56 Bravehear (1/2)

General Thors handed me a smaller version of the scrying orb that Nike brought to me the night before. This one was about golf ball size and red in color. From just a glance, I could tell it obviously held a different purpose than the cloudy one that brought us news.

”Our scouts and spies have compiled a list of officers from hundred-man commanders to one-thousand-man commanders,” he pointed to the orb that pulsed weakly in my hand. ”The closer you are to an enemy officer, the more that tracker orb will pulse,” he explained.

”Like a heartbeat increasing tempo,” I noted.

General Thors nodded. ”A word of caution, Dean. The darker the orb gets... the stronger the opponent. Avoid those until you've gained enough confidence hunting big names.”

I glanced down at the orb in my hand and felt the cool, almost marble-like texture between my fingers.

”Got it,” I pocketed the orb and then glanced up at the blonde soldier I looked up to. ”Congrats on making general, by the way.”

”Thanks...” he grinned back at me. ”Although its a temporary promotion unless I produce enough results in this war to make it stick.”

I gave Thors the thumbs up. ”I'll do what I can to help, sir!”

Thor climbed up his swifthart like a pro. Then he adjusted his position on his saddle, but before he followed Darah out to the front of the field, he gave me the thumbs up and gave me one last word of encouragement.

”Go bag yourself some commanders' heads,” he said.

Then he was gone and moving past the center army's line so he could stand next to the Iron Fist as she surveyed the enemy army from past our front line.

I, on the other hand, pulled back to where the rest of the Foolhardies were waiting. All my team leaders were upfront and were no doubt waiting to hear about the mission Darah had given us.

”We're hunting officers,” I said resolutely.

”How are we supposed to do this?” Ashley asked. ”They won't exactly be lining up to get whacked.”

I pulled out the red golf ball and showed it to them.

”Sweet... tracker orb,” Varda nodded approvingly.

”Muddamit... that's an expensive piece of hardware, Dean,” Qwipps whistled.

”We're going to need to be dangerously close to make that thing work,” Edo argued.

It was easy to see that he was thinking of Aura's safety when he said this but he wasn't wrong. I doubted the orb would work over long distances.

”Alternatively, we can make a loud enough racket to make the enemy come to us,” Thom added.

I grinned at him. ”Exactly. We make enough noise and bait the suckers into coming after us.” Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.

”You want to pull the bait and switch in a field this big?” Aura guessed.

I turned my grin on her next. ”I love how we're all in sync right now. So... you guys ready?”

The grins playing on their faces was not unexpected. We'd been doing well as a unit these past few months, and we were used to getting tough missions from Darah, but hunting enemy officers successfully usually meant racking up big rewards making it a risky yet worthwhile endeavor. Only Luca seemed dissatisfied.

”What's with the glum face, bro?” I asked.

”Well... if they wanted us to hunt they could have let us keep the swiftharts we stole from the enemy,” Luca explained.

Qwipps and Ashley nodded in agreement. They, like Luca, seemed to have gotten attached. To be honest, so was I. My swifthart was awesome which is why I requested to Darah that our new mounts be kept in the reserve stables for now as I assumed my unit was ill-equipped to take care of and ride those intelligent beasts into battle.

I explained this face to Luca and the others and added, ”Plus, we're attached to the center army's infantry division. It wouldn't make sense strategically for us to have them here.”

”Well, at least Jade Shadow's going to survive this mess we're smack in the middle of,” Luca said.