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THEY TRAVELED FAST the rest of the first day. After loading the donkey and locating Char’s pony, they led Char about a mile through the woods to their own camp, which they then cleaned and packed up. Then it was into the saddles, and they continued heading even farther away from the usual mountain path. They moved as quickly as the narrow path they were following allowed between the trees, rocks, and stream. They only stopped to rest the horses around lunch, during which Char enjoyed his homemade jerky.

About midafternoon, Captain Fendle abruptly turned their band north, following a game trail that wound through the trees and brush. The next few hours were slower going. They were forced to reduce their horses to a walk as they went single file down the winding trail. Char was beginning to wonder if they were going to stop at all, or whether they were going to travel through the night too, when they stepped out into a long clearing.

“Quick camp tonight,” Captain Fendle called as he dismounted. “Fast, before we lose the last of the sun.”

Captain Fendle was right. While they still had a good couple of hours before sunset, beneath the thick canopy of the trees the light was vanishing swiftly.

“What’s a quick camp?” Char asked Roe as he dismounted with the group. The name Roe was no doubt short for something, but Char knew better than to ask what. She was the soldier who had searched his bags, and she had stayed close by throughout the day. Roe was likely assigned to watch him.

“Bedrolls and canvas for shelter, rather than putting up tents. Makes us more mobile and takes up less space,” she explained. “I’m on tent duty, so I’ll get your bedroll laid out and tie a bit of canvas overhead for you.”

“Tent duty?” Char asked, wondering how they figured out assignments like that.

Roe nodded. “Better than latrine duty. Come find me later, and I’ll show you where you’re sleeping.” She trotted off with a wave, heading to a man setting up a picket line. Char followed, passing over his pony and the donkey’s reins and removing his pack, one of the bags with food, and a second bag with dishes.

“Where should I build a fire?” Char asked Captain Fendle, who was also handing over his gelding.

“There,” he responded, pointing to the center of the long clearing. “Horses and latrine over here, bedrolls on the far side. The fire in the middle will give us enough light to keep an eye on both.” He trotted off to oversee something else, so Char got to work.

He brushed clear a large space of old leaves and forest debris, all the way down to the damp earth below. The forest provided rocks to line a circle, and by the time that was done, Ralph had brought over cut logs and sticks. Char made a small pyramid and gently tucked some dry brush underneath. The flare of the match was bright in the dim clearing, and the brush caught immediately, jumping upward into the logs.

Char left the fire to do its thing, turning instead to his bags. “What’s the water situation like?” he asked Ralph as he came over to drop another load of cut logs next to the fire.

“Tributary’s over there,” Ralph said, grunting and pointing off to the left with his chin. “‘Bout a hundred feet? The track we’re following was made mostly by deer going to find water. Captain will warn us if we need to start conserving because we’re leaving the stream.”

“Thanks,” Char said, but Ralph was already leaving again.

If there was a chance they might have to ration water later in their trip, Char would make the dishes that required it now. Calculating for thirteen—twelve soldiers...mercenaries...whatever the fighters he was traveling with called themselves—plus himself, Char started pulling out dishes and ingredients.

“Hey, Captain told me to lend you a hand,” Roe said as she jogged up to the fire. “What do you need?”

“Water, for right now. Enough to fill this pot to about here,” he explained, pointing to a line about three inches below the lip of his four-gallon pot.

“On it!” Roe grabbed two smaller pots with handles to make it easy to hang them over a fire and dashed off.

Char checked the fire was going strong, wishing he could hurry the process of getting good coals. Roe took three trips to fill the pot, and then she joined Char, sitting down in the cleared space next to the fire to wait.

Horses were picketed, fed, and watered, latrines dug, bedrolls with canvas tied to tree limbs above all laid out, and the fighters were starting to join them around the fire by the time the fire had died down enough to start cooking.

Char placed the grill over the fire, setting the four legs firmly in the earth so it wouldn’t tip, and then moved the pot of water on top to start heating. Camping food for long trips was dried, salted, dried and salted, or the rare food that didn’t spoil quickly. His options were therefore limited, but between the fighters’ own supplies and what they took from the dead mercenaries, Char had plenty of options within those categories.

