Waiting for something to happen is bound to be one of the hardest things for anyone, and that's a well-known fact.
And I can add that waiting for something to happen while you don't know what exactly or how it will occur while only knowing it would be dangerous, it's several levels harder.
Strangely, I could not say that I was very worried, or that I was even nervous about the matter... Maybe just a bit impatient and wishing for it to already occur. Such strange courage, if I may call it like that, was very unusual for me. But it did not matter from where it come, at least it was good for me at the moment, and I was grateful for it.
***
The first pair of hours nothing occurred, and the caravan's camp lived in the same manner as the previous day. With everyone in their tents or wagons, except the pair of guards and me, it looked calm and peaceful.
Once every fifteen minutes or so, I activated 'Life Radar' and checked for changes, but the human-sized dots remained the same amount, and only the ones of the guards changed position from one scan to another.
Around midnight, when the enormous Ascolia, at least twice the size of the Earth's moon I remember, was in the middle of the sky, I noticed the first indication that something was off. I would have probably missed it if not for the fact that I had been scanning the surroundings every 15 minutes. The two guards in turn were supposed to be relieved around this moment, but neither of them was moving towards the tent where their relief slept. Not to mention that they remained on the same spot as before.
"Did they fall asleep?" That was my first thought, but it was too naive to get a hold in my mind. After all, if the two of them decided to fall asleep, why they would do it on the bare ground almost a hundred meters from the fire? And again, how could both of them do it at the same time?
I never believed in the so-called intuition that people like to talk about, but anyone would be forced to start believing when right at the moment I decided to notify Gris, she poked out of the wagon.
"Changes?" She whispered
"The guards have not moved for some time, and the next pair to assume guard is still in their tent" I whispered back
"Use the spell for how much time you can in quick succession. As soon as someone moves, tell me"
***
'Life Radar' was an activation spell, and one that provided me with a 15 seconds 2D signal map. I could probably activate it every 20 seconds, but that would simply spend my mana in a couple of minutes, so I decided to do it once every minute.
.
..
...
And six activations later, I was nodding to Gris, who had silently left the wagon and hunched down behind one of the wheels on my side.
"What?"
"Someone has left the middle tent of the five"
"Egon's one, huh? Find out his destination"
"To the... east from the well" I whispered after the next radar, briefly stopping to not make a mistake in the direction.
"Stay here and whatever happens, don't leave the girls. If they suffer even a small scare, I will kill you myself" Gris hissed at me before slowly crawling towards the group of five tents, careful to avoid the light of the campfire.
A shame that except for the moon there was no other light source to observe how she wriggled while doing so. And what did she mean about taking care of the girls? They were the only reason why I did not say bye and left right after hearing about the impending danger.
***
Five long minutes crawled by without anything happening, and so I resorted to 'Life Radar'. Getting at least some kind of update was better than just sitting there still, or so I thought...
"Huh?!" From the 43 human-sized blips around me, there were only 40 now!
If that wasn't enough, I noticed that at least six blips were moving during the brief duration of the spell. Five of them were located to the left side, which meant they were in the smaller 3-tent group, so probably they were Azar and the four guards, and the sixth one, the one to the right should be Gris. Still, what they were planning to do? And what happened in that middle tent towards where Gris had crawled to? There was only one blip remaining in there... The one that was leaving the camp aside, what happened to the other two?!
Objectively speaking I began to panic, but before I could do anything stupid, like going to see what the hell was going on, I heard something move nearby, and Gris practically materialized on my side.
"The one to leave the camp was the one called Aayden, can you sense him right now?"
"No, he left my zone. What happened in the tent? Why do I sense two fewer lives?" I whispered back.
"Because two more souls are being judged to enter the wheel by now" She calmly, and almost casually informed me in turn. Albeit there were several different religions, and at least two gods of death, hell, or rebirth, the main idea was that a soul was unperishable, with people that followed their beliefs and lived 'correctly' having a chance to look over their relatives for a while before losing memories and entering the wheel, while the 'evil' ones entered the wheel of rebirth after suffering trough torture in 'hell' for their evil acts.
"Huh?"
"You told Wilfried about your suspicions, and when they turn out right, you act surprised that I took care of the two before they acted?"
"What happened?" I could only ask again.
"Do you know why Reuben and my boys always eat apart of the others? Or better said, why the Guild merchants and guards always do so?"
"Authority?" I almost mechanically answered
"That and to avoid being poisoned"
"You mean they..?" Connecting the dots between the unmoving guards and the fact that no one got up by now, even to the bathroom or something wasn't hard when it was explained so directly.
"Yes, everyone is out cold, but Egon and Rayko reacted when I entered their tent, so it's easy to guess who did what isn't it?"
"Egon? And if they poisoned them, why not directly to kill?" I have always thought that the long explanations that sometimes happen in games, animes, and other entertainment were unlikely in real life, but... I can now say that I was mistaken. I mean, here we are, waiting for some kind of attack or whatever to happen, and the mc (after all this is my journal, isn't it?) is asking half-dumb questions while the kind (ahem) and beautiful sidekick (Sepyre, thank you for explaining that mind-reading was only possible with a very powerful spell or I would be probably turn out dead in the next seconds!) explained everything.
