Norman spent the next few hours, along with six guards, digging through the ash and rubble remains of the ooraki village. They recovered the remains of over half the ooraki males Norman had turned into greykin but no sign of the last surviving female, the Priestess.

All of the bones of the dead went into his storage for use on other projects. There was no point in being sentimental about some bones. With all of the bodies burned to char, Norman couldn’t use Glimpse from Beyond on them. He also couldn’t resurrect them since their bodies were far too damaged to get any blood to power his spell. It was a reminder that even undead weren’t immortal if their bodies were damaged too much.

Norman’s thoughts were interrupted by noises coming from the north of the village. The guards – left to keep Norman safe – readied themselves for a fight. Their preparations turned out to be unnecessary as Eugene came around the bend, pulling three more of those snake horse things attached to a weird wagon. It looked like there should have been four of the animals, but maybe Eugene had to apply some of his personalized training methods to get them to cooperate again.

‘At least he didn’t bring the dead animal back with him this time,’ Norman thought, nearly gagging at the memory of how the animal’s meat tasted.

As Eugene and the guards got closer, Norman saw they had three men in rags tied up behind the wagon and forced to keep pace or be dragged along. Norman thought it was a bit much but didn’t comment on it. These people attacked Ashvale and killed people, they didn’t deserve any of his mercy.

Eventually, the crowd stopped just outside of town and the captives collapsed in relief, only to be prodded right back to standing by angry guards with spears. “On your feet, nobody gave you permission to rest!”

All but one of the men rose after being prodded.

The last man pleaded, “please, have mercy, we've been walking nonstop for hours.”

“Mercy! Like the mercy, you showed our town?” The guard reared back to stab the man before Eugene grabbed the haft of his spear, stopping him cold.

“Boss wants to question him.”

The guard nodded, but his angry demeanor didn’t vanish and Eugene didn’t stop him from kicking the man. Eugene untied the rope from the wagon and simply jerked the man to his feet, and then brought them over to where Norman was waiting. Norman was glad he had Eugene around for things like this.

“There were eight men in total but these three were the only ones we managed to keep alive.”

Norman nodded, not missing Eugene’s purposeful word choice. Not sure what to do next, he eyed Eugene for any suggestions.

“I suggest we split them up and question them individually.”

“Do it. When you are done, I wish to question them personally.”

Norman swore he saw the man at the front shiver at his statement, which he thought was a bit weird. Personally, Norman would have been more worried about what someone like Eugene could do and not a scrawny man like him. The man’s reaction made Norman think he knew something. Possibly he knew who and what Norman was. Assuming the man survived Eugene's questions, Norman would be speaking with him first.

Sitting and listening to the screams as Eugene tortured information out of these men was not the proudest moment of Norman’s life. He suspected it was probably going to give him nightmares but he didn’t block out the sounds. He had ordered it be carried out, he should at least bear witness to his actions.

Eventually, the sounds of screaming came to an end and Norman spotted Eugene walking around one of the burned-out buildings. Eugene headed over to Norman while he wiped the blood off of his hands with a rag. “They aren’t saying much. Either they don’t know anything or they were prepared for torture.”

“What do you think?” Norman asked as he stood from the stump he had been resting on.

“I don’t think they know anything, at least not all of them. I’ve dealt with people who have been trained to endure torture. Most of these fools don’t really fit the bill.”

Ignoring the bombshell that Eugene knew how to tell if someone was trained to endure torture, Norman moved on. “Were you able to get anything useful from them?”

“Yeah, they told me about the fireball launcher, that weird-looking cart thing. It uses some sort of magic circle to fire the projectile. Besides that, they seemed ignorant of how it worked.”

Norman had inspected the weird cart himself and didn’t understand how it worked either. It looked a bit like a cannon frame, without the cannon. In its place was an adjustable plate of metal with a magic circle carved into it and a shallow indent in the center capable of holding something round.

“And they didn’t have any remaining ammunition?”

“They only had three rounds remaining after they firebombed here. One of the men said they only had twelve rounds in total because enchanted rounds were expensive but who knows if that was true or not.”

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“Oh, you have another theory?”

Eugene shook his head. “No, but they appear to be rather poor. It would explain their attire and the limited resources sent against Ashvale.”

Norman rubbed his chin in thought. “Let's not assume that. They could be trying to deal with us with as few resources as possible. Have we even come across a mage or enhanced user yet?”

“No,” Eugene grunted. “They could be throwing fodder at us in the hopes of wearing us down without having to engage us with their elite units.”

“Sounds plausible,” Norman nodded. “What about the man who refused to stand up?”

“He’s the one I’m not too sure of, why?”

“I don’t know, a feeling, he seemed a bit off to me. When I mentioned I was going to question them myself, I could have sworn I saw the man shudder. It could have just been fear, but the other men didn’t react at all, well other than already shaking from what they knew was coming next.”

“Well, let's go see who’s right. If I’m right, I want meals at your place for a week.”

“What do I get if I’m right?” Norman asked.

“Bragging rights,” Eugene smiled.

Norman rolled his eyes and gestured for Eugene to lead the way.

