The attention of everyone at the table was on me. No one here knew who I was or who I was to the old wizard except Granid. That's why the eyes of the Count, his family, and his servants were full of curiosity. They wanted to know who I was and what I was doing here, but I didn't know if I should share the rather shocking information with them.

"I hear your name is Boris Kipito."

The Count said to me and I only had to nod to confirm his words.

"Yes, my name is Boris Kipito...

There was an awkward pause. I didn't know if I should tell them that I was a man from outer space. Would my words cause them culture shock? Because of this, I turned my attention to Granid and decided to ask him about it:

"Do I have to say who I am?"

"If you want to."

Granid said, but the next moment I heard his silent words in my head as if they were my thoughts, but they seemed so alien to me that I immediately realised that they were not mine.

~ You can only say that you are from faraway lands. I don't think they need to know that there are many more worlds beyond our world. That fact would either surprise them, or they'd think you're a strange, stupid liar who says things they don't understand.

«What's going on? Where do I hear his voice coming from? Is that him using magic? Granid?»

I thought, fearing that he was reading my mind, but then he also mentally told me:

~ Thanks to the Babylon spell ring, your soul receives and understands the song of my soul, but I do not understand the song of yours, but only hear its colourings and intonation. I will explain later how I did this, but for now focus on the main point.

I was still a little surprised and yet it made me realise something: he could somehow transmit his thoughts to me through magic, but he couldn't hear my thoughts, or rather he couldn't understand them. When I realised this, I calmed down a little and nodded to Granid, turning my head towards the Count to share the limited information:

"I am a soldier of the army of the Republic, along with my squad I was lost in a poisonous forest while we were travelling towards our army far to the east. We would like to pass through the lands of your kingdom, and in return we will help you in your war against the Empire Antigone."

After hearing this, the Count's eyes glittered. My words had aroused his interest. He hardly knew what a "Republic" was, but the offer to help him win the war for the right of passage must have interested him very much. I did not tell him more about the fact that the Republic is a three-sector interstellar state with hundreds of planets, a billion-dollar army, and tens of thousands of space-fleet ships. If he had heard it, he would have taken my words as the ravings of a fairy-tale madman.

«I can't imagine what he's thinking right now. I hope he agrees to our proposal.»

I thought discreetly as I pressed my palm against the holster of my pistol.

"Are you saying you're soldiers?"

Asked the Count to which I, also nodding replied:

"Yes. We are soldiers and this is our first time in your lands."

"For soldiers, you are dressed rather oddly. Being dressed in ceremonial uniforms, no weapons, with tools for blacksmithing, how with that you are going to help us in the war and why only against the Empire? Wouldn't a lighter job suit you? What do you think?"

"There are too few of us to help you."

I answered honestly.

"We were going to bring our army here, or rather just a fraction of it to provide adequate support."

«I won't tell him our numbers and combat capabilities just yet.That would cause problems.»

"You want to march through the lands of the kingdom on the promise that you'll one day come to help fight the Empire?"

The Count asked rhetorically, chuckling at his words and shaking his head a few times.

"If it were me, his majesty would not listen to you any longer and would have you kicked into the slums so that you would never set foot in the court again."

The next moment the earl's gaze rested on Granid then Laroy continued his thought with his arms crossed at the table:

"Yet with you is Granid, a free wizard with a full century of royal service behind him. He would never vouch for liars."

Granid hearing the Count's words clarified his position:

"It was I who offered them to help you for the right to pass through the lands of Lakuus. They are all lost in the poisonous forest and want to go home very badly. I took pity on them and did not deny them their wishes. But if you have already invited me to the castle, I thought you might be able to send a message to the royal court about such an offer. Would you do that?"

"That is for me to decide. Is what he said true?"

The earl asked the old wizard seriously.

"Yes."

Nodding confidently Granid said.

Laroy was silent for a few seconds pondering his next steps. I've done everything I need to do, I've made an offer of mutual help so now the result of these negotiations depends on the Count's decision. He looked at me with disbelief, but at the same time he was looking at the old wizard and most likely he was thinking about whether to accept my offer or not.

