It took the rest of the day for them to get to the fort. The sun was setting and Godafrid could smell the evening meals getting prepared from outside of the fort. As they get close to the gate Raganhar shows the guards a piece of paper before they are let inside.

“Welcome to fort Hramn,” Raganhar tells Godafrid with his arms wide to his sides, “This here is our base of operations in this area of the kingdom.”

The fort ain't big but it clearly has enough room for around one hundred hunters and their supplies. The fort mostly made of stone, which is an exception for most of the forts in the continent, excluding the darwen once, is a sight to behold. The place has most likely been purpose built by the order to accommodate their need, it has a court yard with some training dummies, kitchen, barracks for the hunters to sleep, an armoury, storage and a tower that looks over the whole fort protecting it from enemy ambushes.

Godafrid was helped to a small room in the barracks and was served food there. The meal consisted of bread, a pork stew with some cabbage and carrots, a piece of hard cheese and some ale. Godafrid hadn’t eaten this good of a meal for months, as during his travels he could mainly eat dried meat, cheese, and whatever he could gather or trade for.

“Now eat and rest, we'll take care of you until your wounds are better,” Raganhar says from the doorway to Godafrid’s room, “Oh the fort's captain will visit you as soon as he's free of his duties.”

Before Godafrid had a change to answer Raganhar had closed the door and left. Godafrid ate his meal eagerly like he was starving. The meal was more flavorful that anything he had eating since leaving his master’s hiding place, the garlic taste was something that he had missed and the pork was just perfectly cooked, ale was higher quality than the ones he had gotten in his travels but still it wasn’t as good as the ale his master gave him when he left for this journey.

After Godafrid had eaten he took a look around the room. A small room made for guests of the order or a higher ranking member, it had a small worn bedside table, a window facing the courtyard, a mirror hanging on the wall and a table with a chair next to it.

The captain had been too busy with some urgent tasks and couldn’t visit Godafrid. As the sun had set over the horisont Godafrid decided to go to sleep.

***

The next morning Godafrid woke up well rested for the first time in weeks even though he was wounded yesterday. It didn’t take long after he woke up that he heard a knock on the door.

“Moorning, how’s your wounds?” The captain asked while walking to the room with a physician following him.

“They are good,” Godafrid answered while touching his leg, “don’t hurt as much as I expected them to.”

“Well, that's the power of spruce resin and prayers to Magn,” the captain moved the chair next to the bed for the physician, “My name is Ekkebert and the guy changing your bandages is Pippin. ”

“We met during the battle with the vampire,” Pippin said while still changing the bandages, ”It’s miracle that you survived”

Godafrid looked carefully at both of them. Captain Ekkebert had short brown hair, and eyes of the same colour, a scar running on his left cheek, he was also sturdily built tall as a warrior should. Pippin on the other hand was shorter than Godafrid, had lighter brown and little longer hair than the captain and light blue eyes, he was also sturdy but not as close to the captain's level.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Oh, yeah,” Godafrid looked down embarrassed, “My name is Godafrid, son of Sigiheri”

“Good to meet you, I’m sure Raganhar has already told you but we will make sure that your wounds are healed before you leave”

“Thank you”

“It’s what the Order does, help the victims of demons” Ekkebert said while moving the chair back to its place as Pippin had changed the bandages already. “Well, I need to go now, I send someone with food here soon”

Ekkebert left Godafrid alone in the room as Pippin had already left before him. Now that Godafrid was alone he took a look out of the window. There were some of the order’s warriors doing their morning routines, training, working out, eating and maintaining equipment.

Godafrid sat down on the chair and placed his staff on the table. He inspected it for any damage it could have taken during the vampire attack or just from casting spells. As he was inspecting the staff, a woman came in with some food without him noticing.

The woman places a tray of food on the table startling Godafrid.

“Sorry, did I scare you,” the woman asks with a slight smirk.

“No,” Godafrid sayis while looking down on the food.

The woman wore robes with the orders arms and was clearly a demon hunter. She had shoulder length blonde hair just a little shorter than Godafrids, and her eyes were dark brown. She was more muscular than a peasant woman but still not on the same level as Pippin, but she looked to be stronger than Godafrid.

“My names Gerlind, Raganhar told me how you fought a vampire in the village.”

“Oh, yeah” Godafrid lifts his head to look at Gerlind “I’m Godafrid, but Raganhar probably told you that already.”

“Yeah he told me.”

An awkward silence falls in the room and soon Gerlind turns towards the door.

“I need to go, I have some task to do” Gerlind opens the door “I hope that your wounds heal quickly.”

The meal brought by Gerlind was a small bowl of cabbage, onion, sausage stew that was seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic in a milk and ale broth. There was also a small piece of breath and a cup of water with the meal.

***

Most of Godafrid’s day was spent in the room inspecting his equipment and looking at the demon hunters going about their day out of the window. Pippin had changed his bandages and cleaned the wound around midday, but that was the last visit he had from the order's people until the evening.

“Hey, how’s it going, friend” Raganhar bursted to the room with a smile and a tray of food with him, startling Godafrid.

