Interlude – A joyful adventure… is not this

***Forest – the one that’s slightly on fire***

**Day 5-8**

*Khanos*

“Fuck it’s hot.” – I cursed, as I ran through the forest.

My strength was fading and not because my lack of mana, no, it was fading because I have been neglecting my physical exercises in the academy. Who could blame me at the time, I mean, I was a genius prodigy. If someone even mentioned the subject of me skipping few physical preparation classes or field trips, I would just point out, that compared to them, I was the one kicking ass and they were the ones who were still stuck as apprentices or adepts. Look who’s laughing now, I certainly wasn’t. Not with this burning sensation in my stomach, not to mention burning sensation outside my stomach, that could be attributed to flaming trees which surrounded me. No, the lack of mana might have something to do with it but facing the reality of the situation I knew better.

Climbing over another fallen tree that was in my way, I kept running, flames rushing along me. No ordinary flames would be this greedy, these were mana powered ones, cast by master magician, and while the mana inside of them wasn’t completely depleted, the flames would go on with incredible speed.

“Where is the bloody river,” – I raged, just as the river came into my view, – “Figures.”

The irony of life didn’t even have time to strike, as cold water greeted me. It felt so good, it was even better than going for a dive after spending time in a hot sauna. I can say with 100% certainty, that this was the best swim, I ever had. Only when the air supply in my lungs started to dwindle, I hastily surfaced. Even with my subpar survival skills, it was easy to tell where the south was, you know, with the north side of the river being flaming pyre and all. So using my “incredible” swimming and deduction skills, I located the opposite side and climbed out. As much as I enjoyed being in the water, you can never know what kind of nasty beasts may be lurking within, especially this far of civilization.

Looking at the other side, I could see simultaneously awe-inspiring and horrifying spectacle. The forest was burning as far as the eye could see. I wasn’t worried about this becoming problem for the common folk. Mana inside the flames should almost be gone by now and the forest wasn’t that dry in the first place. The spread was only so horrifying because I used all my mana pool in that desperate attempt of self-defence. Besides that, it didn’t concern me. I’m getting out of the empire that wants me dead, and if I can send them a parting gift, well, that’s fine by me. Still, it was nice to see that the river was wide enough to keep that shit on the other side.

Fatigue struck me as lightning; damn but I needed a rest. At this point, I think I will take my chances, and just make a camp here. Some clean water and beauty sleep will do wonders for my skin complexion, and the fact I could barely keep walking. Not caring about any assassins anymore, as they probably weren’t fireproof, I found the cosiest place I could and fell asleep.

Morning, pain, headaches, the usual, for a second there I was hoping I would open my eyes, and around me, would be tavern room. My headache - from a major hangover from celebrating with my friends, pain in the leg - because of the pretty girl that fell asleep on my leg in an awkward pose. Nope, shitty forest it is.

“Well, a man can dream,” – I sighed.

I tried to get up only to fall with a scream, as my leg protested. Checking made it clear that yesterday’s physical activities weren’t doing any favours for it. The wound I burned close, had broken open in multiple places and was worse than before, at this point I didn’t know what would kill me first: wild animals, beast or just plain simple infection. Sleeping in wet clothes hadn’t helped either. At this point, I realised a headache might be from the fever I’m having. I hope it’s a common cold, otherwise, I’m screwed. I heard sepsis could kill in a day if not treated, unfortunately, I couldn’t see any apothecaries around here, and so all I could do is grit my teeth and go look for herbs. Therefore, I got up, took out my canteen and tried washing my wound as much as my skills allowed. I hope that can delay my horrible and painful death until I find something that can help. Finishing with my wound, I refilled my canteen, using magic to boil the water inside making it drinkable, and went on my herbal quest.

Three hours later and I knew I was fucked, as I had no idea what to look for. Well, okay, that’s not entirely true. I knew few plants that might help in this kind of situation, but I couldn’t find any of them. The best I could do was to look for any plant I knew had something to do with treating wounds, and hope they had the needed effect.

Another two hours later and I had a contraption I could apply to my wound, made from five different plants, I hoped had a medicinal effect I needed, so I mixed them together and using part of my shirt tied half them around the wound. Rest of them I ate, because what’s the difference, dying from poisoning or dying from sepsis? I’ll take my chances.

I wanted to sleep; still, I couldn’t return to the river and set camp again. I had no idea if the assassins just assumed I died in the fire or if they will keep on coming. Therefore, I kept moving forward. Mountains were not that far anymore, I could already see them. I needed to get there, find some cave that I could crawl into, and spend time nursing myself back to health. At this point, my only hope was that herbs worked and I was no longer slowly dying.

As the sun slowly set, I knew I would not see it rise again, the last hours already proved that to me. Moving was getting harder, my sight was blurry, and my head kept pounding hard. I tried to look for any of the herbs I needed, but it was all for nought. One can only praise healers and their incredible skills at finding herbs.

