Interlude – New duty

***Salem***

**Day 10**

*Aeania*

Last night was quite pleasant; I could still smell the wonderful scent of soap on my skin. I honestly don’t remember last time I was not covered in travel grime or other filth. Was it before? Before they killed my... No, no sad thought now! I can grief later; I still have work to do. Jeanne had ordered enough travel supplies to last us in our hunt, and it was my job to see that we got them.

Now for the supplies, hmm, whom should I ask? The city lord? No, there was no way he would have enough stored for our needs, besides that, he already had his hands full with refugees. Ugh, our supply lack wouldn’t even be a problem, if not for the strange situation in our military HQ. For some reason, there were no currently available supplies left, not to mention that the whole HQ what currently in what could only be described as chaos. That left me with no other choice than to ask merchant guild for assistance.

Salem was a bustling city, credits to it being a port town that had connections to the capital. This, in turn, meant that it was easy to find the biggest profiteer from this - merchant’s guild. You just had to look for the busiest place around. Watching people streaming in and out like ants were mesmerising on its own. You could see wagons full of cargo everywhere being sent out to god knows where. I always had a fascination for trading. Must be the reason why I married that fool of a man, well that and his charming words that stole my heart away. I took a deep breath – “No time for reminiscing!” – steeled myself, and walked towards a person, whom I presumed was the customs officer.

“Hello, where could I find someone for in charge of supply lines?”

“You buying or selling?”

“Buying,” – I answered.

The busy man, without even looking up, pointed towards main guild entrance.

“Yeah good luck with that, you can ask at the guild registration, but I doubt anyone will be interested in selling anything right now, we just got a huge order from capital for double the prices.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think that will be a problem,” – I said and went inside.

Ignoring the line before the registry and the loud curses that came, I walked up to a slender young man at the registry.

“I need to buy enough supplies…”

Without even listening, he cut me off, - “Now look here, what makes you think you can just ignore rules of this place. You need to stand in line and wait. Your needs will have to wait their turn.” – He gave me barely passable smile and pointed at the lines end.

Thankfully, I didn’t need to do any of that crap. I reached and took out commanding officers badge, Jeanne had given me. – “By the Paladin Captain’s Jeanne Fray’s order, I’m here to requisite supplies for the imperial army; all who stand in the way will be punished by the law. Now I suggest you run and find someone that can help me with my NEEDS and stop acting like such a brat.”

That got him moving and at the same time, quieted the angry curses coming from behind me. There was no need for me to act this way, but something about this brat annoyed me. He just seemed too self-important and my hands itched to give him a good slap.

I didn’t have to wait long; soon woman clad in the most expensive attire I’ve seen before, greeted me. At least, the air she carried was less of the pompous quality and more like something a person in charge should have.

“Hello, I’ve been told you came with an imperial order?”

Stupid boy, what dumb things had he have told her.

“First, can we speak in somewhere quieter? I’d prefer if we could discuss things in private.”

“Oh? After all this, you wish for privacy. All right, follow me, Greg, see to the other people. Lady Knight and I, have business to discuss.”

He bowed and left to attend the registry, while I followed Ms Moneybags inside her office. Okay, maybe I overdid it a bit, but I didn’t quite regret it either.

As soon as we were sitting comfortably, and servants had been sent for some refreshments, she asked – “To whom do I owe the pleasure? I’m fairly knowledgeable when it comes to knights stationed in this city, but I believe I haven’t seen you around.”

“Aeania Coniara, currently a knight under Paladin Captain Jeanne.”

“Ah, I think I have heard of you, though my Intel does mention that you should currently be in retirement, living the happy couple life with your husband.”

“Yeah, that isn’t the case anymore. My marriage was short-lived.”

“I see, I think I understand. In that case, you have my sympathy. In turbulent times like these, it is hard to live a simple life. Anyway, it is a pleasure to meet Ms Aeania; I’m Zaran LaCiy, currently one of the people in charge of this guild. Now, what inquiry have you come to discuss?”

“Right, well Ms Zaran, I don’t know what your assistant have told you, but no I don’t bear Imperial order, but I do come with military orders from Captain Jeanne. We are in need of supplies for the upcoming campaign against the invading ogre tribes. Currently, our military HQ is unable to provide us, thus we are planning on using wartime rules and buying supplies for lowest possible prices.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. I was under the impression there is no current or war going on, and as far as Empire considers, there is no threat to the City of Salem either. Thus, I will need to kindly refuse your offer, as no wartime rules currently apply.”

