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Glen
Arguen Garth Aniculo
Hardir O’ Fardor
Monarch O’ Morn Taras
Bring everyone – Aftermath
-Half of you will stay-
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Campaign near Eroshin River's approaches,
Second month,
Final Battle,
Early noon of 2nd day,
Eleventh hour, End of fourth assault
-
“Buarrd!”
Glen growled. It was half an attempt at forming a word, the word a synthesis of ‘balls’ and ‘turd’ or something equivalent and half an attempt at a gasp, a guttural expulsion due to imminent danger like a mouth fart.
Or vomit.
The Zilan soldier, sword raised high over his head, turned the tiniest of increments right to track his movement and got the early Wetull noon sun’s full power in his goggling eyeballs. He went blind in an instant.
Glen, who’d barely moved out of the way since he’d slipped in what was either a disturbed muddy ball of grass or a watery turd, the uncertainty the reason why his brain couldn’t give him a more accurate exclamation earlier, clenched his gauntleted hand into a fist and punched his opponent in the throat.
Right at the protruding cartilage.
“HAH!” Glen guffawed seeing the stumbling Abarat soldier trying to breathe, still blinded. He stepped forward, all his previous panic at getting cut down because Luthos was a cunt, gone and replaced by an immeasurable resolve to cut the Zilan down.
And he did.
Repeatedly.
Mother. Fuckin’. Piece. Of shite!
Each word a chop.
The jackal cackling all the time.
Glen raised his arm to give the mutilated soldier another chop, realized his opponent was holding a bloody piece of lung, the hand holding it severed at the wrist and paused in alarm. He spotted out the slit of his helm, darn thing’s peripheral vision poor as fuck, another Abarat soldier sneaking his way leading with his sword and stepped aside at the last moment.
“Umph,” went the soldier, blade scrapping the former thief’s muscled cuirass under the left armpit.
Glen downed his own sword, but realized mid-move he was hugging his opponent and he was just about to break his own darn arm at the elbow on the soldier’s shoulder. So he closed his arm instead and wrapped it around the Zilan’s helm.
Bang went their helmets, the sound reverberating inside Glen’s skull and they started dancing around dazed in the mud. Left and then a sharp right, followed by half a turn afore they tripped themselves up on a corpse and went down.
It might have been half a corpse.
Or a head.
The Zilan started sawing at his mail sleeve under the armpit with his sword, but Glen did the same trying to dislodge his blade that was trapped under his opponent’s neck. Realizing with amazing clarity given the insanity of his predicament that he didn’t have to cut sideways, but just shove his opponent’s unprotected neck onto his blade, Glen used his left arm, the one in danger to get sawn off, to do just that.
A push and the Zilan’s head was chopped off half the way through, alike an onion pressed on a sharp knife, his eyes turning to the white.
Glen rolled aside breathing heavy and tried to get up, but got a kick in the ribs and was thrown down again. He rolled on a shoulder going with the flow, a sword whistling over the other and catching his vambrace, swung blindly backwards Angrein’s sword cackling and sliced at something.
Glen jumped on his two feet manically, his heart beating wild, scorching helm fused on his skull and sweat burning his bloodshot eyes. He kneed the doubled over soldier right in the jaw sending it all the way in. Teeth, chin bones and everything. His reinforced kneepads absorbing the blow thank the fuckin’ gods for expensive armor!
Glen roared in great frustration next for not being able to catch a break and take stock on what was happening.
“ARRGH!”
What in all slovenly fucks? He cursed when an arrow smacked him in the back as if on cue, the tip finding flesh and twisted around to find that annoying ranger.
She had been taking potshots at him the whole time.
“Milord!” Bing yelled a warning, the battle a chaotic all out brawl as the lines had slowly disintegrated, despite Glen’s constant timely retreats back towards their supply train and the gullet.
He flinched on pure instinct, zig-zagging the upper part of his torso and a blade clanked on the side of his helm, darn thing sturdy as all fucks, then hit his shoulder guards creating a huge spark that warmed up his face through the steel plate.
“Fuck,” Glen declared spinning to locate his opponent half-blind and mostly deaf. The terrain spinning with him, the many slain and the bloody body parts creating piles here and there, the sun revealing the distant starting point of their lines and the line of the dead the way they were heading all night. Bing shoved the Zilan away catching a blade intended for him, which was shocking to witness up close, but also right since the brave friend was doing his job.