"Yeah, Egon was out of suspicion, but he did try to reach for a dagger when I tried to grab him, and that was his last mistake. As for killing everyone, well, they do not expect mages, but death detection amulets are a must for guards like us"
"Umm, I see. So now what? And..." The amulet name was self-descriptive enough for me to understand what she meant, but a must for guards? Wow.
"If you wanted to ask why I am explaining this to you, it's because nothing will happen for the next hour or so, and a panicking headless chicken is the least we need right now. As for what happens next, well, you just stay here and I do my job"
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"And I am very thankful for it, even if it's with your kind descriptions of me and my obvious concerns" Let's just say that my small rebuke was met with a glare self-explaining enough to make me shut up.
"Stay here and if the girls wake up, make them stay inside" She finished our whispering conversation and after looking around merged into the darkness behind the wagon, moving towards the left, seemingly to meet up with the rest of the 'action' element.
***
I did not understand why Gris was so sure that nothing would happen in the next hour, but as time passed, I managed to. In truth, it was a simple thing. With everyone in the bigger camp, which meant the ten town guards, my four men, and most of the drivers drugged, the only people that could wake up were reduced to Reuben, the Guild guards, and a few others including me. And what would one of us do after noticing the slowly going out campfires and missing guards? Right, raise alarm and probably restart the fires for illumination. And so, Aayden and whoever he went out to meet would notice it. As for the case Gris or someone wanted to act stealthily, Egon and Rayko remained and could send a signal or something.
"Still, what Gris and the others plan to do? And what should I do? Stay here and guard the wagon? Wake the girls and try to leave the area?" Different thoughts filled my mind, but the last one was the most recurrent. Indeed, if I woke up the girls and we left, would we not be safer than here?
In the end, I decided against it. After all, what was the guarantee that we would not land in the hands of whoever was planning to attack? Or that we would not be noticed and pursued?
From there, my thoughts moved to the line of what the hell I could do. Granted, Gris was an awesome fighter, at least judging from the 'Champion' title and her stats, but I could not be sure that the other party had not thought of it. If they knew and still decided to act, which was confirmed by the sleeping drugs, then would not they have a way to deal with her?
Wilfried and the other three weren't anything special, at least if skills could be used to judge a warrior's worth, while Reuben and the five undrugged drivers were not fighters at all. So the only unknown variables for the attackers were Azar and me. Or maybe the mysterious person in the wagon, the one I suspected was the true target. Still, if he/she was a target, then probably the attackers would know of his skills (if any), wouldn't they?
I doubted that I could be of true use in a fight, and the Divine fury or whatever had activated during the girls' rescue wasn't something I felt I could control (and I actually would prefer to not use it at all), which meant I could only consider myself as a normal, mortal (!), human with just a bit of random knowledge and some utility spells.
"So... what can I do?" As I murmured, the previous thought of random knowledge floated in my mind for some moments before I suddenly got a more or less bright idea.
"Molotov Cocktails!" I still don't know why I even thought of that. Not that it stopped me from acting on it right away.
***
Leaving the matter of why the hell I even decided to create them, the task of making something without having either of the normal ingredients and parts maintained my mind and hands busy for this hour.
And when I noticed two shadows that were crawling towards me, shadows that turned out to be Wilfried and Rolf, the two guild guards that I more or less was familiar with, I had solved the task successfully. Five small bottles or flasks created by shaping some 'Earth Blood' with a mana shape were filled up with all my lamp oil, and one of the rags I had found before served as fuses. I could not say anything about the effect they would have, but in my opinion, even a small burn will distract anyone, not to mention the ones that would occur after being splashed with burning oil.
"Gris send us here to watch THE wagon" Wilfried made a note on the word 'the', making me understand what wagon he meant.
"I see?"
"So we will be hiding under it. If someone approaches, raise alarm but don't call for us, understood?" The small and stocky Rolf explained.
"Got it"
"Good, it will start shortly, so keep your eyes and whatever else open" Wilfried told me before the two slowly inched away and then probably crawled under the 2nd wagon, the one with the mysterious passenger. Not that I could see it, with only the moon as light visibility was about a couple meters, not more.
***
Shortly turned out to be almost half an hour. Fifteen minutes for the fires to completely die out, leaving just a few embers that looked like some fireflies from my position near the rear of the wagon. And then another fifteen that probably were waited out by the attackers as a precaution.
"I sense some already on the east, use your 'Life Radar' sparsely and give a shout if you notice anyone else as soon as the battle starts" Suddenly Azar's voice entered my ears, prompting me to look around. He wasn't anywhere nearby!
"Another thing to ask him about later, the list is getting bigger and bigger haah" As I mulled internally, I took a few long breaths and then used the spell. There was nothing moving from the three directions, but I did 'see' the ones that Azar spoke about. Eight dots were approaching from the east and probably would reach the well in a couple of minutes.
