***Tirnanog, The Plains***

***Magnus***

Astra gently touched the back of my hand. 'Do you also get the feeling that they are worried about something? The two behind the captain look like they were caught taking a break when they should be working.'

'I do,' I replied with our secret communication method. It was only prudent to practice the ability as frequently as possible. It improved our control and blindly trusting the chat function's security too much wasn't a good idea anyway.

The caravan had intruded into Hochberg's territory out of schedule, yet the scouts behaved as if this situation could come back to bite them if it wasn't handled carefully – preferably by someone other than them.

Given their status, I would have rather expected them to act the part of the confident border control.

The fact that the captain took her sweet time to choose her words very carefully only heightened my suspicions. Meanwhile, her subordinates behaved like fresh recruits who had been caught listening to a military secret.

Granted, they could be just that. New recruits who had unexpectedly stopped a high diplomat's transport and didn't know how to handle themselves.

Smiling amiably, I took a step closer to Mia, deliberately almost violating her personal space. “Captain, is there something we should know about? You seem worried.”

I wasn't a trained diplomat, but I knew how to extract information from people. Funnily enough, asking directly often yielded the best immediate results. Always assuming you weren't up against someone who was heavily trained in interrogation tactics.

It certainly wasn't the type of education I expected to find in a scouting party on peaceful border control duty.

The captain turned her attention to me and lost her composure for a moment when she grimaced. “There's nothing I can share with you right now. You will have to wait for our matriarch to inform you. This should be handled by someone far above my station. Forgive me for returning your earlier argument right back at you.”

She smiled, seemingly satisfied by how she had handled my question, but she had told me everything I wanted to know.

There was something she regarded as problematic, but she was unwilling to tell us.

I used the UI to fire off a quick message to Thalia, informing our special friend that her skills were needed. If possible, I preferred not to walk unprepared into whatever situation the captain and her subordinates were so worried about.

Thankfully, we should have the time to work out the issue.

“It isn't a problem. Why don't we have a drink together and you can tell us how our allies from Clan Hochberg did over the winter,” Astra suggested.

Peter caught on and nodded. “We certainly had a tumultuous time and would be honoured to extend our hospitality to you.”

Mia seemed reluctant to socialize with us, but there wasn't a real way for her to refuse. In the absence of any of her superiors, she was the highest authority present to entertain the foreign diplomats. “Then I guess I will join you in an hour or two. Just let me organize the rest of my patrol group.”

Once everything was in order, we entertained the captain with all the hospitality we had brought with us from clan Aerie, always mindful that her UI wasn't activated and that she couldn't eat just anything.

With the scouts interacting with the caravaners, it took less than a day for the news of the UI to get out. The result was a bare-bone explanation for Mia which resulted in her sending another group of messengers after the first one.

In a way, the information about the UI getting leaked was a good thing, because it wasn't hard to invite the captain to more meetings afterwards. Her desire to learn more about what we had to share outweighed her caution.

It took Thalia two days of invitations to breakfast, lunch, and supper while she worked her mental magic during casual chatting.

When the captain left our quarters on the evening of the second day, Thalia turned to us with an answer.

“It wasn't easy without using blunt force, but now I am sure. The Hochberg are entertaining a delegation from Thich.”

Peter pursed his lips. “This complicates things.”

“How is this possible?” Astra asked. “They wouldn't have had the time to send someone back to Thich and for a diplomat to get to Hochberg after their ambush.” She stood up and went to get a map. “The timeframe doesn't work – unless they have a way to travel through the snow.”

“The diplomat could have already been on his way before you were attacked.” Peter closed his eyes to think in a meditative pose. It was one of his quirks which he displayed whenever there was something to consider.

Astra returned with the map and placed it on the table, illustrating her point. Even if the Thich knew what happened the moment the raiding party failed their mission, there was no way to send word to their clan and have a diplomatic mission go out to the other clans.

“I can't provide more details without making it obvious I am reading the captain's surface thoughts.” Thalia shrugged. “I don't know the exact circumstances, but a diplomatic incident and Thich was foremost in Mia's thoughts several times while we talked with her. Which leads me to believe Hochberg received a Thich delegation.”

