Dei was certainly confused as she watched the man stuff his face into the dirt after a grimace of pain, obviously having done nothing to cause this herself. Still, she walked over towards one of the wounded men with the intent to shut him up before he sputtered to a stop as she stood over him. Big eyes looked up at her, streaked with tears as his jaw continued to move up and down, even as nothing came out. Content with this response, she merely walked over to the next man who she had kicked in the knee of near the end of the fight.
This time the man was entirely focused on his own wounds as he could do nothing but stare down at his broken leg. He then tried to put his weight on his one good leg, shifting backwards. Was he trying to run away from her? Still, he ignored her even as she came to stand next to the man. Muffled yelps and groans of pain continued to escape him as he tried to continue fleeing the situation, one small push of his leg at a time. Disappointed with his antics, Dei took the hilt of her sword and casually punched the man in the temple, knocking him out cold.
‘Might as well avoid letting them wake up Matthew at this point, considering he's still managing to sleep through this.’ Dei thought.
‘Ah yes, cause the mysterious man who trained us for 48 hours straight just casually decided to sleep through an entire sword fight next to his cot.’ Fei replied, shifting her perception back to the still sleeping man.
‘Hah, wait till he sees what happened to his fire again!’
—--
Several miles away, a camp tent bustled with activity despite the off hour of the night. The tent was stretched across a wide room that fit at least twenty thin desks under the tarp cover, all of them lined with reams of paper, maps, and an assortment of letters from every corner of the princedom.
Men and women milled around the area, writing reports, hurrying in and out of the area, and sometimes arguing over the current state of the map when an armored man slightly different from the rest rushed into the tent. A few tentative glances were shot his way as the intelligence workers checked whether he worked for them, but he quickly walked through the press until he found a thin man sitting in front of one of the maps depicting the nearby forest of Marren. Dropping to a knee, the armored man made his report.
“Sir, sergeant First Class Ozwald of the 13th Company. One of my patrols just sent back a signal that they encountered an undead in forest Marren near grid sector 2943.” The man bowed his head after delivering the report, averting his eyes from the Major in front of him.
“And the result of this encounter?”
“We have lost contact with the team leader and no one has returned yet, Sir.”
Major Helm raised a single hand to readjust the reading glasses nestled at the edge of his nose as he looked back to the map with a frown. After thinking for a couple of seconds, he looked over his shoulder to call to one of the aids.
“Antonio, please message counselor Jerond and tell him we might have just found the sixth shard in Marren. And let him know that we did not make a good first impression.”
A man saluted in the background to the affirmative before rushing out of view as Major Helm looked back at Sergeant Ozwald still waiting in the kneeling position.
“As for you, please go find this creature and see whether you can find a shard bearer. Let your commander know to come find me for more instructions on your way out. And Sergeant? Only engage if you're sure you can bring the shard back to the Princedoms in one piece. Dismissed.”
Ozwald stood to give the officer a salute before he left the tent with eyes down and jaw set for the task before him. He was halfway to the company command area before the feeling of watching eyes settled on his neck and the severity of the situation started to click in for the man. A moment later a voice started to speak directly into his mind.
‘Sergeant Ozwald. I will be watching your mission. Represent your country well.’
Trained as he was, Ozwald didn't allow a single bit of hesitation to hit his steps as he continued on his way like nothing had happened.
‘Yes, my liege.’
—
Matthew woke up with an exaggerated yawn as he stretched out his arms above his head and squirmed in place for a handful of moments, enjoying the morning. An old man was allowed to enjoy that thin bit of time where you were still halfway between the dreams and reality, especially when he had…no, better not to think of those things.
Brought back to reality, he rolled over onto his side to crack his eyes and take a look at the state of his fire. Instead, a detached head stared back at him in the morning air as he noticed a distinct lack of a warm feeling in his body. Sighing, Matthew raised himself on one arm to look over the area and found a small skeleton crouched to his right, laying logs in a small teepee in what would be a third new firepit at this point. She looked around as he stirred and leapt to her feet as soon as she noticed he was truly awake to put her hands behind her back.
Besides her a headless corpse looked mildly charred in the center of his oh so beautiful second campfire, or what remained of it. Off in the distance a man with a helmet was planted face first into the dirt while another man was watching the pair of them with his back to a tree, face nearly white as he clutched a wound on his left leg. Further in the back another body lay face up, not entirely clear whether it was a corpse or not. Still, it was clear that Dei had had a fun night without him.
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Matthew slowly sat up to at least greet the day with some grace as he looked back at the skeleton that looked like she had gotten over her momentary embarrassment and was approaching him. As she reached him, she reached out a single finger to poke him in the shoulder, pointed in the direction of the bodies, then crossed her arms and sat down in front of him.
“Ugh, guess I should have told you i’m a heavy sleeper? Did I snore?”
She uncrossed and recrossed her arms more pointedly at him, dead eyes doing nothing to help explain her expressions as they were starting to look oddly deflated as time progressed.
“Come on girl, use your words,” Matthew got out with a smile. “So I fell asleep and you decided to go killing a couple of people? Hardly civilized.”