Suddenly, my vision shifted completely, as I fell; tripped by a root I didn’t see. I tried to move, get up, do something, anything, but my conscience kept on slipping away. With a weak laugh, I thought about how in the end the thing that killed me, were not the numerous assassins they send but was something simple as blood poisoning. The only thing I regretted in this life was not killing the one who sent those fuckers. Well, that and the night my friends asked me to visit a brothel with them, instead of studying.

“Fuck, I could have said yes” – I murmured as blackness took me.

Death was painless, blackness, nothingness.

…

Aaaand boring, don’t forget boring. I don’t know how long I was here. I fell in and out of conscience. I felt nothing, couldn’t move, couldn’t see or hear. It was just black and boring. Is this what everyone feels when they die? (Come on god, if you are there, do me a solid and help me out.) – I thought as loudly as I could. Can you even think loudly? I don’t know, I just tried, but nothing answered.

Finally, after some time I woke up again. This time, I knew something was different, this time, I could feel my body; I could feel the weight of it. I tried to move, but couldn’t. I opened my eyes and blackness still greeted me. No, wait! I could see small lights illuminating what seems to be a cave ceiling. Was I not dead? What was with all the blackness then? How did I get here? Will I ever be able to move my body again? So many questions and no answers that came with them, still I was alive and I could feel.

After few minutes of trying, I was able to move my fingers, and after few more, I could move my head. Looking around I could see other people in various conditions lying about. Some were missing arms, some heads, most looked like empty old dried up husks. The closest ones were thankfully the best looking ones.

Where was I anyway? It looked like a cave full of corpses. Suddenly, a huge spider’s corpse came into my vision. For a moment, I thought it was just a large grey rock, but taking a closer look revealed a grey hairy beast, the size of a brahham. It looked dead, and I honestly hoped it was dead. I was in no condition to fight that thing if it was just pretending. However, no, it had multiple cut wounds and its blood was pooling underneath it.

Taking my time, and getting used to my numb body, I slowly got up. The other four, lying near me, were not a threat. Two were already dead, and other two were still unconscious. Quietly creeping my way to caves entrance, I found what seemed to be a guard asleep in his post. A strange guy for a guard, while he had a sword on his lap, he was dressed in peasant garbs and was sleeping on his job. Well, this will be the last mistake he makes. I slowly took his sword, placed it to his neck, and then in a quiet voice, while shaking him, said – “Wakey, wakey, you little piece of shit. We are now going to have a nice conversation about who you are working for and where are we.”

He woke with a startle, somehow managing to draw blood from the sword. I cursed to myself, as he was of no use to me dead, then dumbfounded stared at the cut mark as it closed right before my eyes. Shit… What? How? Was that healing magic? So fast, at least master healer skill required there. This is going to be a hard fight if I accidentally let him go.

The person just looked and me and smirked. – “You should put that away, that’s no way to treat someone who saved you.”

“We’ll see about that after you answer some question first.” – I said, still gripping my sword to his throat. – “Where are we? Were you sent by them?”

End of interlude

Interlude – Party for three

***Another forest, what else is new? ***

**Day 6-9**

*Saruk*

Next days were quite uneventful. We spent them as usual, training and fighting, it was not that much different from everyday life at our tribal home. This is actually, what has been bothering me. Every time someone goes through adulthood ceremony it involves the whole tribe making a feast and celebrating, but I’ve seen no action towards that goal. Hunters are still bringing back regular amounts of food. Firewood for pyres is not being prepared. I mentioned this to Cramak, but he just shrugged at me in his usual fashion. I should have known better than asking him about things, he would deem unworthy of his attention.

Cramak has always been like that, I knew him since we were children after all. We are blood brothers, different mothers, but together by our trust and friendship. That wasn’t always the case. I remember that when we were young, we constantly fought each other. I don’t even remember why or who started it, we just didn’t get along that well. It has been constant competition between us ever since, and along the way, the fights became less about punching each other because I hated the fucker and more about punching each other to improve our skills. Well, I heard worse reasons to call someone a friend, and I wasn’t complaining. Being an ogre came with being ready to have someone attack you at any time, for many reasons, but mainly – Position, dominance, ridicule, strength. It didn’t help that ogre rules not only allowed this but also encouraged it. Want someone’s spot in elders’ council? Beat the living shit out of him and claim it as your own. Got a bone to pick with someone? Hit him so hard he doesn’t remember his own name, and after that hit him some more for being dumb enough to forget his name. So, it came handy to have someone you could, if not trust exactly, then at least know he would challenge you openly instead of backstabbing or sucker punching you when you were down.

Instead of making a deal out of his apathy, I just went and directly asked Urmaram what the deal was. This was the only time I’ve had seen Urmaram sweat. I mean everyone knew he was a horrible liar, and that was the reason I asked him, but the dude just broke out sweating and ran off in an opposite direction. What the hell, what was that all about? Hmm, he probably knew I would get information out of him one way or another, so he just chose to bolt away. The only person who could keep Urmaram so tight-lipped was Shakh. That’s where my leads end. Dad would never tell me anything I didn’t need to know before it actually happens. Strange as it may be, I had no choice, but to wait it out.