“What do you mean? Have you not seen the number of refugees arriving every day? It’s just a matter of time before ogres grow bold enough to target this city. Without adequate resources, we won’t be able to protect anyone.”

She chuckled at that – “Oh, it’s not that I disagree whether or not there is a threat to the city, I did say that it’s the Empire who does that. How will you protect anyone in this city, when you are long gone by the time monsters arrive? You talk of protection, but even now your captain plans on leaving the city to its fate.”

“You don’t know what you are talking about! How dare you…”

“Now, now Ms Lady Knight let’s be civil. I’m starting to think we are not on the same page here. Please take your seat and I will explain what I mean.”

Without even realising, I had stood and shouted at her. It was well deserved though, saying that captain would abandon the people, it’s the same as saying she was willing to commit treason.

“Watch your words, I will not sit here and listen you badmouth my Captain. Jeanne is the last person who would abandon people in need.”

She inclined her head at that, - “Are you then, not aware of the Imperial order that every Captain received a few days ago? Last, I heard, every unit under General Hendrik’s command is being recalled to the Capital. Haven’t your captain informed you of that?”

“What? No, I haven’t met Jeanne today, but she did say that we are holding a meeting later. What do you mean recalled? What’s the reason?”

“Oh my, I don’t know the reasons. I don’t even know about the orders, it’s just that a little birdy chirped something similar to that.”

“And did those little birdies say anything about the reasons behind the orders?” – I asked teeth gnashing, but inside I was growing more and more concerned.

“Well, a girl can always speculate. I might have heard the Imperial family been buying more and more supplies lately, and recalling all their troops back home, but that’s all I can say about this, draw your own conclusions. Now if there is nothing more to discuss, please excuse me. I still have more work to do, even if this conversation has been entertaining enough.”

“Wait, what about supplies?”

“What about them?” – She asked – “You do not expect me to provide people, who are not defending this city? You can still buy some of the current prices, but I must warn you, that they are currently quite high, what with all the refugees and attacks going on. Now excuse me.”

With that, she departed, and I was left to ponder her words. While she didn’t quite state it clearly, I could only see few things that would require such drastic measures. First, the Emperor had died and there was ongoing succession war. Second, there was big enough threat heading for capital that would require this kind of preparation. I didn’t know which option I liked less. Last time we had succession wars, plenty of good men and woman died. Whole groups of people were executed, just because they were deemed dangerous to the new rule, and whole libraries that contained even the smallest hint of opposition’s propaganda were burned down. It took more than twenty years for Empire to regain its glory. As for the threat, well, that spoke for itself. It’s called the Holy city of Sanctorum for a reason. Even in beast wars, nothing could shake it. Not to mention the church of Holy Fire and their paladins, who were a huge help in taking back our lands. They were the main reason war ended in our favour, and not with us losing most of our land to beastman.

I need to speak with Jeanne, even if I didn’t really doubt the information Ms Zaran gave me, I still needed to check on details. If they did give out the order, there should still be a way for us to leave behind a small unit for city defence. Nothing good will come out of leaving the city undefended with all the ogres roaming in forests, especially, if my worries about this being more than just a turf war for them are true.

I found Jeanne in our command tent. She had a grim expression on her face, as she was arguing with a man who, I presumed, was Captain Colin of the city guard. Not wanting to interrupt, I patiently waited for them to finish. Finally, after ten more minutes Colin stormed out, looking just as grim.

“So what was that all about?” – I asked as I reached her.

“That moron thinks it will be all well and dandy if he just packs up and leaves.” – She answered with a sigh while rubbing her eyes. Seems like someone didn’t get much sleep last night. Can’t blame her, I probably would get much sleep either if I knew about this whole fiasco.

“So the rumours about us getting recalled are true?”

“So you already found out? Yes, it seems every captain sent to deal with ogres, have been recalled, including city guards. Still, that doesn’t mean I like his attitude about any of this. If only he could sit down for a minute and discuss things with me.”

“You shouldn’t blame the guy, I’m sure he has thought about this a great deal more than you think. He probably came to the conclusion that it was beyond his ability to help. Besides, it’s not as if these are the old times, where every city had its own guard, independent of Empire. After Emperor Emhyr came into power, he disbanded every defence organization that didn’t directly answer to him, and in their place, installed people loyal to him. At the time, it seemed like a good idea; there can’t be disloyal city lords if their own guards answer directly to imperial army. Now we see the flaws in the system.” – I shrugged at that, it’s not as if we are in a better position to help. The same rules would apply to her as well. – “While I do want to help these people, I just can’t see any way to do so.”

