Moving through the uneven terrain in the forests of Netsam proved to be much easier than I had originally thought, Castos of course raced ahead of us with his massive advantage in experience, being the son of a hunter had its perks in certain situations. The hunting trips in Ballir also gave us at least a rudimentary understanding of what it was we needed, and even though we still had our weapons and our money pouches, we had no food or water with us at the moment.

Chatter was scarce with only the odd check on the wounds Cameron and Opie sported, but after Castos spotted a small stream which was perpendicular to our path of movement, I decided we should stop here and at least get our wounds cleaned and drink our fill, with no indication that we would be so lucky to meet a stream to drink from at regular intervals.

Everyone in the squad was already used to me fulfilling the role of a beginner combat medic, and whatever I remembered in my mind from first aid, and with the threat of discovery looming ahead, I did not risk boiling water to clean Cameron’s and Opie’s wounds properly. We filled our bellies with water like camels, and then continued heading what I assumed was North, before turning to the North-East, which was the general direction the band came from to Netsam.

In the evening we were still hungry and had no food to eat, and so far everyone had banded together based solely on survival instinct, so the task of leadership fell to me at least for now. If we were to make it out of here in one piece, moving in a group might not have been the best idea, but at the same time I didn’t want to abandon the guys who’ve fought with me for the better part of a year.

We didn’t light a fire either, as such a thing in the middle of the forest would be a beacon to anyone who would want to find us, something that we had no confirmation of but my intuition suspected. Castos went away from us just before the sun had disappeared, a slight tint to the blue colors in the sky still providing a decent amount of lightness, and returned to us cradling some nuts in his hand and even some in his money pouch which was entirely empty.

“You’re a lifesaver Castos! Even a little food is better than sleeping on an empty stomach” I announced, trying to be as cheerful and optimistic as possible.

I took most of what he brought to us from him, borrowing his money pouch temporarily, then I distributed a scant few handfuls of nuts to the other six, before settling down in the impromptu circle we were sitting in, the shade of a tree giving us at least a little bit of cover.

“Are you sure we can’t light a fire? The nights are not warm enough any more to sleep out in the open without one…” Opie suggested, concerned more for Edmund than for his own health.

“We can’t, there’s a good possibility we will be searched for, as men who were going to essentially fight in a rebellion against a noble. Not just any noble at that, but a Duke!” Fisk responded, drawing murmurs of agreement from Castos, Dorian, and Myself.

“Are you sure that’s what they’re after? Only the cavalry bore any kind of crest on their armor, the rest were just mercenaries like the rest of us, their focus was on Captain Lydon as shown by the fact that the cavalry didn’t even bother to impede our escape. Would mercenaries go trawling through the woods on the lookout for a couple of deserters?” Cameron backed Opie up, not entirely keen on sleeping in the cold muck himself.

“If it was just the cavalry I was worried about, I would agree with you…” I made my own comment, then looked Cameron and Opie in the eyes. “... what worries me, is that when we were trying to make ourselves scarce, some mercenaries came from their wagons and actually laid down their lives to slow us down, I’m not so sure our enemy’s goal is solely the Captain…” I finished off, which gave Cameron and Opie looks of disbelief and their immediate response was to refute my argument.

“That’s bollocks, what good would capturing us grunts do for that fucking Duke?” Opie swore, although he kept his voice quiet enough as we didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to ourselves.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, but we might not ever know for sure, unless one of them outright tells about it” I added, but it was a pointless conversation to be having when our primary focus should be survival.

“Look I know that we’re all in a shit situation at the moment, which doesn’t bode well for our chances to make it back to anywhere we can purchase food and drink. I still have my money pouch on me, do the rest of you have yours as well?” I asked, and all but Castos nodded, who’s empty money pouch was still in my hands, as I was playing with it absentmindedly while we were talking.

I threw his pouch back to him, which was still empty of coin, but he also nodded, although with some embarrassment. “Our chances are better if we stick together, which is nothing new for us although we’re back to being understrength. Castos you do not have your bow with you, but do you know of any traps you can make which might catch us at least something to eat? Supplemented by your foraging of course” I explained, before asking the newest member of the squad still alive about food.

“I can make something up, although we’d have to stick around in the forest for a while and I can’t guarantee we will catch anything anyway. I know some basic things when it comes to finding food, those nuts are just like the ones that grew near my village in Renia, but anything that’s new I will not eat, as there’s a chance it might be poisonous” Castos responded, with a very reasonable explanation of his skills.

“It will have to do for now, we take watches in pairs of two, all of us need to get at least some rest tonight so make sure to get some sleep at least. If you’re worried about the cold, then stick together, hug it out. I don’t care if you’re uncomfortable, you can handle some discomfort if it will keep your toes from freezing off. Take off all of your armor when you sleep as well, make sure you can get as close as possible. I’ll take the newbie with me on first watch, then Edmund and Opie, then Cameron and Kurt, and finally Fisk and Dorian in the early morning hours” I gave my orders, some of which were met with disapproving looks, others with a bit of amusement.