One bonus that we got from all this, was that those language training sessions ended. I could finally speak normally with everyone. I get now why he ordered us to learn, but I still remember the first few weeks of speaking and trying to explain that you wanted food and not to dig a hole in the ground. That one got me by surprise; it was one of the rules included in our training – “If you say something incorrectly and it could be interpreted otherwise, then you will have to live with consequences.” According to what I said, instead of wanting enough food for the day. I asked for enough work for the day. So, the cook just gave me a shovel and told me to dig from the kitchen door till tomorrow, in a straight line. I got blisters and he got an easy way to get rid of kitchen filth through the canal I dug. That one made me take this training seriously. As for Cramak and Thaton, well, Thaton took this as if his life depended on it. I think his father told him that if he makes a disgrace of himself, he will be removed from the family, but that’s just a guess. Cramak on the other hand, in his usual fashion, just shrugged and did his own. He never complained at the punishments, but then again, he never did talk much or care about things.

Anyway, it seems like there won’t be any worthwhile celebration before we leave. Just as I was about to live with that happy thought, Cramak came to visit. Apparently, he just didn’t want to leave like that, so instead, he used some of his favours with the other ogres and got us a bag full of booze. The plan was for us to make our own fun, and spend the day drinking and hunting animals in the forest, as our own little graduation party. That did surprise me, as I didn’t expect Cramak to be the one who would start something like this, but I guess even a guy apathetic as he is, wants to go into adulthood with a bang. Before we even got started, Thaton got a hold of the news and insisted on joining us. Sometimes, I just don’t understand the guy, he hates my guts, and now he wants to join? All right, I’ll allow it this time, besides it’s as much of his celebration as it is ours, well that, and I was afraid he would tell on us if we didn’t let him join.

Long story short, we now stood in front of our Warchief, having the worst hangover ever. Apparently, last night we went around trying to pick a fight with everyone we met, and someone had seen Cramak wrestle a bear barehanded. That might explain why we found him bloody next day (though, most of the blood was not his). That was not all, as apparently, because of us, tribe needed to move a camp day earlier. In our drunken stupor, we had chased away a potential spy, that our hunters had been stalking. It was hard to look into father’s eyes. I think, even the apathetic Cramak was a bit ashamed. Though you could hardly tell, by the grin he had when Shakh recounted reports about his bear fight. Urmaram was standing in the corner holding in a fit of laughter, and being quite unsuccessful at doing so. Thumal was just looking at us with a complex expression, something between disgust and amusement. I had to say, that I almost split a grin too, but I was not that thick-skinned, and in the end, couldn’t manage a laugh. As for Thaton, he currently was undergoing what I could only describe as morphing into a white mushroom – Getting paler and smaller with each sentence.

Shakh sighed, for what seemed hundredth time.

“You dumb youngsters, what should I do with you now? Should I just strip you of your status and make you work as mules for the rest of the year?”

I shivered, and just like that, any semblance of a grin was gone from our faces. It seems we fucked up big time. Argh, if only my head wasn’t pounding right now, making it hard to think of anything to say.

“I really should,” – He said with a grim expression, – “is this how upcoming adults should behave?”

I wanted to say sorry, to say that it won’t happen again, but excuses were not our people’s way. What’s done is done, and we would have to live with it. No matter the punishment, we will have to accept it with heads held high.

“Until adulthood ceremony comes, you will all stay in this tent. I will discuss with others what to do with you in meantime.”

With that, they left and we were now alone.

“Fuck!” – I could only say that to this situation.

Thaton couldn’t be forced to express himself, as he was currently busy having a moral dilemma about whether or not he should go kill a dragon to recover his lost honour (basically a suicide mission). Cramak on the other hand still had a smile on his face, and when I turned to him, to ask if he found all of this funny, he just winked and refused to answer. As for me, well, I honestly don’t know, I didn’t regret what we did. It was fun and from what I heard, the only thing that required punishment was messing with hunters prey. So, as I had nothing better to do, I just leaned against the wooden table and started studying maps.

Currently, the camp was south of a city called Salem. We tried to contact them many times, but alas, all our scouts were met with arrows and magic. Thus, we chose to abandon the ungrateful bunch, and focus on leaving this doomed land as soon as possible. Doomed, yes that would perfectly explain the situation. Corruption everywhere, the invaders left nothing to chance, and those that didn’t join them were massacred. Worse than that, everyone who joined, at the promise of power, changed for worse. The change was gradual at first, many wanted to join as they didn’t notice anything wrong with the free power they have been given. As months passed, we became aware that everyone who agreed was no longer the same. Left with the choice of becoming slaves, fighting them and dying, or try to run and warn others, we chose the latter. If our elders were correct the power they gained was through the mean of forcing spirits to serve the host. The invaders said it was different from demon possession, and in a sense, it really was, at least at the start. Days passed and the corrupted didn’t lose themselves, they didn’t grow demon horns, didn’t change physically, of course until they did, and then it was already too late. They still looked the same, but when you spoke to them, you could see the never-ending hunger in their eyes. Thus, we left while we still could, and they followed our footsteps, chasing us down.