He diced salt-cured beef into half-inch cubes and julienned dried mushrooms, setting both aside when he was done. By the time he located the pouch of dried peas, the water was boiling. He let it go for a full minute before ladling some into one of the pots Roe had abandoned, setting that onto the fire to continue boiling. Once the smaller pot was going strong, Char dumped in an entire bag of dried quadretti; the small pasta squares immediately starting to plump up. Next, he placed two large, deep-sided iron skillets onto the grill. He ladled about a quarter cup of the pasta-flavored water into each before dropping all three dried ingredients inside. Dried spices were next: rosemary, dill, garlic, onion, and a touch of red pepper. No additional salt, because the beef was already salty. The dried ingredients soaked up the water almost immediately, rehydrating and starting to steam. A sauce was next. He macerated sundried tomatoes, which then got their own pot, another complement of spices, and a full cup of the pasta water.

By the time he had the sauce set aside to simmer, the quadretti was done. Char used a slotted spoon to remove the pasta, halving it into two portions, which he split into the two skillets with the meat.

“That smells...” Roe sniffed, inhaling through her nose for a while, then grinned. “It’s gonna be better than the oatmeal.”

“I hope so,” Char replied. “It would be tastier with fresh ingredients—tomatoes, garlic, porcinis, and bellas—but I think it will still be edible.” Some red wine for the sauce would also help add complexity to the flavor profile, but Char was impressed by the variety of ingredients he did have to work with. He didn’t have to forage, and he wasn’t butchering freshly caught meat, so he wasn’t going to complain.

He gripped the skillet handle and lifted it at an angle, jerking his wrist to make the ingredients flip and mix together. He switched to the second skillet and did the same.

“Isn’t that hot?” Roe asked, reaching out to touch the handle of the first skillet. She yanked her hand away with a hiss before she touched the metal.

Char looked down at his bare hands and shrugged. “I’m a level one chef,” he replied, which should have been enough explanation. At Roe’s blank look, echoed by a number of the fighters around them, he continued. “To reach level one, you have to master the use of magic in cooking.” A chef could be capable of making the most complex, sophisticated dishes, but if they couldn’t master the use of their magic—something inherent in every living creature—the highest they could ever aspire was a level two. “I graduated as a level one, tier five chef and completed my apprenticeship, so I’m a tier three now. Working as an underchef for my cousin will help me pass the tests to achieve tier two, I hope. You have to be tier two of any level to open your own restaurant.”

“I don’t recommend eating at a restaurant run by a level five chef,” Captain Fendle cut in. Level five demarcated an entry student and didn’t even have tiers, but Char got the point he was making. “But eating at a restaurant run by a level two chef—which is the highest a very accomplished chef without magic can get—is an experience.”

“And probably really damn expensive,” Jeorgie added, making everyone laugh.

“If Char’s a level one, doesn’t that mean we’re getting really, really spoiled right now?” Roe asked.

“That’s exactly what it means,” Fendle said. “Don’t get used to it. I doubt our next assignment will include co-opting a chef in the middle of the woods.” He clapped Roe on the shoulder before turning to Char. “How much longer?”

Char stirred the sauce, which had thickened enough he would call it palatable. Not really a proper tomato sauce, but it wasn’t runny, watery soup, so it would have to do. Char poured it over the contents of both skillets, gave them another flip to mix, and then looked at the group.

“Who has the plates and forks?”

Near-absolute silence filled the clearing for the next ten minutes. Only the occasional scrape of a fork on plate, or the slurp of someone licking sauce off their lips could be heard, which only served to punctuate how little other noise there was. Plates had been brought out to the sentries, in addition to the fighters around the fire stuffing their own faces.

Char was pleased with the result. The peas had fully rehydrated, so they gave a pleasant pop when he bit down, the meat provided a nice chew, the salt gave his taste buds a needed bit of zing, and the sauce, while looser than he would have liked, complemented the overall flavors and provided a tart acidity to combat the otherwise plainness of the pasta. As he feared, the dish lacked for wine, and a variety of mushroom types would have elevated it from good to excellent, but Char cleared his plate as efficiently as the rest of the group, regardless. He still finished before the rest, since he didn’t take the extra time to lick his plate clean.

Char left his dishes adjacent to the fire—starting the stack of dirty items to be cleaned—and dug through his bags again. He pulled out the large diffuser and a pouch of one of his specially made travel teas. Dried orange peel for extra vitamins, chamomile for sleep, rosehips to alleviate any saddle soreness, and hibiscus for more vitamins and a punch of flavor. He filled a smaller pot with the still-boiling water from the larger one. By the time he set the small pot down on the ground and hooked the diffuser in place, the water had cooled to the exact temperature for herbal tea.

“If you bring out the cups, we can have some tea before bed. The rest of the water in the big pot is sanitized if you have any canteens or water skins that don’t have purification circles on them,” he added. “I’ll cover it overnight, so whatever we don’t use now, I’ll make breakfast with in the morning.”

