Chapter 5: Chapter 4 – Aftermath

POV: Captain Callum

"... I thought you said that you didn't burn the tent?" I surveyed the location which used to house a very expensive noble tent.
"W-We didn't!! I swear we didn't sir!" Terry protested as if his life was on the line (because it was).
"It's true captain, we did shoot the Wendigo while it was inside the tent, but it immediately charged out at us and no damage was done to the tent. Yuu, what happened while we were gone?"
"I don't know, I was staring at the torch-line, and by time I looked back the tent was on fire. Oh and uh..." Yuu hesitatingly glanced towards where the Wendigo had recently died.
"The Wendigo got up and walked away did it?" I looked at Yuu while I said that but it seemed to scare him more than intended.
I know these men.
I trained both Terry and Yuu, while I served my time in the mountain forces with Hale. Everyone calls him boss because he's a very dependable man and now he handles the crop production in town as well. I'm the captain of the guard, but this village is really run by him. There is no way these men made mistakes of this caliber, but...
"Even if I believe you three, and for the record, I do... there is nothing I can do. Once Lord Sivs' caravan arrives 3 months from now and he finds 75% of his tent gone, he is going to kill someone."
The three of them were expecting to hear that, but the obvious shift in emotion to despair on their face is evident. Although I know Hale is sad for his men and not himself, honorable fool. He's the only veteran in this town who wants no part of our 'side business'. He won't sell us out though, no matter how much he disapproves.
"Putting those two aside, it's impossible for you to not tell whether a monster is dead or not Hale, especially a Wendigo... those things are simple to a fault. What happened here exactly?"
"Honestly, I am more confused than you are Callum. I am one hundred percent positive it was dead. Monsters eat the corpses of each other, but they're always loud and messy. Yuu would have heard most of the different happy noises they make while eating, and there would be bits and pieces left scattered all over." Hale motioned towards the location where the creature had supposedly died.
"Indeed... I can see tiny little black pieces here and there in the snow, but for the most part, the area was picked clean."
Now I know what's disturbing me about this scene. The corpse disappearing is the work of a monster, while the tent burning is clearly the work of a human. This scene... makes no sense. If there was drag marks then it could easily be explained away as a villager with a death wish. Burning the noble tent and taking the Wendigos corpse to salvage what you can is obviously madness, but greed will always win above logic. I am one such example.
"I suppose I should be happy that the bottom of the tent survived for whatever reason. Oh great, that bookcase in there was filled to the brim with expensive books... This just keeps getting worse and worse."
Not that I expect to find anything, but I might as well take a look.
Walking 'inside' the tent and taking a glance around, I'm stunned for a moment by what I find. Shockingly, against all expectations, I really did find something.
Blood, lots of blood... splattered here and there on the floor, dried into the silk. If this silk is so important, why is the damn floor made of it too? The more I think about it, good riddance to this stupid tent. This village is barely surviving, and Lord Siv needs his precious shoes to touch silk when he's only here for 3 days every 6 months.
Then it hit me, with everything that happened tonight, I forgot one very important detail.
Steward. That asshole never showed up and I lost 2 men thanks to that, with at least 9 others injured, and the rest of us dying of exhaustion.
... Could he have? There is a chance this is his blood, but no one in this town could come close to killing him.

I can't imagine why he would take the Wendigo's corpse, but it's definitely possible for him to make it invisible and leave no evidence. Burning the tent and leaving the rest of us to die... Now that part makes perfect sense when Steward is the culprit.
Oh you stupid son of a bitch Steward. He must have panicked after getting the news earlier, took the Wendigo's core to sell, and burned the tent on his way out. Why he took the whole corpse instead of just the core is still bizarre to me, but with how drunk and cornered he was, I guess I shouldn't be looking for perfect logic here. As for the blood, he must have got wounded when the Wendigo came charging into the tent.
Walking back over to my men, I utter just one word, "Steward".
Hale immediately understood the implications, looking quite angry. While the other two had their faces go through a myriad of different emotions, unsure of what to think.
"But why would he...?" Terry asked with a perplexed look on his face.