If nothing changed, our small group would need to cross Red Run River and travel to border of Death Sea on our way to southern ogre tribes (I refused to call it Sandy desert, as humans decided to. The name was insulting to one of the continents deadliest places. We ogres respect enemy that can threaten us). While the rest of tribe use mountain pass to go south into the Beast lands. I really hope, they still decide to send us for this mission; it would bring us shame if we are too incompetent after what we did.

After few hours, another ogre brought us food. I tried to ask him what had the Warchief decided, but he refused to answer and murmured - “Warchief’s orders” – as he left. At this point, it had become so boring, that I suggested we hold sparring session with the three of us to pass time. Cramak was all for it, and even Thaton regained some semblance of an ogre as he agreed.

Few hours and couple of bruises later, we still had no way of knowing, how long we had to stay here. I mean, they couldn’t make us stay here until tomorrow. Today’s already day that adulthood ceremony should be held. Thankfully, I finally heard footsteps nearing the tent. I sighed in relief; the wait was more of punishment than anything I could imagine they would ask from us.

Tent entrance flew open as Shakh came in. I was about to ask them about our punishment, but the ceremonial robes he was wearing, made all my questions stuck in my throat.

“Come.” – Only one word from came from our Warchief, as he turned and left.

I looked at the other two: Cramak incredibly calm as always and Thaton who looked like he just had been ordered to walk on his hands for the rest of his life. I was somewhere in the middle, I guess. With no other choice, I took a deep breath started walking, with both of them following behind.

What greeted us, was a huge circle of ogres, with Warchief in the centre, everyone looking solemn. There was huge pyre in the corner, still unlit.

While we still tried to take in our surroundings, the Warchief spoke - “What shall we do with the troublemakers?”

“Burn them! Kick them out! Kill them,” – answered shouts from all sides.

I gulped at that. Surely, nothing we had done required any of those punishments. I tried to say something, but before I could, I heard laughter all around. In confusion, I looked at the faces laughing their ass off, even my father and the always-angry Thumal were chuckling. Frozen, I stood there trying to understand what joke, I was currently missing, as suddenly Urmaram came and pulled us along to the centre of the circle, I could hear him chuckling along the way.

“You should have seen your faces.” – Urmaram said as we neared, Shakh and Thumal, - “Priceless!”

“What do you mean, what about punishment, what’s going on?” – I asked confused.

“Ha! What punishment? Do you really thing ogres care about a bunch of youngsters getting drunk before their big day?” – Still laughing answered Shakh.

“That was just a ruse we put together to get you stay in one place, while we finish preparations for the ceremony.” – Inserted Thumal

“We even had Urmaram ask Cramak, to help us with that.”

“Didn’t village have to move because of us?” – I asked.

“Bahhh” – said Urmaram – “You think such a little thing at the day before the celebration is going to go punished? You should have seen the three of us before we went through our own ceremony. Shakh burned down five tents because in his drunkenness he thought dragons were invading, while Thumal went to nearest human settlement and asked for majors daughter’s hand in marriage, just because we said he wouldn’t do it.”

“Khekhem” – coughed Thumal – “That’s rich, coming from someone who in the same evening managed to frolic around dressed as what you said was paladin garb, but looked more like what humans wear at their weddings.”

Suddenly I turned and punched Cramak’s shoulder: “That’s for not telling us, you asshole.”

He just grinned back and shrugged: “What Warchief says, goes. Ha! Was very funny though, at one point I thought Thaton was going to piss himself from worry.”

“Was not!” – Beet red Thaton countered.

“Sure, sure.” – Cramak just shrugged.

“All right youngsters, you can already see we went easy on you, but now enough jokes. Let’s get this ceremony started!” – Shakh said, and then in louder voice shouted – “Music! Fire!”

Soon, the beats of drums sounded around us in a steady rhythm and the pyre was going on in flames. I was currently busy trying to learn how to dance, from a bunch of girls that surrounded our little group. Ogre warriors never made for the best of dancers, but every tribe had their own traditional dance. Though I heard that humans describe our dancing as more of a “jumping and shoving” everyone. Silly humans, they know nothing of art. For that matter, I didn’t know anything about it either, but dancing with pretty girls made me want to learn more.

Long into the night when the silver moon was high up in the night sky, and the number of drinks we shared couldn’t be counted on both hands and feet, the Warchief gathered us again. This time he held in his hands three curved blades.

“Every warrior needs their own weapon,” – he began – “As now you all have officially become one, you shall receive blade to keep with you. It will be in your care, and with enough training will become part of you. That being said, I expect every ogre in my tribe to know how to use any weapon, and how to fight without one. Don’t let this blade become a burden, you must think of it as a tool, and a tool is only as sharp as its wielder.”

“We understand” – came our response.

“Now don’t let me distract you anymore. Go and have some fun, but remember that tomorrow you will all have to leave on your mission.”

The night ended and the morning came, anyone watching would see four ogres leaving southwest. All of them looking like they had a horrible headache.

