It was almost dusk when they nearly reached their camp. Bivos was merely poking through the jagged horizon of the Soutwals, bathing everything in an orange glow. Suddenly, Brandt halted Anh with his outstretched hand and then pulled him to the ground, while also squatting.
-” Someone’s at the camp” - he whispered
The tanai gave Nord a surprised look.
-” How do you know?” - he whispered back
-” I can smell their roast and smoke.” - flatly stated Bradt - “we need to approach carefully”
-” Bandits? Pilgrims?”
-” Maybe. Hopefully.” - said Brand slowly - ”I’m worried it’s going to be something much worse.”
-” No way to know without checking” - shrugged Anh, and was about to bolt off, when Brandt pulled him back.
-” Don’t rush. Let’s do it slowly and see what we are dealing with.”
Anh nodded in confirmation, although clearly without much conviction. While it didn’t take much for a tanai to be stealthy, as their preferred mode of locomotion was almost entirely silent, Brandt needed to put some effort into getting as close as they could to their camp. It was very, very slow. Tanai assumed a cross-legged pose and was following hoomin, who was going from tree to tree, using every little bit of cover the woods could provide in conjunction with the slowly approaching evening.
Once they reached the monument site close enough to see the actual camp, they saw the intruders. By their fireplace sat four armored men chatting casually, and roasting what possibly was another unlucky hare. They had their helmets beside them as well as their weapons. Massive pollax lying by one of the soldiers drew most of the attention.
The fifth person beside them was a tanai floating with legs crossed and reading a book lit by a light crystal embedded in a medallion.
-” Ksintsax” - whispered Anh. Brandt just nodded, very unhappy with what he saw.
-” We will approach from there…” - said hoomin and traced a particular path through the clearing around the monument - “...we’ll get closer and hide behind the fort’s ruins. They should not notice us.”
-” What is your plan here?”
Brandt didn’t answer, just walked, and leaned over, as they did for the last half a candle. Anh followed him.
It was again a game of hiding behind trees and making short advances to avoid being detected. Armed men didn’t seem to care, which made the candid approach a little easier.
After a quarter of sneaking, Anh and Brandt found themselves flattened over a ruin of a fort wall, hidden away from the sights of the party that invaded their camp. Brandt took a peek out of the cover to peek at what was happening there. Their cart had been moved and searched over. The tent was toppled. All of their belongings were also scattered around the camp. Insignia of Ordo Pvrgatore embossed on the armors of the invaders were also very, very visible.
-” We are in deep, deep trouble” - whispered Brandt -” these are church people. As I expected, they must have traced us here with the help of your friend there.”
-” It can’t be that bad, we haven’t done anything wrong.” - commented Anh after a short pause, although his voice didn’t convey confidence in what he was saying - “we can sort this out.”
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-” No! We can’t” - replied Nord - “we need to get out of here. Right now!”
-” No! No!” - protested Anh in a confident tone, so well that Brandt could not tell if the tanai was indeed so sure, or was just masking his worries very well -” we can’t leave like this, this is just a misunderstanding!” - without any hesitation and to the horror of the nord, Anh floated out of the cover.
Once men around the fire noted his presence, they quickly scrambled into a roughly combat-ready state. They took their weapons and put on their helmets. Ksintsax just shut her book with a loud ‘thud’ and floated it to the ground, where it rested on her backpack.
-” Greetings Ksintsaxii!” -
-” Anhs.” - nodded the High Cursor -” We were hoping yous were not embroiled in this”
-” What precisely is ‘this’?”
-” Where is that two-faced employer of yours?”
-” Mr Zerster! Come!” - shouted the tanai.
A few moments later, the hoomin emerged reluctantly from his cover and slowly approached the camp.
-” Take off your sword!” - shouted one of the men in armor. Even more reluctantly, Brandt complied - “Come to the light!”
-” So! What do yous think yous were doing here?”
-” Scientific inquiry, of course.”
-” You and your employer are coming with us to Katzburg.”
-” Why? We are not doing anything against the law here.”
Ksintsax cleared her throat when she heard this.
-” Really? How about a case of theft, reception of fenced military property, and a case of heresy?” - the cursor rubbed her eyes - “ Do you know what this Zerster has done? And yous were completely complicit from start to finish, shall we add.”
It was starting to dawn on Anh that he was in trouble.
-” We didn’t do any of it! We just came here because Mr Zerster found some old documents… somewhere and wanted me to translate them! Those were some precursorial papers that I just translated!”
Brandt cringed when he heard these words, and soldiers smirked almost instantly when they saw his discomfort.
-” Oh really? Please tell me more.”
-” I did, we came here, we checked what was here, and were about to head back!”
The tanai got immersed in their increasingly heated back and forth, which was turning into Anh demeaning himself with pleas of leniency and Ksintsax admonishing him. Meanwhile, the nord took a few steps to the side and assessed the High Cursor's bodyguards.
Although such a description would be belittling to these men, since they were members of the military arm of the Church - the menacing soldiers of the Purifiers, usually accompanying the sad and solemn Coursers in their artifact retrieval missions. The ones here were the best of the best. Heavily armed and armored. Well trained and moved about with this confidence which only years of experience could grant.
Brandt regarded them with grim determination. He couldn't allow himself the luxury of delusion or wishful thinking, which his tanai translator previously had in abundance. Matériel obtained from questionable sources in the middle of a militarised town wasn’t doing them any favors. Invaders probably found the maps. Those were military property. Stolen military property at that and done so during the time of war. They also, no doubt, found borderline heretical translations that brought the Nord and tanai here in the first place.
No amount of sweet talk or golden swords would convince these men to look the other way. They didn’t bother to venture so far after suspected heretics to return empty-handed. All of Brandt’s strands of logic led to one very grim and unavoidable conclusion.
He had to admit that deep inside he knew it would eventually come to this, despite hoping either to bribe his way out of any sticky situations or to avoid any confrontation altogether. Nonetheless, the decision to enact violence on these men still seemed very sudden and almost out of place. He felt his palms sweating inside his gloves. When was the last time he killed a man in combat? Years? Decades perhaps.
Brandt looked them over once again. They were in full harnesses, plate-on-mail, Maargardian style. A couple of them wore helmets, with visors resembling a hound's muzzle - currently lifted and secured in an upward position, for close quarters. The rest had their padding and coifs on. The suits weren't ornamental, but made of steel and kept in good order. These men were armed for war.
Brandt's equipment comprised a few knives and daggers and an arming sword, which was good for scaring peasants or sticking common brigands but would be hardly useful against all that steel. Besides, the sword was also a few mers behind him, in the grass, and thus useless.
In contrast, three soldiers carried longswords, hands resting on their hilts ready to draw any time. The fourth was leaning on a pollax, looking at the banker, and smiling menacingly, the meaning of which was clear: “It’s fine, just comply… or else”.
The Nord smiled back.