“Tell me your name,” Turk said as he squatted down in front of the archer.

“It’s Ilyana,” she said as she glanced at the spot where the other two allies of hers had been.

Dirk and Vreek had already taken the two of them away and were doing the dirty work of harvesting their hearts.

Turk used his finger and gently moved her face so that her eyes were on his.

“That is a beautiful name Ilyana,” he said with a smile. “You did what I asked, so I will do what I promised, but only if you promise to obey the rules I give you.”

Ilyana nodded her head frantically.

“I will!” she declared. “Anything!”

Turk chuckled and sat down how he had earlier.

“I am not going to do any of the things you hear in those stories they probably tell you at night. None of us here are going to take advantage of you.”

I could see her eyes went wide and she glanced at Turk and then at me.

“You… you promise?” she whimpered.

Turk chuckled and nodded.

“We are not here to do that. We do not want to kill everyone or rape all the women we meet,” Turk said with a sigh. “We just want a home for our people. The humans took our home, and the elves did help them, but that was thousands of years ago. Now we just want the three races to realize that if they decide to keep attacking our kind that we will not tolerate it.”

Turk pointed at me and then at himself.

“We will wage a war like they have not seen until they stop the slaughter of our kind. I promise you that if your people do not come looking for us out here, none of our people will attack your city.”

I watched as Ilyana tried to take in what Turk was saying. All her life, she had been told stories of how goblins and orcs just ravaged lands and women with no regard for life. She had watched Turk be ruthless to Arbane, but he was being kinder than most with her.

“Why? I mean why would you do this?” Ilyana asked. “How can you hope that they will not attack you?”

Turk smiled and shrugged.

“I am sure you are familiar with the carrot and stick way of teaching?”

A look of thinking flashed across Ilyana’s face.

“Like with a horse or an animal in the field?”

Turk nodded.

“Exactly. Sometimes you can make a horse do what you want with a carrot. Sometimes you have to use a stick to make them do it. I prefer to use a carrot with you and the elves. I would prefer not to have to rain destruction down on your city.” Turk leaned in and smiled. “Your entire party fell to just two of us. You have no idea how easy it was. If the four of us attack your city, thousands of you will die.”

Ilyana grasped what Turk was saying, and she believed that he was being truthful and not bragging.

“So what do I need to do to live?”

Turk smiled.

“I am going to leave you here with a knife. I will bind your hands and feet. In one day, you can untie yourself and head back to your town. I will cast a magic spell on you. It will tell me if you disobey my instructions and it will cause your heart to stop.”

Her eyes went wide, and her mouth hung open.

“I would not disobey!” exclaimed Ilyana. “I swear on our goddess’s name!”

Turk smiled and held up his hand.

“I do not think you would, but I wanted to make sure you realize I am giving you one chance to live. Break this agreement, and you will wish you had died quickly.”

She nodded again.

“Thank you!”

Tears were running down her face, and she was sobbing.

“Ilyana, one more thing.”

She looked up and stared at Turk through those tear-filled eyes.

“Make sure you tell your leaders when you get back what I said about fighting us. Sending more heroes after us will only cause them to end up like Arbane and the others. None of us want that.”

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She nodded and started to wipe the tears from her face.

“I promise to tell them of your mercy!”

Turk nodded and stood up.

“Then wait here. I will finish up a few things with my friends before we go.”

Ilyana nodded again, and a few leftover sobs escaped her chest as she took a few big breaths. She felt the hope of going home alive.

“Still think that was the best idea, sending her back alive?” I asked as we jogged through the woods to the north.

Turk nodded as he ran next to me.

“You said it yourself. We do not want to have to kill everyone if we can help it. A little mercy goes a long way. Perhaps it will buy us time against the elves as they consider what she says. Right now, time is what we need more than anything.”

Turk was right. We had a lot of ground to cover today. Dirk had cut one of the hearts of the weaker heroes into fourths and given it to each of us to help with our run. Turk had left four green lights around Ilyana and told her when they disappeared, she would be safe to free herself and return.

We knew that a party might come after them and find her before a day was up, and we needed to be well away.

"You and your brother did well back there. It was impressive how easily you defeated the seven of them."

Turk scoffed and shook his head.

