Tracking All Day

I'm feeling really weary.  We've marched hard all day, mostly skirting around the lower lying ground to keep ourselves out of sight of the land below us away west.  I think we're being a bit ambitious about that - there's little chance of them picking us up at this distance, we could only see them because there are so many of them.  But we've made good progress, we've clearly cut the distance from them, it's probably only half what it was this morning.  If they're Gurgam then they're making poor progress, you hear stories of them making huge journeys across open land with so few stops.

By mid afternoon we crossed their path.  It's quite a wide trail, but they don't appear to be marching in any order, it's more of a rabble than an organised army.  Based on the tracks Barr thinks these are mostly Gurgam, but there are several Ogruks along with the group.  He's judging this on the length of the stride and the weight of the creatures, and to me it looks like it could be Gnaeblin and Hznaman footprints we're seeing.  He is an expert though.

I'm not the only one who has problems with weariness, I'm glad to say.  We struggled to find a place to camp tonight, we needed somewhere hidden enough so we couldn't be seen by the group we're tracking, but where there is water and shelter.  I wanted somewhere with some protection from the frost, of course.  I didn't get it - we found another small group of trees at the bottom of a ravine, but we're camped at the edge down by the noisy stream that runs along here to the north.  If it's clear tonight we'll be covered in frost again.  And it's going to be another cold camp, Mullory and Elenhugh are convinced that a fire will have them coming to look for us.

I've set my snare for the night, though.  I also pulled some fresh bark strips and made another.  We set them not far from the camp and baited them with some berries that are growing around the woodland.  I've eaten a few of these over my journey of the last week or two, and Barr tells me they're called 'blackberries'.  They're wholly new to me though, and I really like them.