Terry and Yuu are just trainees. This year they are finally of age to be sent to the mountains with the next caravan, they have no idea what really goes on in this village. Seeing young men like them go through hell like this, struggling to survive, fills me with so much disgust. I pray with all my heart that these two survive their stint in the mountains, and return to me as warriors. That's assuming Lord Siv doesn't kill them... If worse comes to worst, I'll offer myself up in their stead.
"There are reasons I can't explain to you two, I'm sorry about this... for now go get washed up and take a long rest, you earned it after tonight."
It is highly unlikely we'll suffer another attack after a Lord personally assaulted us. There must be a new god nearby, I'll need to ask the first caravans who arrive to send out red alerts for me. After all, our communicator was killed earlier. Yet another reason for the nobles to kill the people here. It couldn't be helped though, we needed every man on call, including the communicator. If they hadn't held back the 53 men that were supposed to come here, then I wouldn't have needed to use their precious slave to defend this place.
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Three days have passed and there have been no more attacks, as expected. We should be fine for the rest of the blackout, giving us a much needed rest. But human related issues are never going to stop...
"No one has seen Dutch's family in three days? He was there the night of the attack, I saw him on the marketplaces street holding the line so the main group didn't get flanked."
"Yes Father, he hasn't reported for duty at all, and his family also hasn't been seen. His wife, their son, and that girl staying with them that's uh..." Bobby trails off while looking at me with a strained face.
"Right, the one we keep getting complaints about."
Normally I ignore all complaints before the blackout and deal with them afterwards, and it hasn't been a problem up to this point, with the complaints usually being a bunch of scattered nonsense we can clear up in two days when the light returns.
This time though...
"Bobby, you liked that girl and said you had a good rapport with her, what is going on with her?"
"I don't know Father, she's very strange now... and not only that, she treats me like we've never met before."
"Well, she was in a coma for a bit after all. I've heard head trauma can result in memory loss, but even then..."
I leaf through the papers till I find the list of complaints, after picking it up I don't even need to scan around the paper to find where she is on the list since she takes up half of it.
-Told the mayor's daughter she wishes she could marry her, just so she could cheat on her-
-Convinced the Walden's son that he was adopted and that his parents only loved their real son, his brother-
-Tried seducing Ned's wife on several occasions, despite knowing she was married-
What even is this? The list is endless and most of it is petty complaints. Surprisingly, It's mostly from people who are problematic in general. Normally they are the ones getting the complaints. As for the girl, while I didn't know her personally, the people of this village really liked her and her father. They brought good wares and they were always fair in the haggling, which is why I was going to kill Dutch myself after the blackout. Good fair merchants are very rare in the outer villages.
Does he think I don't know? Yuu saw him leave for the SE fork in the road on the day they always arrive, and he returned that night with Eris in his arms, with dried blood all over her hair. That moron has always been this simple, even when we were in the same platoon in the mountains, he caused nothing but problems for us. At first I couldn't believe it when he got married, but then I saw how selfish and stupid that woman was... there really is someone out there for everyone it seems.
We found Greg's body in the woods with a deep sword wound, the weapon Dutch left with. Not too far off there was a bunch of blood on a tree and some blonde hairs stuck to the bark. Then the idiot hid all the wares nearby under a bunch of leaves and sticks, which had mostly been blown away by the wind. Dear god he is so unbelievably stupid...
If he's not dead, then I am killing him the second I see him. Normally I'd wonder if he left with his family to retrieve the goods with the intent to flee to another town (which I'm sure was his original plan), but I had given word to the outpost guards on rotation to keep an eye out for him. There have been no reports of him attempting to leave.
Wait... I can make use of this. I feel bad for that girl but I think I can use her to save Hale, Yuu, and Terry.
"Son, how good looking is the girl?"
"Eris? She's very beautiful, especially for a commoner or low-end merchant. Well, this time she doesn't appear to be taking care of herself, and is always wearing those slave rags, but that's probably because of..."
Dutch of course, probably planning to keep her as a pretty slave. He either hoped I wouldn't mind, or he'd blackmail me. Regardless, this is it for him... good riddance.
