The prince was tired of the tracker and just waved him off and told him to do whatever he wanted because the prince had no further use of him. But he said to remember that if he ran away, he won’t get paid and no one would hire him again. The tracker departed the camp and first considered leaving it all behind but with no money, he might as well live on the street. His family might also be targeted if he ran which was not what he wanted. The thought of him begging on the streets, helped him to make up his mind to get this over and done with.
As the tracker came up to the village, the sun went down and there was yet but an hour left of the light. He climbed one of the trees located further away from the tower and was able the hide behind the branches of the tree. As he looked around the village, the fires were lit in side and the village looked ready for attack. He also looked over where the army was stationed and saw they also had lit the fires. The tension was very much present in the air. The villagers were busy in the village and with the night coming in he saw an opportunity to sneak back in the village undetected because the branch concealing him could be lowered to the edge of the wall. He did just that and then when one of the houses was covering him, he could descend on top of the wall. He sneaked around the house on the wall and over to the roof of the house. The house had a small window on the top of it and he climbed in. There wasn’t anyone inside but the light was shining from outside so he must be careful not to be discovered.
When he looked around, he couldn’t seem to find any kids and very few women. But when they were here a month ago checking the village out the first time, there were a lot more women and some children. Where could they have gone, he thought to himself. Maybe the villagers sent them away when they saw the smoke over the horizon. He saw that they were guarding the well but all of a sudden, the guards standing next to the well got called up to the others and the well was then unsupervised. He saw this as great opportunity and looked around for more villagers but saw none. With help of the night, he ran towards the well and looked down. There was none there but he took out the knife still. It was better if a few died rather than many, he thought and proceeded to climb down the well. The well was not as bright this time since there was no moon to help shine the light but he did remember where the lock was. He brought up the tools he used for picking locks and when he was about to pick the lock, a sound was made from somewhere close. He felt himself getting trapped against the wall with force. He struggled to get free but a light quickly lit and next to him stood the guards that left the well earlier. How did they know, he wondered in his head. He made sure they didn’t see him.
With no voices, they grabbed him after they had disabled his weapon and dragged him up the well. He was being put in front of Hun who informed him they saw him as a shadow through the house. They purposely moved the guards to let him think he could get the magic stone and get trapped without anyone getting hurt. The villagers called for his execution but the village leader calmed the others with him being of use to them and ordered them to blindfold him. The tracker begged for his life and asked what they would do to him. Hun said the man that was killed in the forest was a gentle man and was also his uncle. He then whispered in his ears about what they were going to do with him. The tracker started to shake and resisted with mumbling noises from his mouth but was carried away into the house he previously hid inside.
Outside the gates, Prince Theran demands them to hand over the magical stone or the village would be attacked. Hun, who was on the inside of the village, told the army to leave unless they wished to be buried in the forest and with the help of a small crane, lowered the tracker in front of the wall the army was facing. He was being held in place and was still shaking and making noise. The prince started to laugh and told the army to bring the canon up. He added that this was their last chance. The villagers said nothing and Prince Theran ordered the canon they found to be loaded. He said to the men aiming the canon to point it at the tracker and when they did, the tracker started even more to shake and spin around.
The prince told the men to fire and when the canon went off, the mixture of rocks, wood and metal hits the tracker and wall so hard, that the tracker was spread over a wide space and a small part of the wall got taken down. When this happened, the prince told the men to charge in and the army then attacked the village. The villagers stood ready and as soon as the first soldiers came in, they threw spears and took them down. With the defence of the villagers and small gap, it was easy for the villagers to kill anyone coming through the small opening. But there were many soldiers and not all spears hit lethally and so the fight with swords commenced with some of the villagers still throwing spears and shooting arrows.
The army men outside also fired arrows into the village and with a clearer vision of the village, they were able to aim more effectively. Some of the villagers got hit by the marksmen but the army was running out of arrows and soon, every soldier engaged in the fight of the village. The villagers were pushed back and some fights moved to the houses and even the tower which had six villagers and the village leader with the archer in the tower. The army tried to get in and slashed the door in a bid to bring down the door. Some of the army men had moved to the mill and were fighting some villagers there. They were three against four but with the skill of the army, they were able to take down two of the villagers and lost one due to a direct hit from a heavy barren falling down and leaving the guard vulnerable.
The army was growing in numbers and the villagers were forced to pull back and were running towards the mill. The army men fighting the last two forest people got overrun and killed by the retreating villagers. They locked the door and understood there was no way they could win and decided to flee towards where any other people of the forest had been evacuated before the fight. They pulled the lever to lower the gates and when it went down, the villagers ran out a side door and anyone still fighting escaped for the forest.
