Interlude – For Honour and Glory

***Destroyed ogre camp near the hound valleys***

**Day 4**

*Jeanne*

“Captain Jeanne we secured our position, and the scouts have already been dispatched to look for any remaining ogres that might be nearby, we await your orders.”

I looked at the scrawny man that barely reached my shoulders. It was not that I was tall for a human; it was that he was too small for one. Nevertheless, he was one the finest knights I had under my command. When it came to sword mastery and tactics, few could beat him. Sometimes, I wonder why he wasn’t the captain instead of me, but guess that they wanted a paladin Holy Fire to be in charge. Not that he wanted the job anyway – “Too much hassle,” – he says. Well, with everything that’s been going on, I don’t blame him. I would rather go back to protecting church’s apostles on their way to holy city Sanctorum.

“Good work Kingsley, continue to keep order and secure our position. We will probably move out at the dawn. There are still vermin out there, in a need to die.” – I said, raising my visor to get a better look at the surroundings or more correct would be to say - what’s left of them.

We currently were at the remains of ogre camp, and it was hard to imagine that just a few days ago it was an ordinary village. Most of the buildings were burned down and those that were left were in no shape to be liveable in. Not to mention the sheer amount of corpses and rotten flesh that could be seen lying around. All-in-all a disgusting sight to behold.

“Is there anything else to report?” I asked.

“Yes captain, it seems ogres took prisoners. There are some who are still alive but in bad condition. I don’t know if they will be able to move out with us. Some of them may never walk again, and we will be lucky if half of them wakes up to see another day. Healers are tending them as we speak, but they say it’s already a miracle they lasted this long. Besides that, I strongly suggest we take some of our earth mages and bury the pit ogres consider a kitchen. The sight of half-eaten human flesh might bring down the morale otherwise,” – and in quieter voice added – “If there’s any of that even left, after sight like this.”

“Prisoners… huh… That’s new, never heard they took prisoners, but from what you described, my guess is that most of the time they just died, before we could recover any.”

That left me to ponder. Could we have saved more if we struck the camp night before, instead of carefully scouting and looking for an opening? No, that’s just wishful thinking, there’s no guarantee that the fight would go as good as it did now.

“Alright Kingsley, I’ll leave the mages to you, they get prickly when it comes to talking with a paladin. Something about our order putting pressure on them, I guess.” – I always wondered about that, I consider magic and mana a gift from the God of Holy Fire. How else would you be able to explain the miracles they could perform with magic? Unfortunately, not everyone in the order shared my beliefs.

“Yes captain, I’m on it!”

“That’s all then, may the Holy Fire light your way and protect you!” – I dismissed him and went to survey the camp.

There was still work to do, even if it felt ages since I last took a decent bath, the enemy won’t wait for me. Horrible, to think that in two short weeks we lost 4 towns and 13 villages to these monsters. No matter what the council says, they don’t deserve to be called one of the sentient races, as they only think about killing and eating. I shudder to think that they are allowed their own seat on the council. It seems, rest of us treating them as civilised beings, only made them greedier. Strange, though, that the great ogre warchief denies going to war with us, usually they don’t hold back like that. You would think there’s some kind of underlying plot behind it, but when half of the northern ogre tribes march on our territory and slaughter left and right, there’s little need for any plotting to be involved. No, I refuse to believe that the savages I’ve seen in this fallen encampment can design any plot worth a damn! Why should they, when sheer numbers and strength is enough? Anyway, there are people better suited for figuring out ogre politics, I’m just here to clean up and help the people.

Hmm, while I’m at it, I should probably check on the released prisoners, maybe there’s someone I know. I heard the Lorick’s family moved to Bristol recently. Hope they managed to escape death. Even if not, the survivors might feel safer if they see that someone from an order of Holy Fire is guarding them, and maybe I will find her… No! I don’t want to get my hopes up for this; it’s already hard as is. With that in mind, I made for the healer tents.

End of interlude

***What used to be town of Bristol***

**Day 5**

*Trey*

So many people dead ripped apart by swords and axes. Fucking monsters, damn them.

As I stood there, looking over the carnage, I shuddered. Bodies laid everywhere, looking at me with their blank eyes. Staring, judging me. Judging me for being alive, while they lay dead. I saw people I knew, missing parts of their bodies. No… STOP LOOKING! Have to, got to, need to do something. Survivors! Yes! Need to stop standing here like a fool, got to look for any survivors. There must be some! Please God, let this be the worst of it.

Found none. At least no one responded to my shouts.

