“And then? What happened then?” Cash kept pestering, “Alex, what happened then?”

Alex looked back at the boy and sighed. Then ruffled Cash’s curly hair and unwillingly continued with the story, “In the morning we ‘borrowed’ a boat from one of the villages on the riverbank and I finally didn’t have to carry you two heavy rascals.”

For the last decade he had told many stories to the boys, but for some reason the tale of them escaping the massacre in the village Cash found the most entertaining. Tango, on the other hand, always became sad and gloomy – Alex’s guess was that somehow he remembered the events even though he was only three or maybe four at the time.

Indeed, the two small bundles Alex rescued back then contained two boys and to his great surprise they were not that small – one was around the age of four and the other – two. Alex was no expert in children to estimate their age precisely and since such was his first impression, he decided to go with that.

To his own amusement Alex named the oldest one Tango and the youngest – Cash. Tango didn’t like the name at the beginning, but with time accepted it. He was also slower in learning things, contrary to his younger brother, but he had an amazing talent for cultivation. From the first day Alex taught them the basics of Qi, apart from the time they spent on fishing or hunting, Tango kept cultivating non-stop.

The youngest brother was the complete opposite. First of all he was a total blabbermouth – he liked to talk, a lot. In addition, like a sponge he absorbed all the knowledge Alex taught, especially the languages. He insisted on learning even the completely useless to this world languages like Italian and German. Of course, mostly they were speaking in English and the two boys enjoyed the idea of having ‘their own language’ that no one else knew. Thus now Cash kept pestering Alex in English, while Tango performed ‘Bond’s style’ thrusts in a lightning speed not too far away.

Actually Cash also had quite enviable talent for cultivation, but Alex’s guess was that Tango was driven by the terrible memories and thoughts of revenge, and his incredible results were mostly because of that. Alex was inwardly blushing with shame when Tango became a Qi master few months back. In comparison he himself achieved this stage only a year and a half ago, at the age of twenty two.

Of course, he didn’t care for the pace of his own progress knowing he had all the time in the world. But the talent of the young fifteen year old genius was anything but normal.

Luckily Tango was not competitive at all and didn’t create any unnecessary headache for Alex. If anything, he was only protective in regards to his younger brother and that was the subject of the only few arguments the trio had over the years, since Cash didn’t like it at all. Actually Alex blamed himself for it – since he knew he would leave the two sooner or later, he made a set of rules for the boys and the first one was – Cash’s safety was number one priority and it was Tango’s main responsibility.

The boys didn’t realize it yet, but with how he looked, Alex simply couldn’t go back to the civilization and live a normal life among others. These two orphans were the only ones in the world who couldn’t care less for his scarred face and ugly looks, but as soon as he would show up in a city, people would throw rocks at him in disgust.

“… ok, ok … tell me how you fed us!” Cash’s pestering woke Alex up from daydreaming again.

Alex threw a side glance at the boy. Obviously the younger one was using him to tease the older brother, but there was no malice behind it.

“You already know it.” Alex tried to preserve some kind of neutrality, “I’ve told you many times – I mashed up berries and nuts and fed the paste to you two.”

“Just like that? And we BOTH ate it?” Cash faked ignorance and surprise.

Tango’s face twitched in displeasure, but immediately returned to the previous nonchalant expression, but Alex said, “I think it’s time for you to start practice. Look – your brother has been …”

“We still have a bit of time till the sunset! I promise I’ll start practicing immediately after you tell me! Please?!” Cash begged.

“Sigh.” Alex shook his head and looked at Tango, then said, “No, only you could eat the paste I prepared. Your brother was more injured than you and I had to chew everything thoroughly first, and only then he could swallow the food instinctively while being unconscious.”

“Hahaha!” Cash grabbed his belly and began to laugh hysterically while Tango’s face turned ugly again.

“Go! Practice!” Alex smacked Cash on the back of his head and the kid slowly got up while still convulsing in laughter.

It was a weird fetish of his. Cash knew his brother would give him a bit of punishment later during the sparring, but didn’t mind. The older brother also never openly protested against Alex telling this story, probably because he appreciated his brother’s joyful laughter.

Few minutes later all three were practicing the same old ‘Bond’s style’. Alex didn’t know any other techniques, but since back then Bill said he only needed to know this one, he decided to go with it. In fact, during the past years they rarely met any people, not to speak confronting anyone, but the Bond’s style turned out to be effective also during the hunting or defending their home.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Right, those years ago, after going down the rived for over three weeks, they arrived at a wast lake. At first Alex thought it was a sea or an ocean, but the water clearly was sweet so it was definitely an inland body.

They couldn’t see a coast on the other side, thus Alex kept rowing for several days until finally, far in the distance he noticed some mountaintops. Purely based on intuition he decided to find a place to settle down somewhere in those mountains.