End of interlude

Interlude – Biding my time

***Ogre encampment, prison***

**Day 9**

Chains, if not for these chains, they would all die. I would give my life to kill them all. How dare they capture and torture my people. Do they really expect we would accept their offer? I could already see corruption seeping into their eyes, something that had slipped past us before, but now that I knew what to look for, I could see it. They may look like ogres, but I knew better, this curse had to be destroyed.

From 20 of our group, now only six remained. I could hear their breaths in the nearby cells, the benefit of having better hearing than average, that came from me being so pure of blood. Not to mention our race had innately better hearing than others did. This, however, didn’t help much when shackled like this. Somehow, they had gotten themselves a handful of collars. No, not the ones they used on unfortunate slaves. These ones were made specifically to counter mages. As I hopelessly tried to gather my magic again, I could already feel it slipping past me, avoiding my control. Nothing I could do to influence mana, not even constant training had let me counter the effects. Everyone praised me, called me one of the top candidates for the throne. Now, look where I ended up: helpless, seeing my people die before me. All because we lost our caution and accepted, their feast of good will, in the name of our new alliance against our common threat. Well, we were too late, as corruption had already spread here.

The metal bars on my prison cell rang and a gruff voice interrupted my thoughts.

“Hey, filthy bitch, the Warchief is willing to give you another chance.”

“There is nothing to discuss, with you corrupted ones. Nothing you say will convince me.” – I answered with more bravado in my voice than I actually felt.

“We will see about that.” – He said, pulling me up and bringing me to their torture chamber.

They never did touch me, but they did make me watch my people suffer, something to do with me being a powerful bargaining tool, even if I was not willing to agree. I followed willingly, this time, seeing one of my former guards pulled along. My people are strong, they did not cry out when tortured, but watching something like that was hard. Every time I refused to watch or closed my eyes for too long, one of them was killed. I gritted my teeth and kept on following. My chance WILL come.

End of interlude

Interlude – When the duty calls

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

**Day 5-9**

*Jeanne*

Meeting went as could be expected; nobody had anything new to say anyway. The fact remained that we had to do our part and protect the people. We decided on sending out individual scouting parties that would look for large groups of ogres, while we regroup at Salem. It’s not as if waiting at this camp spot, would give us better leads. Positioning ourselves at Salem would allow us to receive news on ogre movements from incoming refugees, and at the same time give my troops time to relax and resupply. We’ve been marching through these woods for two weeks already, and while we could remain here, it would be pointless to do so.

Other than that, I’ve been catching up with my mentor and friend Aeania. It was horrible, how much she had to go through, just the thought of it made me shiver. Thankfully, now she’s here with me, and I will make sure nothing like that ever happens to her again. Currently, I was in the middle of sparing session with her.

Wooden sword brushing past my helm, I ducked under the blow and tried to reach her left side with an attack of my own, only to almost lose my balance when her gauntleted hand angled my strike to miss her. I recovered quickly by rolling on the ground and going into defensive position to receive the strike I knew was coming. We had discarded shields at the start, just to test our skills in a fight without one, and now the only choice left was trying to angle her blow while sidestepping it. I couldn’t block it straight on, as my footing was still off my centre of balance, because of my improvised roll. In a straight contest of her blow against mine, I would lose. Therefore, I tried just that and managed to pull it off, just to stop as her right foot met my unguarded side. That, combined with my bad footing, made me fall, and soon I found her sword near my throat.

I sighed and gave her my best pouting face, - “You would think, that the captain of knights, should be able to beat her subordinates in a sword fight, but here I am, sitting on my ass for the tenth time today. You sure you went in retirement and not on a journey to become master swordswoman?”

“Well, I would lose your respect as a mentor, if I let you get easy wins. Besides that, you definitely have improved since the last time I saw you, but then again I expect nothing less from a paladin that skipped most of what she called ‘boring ceremonial preaching’ to practice in swordplay.”

“They were boring and you know it!” – I tried to defend myself.

“Well, that’s something you shouldn’t be saying as a paladin. What if the church’s inquisition hear you say that?”

“I still pray and do believe, but that doesn’t mean that sometimes listening to the same thing over and over again, is not boring. Besides that, you are not an inquisition, you are my friend, and I know you would never get me in trouble. Enough of that, tell me what my mistake was this time? I thought I had you.”

“Your fault lies in that you don’t think about how your moves will flow into next one. Your use of tricks is praiseworthy, but your follow ups are something to be worked on. I had you beat when you first lost balance, everything after that, including the straight on blow and the kick, was just me following up on that. Still, if I didn’t succeed at any of those points, I had back up plans on how to deal with you. Jeanne, it seems like you never consider that your feints may fail. While it’s good to have an optimistic outlook on life, this may cost your life in a real fight. You should always have a contingency plan when performing a feint.”

“Okay, I’ll take that in mind next time, but I think we should stop for now; they are already starting to pack camp together. We still have day’s travel before we reach Salem” – I said.