I sat in the corner pale-faced. While searching, I must have emptied my stomach at least 5 times. The air felt heavy, with the smell of blood invading my nostrils, making me dizzy. Amongst the human, daemon and beastman corpses, laid what I think were ogres. They looked just like in the descriptions, minus the missing limbs. Still, they were a minority and if the signs of fighting could be believed, they were the ones attacking the village. Ogres usually don’t visit human towns. Guess now I know why what with the random killings. Huh… I don’t mean sounding like an asshole, but really, cracking a joke was all that kept me from passing out in this carnage. There was no time for crying, while I checked the major streets, I still need to check inside the houses.

Opening the door to my childhood crushes Sandra’s family house, I was met with another bloody scene. I emptied my stomach for what seems like 6th time and ran outside. No survivors, Sandra, the cute girl I used to chase with flowers and sweet promises, dead, without her head and arms laid on the kitchen table, with bite wounds, which looked like they had been done by a beast, all over her. Her family laid scattered around her in the same condition.

Be strong, I repeated to myself for what seemed like 100th time and, and went on to look for any signs of life.

“Thud”

Suddenly I heard a sound coming from the major’s house. I rushed there, opened the door and what greeted me, was not the sight of mangled corpses, it was way worse. 5 ogres with sacks that dripped blood and their backs, now looked at me, their eyes gleaming.

“AaaaaaaA!” – I screamed, closing the door and bolting away.

Fuck, idiot, moron, shit-for-brains Trey. Why didn’t you just leave, while you had the chance? Why would you insist on looking for survivors, while you don’t know if the killers are still around? Be selfish for once, when your survival depends on it.

I didn’t even need to look behind me, to know that was being chased, and because of my poor athletic abilities, they were catching up. I need to think fast. I could lead them to a caravan on the main road, those have guards. No, I can’t, there are usually around 2 or 3 guards guarding a single caravan, versus five ogres, they won’t last long. Caravan guards are usually old retired soldiers, while the ogres looked like they just couldn’t get enough of killing done in one day. So instead of bringing my troubles to them, I dashed for the nearby forest.

I kept on running, branches hitting my face, barely finding my way deeper in the forest. If my wonderful healing didn’t kick in, I would have stopped long ago, as somewhere along the way I already managed to sprain my ankles multiple times. Shitty forest, shitty trees, shitty roots. At this point, I was already too tired to think of any better insult or whether it was even necessary to insult inanimate objects. I just hope those bastards have just as hard of a time catching up. Sparing a moment to look back, it didn’t look good for me. I hasten my steps even more, but the ogres kept chasing me like hounds. Now, the only thing keeping me going was the power of sheer will. That and the thought of becoming ogre barbeque. Somewhere along the way I, probably, already broke the speed limit my body was capable of. Shit, they must be hungry from all this running. I can already imagine their surprise when after taking a bite out of me, they discover that the meat just keeps on coming.

“Push forward! Few more steps Trey! Don’t let the shitheads catch you!” – I kept on repeating.

Suddenly, I saw the light of the campfire, and if I saw it, the ogres must have seen it too.

“Dammit, I led them to more people!” – I cursed under my breath.

I must warn them. I cannot just push my problems on others. Where I suck at dying, they might not. Even if I turned and ran different direction, who’s to say that the ogres will not split up, half following me and half going for early breakfast. So I ran to the campsite shouting with all the air I had left in my lungs.

“Run you fuckers, run! Or they will kill y…”

Before I could even finish my sentence, a huge ball of fire greeted my face.

Interlude – Cooking club

***Somewhere in forest***

**Day 5**

*Khanos*

It had been 4 days since I hid in the forest. The assassins just kept coming. I’m already half-mad from not having enough sleep. How could I sleep, when every moment could be my last? Thankfully, it’s nothing a few well-placed crystal traps and fireballs can’t fix. Unfortunately, as I’m inside a forest, fire tends to spread, so I had to simultaneously split my control over the spell and its aftermath, just so I don’t set everything around me on fire. Being a master fire mage doesn’t make me immune to fire. Control is everything, and it’s something that gets harder with less sleep. My bleeding leg didn’t help either, burning the wound clean could only fix so much. I had to resort to finding common medicinal plants for treating that wound. Thankfully, a mage training includes basic survival course. Still, I got more than I bargained for when I took this quest.

After 2 days of really slow travel towards mountains that divided the territory between Kundun Empire and Beast lands, I set up a camp. To cross the mountains, I will at least need to recover some of the lost strength. At least 2 days of rest should do it for me and my leg.

