Dimon Kingdom, thirty miles from the frontline pass, at the Reserve Army Base.
Light suddenly spread across a clearing like a campfire sprinkled with phosphorus powder. Then a Portal appeared within it.
"Ah, that familiar cold..."
A pair of mud-spattered leather boots stepped through the Portal. Back in the Northern Frontier, Faster sighed and looked at the man waiting to greet him. "Why is it you? Where's Joan?"
"The front line's in trouble. She went there."
"Why's she risking her life...?"
Faster shook his head. Things were getting better, yet that young woman had gone off to risk her life instead of enjoying them. She had to have some sort of problem!
"Never mind her. I brought everything you asked for."
He stepped aside and let the Orc workers behind him carry in crate after crate of supplies.
The quartermaster and a middle-aged man with a scar through one eyebrow came over. "From Free City? Today isn't a delivery day..."
"A young woman from our city came here to fight the Ratfolk, and you sent her to the rear. Then she sent word that your Wounded were in dire straits and urgently needed help."
The quartermaster looked over and saw that many of the crates held bandages, padded coats, and things called wheelchairs.
There was coal, too. Lots of coal.
The quartermaster knew what had happened in the Broken Mountains. A group of Blue Dragons had gone to Middle Earth and taken over someone else's home. Under normal circumstances, that would have been enormous news.
"We have coal..." The quartermaster had been about to say they weren't short of it.
"But you won't spare it for the wounded."
They had enough, but only just.
The coal carts were followed by groups of young men and women. They stood in lines,