The camp was set up as the previous night, the well to our east, a hundred meters away. Two uncovered wagons parked as a windbreaker for the five tents and another two for the three tents fireplace. The two camps were separated by a small amount of distance, not more than fifty meters of free space occupied by the covered wagons and where the guards were supposed to walk in patrol, having a chance to check on both camps and the remaining eight wagons - parked downwind, or to the west, with all the animals affixed to them. They were just a hundred meters away, but the placement was so intelligent that there was no smell!
***
Being low on mana, having only 9 left (from the ten I planned to reserve), I could not just randomly use 'Life Radar', while my position prevented me from seeing what happened when the eight dots neared Gris's side.
But just as I was beginning to consider spending one of my 'reserved' mana points, I found it to be unnecessary.
A huge fire suddenly blazed, illuminating at least a hundred meters around it, with some light falling even on me.
"!" I immediately turned to the left, the direction from where the light came, and the one where everyone 'awake' was.
For a few moments I thought that the fire scared off the attackers or something, as it was deadly silent, but that quickly changed.
*Clang*
*Cling*
The sound of metal clashing with metal.
*Swoosh*
*Bam*
The sound of something cutting through the air and something hitting wood.
"KILL THEM!" A female voice shouted.
And a few seconds later, a full cacophony of sounds entered my ears. As well as dozens of shouts...
"They have a mage!"
"Shoot him!"
"Die!"
"Shit! Someone is shooting from that tent!"
"Yond, protect Azar! Kalle, the master's tent!" A clean and commanding voice cut through every other sound, and it was no one else's than Gris.
As I was occupied listening, I did not notice that the door of the wagon I was supposed to guard opened.
"Lindar! What's happening?" Kierra's voice made me almost jump around.
"You two! Get inside and don't come out until I say so. If there's something, then block the entrance" I truly doubted that the cloth roofed wagon was good protection, but at least if they barricaded the entrance, they would not leave so easily.
"But what is going on?" As Kierra asked but before I answered, Angelique's hand appeared from behind and practically pulled the older girl inside. The door immediately closed after, but I am sure that I heard something about the lines of
"Are you dumb? There are bandits or something attacking the caravan"
A few moments later, I felt that I should use 'Life Radar'...
"What the?!" From the eight new arrivals, four had disappeared, but at least another six were approaching from the same direction. And not only that, three dots of the ones that should be in the five tent camp to my right were moving.
"Don't do anything, try to feign as if you are still asleep" Before I could shout, I heard Azar's voice again. And then Wilfried crawled from the 2nd wagon in the line to mine.
"How many on the right?"
"Three" I whispered back while reclining on the wheel and covering myself with my blanket.
"What tent? And where to?"
"The last one from here, they are now by the middle one" I said after using another Life Radar.
"Got it, now keep quiet"
***
A minute or so later, I heard someone walking towards my side. My head was covered with the blanket and I tried to breathe evenly, so probably they assumed I was asleep.
The battle had actually moved a bit to the north, and now more than 200 meters separated me from it, making only some noises reach my place. Probably this was the idea of whoever was behind tonight's tactics. Make the three from the camp believe the battle was taking place a bit further than it had started, and provide a reasonable explanation for why neither me nor the girls waking up. Or the mysterious occupant of the 2nd wagon.
"Lindar, Lindar" I felt how someone began shaking me while calling for me. It didn't take long for me to recognize the voice, it being one of the guards from Churg, the one with the big ax always on his back... What was his name? Hmm, Gunthard!
"Wha... What happened?" I tried to sound groggy as I pulled down the blanket and began blinking.
"I don't know, everyone is asleep, you are the first one to actually wake up. And there's something going on the north" Gunthard turned out to be a decent actor, as if not for the fact that I knew he had seen Egon's and Rayko's bodies or that two guys were awake and somewhere around, I would probably have believed him.
"What?! Asleep? How come? And your boys?"
"Shh, keep quiet, I don't know what's going on. Still, I think it's better if we go and look for the Boss"
"But... would not that bring us closer to whatever is happening there?" I tried to make my voice shake.
"Yes, but we do need to know what's happening. C'mon, get up, let's go"
I decided to play along and so began standing up, but something pulled my feet, and I fell to the ground.
*Thump*
And that saved my life, as a spear tip lodged itself in the wooden wall of the wagon, exactly where my neck would have been. Thank you, Wilfried!
Not wanting to risk a repeat, I rolled to the side and quickly jumped on my feet while exclaiming
"What the fuck are you doing?!"
Well probably everyone present knew the answer, but I needed to keep their attention on me, as seemingly they did not yet notice that my fall wasn't an accident! And so, I began inching back, showing an intention to run away.
"Kill him! I am going after the bounty" Gunthard ignored my question and angrily shouted at the person that had just tried to impale me. It was also a guard, but one that I had not interacted with at all.