“Careful boy, don’t you fucking alarm anybody. We only have a slight numbers advantage,” Erock threatened Jeran, who had strapped his bow on his back.

“I’m not stupid. I’ll find the girl,” Jeran answered before carefully descending the mountain slope, leaving behind the hundred-forty men Struggir had managed to rile up and convinced to accompany them on the raid. His small blue eyes jumped back and forth between the camp and his feet, trying not to trip and roll down the hill.

“You really think the boy can do it?” Erock asked Struggir, standing next to him. His arms crossed in front of his enormous belly.

“The boy only has two talents. Sneaking and shooting a bow. Even if he fails, we still have the numbers advantage and overrun them. We don’t need a hostage for that,” Struggir replied.

Jeran arrived at the base of the hill and continued to sneak behind any bushes and rocks he could find before arriving at the edges of the camp. As he entered, his eyes searched through the darkness between the many tents, looking out for patrolling guards. As he heard footsteps, he hid behind a tent and watched as the surroundings where they sounded from became brighter and brighter, making the primarily yellow grass visible before a middle-aged guard carrying a torch walked past him and pressed the already dead grass into the wet mud below. With his eyes almost falling out of their sockets, Jeran continued sneaking around the tent and towards the one where one of the scouts admitted Ellia Oldflower’s daughter resides after Struggir had cut off most of his limbs.

As Jeran sneaked through the dark, he stopped behind a beautiful dark carriage and watched as two guards made conversation. As he peeked from behind the carriage and looked for a new hiding spot, the guards suddenly started to walk his way. He could’ve sworn the guards had seen him and swung his entire body back behind the carriage, making him slip on the mud and plunge to the ground. With his eyes wide open, he slowly scrambled himself up from the ground, one hand tightly gripping his mouth and the other on the knife he had put in the sheath on his lower back. As all the images of him being brutally killed played in his mind, he watched confusedly as the two guards casually strolled by him, as though he had not just made enough noise to wake up the entire camp. He sat behind the carriage for a while, desperately trying to calm his racing heart before continuing.

Jeran halted when the supposed tent came into his field of vision. His beady eyes narrowed as he stared at the tent, and his entire body told him that something was wrong. Not only were there no guards in front of the tent of the lady’s daughter, but he also wouldn’t have been surprised if his own men had heard him hit the ground, and didn’t know why he wasn’t already either a captive or dead.

As Jeran went through all his doubts and confusion, Struggir appeared in his mind in all his fat glory, and he had to ask himself if he wanted to return to him and tell him that he had failed or put his suspicions aside and do what he had been told to.

A deep breath escaped his thin lips, and after looking for guards that he had seen less and less of, the closer he got to the tent, he sneaked toward it.

He firmly gripped the knife in his trembling right hand as he pulled aside the white cloth and entered the tent. His eyes focused on the outlines of what he thought to be the bed and crept towards it after gripping a small candle on a table right next to the entrance, its dim flame barely illuminating his surroundings.

“Shit,” Jaren whispered as he saw no one on the bed.

Not wanting to believe he came here for nothing, he futilely threw the soft woolen blankets through the tent, searching for anything that justified the risk he took.

He stood there for a couple of seconds in disbelief, trying not to scream his anger and frustration out.

After coming to terms with having to stand before Struggir and telling him that he didn’t find the girl, he went back toward the tent entrance with a little smirk that had etched itself on his face because of the absurdity of it all. He pulled the candle closer and carefully peeked out of the tent.

Before he could even react, one of the figures barely outlined by the dim candle gripped his thin face and slammed him to the ground. The big hand not letting the air desperately trying to escape his lungs out as it squeezed his face and made him feel as though his skull was just about to crack.

The first thing he saw after orienting himself was a beautiful woman with auburn hair tied into a neat ponytail and light freckles under her cold green eyes.

…

Lia paced back and forth, crushing the dead leaves under her brown leather boots.

After not answering a single one of her questions, Will left her with seven guards and took the rest with him down the forest.

No matter how many of her parent’s treasures she’d promise, not a single man would tell her what was going on except that they were tasked with protecting her by her mother, let alone letting her back to camp.

As she got tired of walking, she poutingly sat on the ground and tried to distract herself by thinking of elaborated attacks with her new two swords.

She imagined herself twisting and jumping through the air, cutting down hoards of enemies as her parents and brothers watched her in awe, but tired shouts tore her out of her daydream.

“They’re coming; They’re coming!” Darrik yelled at the few men he saw while almost tripping over himself.

“Darrik!” Tobin called out. “Where are the others?”

Darrik halted before the guards impatiently staring at him while gasping for air, “Tobin. They’re dead… They; They killed them. Where are the men?”

“They went down the hill with Ser Will on the lookout for your sign. They-“

Before Tobin could finish his sentence, he and all others were distracted by lights appearing through the trees.

“Arrows!” One of them called out as flaming arrows rose into the sky.

“All right, we should-“ Tobin turned back and yet again didn’t get to finish his sentence.

“Where is she?!” He yelled. His big eyes darted through the forest, searching for the missing Lia.

…

“What are we fucking waiting for? Let’s attack!” Erock said, followed by dozens of rough voices agreeing with him. “The kid is probably dead, and the men are getting impatient.”

Struggir didn’t answer, but just stared at the ground with a furious gaze. He had spent so much time going from tribe to tribe, trying to convince men to follow him. If he just attacked, even if they won, it would’ve been just another raid. But when he managed to get that information out of Oldflower’s scout, he imagined what it’d be like if he were the one that managed to gain riches beyond their imagination without a single casualty. In his mind, the men had already sworn loyalty to him after recognizing his genius, and he’d travel through the mountains, taking more and more people under him.

Lost in his daydream, he almost didn’t notice the men before him gasping while looking into the sky. As he turned around, dozens of bright dots reflected in his brown eyes, climbing high in the air before rushing down towards them like falling stars.

“Shields!” He roared while pushing away a man beside him and hastily stealing his shield.

Ducking down with the shield, barely covering his enormous round body, he watched as the man he pushed jumped around in panic before an arrow dug itself deep into his head, followed by his body slumping to the ground.

As the screams quieted down, Struggir stood up and looked around, seeing dozens of his men dead on the ground while others stumbled around with arrows deep in their flesh.

“Raaaaaaggghhhh!”

Struggir turned to the roar of the hundred men running towards him. A tall tree engraved on their chest.