopped, one handed Janesh a small bit of paper.
"It was all we could find, Major. A stray breeze must have blown it into the fire."
Janesh looked at it a moment then handed it to us. The palm-sized scrap only read, "Ladies, do not leave. We shall....." The rest was burned away. We accepted that they had tried to tell us, but chastised them a bit.
"You forgot that our swords see and hear everything while we sleep. You could have spoken your plan to them and they would have informed us."
Janesh and the other two smacked themselves on the forehead.
"You are right," he admitted, "We did forget. It is still too strange for us to deal with living swords. But, what is done is done. We are together now and can proceed to Crialas as a whole."
They formed ranks around us and we continued our journey. Janesh explained that the Crowns had instructed him, should we do something special, to get more guards from a nearby fort to assist them. Our encounter with Brimagor was just the thing. We didn't understand why we needed more guards after we proved ourselves than before, but accepted the additional company.
Leaving the mountains shrinking behind us, we continued west to Crialas. My sisters and our three original guards shared their perception of the short trip through kirlan. While they described the same pull I feel each time, their reactions were mixed. Some were frightened, some startled, and a few wanted to experience it again. I, jokingly, told them that all they had to do was become dragon riders and they could do it all the time. I got a collection of looks from amusement to outright horror. The new guards asked Janesh if I was serious. That caused an eruption of laughter.
"These Sisters seem unaccustomed to falsehood. While they will play along with someone else's lie, they themselves are painfully honest and forthright. While I am sure she was kidding, there is honesty in her statement," Janesh informed them.
This, also, caused odd looks our direction. Still, we rode towards the setting sun. We found a sheltered area just off the road and made camp. With a dozen soldiers plus us, the fire was larger as was our sleeping area. We talked, bringing the new guards us to date on our travels. They did not ask questions, they just listened to our tale. As we laid down to sleep, I could feel and see the turmoil of emotions as they sorted our their feelings about us.

Day 239 (217th):
Dawn had barely broken when we awoke to a sound like thunder. As we listened, we discovered it was made by a large number of hoof beats. It got louder as we broke camp and got into the saddle. As it did not seem to get closer, we came to the conclusion that this herd was going north or south.
A few miles later, we saw the evidence of the herd. Across the road lay a great churned-up path, marked with the split-hoof of some type of cattle. The depth of the tracks told us of large and heavy beasts. Anna's perception gave us the story.
"I don't know what they are called, but they are cattle of a sort. They are not native to this land or this realm. They crossed over in Crialas. Locals noticed that they can thrive even in harsh conditions where normal livestock perish. This herd was being driven to a place called Sand Wall as some kind of treaty or pact with another place called Linseed."
We all processed this information. Our guards told us that the two cities had been on the verge of war since the changes reached this area. Each blamed the other for their particular troubles. Some people in both cities had lost their lives to this argument. This trade, they concluded, must have been after a great deal of negotiation.
As we talked, Orda was discussed. We learned that Orda was the only place to cross a large river for a week in any direction. They reported that, when they had traveled through it, that chaos was the only rule. They were leery about taking us through it, but it was the quickest route. They told us we would be there in a few days.

Days 240-242 (218th-220th):
The journey to Orda was dreary. The increasing grayness of the landscape made it hard to take in the scenery. My sisters also found it hard going. Sarah spend a lot of it crying. Lisa adopted a stone face to mask her pain. Callie jumped every so often. She explained that the weakness looked like holes and she jerked when her horse stepped on solid ground where she saw a gaping hole. Gretta said it was so silent that any noise sounded amazingly loud. Anna and Alice were sadly silent, as the land's taint covered all but the freshest histories and most recent travelers. The soldiers understood our distress and did not press us. Set was also sad at having nothing to hunt and nothing to occupy his attention other than the itching of his growing skin and the cold of the cream I used to soothe it. Even the chaos we began to feel as we approached Orda was welcome relief to that emptiness.