Darius Chapter 8

Peskimir waited in the Trader’s District, watching the merchants clear their stalls and package up their remaining produce for the next day’s market. Some wandered from stall to stall, giving away the baked goods that would be stale by the next day, figuring it was better than throwing them away. Dusk was coming later and later each day, testament of spring’s arrival in the past weeks.

She wasn’t sure who she was waiting for, only what. She needed access to the Royal District, and the best way to do that without attracting attention was by dressing as one of the wait staff at the nightly feasts. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t have an outfit on hand. It was also unfortunate for the young woman, dressed in a crisp white blouse, waiter’s bowtie and headband that she noticed hurrying up the road towards the castle. She was taking the side alleys, probably trying to avoid the heavy foot traffic on the main roads, packed with people going home for the day. Peskimir ran up a couple blocks, waiting behind a wall until she heard the clacking of the lady’s shoes.

She swung out from the wall, brandishing her dagger. The lady stopped and gasped in shock, her eyes going wide as they flashed through fight-or-flight, but she fizzled out and stayed still, her open mouth not making a sound.

“I don’t want to hurt you, but give me your clothes or I will.” Peskimir tried to speak in a level manner, hoping the lady would make a sensible decision. Luck was on her side.

“Okay, okay, you can have them just...don’t hurt me.”

She started undressing, her tears dropping to the pavement. When she got to her pants, Peskimir took pity. She lowered her knife and tucked it behind her back,

“Keep them on, I don’t need them. Now go home, and don’t go to the castle until the morning, okay?”

The woman nodded, needing no encouragement to run back to her house. She crossed her arms over her chest and ran along the dark shadows of the alley. Peskimir watched her go back down three blocks before she turned left and swung open a door, leaping inside.

“Home safe.” Peskimir mumbled.

She hid in an alcove as she got undressed and re-dressed herself. She had missed one detail. She wouldn’t be able to wear her cloak when she got to the Royal District, meaning her dagger had to stay behind with her normal clothes. She had planned on just throwing the clothes somewhere inconspicuous and hoping for the best, however now there was more on the line with her dagger at risk, so she wanted a better hiding spot. She took some time to find a safe spot to store her belongings, settling on a small area beneath a wall when a rock had been pulled out long ago. She shoved her things in and covered her stash with some rotten pieces of wood and other scraps she found on the street. Satisfied, she resumed her mission.

It didn’t take long to reach the small access gate east of the main Royal District entrance. She knocked on the door, feigning being out of breath.

“Hurry, hurry! I’m late I need to get to the castle!”

She heard a guard sigh before he opened the door. He wore a broad chest plate and iron greaves, but no other armor on his face or legs. He held an arm out, stopping Peskimir from entering.

“Name and purpose.”

Peskimir pretended to be in a frenzy.

“What do you mean, you don’t recognize me? You’d think after four years...agh! Anne Dubbly, wait-staff.”

She came up with the name on the spot, assuming the guards weren’t expected to tick names off a chart as people entered. The guard didn’t reach for any list, merely nodding and lowering his arm.

“You’re right, you’re late. Get on with it then.”

Peskimir hurried through the entrance and up to the castle. Smooth sailing.

Inside the castle, a feast was underway, the night’s festivities being in honor of one Captain Prallis Bargemoor, a middle-aged man who led a small squad that hunted down Trenks in the forests surrounding Erinstone. His primary accolade was that his squad had broken the record for the most Trenks dispatched. Squads like his were a significant reason by the Continent lacked diversity in sentient creatures outside of humans. The Trenks were about as smart as a four-year-old, but they could perceive many of the emotions that humans could, and they built scrappy huts and tents to house their families. If it weren’t for their violent nature towards humans, they may have been allowed to colonize the forest.

Peskimir wasn’t interested in the feast, not expecting her target to be attending. She poked around the rooms of the castle, trying to look like she was doing so with purpose. She had never been inside its bulky walls, so she struggled more than she expected to find anything. Eventually, she decided to follow her nose, arriving at the castle kitchens. No one questioned her being there, in fact her waitstaff outfit almost caused issues in that people kept trying to hand her dishes and jugs and cutlery to take out to the table.

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She grabbed a young man as he walked past, balancing six plates up the length of both arms. He looked stressed when she grabbed him, as though he expected to be reprimanded. She shouted at him over the din of the kitchen service.

“I’ve been told to take a meal to Heldrus Avongold, do you know where he is?”

The young man tilted his head, furrowing his eyebrows at her as though he was trying to work out if she was joking. Seeing that she was serious, he gave a confused response.

“Uhhh, well he certainly isn’t at the feast, didn’t you hear? He took off in the middle of the night with his squad, yeah, took fifty Erinian soldiers out to the forest to hunt the bandits.

Peskimir put her head in her hands, stretching her skin down in exasperation as she looked up at the roof through her fingers.

“Oh, for god’s sake.”

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Heldrus hadn’t been this content in a long time. The sun was shining, the air was sweet, the squad well fed. Despite not having any success so far, he was beginning to imagine the history books he and his squad would feature in, ‘The Bandit Executioners’.