“I refuse to believe that. I will work out something that will help the people.”

“Oh, by the way, I spoke with merchant guild about our supply problem, but it seems they are not going to cooperate. We could try to strong-arm them, but they do have a reasonable excuse – We are leaving them, so why should they provide us. What do you think we should do Jeanne?”

Met with silence, I looked at her in worry – “Jeanne, is everything alright? Hey, Captain?”

She looked up at me with a weird expression on her face.

“You are officially still in retirement, right?”

“Yes, but how does that factor in anything?”

“You are the only free person here with enough power to take up charge. Think about it! Everyone in my unit has already signed up, and are here under the orders of General. You, on the other hand, while I do consider you a full-fledged knight, are still in retirement. It wouldn’t matter if you don’t come with us to the capital, besides that, as you have previous military rank, I can still assign you a city defence position.” – She said excitedly.

“Huh, that’s a little far-fetched, don’t you think? I mean I’m all for it, but do you really think a single knight can organise defences of the whole city? Who would even listen to me? I won’t have enough soldiers for that.”

“You won’t be single! While it’s true, I cannot send any knight on duty to help you. I can still ask the injured ones who are staying behind. I cannot give you rank without General allowing for it and thus placing you under the same orders as I am, but I can still make you in charge of them, by assigning you a temporary position.”

“Okay, but that leaves me with what? About 50 injured knights and soldiers, defending a city of 2000 people. I could try to make this work, but I would need enough money to buy mercenaries and that would require either funding from the army or the cooperation of the merchant’s guild. Granted, the guild’s head seemed like a smart woman, but I doubt it would be that easy.”

“So it’s settled,” – she said happily clapping hands and not listening to me complain, - “I’m sorry to ask you this, but there is no one else I could trust this with. I know no one better than you, who can get impossibly difficult things done when needed, well except Kingsley, but he’s coming with me, our unit will leave before the day ends. We are going to take transport ships directly to Capital. I will try smooth things out with merchant’s guild in the meantime and will talk to the rest of knights who will be under your command. I’m counting on you, to protect as many people as possible; I will try to return as soon as I can.”

“So I’m the second best choice we have in this situation? Well, if you put it that way, how could I refuse?” – I sighed; this is going to be a pain in my backside.

End of interlude

***Somewhere in mountains***

**Day 10**

*Trey*

Well, I was bloody lost again.

“Whoever thought up the saying that two heads are better than one probably didn’t realise, all that only applies when both heads are not full of shit. How is it that with two of us, we are still running blindly. We presumably have a master fucking magician with us, and he is just as useful as a log.”

“Okay, that’s a bit harsh don’t you think? We are only a little lost.” – Answered Arnold, who still carried Khanos with him, though this time because our big magician had lost conscience, – “We can still find a way, after the sun comes out, besides, you can hardly blame the guy for passing out after that fire show.”

“I guess I’m just a little bit jumpy after, you know, having to leave someone behind to die!”

I winced just as soon the words left my mouth. I’ve done it again, damn; I should watch what I’m saying.

“Ugh… I’m sorry; I didn’t mean that I know you are not at fault. No, none of this is our fault, we did what we should have, and she would have done the same in our place. It’s just frustrating to be so close, and yet so helpless at the same time.”

I turned and kicked a rock, trying to let out my frustration that way, only to receive plenty of pain in response. While I was thinking about ways to destroy that fucking rock, I felt ward hand on my shoulder.

“Kid, it’s okay, don’t pretend to be tough in situations like this. Only a monster would feel no remorse, it’s okay to cry a little bit if you need to. I won’t even tell Khanos about it, so let it all out.”

“Thanks, I… do feel frustrated, but we don’t have time right now for my feelings. Let’s just keep going.

After that, we walked in a bit more comfortable quiet. At least as comfortable, you can get in monster-infested mountains.

“Still, with all this mist, I don’t know about the sun coming out anytime soon. Besides that, I don’t know how long it will take until the next time we run into something that wants a piece of us. Our main damage dealer is currently having a nap, and you already saw just how ‘amazing’ I am with bladed, or for that matter, any kind of weapons.” – I said breaking the silence.

“True to that, I have no idea if we are even heading the right direction. However, if I remember correctly, I think I saw that rock half an hour ago. At first, I wasn’t sure, but now that I look closer, it’s the same you tried to break your foot on.”

