Chapter 66: 63. A pink rose in a red field (Part 1)

“They’ve found her?!” 

“Yes,Halfway across the duchy at Khaln Lake!”

I answered to Uncle Marlot as I hastily buckled my riding vest as I rushed for the stable.

“Khaln Lake? In Diid’s name, how did she get there?”

“Who knows Uncle, but I need to make for Khaln yesterday”

I said as I flung the stable doors open, waking up a stablehand who hurriedly went to fetch a horse.

“Aye, by Steihnner, that you do, son!”

He said as he picked up a saddle and handed it to the stablehand who barely had time to set the mat on the horse’s back before throwing on the saddle.

“I still can’t believe it. I really thought that…”

“I know. Let’s not talk about it anymore…”

I said shaking my head as I finished strapping my bags to the horse.

“Aye… Take care, son. Come back quickly.”

I nodded and saddled up.

Without another word, I departed into the darkness of the early morning.

After our Caravan was attacked by the litter of Steihnnerkin Ferals two weeks ago. Everything had felt like a blur. Like a nightmare that wouldn’t stop. 

-o-

After learning of Silika’s disappearance from Lieutenant Levish, I had left him in the care of my uncle and made for the carriage.

On my way, I couldn’t help, but notice the extent of the damage caused by the ambush. Although my uncle had reported only 6 dead, the amount of injured was extensive as well as the damage to the carriages themselves. We would have to make for a town as soon as possible if we didn’t want the death toll to worsen, but I closed my eyes to my duties to my people for a moment, and focused on my duties as a father.

When I arrived on the scene, it was worse than I thought, one of those poor sinner’s corpse lay headless in front of the carriage which had been stormed through. Dark blood was splattered everywhere on the ground and carriage door

Immediately, a horrible nausea took hold of me and I felt my knees going weak at the sight. I looked away feeling a horrible feeling in my guts. I doubled over trying my best to catch my breath, but this only accelerated the inevitable and I once more emptied my stomach.

Blood so much blood. Lilika, I’m… I slapped my cheek.

“Keep it together, Marshall…”

I whispered to myself sternly.

I need to focus, I need to find Silika

I wiped the corner of my mouth, I noticed another pile of vomit just feet away from the corpse.

Silika… It had to be hers. I had hoped she wouldn’t have to see anything like this, yet… I was slowly getting the picture of what might have happened, but where did she flee after this?

“You’re having a lot of trouble keeping your meal down.

I heard my uncle comment as he put a hand on my back.

He looked down at the scene and grunted for a moment.

“Two ferals, but only one corpse.”

He said with a sigh.

“Two?”

I asked him to which he nodded.

“And no one has seen her since Levish?”

He shook his head. 

“No one from the way we came, but…”

“I– I saw da lady, m’lord!”

I immediately turned toward the voice. A young servant girl was standing unsteadily on her legs while staring at us. Ignoring the pool of blood separating us, I quickly rushed to her.

“Where? Where did you see my daughter? Is she safe?!”

She looked startled for a moment, but managed stutter her way through.

“I– I uh… I saw her running in that direction!”

She said as she pointed toward the hills away from the road.

“She was being chased by one of those monsters…”

I felt my jaw tighten. She was being chased by the other feral Marlot mentioned… But… Something was bothering me.

“She was being chased? When did you see that?”

I asked her.

“Hum, a bit after the creatures attacked us, m’lord…”

I felt my brow twitch.

“And what exactly were you doing while my daughter was being chased?”

I could barely repress the anger mounting in my voice.

“Uh.. I– I– I was uhm…”

She stuttered nervously.

“You were?”

“I– I was hiding, m’lord…”

I snapped.

“You were hiding?!”

She recoiled, in fear, but I continued.

“You saw a little girl, no more than 6 year old, MY daughter, and you hid?! By Seeir, I should have you…!”

“Marshall!”

I heard Marlot bark as he forced his hand on my shoulder and gripped it strongly.

