Chapter 17: Interrogation

“Grab them and take them back to camp.” A deep male voice said

Quickly listening to the instructions, the other people there grabbed the two children. As they started to walk back one of the kids started to wake up. Panicking someone hit him in the back of the neck, knocking him out.

The people then carried the children off to the camp. This was a big army camp, belonging to the Urvallay. There were constant noises of people training and chattering, as well as a constant smoke coming from the trees they were burning for charcoal. The

men in this camp had not fought much, but they had slaughtered several villages, causing there to be a constant smell of blood. For normal people, this would be considered disgusting, but for the soldiers it was motivation. They were told that the more blood they spilled the more money they got.

The people that found the children were scouts, the reason why they did not kill them immediately was because children could often be used as spies, so they could get some useful information from them. They threw them into the commander’s tent and set Ripper to watch the kids. This was because Ripper did not talk, and he never slept. The only worry was that Ripper didn’t murder them, but luckily the commander had sent him to do this task, and since he was pretty much an obedient dog in front of the commander, there should be no worries.

These children were of course Alex and Trip.

Trip felt weak, his eyes heavy. He had a pain in the back of his neck, as if he had been hit there. Before he opened his eyes he could already tell that he was no longer in the cave. He could hear people, metal hitting metal. He could smell blood and smoke. He could feel an uncomfortable pressure coming from right in front of him. Trip opened his eyes, and in front of him he saw a man. Dark green eyes, ginger hair, tall stature and robust build, as well as many scars on his face. The man in front of him was a warrior. Trip looked around and saw that they were in a tent. It was not a tent that he and Alex had stayed in, but a much bigger one. It was an army tent.

Trip looked to his right as he sighed in relief as he saw that Alex was ok. For some reason he could not seem to talk to Grelin, which did worry him slightly. Trip was actually quite shocked at his own ability to stay calm. Even though he had always been a very calculating and calm child his training had definitely helped him look at things in clearer way. This did not mean that Trip was not confused. He did not understand several things. Why were he and Alex taken from the cave? Why are they in an army tent? Is there a war going on? Who is this man in front of me? Why can he not talk to Grelin? Countless thoughts paraded through Trip’s mind and simply could not make any sense of the situation.

Luckily for Trip he had a man that had some of the answers in front of him; however it was a question of what this man was here to do. He could be a torturer, a commander, or even just a regular soldier. Trip hated this situation, because at this point the man in front of him had all the power, and Trip could not do a thing about it. Seeing the man’s blank expression Trip couldn’t help but feel annoyed that this man did nothing. Therefore he decided to make the first move.

Trip spoke respectfully “Dear Sir. May I ask you why our hands are tied and how we ended up here?”

The man merely glanced at him and grunted.

Trip was waiting for a reply, but saw that the man would give him none, trying to stay calm he repeat himself “Sir. Why are our hands tied? Who are you and what do you want with us?”

This time the man angrily grunted and walked over to Trip and slapped him. He then went back to his chair and sat down with an angry grunt.

Trip was not rich or posh by any means, and yet he was still infuriated by this man’s barbaric nature. There was simply no way to connect with him, to talk, to figure out the situation. This caused Trip to feel even more vulnerable and fragile. He simply could not fight back or get out of this situation.

After another hour of silence and angry expressions Alex woke up. Alex was not a water mage; he did not have the calm attitude that someone like Trip had. So the moment he woke up he panicked. Alex started to scream “AAAAH! What is going on? Who are you? Where am I?”

Trip eventually got Alex to calm down. The man saw that both of them were awake and walked out of the tent. Around 5 minutes later another man walked in. The new man looked much more refined than the first; he had a tall, valiant stature. The new man stood proud and tall with his long, flowing blond hair gently resting on his shoulders. This man was the leader. Anyone could see it from a mile away. He virtually glowed in comparison to the previous man. The new man walked forward and looked at Trip and Alex gently with his blue eyes.