Eugene led Norman to one side of the burned-out village. It didn’t take long to get to where the prisoner was being kept, the village not having been very large. When they arrived, Norman spotted the man tied to a tree facing outward. Two guards with spears kept an eye on him.

Norman stopped ten feet away and observed the man quietly for a moment before coughing into his hand to get the man’s attention. The man’s eyes shot open and he looked around wildly before his gaze settled on Eugene, then flicked toward Norman.

There was the tiniest twitch in the man’s facial muscles when his gaze settled on Norman.

“So you do know who I am.”

The man stayed quiet at the statement.

“I thought as much. You can drop the act, I’m not here to torture you, I have no need to.”

The man’s face, previously filled with pain and worry, morphed into one of cocky self-assurance. “You are the source of this disease,” the man nodded his head at the two guards, and then at Eugene. “A man-made plague that cannot be allowed to spread.”

“You call it a plague, I call it a gift. But let's agree to disagree for the sake of expediency since I’m not here to change your mind. I’m Norman, and you are?”

The man spat on the ground, showing a feral smile, his teeth covered in blood. “You are nothing, defiler. Your name does not matter, your life does not matter! You are a blight and my god Apolon has decreed that the Brotherhood wipe you and your spawn from existence!” With that threat, the man burst into white-hot flames, breaking his bindings and sprinting toward Norman with his arms outstretched for a tackle.

Ten feet wasn’t much of a distance to cross, and a running man could do it quite fast. Norman recalled something about twenty-one feet being the minimum safe distance between you and someone with a knife, but that involved being able to draw a gun and fire. Norman didn’t have that issue. The man took precious seconds to free himself from the tree, and even more to cross the space between them.

It was plenty of time for Norman to break the spell anchor he had been holding in case he had been right. Norman wasn’t surprised by this attack, well, he was surprised by how it occurred, but not by the attack itself having suspected something was odd with the man already.

Instead of the man tackling Norman, he found himself being slammed back into the tree by a shield of bone. The shield held up long enough to keep the man pressed against the tree until his entire body was finally consumed by the magical flames from the weird defensive spell that the Brotherhood used.

“Are you ok, Boss?” Eugene asked.

Norman noticed the gun in Eugene’s hand and aimed at the burning body.

It had all happened so fast that Eugene hadn’t gotten a shot off, and the guards were just stunned by the attack, unable to react. Maybe there was something to that twenty-one-foot rule.

“I’m fine. I guess this means I win then.”

The joke didn’t seem to help as Norman heard Eugene’s muscles flex and pop. “I should have realized he was hiding something.”

“No, you did well. I only realized I was right when the man glanced my way after we came over here. Until then I wasn’t quite sure. It seems our opponents are not averse to suicide if it means they can take me out. We will have to be careful about that in the future. Now, let's go talk to the other two.”

It didn’t take long for Norman to question the last two, both men were eager to tell him anything he asked. The problem was neither of the men knew anything. That didn’t stop Norman from trying to search their minds after Eugene put them out of their misery. It seems these men weren’t magically protected. Not that it gave Norman any information.

He was able to piece together that one of the knights had come to their town to recruit them with the promise of wealth and prosperity, then immediately pushed them into service for this mission. Norman did learn that there were more attackers originally in their group, but after they hit this town, a group of them split off.

The men didn’t have any other information as to why that group split off, but Norman guessed that it involved capturing the Priestess and the missing ooraki villagers. Taking prisoners was the only thing that made sense to Norman.

“Eugene, do we have anyone fast?”

“Fast? Like a runner?”

“Yeah.”

“Not in Ashvale. The gron always specialized in physical strength and endurance when given a calling. I think one of the lizna might have had a dexterity-based calling, but it could take days to locate them amongst the volcanic vents.”

“Shit.”

“Why do you need one anyway?”

“I think a group of the Brotherhood took prisoners. I wanted to send someone back along the trail to see if they could catch up.”

“Hmm. Even if we did have the lizna here, I wouldn’t recommend it. It would be one against who knows how many. Besides, we have a tracker. Why not just send him along with a few other guards.”

“Wait, we do? Who?”

“One of the humans you revived. I forget the man’s name. He trades what he catches to the city.”

Norman had to think for a bit before he recalled the man’s name. “Parker. Hmm, I didn’t know he had a calling. Alright, see if you can convince him to track these people. We don’t need him to actually fight them, he just needs to follow them back to their origin. If we can figure out where these people come from, maybe we can figure out how to defeat them.”

After that, the guards packed up and head back through the portal toward Ashvale. The wagon was too large for the portal so two guards accompanied it back north along the same trail they had ambushed the Brotherhood on. Norman wasn’t willing to give up something so obviously magical even if he couldn’t immediately use it.

Even if the magic on the wagon had nothing in common with his own magic circles, he was pretty sure Grobert could tell him what it was. Maybe they could even make ammunition for it.

Norman would need to speak with Grobert and Eugene about constructing an armory and guard barracks when they returned. With these attacks and an enemy of unknown size and strength, it was time to increase the size of their guard roster for their little village.