Just little behind Raganhar was Gerlind carrying more food, most likely her portion. Raganhar placed the food on the table and moved it next to the bed where Godafrid was sitting.

“Is your leg any better, or your forehead?”

“Pippin said that my leg will most likely take a week or two to heal,” Godafrid paused and raised his hand from his leg to the bandage on his head, “But my head should be fine in a day or two as the cuts were shallow.”

“That's good,” Raganhar says while taking a sip of ale, “Well eat up, you need lots of good food to heal that leg faster.”

The dinner for today was stew with trout, leek, cabbage and onions,a big loaf of brown bread, ale and some pork sausages that Raganhar clearly added in himself.

“So, what are you doing in that village?” Raganhard asks while biting into a sausage.

“I was looking if someone would have sold me some food,” Godafrid takes a quick sip of ale, “Why were you and the other hunters there?”

“We were just on a patrol around the area when we stumbled there, luckily for you.”

“Yeah, thank you”

“You don’t need to thank me, just doing my job,” Raganhar says with a mouth full of food.

After a few minutes of silent eating Godafrid decided to break the silence.

“So why did you come eat in my room?”

“I and Gerlind are going for a mission tomorrow so I wanted to have a meal with you before that” Raganhar says with ale running down on his lip. “There have been ferar hobgoblin sightings to the north from here.”

“Oh, well good luck to you two”

“Thank you, let’s hope that Leishne is watching us.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

After the group has eaten their food Raganhar and Gerlind take the dishes and leave the room while wishing Godafrid a quick recovery.

Eating a meal with other people was something new to Godafrid as he hadn’t eaten a meal with people other than his master in years, it made him happy even though he was kind of awkward during it.

***

The next morning Godafrid looked out of the window as Raganhar and Gerlind went on their mission. Unexpectedly for Godafrid, Raganhar looked up to his room window and waved at him and he waved back awkwardly.

After a little while someone knocked on his door and as he opened it he saw a goblin carrying some food.

Goblins, unlike their demonic cousins hobgoblins, are shorter and a lot more timid and less hairy but still grotesque. Even though they still remind people of hobgoblins, or because of that, they are most popular slaves for people to use. Most of the civilazed goblins are slaves to humans. There are still some wild goblins, mostly in the south west. Unlike humans who capture and use goblins as slave the dwarfs just use them as target practice, killing them on sight, as there is somekind of greater hatred inside of dwarfs against goblins that one that humans have.

“I…I brought some food,” the goblins says with a stuttering voice.

“Thank you,” Godafrid takes a quick pause thinking how to act with the slave, ”Just put it on the table”

The goblin waddled to the table and placed the tray of food on it even though he himself couldn't see the top of the table.

“A…a…are you pleased with this,” the goblin asked while looking down on its own feet.

“Yes, you can go now”

The goblin waddled off of the room and closed the door. Godafrid sat down on the table, today he got a bowl of porridge and water but he was more interested in the goblin than the food that he got. This wasn’t the first time that he saw a goblin slave, he can remenber that his village use to have two goblin slaves and also he has seem few during his journey. But this was the first time that he had interacted with one, it felt weird to him.

Godafrid took a break from thinking about the goblin and started to eat his food.

***

It's been a week since Godafrid had come to the fort and his leg wounds are starting to look a lot better but still he needs some rest to fully heal.

For four days that Raganhar and Gerlind had been on their mission the Goblin slave and Pippin have been the only ones to visit him. Godafrid, being used to being alone during his travels, doesn’t feel lonely but he has been worried about Raganhar not getting back safely.

Godafrid gets up from the bed and moves the chair in front of the window to look at the courtyard. Some new hunters with dogs have come to visit the fort and Godafrid has been looking at them training their dogs for a while. He has been reminiscing about the time before he met his master. He lived in his village playing with the village dogs and helping his mother with house work.

His thoughts were interrupted but knocking, it was the goblin bringing in some food.

“He..here’s you meal”

“Thank you”

“I'll be going now”

“Wait,” Godafrid sayis stopping the goblin just as he was getting out of the room.

“I…is something from?”

“No, I just wanted to ask what your name is.”

The goblin starts to look nervous, fiddling his fingers while looking at the floor.

“My…my name is Narulf” the goblins says while still looking at the floor

“Narulf, I try to remember that, you can go now”

Narulf starts to slowly waddle away and Godafrid takes a look at the food given to him. The meal consisted of mead and some honeyed pork with vegetables.

“I hope Raganhar and Gerlind are alright”

Godafrid finishes his meal and takes a seat near the window again, starting towards the gate. Why am I this concerned about them, I haven’t even known them for long. He keeps staring out of the window even when Narulf comes to take the dishes out. He rubs his leg for a while before standing up and picking his staff. Godafrid distracts himself by maintaining his staff, even when it's unnecessary.

***

After two more days around the midday Godafrid spots familiar faces coming through the gate, Raganhar and Gerlind have come back alive. Godafrid gets excited and wants to go and greet them but stops right in front of the door. He realises that hasn’t left the room at all during his stay at the fort, he doesn’t know if he can find the way to the courtyard. Godafrid decides to take a seat on the bed and wait, as he is sure that they will visit him soon.