Glen would have done the same for him.
But only at that very second and at that specific small moment in time.
A moment later that brief flash of gratitude had been replaced by rage and common sense of sorts.
“YOU!” He bellowed finishing his earlier curse and smacked the Abarat soldier’s blade away, his sword hissing, bright sparks flying, their light turning red on the return.
“SHITE!” Kirk yelled covered in gore, a bleeding cut down his face, thankfully not deep and run to his injured friend.
Glen realized he’d no more strength to stand on his feet and collapsed on his knees. The battle sounds replaced with moans and the more pedestrian sounds of many people cursing their luck, or crying for still breathing.
Some laughter mixed in as well.
“There are pulling back!” Folen bellowed and sheathed his blade to reach for his lute. Soletha rushed towards Glen, jumping over the dead. The corner of their frontline had been hit very hard.
“He’s been avenged,” Glen assured soberly a grieving Kirk that was holding Bing in his arms, the man’s head a bloody mess.
“He’s still breathing milord!” Kirk protested, clenching his jaw and Glen nodded not wanting to burden him further in his hour of sorrow, Soletha’s stern face blocking the view of his two bodyguards the next moment.
“You’re hurt Arguen Garth,” she informed him and Glen remembered the arrow still in him sort of. That stupid persistent bitch.
“Tis fine, the armor stopped it,” he assured her. “You better help Bing.”
“Garth you’ve a nasty cut on your forearm,” Soletha corrected him. Fuck! He did. The skin peeled off and flapping like a gutted fish. Ah, I’m very sorry friend. I must live so I can avenge you further. “It needs stitches,” she added and wetted the edge of a thread in her mouth afore slotting it through the eye of a curved needle. One of them big ones. Good grief! “Do you need to bite on something?” The experienced healer and priestess asked him perceptively.
Glen frowned and reached for the piece of thick leather she offered him, noticing her robes had been torn and her fit milky thighs were at full display as she’d knelt next to him. Soletha is keeping in excellent condition for her age, he thought and put the bitter leather between his teeth trying not to think about such stuff given the venue.
Glen had a thing for mature women.
“Vaelenn,” Soletha said with a knowing smile stooping to mend the large cut on his forearm where his vambrace had died saving his arm. “See to Bing. You can touch, but keep your hand on the outside Lord Garth. I’m in a relationship,” Soletha finished in a lower voice turning to him again.
Glen stared at her for a moment blankly, but didn’t take the offer.
Soren and him were thick as thieves, but that was a line one doesn’t cross.
Soletha’s needle took care of the rest of his lewd thoughts.
And Bing dying of course.
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“Where’s Soren?” Glen asked five minutes later, every part of his body hurting and livid he’d lost Sen’s pendant in the scrap. He couldn’t find the darn thing hard as he’d looked amidst the corpses.
“Hobor got injured stopping that small break through,” Soletha replied distractedly, focused on finishing up her work. Glen had helped stopping it as well, but he let the matter slide. “He’s with him.”
“Is the big guy alright?”
“Which of the two?”
“Both.”
“Soren is fine and Hobor will make it I think. They are very sturdy,” Soletha said and cut the thread with her sharp teeth. “It’s a matter of constitution and ice hardening the blood.”
Right.
“I’ll need a potion.”
“A more serious injury might come. The battle isn’t over.”
“I’ll take another,” Glen retorted and got up.
“Arguen Garth,” Soletha said softly, her tone didactic. “You can’t have more than one for a while. It’ll poison your blood. It will be against everything I was taught and I don’t want you hurt.”
Yep, Soren got another good one.
Bossy and motherly. The Zilan Zola with less arse.
The memory heartening.
“It will also heal me a bit more,” Glen argued forcing himself to the gloomy present. He’d sort of tested that theory. “Make an exception for me wise Soletha. It’s just a rule. Give me the potion.”
The healer let out a deep sigh and then nodded.
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“What the fuck are they doing?” Glen asked Lyceron his throat burning but feeling a bit better. The imposing hoplite sporting several small injuries, whilst managing to appear very much fresh and unruffled at the same time.
