A week and four days had passed as the caravan made it's way towards The Kingdom of Siol. Thanks to the Rooted Horses who never seemed to tire, the caravan was able to continue it's journey during the night, under the watchful brothers who had all now gained night vision thanks to upgrading their Divinity. The only times they stopped were to answer the call of nature, to eat, and to take an hour or two out of the day for the children to run around and play with each other.
On this morning, Hunter looked to the sky as a slight drizzle began to fall, coating the world in dampness. The caravan was just coming around the forest bend as they arrived at the ruins of Dunham. Hunter nodded to Spartacus as he turned around and climbed into the wagon, sitting down next to Stephanie as he wrapped his right arm around her shoulder and pulled her towards him.
With a sad smile she leaned into whisper into his ear before resting her head on his shoulder. "Thank you."
Hunter clasped her hand with his left hand, squeezing gently as he kissed the top of her head. "Always." He spoke only one word, but Stephanie's heart began beating wildly as she nuzzled up against him.
The children in the wagon became silent as they looked at Stephanie, having being told earlier that these ruins used to be her home. The elf twins each patted Stephanie's legs while a couple of the younger children came forward to give her a hug.
Not looking back, Spartacus made sure to keep the wagon going forward, quickly leaving the ruins behind as they continued westward towards Siol. After half an hour had passed since they had left Dunham, Stephanie pecked Hunter on the cheek before she smiled at him. "I'm all good now. You can go back up front again."
"Mhmm. What if I don't wanna?" As Stephanie tried to sit up and pull away from Hunter, he smiled devilishly as he pulled her back into his arms and caressed her face before kissing her lips and teasing her.
She blushed as she pushed him away. "You jerk, why do you have to tease me all the time?" She huffed angerly before she turned away from him. "If you continue teasing me, then I'm going to start ignoring you."
Hunter tittered as he rubbed Stephanie's back gently before clambering back into the front of the wagon, next to Spartacus. Asani tried holding in her laughter while Tarenia gave Stephanie a thumbs up while she smirked. As for the other children, they were unable to restrain themselves and began laughing after they had witnessed the two playing with each other. Hunter glanced at Spartacus as he heard him snicker softly.
"Got something to say?" He grimly stated.
Unable to hold back, Spartacus guffawed as he glanced at Hunter a couple of times. "I would listen to the lady if I were you brother. She's clearly serious about how she'll treat you if you continue acting like this to her all the time."
"And how is this my fault? She's so cute whenever I tease her. Seeing her face become sunset red, and her lips pucker. It just makes me want to kiss and nibble on them so much." Hunter spoke with a gentle growl, not caring that Stephanie could hear him.
Hearing this, not only Stephanie, but the elf sisters and a couple of the older girls all blushed as they all glanced at Hunter before they turned their focuses away from the front of the wagon. Being aware of everyone's situation, Hunter smiled to himself as he relished in his victory on getting Stephanie to flush a deep crimson.
As Spartacus and Hunter were chuckling in the front wagon, Ian and Orion were also talking in the second wagon. Hearing the first wagon let out lots of laughter, the two stopped and smiled as they guessed at what had caused all those children to laugh.
Curiously, Quixi climbed up onto the front seat of the wagon and sat down in Orion's lap as she looked at the wagon in front of them. Turning around she innocently gazed up at Orion as her fluffy tail began to slightly wag in excitement. "Big brother, what are they laughing about?"
Ian smirked as he heard this. [The poor bastard. After they came back with Stephanie, Quixi has only been calling him big brother and it's clearly driving him mad.]
Orion grimaced as he heard Quixi, then he crookedly smiled as he leaned in close to her head. He was so close that as he talked, his breath would constantly blow into her wolfish ears, tickling them and causing her to blush and fidget as she twitched in response. "If I'm not wrong, Hunter was most likely teasing Stephanie since we can clearly see that she is in a foul mood right now. If you want, I can tease you like that."
Quixi quickly shook her head as she whimpered slightly before she began trying to crawl back into the wagon. Seeing this, Orion gave a large toothy smile as he began petting her head, and rubbing her ears. Sylvia looked over and blushed as she saw Orion rubbing her little sisters ears, and she quickly glanced towards Ian before she covered hers with her hands. [Those bastards. They clearly know our ears are very sensitive.]
Quixi couldn't take it, and in ragged breathes she leaped back into the wagon and crawled over to her sister. Sylvia pulled her into a hug as the two sat quietly, moving slightly away from the front towards the middle of the wagon.
Ian looked back and noticed the two of them moving, and with a shake of his head he turned back around. "You know, those sisters are gonna think we're perverts since you went and rubbed Quixi's ears."
"I couldn't help it! Her ears were so soft and fluffy, and besides you can't say you haven't wanted to rub Sylvia's ears yet so you could see how they feel!" Orion crossed his arms as he looked away and into the woods, feeling slightly worried on if he had done something he shouldn't have. Ian just chuckled and shook his head, unwilling to respond to Orion's accusation.
"By the way brother, have you figured out how you were able to resurrect all those people?" Ian looked quizzically towards Orion.