“Damn, you are right, it’s the same place. Means we are heading in circles. Well, at least now we know we are not in any immediate danger from any more of our spider friends.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“If we haven’t gotten anywhere since the last time we were attacked, and there’s still no follow up on that, could mean, they didn’t send more after us. Besides that, I can’t imagine our girl letting them get away scot-free after what they did to her. They must have bigger problems on their hands.”

That’s right; I had to kill more giant spiders on our way here. While the nest was mostly distracted by the rampaging demon, some still chased us. Khanos dealt with most of them and then passed out from exhaustion. That left Arnold and me facing three hairy buggers. We split them fairly, he got to deal with two and I got one. I call fair, as he was twice my size, besides it’s not like I wouldn’t help him after I dealt with my foe. As always, I went with the most effective fighting strategy and just swung my sword wildly in general direction of the spider, until it stopped moving. Turning to help Arnold, I was met with pretty incredible sight. Safe to say, I’ve misjudged my giant friend. He might not be a warrior, but he knew how to swing an axe. One of the spiders was already down; while the other was probably contemplating his life choices, as two of its front legs were already missing. I planted my sword right where its bottom side should be, and that got quite funny reactions out of it, until of course, Arnold ended spider’s miserable existence, by nailing the spider to the ground with his battle-axe. From that point onward, we have just been trying to distance ourselves from the main nest, hoping we won’t see any of those hairy bastards again.

Ending my moment of remembrance, Arnold asked – “Shouldn’t we be fine just camping here until Khanos wakes up? If you don’t think any more will follow, we might be better off having someone who knows where we are.”

“You really think he has a way to navigate in this mist?”

“No, but I could use some rest. I might look like carved from stone, but I still had to carry this fellow all the way, while simultaneously fighting off giant spiders. You don’t look that good either, so I think a rest will do just fine.”

“I… okay, you are right. Let’s camp here for now.”

At first, I hadn’t noticed how much everything hurt. I think my body just decided it was too tired of feeling pain and shut off that sense. Maybe, it was all the stress or shock. Well, point is, now it did remember and after I sat down, I couldn’t even imagine standing up anytime soon. Still, my fantasies of good rest will have to wait, as unbeknown to us, we had been surrounded by ogres. Neither Arnold or I saw them coming. At one point, I just looked up from untying my shoes, to let my feet rest, and there they were - three ogres holding swords and axes.

“Halt, humans!”

You know what? Fuck it! I had enough of this bullshit!

“Ugh…” – I groaned, - “Just leave us the fuck alone, why is it that after I finally get some rest, another thing just pops up, every single fucking time, without missing a beat. Either it’s the bandits that tried to rob me, or the ogres, that burned down Bristol, or some fucking mage that attacks me for no reason, or better yet a whole bunch of giant fucking spiders that want a piece of me, and now this!”

Point to ogres being fierce warriors, they only looked a little taken aback by my sudden outburst. In the meantime, Arnold was looking at me, as if I was some kind of crazy idiot while holding his battle-axe ready, in case the ogres would attack, just because I screamed at them. Well maybe I really was a crazy idiot, but that’s beside the point, and I blame my recent adventures on that. The silence that followed was somewhat unnerving and I was starting to regret my little outburst.

Finally, the ogre on my left spoke: “We mean you no harm, come, our Warchief will want to talk with you.”

“Why should we follow you?” – Arnold asked.

“You can always stay, but spiders only stopped coming because we been killing all of the ones following you. If we leave, you will have to fight them yourselves. Consider this our show of goodwill and decide after that.”

Figures, it would explain why they stopped after we killed three of them when there were thousands more roaming the mountains. I looked at Arnold and he just shrugged back at me. So, the decision was up to me? My decisions had never led me somewhere good, but for one these ogres didn’t quite seem keen on eating or killing us, and I doubted we could resist if that was the case; besides, I spotted more of them around us, I didn’t see Arnold or me, breaking through that many, considering even one of them was too many.

“Alright, we will come; just don’t expect me to leave my sword behind.”

At that, the ogres chuckled and looked like I told them the funniest joke ever.

“Yes, yes human. Keep your little toothpick. Now come, Warchief is waiting.”

Interlude – You training starts here

***Forests southwest of Salem***

**Day 10-13**

*Saruk*

“Your turn to try,” – Urmaram said, handing me spear.

