I heard it when the two older boys got up to the top. It would appear that they saw Charles and started talking.

"Oi kid, what are you doing down here?"

"Hey who's that... they're armed!"

I heard the crash as the groups met, as Dras made it to the top of the ladder, and moved towards the fight. I was scrambling up as quickly as I could, in case something went wrong. There was still fighting when I got there, Charles was very nearly as fast as Lief was, but the three men were in some amount of armor. They were being pushed back, but it was hard for either boy to land a killing blow.

The appearance of Dras changed that. His flame ribbon spell worked around the sides, jabbing at the men and cutting off their escape routes. With that, and the boys jabbing in there was no hope. Within only a few moments two of our enemies fell to the ground, the blows that had hit them fatal. Charles had taken a hit to the side, and had to fall back.

Lief caught the last man under his right arm, causing him to drop his weapon and fall. The boy stepped forward, with hate in his eyes, raising his sword.

"Stop, he's beaten," I spoke calmly from behind as I approached.

"Men like him deserve to die." He hesitated, but did not lower his weapon.

"Perhaps, but not like this. If you kill him, you will regret it."

He snorted, "What would you know about putting down garbage like this? Nothing, hold your tongue."

"I know enough about this sort of killing, and I know you will regret it. Do not go down that path."

That caused a pause in the room. Lief didn't look away from the man he was standing over, but I could sense his hesitation. I could feel Dras' eyes boring into me as well, even Charles seemed a bit put off.

Lief allowed his eyes to flick to Dras. "See if his friends have some rope or chains or something and bind him." Then he looked back to the man where he lay on the ground. "If you try anything, I will kill you."

I moved to Charles' side and began to heal him. The wound was luckily not very deep. If there'd been organ damage it might have been a real drain on my mana, but the long gash only went into his muscle at one or two places. A quick patch job would be enough to deal with this for now.

Dras had bound the man using some rope from one of his companions, and stripped off most of the armor and all of his weapons, tossing it all to the side.

"We'll take him with us and hand him over to the guards," Lief declared.

"We need to go up there and see what's what before we do that. I'd rather know what our situation is." It seemed I would have to be the voice of reason here.

"Oh, I'll go and scout!" Charles offered.

"No, it should be Lief and myself. I have some stealth abilities and if we do find some guards having the son of a noble house will get them to actually do something."

Almost nobody seemed to like that idea. Dras was having trust issues because of my recent declaration. Charles wanted any chance to get out of these bloody caves. He would have been a good choice, except that I wasn't really sure if he'd come back to the group if he went scouting. Lief seemed to understand that I didn't want to leave him with the man he'd been about to kill, and irked by that a bit. It took them a few minutes, but eventually they all did agree. Only after giving me a few glares though. Charles' pointed us in the direction of the nearest exit, it was an easy straight shot.

For once Lief had me in front. He was tense, like he no longer trusted me. I knew what was coming, and was thankful that he waited until we were out of earshot to begin asking his questions.

"You've killed a man before?"

"Yes, are you planning on handing me over to the guards when we're done down here?."

"Without the help of all of us, I would have died down there. Whatever happened, if I can't make it right, I'll keep your secret, but I need to know what happened."

I quirked an eyebrow up at him. Even with what I'd already said I might have signed my death warrant. I couldn't help but trust him here though. I knew to tell him everything could kill me, but I was so tired of carrying all of it. If I died, at least I could die with a clean conscience.

"I'm sure you had a good reason for it, whatever it was."

"I wish I was as sure as you are." I took a few moments to think, then looked at him. "What do you know of the villages throughout the kingdom? About how the people live there?"

"They farm, giving some of their products as taxes, the rest they keep to live off of."

"The war with the empire, it shattered that. Without men to help with the fieldwork, it just couldn't get done fast enough."

"Well, that's bad, but I don't see where this is going."

"Because of a series of events that would take far too long to tell you, the village I was from was dying."

"Certainly it couldn't have been..."

"Starvation, my ability to make food is limited Lief. For years I pumped as much bread as was reasonable out just to keep us afloat, and it just kept getting worse. Disaster after disaster struck, and as winter approached all of us could look at the numbers and see it. Most of us would be dead by spring."