After another week of fighting through the jungle, he finally arrived at the foot of a mountain range and after finding a cave of a reasonable size, the trio, but mostly Alex, of course, could finally rest.

The climate was warm and humid and if one didn’t count the annoying mosquitoes for a couple of months every year, this was a great place to stay. They had a brook with fresh water nearby, plenty of trees providing them with fruits and nuts all year round and Alex didn’t even need to go actively hunt since the primitive traps he laid were usually full.

Only six years ago, when the boys grew up a bit more, the trio began to explore beyond the nearby territories and one day higher up the mountains they found this strange cave system that housed a family of mountain lions.

Normally they wouldn’t have dared to go near such beasts, but it was almost as if the lions were patiently waiting for their pray to come on their own. Even though they got ambushed, somehow Alex managed to fight the beasts off while staying close to the cliff wall and hiding the boys behind his back. After almost loosing his life, scratched and bitten all over, bathing in his own and mountain lion blood, Alex claimed the former home of mountain lions as his own and from then on they stayed there.

It was only the next day after he recovered a little, Alex found the reason why the lions were settled here and why their pray also seemed to come on its own. Deeper in the caves there was a spring – extremely rich with natural Qi. The wildlife was naturally attracted by it and mountain lions lived here like it was some kind of a Shangri-la.

What surprised Alex the most was that even though the lions obviously drank the water, they kept the vicinity extremely clean as if afraid to soil the natural wonder. That, of course, allowed the trio to settle here more comfortably.

Alex skinned the ten odd beasts he killed and after keeping few furs for their own needs, ‘decorated’ the mouth of the cave with the rest of the trophies as a deterrence to intruders. For the next years it helped to keep the smaller beasts and predators away, and only rarely a larger animal tried to challenge the ownership of their new home. It was always a tough fight, but from then on the owners of the spring never changed.

Now, more than a decade after the escape from Zamora, under the tender rays of the setting sun trio was practicing the only Qi combat technique they knew at the mouth of the cave. After they arrived they quickly discovered that for some reason here the sunrise and the sunset were the best times for physical practice. Somehow boys tended to advance more quickly during these periods while Alex didn’t notice any difference in his own growth.

Instead of the swords they used bamboo stalks, but for they served the purpose well. The Bond’s technique didn’t involve any slashes, but poking a hole in the beast’s eye could be effectively done with a thin bamboo as well.

The atmosphere was peaceful and the only sound the three people made were soft exhales. Even their steps were silent and that was the result of Alex drilling the footwork technique over and over again. At first the boys were annoyed by his ‘pestering’ during the training, but from the day Tango was capable of stealthily running up to a jungle boar and stab it to death in one hit, the attitude of the brothers changed, especially Tango’s.

He had extremely good instincts of the hunter and lately even Alex began to rely on him during the hunts. That was the reason why he and Cash immediately stopped in their tracks when Tango froze just now.

“Something’s wrong!” He barely audibly whispered.

Alex nodded and whispered back, “Retreat!”

In a split second they were fifteen meters deeper in the cave in their practiced defensive formation – Alex in front and two brothers in the back. According to their experience during the past years the threat could come only from outside and it was only a question of how dangerous it was. The many scars on their bodies had taught them to not take any situation lightly, be it a sole grizzly bear, pack of mountain lions or an oversized snake.

Their current position was relatively safer – the cave here was only about five meters wide. The cave mouth, on the other hand, was almost like half of the volleyball field. If a fight broke out there, they would have hard time to take care of each other.

Trio vigilantly stood for almost quarter of an hour, when finally Cash’s patience started to run out.

“Are you sure …” He intended to ask something when Alex and Tango shushed him at the same time.

Alex was not certain if Tango actually heard or saw anything, but now he had this distinct feeling of approaching mortal danger. He could not explain it, but purely on instinctual level knew the fight of their lives was approaching.

“Code ‘orange’!” He hissed through teeth clenching his fingers around the bamboo stalk on his back tighter and bent his knees lowering the center of gravity.

The two boys looked at him back in surprise. After the fight with the two grizzly bears last year, Alex introduced ‘the code system’ where yellow meant ‘danger, watch out’ and orange – ‘mortal danger’. They even practiced their teamwork for potential future encounters in case of such situations occurred. Of course, their confidence grew after Tango became a Qi master, but Alex insisted on never letting their guard down and act ‘according to the protocol’ in case he called out one of the codes.

A minute later trio finally heard a soft noise of a pebble hitting another rock and then someone getting slapped.

“You motherf*cker! Did you really have to alarm them?” Alex and boys heard someone cursing in pure Hallancia dialect and finally knew for sure they were in trouble.

Hallancia kingdom, or probably now the former Hallancia kingdom, was hundreds if not thousands of kilometers away and from what it looked like someone came looking for them, or rather – Alex.

Few seconds later eight men in hooded leather armors leisurely appeared at the cave’s entrance.