“How long have you been travelling as a knight-errant?”

With a huff, Alric shrugged. “The years have grown shapeless and difficult to recall. Perhaps...five. Prior to that, I served in a Grand Host.”

Kent’s right hand trembled as if he desperately wanted to be writing all this down, but unfortunately for him, penning a chronicle whilst riding in a horse-drawn cart was not advisable. It was only the latest of his uncountable inquiries that Alric was subjected to for the last few hours as they rode. He welcomed any interest toward the Church and her many Orders.

“Mm, their reputation is widespread; the Church's combined legions devoted to combating forces of evil too great for standard armies to conquer. Knights-errant, on the other hand, I have not heard much about,” replied Kent.

“Most would not care to brag about such a charge, the same way a servant who cleans a latrine would not. Errancy is often a burden lowered unto those who have erred from the righteous path by way of failure or shame.”

“Which one was yours?”

Alric laughed as he guided Nocht along the dirt road. “Nonsense. I demanded the honour. When I swore myself to Saint Thestus, I did so not for personal comfort or safety, but to pledge my body and soul to the Lord so that He could dispense His justice through my very hands.”

He took a moment to take a deep breath, savouring the cold air that rushed into his lungs before continuing, “There came a point where I realised the following; I spent more of my life training, resting, meditating, and discussing biblical teachings within the walls of a fortress cathedral than I did fighting for God. The Grand Hosts are idle until the need presents itself. Thus, I declared: I shall live with nothing and commit everything, never live with everything and commit nothing.”

As the duo emerged at the top of a small rise in the road, they were confronted with a sight in the far distance that caused both to freeze. Kent gasped and almost fell from the cart. “Good grief...! W-What is that?”

Being on the snout-end of an ogre was not a comfortable position to be in. These ageless beasts towered over most structures, had a nigh-impenetrable carapace, could bludgeon their way through the thickest castle walls in minutes, and had a taste for devouring humans whole.

Thankfully for Kent and Alric, they were not the ones who were in immediate discomfort. About a hundred metres away from them, a caravan was being attacked. The ogre itself appeared impossibly large next to the ant-sized people attempting to fight it. Standing three storeys high, its shadow painted them in shade so dark that it was as if night had fallen solely on them.

The ogre walked on four legs arranged in a straight line, like fingers on a hand. Its body was trapezoidal when viewed from the front.

Screams resonated through the plains, then the echo of steel clanging fruitlessly against the beast's hide promptly answered. Alric then saw the ogre's mandibles unfold from beside its horrifying maw. The limbs, like spindly arms, lashed out and plucked up a merchant with blinding speed. The mandibles stuffed the man into the ogre's mouth with aggressive disregard, folding and snapping his bones against its unbreakable teeth.

Surely, the victim vanished inside the ogre but not after perhaps the most disturbing and shrill chain of shrieks Alric had ever heard.

He had seen this horrific action up close in the past. Every ogre had a gaping circular mouth that oozed intense and unbearably-high temperature. An ogre's heart thrived on heat, on burning things. Whoever or whatever the ogre ingested would be shredded by its fangs and melted by its boiling core. Ogres could not die of old age; the perpetual forge within granted them eternal youth. The one Alric and Kent had just seen could have been older than mankind itself.

“I'll un-fasten the wagon, we can ride Nocht in!” Kent insisted.

Alric remained still on his horse as Kent moved about on the cart that the steed was towing. The knight shook his head. “Two men cannot slay a ogre. I have seen armies of hundreds swept into retreat by such a creature.”

Kent shifted uncomfortably, bracing himself on the edge of the wagon. “You are bound to help those who require it!”

“Aye. I am not, however, bound to die needlessly alongside them,” corrected Alric. “There is great strength and wisdom in recognising that a battle is insurmountable.”

“So we just...watch?” Kent snapped.

“It is a lesson most difficult to learn, my friend…but a necessary one. There is but one thing we can do to shepherd them to salvation in this life, or the next; pray.”

The screeching continued as the merchants and their guards were snatched and swallowed by the lumbering ogre. The cries were unintelligible, but Alric swore he heard them crying to him for help. And all he did was sit there upon his horse and wait.

Kent was noticeably agitated. He was extremely close to vaulting off the cart and charging headlong into the ogre on his own. Thankfully for Alric, he did not.

After twenty minutes had passed and all of the screams had died down to an eerily peaceful ambience, the ogre trudged into the tree line, vanishing beyond the green. Although it was now invisible, both men could feel the earth shudder beneath their feet with each step the beast took. They waited until the tremors no longer troubled the dirt.