With an inaudible huff, the girl reached out for Matthew's hand and tried to pull him up for something, which he promptly refused. Instead, she was forced to point at the man lying face down a bit aways and started writing in the dirt in front of Matthew.
“Pledged”
Matthew stared at her, genuinely not sure what she was trying to get at so she continued writing.
“Pledged life. What do I do?
“Well, guessing from the helmet, he seems like he was in charge of this group that attacked you?”
She nodded in response.
“Then you're telling me that a man pledged to a foreign army lost a fight to you then pledged his service in exchange for you sparing his life? Seems like you either accept him without any consequences and get stabbed in the back, or you get him in too deep to ever drag himself out of.” When Dei tilted her head at this he continued on, “Umm, have him kill his friends, or cut off his balls and tell him you're the only one who can make him whole again, I don't know.”
Dei just sat there in stunned silence as she heard these recommendations from the old man. He seemed to have had his fair share of waking up, as he casually started putting on his boots while she thought to herself.
‘Have him kill his friends? How barbaric is this old geezer?’ Fei asked.
‘I mean, he does have a good point about the backstabbing part.’
‘Seriously? And you think that having him stab his soldiers is going to make that not happen?’
‘Well, maybe it'll make him feel guilty enough he won't feel comfortable defecting back to his home country.’
‘And if he has a family waiting for him back home?’
‘We can make him kill them too?’
‘You really are starting to become a monster.’ Fei admonished her.
Matthew had started humming to himself as he sauntered over to the makeshift fireplace Dei had started building for him earlier in the morning, clearly ignoring the girl as she sat there arguing with herself.
—--
John coughed into the dirt as he woke with the worst headache of his life. Immediately he tried to recall the last night of drinking he must of had as he kept his eyes shut against the blinding morning light, but he couldn't seem to remember anything clearly. Raising his head just a little, he started to look around trying to get a feeling for the situation before he really got up, only to find something written in the dirt in front of him, “Kill”.
He looked around, finding more and more scribbles in the dirt, surrouding his body and head on all sides no matter where he looked.
“Kill. Kill. Pledge life. Kill. kill them. Kill? Kill. Follow? Kill. Kill. Have to. Kill. Die. Prove. Kill. Kill. Kill”
Startled, John quickly raised himself on his arms, head peeling with the residue of whatever phantom pain he was suffering from before he saw a pair of crossed boney legs sitting in front of him. It sat there, less than three feet away from him watching him sleep as its hands rested on the top of an old looking sword laid across its thigh bones. There was practically no skin or muscle left on the creature as he looked up to see those sunken eyes that obviously couldn't see anything anymore. John swallowed as he met his new master.
—
The man had woken suddenly enough that Dei wasn't quite sure what to do next. She had spent a couple of minutes preparing the writing on the ground around him to try and get ahead of things, but suddenly looking into the eyes of a man who was begging for their life, it was kind of hard to ask them to just casually kill their friends, you know?
He started moving all of a sudden as he scrambled back on his hands and feet to pull out his sword and point it at her, still seated on the ground some six feet away now. She merely cocked her head at him, deciding to try and disarm the situation since he was clearly confused.
Dei raised an arm to point at the many instructions she had left for him, then turned to point at the man sitting against a tree breathing wheezing breaths in the background. John's eyes went wide as he finally started to really take her in and the realization seemed to dawn on him.
He shook his head, “No, I can't do this.”
She pointed downward, “Have to.”
“N-no…why?”
She pointed again, “Pledge life.”
And a cold feeling over despair truly started to wash over John in that moment. Staring down death itself as it tried to bargain with him.
—
Matthew looked on at the pair, playing charades in the dirt, from the comfort of his newest and greatest fire to date. A small smile played across his lips as he saw the newest member of their little group resign himself to his fate as he got up slowly to his feet. In truth, he looked like a depressed child as he slowly crossed the distance between the girl and the other man posted up against the tree.
His sword wobbled in his fingers, hardly staying above the dirt ground as he brought it up to rest on the chest of his former companion. Matthew could have sworn he heard the wheezing man say “Help” before John shuffled forward to impale him on his sword. Blood splattered from the dying man's lips onto the sword in front of him as he met his fate. Even still, the boy looked back to the boney girl who hadn't moved from her seat all the while. With a passing wave, the girl only pointed over at the other body lying face up in the dirt, clearly telling the man his task wasn't done yet.
This time, the man looked even more dejected as his feet shuffled slowly over to the upturned body. Perhaps to the killers benefit, the last man never even woke up as he placed the sword to his throat and made a quick chopping movement through the neck. Done with his task, he looked back one last time at the sitting girl who merely gave him a thumbs up as she started to finally rise to her feet. Done with the task, the man promptly started vomiting to the side of the upturned body as it started gargling in the last throes of death.
As for Matthew, he watched the girl as a soft glow of blue and purple seemed to suffuse her chest for a moment before it died back down into darkness. She only hesitated for another moment before walking over to join him at the fire, a faint pep to her steps as she came over.