Starting Out

Liam didn't like it, traveling in a covered wagon with three other people and a driver.

This was their first day on the road and they had made considerable distance, it was getting on his nerves.

He didn't trust anyone, least of all the man the King had sent with them. Dante was annoying, and he didn't know what to think about Luke.

He planned on keeping his part of the deal with the King; after all what else was there to do? He had lived in Callmont his entire life ,and he didn't want to be on the run for the rest of his life. He shook his head, he couldn't be staring off into space right now.

When he looked up he saw Dante smile, and Luke put his bow on his lap.

He looked over at Sir David, who was glaring at Donte, and Liam could feel the tension between them build. Until Donte broke it,

"You know Sir David, the King himself ordered you not to distract us from our job, and right now you're pretty distracting."

"I don't see how you're doing your job now. You're just sitting." David retorted.

Liam saw Dante's mouth form into a smile.

"Well, part of my job is getting there, so by sitting in this moving wagon, I can get to my destination, which is part of the job. In other words you glaring at me is distracting me from sitting, because that glaring face of your's, makes me want to punch it."

David opened his mouth, closed it, and started glaring at the floor instead.

Liam then decided to take a nap.

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Liam woke up to someone shaking him, when he opened his eyes, he saw it was Luke.

"Get up, we're setting up camp for the night."

Liam groaned and wiped his eyes, then he stood up, and exited the wagon. The sun was setting, it was about eight o'clock he estimated, and looked over to see the others setting up tents.

He went back to the wagon, and retrieved his own tent.

The King had sent one for each of them, even the driver. He moved to the far side of the camp, and started pitching his tent. It was small, brown, and only designed for one person.

By the time he finished, the others had a fire going, and had taken some provisions the King had sent, salt, bread, butter, dried meat, and some corn, that had been freshly picked the day before. Luke volunteered to go hunting, so they wouldn't use all the dried meat by the time they reached Gelicasa, he claimed they would need it.

While he was gone,the wagon driver, who's name was Tomas prepared the corn, and got out the bread. Dante, had gone to search for "something special" for the meal, so Liam and David were left with nothing to do.

After a few minutes of doing nothing, Liam got up and went into the woods on the other side of the road from where Luke, and Dante had gone.

Soon he found what he was looking for, two straight tree branches with the ends making a v shape, and a straight branch.

He had an axe for chopping wood, he found in the wagon, and used it to chop them off. As he headed back to camp he stripped off the leaves, and the small branches that were growing on them.

When he arrived at camp, the branches were fully stripped, and the bottoms of the y shaped branches, also he had sharpened either side of the straight branch.

Dante was back at camp, with some mushrooms, and he was cooking them with butter and salt over the campfire.

Liam moved a little ways away, and started another fire. He planted the y shaped branches in the ground on either side of the campfire, and laid the straight branch on them. At that moment Luke emerged from the woods with a brace of large hares already gutted, and skinned. He came over to Liam.

"I take it this this for the game I brought back?" He said, gesturing to the makeshift spit.

Liam nodded, "Figured I should do something while you and Dante were searching for food, no point in wasting time." He replied.

"It seems everyone got that except for Mr. Too good for labor, over there." Luke said eyeing David.

Liam smiled, "You got that right." He agreed.

Luke speared the hares with the straight, sharp branch, and placed the branch on the y shaped branches and started to turn it.

"Dante, could you bring me the butter?" Luke asked

Dante got up, and brought the butter along with a brush for coating the hares, with the butter.

"The King must have given us half his kitchen supplies," Dante said with a smile. "Sure seems like it."

" How long on the mushrooms?" Liam asked

" They're Thellmas mushrooms, so they'll take a while, the outside takes a little bit to cook through, but their worth it."

"I'll take your word for it, these hares will probably take a hour or more. Do we have anything to store the mushrooms, and corn? We can eat the bread for now. I'll go get some containers and the water skins." Liam said.

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They filled up on bread, and conversed until the hares were ready. When they were done, the meat was dripping, fat and butter into the campfire, and a pleasant aroma rose up, filling the air with the smell of cooking meat.

Luke cut the pieces of the hares, without removing them from the spit. The mushrooms were cooked, and so was the corn.

Luke divvied out the meat, Tomas the corn, and Dante the mushrooms. They helped themselves to more bread and butter.

They all went and filled up a plate, except David. Liam looked at him disdainfully,

"If you want a plate get it yourself, no one's going to serve you, we did all the cooking and hunting, surely a King's soldier can get a plate of food." He said

David looked at him with a scowl, "A King's soldier should be served by the peasants." He said

Liam saw Dante get up from eating and make another plate, he then brought it over to them.

"See this plate of food, David?" He said. Dante tossed the plate onto the ground a few meters away, and turned on David, "The birds and beasts deserve it more than you do. We didn't ask you to come with us, before we were in the castle, now your on our turf, traveling with us. So suck it up, or starve." With that Donte walked back to his plate, and continued his meal.

An hour later they had put away the food, put out the fires, and cleaned their dishes,

and they all were looking forward to a nice relaxing night.

As Liam drifted off to sleep, he realized his companions were growing on him, except David.