Galus rode on, Irina the back of the horse. They buried Selen's body near the campfire before leaving hopefully Jerren wouldn't find it.

At noon they rode up to a bridge next to Agheel lake that was next to the river, he noticed the large camp in the ruins ahead, Galus motioned Edgar who was walking beside them to go on ahead.

He saw him walk forward toward the camp and prayed he still had authority with Godrick gone.

He came back after about five minutes shaking his head. "They're all gone, desertion is my guess."

Galus nodded. "It's for the best, if you have enough runes, maybe you should go buy a horse from the Kaiden mercenary camp over there." He pointed at the palisade wall of their camp.

He looked at Galus, then sighed. "Yeah, I suppose that was my idea wasn't it. Alright. I do have something that should be worth quite a bit."

Galus inwardly raised an eyebrow but motioned for him to go. "I'll wait for you here."

He nodded, watching as he went. He fumbles his fingers on the lead. "So, Irina, you have any hobbies?" Galus asked.

She looked at him, "well, I like playing music, and listening to my father read to me."

He nodded. "I like reading, unfortunately I can't do that here."

He saw Edgar coming back on horseback. He motioned for Edgar to go toward the camp. He tapped his leg on his horses flank and started trotting down the road, soon enough Edgar joined up with him. He saw the camp where many soldiers once patrolled was completely abandoned, no signs of a battle, just orange and green tabards tossed in a pile, and he could smell it from here, they all pissed on them.

Galus laughed. "Looks like Godrick wasn't very liked."

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Edgar shook his head in disgust. "Why the hell did they leave?"

Galus looked at him. "The better question is why didn't they leave sooner, Godrick is an insecure idiot who only survived the shattering by licking Malenia's prosthetic feet, now just to gain a bit more power he grafted a bunch of arms onto himself."

He looked at him. "Actually, he originally only grafted two arms and two legs onto himself, after Malenia cut his arms and legs off, you should have seen it, she's fucking terrifying, she did it with all of the effort and emotion of a farmer cracking an egg."

He nodded. "That actually makes sense, so, you were there for that fight?"

He nodded. "Yeah, the shattering war was rough, especially on Godrick, he had possibly the largest army but lost most of it because of his rebellion in Leyndell. Then he retreated back to stormveil and in his anger he looked for another kingdom to fight, he wasn't going to fight Radahn that was obviously suicide, so he decided to make Miquella his target, he decided that a child couldn't kill him, but Malenia somehow got word of his plan, and came in like a scarlet tornado cutting his forces to shreds as she passed, any who didn't fall to her blade, ran away like little girls. Only a few of them remained by the end of the fight."

Galus nodded. "Yeah, well, better hope she doesn't remember you because we're going to get Malenia and help her save her brother."

He visibly went pale. "I fought her, I lasted five seconds which is more than most of my men lasted." He raised his tunic and chest plate revealing a long scar across his chest.

Galus winced at the sight and he feels the phantom pains of his eye when he does that. "You're one of the lucky ones."

He laughs. "Tell me about it, I'd have been dead if not for my armor. There was a moment when she had me on the ground, she was about to cut me down but got distracted by a group of my closest men, and I managed managed to not get killed but at the cost of some good people."

Galus was entranced by the story, so entranced that he didn't realize that they walked into the canyon, and though the soldiers were gone, the troll was sitting on one of the small inclines in the ground that the soldiers would have been shooting from. It got up and Galus realized where they were. "Irina! Wrap your arms around my chest and hang on tight!" He yelled, she did, and he motioned for Edgar to ride on. Before whipping his reins and yelling "Ya!" He knew that was a horrible thing to do because it hurt the horse, but it worked, it started running and the troll roared at their pass. And reached to try and grab one of them off the horse, though a swipe of Galus' sword and it's fingers fell to the ground. and he watched Edgar ride behind it and saw him raise his not halberd and it cut into the back of it's knee cutting the tendons on it's leg and it fell to the ground roaring like a massive war horn.

They rushed onward up the hill, and eventually turned. He saw saw an old shack, Roderika was gone, and why wouldn't she be? He couldn't summon shit so her assistance was all but useless to him, he sheathed his sword, and when he turned the corner, all the guards who would have been guarding the tunnel were dead. He got off the horse, leading it by the reins and knelt by the corpse of one, their face was horribly mangled, as if a python made of blades had wrapped around their head and then was violently torn off. Leaving many it's head all but skinned with ragged strips of skin stubbornly hanging on to the skull and muscle. He looked up at Edgar still on his horse and shook his head. "They're dead."

He looked at the brutal wounds and visibly gagged and Galus didn't blame him one bit, he was barely keeping from throwing up himself.

Galus got back onto his horse, he turned the horse around. "Come on, I know a place where we can go around the castle. It's a bit of a treacherous path and there's wolves, so I'll leave the choice up to you, castle or path."