While the tea steeped, he moved the big pot off the fire and the grill onto an open patch of dirt to cool. Then, he tossed a couple more logs onto the fire now that the light from crackling flames was more important than the controlled heat of burning coals.

“Lemis, Yaroub, you’re on KP tonight, right? You get dishwashing duties,” Fendle said. “You can have your tea when you’re done.”

Ralph and Clarise didn’t grumble, much, as they got up and collected dishes. Char certainly wasn’t going to complain about not having to scrub skillets in the dark. Instead, he doled out tea into eagerly held cups and relaxed by the heat of the fire, enjoying the first twinkle of stars overhead and the growing chirps of crickets and frogs out in the dark.

*

THE NEXT THREE days passed in exactly the same way. After a quick breakfast at dawn, they spent the day riding, following game trails and a path only Captain Fendle appeared to know. Lunch was even faster than breakfast, just enough time to rest and water the horses, before it was back in the saddle until the sun started to set. They stopped whenever they found enough space to camp, at which point Char got to work.

Variety wasn’t really an option when supplies were limited to what the donkey could carry. He used cubed potatoes, diced meat, spices, and specially formulated travel oil for one meal. Quadretti, oil, sundried tomatoes and jerky softened for a half hour in water and spices, then seared directly on the grill for another. Even though he was forced to use the same ingredients, Char changed the flavor profile with the spices. Using tarragon instead of rosemary, for example, rounded out the end result in a completely different way. He had plenty of time to meal plan during the day, with nothing else to think about during the long rides. For the third night, he planned to make a hash of parboiled, diced potatoes fried in oil with a handful of every dried vegetable they had rehydrated and tossed in. And some of the meat, of course—since he had a feeling some of the fighters might mutiny if he fed them a vegetarian dish—which he would probably have to mince so it melded in with the hash. He wasn’t looking forward to mincing salt-dried meat with the less than stellar camping knives, but he would make it work.

They finally found a clearing on the third evening. Char dropped off his pony and the donkey at the picket line, grabbed his supplies, and went to the center of the clearing to start the fire. Ralph was on kitchen duty again—they rotated nightly—and was his usual gruff self as he dropped off a pile of wood. Roe had already taken the two smaller pots to the river, by now used to Char wanting the big pot filled with water, by the time Char got the fire going.

“If you can leave that for a moment, I would appreciate a word,” Captain Fendle suddenly said.

Char glanced at the fire, which was burning merrily and would need time to burn down, then nodded.

“Sure. What’s up?”

Char followed Fendle across the clearing to the edge of the trees where they had a bit of privacy.

“Tomorrow evening we’re going to reach Lake Estaral. My second reminded me you would need to know why we’re traveling through the woods fighting mercenary companies if you were going to be part of our mission, even inadvertently.” He trailed off, his hazel eyes shrewd as he studied Char, the intelligence in the mind working behind them clear to see. “You’re really not curious at all, are you? The only time I’ve ever seen you show any emotion is when someone says something negative about your cooking.”

Char flinched, drawing back a step and ducking his head down. He ought to be used to this. Phrases like that from partners, friends, colleagues, and classmates littered his history. “Do you care about anything but cooking?” or “I don’t even have to ask what’s more important to you: me or cooking. Obviously, it’s the damned food.” Char tried. He really did. But cooking was his life and finding time to fit other people in around that was difficult. That left his partners and friends feeling slighted, and so he generally spent his time alone. Just because he often preferred his own company didn’t mean the words didn’t hurt.

Cooking brought him joy, so he focused on that and tried his best to let everything else flow over and around him. Apparently, that was about to bite him in the ass again.

“I’m sorry!” Fendle’s eyes were soft with remorse. He reached for Char as if to pat him on the shoulder or even draw him into a hug, and yet he returned his hand to his side a moment later without making contact. “I didn’t mean anything bad by that! I promise. Just…anyone else in your position would have been demanding an explanation by now, and you’ve been content to go along with us without complaint. You confuse me, to be honest.”

Char tried to let the hurt go. The feelings were like a sore tooth; if you poked at it while it was healing, the pain flared up again. Fendle didn’t know Char well enough to purposefully hit him on such a personal issue, so he couldn’t have meant to be mean. He deserved an explanation too.

“I’m— I love cooking. More than anything else, I really love cooking. In the restaurant business, you very rarely get to actually see or hear people enjoy your food, so being with you all has actually been a nice change. Figuring out what I can cook with such limited ingredients and dishes over a fire has been such a unique challenge. Yes, I do wonder where we’re going and why, but this opportunity trumps that. I’m having fun.”

