Over half of the mercenaries guarding the caravan stayed up throughout the night to deal with the aftermath. Dealing with the bodies of body bandits and allies was a sordid and humbling affair. Whatever bandit group that attacked had been large and well-organized, albeit ill-equipped to deal with the mercenaries defending the caravan. When the final count came in, it painted a positive, albeit sad scene.

Of the seventeen defenders, four were lost. The third team lost two members, an entire half of their team while both of the teams on other caravans lost one. The only team to get away without a casualty was Helianna’s, largely thanks to their increased training compared to most mercenaries.

On the flip side, they buried twenty-four bandits in a mass grave, with the captured one bringing it to twenty-five total attackers. For the amount of enemy combatants, they suffered stunningly low casualties. It seemed fairly miraculous until Arc brought up the mages that Helianna targeted in the beginning of the battle. They were likely the ones calling the shots and without their voices to call the retreat, many of the bandits didn’t fall back in time, resulting in a very high amount of casualties. They were also likely relying on the magic support as the keystone of their strategy, so the lapse hit them hard.

When morning came, the mood was somber, and the only cheerful voice was Arc’s. Thanks to the silence from the rest of the caravan, he could easily be heard by everyone, but nobody had the heart to quiet him.

Proper Wulvinian death rites could not be performed thanks to the need to continue on, so the heads of the dead mercenaries were removed to allow for a later alternative. The bandits were left to rot in their mass grave.

Sylas and Isela, not knowing the local customs, looked on in horror as the heads were deposited in one of the wagons. Helianna grumpily informed them, but tensions between Sylas and Helianna did not abate, instead only growing. It horrified both of them and prompted them to view Helianna in a different light, who was completely unfazed.

The mood remained somber throughout the day and persisted partially throughout the night. A few people however, Arc included, did their best to boost the morale that night, eventually succeeding. Helianna watched all this from afar, choosing not to join in on the ‘fun’.

While watching, she realized she had become the very thing she’d made fun of a year before on her first mission. Just like Zoe, she was grumpy, didn’t get along with her team and spent much of her freetime at night ‘scouting’ and avoiding everyone else. She sighed, realizing how lonely this could quickly get. She put the thought aside quickly, knowing that she didn’t like her current team and she was about to meet her family again anyways. There was no need to worry about it.

It was only a few days later when they finally left Eichlach. The country they were now in managed to bring a chuckle out of Helianna when she showed her team how it was spelled. It wasn’t hard to pronounce, but with all the extra letters, it looked daunting and the faces they made when they saw it were priceless. They had arrived in Hdofhgahrlach.

The roads worsened slightly, but not enough to significantly slow the caravan significantly and the days were uneventful. They weren’t ambushed again and when they reached a significant city, they stopped for a few days. The local death rites were performed for the ones who died defending the caravan, which neither Helianna nor her team were privy to due to its private nature.

They got back on the road, and crossed into Rugas near the end of their fifth week on the road, only miles away from Helianna’s home country of Caglach. To call their trip through Rugas rough was an understatement. The roads were much worse here, clearly not having been maintained in a long time, hampering much of their movement. This country hadn’t been here when she’d last been in Wulvinia, instead being a part of Rugakina, the country that their destination resided in.

Apparently, Rugas had seceded and centralized their power, abandoning much of the countryside to wither away. As such, she had asked why they’d taken a path through this country. She was assured that despite the lack of people and poor roads through this part of the country, it was largely safe. Just like how most of the population now resided in a few large cities, a vast majority of the crime surrounded the cities and didn’t extend out into the countryside.

She didn’t fully believe them as that didn’t make sense to her. Having an empty countryside would only make it easy for any bandits to gain a foothold. She made sure to pay close attention on her evening patrols, determined to not make the same mistake as last time if they were ambushed again. To her surprise however, the ride remained free of bandits and they rode into Rugakina unimpeded. They were slightly behind schedule, now seven weeks into the trip and everybody was tired of it. They had made stops along the way in towns and cities, but much of the time was spent in camps along the way and the travel was wearing on many of them.

Only Arc managed to remain cheerful and ended up spending much of his time trying to keep the other’s energy up and improving morale. Near the end, he even showed up at her team's wagon, arriving just after she started her rounds. Deciding to see what he had to say, she stuck around without revealing herself.

“Hey, you two!” he called out. “How are you this evening?” Sylas looked up at him with disdain, but Isela responded cheerfully, although slightly sheepishly.

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“Hi! Could you speak in Alaric? Neither of us speak wuuvish.”

“Ah! Yes, sorry about that. How are you two doing?”

“We’re doing great! How are you?”

Arc chuckled. “I’m doing pretty good. What’s your name?”

“I’m Isela, and this grump is Sylas.” Sylas grumbled, eliciting a chuckle from both of the other two.

“Well, I’m Arc and it’s nice to meet you two. Where’s Helianna? Not with you two?”

Sylas rolled his glowing white eyes. “She never is. Always skulking off the second she gets a chance.”