Castos and I settled together on a log nearby, letting our eyes adjust to the decrease in illumination. The moons were out in full tonight, a blessing and a curse at the same time. We would be able to at least see a little better, but conversely we could be spotted easier as well. I still had my own concerns and I was trying to think about why my mind was urging me to be so cautious, verging on the edge of paranoia.

I couldn’t get it out of my mind as to why the mercenaries would fight so hard to prevent escaping enemies from retreating, as mercenaries usually valued their lives far more than the regular payment they could expect to receive for a slave, and our loot. The only thing that made sense was that the payment for our capture was so large, that self-preservation disappeared in the face of greed.

Was I turning into a madman? The logical part of my brain argued, but the more emotional one tried to explain that paranoia was only madness when people weren’t out to get you, which they might be at the moment. Our part of the night duty passed uneventfully, with me only having to nudge a snoring Castos awake a few times during our watch while I was ruminating. I woke up the next shift after only about two hours of the guys getting comfy in one another’s embrace, sharing whatever body heat they could during the cold night.

I wasn’t entirely comfortable being this close to smelly, unhygienic warriors of the same sex, but whatever thoughts I could scrounge up about it were dragged down into sleep just like I was. What seemed like the very next moment, I was woken up by Fisk and Dorian who were last in the rotation, and as my eyes adjusted and my weary body which was exhausted after the battle yesterday noticed the sky was bright enough to not be the crack of dawn, but it was not exactly late.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

All of those who were sleeping stood up, and re-equipped their armor, and I was happy to see that all of us were still here, none having run off during the night. Castos must have been the most chipper of us all, as now he didn’t have to pay off his armor and weapons anymore, a silver-lining if there ever was one.

We kept moving in the same direction as we did the previous day, although I decided that a more leisurely but constant pace was appropriate as we had no food and water on hand to keep us in shape for a fast trek through the forest. We moved at a good pace for most of the day, but as we came to a clearing that had a visible path of some sort, I hesitated and ordered all of us to stay still.

I tried to presume what a search operation on the part of yesterday’s enemies would look like, and while searching in a forest might be a very stupid decision, however unlikely, keeping watch on the roads was a different matter. All but Dorian and Castos gave me some looks of suspicion, as to why I wanted to stop us now that we finally found something to orient ourselves by, but I remained calm and decided to wait a little bit, perhaps using my strengthening of the mindspace to my advantage.

I had kept up with my very unskilled training in sorcery whenever I could, and the field in which I was able to view my arcane power had expanded to more than fifty paces in any direction, more than double what it had been originally. I couldn’t exactly let on about my sorcery to my comrades, so explained it by saying I wanted to listen for any unusual sounds. The rest took it upon themselves to have some rest, and Castos, bless him, actually believed me and joined in, closing his eyes to focus on his hearing.

I couldn’t see a being as big as a human in any direction except for those who were resting near me, seven sufficiently-clear outlines around which arcane power in the forest moved. At the very edge of my field, which was circular in nature, I saw a small animal which elicited similar responses to arcane power, hiding in a bush of some sort. My hungry stomach immediately advised me to find it and kill it for sustenance, but I couldn’t do so without revealing the full extent of my powers, perhaps not even then.

While my mind was debating with a lower organ, that same small animal which I assumed was a rabbit, was spooked off by something, and shot out deeper into the forest, before disappearing entirely. Whatever it was that caused it, immediately sent the hairs on my back standing, and I snapped my eyes open myself, and looked down the dirt road in the direction where this ‘disturbance’ was located.

The others noticed my hasty movements, and stood up quickly assuming I had heard some threat. I calmed them down with my hand movements, before ‘shush-ing’ them and telling them to stay hidden where we were. I trained my eyes back up the road, and a faint but steady rumbling sound became apparent after a while, Castos, Dorian, and a few others noticing the same thing.

What I saw was two cavalrymen galloping at speed in our direction, and at the current speed they were moving they would be here very soon. I didn’t have time to inform the others of what my plan had been, as I now saw two ‘answers’ moving towards us, which could give us some insight into what we were facing.

I didn’t know these were our enemies for sure, but if this was just some odd coincidence then I supposed I was just about to become a bandit. I put on my helmet quickly, took off my shield from behind me, and moved up closer to the road, which would make me visible once the two cavalrymen would come close enough. I didn’t unsheath my swords, instead keeping my wooden shields as the only thing in both my hands.

Once I decided they were close enough, and I ran forward up the road, and flung the shield with my right hand straight at the left cavalryman’s torso. The man was wearing armor, but the speed at which his horse was moving, and the weight of my shield which had added strength due to my throw, knocked the man out of his saddle and backwards. Before the rider on his side could do anything to counter me, I moved right, away from what I presumed would be his sword-arm’s side.

My guess was correct, and even across different worlds most people were still right handed, which gave me the liberty to unsheathe my longsword, which I used to cut off the frontmost leg of the still-mounted rider’s horse. The thing came tumbling down, but the man must have anticipated my move, as he didn’t fall to the ground with the horse, and instead jumped to the side, landing on his shoulder.