“They pulled away,” Lyceron replied. “They lost a lot of people and are fighting with the sun in their eyes. We have a bit of time Hardir.”
“Hmm. How many did we lose?” Glen asked eyeing the gap between their lines growing as the Abarat soldiers were retreating taking their injured with them.
“Eh.”
Eh?
“Where’s Mutilus?” Glen asked not likening his response. “Or Darcy?”
“Darcy was killed,” Lyceron replied. “Mutilus is at the front. I’ll sent a runner. Why, I’ll do it myself.”
“How many do you have left?” Glen asked him before he could get away.
“Fifty, forty injured.”
Damn.
“How many does Hobor have left?”
“I’ve commanded his men as well after he went down Hardir,” Lyceron replied and a shocked Glen made to get the helm off of his head to wipe the sweat from his face. But paused mid-move and with a grimace he put it back on again.
The losses were appalling.
Folen’s lute notes more annoying than pensive over the mostly silent battlefield.
Annoying because they were pensive.
“Folen for fuck’s sake!” Glen barked irate to shut him up and miraculously the Master of Silence was silenced.
Glen looked to the skies.
Gods, I thank you.
“You need to check on this Garth,” Folen said, the reason for stopping not Garth’s order. Soletha’s way is a better medicine for his annoying condition, he thought crooking his jaw.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“What is it?” he grunted and approached him fist clenched.
“There is commotion,” Folen said squinting his eyes to look down the battlefield and the rows of Abarat troops walking away.
Glen relaxed his fist.
“What… Kirk bring me a spyglass,” Glen barked over his shoulder.
“Give him a moment Arguen Garth,” Soletha intervened and signed for the approaching Vaelenn to hurry up. “Vaelenn will cast the Long Eye and tells us what’s going on.”
Vaelenn frowned and made to protest equally worn out from tending to the injured as her colleague in the Council, but nodded when Glen turned to glare at her.
“I have to replenish my stamina,” Vaelenn said and Soletha dug a fancy vial out of her satchel and tossed it to her. Vaelenn caught it awkwardly with a disapproving stare using her right hand.
The other was a prosthetic so she didn’t really have another option.
“You’re testing me?” Vaelenn protested.
“It’s training your reflexes,” Soletha retorted firmly. “Garth is waiting Vaelenn.”
“What is this?” Glen asked seeing the Judge gulping down the bright green liquid.
“It helps one recover his rest,” Soletha replied with a small frown, as if the query was pedantic. “What do you use Arguen Garth?”
Sleeping?
“Give me one,” Glen said. “I can barely stand and your stitches feel like there’s a rat gnawing at me arm.”
“You can’t have another,” Soletha replied with a sigh. “And I need to plan for an emergency. They are very difficult to produce.”
“Soletha we talked about this afore.”
“Garth your character forms habits very easy, it’s dangerous to indulge you.”
“Yet, I like indulging very much,” Glen retorted and tended his hand. “What does it taste like?”
“Mint?” Soletha said with a sigh and gave him another vial. Glen uncorked it and pour it in his mouth without hesitation. Yep that’s mint, he thought and felt his vision clearing, his legs getting his strength back, but the pain remaining.
“What the fuck?” He cursed.
“It’s not an analgesic Garth,” Soletha protested, Vaelenn’s voice interrupting them both.
“The Othrim has returned.”
Oh, great.
“Lyceron, I need the men to retreat towards the gullet fast,” Glen ordered and turned around. “Has Ran-Sahor opened the way? Can Laedan move the supply train?” He asked Folen and the Zilan stepped forward readily.
“Sahor says they entered the marshes and his horses don’t want to approach there. But the cultists didn’t escape. They are lurking there still. As for Laedan he doesn’t have the manpower to move from the narrows Garth, since most of his men are here tending to the wounded. We will need them to remain, if we are to take the injured with us.”
Suck a bag of dicks, Glen thought glaring at him. Folen grinned from ear to ear and retreated whistling that pensive tune again.
“He’s trying to keep our minds from despair,” Soletha explained. “He was never very talented, but he’s very persistent. Folen has tried his hand at everything almost.”
“What he’s good at?” Glen grunted and Soletha shrugged her shoulders.
“Ahm, someone is coming this way milord,” Kirk said looking through his spyglass.
“Vaelenn?” Glen asked.