“All right,” – she agreed while helping me get up, - “It will be nice to finally live somewhere with hot water and good food.”

I agreed with that notion full-heartedly, a hot bath had long been on my wish list. Therefore, we packed our stuff again and continued our journey north.

Long in the night, we finally reached the city. I ordered Kingsley to make sure our troops resupply in case we get reports of new ogre sightings, and went to check on military headquarters. I still needed to send a message to General about what Aeania’s discovered and report our own progress. Walking through the main entrance, I was met with people scrambling about, which would be a common sight, if not for the weapon crates that were being filled, and the obvious signs of knights getting ready for the journey. Strange, I haven’t heard anything about defence sortie. So, I tried to ask one of the knights about the current situation, but he just said something about captains orders and told me to ask the captain.

“Oh Jeanne, you are here, great, I was going to send my messengers to reach you, but this saves me the trouble,” – came the voice that I recalled belonged to Captain Colin of the city guard.

“Colin” – I greeted – “What the rush? Are there news about the monster attack on the city?”

“Yeah about that, we have been recalled to capital by the General.”

“What? Why? If you leave who will be in charge of defending nearby villages?”

“Now, now Jeanne don’t get worked up, it was not my idea. This is a direct order from General himself and when I say we I mean it includes your unit too. Here’s the letter we received.” – He handed me a plain letter that was marked with General’s official seal.

By the order of his majesty, Emperor Emhyr, all troops under the command of General Hendrik need to make haste and return to capital of our Empire. Any unit refusing to do so will be held as traitors to the crown and will be treated as such.

Sealed and signed by General of the Holy Kundun Empire – Hendrik

“Well this is only my copy; it seems every captain currently outside of capital received the same letter. Captain Yanos already left this morning. We still need to gather our equipment and then we will be on our way too. If you want to read your letter, you can just ask the squire over there.”

“You still didn’t tell me about who will stay in the city. Are we leaving knights to protect them?” – I asked.

“Well I would love to, but you saw the orders. Not many would choose to go against a direct order from the crown and General. That leaves me with almost no volunteers for the job. There are few wounded knights who are exempted from going, but you are free to ask your unit, if they want to risk being labelled as traitors, just to protect some peasants.”

With that, he turned and left. Honestly, I didn’t know what to make of this. With all that’s happening around here, I knew that General had to have good reason to call us back. Still, didn’t explain why he wouldn't leave anyone here to protect the people. I caught the scribe and read my own letter, but the content remained same.

Well, crap seems like that hot bath will have to wait after I visit the capital and meet the general.

End of interlude

***Spiders nest***

**Day 9**

*Trey*

Well, that talk went well. The mage guy was suspicious of everything at first, but thankfully I managed to convince him that this was not the best place to start testing if he can burn me before I can kill him. Khanos, he was called, and from the fragments of information, I managed to piece together, he was the asshole that turned me in charcoal and burned down half the forest in the process. Not that I’m going to tell him that (Dude you remember how you cooked me alive in the forest, yeah about that…). That conversation could only go downhill from there. Therefore, my backstory was, that I was on my way to meet my new magic master, who would teach me the art of healing when bandits ambushed our wagon, and after I escaped them, spiders caught me.

Other than that, it seems that someone is hunting him down, that made him really nervous and suspicious, overall a hard person to talk with. He didn’t just straight admit those things, but you can only be so stupid not to piece everything together when the questioning starts with – “Who are you and who hired you to kill me.” Safe to say, that neither he nor I, would have to worry about assassins. I would love to see them try to reach us now.

Long story short, we decided to wait for the other two to wake up. I say two because of the four people left, one daemon and one human had already stopped breathing. Nothing I could do there with my current skills and resources, sad as it may be.

We took turns, watching for any movement from nearby caves, and soon we had another companion to talk to, as the remaining daemon woke up. This time, talk about our current situation went smoother. Mainly because the frightened girl didn’t say much of anything, and best of all - didn’t try to kill us. I counted that as a plus, the fewer people try to kill me the better, and I wasn’t quite sure Khanos had crossed me out of kill list yet. “It will depend on the truth of your words,” – he had said. From what we manage to gather, Xaies was travelling merchants daughter that had ran when bandits ambushed her father’s wagon and were caught by something bigger and hairier than bandits were. Well, that sucked. A bit because her story was eerily similar to mine, making it a bit suspicious, and because while I didn’t hope that every surviving member of our dwindling party was profession monster slayer, a merchant’s daughter that was raised as princess and hadn’t fought single time in her life, didn’t rate high on “helpful people to have around when giant spiders attack” list. For that matter, a guy that uses fire, as main means of attack wasn’t that amazing in closed of spaces like caves. I’m sure I would be fine, but lack of breathable air might be unhealthy for rest of them.

I gave her one of the daggers, I found on dead hunters and small shield from some knights. I swapped my own makeshift sword for better one. Khe knight's blades were currently too heavy for me to swing freely so I took what looked like the lovechild of sword and dagger. For all that, people praise army equipment; it was plain and simple one. Not one of those magic swords you hear heroes find in old abandoned caves. Just slightly curved for slashing with a pointed end for better penetration, you could see it was meant for killing unarmoured targets, compared to knight’s one, that could penetrate armour just by its weight. Other than that, I got myself a shield. While it was true that I didn’t really need one, it would be quite suspicious if I just blatantly disregarded my health.

