By the following morning, the castle courtyard looked as though someone intended to relocate half of Luchsenstein.
Mirabelle stood at the top of the steps, staring down at the organized chaos below.
Servants hurried between the castle and several neat rows of luggage. Soldiers checked weapons and straps. Someone was counting bundles of dried food while another male rolled blankets tightly enough that Mirabelle suspected they could have been used as weapons.
The strangest things were the traveling chests.
Mirabelle had expected wagons.vInstead, pairs of long, reinforced boxes had been connected by a broad leather-and-wooden structure between them, almost like a saddle. In their Beast forms, the larger males could carry one box along either side of their bodies while the padded center rested across their backs.
Which, admittedly, solved several problems wagons would have created on narrow forest roads.