“I can’t… there are more than they were afore,” she murmured trying to figure out what was going on. Glen couldn’t see anything, so he just scratched the lower part of his chin under his helm and squinted his eyes feeling sweat running down his ears.
“Kirk inform Mutilus we are packing it up. We might not have another opportunity,” Glen decided and glanced at the sky. The temptation to ask Uvrycres to give the ‘Hydra’ treatment to their opponents strong.
Maybe I should have led wit that, Glen thought with a scowl and glanced at the cold body of Bings. This is the perfect chance since they are all bunched up safely away from us.
Yes, the dagger agreed.
“I think I see Anfalon,” Vaelenn said interrupting his murderous thoughts.
“Where? What is he doing?” He snapped and twisted around to grab the spyglass from Kirk.
“Ehem,” Vaelenn murmured her eyes huge and glowing internally as if she had a fever. All in all she looked rather creepy truth be told. “Talking?”
What?
EEERRRRRRR
Uvrycres shrieked and came out of the clouds.
“Garth?” Vaelenn asked nervously. “The rider is one of ours.”
Wipe the slate clean, the dagger suggested with a hiss, but a pressured Glen went with the other option.
Anfalon wouldn’t betray him and the strays back in Goras.
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“A truce?” Glen grunted an hour later, eyeing with hatred behind his helm’s slits the ranger that had been trying to kill him for more than twelve hours. Her face maimed on one side, but from an older injury.
Never thought I'll see an ugly Zilan.
Ugh.
Vaelenn who was tasked with talking with her, since Glen didn’t yet have the best grasp of their archaic Imperial nodded.
“Lord Onas cites favorable conditions for a resolution,” Vaelenn elucidated.
“Favorable my arse!” Glen spat. “The hoplites turned on him and I have the numbers. Afore that he wasn’t as keen in talking stuff out! No peaceful feelings then! Why, I’m feelin’ reluctant to stop fightin’ so soon in the day tell this Lord Ass.”
“Onas,” the ranger hissed.
“Didn’t catch the ‘On’,” Glen deadpanned. “I can’t hear ye on account of yer mouth being crooked. Ayup. Didn’t want to mention it outright out of respect.”
“Only savages opt to fight when peace is on the table!” the ranger snarled in rusty Common.
“Hahaha!” Glen laughed hard and walked near her to laugh some more in her face sort of, as he kept a safe distance just in case she decided to stick a dagger in his eye slit. Scar-faced cunt looks all riled up for some reason. “Funny how one remembers to parley, when he loses the upper hand,” Glen hissed turning serious. “Or when he runs out of arrows.”
“What is your answer… Hardir O’ Fardor?” The ranger probed apathetically now standing back.
“I want to kick you between the legs,” Glen retorted and she blinked in shock.
Vaelenn cleared her throat and tried to save it.
“Arguen Garth speaks in metaphors—”
“No I don’t,” Glen cut her off. “I speak plainly. Try to pay attention dear Vaelenn.”
Vaelenn gulped down her face flushed and backed off.
“I bear the truce colors,” the Ranger hissed.
“Yet, you care naught about what I decide here,” Glen retorted.
“She’s from Lo-Minas,” Folen said. “You can tell by the slight dung odor.”
The Ranger glared at the former bard/bar owner and current Master of Silence of Goras.
“I expect a full surrender of the forces in the field and the release of both camps along their contents to my person,” Glen started channeling his inner Prince Sahand afore the gates of Rida. “The soldiers are to be disarmed and remain prisoners until an agreement can be reached with Lord Rothomir. I want Pelleas delivered to me to answer for crimes against the citizens of Goras and for bringing man-eating beasts into a city.”
Uvrycres shrieked loudly at that parked fifty meters away and busy eating the corpses left behind. Most of their own had been taken away, but the retrieval of bodies had stopped. The Wyvern abhorred getting disturbed whilst chewing on stuff, which was understandable far as Glen was concerned, as no one liked that.
The Ranger blinked in shock.
“I’ll inform Lord Onas,” she replied with a curtsy and walked to her horse visibly disturbed. Glen turned to Anfalon’s messenger.
“How did he get them to agree?” he asked the young hoplite named Zanylon.
“All officers are outranked by the Lord Superior Hardir,” he replied. “When he’s present in the field the Phalanx follows him.”