They had made camp in a meadow, split in half by a fast-flowing stream running north to the ocean. It provided fresh water, a place to wash themselves and their clothes, and with any luck, a meal of fish or some other animal that came to drink from the stream.

When Heldrus had thumped his way into the barracks two nights ago, shaking all his men awake and, in the process, waking up the rest of the barracks, they hadn’t been as excited with his plan as he was. His only supporter from the get-go was Falsith, who had taken a much more docile approach to Heldrus after his run in with the dinner plate*. However, the men warmed to the idea after their first sunny morning at their new camp. It was far better than the dank barracks lined with sweaty men from sundown to sunup.

But they weren’t here on a holiday. After setting up camp, the men had begun scouting expeditions – ten groups of three soldiers heading out into the depths of the forest, searching for any signs of bandit activity. Twenty of the group, plus Heldrus, stayed behind, a healthy number of fighters in case of ambush. Of these twenty, ten were posted as sentries around the camp, rotating with the ten who had some time to rest. As Heldrus finished a snack of plums and bread, Falsith came into the command tent with his report.

“Sir! Reporting nine scouting groups have returned as of forty-five minutes ago. Still awaiting the tenth.”

Heldrus’s head snapped up. Forty-five minutes was well past what could be considered a short delay. He strode outside the tent, Falsith on his heels. He called to one of the resting men.

“Merl, hey, which way did they go? We need to find them.”

Merl sat up from his spot on the ground where he had been sunbathing. He twisted onto his side, got his bearings, and raised an arm straight out ahead of him, indicating the direction they had been sent.

“This-a-way sah. If they found something, it’ll be at least a twenty-minute jog from here, otherwise one of our other groups would’ve been close enough to hear their horn.”

Each group of three was equipped with a small horn that emitted a sharp, unnatural noise when blown. If a scouting group heard this noise, they were to converge on the sound, as it usually meant back-up was needed, or something important had been found.

Heldrus stared in the direction that Merl pointed, more out of reflex rather than expecting to see anything. He turned to Falsith.

“Alright Falsith, gather the ten resting men, and the five groups that got back earliest. We’re following the trail.”

Falsith saluted and bellowed the order.

“All off-duty soldiers present arms! Groups two, eight, seven, four and ten also present arms!”

The men were well trained. It took less than a minute for twenty-five men to be parked in front of Heldrus and Falsith, armor on and blades at their sides. Heldrus paced in front of them, relaying what Merl and Falsith had told him.

“Alright men, we’ve got a stray group that’s forty-five minutes late. We’re following their line at a jog, expecting that it will be at least twenty minutes before we expect any intel. Clear?”

The soldiers nodded confirmation, and the group moved off at a jog. This part of the forest was quite dry underfoot despite the stream nearby, and the sound of dead logs being crunched, and twigs being snapped was like a thousand crabs giving a round of applause. Heldrus figured the forest was still recovering from the effects of winter. Falsith led, followed by Heldrus and Merl, then the rest of the group. They took a break after fifteen minutes, not wanting to run into a fight still puffing. After that point, they spread out in a horizontal line, each soldier about five meters apart, combing the land. They slowed down, going from a stampede to a herd, each soldier looking for any traces of their lost comrades. After another twenty minutes of their slow search, they began to hear signs of human activity. The forest around them had not changed, its large expanse still consisting of the same dense forest and dry earth as around their own camp. The sounds of instruments came to them on the breeze, increasing or decreasing in volume as the wind changed. They crept now, the men on the outer edges of the line closing in so that the group converged once more. By the time they were within viewing distance of the musicians, Heldrus’s squad was walking slow enough that each member could afford to place their foot exactly where the least amount of noise would be made.

Heldrus peered at the camp, finding it to be far more than just a band of musicians. Spread before him was a camp big enough that it needed three campfires, eight tents, and two huge weapon racks fashioned of cut-down trees from the area. Falsith whispered into his ear as they observed.

“Looks like a camp of about thirty, eh? I don’t see our guys, but this must be where they went. If the bandits caught them, they’ll be on high alert, but otherwise, I reckon we might have a chance here, don’t you?”

Heldrus had not made up his mind whether he wanted a fight or not. He had neglected to order bows from the armory, something he would have to rectify in the coming days. Without a wave of arrows to thin the numbers first, he would be sending his soldiers into a direct hand-to-hand fight with the bandits.

He got down on his belly and slid forward, poking his face through a wiry bush between his group and the bandit camp. They looked at ease, clearly feeling confident enough to not require any sentries. Looking at the foes, he noted that at least three-quarters of them didn’t even have their weapons on hand. This, supported by the good morale of his soldiers and his eagerness to begin his bandit conquest, was all the push he needed. He turned to his men rising into a crouch, signaling his sword and whispering a command.

“On my signal, we give ‘em hell. Hit them fast, focusing the men with weapons first. Okay.”

He lifted to his feet, unsheathed his sword, and shouted the order they were waiting for.

“CHARGE!”