NOVEL NEXT Chapter 189: Knee
Slowly but surely we progress towards towards the settlement of Getinium. The rain adds an even more depressed feeling to the already sad and distraught looking faces of the couple of villagers that are working outside along the road. There’s a couple of tents set up on the way to the small palisade walls. Its inhabitants keeping a close eye on us as we move on. They don’t really look like soldiers, but they don’t really look like player adventurers either. Mercenaries maybe? They definitely look like they don’t want to be here, so they are probably paid to do so.
Just before we walk through the outer palisades, we pass a group of kids of different races. They all don’t look very happy either.
Sam motions me to stop and gets off her wolf. Approaching the kids and taking a quick knee in the middle of the road that’s quickly getting muddier and muddier. She takes something out of her bag and holds it out towards them. It looks to be a part of the meat snacks we bought in town yesterday.
“Here, you can have it.” She smiles.
The oldest of the three children, a Langor boy, looks concerned at Sam and then at her wolf behind her.
“Don’t worry, it will do you no harm. He’d even like it if you gave him a scratch behind the ear.”
“He will smell a bit like a wet dog though.” Max jokes. It at least makes the children cheer up a little.
The oldest kid nods and spurs the other kids forward to take the snacks out of Sam’s hand. Although only the youngest, a little Nekote girl, appears to take up the offer to pet Sam’s wolf. She does get rewarded by a quick lick in return.
“Are you here to stop the fighting?” The middle kid asks. A Drakone girl, she looks just a bit older than the Nekote.
“Fighting?” Carol asks.
The oldest one nods. “The soldiers and the others really don’t get along.”
“Well, I guess we could kind of guess that already.” Max comments silently.
“Do you know why?” Sam asks.
The kid shakes his head. “No, not really. I just know that people are getting sick now and noone is really doing anything to help.”
“Our mom is also sick in bed.” The little one comments.
Sam turns towards me, frowning quite heavily.
“We will see what we can do.” I try to force a smile at the kids. Tell your mom we will come to make her better soon, okay? Can you tell us where you live?”
“It’s the red house by the well.” The oldest once replies.
“Alright.” I give him a nod. “We’ll be over as soon as we can, okay?”
The oldest one nods back and then looks at his siblings. “You heard the lady, let’s go and tell mom.”
“Okay!” The two reply after which they all run off through the palisades.
Sam stares after them before she gets back on her wolf. “What the hell is going on here? Now there’s disease as well?”
“Hmmm.” I groan, I feel myself getting worked up before I even have to look at my watch. “Let’s go and check what’s going on.”
-I sure hope my sister is already here...-
When we walk through the palisade gate ourself, which is weirdly enough devoid of guards, we see other villagers standing outside of their houses, looking concerned towards the center of their village. In the distance I can already see why. There appears to be a commotion at the settlement’s center.
But aside from that, what we also notice is the stench that permeates through the streets. Outside of the palisade I’d caught a bit of a whiff of it, but the more we move through the houses, the more it starts to stink. I can notices by how our wolves are reacting, that it is having an effect on them too. I even have to put my sleeve in front of my nose and mouth to stop myself from gagging.
What we can tell is that the stench is not coming from the villager’s houses at all.
“Ami.” Sam pulls my attention and points towards a spot at the center of the settlement’s square where two groups of opposing sides are staring each other down. A very sizable group of angry soldiers, and a somewhat smaller group of adventurers, just as angry as the others.
Right at the center of it all, between the most aggressive parts of both groups we see familiar faces. It’s our party with presumably the wounded soldiers they carried with them in behind them.
“Let’s dismount, otherwise our dogs might cause some chaos.” Sam suggests.
We all decide to follow her suggestion. The tension is cuttable and it really seems as though the only thing that’s outright avoiding a brawl is our friends. Throwing a stone in the form of four direwolves might cause them to dissipate but it just as well might be the spark that lights the powderkeg.
We walk through the middle in between the two groups, it doesn’t take long for our party to take notice we have arrived. My sister leaves the situation she’s in to be handled by Nikki and Hilda for the moment and jogs towards us.
“Pff, thank fuck you are here. Shit’s a bloody mess.” She wipes some blood of her hands.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
“Serious infighting, and completely stupid and incompetent Commanders, that’s the problem.” She replies. “And these newbies aren’t helping at all.” She nods towards the adventurers.
“Has it been like this for long?” Max asks, putting her hand slowly on the hilt of her axe.
“No, to be honest, we just got here very recently too. When we arrived they were already at each other's throats. We just placed ourselves in between the mess and tried to calm things down. Isn’t really working very well as you can see. The thing we pieced together now thanks to the wounded we rescued and the little bit of conversation we’ve had here is that there've been battles with bandits recently and that someone screwed something up very badly. Causing the distrust between the two groups to explode exponentially.”
While my sister explains the situation, I can see the situation behind her get abruptly a lot worse. The wounded soldiers who had been in between Hilda and Nikki now started to get pulled on by some of the adventurers and by the other soldiers both. When Nikki and Hilda try to stop this from happening, just a tiny, little slip of their attention gives the opportunity for one of the soldiers to throw a punch at the adventurers.
Things are getting out of hand. The villagers that were gathered around quickly shut their doors closed and the wounded soldiers cry out in pain as they start getting trampled.
It makes my blood boil. I groan and bring my hand to my forehead, closing my eyes and trying to focus as to stop the red haze from taking over. But when my hand touches my face, I can already feel the cold steel of my dark gauntlet.
“Stop!” I yell out with my eyes closed. “You fucking idiots!” When I open my eyes back up I see that my sister has taken a couple of steps back away from me, not necessarily out of fear, but just to give me some space. As for the brawlers, a couple of them have stopped what they are doing and are looking at me with fear, but most of the group is still going at it.
I grit my teeth as my sword appears in my hands. “I said STOP!” I yell out again and drive my longsword into the ground. A wave of dark energy shoots forward through the dirt, cracking the ground open. It stops right in front of the feet of the wounded soldiers.
This does immediately pull the attention of everyone around as they jump back away from the dark energy that seeps from the cracks.
I can feel my dark feathered wings fold open as, with a twist of my sword, I split the earth even more, creating a gap of almost half a meter between the group of soldiers and adventurers. Splitting them off with the wounded soldiers together with Nikki and Hilda on their little island in the middle.
I see a couple of the people who had been fighting trying to run away but I quickly point my sword towards them, purple darkness already rolling around the blade. Followed by one simple order: “Stay. Put.”
Luckily for them they are wise enough to obey.
A moment of calmth follows during which some soldiers get on their knees and start praying at me. As for the adventurers, they don’t really seem to do that, but a lot of them do look to be in awe as they start chatting amongst themselves.
The moment of peace and quiet also allows me to calm myself down again, although I don’t drop my form yet.
“You okay, Ami?” Sam asks, putting her hand on my neck.
“Mhmm.” I nod. “I would like to know where exactly the people who are in charge are right now though. I’d like to have a word with them…”