"Well, I guess lets go see if that scum is still alive." I patted my son on the shoulder and headed straight for the door.

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Bang bang bang
..................What? I'm so tired...
"Dutch, are you there?! Open up or we're coming in!"
Dutch....oh right, my "dad". All this damn banging I can't sleep at all... why aren't they answering the door?
"Father, I say we break it open, something isn't right here. No way all 4 of them are sleeping through this."
"Indeed. Dutch, in the off-chance you're just waking up and hearing this, we're breaking your door down. Dale go get the mallet I have in the training hall near my office."
"Yes sir!"
I barely heard the armored feet running away splashing through the mud, I was more focused on my ever-increasing dread.
That's right... obviously they can't answer the door, I killed them.
I bolted from my sleeping position into a ready stance almost instantly. Not that I can take on armored guards... or can I? Well even if by some miracle I could, there is no way I can do it fast enough before reinforcements arrived. 
As for why they're here, it can't be because of Steward. I burned down the tent so they couldn't find any evidence of Steward dying, also it seems like something he would do if he was running away. Somebody named Jayce is out to kill him apparently, so it seemed like a good idea at the time.
They must be here because of Dutch not showing up for duty. It feels like I slept a long time yet I'm still dead tired... I have no idea of how long its been.
I had also realized my new horns, claws, and tail, were still out. I was experimenting with them before I slept, they're surprisingly easy to detach. All I have to do is will it, just like casting the invisibility aura, and they fall off. They seemed to evaporate into the air after I removed them, maybe because they're pure ether? It takes time though so I need to hide them for now.
I picked up the tail, horns, and claws... claws?! I... what the hell, I don't remember having claws. 
"We can hear somebody in there, open this door right now!!"
Running over to the corner of the room I bury them under some blankets. For now I hid them the best I could, but if the captain decides to check under each blanket for bodies or evidence of anything, then I am screwed. Actually I think I'm screwed no matter what but this just made things worse than they already were. I haven't had time to prepare an excuse for why this family is just... gone.
Sigh... might as well get this over with. I head over to the door and open it with ease (it wasn't even locked, apparently I forgot to lock it as well. One mistake after another), looking up at my soon-to-be jail guards. I know this man, he was the one who showed up after I ate the Wendigo. I watched from the wall where Yuu was shooting from.
"Well would you look at that, someone is here, and it's you little lady. Eris, right? Where is Dutch and Victoria?" The captain was eyeing me this whole time, already suspicious as he should be. "What's with all the wounds?" He continued.
No surprise there that all my wounds didn't heal already, but they look better than I expected them to be, that's odd. Not like I know much about wounds past minor scrapes and beatings though. In the compound, I saw plenty of slaves get beaten or killed, but nothing in between. They wouldn't risk damaging the merchandise permanently after all (excluding the rare times someone was killed).
"I don't know how long ago it was, could have been one day, or three? They told me I'd be marrying their son, but I told them there was no way I was ever going to marry him. Dutch's response to that was..."
"An expected response from Dutch, just punching and cutting everything that doesn't do what he wants." The captain replied with a scowl on his face while the other guard nodded along agreeing with him.
Well this is surprising, they don't seem too fond of Dutch.
"I understand the situation involving your wounds, but that still leaves the question of where they are. Did they leave recently?"
"I'm sorry sir, I don't know where they are... the last time I woke up they were here, but I have no idea when that was." The captain stared at me for a good 15 seconds before mumbling "You're nothing like the complaints say..."
Huh, complaints? Oh, maybe the townspeople sent in complaints about me, that makes sense. For the first time in my life I didn't need to pretend all day long, so I kind of let loose, saying whatever popped into my head. It was so liberating and... Informative. Turns out, I'm kind of unlikable? I was nice to people here and there, but... I don't know. There was something about the people who were clearly pretending to be kind instead of being themselves that really bothered me. It's also hilariously hypocritical for me to be complaining about others pretending and acting kind or not showing their true selves. But if I walk around with a demonic looking tail, horns, and claws... I don't think that will end well.