Peter snapped up from his inner reflections. “Everything makes a lot more sense now. I wondered about them risking the attack on you – just to steal a few kids. It would have given away their game. Inconceivable! It never made much sense to me. This explains it.”

“Explains what?” Thalia furrowed her brows in confusion.

“Someone at the Old Camp knew Thich would become a lot more aggressive in the future,” Peter explained. “They figured attacking you and stealing the kids wouldn't make a lot of difference to Thich's diplomacy as a whole – which is why they took the risk. It paints an unpleasant picture.”

I raised an eyebrow at our advisor. “You are sure?”

“There is no way to be sure,” Peter replied. “But I have seen a hundred years of political manoeuvring. People's actions always have a motivation and by finding out the motivation, you can infer a lot about your opponent. Let's take Thich's attack on the recruitment party. It had me wondering the whole time. Either it was a rogue event, some idiot stepping out of line to climb the ranks, or it was a politically motivated move. Said idiot knew something which allowed him to conclude his actions wouldn't have his superiors coming down on him – even if it failed. Between the two, the latter feels a lot more plausible to me. The Thich aren't squeamish. In the past, if some lesser subordinate fucked up, Thich never hesitated to throw them to the wolves. So there must've been something which lowered the risk assessment to whoever ordered the raid.”

He took a deep breath.

“Attacking your group was a blatant violation of the treaty. Everyone stationed at the Old Camp should have known this. The risk of failure far outweighs any possible gains. Unless you know about something which makes repercussions unlikely. Like Thich having already decided to take a more aggressive role. Given this new information, I am afraid we are already at war. We just haven't confirmed it yet. Once we reach Hochberg, we will have to pay very careful attention. The Thich had the entire winter to spin their narrative. Thankfully, we are bringing a few very compelling gifts. Also, it will be interesting to see whether the Thich diplomats know about their failed raid.”

He raised a hand to stop Astra from arguing. “You are right about their presence. A diplomatic mission from Thich couldn't possibly be at Hochberg for the reasons you thought of. But if they had already been on their way beforehand...”

Peter allowed his voice to trail off and have us draw our own conclusions about why Thich would send a diplomat before he continued.

“Which doesn't mean Thich couldn't have gotten the news to them later on. It wouldn't be the first time for a diplomat to be equipped with some still functioning communication device from Earth. Not to mention, it's not too hard to build a primitive radio – though we haven't gotten them to work for long-range communication yet.”

“It is a possibility,” Astra admitted. “Though an expensive one. Our clan doesn't hoard the old tech for no reason.”

“If we decide to go to war, I am sure the elders will dig the helpful stuff out of their cabinets,” Peter pointed out. “Thich will have done the same if I understand their plan correctly. From what the elders theorized, it hinges on gaining a significant population- and economic advantage. It would only be prudent to have someone with the means to warn you in advance, should any of the other clans catch on.”

We kept discussing Peter's conjecture and its permutations for a while, but in the end, we could only wait and see – then adapt to the situation.

On the third day, we finally arrived at Hochberg.

The Sanguine River had wound its way deep into a hilly grassland until it widened to a few hundred metres in width and slowed down.

It then passed through in between two hills which had been worked on by human hand.

The Hochberg had freed two larger hills of their earthen cover. They had then used the bedrock to carve out fortresses the size of Ayers Rock.

The impressive landmark lay like two gigantic anthills on either side of the Sanguine River and was covered with stone constructions which reminded me of Ikan or Egyptian masonry. The walls were made from stones of several tons in weight and moulded smoothly with the natural rock beneath.

Seeing them so clearly from far away only underscored their size.

In terms of necessary manpower, the two fortress cities overshadowed the pyramids as far as I was concerned. Sadly, nobody could answer whether they had been built by Earth’s original colonists or those who came after.

If it had been done without modern machines, then it had been a monumental effort despite people’s mutations.

A network of bridges connected the two fortifications over the river, giving the entire construction the impression of a gate to the lands beyond.

The area around the twin fortress was agricultural land with large herds of different animals. Upon inquiring about the threat of predators, Peter informed me that there were protected pens at the base of each fortress.

He wasn’t ashamed to throw around his knowledge, proving why he had been chosen to aid us on this journey. Peter quickly proved he knew enough about the Hochberg to double as a tour guide.