«Even if he says no, we'll fight our way out. «

It was a rather grim thought that made me shudder, anticipating a bloody feast in this city that I didn't want to start. Luckily for me, the Count eventually agreed:

"Very well. I will take this offer to the royal palace and add in the letter that the free wizard Granid has vouched for you. That's all I'll do, but still I have my doubts about the way you fight. Where are your weapons? Or perhaps you are martial artists from the far east?"

"You can be sure of that, Laroy."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Granid stated contentedly.

"On their way to Itsqueen, they slew a group of three dozen monsters. I won't tell you how they did it, but know that it's true. I witnessed it, and I can definitely say that they know how to wage war better than anyone else. If there were hundreds of them, they'd stop tens of thousands."

«Hey! Hey! Hey! We've got tens of thousands of rounds of ammo!»

Mentally I berated Granid for his choice of words.

"I'll believe that these monsters could have been killed by the esteemed Granid, but I'll be sceptical about what you just said."

Laroy said, making Granid chuckle with his words.

"Will you not trust my words? Hah~! I understood you perfectly well, Laroy."

"That's good. I think we're done here."

Pronounced Laroy and continued dinner with his wife and daughter.

"You may go."

«It was like he was kicking us out. «

Granid and I rose from our seats and left the hall heading towards the chambers the count had allotted us. We were accompanied by four guards, who remained silent as well. This frightened me a little, but we made our way to the room where our men were located.

"Oh! You're back already? Come on, tell me how it went?"

Will asked sitting on the edge of the bunk.

The place where they put my platoon was an in-castle barracks with two dozen bunk beds and curtains for changing clothes, which reminded me of fitting rooms in clothes shops. There was no separate room for women, and the boys had already settled in and complained about the hard beds and the dust and draught. I took a vacant bunk close to the narrow, high window while Granid stood by the doorway, contemplating the room with contempt.

"I think that went well."

I answered Will and asked Granid at the same time.

"Tell me, what was that? Can you read minds?"

"I wish we were staying in a hotel instead of this shit hole."

Granid snorted and answered my question at the same time, taking a seat on the creaky bed.

"I wouldn't say it's mind-reading magic that only the greatest mages of this world can do. But I channelled my soul singing into your soul, and your ring made my singing understandable to you."

"I...um...to be honest I didn't understand you very well."

I muttered, but Fred, hearing our conversation for some reason suddenly became interested, running up to the old wizard.

"You can transmit your thoughts? What kind of nonsense is that? ... А? How did you do that?"

The senior medic was apparently surprised to receive the same silent mental response from Granid.

"Those who do not know the nature of the world beyond cannot understand the essence of another reality where the power of magical nature rests. You cannot understand what «soul singing» is to you it is just thoughts, feelings, but to us it is like seeing you as pages of books written in foreign words and each of your soul singing is sung and seen in your unique language."

"I need to think about what I've heard."

Pondered Fred, sitting down on his bunk.

"«Soul singing» means... maybe it's glesobion radiation? Unlikely though... it only exists as a hypothesis and nothing more... then what?"

«I don't think I'll distract him. «

At this time we could already hear the noise of crickets outside, night was falling, and we were about to finally sleep in beds for the first time in a long time, but we didn't feel any comfort in them. Apparently the Count's hospitality was limited to a sumptuous dinner by their standards and no more, or they were simply not ready to receive so many people in the castle and therefore put us all in the barracks. I don't know exactly why we are here and not in more acceptable quarters, but I think they just don't think we are worthy enough to share their luxuries.

«Republican officials and local nobles... they're the same everywhere. «

I thought, and Itami suddenly turned to me.

"Boris, should we expect an attack from them? I don't think they just gathered us here in this barracks for no reason. They might do something aggressive to us."

"That's unlikely."

I answered signalman, resting my back comfortably on the bed.

"They don't need any additional enemies right now, and they gave us the barracks probably because they weren't ready to receive us and just didn't have time to prepare for the arrival of uninvited guests."

"But they've gathered a lot of guards around this barracks."

Said Itami showing me the data from his bioscanner, where the map showed a lot of live targets around this room.

"That's because of me."

Granid snorted.

"They don't want me to suddenly disappear. They need me, but they won't get any help from me anyway. They made their own fly soup, let them eat it themselves. Their war for the throne is of no concern to me whatsoever."

"What happened?"

