4 Chasing Nights

It had only been a matter of minutes after Lia left that Fran realized how much of an idiot he was. He actually just let the mayor's daughter walk into a mercenary camp. Alone. A hand clutching his forehead, and his stare regretfully towards the hill that Lia had disappeared on, Fran stood up and followed after her with quick but quiet feet. He had no idea where the mercenary's night watches were exactly located, and he could only make out a handful of campfire lights amidst the sea of tents at the foot of the hill. He just had to hope that they didn't find her before he could catch up to her. He didn't know what he was going to say to her, but he somehow needed to talk her out of this ridiculously dumb adventure.

The moon shone brightly, as it slowly circled along its trajectory, currently at one of its highest points. Only every so often did a cloud throw a faint shadow over the camp, before revealing the grey glimmering rock in the sky once again. Fran would rather have the moon would piss off, or even better, thick rain would obscure the atmosphere. At least at the moment. He didn't want to think about what exactly would happen if the mercenaries were to find Lia, or even himself for that matter. Would they kill outsiders that snuck around their camp at night? Thieves, probably. Or would they sell them to rat-catchers? Fran didn't dare imagine Lia landing in the hands of those disgusting slave traders. She might be able to get out of it by telling the mercenaries who she was, but would they even believe her? And him? He didn't even have anyone in the city that would be looking for him, not even speaking of vouching for him. Fuck, what am I doing here.

The thought of ending up sold to the rat-catchers truly struck fear into his heart. Rat-catcher was a term given to Braktean slavers that often came to Atura during times of war, in an attempt to collect the fleeing, injured and left behind soldiers from the battlefields, and sell them as slaves in Braktea. Rumors also speak of mercenary bands who have made deals with those rat-catchers to sell them their war-prisoners after a war, though Fran couldn't know for certain. Slavery had been forbidden in Atura ever since its foundation, though it had taken a while to cleanse the western, formerly Braktean cities of slavedom entirely. Fran knew about it, as Voestrun was one such city. The city had been freed of slaves long before his birth though, so he had never met one before.

He continued to climb along the hill, as the side towards the camp got steeper and steeper. Not willing to expose himself on the top of the hill, he continued to scramble along its side. After a few minutes, it became truly hard to hold on, and he stopped, thinking of whether he should continue at the top or the bottom of the hill, when he suddenly heard a shout in the distance.

"Fuck, the bastard is running!"

A multitude of confused shouts, and the sound of men leaving their tents followed quickly after.

Not good, Fran thought, not good at all. He quickly crawled his way to the top of the hill, before crouching a couple meters away from the edge, as to not make his silhouette visible against the sky. Then he started moving as fast as he could in this crouched position, following to where the noise seemed to have come from. Due to his position, he had no way of seeing what was happening in the camp, but he didn't think he was close enough to the origin of the commotion to get a good understanding of the situation anyway.

After two minutes of rushing along the hill, he heard a vast amount of muffled voices, stopping him in his tracks. There didn't seem to be any haste or alert in their speech at all, from what he could determine, but he still decided to lay down and crawl towards the edge to eavesdrop more effectively. As he was still fairly concerned about being caught, he approached slowly, his hands trembling as they reached the edge. Fran pressed his face into the dry ground, which was lined with gravel-like rocks, and didn't dare move any further.

"Why is captain hunting that thief so angrily?", someone asked. It sounded like a rather young, male voice. It was rather quiet, in comparison to some others, but it belonged to the person closest to Fran, so it was easy to pick up and concentrate on.

"You're really new, huh?", another voice laughed, "don't ever wake the captain up in the middle of the night."

"Why not?", the young voice asked, accompanied by an oddly dumb tone of curiosity.

"Because he will beat you to crumbs", the older one replied, and while he laughed, it did not seem like he was joking.

Fran gulped, before slithering backwards as quietly as possible. These fucking barbarians.

After having reached a safe distance, he jumped up and continued running in the direction he previously had. He still tried to make as little sound as he could, as the voices in the camp had mostly calmed down by now. No hundred meters later, he saw a figure crossing Fran's projected path, heading east, directly away from the mercenary camp and towards the forest. The figure seemed to be holding something, but Fran wasn't sure, as he was still a good five hundred meters away. Maybe it was really just some thief who happened to snuck in at the same time as Lia? Fran had hope, but he highly doubted the coincidence, so he continued running.

Wait. Isn't that another person that the figure is holding? Could it be? Fuck, is that Lia? A kidnapper? Fran's spirit ignited, as he took on the hunt. The kidnapper was carrying Lia, there was no way he could outrun Fran so easily. Even though Fran's legs and lung already ached a little from all the running he did tonight, he couldn't let that bother him now. Yet, the closer he got to the kidnapper, the more doubts started to stream into him. Is that a sword on the man's back? Certainly looks like it, he thought, as a cold feeling ran down his spine. Even if he caught up to the kidnapping mercenary, what could he possibly do to him?

He hadn't quite turned towards the forest, as there was a lot of thick, but short bushwork to his right, which Fran would have to get around before pursuing further, when another figure appeared from where the kidnapper had previously jumped out from. Fran was much closer now, and he could clearly see the shape of a fairly short but bulky mercenary, barely clothed, but gripping a shortsword in his hand. He seemed to chase after the kidnapper like an angry wolf, swearing and cursing as he ran.

Fran immediately stopped in his tracks. This one didn't seem to notice me, but if there are more coming from there, they would surely see him. At his current distance, it would already be hard for him to flee from armed and much more muscular soldiers. Second by second passed, as Fran struggled to decide what to do and where to go. He must have already stood like that for five seconds, when six more figures appeared on the hill only a hundred meters in front of him. Fuck. Fran turned on his heel and began running back to where he came from.

"There is one over there, too", Fran heard a voice shouting behind him.

He didn't turn to see if they were hunting him, nor did he bother to try and listen for what they were saying further. He just ran. No five seconds later did he suddenly hear three sharp sounds, almost like a whistle in the wind, approach him quickly. In the next moment, pain shook his brain, before he felt his shoulder go numb and his legs lost their rhythm. He fell face first into the dust, the gravel ripping through his skin and darkening his bloody flesh. He tried to push up using his right hand, his left arm did not even respond to the call, and he soon felt that it wasn't his palm he was trying to lean on. He couldn't see, as his eyes were filled with blood and dirt, but he shook the arm, and felt the stagnant wiggle of a broken wrist. Slowly, the piercing pain in his left shoulder also became clearer to him, as he cried and screamed. A long crossbow bolt was embedded in the joint of his shoulder, rendering it motionless. Not long after, his screams died down, but his whimpering continued, as he slowly lost consciousness.

"Ey, captain, we got one!"