I took it and carefully balanced it in my hand. Next, I slowly climbed the nearby tree, crouching and lowering my centre of gravity, I walked on the slender branch, searching for my prey. Not seeing anything yet, I kept on moving, agilely climbing on to the next tree. Still nothing, but I knew it was somewhere close; Urmaram had assured me of that. No idea how he knew where the wispfox was hiding, but I trusted him. Finally, I heard the quiet buzzing sound that came from it. Freezing, I tried to find its source. There, upon the next tree, besides one of those glowing mushrooms. It was currently nibbling on the mushroom, looking quite smug. Well, I’ll show it this time. Raising the spear, I slowly drew back my hand, and then in one fast swoop, threw my spear at it. I heard squeak as my spear hit, still, I didn’t have time to celebrate as the branch I was currently on, gave away and broke under the stress of my weight.

Spitting mud out of my mouth, I stood up, just to hear laughter ring from my spectators.

“Ha! Laugh all you want, but I at least hit it, while you both fell off, before even getting to it.”

My grin disappeared when Urmaram, still laughing said: “Yeah, about that. You didn’t actually hit it. Look again.”

I took a careful look at where my spear had hit and found it stuck in the middle of mushroom.

“You need to watch more carefully, it’s not called wispfox just because of its speed. The position you saw it in, was actually an illusion created by it. You need to look for small spots of blurry air, to know its actual location.”

“Bahh… I’ll get it next time! Whose turn is it now? Cramak?”

“No I was last, now it’s Thaton’s turn to try.”

“Unfortunately it seems, our little friend has grown tired of us chasing after it and has decided to leave,” – said Urmaram.

“Uncle, can you show us how it’s done?” – asked Thaton.

“Hmm, sure.”

He took the spear from me and in a flash was gone inside the labyrinth of trees. Ten seconds later, he was already back, with small wispfox in his hand. It was still alive, moving about and trying to get away, but unfortunately, for it, I don’t think anything could get away from Urmaram if he didn’t allow it. Now, without the illusions, I could see why they call it wispfox. While it was the size of a normal squirrel, it looked like a miniature glowing fox, another case of ambient mana changing wildlife around it.

“Are we going to eat that?” – asked Cramak.

“What? No, of course not, wispfoxes are forest protectors and I only allowed you to train on them, because I knew that with your skills, you would never actually hurt them, besides, they do enjoy playing games with people, even though this one got bored of you.”

“All right, that’s enough for this little fellow,” – he said while letting it go – “we will soon cross the Red Run, and while I don’t expect running into any merchant ships. We should still be wary. That being said, this doesn’t mean I’m allowing you to slack off. You will still train on your journey, this time Cramak’s going to hide, and you are going to look for him. If he manages to reach me before any of you touch him, he wins, if you touch him, you win. If I don’t get either of the results before the river, you all lose. Same rules - losers are going to hunt for breakfast and run 100 laps around the next camp we make.”

Cramak was the best of us when it came to sneaking around. Thus, it didn’t quite come as a surprise that Thaton and I lost. We almost managed to reach him, but he had distracted us by tossing a rock in opposite direction, and while I went to look at the noise, leaving Thaton to watch my back, he managed to rush for the finish. Thaton did hit him with a rock he tossed, but while that would have worked if it was throwing a dagger and this was a real fight, rules are rules, and they did state that we had to touch him and not just throw stuff at him. Still, him having a new bruise, made our loss more bearable.

For an ogre 100 laps are nothing, unfortunately, that was not our only training session that day. Final results were 1500 for Thaton, 1400 for me and 1000 for Cramak. So that meant we were going to spend most of our rest, running around. Not something horribly interesting for an ogre, I would rather go hunting at night than run around.

Soon we reached and crossed the Red Run, and while my adventuring spirit screamed for something interesting to happen, nothing did. Later that night, we were all tired from running, but that didn’t stop Urmaram, who insisted now was the best time for us to hold sparring session. According to him, a warrior must always be in top form while in battle, even if your body says otherwise, you should break your limits by sheer will. We all obviously agreed to that, even though our bodies didn’t, so I guess at least we got that part right.

This became our everyday routine; plenty of challenges followed by punishment for those who didn’t succeed. I was almost glad when the first sight of Death Sea greeted us, meant it was not that far from Southern tribes. Still, it did mean we had a day’s worth of journey in which we had to move in hot sandy climate. Fortunately, Urmaram didn’t insist we keep on going with our training, and just told us to watch our steps, as you might never know what lurks under the sand. After being on edge after that little warning for half a day, waiting for some kind of mystical land worm the size of a house, to come and try to eat us, we could finally relax when we found few giant rocks we could use while having lunch.