At that point, our fourth companion woke up. I held high hopes for this one, as his arm muscles were probably larger than my waist. As it turns out, life tends to let me down a lot. Arnold was a lumberjack and got his build by working all his life as one. He was so proud of the fact; I swear I almost dozed off when he started to recount how his family in all their generations have been lumberjacks. Finally, we got him a battle-axe and that shut him up for a minute.

That made us four people party, ready to set out on our magical journey out of spider-land. I did the best thing that came to my mind and referred leader’s duty to someone else, namely Khanos. He seemed smart enough to get us out of here; I mean, mages should be smart, right? He did seem reluctant and told us not to expect him to save anyone, but in the end, agreed. There was little complaining from Arnold who insisted on strongest being leader (namely him and his muscles), but when we reached first spiders, a couple of fiery explosions from Khanos convinced him.

My previous fears about the lack of breathable air were proven uncalled, as Khanos explained that every good fire mage should be able to use air magic for clearing the air and sustaining flames, and only novice and apprentice ones still used pure fire magic that drained nearby air. Apparently, it was barbaric to do and he scoffed at my suggestion to limit flames. Well, at least I now knew he was adept, the more information on my potential threats the better. However, for all his boasting it was hard to take a person, that limped with every step of the way, seriously. He did ask me to heal him, which was a problem on its own, as I had no idea how to do something like that. It was hard to spin convincing enough lie about why I couldn’t, and that had led to our previous conversation about how I was not bleeding to death when he accidentally pricked my neck. This, in turn, cemented me as our party’s shitty, barely novice mage that selfishly could only heal himself.

“Hey guys, you sure we are going the right way?” – Suddenly asked Xaies

Khanos, who was in the middle of bragging stopped at that, - “Wait, I was just following Trey. I have no idea where we are and how to get out.”

“Me? I thought you were our leader now. I was just going behind you while you dealt with everything in our way.”

“Well, you were the only one still awake when we got here.” – Arnold helpfully said.

“Crap. So we are lost?” – asked Khanos.

“Umm, I guess we just need to head the way that goes up. I only remember being dragged through countless tunnels, with most of them on downwards slope.” – I said.

“That’s the best you can come up with?” – asked Khanos

“Hey look who’s talking! You were just a pretty cocoon before I freed you. A bit more “thanks pall for saving my life” and a bit less sass from you, all right?”

He just huffed at me and turned to walk in a different direction.

A few hours later, we made camp in one of the side tunnels. Khanos insisted he needed to replenish his emptying mana reserves and besides that, I had already grown tired of the constant complaining from our princess Xaies. That was what we started to call her after the fifth time she asked for a break, seriously, we were walking for less than half an hour at that point. That nickname shut her up for about 10 minutes, after which she kept going on and on about how life was horrible for her, and how her father would not allow this. I was this close to telling her, that her father was most likely dead at the hands of bandits, but even I was not that big of an ass.

The good news was that we seemed to get closer to the surface; the caverns were getting wider and the number of spiders larger.

“Khanos, how many spiders can you kill at once, if you had to face thousands of them together?” – I asked.

“What? Why do you need to know?”

“Well, remember how I was awake the whole way? The front cave is as big as a normal village and had hundreds of spiders, not to mention that more could hide nearby. Besides that, we have only seen the small ones. I remember seeing larger ones guarding the entrance.”

“Shit, you only tell us now?” – asked Arnold in an outraged voice.

“Well, does it matter, doesn’t change the fact that we must get out of here.” – For some reason, Khanos was the one coming to my defence, - “As for how many, it’s hard to say. If they grouped together in an orderly manner and didn’t try to kill us, maybe all of them, considering that they won’t just let us kill them, I’m not that sure.”

“Hmm, then we need to either find a way around or plan how to get through them without causalities.” – I said – “Do you perhaps have anything bigger than that remote firebomb, something that could carve a path along the way.”

“It’s called flare, not firebomb and I do have other spells, I have one similar to what you described and it wouldn’t leave me without any mana left in the middle of spider army, but it would require me to be immobile.”

“What’s it called?” – Curiously asked Xaies.

“Incinerate, but like I said it would require all my focus just to use it, and I wouldn’t be able to move from the spot. Pointless if I just fry few of them while standing still, and when my mana ends, the rest just kill us.”

“Couldn’t Arnold carry you while you cast it?” – She asked

At that he froze and had a thoughtful expression - “That might be the dumbest best idea or best dumb idea I have ever heard. I’m always amazed how close genius and stupidity intercede.”

“Wait, you mean something like that could work?” – I asked.

“Hey, did you just skip past the part where he called me stupid?” – interjected Xaies.

“It’s a matter of can’t move because all my concentration is on the spell, not that spell roots me in place. Grandmasters would not have this limitation.” – He said absentmindedly.