Scavenging for food, was not as easy as Instructor Carol showed it to be. Worse, I got bit by a squirrel, while trying to search a bird’s nest for some eggs. I didn’t even know that squirrels attacked people. They aren’t even magic beasts. Well, at least now I can safely say that squirrels taste like similar to undercooked brahham, though those might be my amazing cooking skills at fault here, I’ll blame lack of salt and that the squirrels are generally not tasty.

As I got ready to at least catch some light sleep on my improvised leaf bed. I heard shouts coming closer.

“Fucking bastards, already found my trail again, didn’t take them long.” – I cursed

How do they keep finding me? Strangely enough, this time it looks like they ditched the steal approach, rushing in right for the kill. Probably think I’m already too weak to be a threat. Well, I’ll show them that the genius master magician Khanos is no easy prey.

Gathering mana in my hands, I cast fireblast, too tired to even consider the consequences of releasing something larger than fireball inside a forest anymore, I tossed it at the fucker who kept on shouting something about me running away. I was not running! It’s called strategical retreat. Let’s see you stay still, when there is assassin organization on your heels, though you won’t be seeing anything anymore, burned black as you are, your pieces scattered to 4 winds.

“Ahaha” – I let out a low laugh which by now sounded a little maniacal. Seems like they still underestimate me, sending rookies that don’t even try to dodge.

That laugh was quickly cut short by the sight of 5 ogres coming in my vision.

“So now they send beasts to do their dirty work? Well not like I care, you will all look the same when roasted black.” – I snarled at them, releasing more fireblasts.

The ogres were caught unprepared, for some reason. So I managed to take 2 out before they even noticed me. The three remaining ones looked at me with a startled expression. Strange, didn’t they inform them about their target before accepting the job? Well, no sympathy for them, as we are now in the same boat, water slowly filling it, I now knew the feeling well. There’s only one lifeboat and I already got the seat reserved.

Next, came the hard part, the remaining ones, despite their earlier blunder, reacted fast and hid behind trees, and started circling around me, getting closer and closer. No matter what they say about ogre idiocy, they are still natural born hunters and forests are their home turf. I need something to even the odds. Let’s see if I can make them charge me.

“I piss on your mother’s graves, you stupid cunts! Come, try to kill me, you fuckers! If not for my leg, I would have already cut your balls off and fed them to you.” – They should at least give me credit for trying as that’s the rudest thing I had ever said, period.

Unfortunately, it seems ogres didn’t appreciate my fine language arts and just kept on encircling me, getting closer and closer.

Guess I need to go with plan B. Gathering as much mana around me in a circle as I could, I slowly started to back away while pretending to trip against tree roots. That gave the beasts a chance they’ve been waiting for, they came charging, weapons raised. They should have taken the lesion from assassins, and left someone who stayed back to cover their friends, but I guess they are too excited. Fortunately, their mistake gave me a chance to add three new roasted corpses to my kill list. Just as they closed in, I released all my gathered mana in a fiery blast around me.

Fire Nova, one skill any self-respecting fire mage should learn. Unfortunately, it cost me all of my remaining mana. Staggering, I moved to collect my things, and…

“Fuck”

Should have known. They don’t call fire nova one of the flashiest, coolest, but hard to use the skill in battle for nothing. All the spare clothes and food I collected turned into charred dust. Besides that, the forest was on fire, and I didn’t have enough mana or mental strength to do anything about it. I need to move fast or become smoked bacon.

If I remember correctly, there should be a river further down south. Alsa the river that signifies the start of true wilderness. If before it, you could expect to meet local hunters, then after the river, the only thing you’ll ever meet are magic beasts and adventurers, with adventurers being the rare ones.

I ran, ignoring the growing pain in my leg, knowing I’m racing against time. While I could control smoke and temperature around me to some degree even being low on mana, the temperature will soon reach threshold too high for me.

End of interlude

Interlude – Every good weapon needs to be field-tested.

***Ogre camp near the hound valleys***

**Day 5**

*Aeania*

I woke up, strange, I figured that with the wounds I had, I wouldn’t. Well, I’m all for pleasant surprises, not many of those left these days. Last, I remember, I had my ribs kicked in, now I was lying in bed, which was a huge improvement overall. The air smelled like herbs, again, a huge improvement over the smell of rotten flesh and shit. Besides that, nobody was trying to kill me, and again… well, you get the gist of it. I could see people in white cloaks rushing about. I recognized Kundun empires coat of arms on the cloaks. Must be army’s white mages. Around me, I could see more people in beds similar to mine thank God more of us survived. I tried calling out to one of the healers, but my mouth was parched like Sandy Desert and barely any sound came out.

I tried again: “Water, please.”

It came out in croaked voice, but this time one of them noticed I was awake.

Recognizing my need, the healer came to my bed with a clay jug, and while helping me sit up, gave me water.

