After watching the last of wolves being slain, Roan let out a couple of audible gasps as the battle adrenaline subsided from his body, replaced with an overbearing exhaustion. Unable to remain upright any longer, he allowed himself to fall on his behind, letting both the head and the sword fall from his hands.

The excruciating pain from his injuries was overwhelming his senses resulting in him going unconscious for a moment before he managed to shrug himself wake, eyes blinking wildly as he sat on the ground.

“Are you alright, brother?” the young one asked standing over in front of him. Roan looked up to gaze at him but wasn’t able to reply, feeling a little lightheaded.

After he shook his head in an attempt to clear some of the dizziness, he tried getting up back on his feet but failed as his body rejected the exertion and he landed back flat on the ground for his efforts.

“Looks like someone managed to do a number on the Great Roan the Slayer,” teased the young warrior gleefully.

The snide remark did not go unnoticed by Roan as he glared at the young man murderously. “Helik!… you’re..” Roan managed to grumble strenuously before fatigue and pain overwhelmed him again.

“I was just kidding,” the young man chuckled, a nervous smile on his face which had started losing color, his hands raised in an apologetic gesture as he tried to backpedal from his earlier remark. “Here,” he extended his right hand towards Roan in assistance.

After a minor moment of protest, Roan took it and stood up, a groan of agony escaping his mouth in the process.

“Yikes! Those wounds look nasty, elder.” Helik observed as he aided the older man by offering his shoulders to lean on. “Hope we’ve seen the last of these monsters, it’s getting impossible to fight half starving,”

After stabilizing himself Roan sighed in relief before speaking softly, “I believe we are in for a long night.” Hearing Roan’s words alarmed Helik and he was about to ask him to elaborate on his statement but the noise of a loud argument between the wagoner and Rok interrupted it, both of them turning to look at the two bickering men by the firelight.

“No!! Just leave me be,” the wagoner protested loudly, now wrapped in his cloak as Rok looked on, getting increasingly irritated.

“Not gonna happen, worm,” Rok spat. He grinned wickedly before continuing, “It’s better for your health if you comply peacefully before I run out of patience.”

“There is nothing to see, Please… Just trust me, Ok?!” the wagoner pleaded.

“What is going on here? Why all the commotion?” Roan asked as he approached them, aided by Helik beside him.

The wagoner’s face brightened up a little at seeing Roan approach them, looking like an avenging angel with his blood-soaked face, about to rescue him from the jaws of the Great Serpent himself. “Master Roan, please… I beg of you, please save me,” he cried, looking at Roan in desperation, who was wiping off the blood and guts that covered his face with one of the cloaks Helik had gotten him from the ground. He pointed at Rok before continuing, “This man always had it out for me. He is trying to hurt me. You have to save me, please sire. I beg of thee.”

Before the wagoner could complain anymore, Rok had his right hand around the man's throat, lifting him in the air; he started choking the life out of the man. The man’s face started turning blue from struggling to breathe, his hands trying and failing to even budge the steel-like grip of Rok around his neck.

“You lying sack of shit, I’ll crush you like the bug you are,” Rok fumed, gritting his teeth in anger, his face emitting murderous rage but with a hint of a certain pleasure hidden within.

“Rok!! That’s enough,” Roan barked and Rok looked at the man who was their captain. As he met Roan’s unflinching gaze, his anger slowly receded and he released his grip. The wagoner crashed down and started gasping for air. His body pale in shock after a near-death experience and sweating profusely even in the deep cold of the night.

“He is lying off his teeth, this worm,” Rok spoke pointing at the man at his feet recovering from the assault, bright red marks visible around the man’s neck.

Roan looked suspiciously at Rok. “Lying, is he? About what exactly? All of us know you take pleasure in tormenting the little bugger and you did just try to kill the man. I don’t see what he was lying about.”

Rok looked stupefied as he tried to form words to counter the accusations, but when he failed to make a counter argument he surrendered. “Fine, I admit I do not like the man. I could never truly trust these cowardly humans.”

“Ummm… you do realize you’re a human too, right?” Helik tried to remind him, after staring at him for a brief moment.

Rok stared at Helik like he was some alien creature that’s revealed himself for the first time, and after contemplating on Helik’s words for a brief moment he replied, “Huh, I am human?” He observed the man at his feet more closely for a moment.