“Well, Arnold, you up for it?”

“Up for what?” – He asked.

Apparently, he had fallen in deep thought after I described the huge spider cave, so we had to explain things to him.

“Well it’s doable,” – he said while scratching his bushy beard, - “You are scrawny enough and will not be too heavy of a burden to run with. I’m more worried about how we would protect ourselves from sides, because as I understand the spell is one directional, making us big targets in the process. I would have both of my hands full if I want to carry him so he could cast the spell and so I could run fast enough. That leaves our shitty healer and spoiled princess protecting my backside, and let me tell you that the thought of it makes me more than unwilling to join your suicide mission.”

“Hey! You know I’m still here, he may be a shitty healer, but I’m not a spoiled princess, and don’t call my ideas dumb if you plan to use them! Besides that, I will let you know that my skills with shield have improved greatly since we left that cave.” – Xaies cried out.

“I have no comment on the shitty healer part, but I will do my best to keep any stray spiders off your back.” – I said, - “We should remember that this is only planned in case we find no alternative paths out. If we find differed road outside, there is no need for this, if we don’t, then we don’t really have other choices. I’m pretty sure these spiders are poisonous to eat and we only have water to last 3 more days. It’s pointless to argue about it now.”

With that in mind, we packed up our little camp and went on our search for an exit, which we found soon enough. In fact, we found about seven exits in total, but only one was usable by people. The other six were inaccessible by anyone that wasn’t born with wings or that didn’t have multiple hairy legs that can walk on walls. That left us with a huge cave in front and about thousand spiders in our way to exit. I was thankful, that they mostly had shitty sight, proven by how we currently didn’t have to fight our way through. Slowly and quietly backing away to the previous chamber, we sat in quiet.

Finally, Arnold broke the silence: “So, what now?”

“Now we either go with our stupid plan or figure something better.” – I answered, - “Currently I’m out of amazing, ground-breaking ideas. Any volunteers want to share theirs?”

My sarcasm was met with silence. That didn’t bode well, currently, I would be happy if someone just told me what to do, and that thing would not include us trying to fight our way through.

“We still have few days left of supplies to search for another solution, but every day we spend here is taking a risk that they would discover us. Currently, I’ve been lucky to kill every spider along the way, before it calls for help. Don’t know how long that luck will hold.” – said Khanos.

It was decided that acting sooner rather than later, was for the best. Now we stood at one of the side tunnels. Khanos in the arms of Arnold in a princess style carry, Xaies and I covering the back and sides.

“If anyone ever mentions this to anyone else, or reminds me. I’m going to slowly cook you alive,” – said the red-faced Khanos.

“Sure, sure Ms Khanos, do your best.” – trying to unsuccessfully stifle a giggle, I answered.

Where I was trying, Xaies was not. At least she was being quiet while doing so, but I can already see Khanos face becoming stormy.

“Now, look here you bunch of inbred dogs…” – he started, but I cut him off.

“Okay, we will stop, we are thankful for your amazing mage abilities. Are you guys ready?”

Everyone nodded and our little procession ran inside the large cave. Flames started launching from his outstretched hand in front of him, burning everything in his path, as we ran forward. We ran while hugging the left wall and that, at least, only made us defend right side and back, but it didn’t take long for spiders to react, and soon I had my hands full defending from a bunch of legs and fangs. I ducked under one leg while slashing in the general direction it came from, feeling the satisfying sound that came from my sword reaching its target. Still, I couldn’t just stop and look as we were racing forward. For the most part, spiders still seemed in a state of shock and that helped us reach around the middle of the cave. That’s where things went wrong.

From the start, I picked the hardest position – right side, on account that I knew any stray attack would hurt me less than anyone else in my party, and left the easy back to our weakest member. I figured that if we were fast enough, it would not matter, but I was wrong in the end. Having even less skill with handling heavy objects than me, Xaies was soon knocked off balance and fell down. That would not be a problem in itself if we had noticed it sooner. Unfortunately, I was currently busy making Arnold and Khanos safe, and couldn’t pay attention to her. Her scream pierced the cavern air, as I took a quick look back. Three spiders currently surrounding her and the only person currently free to help was me.

I turned, hoping I get there in time when a roar from Arnold stopped me.

“Leave her, it’s already too late. Only Gods can save her now.”

Taking a quick look, I realised the truth of those words. In her desperation, she took the easy path out and forged a contract. I couldn’t blame her, she probably knew no help was coming and between the choice of becoming a meal and dying slowly or killing those motherfuckers, she chose to go out with a bang.

“Shit, demonification.” – I cursed.

Large horns were currently already growing on her head. The thing that used to be frail merchants daughter, was tearing spiders apart left and right with her bare hands. There was no saving her now; death would only come as a release from this curse. Steeling myself, I kept running along Arnold towards the exit, her roars vibrating the air behind us.

Finally, we found ourselves at the exit, with a steep cliff in front of us and a narrow path leading deeper into mountains. Not looking back, we kept running.