He was right; it didn't take long for Raganhar to burst through the door, hands full of food for both of them and Gerlind right behind him.

“Were are back my friend,” Raganhar says with a huge smile on his face and a sausage on his mouth. “Thank gods it was the right room this time”

“Welcome back” Godafrid sayis little timidly but with a small smile on his face.

Raganhar puts down the food that he was carrying and sits beside Godafrid on the bed. He had brought roasted ham, mead and lots of sausages and Gerlind brought some vegetables and water to balance things out.

“So how was your task?”

Raganhar swallows the sausage he was eating quickly before he answers “It went perfectly, we at first needed to track the hobgoblins for a few days before we managed to find them but …” Raganhar goes on with his story while they all eat the feast that he brought to the room.

It took a little while for Raganhar to finish the story while simultaneously devouring the food. He was eating with such a pace that you could have thought that this was the first time that he had eaten since the last time that Godafrid saw him.

“Wasn’t there any food rations with you during the mission? '' Godafrid asks while looking at Raganhar devour the food.

“Well there were the usual, dried meat and crackers but that's nothing compared to this” Raganhar says while still stuffing his face with food.

“Well, he also ate all the meat during the first two days so he had nothing but crackers, '' Gerlind adds to Raganhar’s explanation. “We needed to hide our own meat rations from him in fears of losing them”

“Wait you guys had some meat hidden from me,” Raganhar almost shouts towards Gerlind.

“Of Course we had,” she answers with a slight smirk.

The three kept eating for a little while until all of the food was eaten, mostly by Raganhar.

“Oh yeah, how's your leg Godafrid” Raganhar asks.

“It’s good now almost healed, soon I can continue my journey”

“Well that's good” Raganhar wipes his mouth with a cloth. “So what is this journey of yours?”

Godafrid takes a little while to think how to explain it for the two demon hunters.

“Well, put simply I’m trying to grow as a sorcerer since I’m technically still a apprentice”

“Cool, I hope that gods will smile to you during this journey”

“Yeah, I do too,” Godafrid sayis while looking at his hands on his lap.

“So, where are you trying to get first?” Gerlind asks.

“I was trying to get to the ruins of Uldwidu to conduct a ritual”

“We could help you get there since it ain't far from here, about a day's worth of travel on foot” Gerlind sayis while gathering the dishes from the table before handing them to Narulf.

“I appreciate that”

“Yeah, we will help you get there safely and we'll even lend a horse to you” Raganhar says with a big smile.

“Thank you two”

Raganhar and Gerlind leave Godafrid to rest while they go and report their successful task to the captain who had just returned from his own journey. Godafrid lays on his bed thinking how lucky he is that he will get bodyguards for at least for part of his journey.

***

For the next five days Raganhar and Gerlind regularly come to eat in Godafrid’s room, chatting and planning the journey to Uldwidu. Godafrid’s leg kept healing with good pace and on the fifth day as Pippin predicted it was pretty much completely healed and Godafrid was ready to resume his journey.

“Hey, buddy,” Raganhar burst into Godafrid's room like usually “I heard from Pippin that your leg is now good as new.”

“Well, not good as new but its healed”

“Well that's what I said, didn’t I” Raganhar said with a small smirk.

Godafrid responds with a smile of his own and grabs his staff, readying himself to depart.

“Woah, slow down a little”

“What?” Godafrid asks with a surprised look on his face.

“Well, Gerlind has guard duty today and can’t leave so let's just wait one day, okey”

“Well okey”

Godafrid leans his staff on a wall and lowers his backpack to the ground.

“Oh, since we have some time I could just show you a little bit of the fort since you haven’t had a good look at it yet.”

Godafrid visibly hesitates a little bit but accepts Raganhar’s offer “Okey”

Raganhar leads Godafrid outside of the barrack that houses his guest room. A surprise for no one Raganhar’s first stop was the kitchen, a large and warm one room building next to the storage building. There was really nothing unusual about the kitchen other than being larger than all the kitchens that Godafrid had seen in his life. Next they visited the storage mostly so that Raganhar could take a sausage from there. And after the quick detour Raganhar led them to the walls of the fort.

“See how thick these walls are,” Raganhar stomps on the wall to demonstrate, in his own way, the strength of the walls.

“Yeah they seem to be stronger than any walls I have seen”

“Well of course, the order custom made this fort to wids stand demons”

Godafrid didn’t hear at all what Raganhar said as he was distracted by shadows moving on top of a hill not far from the fort.

“Hey Raganhar,” Godafrid voice sounded noticeably worrying “Whose army is that over there,” he pointed towards the hill.

As soon as the words got out of Godafrid’s mouth a horn was blown in the fort's tower indicating danger.

“Oh shit, Godafrid run, get your gear we are under attack” Raganhar shouts as he sprints off the wall to get his own gear.

As Godafrid started to slowly run towards his room he tried to think who would attack the orders fort, who could have such a vendetta towards the order other than demons. But that army couldn’t be demons, it was simply too large to be a demon army. He could only think that they could be Heruwler, a kingdom to the north of Fridingia, based on the army's direction unless Thunrik had betrayed Fridingia but that seemed impossible.