I immediately approached him, and stuck my sword out to which made it closer should the man make any hostile moves. At this point the rest of my squad came out of the forest, and I ordered Dorian to put the horse that was screeching in agony out of its misery. Cameron came up to me, and I ordered him to disarm the man who still lay on the ground, his sword still sheathed at his side. When Cameron accomplished this task, without much fuss from the ‘prisoner’, I spared a look away from him, and saw the first man who I had dismounted with my shield lying still, unmoved from the position I assume he landed at originally.

Cameron and Kurt took over to watch over the prisoner, while I made my way to the immobile man, to see if he was still alive. The man was not, he landed so awkwardly that his neck was broken, and my shield had so many cracks in it from the force of the impact that I just threw it as far as possible into the forest, and wrote it off in my mind. The horse that was still alive actually kept running at full speed, perhaps sensing some form of danger so while I examined the dead man, it ran off past where we could reasonably hope to apprehend it.

The eight of us dragged the dead soldier, the dead horse, and frog-marched the prisoner deep into the forest, continuing on the journey we were going on. The loot was a great boon, as we finally had a waterskin from the saddle-pouch of the dead horse, and I was going to order it butchered and cooked over a fire while the sun was still out in the sky.

The greatest boon of my very hastily prepared but thankfully successful ambush was the still alive soldier, who called himself Wisgar. The man was distantly related to a noble, and was clearly a man-at-arms in service to the Duke himself, as was evidenced by the coat of arms on the right side of his right pauldron.

I didn’t know if this was the Duke’s crest for sure, having no knowledge of which house used a goblet on a red background as their own, but it was probably the truth as the man insisted that he could be ransomed and that we should hold off on killing him if we were ‘sensible’ mercenaries.

“I have no interest in killing you” I lied, to try and make this man stop with his hysterics. “What I want to know is who you and the rest of the soldiers are, why you ambushed our band, and why you seem to be in such a hurry so far from the battlefield” I asked calmly, giving him my customer-service smile.

“We are couriers delivering a message to our lo-” He began, but Fisk who was standing nearby punched him hard in the face before he could finish responding.

“Do you take us for fools? We are north-west of the battlefield, and the Novak Duchy lies to the East, now speak the truth if you want to keep your teeth” Fisk threatened him, behaving nothing like the usual educated and gentle soul he was.

Wisgar stared at Fisk hatefully, but after observing the expressions of those of us who were without a helmet, and seeing that we were in agreement regarding our current geographical position, he exhaled slowly, and began to speak once more.

“I was in a search party with Elric lying over there, we were searching for you I guess…” Wisgar answered, not earning another punch to the face this time, but not divulging all of the requested information.

“Why would you be searching for mercenaries, a whole day after a battle no less? Was Captain Lydon Novak not your intended target?” Cameron asked quietly, trying to understand the thought process of our now very real pursuers.

“He was the Duke’s target, yes, but the Novak Duchy wasn’t the only party eager to see your band’s disbandment…” Wisgar answered only one of Cameron’s questions, and the speed at which he was giving his answers seemed to decrease with every sentence.

This slowdown earned a kick to the back of Wisgar’s knee from Kurt who was applying threatening pressure from behind the standing man.

“You can stop trying to delay, we’ll be out of here long before any help arrives. Your best chance of seeing anything but this forest again is to talk, so talk” Kurt threatened with some venom, speaking to the man’s ear from behind, but loud enough so we could all hear it.

“A noble from Hessia contacted the Duke with a proposition and funds for this plan, our Duke doesn’t have enough money lying around to just throw at two whole mercenary bands. This noble from Hessia didn’t want the Duke’s brother, he demanded we capture one of the other members of your band…” Wisgar explained quickly, almost tripping over his words as he spoke.

“And since you are still searching for this mysterious mercenary are we to assume you have not found him, and his Hessian’s goal is one of us?” I asked, already dreading what the man would answer.

“I have only the basic features and age of our target, but we were informed by the Hessian that we were searching for a young man named Lev…” Wisgar spoke, at which point I noticed he was looking quite intently at all of us who were without a helmet, which was everyone but me who had not thought to take it off.

I calmly freed my head of its metal constraints, as everyone’s eyes but mine were focused on me now, knowing that I was the reason why we were being searched for at all. When Wisgar saw my face clearly for the first time, he actually looked surprised to see that the reason this Elric and he were apprehended was the man he was searching for along.

“You…” he whispered, but before he could say anything else I took out my short sword and delivered a clean slice to Wisgar’s neck, not wishing to leave any witnesses that might bring forth my own capture.

The man lay dying on the floor, gurgling blood every so often but those sounds were growing fainter and fainter. I had no qualms with Hessia as far as I was aware, but when it came to their big neighbor to the West, that was a different story. Jenusia’s reach does stretch far, as they attempted to capture me even as far away as the hinterlands, which resulted in the deaths of many unrelated to my own desire to be free.

The question now was, how was I going to explain this all to my brothers-in-arms?