The journey from the Nicene River to the Benjas' capital only takes the group a little over a day to complete, as they crossed the River with a few hours of daylight left. The mountains of the Great Dividing Range are visible as soon as they leave the forest and are out on the plains of the Benja territory. They seem to keep the mountains on their right as they travel, which slowly grow larger as the day wears on.

About two hours before sunset the day after they crossed the river, something large and flat appears on the horizon and grows steadily over the next hour until it is a large city with a tall and fortified wall around it. Adam can see the occasional flicker as a guard's helmet or spear point catches the light of the slowly setting sun. But what is around the city was what makes Adam more alert. Large masses of people and tents are set up in sections all around the plain, each colour coordinated with a large tent in the middle that has flags on the tops and a tall banner set out front presumably displaying a crest. From this distance, Adam can only see the colours of the banners but he is sure of one thing. Multiple armies are peacefully camping around the city of the Benjas.

A group of men on horseback canter towards the group of Sky Army recruits with several spare horses on leads behind them. Leading the group is, of course, General Mitchell of the Benjas on his tall Kehilan Arabian horse. Adam can't help but admire and be slightly envious of the horse. It stands about 15 hands high, with a broader forehead than other breeds of Arabian horses and has a white streak running down the face. The mane and tail are a light brown while the rest of the horse is a dark chestnut colour that shines in the sun. Adam knows that it will have lots of endurance and be fast, despite the deceptively delicate legs that the horse picks up high as he canters towards them, his small, curved ears pricked forward and his eyes intelligent.

"Looks like a group of wanderers have stumbled upon our city," Mitchell says cheerfully as he nears them. "Guess we'd better give them a ride home. Good thing we brought enough horses."

The men behind him bring the horses forward for the weary travellers to mount. As Adam easily swings up onto the horse that is given to him (another Arabian: all the horses were), Mitchell nudges his own mount up to him and says quietly, "We'll go on ahead if you don't mind, I've got some people I need you to meet." Adam nods and the two canter back to the city.

As they near the city, Adam crans his head to get a look at the other banners and the armies that camp behind them. He thinks that he recognises two of them as belonging to other armies that board the Sky Army's territory. Well, the Squid's territory now. There certainly wouldn't be this many armies gathering just to see the Benjas take in the Sky Army. If Adam didn't know any better, he would guess that Mitchell is preparing for an invasion. Although he's not entirely sure that that isn't the case.

Mitchell notices Adam looking around and he grins to himself. "Welcome to Nad'ij, General Adam," he says formally as the two ride through the gates of the open-plan city. "Main city of my territory and my base of operations."

"It's pretty good," Adam replies as he looks around. "Fairly large but not too big to be unmaintainable. Why are there several other armies here? What's going on?" The second question is more of a statement.

"I may have called in one or two allies to help with your little problem with the Squids," Mitchell says innocently. A little too innocently, Adam thinks.

"There must be seven or eight whole armies here," he says. "Enough for an invasion, I would think."

"I have an alliance with them," Mitchell says, smoothly letting the second half of Adam's statement slide. "It's called the Protection Act of Cortian's Kingdom, but we just called it 'The Pack'. There's five of us who are a part of it, although we do have another honourary member because he's helped us out a lot and his territory is in the middle of five of ours."

"Who is he? And who are the rest of these armies?"

"You'll meet them all in a few minutes. I've called a meeting to talk about the Squid problem."

"I'm checking on my army first," Adam says firmly.

Mitchell smiles and nods. "They've got their own section of the city on the east side. I'll wait for you here."

Adam turns the head of his horse and quickly trots over to the east side. It's rather like a tent city, each of the tents set up in neat rows that reflect the armies camped outside the city. Even after 12 years of the Sky Army being out of commission, the recruits still remember their military training, and Adam can't help but feel proud of them. He dismounts from his horse as he nears the first row of tents and leads it through the camp to where a few of his Commanders are pouring over papers.

"How's it looking?" Adam asks as he nears them.

The three Commanders turn and nod a greeting to him. "It's better than it was," Commander Joseph says. "We've counted almost 200 recruits, we're just finalising numbers."

"Our weapons stash is depleted and good for little more than the scrap heap," Cassandra says simply. "We're going to need more if we're going to fight."

"You really think we can fight in this state?" Commander Kali asks, her red hair cut close to her head. "After what happened in our last battle?"

"If we have to, we will," Adam says firmly. "We have resources now. As for the other thing.... We'll deal with the Squid first, then worry about that."

Kali nods. "It might be a good idea to take a swing by the recruits," she adds. "They're excited, but morale isn't great."

The General nods and leads his horse away from the three Commanders. As he walks through the camp, calling out greeting to people he knew, he sees that Kali is right. Excitement buzzes through the whole camp with an almost tangible feel, but the shoulders of the recruits sag and their eyes are dull. Behind the excitement, the recruits are dispirited and disheartened. It pains Adam to see them like this, but he feels the same as they do.

He had stopped and was talking to a group of recruits when one suddenly asks, "Why are there all of these armies here General?"

Adam shrugs. "I'm going to find that out but I'm assuming that they're here to help us against the Squids."

"Why? What do they have against them?"

"I'm not sure."

"They don't know what life under the Squids is like," one recruit says quietly. "My village was poor, and we grew food for the Capital. What we were given as our portion of food was too small to live off and we had to steal from our own fields to survive, especially during the harvest."

"Steve's right," another says. "I don't know how it was in the Capital, but life in the villages is hard."

"Yeah, life in the Capital isn't a joyride either," Adam mutters. "At least you guys had fields to steal from. We barely got enough money to pay for everything."

Adam knows that he's keeping Mitchell and probably the Generals of the other armies waiting, so he says goodbye to the recruits, remounts his horse and trots back to where he had left the Benja General. He's still there waiting and they trot together again, deeper into the city. Mitchell doesn't ask about how Adam's recruits are as he has already done his own rounds in the Sky Army camp. But he does ask something else.

"Didn't you have an amulet?" he asks.

Adam glances at him, his expression changing from thoughtful to something almost hostile. "What about it?" he asks, his voice carefully neutral.

Mitchell shrugs, suddenly realising that it might be a touchy topic. "I just remembered the last time I met you about 15 years ago or something, back when we were both young. You had an amulet on, and I was just wondering why you don't have it now."

Adam looks away from him and stares straight ahead, his expression blank. "I lost it," he says quietly.

Mitchell waits for an explanation but when one doesn't come, he mentally shrugs. If Adam doesn't want to explain, Mitchell won't force him.

"You can call me Mitch," he says suddenly. When Adam questionably glances at him, he adds "It's a nickname friends call me. Mitchell is a bit too formal."

"Alright," Adam says. "I have no nickname, Adam's too short."

Mitch laughs and nudges his horse to go a little faster. "Come on, I'll introduce you to the Pack."

No prizes for guessing who the Pack members are. But I will give you a shout-out if you correctly guess the name of the honourary member.

I actually did research for Mitchell's horse. I've got a book of horses that I've finally found and it has lots of information about various types of horses.

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