Fendle grinned, and suddenly his captain’s veneer faded. He looked five years younger, softer, and more approachable.

“I put a sword to your neck, and your initial concern was that I not drip blood in your oatmeal. I’d say you really love your cooking. Nothing wrong with being passionate about something. My father had to force me to leave the training ring when I was a kid and practically had to tie me to my chair in the schoolroom until he finally found an instructor smart enough to couch the math and history from a military standpoint to keep me interested. My brother says I love my sword more than our mother, which isn’t true, but I do see how my words earlier came out wrong.”

“Forgiven and forgotten,” Char replied, smiling back when he realized his words were true. The hurt had faded, dissipated by Fendle’s understanding. “Before I sidetracked us, I believe you were about to assuage my, erm, absent curiosity?”

Fendle blinked and stopped staring at Char, as if remembering they had a reason to be huddled together at the edge of a clearing in the middle of the forest.

“Right. I’m trusting you with this. Betray me and leaving you helpless on the side of a mountain will be the least of your worries.” His hard glare returned, and he stared Char down for a long moment before looking away. Magic flared, a gentle green light that meant it was military. Char’s was blue for household-type magic. The back of Fendle’s hand glowed for a brief second in the pattern of the House of Etoval. “We’re a special mercenary group hired by the crown to investigate threats to the country and respond to them using clandestine means. We were sent to infiltrate a growing camp of mercenaries located near Lake Estaral, identify whether they are hired by or otherwise funded by Namin, and ascertain their final orders. We targeted the mercenary group that hired you because they were also traveling to the lake, and we’re going to assume their identities tomorrow. I’m now Captain Maximillian Greath, a known hedonist who would be willing to waste coin on dragging a professional chef into the middle of nowhere. I need you to be a level two—whichever tier you think is best—who can’t use magic. Do you think you can help us out with this mission? I promise, when we return to Etoval you’ll be well compensated.”

“You don’t look anything like Greath, you know,” Char replied, although a growing excitement was building in his chest. He wasn’t only working with fighters or mercenaries, he was working with spies! That put a whole new flavor to his cooking resume, even if he could never put it on paper or prove it. More seriously, he replied, “I’ll have to dig out some hand protectors, if I’m going to pretend to be a level two.”

Fendle grinned at him again, returning to looking younger and more approachable. Char swallowed, wondering why that smile made his stomach feel tight and fluttery. He usually felt this way when being handed a new or unusual ingredient. The excitement of the challenge coupled with the fear of not doing the ingredient proper justice with his cooking was what usually sent his body into overdrive. Never before had a smile come anywhere close, and Char didn’t know what to make of it. He tried to ignore himself, focusing on more immediate needs.

“I’ll do my best to play the role you need me to. Thank you for including me,” he added. A glance over at the fire showed the coals were starting to glow cherry red as the flames reduced down to proper cooking levels.

“I’ll do my best to continue including you in the future,” Fendle replied. “Now, my stomach is growling, and I can feel the rest of the team staring at us, wondering when dinner is going to be ready.” He laughed. “I won’t hold you up any longer.”

Char grinned back and returned to the fire. He got the grill set up, the large pot of water starting to heat, and pulled out his cutting board, knives, and ingredients, then got to work. He rushed a bit, since he could also feel the hungry stares focused on his back, so he wasn’t pleased with the evenness of the cut he made on the meat and some of the potatoes were different sizes. Definitely not top-quality work, but he wasn’t going to be graded on it so he didn’t worry. Twenty-five minutes later, he started dishing out portions onto outheld plates.

The last plate was for him. Char plated his own dinner, his stomach also rumbling, and set the skillet aside to cool. He found a fork and dug in.

Smooth, yet firm potatoes mixed with the diced meat—still too salty, but it balanced out the otherwise bland parboiled potatoes—and the pleasant snap of rehydrated vegetables. Garlic, onion, a touch of red pepper to elevate the flavors. Except, as Char continued chewing, a strange, mild earthiness ran over his tongue. The flavor jangled, fighting with the rest of the ingredients. Subtle, with a slightly bitter aftertaste to his magic-trained taste buds, Char couldn’t figure out what ingredient might have caused it.

“Did I put any powdered mushrooms in this dish?” Char asked aloud, mostly talking to himself as he licked the tines of his fork, trying to figure out how that peculiar flavor had gotten into his food.

“Everyone, freeze!” Fendle abruptly snapped, his eyes wide as he stared at Char with a dawning look of horror growing across his face.

“Poison,” one of the fighters whispered, the word echoing through the silent clearing, and suddenly Char knew exactly what that awful flavor was.