“Hello children. My name is Pinta! That’s a fun name isn’t it?” the man called Pinta smiled reassuringly to Trip and Alex “Now I know you must be very confused right now, so how about this! I ask you a question, and if you answer you can ask me a question! Doesn’t that sound fun?”

Trip almost wanted to puke by this display. Pinta was clearly faking any form of compassion or excitement. In fact, Pinta scared Trip so much more than the previous man. The look in his eyes was terrifying. It was as if it could change at any second and he would slit their throats.

Trip decided to play the same game with Pinta. He thought of a fake name and smiled, he then said “Wow! Pinta sure is a fun name! My name is Gregory. I’d love to play this little game with you, who asks first?”

Pinta was clearly dissatisfied by Trip’s reaction, which gave Trip a pleasing feeling. Pinta decided to keep up the façade and said “I’ll ask first since I’m the host! Ok, tell me. What were you doing in the middle of a warzone?”

This confirmed Trip’s earlier thoughts. This was a war zone. Trip and Alex had been travelling for weeks before they settled down in the cave, during that time they had no information about anything happening in the country. According to their travelling their cave should have been in the north of East Hrior, bordering the country of Urvallay. He knew this because there was a mountain range separating the two countries. Urvallay was 3 times the size of East Hrior, so if there was a war then East Hrior would be bound to fall.

After thinking this Trip responded to the question “I didn’t know there was a war going on. Now, can you tell us why we were captured?”

Pinta seemed angry, to him the very fact that someone didn’t know of the war was inconceivable. Normally he would already have determined the prisoners as spies, but these were kids. How could they lie in front of him?

Because of this, Pinta decided to keep playing the game for now, as he said “You were captured because we suspected you were spies. Nobody lives in the mountains here, and since this is a warzone we immediately took you as prisoners. Now tell me.” Pinta’s eyes darkened “Are you from Urvallay or East Hrior?”

Trip panicked at this question. Looking at Pinta he could tell he was not from East Hrior. He did not know whether he was an enemy from Urvallay or if he was an ally of East Hrior and happened to be from another nation. This caused Trip to have no clue what to do.

At this point Alex had merely been watching from the side-lines. However now he saw that Trip was having trouble with this question. Alex had been trained as a traditional rich kid. He learned mannerisms, attitude, and other such things. One other thing he learned was the trade of a businessman. As a businessman, one must always understand the customer, where they were from and what sort of things they were interested in had to be seen from the way they carried themselves. This was so that they could change and try to appeal to the customer. Since Urvallayan people tended to come to East Hrior for goods a lot, Alex had specifically learned how to tell if someone was from Urvallay and he learned everything about the place.

Because he knew all of this he could tell in a moment’s glance that the man in front of them was from Urvallay. The way he carried himself, the colour of his hair, all of this fit the traits of an Urvallayan. Knowing all of this Alex said “We are from Urvallay. We come from the town Tinter, but our parents died and we ran off into the mountains several months ago.”

Pinta looked at Alex. Earlier he could have sworn that the children were from East Hrior, and even if they said Urvallay he would not have believed them, but the fact that the other child had mentioned that they were from Tinter, which was a small town in the south of Urvallay, made him question his original beliefs. Although he did not believe them entirely he decided to leave the matter at rest for now. Feeling exhausted he was about to leave, until he heard Trip clear his throat.

“Excuse me sir, but we have not said our question yet.” Trip said

Feeling annoyed Pinta virtually hissed out the words “Go ahead Gregory, what is your question?”

Trip smiled lightly and asked “Since we answered everything you said, can you let us go now?”

Pinta looked at the pair and said “We’ll release you tomorrow.” He then stormed out.

Trip did not know what to really do at this point. He looked at Alex and thought ‘To think that just yesterday we were happily training and now we have been reduced to such a state by this despicable man. And now even Grelin is gone.’

At this point, they could do nothing but wait for tomorrow and see what it had in store for them.