It was only then that I realised my fist was raised as if I was about to strike

What am I doing?

The girl in front of me may have been a servant, but she was just that, a girl. No more than 16, may be younger, frightened, tears rolling streaming down her face, blood splattered on her clothes from god knows where… Or whom…

I released the tension in my fists and slowly placed them down back at my sides as I took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry…”

Pathetic. I’m pathetic. Theatening a servant girl barely more than half my age. I felt disgusted with myself.

“Thank you for your help, lass. Is there anything else you can tell us?”

She still looked shocked, but shook away her torpor and gave a confused halfnod.

“Between that hill and rock, m’lord. That’s where I last saw her running.”

She said in a shaky voice to which I nodded.

“Thank you. Rest now, you’re knees look like they’re about to give out.”

“I will, m’lord. Thank you, m’lord.”

She turned away and quickly walked away toward a group of servants tending the injured.

I let out a sigh as I stared toward the rock. 

I could feel the judging eyes of my uncle on me.

“Say what you must.”

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I simply said as I looked at him and braced myself

For a moment he looked into my eyes with his usual intense expression, but then simply let out a sigh.

“I can’t add anything that you haven’t already told yourself.”

I nodded and turned to the place the girl had indicated.

“Send out search parties, we need to find Silika as soon as possible. I’ll be taking a horse.”

“None of our horses are used to these lands, son. They’ll break their hooves.”

“Then I’ll go on foot.”

As I started walking away from the caravan toward the steppes I turned back.

“Have everyone else move out  as soon as possible, we’ll meet back with you in the next town.”

He nodded as  I set out for my search across the steppes of Lowland.

In total, we had lost 10 of our people that day out of the 45 who had departed with us from Evergreen. 

An absurd number. It was difficult to even wrap my head around  the fact that we had lost almost a quarter of our people. The only saving grace was that out of them, 6 were soldiers who were able to receive a warrior’s death, but that wouldn’t be much of a consolation to their families.

10 volunteers stayed back to help the search efforts, while the rest of the carriage departed. 

It wasn’t until the next day that a clue was found at a nearby ruin. 

The scene was… Strange to say the least. There was dark blood and gore and a collapsed wall, but, stangely, no corpses.

At first, all we had to go on was the recent presence of a Feral Steihnnerkin, but then we discovered something familiar to me, the small black cube Silika was always carrying around. Her ferrous glass stone. Somehow, it seemed she had used it to topple the wall. 

As her father, I had moment of pride at realising what my daughter had achieved, but it was shortlived when I understood the implications.

Seeing as there was no scarlet blood or trace of her clother, Silika had made it out unarmed, and this could only mean one of two things: either she had escaped the monsters entirely before it could move again and was hiding nearby… Or she had been kidnapped.

While the search party widened its search area, I regrouped with my with our caravan at a nearby town where they had found the hospitality of the local lord, Baron Geril. 

He was a meek looking man, but he was still a man of Steihnner and did not hesitate to lend us his aid.

After consulting with him and uncle, we came to the conclusion that the likelihood of Silika having been kidnapped by the ferals was high and that the heretic threat couldn’t be left to be.

We sent word to Jilbeck’s Crossing for reinforcement while scouts were sent out to find where thealleged nest. 

It wasn’t long before we found trace of them. Although it hadn’t been obvious to us as Norlanders, the hunters had been able to trace the blood trail left by the missing corpse from the ruins to a nearby cave. 

While we were waiting for reinforcement from Jilbeck’s Crossing, the scouts were able to notice some seemingly normal individuals coming in and out of the cave. Going out into town to buy food or sell things… Including spoils they had acquired during their raid on our caravan.

We had promptly nabbed one of these individuals and brought them in for questioning.

The man was… Plain looking.  Round head, dull blue eyes, short red hair. If a child was to draw a man, this would probably what would come out.

“I’m sorry for bringing you here so suddenly.”

Marlot began.

