The Situation at the Border

Landen, you've got the smell of other livestock on you." When Landen ran to the meeting point he had agreed on with Blaze, Blaze sniffed him and instantly grew wary. "Have you been out there attracting cats and teasing dogs again?"

"Didn't I go into Orc territory? It's normal for there to be lots of beasts." Landen grinned and stroked the horse's back, doing his best to soothe his old partner.

"Hmph." Ever since Blaze had learned to speak, she had started acting like the Great Fairies, constantly expressing emotion when she talked, while sharing the real information with Landen only through the Magic Web.

"No, isn't this jealousy of yours going a little too far? Isn't it perfectly normal for me to run into Magic Beasts in the wild?" Landen teased as he soothed his old partner. "Don't lower yourself to arguing with livestock."

"Quite right. With so much livestock around you, my lord, how could I possibly argue with all of them?" With that one sentence, Blaze had basically cursed the entire territory.

"In the future, I can't let you lot keep following Fiana and the others around. You didn't learn anything good—only how to be all snide and sarcastic." Landen mounted and rode south. After taking to the air, he flew south, then turned east, and when he was nearly at the Iowa Mountains, he turned north again toward the castle near the pass.

Iowa Pass was a long, narrow valley, with the barrier Landen occupied serving as its eastern boundary. The valley, less than two hundred meters wide, stretched for nearly two kilometers. West of the valley lay an alluvial plain, with a small north-south river serving as the valley's western boundary.

Now that Landen occupied the eastern pass, he could look down over the entire