Family

"Kid you really had me worried last night. I have promised your mother that I would keep you safe. I was scared that I wouldn't be able to keep the promise that I had made to my little sister.", sighed Roran.

Sreesh and Bali were both surprised by what they heard. Roran never talked talked about his sister, all they knew about her was that her name was Kat and that she had died a few months after she gave birth to Sreesh.

Sreesh did not know what to say. He kept staring at his uncle with words stuck on his throat. He knew very little about his parents, to the extent that he did not even know who his father was. He did not know what kind of a man he was or even if he was dead or alive.

When he was younger he used to keep nagging his uncle about his parents wanting to know about them. But his uncle never opened his mouth about them. Sreesh used to imagine that his father was a rich and powerful man who would come to take him later. He had imagined all sorts of scenarios and all kinds of reasonings for which he had not met his father yet.

After he grew up he realised how foolish and naive he had been and that no one would come for him. His family consisted of his uncle and his cousin and that was all.

"Father, it's rare for you to talk about Sreesh's mother.", Bali said.

Roran looked at his son and then turned away without saying anything. The rest of the way they were all quiet. No one said anything. After they reached the small house they got down. Roran had the two boys pick up the deer carcass and take inside.

After they got inside Roran taught them how to use their knives to cut the deer without destroying the meat or the skin.

"Sreesh, I saw that you hit the deer on the eye. When did you learn to be such a good archer?", Bali asked.

"Hehe come let me show you.", said Sreesh. He took Bali outside and started showing off his newly acquired archery skills.

Soon the two boys completely forgot about the gloomy atmosphere earlier.

After this the two boys took the skin of the deer to a tanning shop to have the skin tanned and made into leather. When they reached the shop they saw a few armoured horses outside the shop. When they entered they heard loud arguing.

There were some soldiers who wanted to buy leather armour. But the problem was that they were only willing to pay an extremely low price. Thus an argument broke out.

The owner of the place was a man named Garfell. He was short and muscular. But the reason he was famous for in the village was his temper. There was a rumour in the village that Garfell picked a fight with someone and beat them up just because they looked at him the wrong way.

When Sreesh and Bali entered the store they could see that even though he was arguing Garfell was trying to be as polite as possible. Veins were popping on his forehead as he tried to control his anger. The soldiers saw this and found it very amusing. They started pushing their weight around to make Garfell more angry.

When Bali and Sreesh saw what was happening they clearly understood what was going on. Bali started glaring at these soldiers and grinded his teeth in anger. Some soldiers had hurt his father and the injury hadn't fully healed, he had carried anger towards soldiers from before which started pouring out when he saw this.

One of the soldiers saw this and came towards them. "Little bastard stop looking at me in that manner or I'll gouge your eyes out."

Bali felt even more anger build up within him and he kept staring. The soldier got annoyed at how a young boy dared to disobey him and threw a punch at Bali. But when his fist was about to reach his target his hands stopped and could not go any further. He felt his wrist was held by clamps and could not move. Naturally it was Sreesh who had stopped the punch.