Marlot was something of an experienced interogator. As opposed to southerners, the north rarely employed torture as a mean to acquire information. There was many reasons for it, but probably one of the greatest one would be that it would be considered dishonorable in a region so familiar with the teachings of the god of war.

“Not an issue at all, kind sir.”

The man answered with a smile.

He looked unusually calm for a man being interrogated. Actually, that might be slightly understating it, the man in front of us looked down right, comfortable sitting on his chair while facing us.

“My name is Marlot Dalar, and this is Marshall Ashbrook. We would like to ask you a few questions, mister…?”

“Call me Blue, and certainly!”

I could almost see my Uncle’s eyebrow twitch at the obviously faked name.

“Mister Blue then… Where did you acquire the goods you sold in town today?”

“Oh that’s my brothers. They gived me things to sell.”

“Your brothers you say? And where does your brother acquires them?”

“Oh probably by stealing from someone’s home or robbing travellers I would guess. That’s what they usually do.”

I recoiled in disgust and I could tell Marlot resisted the urge to do the same. How could this man just calmly talk about this. I wanted to jump and punch is flat face in right this moment, but I knew I had to follow Marlot’s lead and he was staying calm as calm as kinsmann.

“Theft you say? And where do you live?”

I wanted to ask Marlot, why he was bothering with all those useless question, but to my surprise the man non-challantly said something .

“Oh! It’s not far too far!”

To our surprise, he then proceeded to gingerly describe the way to their nest. At first I thought it might be some sort of trap, but as Marlot asked more and more specific question, and the man continued to answer honestly.  I expected him to stop at any moment, or slip up and tell a lie, but everything was so detailed… He explained that the cavern was actually an old buried castle that had been turned into their home. 

From the way he spoke, there were at least 40 of them living in there which explained why the ferals had all looked so malnourished. Feeding so many, mann or not, was a difficult task if you couldn’t grow your own food. He gave us so much information that I could no longer hold my tongue.

“Why are you telling us all this, Blue?”

The man turned to me with a confused expression on his face.

“Because you’re asking me..?”

“You could just lie instead.”

“Oh no! I would never tell a lie! Mom would have been very disappointed if I did that.”

I felt my blood run cold.

“Mom? Who’s ‘mom’?”

He frowned.

“Mom is mom. She’s me and my brother’s mom! She taught us how to walk and speak… Well atleast  us older ones. She died two winters back and we’ve been teaching the little ones ourselves. Our new mom can’t do it , you see. She’s too busy crying all the time. It does make me a whole lot of sad to see her like that, but dad says there’s no helping it since she missed her home.”

I felt a ball grow in my stomach as I put together the information he just threw at us.

“Wait, when you were talking about your brothers– I mean… Your brothers, are they like… you?”

“Oh no, not at all! Dad says I’m ugly since I only have two arms and look like a sack of potato. Most of them have four arms and a couple horns. Jiggy had only had three arms, but that’s because he lost it. I think he’s dead now though since he was caught stealing.”

Listening to the words coming out of his mouth as though they were the most natural thing in the world was… Disturbing, to say the least.

There was a sort of naivety to this man, the type one usually found in children, but the thing he said… 

Marlot finally cut in.

“How old are you, Blue?”

He was thinking the exact same thing as I was

We watched the man as he scratched his head uncertainly.

“Well I’m one of the oldest, I can’t be too sure, but I think I’ve seen eight winters go by..?”

I had to close my eyes for a moment to keep my composure. The man facing us was also a feral. He wasn’t a naive man, he was a child in a man’s body. 

I opened my eyes again to the dumbly smiling Blue. 

Although I should hate him, for what he his and what his ‘brothers’ did to my people, all I could feel for him right now was pity.

“Thank you, Blue. I think this will be it for now. Do you mind staying here for a little longer? We might have more questions for you later.”

“Of course, Mister Marlot! Mister Ashbrook.”

He said with a wide smile.

Without another word, my uncle stood up from his desk and opened the door, letting me leave the room first.

He slowly closed the door before turning to me.

“We need to burn that place to the ground.”

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