Chapter 18

“We are close to the border, and from now on, we will be on territory where bandits work quite a lot. To avoid problems, we will split the watch in pairs. Who do you guys want to work with on the night turns? I think it would be better if one guy and a girl were to work together.”

“You sure are being roundabout about this.”

“Because we will relax too much if we split into groups according to our gender.”

That was true… Kaitrine liked Heirina a lot for some reason, so she probably would try to strike up a lot of conversations while they were alone. As for Aleph and Irlan, one was too quiet, but he didn’t ignore the other, and the other was pretty much a chatterbox. Edea didn’t offer to help since she was always tired. Her trait was exhausting, so it was very likely that she wouldn’t stay awake during the whole guard duty.

“I guess I am screwed either way,”

Kaitrine kept glaring at Aleph, almost as if she were trying to make a hole in him with her eyes, while things were too awkward with Aleph and Heirina. Regardless, that was how the pairings ended up. Irlan and Kaitrine would sleep first and take the last turn of the guard.

Once they began to sleep in their tents, Aleph stopped doing his handstands and just moved the rocks that he had with his arms alternating between them. He also moved around the camp so that he wouldn’t get used to the surroundings that much and would stay alert to any kind of sound. After a while, Heirina took his place.

“I will do that for the time being to keep myself alert.”

“All right.”

Aleph sat close to the bonfire, continued his exercise, and closed his eyes. At first, Heirina thought that he had fallen asleep while his arms were moving, but could someone fall asleep while doing muscle training? She had heard from her father that Aleph looked like someone who was mentally broken for whatever reason. His behavior sure made him look like that, but his sharp remarks begged to differ.

“If you are bored again, I can walk around the camp instead.”

“How can you tell that I am bored with your eyes closed?”

“You stopped moving.”

Aleph could tell that Heirina never did anything in her life aside from working to one day help her father or inherit his position. She believed that fighting alongside him would prevent his death for at least a couple of years, and she knew that it was useless to think otherwise. After all, the last generations of the clan’s heads barely reached forty. As soon as their strength started to decline and the damage of the battles started to pile up, then the end was unavoidable.

“How did you manage to stay focused for so long?”

“It is a matter of willpower and necessity. You won't feel the necessity until you see something that truly makes you fear for the future. The willpower is something that you gradually build up. You should have some, but not enough to stay still.”

She couldn’t deny that… in any case, Heirina felt that something had changed in the atmosphere. There was something or someone around… Still, when she grabbed her sword, she saw Aleph moving toward Elmer, who was sitting with his hands and legs tied up to a tree. Before long, he stopped in front of him and watched his face sleeping.

“Nice try, but you never did this before, didn’t you? This is child’s play for me since I am used to checking my surroundings in the total darkness of the night.”

The feeling weakened for Heirina, so she wondered if Aleph’s guess was right… Elmer didn’t react in any way, and that would make sense since he was always exhausted. As someone who spent ten years sleeping in those dark and cold quarters for the slave kids, Aleph knew well that he had to keep his guard up. When they left that farm, they had forty. Still, initially, they had more than fifty… the rest of them tried to escape and never appeared. Some of them tried to blame others for getting in the good graces of the guards… with that in mind, he developed a sense to tell when someone was looking at him in those quarters.

“Keep trying hard.”

“Are you sure that it was him?”

Aleph didn’t say anything. He just pointed to his ears and then put his open hand in front of his chest. She realized that she was close enough to listen to him breathing, and since the wind was helping, that should have been easier, but she couldn’t hear anything. After focusing a bit on controlling her breathing, she was able to hear Kaitrine and Edea snoring a bit in the carriage… even though it was closed.

Heirina realized that when one wakes up, even if they try to hide it, their breathing changes for a moment, and Aleph probably heard that from Elmer. That was quite something, but it wasn’t a complicated skill or trait; it was something that could be done just by positioning themselves well and using the wind in their favor.

In the end, Heirina tried to learn that technique that night, and thanks to it, she was able to kill some time. Two hours after midnight, Irlan and Kaitrine got up to take guard duty, and Aleph decided to warn Irlan about Elmer.

“Keep your eyes open and always toward him. Sometimes, he wakes up and pretends to be asleep.

“Do you think that he is trying to find our habits to find the best moment to try something?”

“It could be. We don’t know about him enough to tell what he can do. It is better to be cautious and avoid falling for any kind of tricks. Also, when morning comes, check the area that he was in.

 “Hey, Aleph, look at this.”

Irlan whispered after Elmer was put inside the carriage, and he pointed at the place where Elmer stayed the whole night. There was no clear message on the grass, but while looking at a certain angle, the position of his legs left a mark on the grass that pointed in the direction they were heading…

“What do you think?”

“It could be a coincidence, but it couldn’t be as well. Even though he was weakened when Edea told us where we were heading, he was awake.”

“We are trying to avoid bustling places, so we will also give the chances for people to attack us and we don’t know how many it will be. We also lack real combat experience… We should inform this to Heirina and perhaps change our routes or something.”

“Even if we do that, our destination will be the same. Eventually, they will be able to point out where we will head.”

“Security should get better closer to the heart of the country, so I guess we could be attacked fairly soon… today we will be entering territory that doesn’t belong to any clan. They have their own military, but we can’t ask for help for free… what a bind.”

“We can slow down our traveling speed by always stopping at a village or a town. We don’t have to stop at an inn, after all. We can also increase our pace to surprise possible pursuers. Finally, we can just wait for them to come and deal with them. They won’t come with a large force. Bandits can’t operate with large numbers in a place like this without being found… tell Heirina about that and let her decide, but don’t let Elmer hear or know that you are talking about something serious.”

Irlan nodded and then went to do that while Aleph kept the others busy and made sure that they were unaware of the talk. Before long, they departed, and Heirina stayed silent most of the time… she had poor acting skills. Still, thanks to that, Aleph decided to think of some solutions to the issue, and he actually had some ideas. 

On the first village of the next territory, he asked them to make a stop to buy some supplies… after that, he decided to take a break to have lunch. Elmer looked confused since that hadn’t happened before, but the others agreed without many issues. After lunch, they began to move again, and soon enough, Elmer was out cold… as it turned out, on the visit to the village, Aleph decided to buy a bit of a medicine to make people sleep heavily. After that, he tied up Elmer’s hands and legs tighter and also put a cloth to cover his eyes.

“This seems like a good idea, but it also seems like we are going too far. I have never heard of anyone doing this to prisoners.”

“There is a first time for everything.”

The author here, everyone. Thanks for reading the book. I hope that you have fun reading the book as much as I have writing it. If you want to join our discord, this is the link: https://discord.gg/AQsYm99A

I also have a Patreon for those who want to read ahead. Don't worry; I will post a new chapter every day here, but I will be posting two on the Patreon. There are currently thirty-four chapters ahead there. Thank you for your patience, and have a nice day!