Hanging Around

Rock woke up in high noon. The birds were singing, and the leaves were fluttering on the wind. He sat on their cage, gently swaying back and forth, making his last night's sleep the best sleep he ever had. He was like a baby sleeping on a rocking chair.

When Rock looked around, he saw Stick trying to reach for a branch. "What are you doing?" Rock asked.

Stick turned around, "Oh, hey, you. You're finally awake."

"Huh?"

"You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Maston ambush, same as me."

"Of course is the same as you, we were both captured!" Rock yelled, "And why are you talking like that?"

"I was joking," Stick raised his hands up, "Anyway, you feeling better?"

"Yeah," Rock stretched his arms, "Honestly, this was the best sleep I had in a while. Who knew sleeping while swaying on ball cage made out of wood will be so relaxing."

"It beats sleeping on a hardwood floor." Stick reached for the branches once and managed to break a twig off.

"What is that for?"

Stick climbed up the cage, making it shake until he reached the knot keeping them hanging among the canopies, "I'm trying to untie this cage by sticking things in between the knots. Unfortunately, it hasn't been successful." Stick stuck the tip of the twig between the rope, but it broke in half before it managed to protrude the other end. "Damn!" Stick threw the twig out the cage.

"Well, that sucks." Rock commented, "How long have you been sticking, well, sticks to untie the rope?"

"Ever since I woke up," Stick climbed down and sat across Rock, "I tried to untie it with my hands, but the rope is made of vines that have thorns on it. I could use mana to arm my hands, but the rope is also slippery."

"Slippery?"

"Yeah,"

The brothers stopped worrying about the rope above them when the elevator rose to their level. A guard walked out of the platform and went to the brothers holding a red tray with two bowls filled with mango fruits. She handed the tray to the brothers with a long pole. "Eat," She told them. The brothers took the bowl, but Stick hesitated to eat it, expecting it to be poisoned.

"This is not poisoned, is it?" Stick asked.

"No, poison no good. Not poison," The guard answered.

Stick sniffed the mango, and it smelled reminded him of the sleeping gas used on them. He turned to Rock, "I don't think we should,"

"We cud wat?" Rock was already eating the mangos.

"Bro, what if that has poison!"

Rock swallowed his food, "It's fine, she said it wasn't laced with poison, plus I'm hungry." Rock continued to eat the remaining food in his bowl, licking each drop of juice from its surface until the bowl was spotless.

Stick was also hungry, and watching Rock eat his meal did not help his resistance. Eventually, he gave in to temptation, "Woah, this taste pretty sweet!" Stick yelled in surprise before eating his meal with the same voracious appetite as Rock.

"I know, right?"

Guard watched them gorge on the fruit. She glared at them, eating the Carabao that sustained their tribe without thanking the world for her gifts. They were taught by their matriarch to view men as ungrateful beings, incapable of appreciating what mother nature gives them. And watching the brothers eat the bowl like the savages they were taught to view them only proved that point.

She was going to wait for them to finish their meal, but she thought they would just throw the bowl and tray away like so she figured she would go down and catch them. But Stick called out for her before she could on the elevator. "Wait! You forgot the bowls." They placed them on the tray and handed them over to the guard. She stood motionless, surprised to see the brothers place the bowl neatly on the tray, and wiped their face clean of the remnants of their meal. "Um, are you not going to take it?"

"Sorry," She walked forward with her large pole and reached slowly lifted the tray off Stick's hands. She perfectly balanced the tray on the end of the pole, and she carefully stepped back until the tray was safely above the platform.

"Woah!" The brothers exclaimed, surprising the guard and nearly made her drop the tray. "Oh, sorry, didn't mean to surprise. I just thought you looked cool holding balancing the tray like that." Stick said in embarrassment. But it was the guard that was truly embarrassed as her cheeks turned red as a rose. "I don't think I ever introduced ourselves. My name is Stick, and your name?" Stick asked.

The guard looked around her, expecting one of her tribesmen to walk in, but the only ones that were the birds were singing their song. "Me, Elena." She sheepishly said.

"Nice to meet you, Elena," Stick said with a smile.

Elena was dumbstruck. The men they held hostage were far amicable and courteous than she was led to believe, and she found herself in a strange situation. She didn't want to stay any longer, so she placed the pole beside the tree truck and hurried to the elevator with the tray.

"Wait!" Stick called out to her. "I like to ask you something. Just for a minute, or one question. Please!"

Elena stopped on her tracks and turned around, "One question. What question?"

"The thing we just ate, the fruit, is it used to make the sleeping gas? They smell similar."

"No, Carabao not used. But Carabao seed used."

Just when Stick got closer to understanding the recipe, she ran back to the elevator and descended to the earth. Stick laid on his back, wondering what could possibly be the missing ingredients for their sleeping gas. But there are more opportunities in the future, and for now, they had to wait for time to pass them.

Unfortunately, time moved slowly when they're stuck in a confined prison dangling several meters above ground with nothing to occupy their mind. To break the silence and mundane, Stick brought up the events last night. "Rock, you sure have one hell of a mom."