“Careful, don’t rush, you are in safe hands now. No need to worry, you will have plenty of food and water,” – she said in a gentle tone.

Speaking to me as if I’m a child. I almost rolled my eyes at her, but the truth was, her words did come as a small relief and helped my constricted muscles to relax. I didn’t even realize I was subconsciously readying myself for another attack. After emptying half the jug, I was finally able to get the feeling back in my parched tongue.

“Thanks.”

“No problem, it’s the least we can do after what you’ve been through.” - The young white mage responded.

“Can you tell me what happened?” – I asked.

“Easy there, you don’t need to worry so much about the situation, first tell me your name and then I’ll see about filling you in on what’s going on.”

“It’s Aeania, Aeania Coniara.”

“Well it’s nice to meet you Aeania; I’m Juliana, though you can call me Jules, at least everybody else does that. For now, you should rest here, as for what happened, well, our army’s company arrived yesterday. We wipe out all the filth that was here, and under the command of our captain Jeanne, established this position as our current base camp.”

They were dead, those fucking monsters gone. I won’t be able to get my revenge like this, but I guess it’s better this way. This way, I can move on, and not let madness consume me.

As if, remembering Jules coughed to catch my wandering attention.

“Are you alright?” – She asked, - “If you need more rest, I can leave you to it, and when need something, just call me. The captain wanted to talk with you, she seemed to know you, but if you’re still feeling bad then it can wait. We will only move out tomorrow, as captain decided to stay here until we heal the injured.”

“No, I’m fine, I was just thinking. You said captain wanted to see me? All right, I think I’m well enough to go see her. You really did a good job of fixing my old bones, only slight dizziness remains.”

“Alright, just don’t overdo it. Yesterday, we weren’t sure if you would survive with those broken ribs and internal bleeding. Fortunately, I’m proud to say that we are one of the finest healer groups in the army. It’s probably general Hendrik giving the church some face by assigning us to the same unit as paladin captain Jeanne.” - With that, she turned and left to help other patients.

I slowly got up; dizziness intensified for a moment, but I overcame it. Thankfully, I was not wearing my old dirty clothes. Seems they provided me with grey cotton trousers and shirt, while I was sleeping. Modesty was never my strong suit, and besides that, I was once an army myself, there everybody slept together in one huge room, you could always choose to sleep outside if you wished for privacy. I hope they burned my old clothes, I would not want to wear them ever again or let anyone near them for that matter. It must be a health hazard to just be around them, let alone wear them.

Daylight greeted my face, as I exited the healers’ tent. It seems to be close to evening already. Seems that I was asleep for little more than a day. Hmm, now where should I go? It should be the biggest tent, right? I mean, where else would captains’ living quarters be. However, that status was taken by healers’ tent, and kitchen. I felt something wet touch my chin. Am I drooling? Woah, that’s a first. I need to visit there soon. All these days of eating nothing but the horrible gruel they gave me. I shuddered; even army food was welcome after that horrible experience, however, that could wait after I find the captain, for now, I should ask someone for directions.

A couple of inquiries and a few minutes later, I stood in front of a small grey tent, which for all means and purposes seemed to belong to a peddler, if not for the soldier’s assurances, that this was what I am looking for, I wouldn’t have considered it. I just can’t imagine what kind of person would choose this over the more extravagant ones, usually used by someone in charge. Only one person fit the criteria, both her name and the lack of pomp, but last time I saw her, she was just a church’s trainee. A young girl, not more than twelve of age, so dedicated to her role of becoming the perfect knight in shining armour, constantly practising her sword swings and happily helping people.

“Hello little J, long time not seen,” – I said with a smile, while entering the tent; to the person currently busy looking over maps.

She looked up at me, beaming with a smile of her own.

“Aunt Aeania, I’m so glad you are safe.” – She said, running closer and embracing me.

“The healers were not confident when they found you, and I was so scared that just as I found you I would lose you again.”

“It’s okay,” – I answered gently holding the crying girl, - “everything is fine, you do not need to worry anymore. I’m all right. Shush now, you are a paladin and a captain now, you cannot go around crying. What would the soldiers think if they saw you right now?”

“I don’t care what they think, as long as they follow orders, but you are right. Just give me a second to compose myself. Oh, it’s just that I haven’t seen you since you left with the army, and after I was promoted to captains rank and wanted to go look for you, they told me you retired and now we're living with your family. So, I never got to thank you for all the times you helped and protected me. Now finding you in this beast nest hurt, well, I didn’t know what to think, but I’m all right now. Or I will be, now that you are here.”

