The scream echoed across the whole convoy in the early hours of the morning. The adults that were asleep or just waking up rushed out of their tents. The children had mixed reactions, from hiding in their blankets, to running out of the tents and either took a fighting stance or ran to the wagons. The only exceptions to this were the adults who were already awake and the whole of Feegal's camp.
The cause of this whole commotion was one frightened little girl, who was staring at ten wooden poles with children tied to them. The children were beaten bloody and were gagged to prevent them from speaking. Near where they were bound was Feegal's camp, where breakfast was already being prepared by the butler, who was using fine meat and vegetables as well as expensive spices, to make a mouth-watering meal.
A young boy of thirteen stepped out of the wagon. He had green, shoulder length hair that danced in the breeze, revealing steaks of golden yellow hair. His eyes, the left an ocean blue and the right an emerald green, were sharp and filled with arrogance, glaring at the surroundings with disdain. He kept his chin elevated so he could look down upon the world more and he wore the most luxurious robe the children had ever laid their eyes on. It was an emerald green robe with golden embroidery of animals, like the one's depicted on the carriage he exited. There was a crest, identical to the one on the wagon, embroidered on the left side of his robe. This was Feegal V Enrague, and with a glance it was clear, he was furious.
He clapped his hands twice, with finesse and elegance. Two boys and one girl exited their own personal tents, clearly made from finer materials than the ones the rest of the children were using. The three children were the children of influential merchants that worked in Engal town's region. They quickly stood behind Feegal, forming a sort of entourage for him, as the four of them walked over to the bound children.
Feegal's disgust and fury only seemed to grow as they got closer and closer. When they reached the ten bound children, Feegal kicked the nearest one in the stomach with all his might. His lips curled into a smile as he saw the child grimace at the pain he inflicted. He then straightened his robe, dusting it with his hands, and regained the serious demeanour he had before. He clapped his hands once more and the butler came running, handing him the medallion the butler always used to amplify his voice.
"Last night, ten children infiltrated my camp!" Feegal said, fury leaking into his voice. "They were apprehended by my personal guards and tied up here as a warning! Now I, Feegal V Enrague, third son of Engal city lord Viscount Astra Enrague, shall punish these scoundrel's. Since I am a benevolent man, I shall only punish three each day and allow the final one to go free."
Feegal then took a pause to think before looking at the three children who followed him. He then spoke to them without using the medallion, allowing a slightly private conversation. When he finished he turned around to face the ten children, unable to hold back his sinister smile.
"My three followers shall each pick one person to be punished today. Those of you who aren't shall be tied to the back of my guard's wagons and march with the convoy." Feegal announced, with slight glee in his voice.
He then allowed his three followers to pick three of the children. They each picked one after looking and pondering over each individual. The three children who were selected were unbound and lined up, with their backs facing a knight Feegal had brought over. The knight pulled out a whip and started to whip the three repeatedly. The three tried to scream, but were unable to due to the gags still in their mouths, tears bean to fall down their cheeks as the pain became unbearable. The whipping continued for fifteen minutes before the three passed out. After this the three were bound once more and put inside one of the knight carriages.
Silence pervaded the convoy as the children, and some adults, had just witnessed how cruel a noble could be. In the group led by Darniss and the other five coachmen, most of the children were nibbling on bread in silence, occasionally shivering from remembering the scene that played out before breakfast.
Delia, Fred and Flora all couldn't even bring themselves to eat breakfast. The three decided to instead help pack up the tents with the adults, who knew that it would take more time for the children to do so after what just happened. When all the tents were packed away, Darniss and Archie patted the three's heads, saying that they did a good job and that nothing will happen to them. The six coachmen then had to comfort the rest of the children, saying that they were glad they listened to their warnings and that they were happy they were safe and able to eat.
The butler once again announced departure, much to the relief of the children. The wagons then set off once more, heading to Ebonhearth city.
