33 . Skirmish
The stiffness of the bandits has been accentuated since the information of the coming war was divulged, the merchants were the most targeted by these crooks, the money and the products they transported often had a lot of value in this period. The war hadn't really started yet, but izel had already been put into mobile caretaker service because of all these raids. The association had asked a lot of people to make surveillance rounds around the city and in the forest nearby, the association had asked izel to team up with the duke's soldiers to be their healer in case they meet wounded people, it was the duke who had asked the association to be in this team.
The soldiers with whom the Duke had put him was all very competent, the captain for example was an elite member of the Duke, a very frank man for a soldier by the way. All the members of his team were very loyal to him, the mood was jovial in this group as if he had already known much worse but still very professional. You felt that each man would give his life for the other, he even talked about their family among themselves. The aura that izel perceived from them made him believe that he wasn't in much danger even against the bandits.
They had to travel the trade routes to watch out if there were bandit raids on people, to heal people if there were wounded, to attack bandits who were on that road. Cuau flew over them to do reconnaissance and prevent ambushes, the whole team moved on horseback except for izel who was mounted on necalli's back. The troop had been riding around for a week already, he had met a group of bandits that they neutralized quite easily, they tied them to Cuau so that they could take them back to the city guards.
They waited for him before leaving their temporary camp because without him they risked falling into an ambush.
They also encountered a commercial convoy that was being attacked, there were at least four wagons with two guards per wagon. This did not prevent a group of bandits from raiding the convoy, when the group of Izel arrived three guards were already on the ground. They immediately went into action at the moments he arrived, izel was to heal the guards wounded immediately, the rest of the group was to join the guards directly to attack the bandits. This battle was not very long, one of the guards shot an arrow into the head of one of the bandits, the second soldier attacked them with a sword, the next one sent his throwing knife into the torso of one of the men and the last bandit was killed hand-to-hand by the captain.
Izel managed to heal two of the injured guards and to stabilize the health of the last one, the state of the last one was more serious than the other one, his back was hit by a hatchet, Izel had to remove the hatchet while infusing vital energy into the wound so that it would close up enough so as not to bleed too much. The others had only bruising from the blows and some sword laceration. When he had finished with the injured guard he went to the convoy to see if anyone else was injured, there was one person whose shoulder had been grazed by an arrow but it was not a big injury and it was healed very quickly.
The convoy after all these events was escorted by their group to a ford tower which is close enough to the city so that the rest of their journey was quite safe, they received a lot of thanks from the people who were in the convoy. The guards smiled but received the thanks with a lot of modesty, izel on the other hand was not used to receiving so much thanks and was quite embarrassed by it. They camped close enough to the place where they killed the bandits, about a hundred yards from the place there was a cliff, so they camped against the cliff so they wouldn't have enemies on their backs.
They settled around the artifact, this artifact was an enchanted object that radiated a small light and warmed the place where it was activated. This allowed them to see but not to give their location to the enemy because it does not create smoke, but also very little light, just enough to see it at one meter from the object. They were discussing their history, the history of these guards is quite similar between them except for the captain who was orphaned and taken in by a duke's guard when he was a child. That's why he was so faithful to the Duke, when izel told a part of his story, they were quite surprised that they came from the earth because according to their memories it's very rare to see a human on vanishing.
For those who are not travelers, they only knew about the land from some books they must have read in school when they were children. The image of the earthlings in their heads was not accurate when they saw izel, he didn't think that humans could be so talented in magic. According to the books they read, humans were fragile and very primitive creatures, so it came as a shock to them to learn that someone with such a strong aura could come from Midgard. It made them laugh a lot to see the representation that these guards had of the earthlings in their heads, he of course told them all that he knew of the earth and told them that for one thing he was right the humans were quite primitive at least what they knew. He even told them that he had met many races on vanaheim that he never thought he would meet in his life. The pride of the guards for their town was very strong, they talked about it with so much love, they all had families, some even had children, the captain had two sons and a daughter.
Every three hours one person woke up to take the watch, each person had his turn, at first the captain wanted izel not to take the watch so that they could sleep, but izel insisted that they also do their part like them. When it was izel's turn, he woke up to guard his teammate. He was able to observe the stars that were on this planet, he had never taken the time to do so, every time he had free time something would fall on him. Luck wasn't with him very often, but at the same time he hasn't gotten away with it until now. The stars were very different from the one he knew, it was super pretty but above all soothing, it did him a lot of good.
To monitor the perimeter he sent his energy to the surroundings, with that and the fact that the souls could be detected, the tracking of enemies had become too easy. Necalli was lying next to him, his belly went up and down at the rhythm of his breathing. Cuau was huddled against izel, she liked this position very much because her father gave her a feeling of comfort and security.