Asked Esko and I shared with everyone about the situation in that state.

After a while, everyone calmed down a bit, but at the same time there were some very interesting questions, mostly from the natives.

"So they're caught up in infighting."

Said Ripun sitting on the edge of the bed closer to Alza and Niana.

"I don't know well what things are like in this kingdom. I've never been here, but I'm afraid we can't expect anything good from them."

"They won't accept us."

Niana said with annoyance as she rested her head against her bare knees, hiding her face from us.

"I thought they would help us, but they have enough trouble of their own."

"Don't worry Madam, I'm sure the king of the kingdom of Lakuus will agree to help our saviours."

Ripun said to the princess, but she only became more talkative than before.

"But while the king will think, while he will answer, while he will help Boris and his soldiers, while there will be one war here and then another, by then the people of Hippolyta will almost all be in their graves. The Antigonians are doing the worst atrocities in our lands right now, and there is nothing we can do to stop it!"

"Don't say that, Princess."

Zaden said grimly.

"Otherwise the great mother will turn your words to truth."

"BUT WE CANNOT WAIT!"

Screamed Niana lifting her weeping red face from her knees splashing her tears all over the barracks and sniffing her nose in a trembling voice said.

"I... *sob*... I don't want to run away anymore. I'm so tired...*sob*...I want to go home."

Watching the crying princess was very hard for us. If there were more of us, we could help them, if not free the country, then save many lives from the Antigone tyranny. But we cannot, there are too few of us, we know little about this planet, its inhabitants and their capabilities. We ourselves need help to reach our troops. We cannot afford to be distracted from our tasks. Our lives are a higher priority to us.

«And yet... so pathetic.»

"By the way, I've been thinking and remembered something."

Spoke Forn suddenly relieved the gloomy atmosphere with his words.

"We should ask the Count next time about the «bird»."

"Bird?"

Esko didn't understand, then widened his eyes guessing what he meant.

"Exactly! Leo. We should ask him about Leo."

Indeed if the data was to be believed, in theory they could have met us already here, or at least the natives from Lakuus.

"That's odd."

Forn wondered aloud.

"IFV would have been flying over these lands, meaning their return route would have been through Lakuusians-populated lands."

"Indeed, they should have made contact with the Lakuus before we did."

Pronounced Fred.

"What if they somehow bypassed all the villages in the area and were already in the poisonous forest?"

"Then they would have headed east, like us."

I pronounced and immediately a perplexed Granid turned to me:

"Who is Leo?"

"He's a junior lieutenant, he's in charge of the C1-2-2D1 platoon. We sent him to the crash site of one of the two cargo shuttles to search it with his guys and find a special tool there, an STCNC machine. With it we could use it to re-establish long-range communications and contact the rest of the army so they could fly a shuttle to pick us up and take us back to the rest of the army. However, before Leo returned we were overtaken by Antigonians and we left the shuttle behind."

"Hm~... so that's what that nasty noise in the sky I heard."

Granid pronounced.

"That flying thing was called the If-Fey-Vi?"

"Infantry Fighting Vehicle, but we just shorten the name to the acronym IFV."

"Ahhh... so that's how you abbreviate long names..."

Pondered Granid uttered.

"Apparently Babylon's spell on the made rings turned out to be imperfect. I didn't realise it and I heard a word completely unfamiliar to me..., however, it doesn't matter. So that thing was flying for a special tool?"

"Yes."

Nodding I confirmed the old wizard's words.

"And it was heading south towards the mountains?"

"According to the topographical map, the area where the cargo shuttles crashed was high ground."

"That's bad."

Everyone turned their attention to Granid as he shook his head sadly in different directions.

"There are monsters constantly crawling out of those mountains we call Shekora, some of which you slew today, but they go south for a reason, to escape the stronger monsters that dwell there. I'm afraid it would be hard for your friends to survive if they encountered one of these monsters."

"How dangerous are they?"

I asked with a dose of fear and concern, anticipating to hear about the unenviable fate of Leo and his boys.

And I was sadly not mistaken.

“Even I can’t defeat many of them.”

Granid said grimly.

These words plunged the barracks into an unprecedented silence, and meanwhile we were filled with feelings of dread. If Granid's words were true, Leo and his platoon were dead.