“Yeeesss, ofcourse…Hahahahah… Now that I think about it, I am, aren't I?” He smirked like a little kid who had just discovered the taste of candy, but his smile quickly fell and he frowned again. “Wait, I am human?” he asked in a serious tone with an expression of someone about to vomit bile.

“Brother Rok?Please answer me.” Roan spoke in a frustrated tone as Helik looked at Rok, mouth gaping open in shock at the man’s insanity.

“Yes?” Rok replied, curiosity evident on his face.

“How long has it been since your last time amidst proper civilization? How long have you been wandering on your own?” Roan questioned. He realized he knew nothing about the man he had just fought with and had commanded till now.

Helik and he had known each other fairly well before teaming up but Rok was a mystery to him. The man had joined up with them just before they entered the forest and guided them all the way till here.

The man knew his way around a forest even one as immense as Milanka, and Roan was shocked to hear that this was the man’s first time in these woods.

Before leaving the headquarters, they were told by their superiors that a tracker would aid them in their quest but they had no idea about the identity of the man. An incredible tracker and a terrifying fighter with his blades, the man was an enigma.

“Hmm… I have been a brother-scout for as long as I remember now.” Rok answered earnestly after thinking about it for a while. He scratched his head in frustration, “Ahhhh! I can’t recall anything before that. No wait I think it’s been a century in the least or maybe more…Arr… Bah! All I know is that the brothers signal for me when they have need of me and that I obey the brotherhood as a faithful servant of the Great Mother, everything else is just a distraction. Speaking of which, how is the brotherhood faring these days?”

‘So he is one of the brother-scouts I see, no wonder he acts weird amongst company. The guy is used to being alone for so long, he probably finds solitude to be his sanctuary. No wonder he has gone a little insane, I probably would too in his shoes.’ Roan thought.

It was probably for the best that the man did not know about the brotherhoods decline. Being so entrenched in the empire had its perks. When the empire was at its peak and expanding, the brotherhood thrived, but constant civil war and general imperial incompetence had made empire susceptible to invasions.

The northern Ashari warlords had bled the empire’s coffers dry with their constant skirmishes and managed to conquer a third of its territory, devastating even more. As the empire dwindled so did the brotherhood along with it. If only it had broadened its prospects sooner. As he was mulling it all over in his head a sudden motion caught the corner of his eye.

“That's enough small talk, for now, someone’s trying to sneak away.” Roan interrupted, glancing at the Wagoner who was crawling away to escape as the three warriors were distracted in a conversation but Helik moved swiftly, and grabbed him by the back of his neck, dragging him back to face Roan.

Roan stripped the man of his cloak to reveal a wound in the shape of a gash on his right forearm, clearly having been received during his brief encounter with the beast from earlier, which he had barely survived through.

The wound was quite shallow and caused only minor damage, the beast’s claw barely brushing his skin but Roan knew it would prove to be enough to infect the man, and the man probably feared the same as he tried so desperately to hide it from the three of them.

“You see my brothers, this is why you don’t trust humans,’ Rok said before shaking his head as yet again his predisposition to cynicism had bore fruit.

“Please, it’s just a scratch. I’ll be fine, it’s nothing. Please, I want to live,” the wagoner protested as Roan was studying his wound.

“Don’t you worry little man, we won't be needing to kill you,” Roan assured and the wagoner sighed in relief at that. “Just be needing your right hand, that’s all.” The wagoner shuddered in horror at that and struggled to escape, but there was no escaping from Helik’s powerful hold.

“Stop squirming and consider yourself lucky, atleast you get to live with a perfectly usable hand, not everyone has that opportunity,” Roan tried to console as Rok unsheathed his longblade and started heating it up using the flames.

When the steel became hot enough and had a reddish glow around it, he used it to slice the clawed portion of the wagoner’s right arm which happened to be the entirety of his right forearm.

Blood sprayed out of the mouth of the stump that was the man’s remaining right arm as the rest of it landed on the ground below him, but before the man could bleed to death, Rok used the flat of his blade on the stump to cauterize the wound and halt the bleeding.

After wailing in agony for a brief moment the wagoner passed out and crashed to the ground motionless, unable to retain his consciousness amidst excruciating pain.