At the border of Fertile Plains Province, in the temporary mercenary camp.
Roland kicked a mercenary who was trying to slack off in the backside.
"Stand up straight! If I catch anyone using his spear as a walking stick again, I'll have him cleaning the latrines."
The mercenary scrambled to his feet. His stance was still crooked, but at least he no longer dared to slump on the ground.
This force was hopeless.
There were several thousand men as far as the eye could see, but their composition was appallingly haphazard.
Apart from nearly a thousand private soldiers led by nobles and mercenaries drawn by the bounty, the rest were hastily conscripted serfs. They did not even carry proper spears, only sharpened sticks and rusty pitchforks.
Roland wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked up at the sky.
According to their agreement, that fellow should be arriving.
At that very moment, the clouds on the horizon began to churn violently.
The once-placid banks of clouds seemed to boil, layer upon layer pushing outward and rolling like gray, raging waves suspended upside down across the heavens. They came surging closer with a heart-stopping weight.
Humm-
A deep vibration came from above the clouds.
The warhorses in the camp began pawing the ground uneasily.
"What is that?!"
A sharp-eyed mercenary pointed at the sky and shouted.
The clouds parted.
A gigantic gray-white worm more than fifty meters long slowly squeezed out of the clouds like an airship. It had no wings, and several thick tentacles hung beneath it. Its swollen abdominal cavity kept it hovering steadily high in the air.
Then countless black dots burst through the clouds around the beast.
They were great skuas.
They folded their wings and sliced through the air with the momentum of their dives, letting