Right.
“Lord Onas? The other dude Vulas?”
“They are not with the Phalanx Hardir.”
Glen smacked his lips. “Mutilus is trying to figure out how many we lost,” he said loud enough to be heard by those gathered around him, less than ten meters behind the still thinly formed frontline. The battered group of tired soldiers numbering a hundred and seventy. With seventy injured dragged near the supply train and inside the gullet, this fight had cost him close to three hundred dead. Maybe more as he hadn’t talked with Marlo yet. The adventurer had taken over the group he’d kept hidden in the woods after Mathews had been injured earlier.
He breathed out slowly and then continued. “But while we were hurt the enemy failed to break our resolve. Remember this! They caved first and came groveling for a deal. We have all the validation needed won in the plaguin’ field with our sweat and our blood! The truth my friends is staring us in the fucking face! Rest, heal and keep patient while I negotiate with them. Rest assured I shall bleed them dry. I’m way better at dealing than at fightin’ and ye all seen how much carrying I did back there! But hey, every single one of you will be rewarded,” he glanced at the moved Kirk standing beside him and nodded reassuringly. “I keep my promises. Garth’s friends shall never die, nor will they ever be forgotten!”
“HURAH!” The Goras soldiers yelled raising their swords and jumping to their feet.
“ALL HAIL GARTH!” Most of them cried out in unison.
“THE JUST!” A couple of them said, but the moniker didn’t catch on.
“I’ll have the horse brought forward milord,” Kirk said and Glen frowned stopping his basking and waving at the crowd to stare at his longtime bodyguard.
“What for?”
“Ahm, we are to go to the meeting?”
“I ain’t moving an inch Kirk,” Glen retorted hauntingly and accepted a flask of water from a smiling Folen. “This is a good position and I’m quite famished. They’ll have to come to me. Tis but a short distance on a horse.”
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Burn those two? Uvrycres asked, breathing heavy over his head. Maybe, their small group too?
We don’t want to burn our friends, Glen replied, his hand resting comfortably on his dagger, the finally removed hoplite helm resting on Outlaw’s saddle and his wild hair billowing in the late afternoon breeze. The weather was heading for another thunderstorm.
Food can’t be friendly, Uvrycres said. It will stab you in the back.
You’re sounding like the dagger.
What are you talkin’ about Glen? Uvrycres asked. Gimoss is in Rida.
The Zilan officials stopped, followed by Anfalon and another similarly armoured hoplite officer. Lord Onas the only one appearing visibly old. It wasn’t the wrinkles and old scars, or the thinned and washed out blue hair. Nor it was the missing eye, the emptiness there disturbing to stare at. It was the expression, Glen decided.
That been there done that, Emerson had and that Bounty Hunter.
“Lord Onas, of Lyriel. Commander of Abarat Guards Vulas, of Nortoris,” Vaelenn read from the scroll one aide gave her. Glen was already vexed and tired of standing rigid and proud waiting for them to approach. “Arguen Garth Aniculo, Lord of Morn Taras, Monarch of Goras. The Hardir O’ Fardor.”
Good grief, Glen thought. She just have to get it all out.
“Do we get a real name?” Lord Onas asked looking at Glen in fluent Common.
“You don’t,” Glen replied sternly and the old Zilan nodded as if he expected it.
“You have the field my Lord,” Onas said. “The how we came to this, I’ll leave to the scribes.”
“You lost the battle,” Glen responded to help him out. “By failing to win it in time.”
“Yeah, that about sums it up,” Onas agreed with a grimace. “I’m a member of the Council of Twenty, but I can only speak for myself.”
“Speak,” Glen said.
“This is enough blood spilt for me,” Onas said. “More than enough.”
“Will Rothomir give up?”
“Lord Rothomir has to answer this query himself.”
“We can’t surrender,” Vulas intervened. “I was ordered to win by the lord of Abarat.”
“You didn’t,” Glen replied. “The chance to do it is gone friend,” he added.
“Allowing Vulas to retreat will endear you to Lord Rothomir,” Onas proposed.
“I don’t give a shite about Rothomir. Don’t know him,” Glen replied sternly. “Or you. Or any other fool you have back there. This isn’t a negotiation. This is you trying to convince me to be more lenient. I must say I’m not convinced Onas. I’m tired though, malnourished and thirsty.”
