5 Talks in the carriage

"They are not going to cross the border."

Kilian awoke to the same feminine voice that lulled him to sleep earlier. Yet, even though his consciousness returned, he still couldn't open his eyes.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," a new voice entered the fray. In contrast to the previous one, it was deep. The timbre of this voice made Kil feel as if someone was scratching a rough surface, a voice that only frequent and long-time smokers could obtain. "Well, it's not like it matters for me. I'm but a simple coachman that you happened to hire," the man said before taking a short pause. "It will be for the best if you never forget that," he said before turning silent once again.

'Fuck,' Kilian thought when the wave of pain started to return. Yet, even when its full power unleashed on his soul, it was slightly weaker than before. 'I guess it will take me a long time to recover,' he thought, stopping his attempts at opening his eyes.

Surrounded by nothing but darkness, Kilian had no other choice but to focus on other senses. The rough feeling under his pack indicated that the world he was in clearly lacked comforts. The constant noise, similar to the ticking of a train and combined with how shaky his ride was...

'I guess I'm trying to be too smart for my own good,' Kilian thought. There was no need to use the noises of the surroundings to figure out where he was. The 'coachman' word used by the man recently made it clear.

"Where am I?" Kilian uttered, using most of his strenght to do so. His throat exploded in pain as a result, even though his voice was no greater than a fleeting whisper.

"You are awake," the feminine voice appeared once again, this time colored with a bit of surprise and happiness. "But it's still too early for you to speak," the woman said.

'Damn, I really wish I could see who am I talking with,' Kilian thought, restarting his attempts to open his eyes. But, sadly, discounting the immense pain that his attempts caused, his efforts brought no change whatsoever.

"You are in a carriage, but that's not what you are asking about, right?" the woman said after a moment of silence. A rustling noise added to all the background sounds that surrounded Kilian's mind. "Right now, we are roughly four hours away by the horse from where the battle happened," the woman said.

"You mean, from where the massacre happened," the coarse voice of the man corrected the sentence of the woman.

"Cough," the female cleared her throat. "Yeah, from the place of the massacre," she said, confirming the man's words.

'As if I knew what the fuck does that mean,' Kilian commented in his thoughts. The feeling of powerlessness caused by the absolute lack of means to react overwhelmed him.

"Wha..." he attempted to pose a question, only for his throat to refuse to work the way it should. Just like before, his attempts at communicating with the world proved futile.

"I told you, don't try to speak," the woman lashed on Kilian the moment she heard his broken voice. "It's a miracle that you are still alive, so don't try to stretch your chances now!" she lectured.

'Thank God her scolding was limited to just words,' Kilian thought as a small shiver traveled down his spine. 'Right now, I feel like a simple slap would break me apart,' he thought.

Ever since he woke up, Kilian was overwhelmed with endless pain. It was torture incomparable to anything he had ever experienced in his past. In a sense, it felt like a mix of burning up and having the sensation of liquid nitrogen splattered all over his body. And between those two completely opposite sensations was his body, forced to endure both the scorching heat and the freezing cold.

'Still, I can't let things go on like that,' Kilian thought, gathering all the strenght that he managed to recover.

"What battle?" he managed to utter, instantly paying the price of his throat exploding in excruciating pain. "What happened?" He pushed himself to the limits just to ask this question. If it was him from before the sleep, the explosion of the cruel pain would drive him insane. Only thanks to Kilian's constant efforts to get used to his torture allowed him to retain his sanity.

"Shut your crap!" the woman shouted, clearly distressed by Kilian's valiant efforts.

"Stop it," the coarse voice from before returned. "Can't you see how desperate he is?" the man asked. For a moment, neither of the two said a single word, making it hard for Kil to understand what was going on. "We don't know how much he knows, so just tell him everything," the man said, unknowingly supporting Kil's greatest wish.

"Fine," the woman replied before taking a long and deep breath. "Let's start with the very beginning. I know it will sound insane, but you were summoned to a different world," the woman said before turning silent once again.

"What now, are you going to pretend you are some sort of bard?" the man interrupted the silence. "Fine, I will do it myself," he added when the woman refused to say anything else.

"Listen here, brat," the man started. "Just like she said, you were summoned to this world. But not as someone special," the man said before turning silent for a short moment.

"See?" the woman interjected. "It's hard to even begin to explain," she said. From the gentle rustling, Kil could imagine the female shaking her head. "How do I say it then?" she asked, proving that the topic wasn't easy for her to speak about.

"Crowd..." Kilian muttered, using all the strenght he managed to regain in the past few moments. 'This had to be what they mean,' he thought, recalling the loose images he somehow registered from the past events.

"Yes," the woman said, not even bothering to scold Kilian for speaking up. "You weren't the only one summoned, but just a part of the crowd," she said before clicking her tongue. "Just one more meatshield to reduce the casualties of their own army," she said as her voice filled with scorn and spite.

'Just like I thought.' Kilian took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. Even though he had no concise memory of what happened after he got summoned to another world, he could still recall some images. Some things that miraculously survived in his memories.

"The battle itself I can't really describe. I'm not a warrior, so I had no other choice but to stay back..." the woman said. Her voice changed once again, this time filling with a slight hue of shame. "But some weird things happened. For such a massive crowd of people to instantly split into two and either run away or rush into the fight?" she asked. The sound of her hair moving around once again indicated that she shook her head. "But as weird as it was, it was only the beginning of the things no one expected to happen," she said before turning silent yet again.

"In short words, we don't really know what happened to you during the battle with the monsters," the man said with his coarse voice, picking up the explanation where the woman left it. "There was one thing that we would have to blind not to notice, though," he added.

"I don't know how you did it, but you somehow managed to injure the supreme sorcerer of Tadkarians," the woman said in a trembling voice. "I don't know how you figured out that he was the one to..."

The sound of the woman's voice suddenly broke, replaced by the noise of someone rapidly standing up. For a moment, neither of the two spoke up as if they were trying to find something out.

"They are here," the man said before the creaking of the wood and slight shake of the carriage announced that he slumped down on his seat.

"What? How?" the woman screamed out her question. "How far?" she asked after calming down a little.

'What the hell is going on?' Kilian thought, sharing the anxiety that filled the carriage.

"Far enough," the man replied before snapping at his reins. The carriage suddenly shook before picking up the speed. "That is if they won't violate the border," he added with a grim tone.

"They won't dare," the woman replied.

'That would be much more calming if your voice sounded confident,' Kilian thought, sinking into the sea of pain once again.