"When I had let go of my humanity for that short while and turned into a fully fledged Arch Angel, I was able to cast HEAVEN'S FAVOR on the town. I don't know how or why I knew how to do it, I just did it out of gut instinct I guess. It felt like a calling to me, like it was as natural as breathing." Orion sighed as he thought back to when he had became a fully fledged angel, and the power that had came with it.
Ian nodded as he thought to himself, not saying a word, just sitting in silence and digesting what Orion had said. The caravan continued it's journey westward as the days passed. Surprisingly no monsters or savage beasts came to attack them, causing the four brothers to all be shocked as they continued towards the border.
A week and three days had passed since the caravan had left the ruins of Dunham. During this time, the children had spent a lot of time having fun with each other while during the rest periods the brothers trained to keep their skills sharp, and to improve as they neared Siol. While they were on the move, the brothers would each take an hour and train as well on the moving wagons, making it so they were capable of fighting on unstable grounds.
The family bonded quite deeply on this journey, learning more about each other like their pasts and their hopes and dreams. With the sun setting before them, the caravan came over a hill and stopped as everyone looked at what was before them.
"Well damn. That's a huge ass wall." Hunter said softly in shock as they all looked at a massive smoothed stone wall going along the river that marked the border between the Yechen Empire and the Kingdom of Siol. Looking closely, everyone could see torches begin springing to life along the top of the wall near a massive gate and in the watchtowers that sat next to the gate.
Spartacus looked at the wall before turning towards Ian as he spoke. "We'll set up camp here tonight and go to the gate tomorrow in the morning."
The brothers nodded as the guided the wagons off the road and into a small clearing, setting them up in a semi circle to form a slight shelter for the children. Orion quickly collected fire wood, allowing Spartacus to create a bonfire that the children all settled down around. As the younger children either drifted off to sleep, and the older kids sat in groups talking with each other; the council gathered off to the side to discuss their course of action.
"That wall must be pretty recent since no one in Adenville thought to tell us." Orion harrumphed as he wrapped his arms around Quixi.
"You are definitely right, because none of the merchants mentioned this when they passed through my village on their journey to Adenville." Stephanie looked at the fire light against the massive wall. The party was still a couple hours of travelling away, yet even from here the wall looked large and extravagant.
"I wonder what it is that they're trying to keep out." Ian mused as he looked at the woods around them.
"Don't, don't say that!" Sylvia shook as she glared at Ian, causing him to chortle while holding his sides.
"Well if they are trying to keep something out, it must definitely be large since that wall is so massive. Even if that creature comes around, it would first have to deal with Ian, and then the rest of us before it could get to any of you." Spartacus looked among the group, getting determined nods from the other three boys.
Hunter smiled as he looked at Ian. "Big brother, do you think in your true form you could breach that wall?"
Ian smirked as he looked towards the wall, trying to figure out how thick it was, and what kind of defenses could be hidden on it. "I think I could definitely damage it, but entirely breaching it... I don't know since we don't have much knowledge on this wall."
Hunter nodded as he too looked towards the wall. As the group became silent, Spartacus ended their meeting, sending them all off to bed as he took a double watch with Ian. At midnight, the two awoke Hunter and Orion so those two could take over, allowing them to catch about six hours of sleep.
When the sun rose on the east, it's rays blinding the children into awakeness, they found that Hunter was stoking a cooking fire while Orion was finishing cutting up vegetables and adding them into a pot of stew, along with diced rabbit meat that Hunter had caught.
After breakfast all the children loaded back up into the wagons, and they began their final stretch of the journey towards Siol. After travelling a couple more hours, the caravan exited the forest and entered a large open field before reaching the river that was the border between the Yechen Empire and Siol.
A wide, fancy stone bridge spanned the slightly narrow but rapid river, after which was two guard towers in front of the gate. Looking at the towers that were about three fourths the height of the church's tower back in Adenville, it was completely small compared to the wall that stood behind them. The two towers were about half the height of the wall behind them, and looking closely one could see that there were no entrances into the two guard towers.
As the caravan stopped before the stone bridge, looking up at the massive wall; they saw movement both in the tower windows of the two ground towers, and in the three guard towers on the wall. Movement could also be seen along the wall walk as heads bobbed in and out between the merlons and the large monster statues.
Hunter looked at the statues, and then as he turned his head, he noticed that these statues travelled all along the wall with a space of forty to fifty meters between them. The towers were spaced in groups of three, with each group being a couple hundred meters apart. Then as he looked closely at the towers, he noticed smaller, winged monster statues standing on outcroppings all along the towers.
Nudging Spartacus, Hunter pointed up towards the towers. "Looks like they got different species of gargoyles up there."
Spartacus frowned as he looked up all the wall. Looking back at the gate, the party noticed a secret door open up in the wall and a group of guards came walking out to wait for them to cross the river. Spartacus turned his head and spoke loud enough for all the children in both wagons to hear, "Stay in the wagons and don't leave until I tell you to."
After that he allowed for the Rooted Horses to continue moving forward, crossing the stone bridge and entering the Kingdom of Siol.