“Hardir,” Anfalon said. “Vulas should be allowed to return and speak to Rothomir.”
“Why?”
“It will show you are reasonable and fair in triumph. Rothomir will appear unreasonable, If he decides to drag this conflict.”
Glen breathed deeply and crossed his arms on his chest.
“How many soldiers you have left?” He asked Vulas.
“Three fifths of the force is available, not everyone can walk back,” Vulas replied clenching his jaw. So you got punched in the face as well, Glen thought. But we got our teeth kicked in here.
Fucking piece of polished bronze bucket!
“Half of you will stay,” Glen replied grinding his teeth, the replica white gold one bothering him and Uvrycres growled in anger over his head not liking it. Everyone’s eyes on the Wyvern and not on Glen. “That leaves a hundred men to make the return trip.”
He’d cheated him on the numbers, but Glen knew he could get away with it.
“What about the others?” Vulas queried his face hardening.
“Leverage,” Glen replied. “Or fodder for him. Your pick.”
Vulas eyed the scowling, heavy breathing Wyvern for a brief moment.
“It’ll do,” he blurted out nervously and Uvrycres snorted.
“What about the Council members?” Onas asked and Glen turned to look at him confused.
“What about them?”
“There are… two more in my camp,” Onas replied.
“Elwuin,” Anfalon replied. “And Darunia, she’s Olonelis daughter.”
The names meant nothing to Glen. He sighed unsure what to do and glanced at Folen, then at the injured Sam Mathews that had come to the meeting walking on crunches.
“It’s better to keep officials near you my Lord,” Sam said and Glen noted saving them from certain death.
“They stay with us for now. Vulas you can go and inform Rothomir of my demands,” Glen replied and Vaelenn handed the officer a scroll she’d hastily written half an hour ago. “Is that understood Lord Onas?”
“It is Lord Garth,” Onas replied. “Will we be fodder as well?” His jested and everyone took it as such. The old soldier’s words holding a sinister meaning in light of the horror that followed.
> Garth’s men camped in the much more comfortable spot Lord Onas had picked for a couple of days and then moved towards the Canal after crossing Eroshin more than a month after he left Goras. They followed Vulas and his freed, but unarmed men, to Teleniel Bridge’s ruins and watched them board one of the large Imperial Transports moored at the docks Rothomir had constructed.
>
> Similar structures had been built across the Canal and the decent sized docks housed the last six Imperial Transport galleon type vessels that had managed to survive by traveling up Serpent’s Canal to moor at the shallows near the bridge at the time of the eruptions. The collapsed bridge had blocked them from escaping through the Torn Earth and to the sympathizing Greenwhale Peninsula, but had also saved them from the gargantuan catastrophic tidal waves that had followed half a day later.
>
> Vulas boarded one of the four ships moored on that side of the Canal and sailed across to reach Abarat, while Garth rested and recuperated his soldiers. With a big number of ‘prisoners’ and even more injured from both sides Darunia, Soletha and Lymsiel had gotten to know each other very well. The three physicians used their skill to bring most back to relative health in the next week or so, while Garth ‘wrote’ extensively to Sinya Goras trying to keep the news positive, by avoiding to mention the number of casualties he’d suffered. He asked Lady Sen-Iv to prepare to travel to him, but his wife refused citing the difficulty of the long journey in Wetull’s rainy season. Glen thought nothing of it at the time, his mind on a more serious development.
>
> Vulas and his freed men had never reached the other side of the Canal. The reason for it a mystery to those near Garth at the time, though rumors started circulating immediately with many suspecting the Wyvern. Others feared the Kraken might have sneaked inside the Canal, something that it had never done afore, but a good number also feared foul play orchestrated by Garth himself, or Lady Aenymriel his shadow councilor.
>
> Lord Garth, whether he knew what had happened to the disappeared soldiers and Vulas or not, remained silent on the matter that is until the first corpses and ship debris started washing ashore.
>
> ‘While Lord Garth had allowed the soldiers to go free and return to their homes, the Wyvern didn’t,’ Lord Onas commented in a letter to a concerned Lady Olonelis, written to inform the important Council member that her daughter was fine.
>
> ‘It is as simple as that old girl.’
>
>
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