With the wall down, the prince was free to go in and told the army to round up anyone still drawing breath. Some of the army men left after the villagers but they were quickly outrun by the forest people and had to return to the village where then only one building had people inside. The prince called for the surrender of the villagers and let them know they were surrounded by the army. Prince Theran was not a patient man and told some of his men to get the earth stone and bring it to him. The men climbed down the well and had torches with them. They broke the door down and when they come in they saw the magic stone guarded by two villagers. The first guard came in and got impaled with a sharp wooden pole shooting from the wall and then another guard got spikes shot at him killing him instantly that came from the ceiling. The men backed off and brought down some stronger shields and equipment and were able to release the traps without anyone else getting hurt.
The men had no problem killing the two villagers protecting the earth stone and then grabbed it. As soon as it left its place, the soldier who held it started to hear voices. He believed it must be the other soldiers or captured villagers above. When they presented it to the prince, he laughed loudly and raised it to the sky. He then ordered some of the men in the army to burn the village and anyone in it yet to surrender. Theran and some of the men went outside and from the village fires could be seen being lit. The houses burned and the tower got shot with fire arrows that ignited the roof of it. The villagers still inside had nowhere to go and with the smoke filling the house, there was not much they could do.
The eight forest men then decided to fight their way out and looked for the easiest way out of the guards waiting for them. When they found it, they wasted no time and jumped out the window of the side of the house and with their swords drawn and arrows flying, they managed to get an opening. But there were many army men that were standing close and when the villagers fought through, the army men’s push was too strong and four forest people got taken down and killed. The archer and one more villager were successful in the escape and were able to avoid the army men to then run out to the fo
rest.
Hun and one more villager was captured and brought to the prince. The total number of captured prisoners was nineteen, and some were hurt badly. Prince Theran told the men to secure two prisoners for transport and they would leave within the hour. Any injured forest people not strong enough would die on the way, he added, and as they left for the open planes, the fire from the village warmed their backs, and the remaining forest people no longer had a home.
The Way Back to the Castle
The prince was a happy man, and the sense of victory was not hard to understand. Leaving the forest was not an easy walk and having prisoners and wounded soldiers didn’t help the trip out. The injured soldiers were being carried or helped. The forest left some relieved though in form of walking sticks and makeshift stretchers. On the way out, the nineteen prisoners had become seventeen. One tried to escape and was shot down by the army with an arrow in the back. Another one died from his wounds overnight at the first rest stop. When the army was walking, they always had some soldiers walking a little further away to be lookouts for the forest people. After burning their village, it was hard to know if they really ran away or were getting ready for attack again, and who knew if the forest had more people living in it they talked about during the rest stops.
The prince heard nothing of this and was more focused on all the money and power he would gain after using the magic stone. He only needed to find out how to use it but he’ll had a lot of engineers at the castle figuring that out. He had no stress about figuring it all out at the moment and also knew his uncle would be able to further bring life to the Alumrylite stone. The forest started again to make sounds as they got closer to the edge of it. The sun was high in the sky and with no clouds in the sky, it would surely be a grand day. There was another five days’ walk to the castle in this speed but when they had left the forest, the army settled down away from the forest. With so many injured then able to be properly cared for, the prince let them all rest.
While walking in the forest, many animals had to have their lives end, so the men could have food and energy. Then, when the bellies were full and the army rested for some time, the order went out that they would head out again in the morning the following day. The army departed from the camp in the morning and with five days of walking, the army then had more strength after resting for almost a whole day. The prince’s personal healer, who helped the men when they were injured, talked to the prince about the loss and the cost of treating the men. He informed him about the number of casualties. They were 500 army men at the start of the journey. After the battle in the forest and village, there were now 463 army men left. Including the injured which was 89 of them. With 37 dead soldiers needed to be buried, it was one high price for an Alumrylite stone. Prince Theran added that this was a special possession, and if the legends were to be true, it would be a low amount. Besides, he didn’t care how many more would get killed as long as he got the earth stone. He brought it out and looked at it finally in his hands. The tar was still on it but he knew he could take it off with the help of water even if it was a little sticky.
For the villagers then in the middle of all these army men who had destroyed and burned their village and made their forest smell of death, walked with heavy heads and hate in their hearts. The forest people did not leave the forest unless required so, and some of them had never been outside for this long, and so far from the forest. The leader was separated from the others and did not get to see them during the trip to the castle. Two of the captured villagers were female and had to endure harassment from some of the army men, and were told that they were going to be sold to the brothels. The women didn’t cry and spit at the army men who laughed.
The two women were a little shorter than the men that were captured. With already being of a smaller height than a normal person, it made it even harder to endure the trip. When one day’s walk came to an end, the prince found his luck kept going when he found a wagon that was empty of people but in a working condition. He quickly ordered the men to ready it for next day and lay ten of the dead inside. A welcome wagon it was, then giving relief to some of the army men carrying dead bodies in stretchers.