Aside from Hochberg providing various important herbs to trade with the other clans, they made a living by hunting the powerful predators populating the plains.

The herds of animals they cultivated only had marginal value as a food source or for mutations. Instead, their main purpose was to be bait and attract the larger predators which wandered into the area.

When attacked, the animals would retreat to the safe pens at the base of the fortress. Once the predator pursued, the Hochberg could fight and kill the attacker from the safety of their fortifications. By relying on this strategy, they always had the backup of heavy weaponry like large ballistae and trebuchets.

The huge predators living out here required actual siege weaponry to be taken down. Due to this, Hochberg hunters rarely ventured out of their fortress for the sake of actual hunting. Instead, they specialized in evasion techniques and luring their prey towards fortified positions where a trap could be sprung.

Peter told me how the clan utilized their chosen craft to deadly effectiveness during the war. Hochberg’s entire doctrine lay in taking a strategic position of interest and digging in. Then they would wait for their enemies to attack and earn themselves a bloody nose.

I winced at the thought of a titan like a saherna being a carnivore. If the entire herd suddenly decided to attack the twin fortress, they could likely do considerable damage before they died.

Thankfully, Peter assured me that pure carnivores of such size were rare and never worked in groups. But unlike the saherna, some things usually living as herbivores liked to improve their diet with high protein snacks.

Hochberg’s tendency to use large creatures for their mutations partly explained why most of them grew to such enormous sizes.

“It’s not like you haven’t grown either,” Peter pointed out during his explanations.

“Grown?” I looked down at myself, then at him.

He grinned. “Many mutations add a little bit to a person’s size. A few millimetres here, a centimetre there. The growth is incremental, so most newcomers and people born in this world don’t realize it. Most daily items are also adjusted to fit the slightly larger norm. You should find a measuring tape and check. I think it’s an adaptation the nanomachines automatically apply to everyone to account for the slightly increased gravity. More muscles, denser bones and such.”

My left eye twitched involuntarily as I thought of instances which should have made the change obvious, but were dismissed as a fluke. Like Astra’s music player looking so small and filigrane. Or the colony-supercomputer’s keyboard which seemed smaller than during the training sessions I remembered back at the organization.

Peter waved his hand dismissively when he caught me looking around in an attempt to compare myself to others. People like Elijah or Mia had to stand around 2.2 metres, while I remembered my old size somewhere around 1.8 metres.

Now that Peter had pointed it out, I realized I must indeed be taller than my old self, or those people would have literally dwarfed me.

“Just go and find a tape. Tell Astra that we are about to arrive in two or three hours while you are at it.”

I excused myself and went to find said measuring tape, which ended with a very confused Caravaner who had been doing carpentry repairs on the fortress.

The monster which had attacked us a few nights earlier had done a number on the doors to the training yard and also damaged the roof.

The carpenter looked at me with a dubious expression while I checked my new height against a door frame while awkwardly using the tape and a goniometer.

To be honest, I cared little for the questioning gazes I received while doing so. I was far more concerned about not realizing what had been happening to me. The nanomachines must be doing a little more than just size increases. They also had to adjust a person’s perception or they would feel awkward in a body which changed so quickly.

And ‘yes’, I had a slight phobia about mind-altering experiences! If anyone asked, I would admit so freely.

My improvised measurement revealed my new size to be roughly 1.91!

After returning the tools, I made my way back to Astra who only laughed at me when I revealed what I had been doing.

We used the remaining time to pack our things and prepare the drakes for our arrival. Strangely enough, Loops seemed to be a lot cosier with the two females.

Fearing a detailed inquisition would destroy whatever was going on, I didn’t question the ‘why’ and simply hoped it would lead to my mount calming down somewhat.

The caravan finally arrived at our destination a few hours later by entering an overhanging cliff at the base of the western fortress. It was large enough to protect the entire herd of saherna and was heavily used. Judging by the booming construction work I figured the Hochberg were dealing regularly with several different groups of Caravaners.

The setup reminded me of a seaport for freighters. They even had properly sized ramps which allowed us to easily debark our transport.

And at the end of the ramp, a very official-looking group from Hochberg was already waiting for us.