The following day, before they stopped for lunch at the butlers, now dread inducing, call for a break, the convoy was travelling with morbid silence. Another three children had been punished this morning, but in a much more horrific way than before. The previous three had managed to live after receiving two more whippings at afternoon and night, before having marks branded onto their backs with hot metal prods.
This morning, Feegal had allowed the bound children to choose themselves who would be punished that day. When the gags were removed, one tried to bite a knight and another cursed at Feegal for, in the child's words, mean treatment. Those two, along with one who hadn't stopped staring daggers at Feegal the whole time, were executed by being boiled alive. Their mouth gags were removed so their screaming, crying and even begging could be heard.
A knight riding a fironare was approaching the convoy, a little left to the way they were travelling.
"Halt!" Shouted the knight, their voice carrying itself like the butler's did when he used the medallion.
The convoy quickly came to a halt, much to the displeasure of Feegal. He rode the reptile that was pulling his wagon with a knight in front and two more knights riding two more of the same reptile, which were the two that pulled the knight's carriages. When the three reached the front of the convoy, Feegal looked at the knight that arrived with fury.
"What is the meaning of this! You dare to order my convoy to stop, who do you think you are?" Feegal bellowed, his fury on full display before everyone who was watching
The knight dismounted and removed their helmet. What was revealed was the scowling face of a woman. She had short, black, shoulder length hair tied into a bun. Her eyes, a dark brown, glared at Feegal as she clicked her tongue at the child's shouting.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"I have no need to speak to a child who throws a tantrum at me for doing my job, where is the one in charge of this ill-tempered brat." The knight berated, clearly in a foul mood.
"That would be me," the butler spoke, bowing politely to the knight. "I apologise for young master Feegal's outburst. How may I be of assistance to a knight of Ebonhearth city?"
When the butler flattered the knight, Feegal’s mood only seemed to sour more. That was until he mentioned she worked for Ebonhearth city. A knight from a city may not be working for the lord of the city itself, but they would be employed by someone at the rank of viscount or above.
"A large pack of pagobsli was spotted yesterday in the direction you are headed. I and several other knights are to look for any convoys heading for the city and have them form smaller groups and travel more eastward to avoid the pack" The knight announced, her face stern as the butler had placated her.
The butler and knights looked at the female knight with shock. Normally they would be asked to change direction only if the pack was large enough to be considered several ranks higher than the species would be on its own. But that would only cause them to avoid travelling directly towards the area the pack hunted, not split up the whole convoy and take separate routes to reach the city.
"What size is the pack?" The butler asked with a tinge of fear in his voice.
"Raze class, a bounty was immediately put up as soon as the pack was classified to be above swarm class. Any pagobslus you kill can be redeemed if you bring their pride scale for an increased price." The knight recited, clearly bored from saying these lines multiple times.
After a few more questions about which routes were safer and how far they had to travel eastward, the butler bid farewell to the knight. The convoy then began to form smaller groups of four to eight wagons. The groups then each elected a leader to go and speak with the other chosen leaders and determine which route each group would take. After the routes had been settled, several groups immediately set off, either not feeling safe being in the large convoy or feeling that it was wiser to set off earlier, attracting less attention from the pagobsli who likely didn't have large packs hunting along those routes yet. The rest stopped for lunch, with no rush to quickly eat lunch, the groups took time making a slightly more lavish meal than what they had been able to prepare for lunch the previous days
Darniss was elected as the leader of his group, with Oliver, Archie, Felix Jack and Amelia staying in the group they had formed on the first day they set off from Engal town. They were one of the groups who chose to stay, discussing dangers they might encounter and solutions to them.
"Mister Darniss, why are we avoiding the pagobsli?" Fred asked as he was eating some roasted boar that was caught this morning. "It's only a pack of them, no matter how many there are shouldn't they be passive, my father said that pagobsli were one of the more peaceful animals you would encounter in the wild."