The first night came, and there were some horrible acts that were being planned by three of the army men. They had planned an attack on the villagers resting apart from each other and it was the girls they were interested in. The men guarding them got lured away with a promise of taking over, so they could rest. The soldiers guarding gladly accepted and walked over to the main camp. The villagers were divided with 4-5 people in each group and this was the one with both women. The forest people, were all gagged before sleep so they didn’t talk to each other. With their mouth gagged, the women were unable to call for help and when the men grabbed them, the women could only cry, shake and moan. The two other villagers lying next to them tried to stop them by making noise as much as possible with tied hands and feet. But with only moaning, there would be no one there to hear them.
The men kicked the villagers so they passed out. The three men took the two women aside from the camp and in the cover of darkness, they could do whatever they wanted. The camp had since long been quiet, apart from a few holding guard for ambush and some small fires were all over. The three army men found a small section of rocks standing tall and lit a fire themselves. The two women were scared and had been put against the rocks while the men lighted the fire. One of the men grabbed a sword and pointed to one of the women and moved it to her chest. With one move of it, her breasts were exposed and the men laughed. The women tried to make as much noise as possible but one other army man grabbed the other woman and with a knife, cut her clothes so she got exposed as well.
The women then cried and knew they had no chance for help. The three men started to take off their clothes and two of them went up to the women and began to kiss them on the face. The women struggled as much as possible and one of the women got a chance when her mouth piece slid down. She bit him so hard on his cheeks that she ripped a piece of skin off. He stepped back in a voice of pain, and she took her chance with screaming for help. The effort became short-lived when the man in pain after the bite, let off a punch on her stomach. It was so hard that she fell to her knees and was struggling for air. The other two laughed and told the man with the bite mark to be careful.
The man then brought his knife out and grabbed the woman against the wall. He stuck the blade against her throat and promised he would kill her slowly after he was finished with her. He then proceeded to touch her between the legs and said that he could feel that she was warm enough for him. The man holding guard had been laughing so much he had to lean against the rock wall. The others could hear him suddenly stop and remain quiet. The two other men then readied to have their fun told him to make sure no one disturbed them. The guard stayed quiet and the man with bite mark told him again with more anger, to go to the side and keep watch. Still, the guard said nothing, and the other man then wondered why he said nothing, went up to him to look at him. The guard that was supposed to be on watch didn’t blink and when the other guard walked up to him to touch him, he fell to the ground straight in the fire. There was a tumultuous few seconds with the men dragging the man out of the fire and turning the fire out. They wondered what was going on and tried to wake him but he remained still.
The men suddenly saw the wound on the back of his head and saw the blood coming out. They pulled back immediately and drew their swords. The women remained still and were observing what was going on. The men spoke loud to anyone out in the darkness to come forth. The sparks and cracks of the fire were the only noise in the air. Suddenly, with a whistling noise in the air, one of the men fell back as an arrow penetrated his head. He landed hard on his side and was clearly dead. The last guard with the scar grabbed one of the women and held her in front of him with the sword to her throat. He called out to the darkness to let him go or the woman would die. He then added if there was possible he could walk back to the camp and whoever was in the dar
kness could have the two women for themselves. Nothing was again heard, and the guard was looking around not realising what was going on behind him. He was against the rock wall to avoid ambush from swords and knives but considered the woman no threat since she was tied up.
The forest people were skilled in many things but escaping tight ropes was not one of them. However, the forest people did know how to improvise and when the woman was then behind, she would be in a great advantage to interfere with his plan to hide behind the other woman. She grabbed, with her feet, a rock and flung it up in the air and kicked it hard so it hit the man in the back of his head. He lost his grip for a second and looked behind and when he did so, he heard something in front of him. As he turned back, he could see in the side view how a fast moving person was heading towards him. Without any chance to prepare, he got a sword through the throat and out the neck. The guard fell to his knee, dropped his sword and continued falling to the side. He was not dead but could not speak, and he saw the person untie the women and when he moved his eyes, he saw the woman that bit him earlier come closer. She lunged a kick so hard, the guard moved in the sand when he got the kick in the side. She then took his sword and ended his life with stabbing it in his head.
The women looked upon the man who rescued them and saw the archer from the village who had managed to escape from the tower when the guards were burning it. He had followed the group, and when she earlier screamed for help, he heard her and rushed to help. The three forest people then wanted to help the others, but when they saw the camp, they also noticed the other guards had come back. And with the two women missing, the guards increased in number and were searching for the other guards and the women. The archer and the women decided, with heavy hearts, to leave and regroup with the remaining villagers. Morning came and with that, the news of the three dead guards and the missing women. The prince was angry and ordered the remaining forest people to be under tighter guard. The days to Theran’s castle were not halted by more incidents, and when the prince saw the gates of Castle Kiwen, he smiled and rode ahead when he met some other guards that escorted him back.
World of Taroo Page 20