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He looked shocked, his eyes were wide as he listened to my story. "But the local lord should have done something, or the mayor at the very least."

"Our lord didn't care Lief. You have not seen things from any side but your own, so let me tell you something you don't know. Most of the nobility seems to regard those not close to them as disposable. It was his proclamation that led to the final disaster that doomed us, and our mayor. Our bastard of a mayor didn't do anything, he went along with what he had to have known would be our destruction. He turned his back on all of us and assured we would die."

"And so you killed him for it?"

"No, no I killed him because after all of that he showed up on my doorstep with his men demanding healing while standing over the corpse of my brother. I don't know why, but they'd cut his head off, and then had the gall to come to me to patch them up." I was shaking, there were tears forming in my eyes as I stared him down. "It wasn't self-defense, or justice, or anything like that. It was rage, and hate. Just like that man you were going to kill back there, and it haunts me Lief. When I sleep I dream of bodies and blood on my hands. I don't want you to understand that, to do anything like I did that day."

Lief slumped, he let his eyes fall for a moment. "I... understand. I understand why you stopped me, thank you."

I turned and walked on in silence. I could feel how close to the verge of tears I was, but I couldn't cry now. I had to make it just a bit more, just a little bit longer.

When we got to the exit it was thankfully a door type. A small mercy that I wouldn't have to climb a ladder out of here. I took a few moments to compose myself before I turned to my companion. It was hard, but it was enough to get me back to where I could speak to him without tearing up.

"I've got an invisibility spell. I'll go out and see what I can find out, will you wait here for a few moments?"

"Yeah... I'll do that. Hey, don't mention my name. If you find someone just bring them back here and I'll talk to them, alright?"

"Okay, sure."

I sang for a few moments and cloaked myself. It was still a ton of mana, but manageable now. I slowly opened the door and slipped out onto the streets.

It was late afternoon and overcast. The roads were strangely empty. I took a few moments to mark my location and set off to find what information I could. I didn't see a soul as I made my way towards the nearest guardhouse. We'd come up in the noble's section of the city and they were fairly common here, so it didn't take me long to find it.

What I found there though was alarming. The whole place was abuzz, like someone had kicked a hornet's nest. Men were coming and going at speed. I did note that all of them were in standard guard uniform.

Falling back a block I found a secluded corner and dropped my spell. That done I went back to the street and began walking toward the guardhouse. As soon as I got to the street several of the men came over, looking a mix of surprised and deadly serious.

"What in the world happened to you!?" one of them remarked. I had been so distracted by everything that I'd nearly forgotten that I looked like I'd been beaten, cut up, and left in a mud puddle.

"I got stuck in the tunnels with a couple of my friends a few days ago. What happened, where is everyone?"

"There was a major attack by some rebels. Several were killed, the king has locked the city down for the moment."

"I think that we might have run into a couple of them as we were trying to get out. The boys took them down and captured one. Could you send some help?"

A number of guards were brought, and they seemed leery of both me and my story. Regardless they came along. They really wanted to catch the people who'd done all this damage though. I was made to lead the way, and several of the men had crossbows, keeping an eye all around them as they went.

I opened the door to find Lief standing there looking at the guardsmen. His face was almost like it had been when we'd first met. Those first few hours when he wasn't a friend or companion and still the high born noble boy ruling all that he saw.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked the man who appeared to be leading this unit.

"I-I do." The guardsman looked shocked.

"Good, send two of your men straight down this tunnel. There are two boys down there keeping an eye on a prisoner. Send another for additional guards."

I was taken back to the guardhouse and allowed to rest while a whole new bevy of activity exploded. Soon enough Charles and Dras joined me. The former was a bit overwhelmed with all that was going on, and all the people. The latter however was much better at reading me and came and sat beside me, wrapping one arm around my shoulder.

"Hey, we're out now. It's all gonna be alright."

"Yeah, yeah it will."

It didn't take too long before a group of guards in much nicer uniforms came over to us. They seemed to be from a much higher ranked unit then those in the guardhouse.

"Come with us please. There are a number of things that need to be taken care of."

The three of us rose as one and let them lead us out.