"I think you and Vreek enjoyed watching us flounder. Were you two going to help out at all?"

I smiled and said nothing.

After a moment of silence, Turk playfully swung at me and laughed.

"You are ok with us messing up?"

"The best way to learn is to mess up sometimes," I replied. "I cannot promise I will always be here to protect you. Vreek reminded me of that. I need you two to be strong on your own. I do not doubt your skill and your mind. What kind of father would I be if I ate all of the best hearts and made you watch me get stronger while you two remained weak? How would that prepare you for the fight we all know is going to come one day?"

Turk grunted and ran in silence for a while longer.

After about ten minutes, he spoke up again.

"Do you think we can actually pull this off?"

"You talking about the labyrinth or peace or something else?"

Turk laughed and held up both of his hands.

"How about all of it? Vreek is right, it is a crazy plan, but we all know that we have to do this. We need to get stronger, and right now, the only way to do that is to go to war with one of the races or get into a labyrinth. I would prefer not to piss off everyone we hope to one day try and convince we mean no more harm."

I chuckled and nodded. As we dodged trees and bushes, I looked ahead, where Vreek and Dirk were jogging next to each other. Neither of them glanced back to make sure we were close as we easily ran a pace that would have killed me on Earth to keep up for more than one lap around a track. They were laughing and talking from what I saw.

"I don't know how things will go, but I do know I need you and your brother to get stronger and that we all need to get better at coming up with plans. It seems none of ours ever works out how we intend for them to."

Turk scoffed and shook his head.

"That is not true!" he exclaimed. "Dirk and my plan went off almost exactly how we planned."

"Including getting shot?" I teased.

Turk laughed and nodded.

"That was part of the plan!"

I laughed as well and pointed to his pants.

"I guess getting a hole in your pants was part of the plan as well?"

He flashed a grin and laughed.

"Maybe not that part."

For two days, we had moved almost nonstop. When we finally covered enough ground that all of us felt gave us a safe buffer from anyone possibly trying to track or follow us we stopped for a night. Turk had scouted and found a deer and shot it. It was a decent size buck and provided a good meal after a hard two days.

"We need to find a farm or something nearby," Vreek declared as we all tore through the deer meat. No one had bothered to worry about a fire or cooking it. We were all hungry, and it tasted exceptionally warm and bloody.

"You two need to train," Vreek said between bites as he pointed at Turk and Dirk. "You two can fight each other, and then your Dad and I will guard you while you sleep."

"What is the farm for?" asked Dirk.

"Food. We need to find an animal or two for you to eat, and they should have water nearby as well. If we want you to grow, you two need to eat and drink."

I pulled out the map as Vreek talked and tried to gauge where we might be on it.

“I think we are far enough north now that we should start heading east some. I doubt we will have an issue finding a farm or two out here," I stated as I pointed to the east. "Someone has to live out here."

"Do we have enough time to train and rest?" asked Dirk. "I mean, we have to get to dwarf capital pretty quickly."

"Actually, I think we need to wait until it will reset," Turk replied. "If we got there right before the reset, we could only be there a day or two before it kicked us out. That would not give us enough time to get anywhere, and we would be unable to gauge how far in we should go. It would also announce our presence, making it much harder to get back in after the reset."

Turk had a good point. Racing over there might be worse if we got to the city too early and our presence was announced. The whole city would be alerted, and getting in would be much harder.

"Ok. Let's get dinner finished, and then we can bunk down for the night here. Tomorrow we will head out and try to find a farm."

Dirk yawned and stretched.

"That sounds amazing. I am tired."

Vreek smiled and winked at me.

"So that means you have first watch or second watch, Dirk?"

Dirk groaned and looked at Turk, who laughed.

"Hairy dwarf nuts," he cursed. "How did I ever let us get talked into being the guard duty brigade?"

Vreek shrugged.

"Don't worry. Soon you and Turk can sleep for a few days, and your dad and I will take turns staying up all night."

Turk stood up and stretched.

"It's fine. I got the first watch."

Dirk smiled and nodded. He grabbed a blanket from the pack and groaned when he laid it on the ground.

"Ugg... I forgot to clean these. There is blood and arrow holes in this one."

Vreek and I both laughed.

"Guess you can deal with that tomorrow, son."