“So boys, don’t you think you are little overdoing it? When I said watch your step, I meant don’t randomly step on every snake or scorpion you see.”

“But what about the giant sandworms?” – I asked.

“What giant sandworms?” – He looked puzzled at me, – “Boy, you’ve heard too many of the stories our hunters bring back. You should know they tend to over exaggerate things, and most of those stories are only meant to scare little children from going out on their own. Granted, there have been historical records of beasts like that, but not in this desert. Those stories are more legends, rather than a daily threat.”

“Yeah, you are an adult now and you still believe in children’s stories?” – ‘helpfully’ inserted Thaton.

My face turning red I snarled at him: “Shut up, you were looking around, just as scared. Don’t you deny it now.”

“Heh, if you both still have energy left. I guess we can use this time to spar. Go ahead, Cramak, you join them.”

It was late at night when we finally reached the first Southern tribe ogre outpost. At first, they greeted us with suspiciousness, but after introductions, it seems that some of them recognized Urmaram. After that, everything went smoothly, and we were lead to the tent that I was currently residing in. Urmaram went to discuss things with Southern tribe Warchief, while the three of us didn’t really have anything to do. As such, Thaton suggested we explore the tribe, and we were all too ready to agree. It would be awesome to see, how different was this tribes hunting and fighting styles. Besides that, they might even have a celebration planned. I still remember the nice feeling of dancing with girls, not to mention my dry mouth and empty stomach that just screamed for some tasty drinks and food.

We decided to split up and meet up later, each going to a different side of camp. I took the western side, as I heard they had a lake there and with all this sand going in places it wasn’t supposed to, I was ready for some quick dip. On my way I was met welcoming smiles and greetings, apparently, they didn’t have that many visitors, probably because they lived in the middle of the desert, so it was a quite nice change for them. Some of the local girls even offered me food and I got to spar with their young adults.

I have to say, where our tribe uses speed and stealth, they practised more strength and stamina approach, or as they called – ‘The true ogre way of combat’. I didn’t let that get to me, as what’s true for them might not necessarily true for us. While they lived in clear sandy fields near a lake, we came from mountain terrain that was covered in trees and had plenty of possible ambush positions. Thankfully, our little training sessions came handy, and after my opponent and I tied six – six we ended by agreeing on each one combat style having their own advantages.

It was almost dawn when I finally reached the lake, and I was looking forward to enjoying some cool water. Unfortunately, water was quite warm, and for some reason salty. Definitely not great for drinking, though the closer I got to where the river flows into the lake, the less salty it got. Huh… this trip was kind of fun. I did expect to have more adventures along the way, but as my father said: “If you go looking for trouble, be careful that trouble doesn’t find you first and catch you unprepared.” As sayings go, it wasn’t the greatest, but I still remember it to this day, though most likely because it came with my ass being beaten, and not because it was creed I lived by.

After swimming for additional half an hour, I was finally ready to have some rest in my tent. It was unlikely I would get any, but even hour of sleep would help. Ah, that’s right, I forgot to meet up with the guys, I hope they aren’t too worried, better be fast then. As I returned to the shore, I saw a group of ogres leading prisoners with bags over their heads; they looked like humans from afar, but I couldn’t be quite sure. Climbing up the shore, I greeted them, but was met with angry glares.

“All right, it seems, you guys are in a bad mood. Don’t mind me; I’ll just leave you alone.” – I said, shrugging and walking away.

“Help, these beasts are hol…”

The voice was cut short, as one of the guards punched prisoner who had tried to speak in the stomach.

“Move along youngling, nothing to see here. Just some murderers we caught. They tried to kill some of our children in the dark of night. Until we discover who was behind the attack, they will be left alive and tortured.”

“Lies, you bea…” – another one tried to shout but was cut short by another punch to the gut.

“Alright, it seems you have it covered,” – I said as I walked away.

Trip back was less eventful, as all the nightlife had already died down. There were only some guards, walking around. Strange how different our cultures were, even though we were the same race. We didn’t have guards inside the village. We only have them guarding the outside, as it was beyond our honour rules to steal or hurt children. These were the rules we didn’t need to enforce by a constant guard. Everyone knew that breaking those, lead to banishment and lifelong shame on their names. We only ever worried about the outside threats, and up until now, it had worked out just fine.

Ten minutes later, I met up with my little group in our tent. We were just about to share our experiences when Urmaram, who looked more than distressed, walked in.

“We need to leave now. Get your stuff and come with me.”

End of interlude