Arc chuckled. “Well, I’m glad she does. If she hadn’t been sneaking around when we were ambushed, that could have turned out much differently.”

Sylas’ expression soured. “What was that about anyways? No normal bandits are that large and prepared.”

Arc huffed. “Well, they are when they’re government sponsored. Portonlach is supposedly trying to make moves on Eichlach, but doesn’t want to go into all-out war. So instead, they’re sponsoring locals to mess with things. I’ve heard talk that alongside paying for them, they’re also training bandits but that seems farfetched to me. The group that attacked us may have been large, but anybody with a decent eye for tactics should have realized they weren’t prepared for this many mercenaries. Even without Helianna’s attack on the mages, we would’ve won. It just would’ve probably been a pyrrhic victory.”

Sylas’ sour expression darkened even further and he muttered. “Barbarians.” Arc’s brows rose in shock for a brief second before he burst out laughing.

“You’re interesting, I’ll give you that! Might want to learn to keep your mouth shut though. Some Wulvinians might take offense to that. Your tijatan friend might be able to help.”

“Why?” asked Isela.

“Tijatans are pretty rare up here in Wulvinia. You’re a walking conversation starter. Great for distracting people from certain comments from grump over here.” Arc’s eyes twinkled with amusement as he spoke.

“I… I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you Arc.”

“Don’t mention it!” Luckily, he turned around quickly, or unluckily for Helianna, and immediately spotted her. “Oi Helianna! Get your butt out here and stop scurrying around!” Wincing, Helianna stepped out of the undergrowth.

“I was only a few feet away. No need to break my eardrums,” she complained, trying to get him to switch to wuuvish. Sylas grumbled, but she didn’t care. Unfortunately, Arc either didn’t get the hint or didn’t want to play along and continued speaking in Alarian.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been eavesdropping then,” he said as he chuckled. “Well, I wanted to stop by and say hello. If you’re ever around southeastern Lachadoghan, I live in Othone. Drinks are on me for your hand in that ambush. If I’m not around, just tell the innkeeper that Arctair’s paying.” She blinked in surprise, but he continued before she could formulate an answer. “Honestly, I like this kind of mercenary work so I’m gone a decent amount so that’s probably what’ll happen. On the off-chance I’m there, I’d love to see ya sometime! Have a good patrol!” he said with a wink and sauntered off to the front of the caravan. There were a few moments with all three of them stupefied before Isela broke the silence.

“Well he’s quite a character.”

“Yeah,” Helianna said, watching his retreating form. She didn’t know what to make of him, but his consistent positive attitude baffled her.

“Good to see someone managed to get past your gruffness, though,” Isela teased with a wink.

Helianna looked back at her in surprise and confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, nevermind,” Isela replied with a singsong voice and a grin only possible from younger siblings. Even with such a non-human face, that grin was unmistakable. Helianna rolled her eyes and disappeared into the undergrowth without a word. She barely heard Isela’s quiet voice behind her. “I wish I could do that.” Helianna wasn’t sure exactly what she was referring to, but she didn’t think it had to do with her stealth.

The last couple days were uneventful and they arrived at their destination without incident. A few conversations with the merchant later and they had their horses and wagon and were set to depart. A short, but loud argument erupted between Helianna and Sylas as he wanted to stay in the city for a couple days, but Helianna wanted to move on. Assuring him that they’d stay in her hometown for a while, he eventually relented while Isela’s attempts to defuse the conversation were pointless.

Now that they’d spent time on the caravan however, they had more of a system down. Isela kept Sylas and Helianna from killing each other on the wagon during the day. At night, Helianna would go on patrol while the others cooked and then she’d take first watch. How they split up the other two watches was up to the other two and they chose to alternate each night. It worked fairly well, but without other parts of the caravan to distract them, the days were tenser than ever. Everyone was desperate for a break by the end of each day, none more so than Isela. Despite that, she managed to remain as chipper as ever when the other two weren’t in the middle of arguing.

Finally, they saw Ash Hill in the distance and it took all of Helianna’s self-control not to push the horses into a gallop upon seeing her home. The final stretch felt like the longest few hours of her life, but they eventually arrived. She quickly hopped off, not bothering to help deal with the wagon as she started running through the town. She bumped into several people, but she simply called out a sorry in wuuvish as she ran, unaware of the bewildered people she left behind. After years gone, very few recognized her despite her clearly local accent.

She finally stopped in front of her house right as the door opened and a young boy waddled out, carrying a large pie. She instantly recognized the smell as her mother’s baking and she froze, watching the boy. She knew her mother had been pregnant when she left, but it was one thing to think about it and another to see the results in front of her. She took a hesitant step forward but found herself unable to speak, her words getting caught in her mouth. Completely unaware of her struggle, the boy waddled off with a pie almost as large as he was, undoubtedly delivering it for their mother.

She finally managed to choke out a strangled “Wait!” but he was already too far away to hear her weak voice. She stood frozen, struggling to understand what had come over her and she felt tears start sliding down her face. She brushed them away with confusion when she heard a voice she would never forget emanating from the house.

“Helianna?”