"Is there any signs that they had recently left, for example, is the fire still going?"
"The fire is not going, but the whole room smells like soup." I pointed back towards the pot still sitting over the fire pit, full of soup. He wouldn't know that Dutch was pissed that she had cut up almost an entire onion and put it in the soup. Apparently he hates onions, but she still uses them sometimes since both her and... whatever the kids name is, love onions. Dutch wasn't having any of that this time, he said that if he doesn't get to eat, nobody does. Then it turned into a cold war over a pot of soup.... I'm once again reminded of how useless these people were.
The grimace disappeared, kind of. Now he was looking around inside the home. I shouldn't risk them finding the accessories hid under the blankets in the corner, but if I invite them in to look around, maybe that will score me some points. I mean, he's going to force his way in anyways here in a second. I might as well be the first one to bring it up.
"Do you want to look around? It's not my place anyways, and maybe it'll help. Without them I'm in a pretty bad position here as well."
He had a surprised look on his face for a split second, and then nodded at me while walking inside. I can't for the life of me remember his name. He looks to be about six feet tall, handsome with blonde hair, and well shaved. I figured the outer villages would be run by vagabonds like Dutch but, I guess that's not the case.
His lackey is standing around looking like he has no idea what he's supposed to be doing. Not that I know what they should be looking for either, even if it were true that they randomly left for some reason. I know there is some blood here from when I ate them, and some acid had melted a few boards a bit. I doubt they'll accept that some monster politely used the door and ate them without anyone knowing. There was probably a better way to handle this, but nothing I can do about that now.
"Oh?" The captain without a name exclaimed while kneeling down near where Dutch sleeps. Not hard to guess what he found.
"Find something Dad?" Oh how sweet, father and son working together to subjugate the townspeople.
"More than you're going to find just standing over there, also don't call me dad on the job. Now come here and look at this."
As his son walked over to see what his Father had found, I realized that getting locked up wouldn't even be that big of a deal. I could just melt the chains or bars when we reach the next over while in transit. The only issue is the cuff-links I saw in the compound. They put them on any slaves that were known to have trained in magic, apparently cutting off their ability to manifest ether. I might not be able to bring out my tail and melt my chains or bars, or anything for that matter.
"Blood and... something melted the wood halfway through? It's strangely brittle..."
"Exactly son, this scene is clearly the work of Lord Steward. I heard he had taken on an apprentice, but to think it would be Gregs daughter... even I am surprised." The captain was now drawing his sword while looking at me.
"What?! Dad, what are you saying!"
Good question, what is this man saying? Last night I saw him point the finger at Steward for the Wendigo disappearing and the tent burning down. Poor Steward is about to be treated like a traitor to the nobility... not that they'll ever find him. But now he's pointing fingers at me too, some random girl?
"Son... I will explain later. For now please lock Miss Eris wrists and guide her to the big cell in my office." The captain actually looks sad and regretful as he tells his son to pin this crime on me. So much for not being a vagabond.
"....." His kid won't even look at him right now, he's just staring off at some random part of the house.
Not sure what he has planned for me, but this actually works out in my favor. Being in jail and then a cage might suck, but I was already thinking of ways to get on the first caravan out of here while having no money. I know the villages send any wrongdoers to the nearest capital to be tried, so nothing should happen to me here... can't be too certain though, since I don't know what the Captain has planned for me yet.
I held my arms out and linked them together, which surprised his son. I guess it is a bit weird for someone in this position to just accept it without denying it or yelling at the captain.
His son slowly moved closer and locked my arms together in some weird steel contraption. This boy truly does look remorseful. Whatever the captain has in store for me, his child most likely has no knowledge of it.
"Those are temporary ether-shackles, we'll get you in a set of bracelets when we reach the office, so you can move your arms around."
The boy opened the door for me and motioned for me to follow, definitely better than being dragged around in chains.
"You'll be in the office jail till the end of the blackout. Once the caravan reaches us, you'll still be caged but on one of the wagons heading north."
Perfect... that will get me closer to the capital.
There is a lot of people there that I need to introduce to Steward.

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