"And your father isn't wrong, but in large numbers they require a lot more food for their kind. When there is less food available and their population keeps growing, they start to aggressively hunt for food." Darniss replied, "Pagobslus are mainly peaceful due to being weak and that their population doesn't reach three digits often. But this is a raze sized pack, and I know for a fact that a pack that size could quickly become the dominant species in the area if nothing is done."
"Then why don't they increase the bounty on them to get rid of them quicker?" Rein asked, with small bits of boar meat and juices around her mouth.
"'ow come eve'one asks ya da queshons?" Oliver grumpily interrupted.
"Because when we asked you how to look after Fleur and the others, you used words like 'brush them with passion' and 'use your soul to feel their feelings'," Rein snidely replied.
"And when you were helping us with the tent, we couldn't understand half the words you were using." One of the girls added on, exhaustion in her voice.
Oliver scratched his cheek, slightly embarrassed at the girl’s remarks. Amelia and Felix burst into laughter when they saw Oliver become passive.
"Darniss is the best one here at explaining things anyway," Jack added on happily, resulting in Archie laughing as well.
"Anyway, let's get back on topic," Darniss said, switching the topic back, "it was about why they don't increase the bounty, right?" He asked, causing Rein to nod. "That's mainly because they are still going to make a profit from the materials sold. The bounty is put up by the hunter guild, they also buy the materials you can get from what you kill. With so many pagobsli out there, the demand for their parts will drop, meaning they will buy the materials for significantly less. With this, they encourage more hunting by putting a bounty on it so they can get more materials for cheap. These materials are either sold to crafters or used by the crafters in the guild itself. The goods used by the guild itself can be sold at a much larger price when the demand drops again resulting in a large profit for them."
"'ow big is raze class anyway?" Oliver asked, a cheeky grin on his face.
Darniss frowned at Oliver's question, but upon seeing the children's eye's filled with wonder and curiosity, he could only sigh.
"I honestly don't know the specific ways they categorise the size of a pack," he relented. "I know the sizes of the smaller packs, as they are commonly seen. But I'm not a hunter, I'm a merchant, I only know what I need to know about them."
Darniss then took a long pause, gathering all the information he had on the subject in his head, thinking of a way to explain it to them.
"I guess I should start with the different names of the pack sizes." Darniss then continued, "from smallest to largest the pack sizes are: regular, medium, large, swarm, raid, terror, nightmare, raze, army and finally county. As you should know, Oliver, regular sized packs are around ten to twenty members in size, they are usually just a family sized pack and the children tend to leave when they are able to. Medium size packs can reach seventy in size while large packs can reach two hundred. These types of packs are commonly multiple families and are something that you won't be able to kill on your own unless you can kill them in one hit. After that is a swarm size which reaches numbers of roughly seven hundred and are something you will tend to run away from if you are alone. As you can tell, the larger the pack the harder it is to deal with. For raid class and above, I don't know the specifics but I know the rough required force to wipe them out. For raid sized packs, a group of around eighty people of the same rank are required to wipe out the pack within a week. Terror sized packs often take a month to fully subjugate, with around a hundred and fifty hunters hunting them every day. For nightmare class and above, I've only heard rumours that they can take several months to a year to subjugate, with several hundred hunters hunting down the pack day and night. So as you can tell, this raze class pack is not something that they can get rid of by simply spending a bit more money. Chances are it will remain there for a year maybe a bit longer before the pack gets wiped out."
When Darniss finished, the children fell silent at the realisation that this pack was not something they wanted to encounter. The silence loomed over them even when they finished lunch and set off towards Ebonhearth city again, on the route that had been decided earlier.
They journeyed for a full day with no encounter with any pagobsli. That peace only lasted until the end of their lunch break the day after the convoy split up.
A group of twenty-five bipedal humanoid creatures around the height of a child appeared. They had large, golden plates covering their bodies. Their head had none of the plates, except for the small dark gold one on their forehead. Their faces looked like a hairless monkeys, with yellow-brown skin, their lower jaws were larger causing an under bite with their teeth protruding up above the lips. These were pagobsli, a supposed distant cousin to the goblins.