With each step forward, Aadi took in his surroundings with bated breath. The sudden appearance of the cave disoriented him and he steadied himself with difficulty. Luckily, the sunlight from the ceiling was sufficient for him to see clearly. It lit up his surroundings, save for some sections of the cave’s walls. The first thing Aadi noticed was the basalt. It made up most of the cave, both its floors and walls. “This seems natural,” he thought, unable to spot any signs of a human touch in the cave. The area he found himself in was large. Aadi could make out the walls further away, but they were difficult to discern.
As he walked further into the cave, he was thankful for the sunlight. He had a lantern handy, but Aadi didn’t want to face any danger with one hand occupied by it. He didn’t want to discard it either, so he had stored it in his knapsack. He had picked up some ammunition for his slingshot along the way, but there were no enemies that he could see. His courage and wits having fully returned, he stashed the slingshot away and took a deep breath. Looking around him, Aadi spotted neither door nor passage. There was no sign of an entrance or an exit, save for the open ceiling. He couldn’t climb the walls all the way up. The basalt seemed smooth in most places, with few footholds if any. He didn’t have any climbing equipment either and to scale those high walls without some would have been futile, to say the least.
Setting his thoughts of climbing out of that place aside, Aadi continued forward until he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. “I saw something glint,” he thought and turned in that direction. A few strides placed him near several human-sized objects that were partially concealed by shadows. They were situated closer to a section of the cave’s walls, which the sunlight couldn’t fully illuminate. “Bodies!” Aadi thought, as he noticed the source of the glint that had drawn his attention. It was a pair of spaulders, one of which had gleamed in the sunlight. “Appa and Kalis weren’t wearing any plate,” Aadi thought, remembering the light leather armour that his elders had donned the previous morning. He hadn’t met Quince and Pati, the missing hunters, before. However, Aadi didn’t think they’d wear plate on a hunt in the forest.
“Are they adventurers, or part of the town guard?” he muttered under his breath as he examined the corpses before him. He didn’t recognise any of them, but that wasn’t surprising. He and Shan hadn’t spent much time with the town guards, friendly or otherwise. Aadi noticed several dents in the bodies’ armour. There were no blade marks present and the dead appeared to have bled severely from their mouths. “Are these bows?” Aadi thought, his eyes locking on two armaments lying nearby. Next to them were a couple of bodies and these were hardly armoured. Their flannel shirts offered little by way of physical protection and there were blood splatters all over them, where it had dripped and trickled down from the corpses’ mouths.
“They have several broken bones,” Aadi observed, but he didn’t see any blade marks on these bodies either. All of them appeared to have been beaten badly, to death. “These two might be Pati and Quince,” he thought, but he had no way to confirm their identities. He wondered how he could retrieve their bodies. Their families could find some measure of peace thereby. He had hardly begun to look for ways to move the corpses, when he suddenly heard a sound behind him. It was a metallic thump and it repeated at regular intervals. “Footsteps,” Aadi thought and turned his head, only to freeze in place! Walking towards him was a figure partially bathed in sunlight and partly shrouded in shadows.
The sunlit parts revealed metallic gauntlets, greaves, and boots on a tall man. He walked with confident strides and his body was covered in leather armour, with leather pauldrons to top it off. The shadows covered most of his face, but Aadi could discern his dark hair and part of a mask that covered his mouth and nose. He walked in Aadi’s direction, but seemed to ignore him entirely. It was as if the man hadn’t seen Aadi at all! A part of Aadi felt like calling out, but his wiser mind prevailed and he kept his peace. The man continued to ignore him as he stepped near Aadi’s position. A few steps later, he had passed Aadi entirely, paying him no attention whatsoever! Aadi wondered whether he was being ignored on purpose, when his eyes were drawn to the man’s gauntlets.
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Made of metal, they were suited for battle and Aadi thought they were bloodstained. More importantly, the metal-clad fingers clasped two large bundles, in each hand and easily carried them forward. Aadi was suddenly grateful that he hadn’t greeted the man. “He’s strong,” he thought, “to carry those things so easily.” Abruptly, the man stopped and swung both gauntleted arms forward, tossing the bundles a full metre ahead. Then, he turned around and walked away, paying Aadi no heed. The son of Viraat had occasion to stop the man and take offence at being ignored, but his eyes were fixed on the two bundles a few metres in front of him. The two bundles that the man had just discarded. The two bundles that looked suspiciously like bodies!
Aadi’s pulse quickened and his heart grew tight with an anxiety that he couldn’t explain. Suddenly, his mind brushed aside all thoughts of the stranger. He didn’t care about the man. All his thoughts were focused on those two bundles, those two bodies. Aadi stepped forward and quickened his pace. He didn’t care whether or not the stranger spotted him. He had to reach those bodies. His fingers twitched and his heart ached, a light pain settling in. The soul knows before the mind acknowledges and Aadi was no different.
A few long strides found him next to the discarded bundles and he quickly knelt down, using his hands to turn them upright. This close to a wall section, there wasn’t enough light to illuminate the area clearly. He reached for his knapsack and found his fingers fumbling therein, grabbing the hand lantern inside weakly. Somehow, he brought it out and lit it. Aadi didn’t care if it attracted the other man’s attention. Positioning the lantern near the heads of the two large bundles, Aadi inspected them carefully. His fingers brushed the hair from the two bodies’ faces aside gently and his heart stopped for what seemed an eternity!
“App…” Aadi sputtered, unable to form the word as he recognised the body before him. Viraat Tell lay dead on the ground; his father was dead. A whirlwind of incoherent thoughts rushed through Aadi’s mind. His eyes felt hot as tears streamed down uncontrollably. They wet his cheeks and dripped on the ground. His lips trembled and his body shook slightly. “Appa,” he whispered hoarsely, laying a shuddering hand on his father’s body. His mind frantically desired a reply from his father, a reaction, a movement, even a twitch that would be a sign of life. His heart knew better though.
His father’s body was cold. There was no pulse. A part of his mind noted that there were no signs of injuries from a blade, or even a blunt weapon, but that was a distant corner of rationality that was immediately ignored. He grasped his father with both arms and embraced him, willing with all his might that his father return to life. Nature wasn’t willing to be so kind. The seconds and minutes passed in an eerie stillness; only the tears flowed freely from his eyes and his muffled sobs broke the silence.
Slowly and tenderly, Aadi lowered his father’s body to the ground once more. Thoughts of his mother flitted across his mind; how would he break the news to her? How would he get his father back to her? He breathed in deeply and turned around, staring at a point in the distance where he imagined the stranger to be. The shadows shrouded his figure and Aadi couldn’t discern his position precisely. “I doubt he’ll let me leave, let alone with my father in tow,” Aadi thought, turning to look at his father’s body once more. That was when his gaze settled on the second body and his world came crashing down!
Under the lantern’s light, Aadi could make out the features of the second body and his mind went blank. He felt an enormous weight on his shoulders and his knees buckled. Every fibre of his being denied what his eyes told him was true. “No,” he whispered weakly, “no.” But no earthly force could change what he beheld! There, in front of his very eyes, next to his dead father, lay the body of Shan Kant, son of Kalis, his very dear friend.