I followed Captain Dunn and ran as fast as I could down the sleeping town's streets, and the whole time I was afraid that the Dark Blades were going to catch up to us, that when we turn around a corner we would find them there. Fortunately, that never happened and we made it to the gates of the castle. The castle was located at the centre of the town, it had a huge wall circling it and its gate was so big and thick and could only be moved by a special mechanism from the inside.
"Who's there? Stop right there and declare your names," As we ran towards the gate, we were soon noticed by the guards on watch and they shouted as they aimed their bows; which were clearly inheritances, our way.
I stopped in my place and looked nervously at captain Dunn next to me, who seemed calm and collected as he shouted back at the soldiers on the wall:
"I'm captain Dunn of the town's guard, I have something to tell Sir Longspear about, it's a matter of utmost importance and it can't wait."
"Captain Dunn?.." I heard the soldiers murmur to each other, before they soon gathered themselves and one of them shouted, "pass me your Badge."
There was a small opening on the side of the gate that was barely the size of an adult man's face, it was closed at that moment, but when captain Dunn held his Badge and walked to the gate, the small window opened up and someone from the other side accepted it from him. After that, everything moved so fast, once the people inside were able to check that the Badge was genuine, and that it was really captain Dunn on the gate, they let us in while they sent someone to wake Sir William Longspear's butler and have him wake the Knight himself.
I and captain Dunn, who kept the kalla hidden inside his cloak, were led to a meeting room and asked to wait for Sir Longspear to come, it was quite late at night, so it was understandable that he would need some time to prepare himself so he would appear presentable for us, or so I thought.
Not long after we took our seats, Sir William Longspear appeared in the meeting room with his butler following close behind him, he was still wearing his sleeping wear and it seemed as if he barely even washed his face, but even while he was in his sleeping wear and with his grey hair a bit dishevelled, the old man wasn't any less striking then the man in Dorian's memories, he stood there with his back straight and his eyes sharp.
"Dunn," He said as his eyes fell on captain Dunn's and the bulge where the kalla was hidden under his cloak, before he turned to me and gave me a light nod after raising an eyebrow, "what brings you here at this hour? Did something happen?"
"It's quite an important matter," Answered captain Dunn as he stood up, while still keeping the kalla hidden, "But we will have to wait for the others to come here, I'm sorry, but I have my reasons to be cautious."
"The others?" Wondered the old Knight under his breath.
"Thompson and Sir Jackson along with some of the army's higher-ups," Captain Dunn clarified.
Once he said that I could feel the air in the room change as Sir Longspear's eyes sharpened even further and as he seemed to have grown bigger in the span of a second, it felt as if he had turned into a giant.
"What is the meaning of all of this?" His voice and tone weren't any different from before, but it felt as if a totally different person was speaking.
"It is just a precaution," Said captain Dunn as calmly as before, "Bruce has done something stupid and extremely dangerous, and before making sure that you had no hand on it, I need to have a few lifelines."
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I personally didn't think that it was good to act this way towards one of the strongest people in town, especially if he really had something to do with the invasion, but captain Dunn didn't seem that afraid, nor did he seem to care about the consequences that this might have. That was something I was noticing more and more as I spent time with captain Dunn that night, even though he was someone that seemed more than capable when in combat and while leading his soldiers through it, he seemed to be too straightforward and hotheaded when dealing with people, choosing to take the shortest and easiest way to get what he wants, which I didn't know if I should classify as a good or bad thing.
"Are all those you mentioned on their way here?" Sir William finally spoke after a long while of silence.
"Yes, Thompson is leading half the guards here, while he sent the other half to Bruce's manor, and Sir Jackson is also coming here with the others." Nodded captain Dunn.
"That damned Bruce, just what did he do this time," Cursed Sir William before moving to a big chair in the room and sitting down. Seeing that, captain Dunn sat down on the couch again and I hurriedly followed after him.
We didn't have to wait for long before a guard ran into the study with a panicked expression on his face. He whispered something to the butler, who then told Sir William that Thompson had arrived with around half the guards and that they were all standing guard outside the castle. I understood why the soldier was panicking, I'm sure that it appeared as if a coup or something similar was going to happen.
Sir William just gave captain Dunn a deep look before telling the soldier to let Thompson in, and also Jackson and those with him when they finally arrived.
Thompson Bulwark was someone I was quite familiar with, he was the guard's vice-captain and captain Dunn's right-hand man, he was a big and strong man who dwarfed almost everyone in the town. Once this giant of a man entered the room, he tensed up as it seemed that he had sensed how abnormal things were in there, but he soon controlled himself and saluted both men while giving captain Dunn a questioning look, only receiving a light nod and a 'wait for a bit more' as an answer.
A few other moments after Thompson sat down, Jackson and the others finally arrived, they too were just as confused as Thompson and seemed to have noticed the weird atmosphere of the room. Once they too greeted everyone in the room and sat down, Sir William turned to captain Dunn and asked:
"So Dunn," He said with barely controlled annoyance, "Are you going to tell me why you gathered us all here or are you going to dance around the subject some more?"
"Everyone," Captain Dunn stood up as he started speaking, "I'm sorry for having you come here at this time of night, but it had to be done, after all, our town- No, the whole kingdom, might be in grave danger."
At his words, everyone sat straighter and their eyes turned sharper, it seem that no matter how unusual this situation was, they hadn't expected to hear something like that.
"Tonight, one of my subordinates," He threw me a glance here, making all the men in the room do so too. If I wasn't still under his 'order' I would have for sure started having a minor panic attack, but because of the weird calm state I was in due to captain Dunn's 'order' I found myself meeting their eyes directly, "came to me with a piece of intel that I couldn't just ignore, so along with my wife and another soldier, we sneaked to Bruce's manor where we were able to get hold of this..."
Finally, captain Dunn opened up his thick cloak and showed everyone in the room what he had hidden there, once the kalla's red glow filled the room, things moved up extremely fast. From captain Dunn explaining what had happened that night, and why he didn't contact anyone else till we had the kalla, and answering everyone's questions, to Sir William asking for a Messaging Orb and contacting people on Marquess Brightglow's side to tell them about what we had found, it barely took 15 minutes.
The existence of the kalla didn't prove that the invasion was happening for 100% but it made the chance of it happening too high to ignore, and so having Marquess Brightglow know and send the news up the chain of command was a must.
Fortunately, due to how captain Dunn took control of the conversation, I didn't need to explain anything to the group of men in the room, and they barely spared me a glance with how frantic they were. Even Sir William seemed out of it with how his son had a kalla and a fiyavtic in his basement and how it seemed that he was working with the demons. He was more concerned with how to prove that he had nothing to do with this and that he was innocent.
Not even 30 minutes after the information was sent, we got some news back from the city of Brightglow, 'the intel was most likely true, prepare for war'.
It was just a short sentence, but it froze everyone in the room for a solid minute before everyone exploded into motion, the preparations for the war started.