Wild boars looked round and plump, but once their thick hides were peeled away, most of what lay beneath was coarse-fibered red meat. Fat was scarce and mostly found around the organs. Under the tough hide were muscles developed by constant running.
Uncastrated wild boars also had a very strong, rank smell. The hunters, who ate this meat every day, were all smiles, but Tesolys was keenly aware of that strange, pungent odor.
If he had never eaten pigs raised on modern farms, Tesolys might have thought this was simply how pork tasted. These people's cooking methods were especially crude.
The highlanders had thrown away most of their belongings when they left, but they could never bear to abandon their three great iron pots. Those pots were their village's most precious possessions. They had originally traded 100 of their finest wolf pelts and 12 bearskins for them.
Everyone ate together from the same pot. The highlanders even regarded a large cooking pot as something sacred. As long as a place had one, its people could keep living there.
Now they were cutting the coarse boar meat into small pieces with knives, throwing it straight into the pots, and adding water to stew it. A thick layer of bloody scum soon floated on the surface. Handful after handful of grain went in, followed by a scattering of coarse yellow salt. Once the broth boiled, they served it out, one bowl per person.
The method was so crude that Tesolys could not stop frowning as he watched. The smell from the pot did whet his appetite a little, but that powerful, rank odor still made him wrinkle his brow. As someone who often cooked himself, he found it especially hard to watch a method that could practically be called a waste of food.
The other cavalrymen were making much the same thing. Every one of them had years of training, but cooking certainly had not been part of it. Apart from eating dry rations, all most of them knew how to do was throw everything into a pot and boil it into mush. Their only bit of luck was that they had pots now and no longer needed to sacrifice their helmets.
Everyone enjoyed the meal except Tesolys... He would not waste his portion, but the coarse texture and flavor still made it hard for him to stomach.
Corein noticed his expression from beside him and could not help grumbling inwardly. He really was a noble lord. Even food this delicious failed to satisfy him. She could hardly imagine what rare delicacies he usually ate.
Once they finished eating, they packed as much of the remaining game into the carts as they could. But the highlanders' barrage of arrows had all but wiped out an entire herd. Faced with such a rare stroke of luck, they had not stopped to think.
Now the boar meat was piled almost as high as a small hill. There was no way it would all fit in the carts. Most of it still had to be carried on their backs, one load per person.
By their original schedule, they should already have entered a town in the Empire. But one mishap followed another. At some point, a mudslide had buried the road to the town. The enormous mass of earth was piled as high as a mountain, making it impossible to force their way across.
There was another road, but if they took it, they would not reach a town in the Empire until the day after tomorrow. None of them wanted to lose time, but they had no choice. They could hardly abandon their warhorses and continue on foot. That would get them across, but cost them their speed. The loss would far outweigh the gain.
They could only go around that pass and take the other road. Before they knew it, their progress had slowed considerably. They even had to camp here instead of enjoying the various services available in a town.
In the dim firelight, the highlanders seemed in high spirits. After all, they had eaten their fill twice today. In the past, they might not have enjoyed such good fortune even once in a whole year. Naturally, they saw no reason to be downhearted.
Once they had eaten and drunk their fill, they found somewhere to lie down and sleep soundly. They still retained their highlanders' vigilance and sent a few hunters out to keep watch nearby, but most of them were extremely lax. It made Tesolys resolve to drill these fellows properly as soon as he had the time.
These highlanders were all excellent hunters, capable of using their longbows to hit a leaf a hundred paces away. But they were accustomed to living as hunters and bandits. They had no understanding of discipline or formation.
If taken onto a battlefield, they would scatter into a loose skirmish line. Against properly trained troops, their only possible fate was a rout. Of course, their strong, powerful legs would let them run very fast. Perhaps they could at least escape with their lives.
For their employers, though, that was nothing short of a disaster. These fellows were fast runners, but they could easily carry their employers' soldiers along in their flight.
That was why highlanders hired by the Empire's armies were always placed toward the front of the formation. There, they had nowhere to run even if they wanted to. Instead, it brought out their courage and ferocity, and they often achieved good results in battle.
But Tesolys was not content to treat these fellows as mere mercenaries. Excellent archers should be put to proper use, not treated as temporary reinforcements hired just before a battle. Ideally, they would become genuine members of the army, able to follow orders and work with the other types of troops.
There were no tents, of course. They had simply found a broad clearing and made camp. If they were unlucky enough to be caught in the rain, they could only take shelter in the dense woods. Even then, they would have to keep worrying. After all, they were wearing heavy metal armor...
Fortunately, the sky was still clear. They could see scattered stars and a bright moon, with no sign of rain.
No matter how tired they were, none of the soldiers dared neglect his warhorse. Each man filled a sack with grain to restore his horse's strength after a full day on the road.
The huge warhorses pushed their muzzles into the sacks, and the sound of crunching never stopped. Every so often, a horse would snort loudly a couple of times or swish its tail to drive away the forest's mosquitoes and other insects.
The highlanders seemed rather carefree. Or perhaps, with nothing more to ask for, they found it especially easy to take things as they came.
Tesolys, however, was worried. He could not shake the feeling that there was something suspicious about the mudslide they had encountered today... Or rather, he felt uneasy about the other road they had to take. Everything seemed as though someone had deliberately arranged for them to go that way...
The wood in the campfire burned slowly, giving off soft cracks and pops. Apart from those keeping watch, most people were already asleep. Only Tesolys still sat by the fire, a thoughtful look in his sharp eyes as his fingers tapped lightly on the hilt at his waist...
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