“I’m glad to see you too, but our reunion party will have to wait. While being held a prisoner, I heard some unsettling things I need to tell you.” – I took a deep breath, - “I think the ogres are acting too strangely, as much as I would love to believe they are just horrible monsters, I have actually met and talked with some of their kind when I was still in the army. They were nothing like these ones. Sure, they fought most of the time, and it was easy to see that they are quite war-like people, but they were not like this. Besides that, I overheard them mention some kind of master or masters on multiple occasions. It’s the first time I have heard an ogre would take anyone as his or her master, they would rather die before becoming slaves to someone, their pride would not allow it.”

“Hold up!” - She let go of me and looked at me strangely.

“We just met again and you start with something like this? What are you saying? Are you defending their actions? After all, they did to you and to the people in your village.”

“I know this is sudden, but this is impor..”

“You should know that your village was not the only one; they burned down and feasted upon many more. Four towns and thirteen villages have already fallen to them! I can’t believe you are saying things like this! Are you sure, you should be walking around; you are clearly still not healthy enough to be out of the bed. Here, let me call healers for you.”

“Wait”, - I interrupted her, - “You should know that they killed my whole family, just before capturing me. You should know that all that’s left for me is my hatred for them, but even so, hatred should not be misplaced. The monsters that took my family from me are dead. So listen to what I could learn from this, not just blindly rush to put a blame on a whole species. As I said, they didn’t act like anything I knew about them. They were more aggressive, I would say even evil, and I have never seen ogre eat their own dead before. I even think it was one of their own taboos, in their long list of tribe rules. Besides that, we cannot rule out that there is some force behind this sudden invasion. We need to think carefully about everything, before making rash decisions. Just like you would never blame me for my races ability to turn into demons, at least give what I’m saying a fair thought.”

She took a long look at me and then nodded.

“Alright, as my mentor, someone I truly care for and trust deeply, I just can’t dismiss what you said, but this doesn’t change things for now. I can still send what you said to general Hendrik, but with no proof, it’s up to him if he believes this and does anything with that information. The reality is that there are still groups of these monsters out there. Even if you believe they are being controlled, they are still out there killing people and so we need to stop them as soon as possible. Will you help me?”

At that, I smiled at her again – “Like before, I will be there to support you. You can already consider myself one of your soldiers.”

“What silly thought, you being a soldier, with your skills you are already a knight. If anything, you are more than qualified to lead this company, at least more than I am right now. Let’s go, I need to introduce you to the rest of knights, and we have a strategy meeting to attend. For now, I won’t give out the news about what you told me, other than send a sealed letter to the general; otherwise, this might bring unrest to soldiers and bring down morale.”

With that, we walked out of the tent.

End of interlude

***Somewhere in what used to be forest***

**Day 6**

*Trey*

I woke up. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to me anymore, especially after the last time I died, but it still kind of did. Leaning against a charred tree stump, I observed what must have been my charred lower body, laying nearby.

“Guess it’s not mine anymore. Hmm, I guess I’m actually immortal then, sigh.”

“That should be good in a situation like this,” – I tried to cheer myself up, but somehow in light of the recent events the cheer seemed dull.

Bristol was gone, presumably destroyed by a group of ogres. My own village was not even day’s journey away from the town. It’s safe to assume either village was destroyed or soon it will be.

Here I lay naked, charred trees around me, with no idea what to do now.

Hmm, first I should see what became of my pursuers and that rude guy, who shot a giant ball of fire straight at me, without even asking who I am. Still, guess I can’t blame him. I would do the same to the fucker, who brought five bloodthirsty ogres to my campsite. It’s not like I lost that much, only clothes I had.

I checked around for anything useful, and after round of digging under some still smoking tree husks, I found a dagger in passable condition on ogre corpse. Well, they did have swords and axes too, but those were either too big for me to carry or burned so badly that iron was melted in some places. Ogres usually use iron weapons, and no sane merchant wants to visit them to sell steel ones, for obvious reasons. So the quality was crappy, but beggars can’t be choosers.

As for the guy that killed me in the first place, he was long gone somewhere or killed by fire, and I saw no reason to go looking for someone who thought I was dead.

“Guess I’ll go back home and hope for the best.” – I decided.

I should learn from mistakes and just leave, but the village was my home. If there is a chance my warning might save some lives in case the Ogres still haven’t gotten that far, even if the chance is slim, I had to risk it. I won’t be able to sleep soundly if I just abandon everyone I ever knew.

So I got up and went back where I came from. Worst case scenario, I can find closure on village situation, get some clothes, collect the money under floorboards, and then I will… well…

“I will decide after I get there.” – With new determination and goal in mind, I travelled back.