When Nocht was pressed onward by Alric’s heels and gentle whip of the reins, the remains of the caravan slowly swelled. Quite disturbingly, there almost no blood. Ogres don’t savage their quarry the way most beasts do. They simply grind and swallow. Those of the travellers who dropped their weapons left them in the swaying yellow grass. Ash-like powdery remnants of the eaten were sprinkled atop the soil.

Their wagons were left untouched. The pack mules must have been frightened, as they were no longer anywhere in sight. They too may have been eaten by the unholy behemoth. Several of the carts were upright while others were tipped over, most likely by the mules as they broke free and fled.

“We now have a day’s travel until we arrive at Kristantin. Any additional provisions would be greatly appreciated,” Alric suggested, gesturing toward the abandoned caravan.

Kent exhaled sharply. “Is this another of your lessons?”

“The merchants will no longer need them, Kent.”

The scribe sighed, “It simply feels...disrespectful.”

Alric couldn’t help but be amused. At the eve of the crusade, with father staring down on me in shame, my attitude was not far removed from that of this young scribe. Many things have happened since then...many things.

When the pair drew close to the abandoned caravan, Kent vaulted from the cart and landed firmly on the dirt track. He made his way over to the wagons and sifted through the goods as Alric pulled his steed to a halt.

As the young man dug through the items, he sent an inquisitive glance Alric's way. “Arrows, weapons, armour…and far too much food for us to carry. Enough for a banquet.” He sniffed the bread and scoured it with his eyes. “I'll take what I can.”

This was no simple merchant caravan. The sheer volume and the military nature of most of the product informed Alric that these were requisitions made to supply an armed force of some kind.

As Kent limped back toward the cart with the newfound handfuls of bread and dried meat, Alric's eyes drifted over the damp plains. Small puddles were scattered moderately about the fields, but the soil was mostly dry. Rain must have fallen a day or two ago. The grass was speckled with tiny droplets of moisture and was flattened in a path northward, where the troll had lumbered off.

Thankfully, the road did not trace in the same direction as the pair continued on. It meandered East as it twisted, looped, and tangled upon itself like a snake. As the dampness was majorly boiled away by the sun’s heat, Alric’s cart became lodged in the mud only once or twice. For that, he was grateful.

The sights started growing familiar to Alric as he and Kent entered Kristantin’s vicinity. The forest grew dense, the grass a lighter faded turquoise, and the air a tad more fragrant. He did not know if he welcomed or loathed the reacquaintance, but it all made him tense.

He said nothing. He could have sent the young scribe ahead alone and returned to his aimless wandering. But he did not.

A village slowly emerged from the shroud of greenery that acted as overlapping shields from the travellers’ eyes. However, Kent gasped rather loudly when a fluttering flag came into sight at the village entrance. It was a blue field with a red rose in the centre; the standard of the King of Lacreau.

“Alric, stop! The Lacron are here...!”

Alric, albeit on edge, was not as alarmed as Kent was. “Affairs of earthly politics are below the Church and her Orders. We are subject to amnesty thanks to the Treaty of Karstein. Let us hope that it is upheld...we have no choice but to pass through.”

Kent leant over the front of the wagon in an effort to enter Alric’s line of sight. “I didn’t know they were this deep inland. We need to warn Kristantin...the forest would have masked their movement.”

Tritania and Lacreau had been embroiled in conflict for nigh on a century. Of course, it wasn’t ceaseless war for a hundred years, but as soon as one ended, another started. Alric had no idea what started this latest one, perhaps once he did, but he was now beyond such trifles. He had more important things to worry about than why one king or lord hated another.

Slowly but surely, Nocht approached the gate to Plisston. Several Lacron footmen stood guard, eyeing Alric and Kent suspiciously as they passed into the town. They muttered to each other in their mother tongue. Although Alric was taught Lacron during his education as a noble, years of inactivity had eroded his skill in the language. He could only make out occasional words like ‘knight’, ‘church’, ‘Tritan’, and ‘spy’.

Noise littered the air; rummaging, screaming, pleading. Dozens of footmen were relinquishing food and grain from the local peasants. Some gingerly, some thuggishly. All things considered, Alric had seen far more brutal examples of pillaging in his time. Some of these he partook in personally.

“They’re stealing,” Kent said with a scowl.

This was the way of war. An army on the move had to sustain itself somehow. The easiest method was to take from the locals; sometimes this meant pillaging your own countrymen. Marching with an army to a foreign land first meant crossing yours.

Alric snapped free of a memory thought lost and back into the present.

As Nocht drew the cart deeper into the village, some of the Lacron soldiers started addressing Alric directly. He had no idea what they were saying.

“They want you to stop, Brother Alric,” translated Kent. Of course, being a scribe for a noble Lord, he had to know at least some of the language. Although the two nations currently feuded, their history was deep and intertwined. Many kings of Tritania hailed from Lacreau and vice versa.

Immediately, the knight eased Nocht to a stop in the middle of the crossroad.

Lacron footmen approached the wagon and started searching it, causing Kent to leap off. He circled toward Alric, appearing remarkably anxious. The footmen unwrapped a thick sheet of fabric and beheld the only true possessions Alric had; his weapons. They inspected his pollaxe, halberd, arming sword, one-handed warhammer, and heater shield painted with the Saint Thestus crest. All the while they whistled and muttered to each other. Alric’s longsword was strapped to his side, much to his relief. He wasn’t going to permit anyone to touch that.

Two men were rummaging through the cart as another fifteen were standing and watching closely. Nearby, at least another thirty men were tending to other tasks in the town square. Since these men were engaging in labour and were not expecting battle this day, most were not fully armoured and simply wore mail shirts and/or gambeson. Still, there was no chance of winning if they were to become hostile.

Suddenly, a voice boomed over the silence. “You are a sight to behold, saint chevalier!”

Alric turned his head and beheld a tall, broad man approaching. He was wearing a deep maroon kirtle fastened around his waist by a leather belt with a gold buckle. His skin shell was mild yellow.

“Forgive me, I must introduce myself; Sir Gaspard Triou, chevalier in the service of Maréchal Claude Badeaux,” he said, bowing.

Alric nodded and said, “Hail, sir knight. I am Alric, Knight Thestor.”

“My men have been marching and fighting for weeks and weeks. A sermon to raise their spirits would be good, no?”

“Another time, perhaps. I am currently indisposed,” he reported.

The Lacron knight squinted. “What is this business you speak of, chevalier?”

“This poor man was bewitched by silver-tongued heretics. Their poisonous words led him astray, so I now guide him home.”

Triou approached Kent, who seemed to wobble like a plank of thin wood. The imposing man asked, “Where are you from, my boy? Not nearby, I hope.”

The question made Alric narrow his eyes. Suddenly, as a mass of soldiers moved behind Triou, Alric saw the Lacron camp in the distance. Innumerable tents dotted the landscape that was once swallowed by forest. There had to be at least five-hundred men encamped out there...with room for more. The trees had been sliced down in the hundreds and in their place were stacks of wooden planks, logs, and boards. They were all in the process of being loaded into wagons for transport.

“No, my lord. I'm from Yorkton,” bluffed Kent.

“Ah, good.”

Alric couldn’t stop himself from pressing further. “What is thy destination, Sir Triou?”

At this point, the Lacron men finished searching Alric’s wagon and approached Triou. After whispering to him, the men fell back, leaving Triou to answer, “Castle Kristantin is of vital strategic importance to the war, saint chevalier. They have been offered many chances to surrender but have stubbornly refused; we have no choice but to lay siege. Seigneur Badeaux himself is marching here with an army of one-thousand men. I would rather not see a servant of the Lord ensnared by such earthly matters. Unlike myself, many would be...let's say, ‘spurred’ into violence by the heritage you share with our enemies.”

“Of course,” said Alric gently.

Triou raised a finger. “Ah, may I ask you something? I sent for additional supplies from Collinswood. Did you see any travelling merchants on your way here?”

Kent glanced at Alric, as if he were taking charge of the moment.

When the scribe spoke, Alric did his best not to telegraph his disapproval. “We witnessed a caravan being raided about five days ago. Brother Alric did what he could, but the raiders managed to slaughter the traders and escape with all of the stock.”

With a grimace, Triou planted his hands onto his hips. The silence spoke volumes of his anger. Alric was certain that Triou saw through Kent's lies...but however, the next thing he said was this, “Thank you for the information, I will not delay you any further. Proceed on your divine mission,” as he gestured to the road through the town.

Seeing as there wasn’t much else for him to do, Alric tapped his heels on Nocht's side to ease her forward. Kent stepped up and onto the cart as it drifted along.

The scribe whispered to Alric as they passed the borders of the hamlet, “We know now the full strength of the incoming army and that they are lacking in supplies. That would assist the defence.”

Alric was impressed by the subterfuge, although he greatly disagreed with it. Lies of omission he could manage, but to bluntly lie to someone’s face about something…he did not have the fibre. The wagons were definitely within reach of the Lacron, but Kent just made sure that the food would spoil and not fuel the invading force.

Alric was always slave to the truth; the truth that God watched over the land and sought vengeance against the heretics that have renounced him. It seemed that the quest for the demonists may need to wait.