"What do you mean?"

"You know how she leaped in to save you. That was amazing, especially since you wouldn't expect her to do it, you know?"

"Yeah, that's true. Her protecting me was the last thing I could think would happen."

"Yeah. I envy you guys," Stick sighed, "I don't think my mom would step in to save me."

"Oh, don't say that." Rock sat straight, "She was your mom. Your real mom! I wished I could spend my time with my real mother, even for just a little bit to say sorry for what I did." Rock shook his head, "But that doesn't matter now! What matters is that you still have people that care about you."

"Yeah, you're right." Stick raised his back and sat straight, "But I was also worried about you last night. That was the first time I ever saw you acting like that. You beat up a troll with your fist. I didn't think you would be so scared of a bunch of women."

"It wasn't the women I was scared about! It was the position that we were in that scared me. I've never been held down like that. When we practice our grapples, I at least know how to escape, but there was no escape. We were surrounded." Rock leaned forward and hid the lower half of his face with his knee. "I felt powerless for the first time. And what made it worst was that they were trying to take something I promised I would give Dawn."

"It's not like you gave it to them."

"That's not what Dawn would think! She wasn't here to see that."

The brothers remained silent as the tension grew denser between. Then Stick broke the silence, "Dawn had to go through a lot. I think she knows how it felt to be powerless. That's probably why your mother came to save you, they knew."

The pair sat in their cage lamenting about last night and the things they could have done to stop it from happening. But just as they said, it already happened.

Meanwhile, across the marshes, empty grasslands, and the thick forestry, Sun, Smoke, and Cossack just arrived outside the Black Crow's war camp. They scouted the area, hoping to find a way to sneak inside, but the walls surrounding their camp were guarded diligently. They walked around twice, but there was still no opening for them to sneak inside. Sun wished he could just walk towards the wall and slash it open, but Smoke insisted they remain hidden. And Sun can't help but agree.

After circling the camp for the third time, the group spotted three young men dressed in rags with a white cap and face mask. They were gathering and chopping wood and were busy talking to one another, gossiping about their Captain and commanders to notice the three goblins hiding behind the bushes. Watching the unaware men gossiping gave Sun an idea, "Guys, hear me out. What if we disguise ourselves as one of them?"

"That sounds better than bursting through their walls," Smoke remarked, "But we could also wait until,"

Sun sprang into action, jumping out from the bushes. He draws his sword, flipping it in the air and caught on its blade, and smacked one of the men with his sword's flat hilt, knocking the poor man unconscious. "What the hell?" One of the men yelled.

Sun did not slow down and immediately dashed towards the next target, hitting him on the forehead. The last one managed to escape from Sun's attack, but he swiftly dealt with by Smoke, who jumped out from the shadows and catching him in a sleeper hold. The man dropped to the drop unconscious. "Great, now we have to hide and tie them up." Smoke said.

"Don't worry," Cossack revealed himself while a bundle of rope, "While you guys were fighting, I found this. We can tie them up and hide them under some fallen trees."

"Great idea!" Sun removed the white cap off his first victim and wore it, "Now let's get moving."

The three men were stripped of their clothes and dragged away from the scene. They hid the body as best they could, tied them on a base of a tree, and gagged their mouths so they couldn't yell for help. After putting on their clothes and hiding their weapons outside the camp, the boys walked through the front gate, carrying chopped wood on their backs. A guard with deep green skin wearing nothing but armored pants stood in front of the entrance. He had a short tusk growing on the lower right side of his lips, spikey hair, and his ears were as pointy as Artio's ears. But his most striking feature was his size. He stood more than six feet tall, nearly passing the gate's height. And his oversized muscles were built for combat, with his biceps alone bigger than Sun's head.

When the three passed the guard, Sun could feel mana seeping out of him like water leaking from a closed faucet. The three of them knew he was no ordinary guard and that he was a formidable enemy. Cossack prayed he was not the Captain of the Black Crows, but an even grimmer thought came to mind. The Captain was strong enough to have someone as large and intimidating to be his soldier. Their quest to stop the Black Crows will not be easy.

Once inside the camp, the three split up. Cossack went to the barracks in the southern part of the camp. Smoke followed a group of men carrying chopped wood to a large furnace next to the cave entrance. And Sun walked to the eastern side of the camp where a large red barn stood.

Sun snuck inside and saw cages filled with emaciated goblins and dark elves. "Oh god, what happened here?" Sun walked to the cells and checked the captives. They had sunken eyes, bruises on their cheeks, and shaved heads. When Sun tried to touch them, they scurried to the back of their cells. Some of them yelled at him to get away, but their dry throat made it hard for them to speak.

Sun continued down the path. He saw goblins chained to the walls, and dark elves bounded together with chains attached to their feet. Sun walked up to them and examined their collars on their neck. It had a gem on the front and a keyhole on the back. He wanted to burn the collar off, but the melting metal will only drop on them burn their skin and slashing it might behead them instead, so his only option was to find the key. The barn was barely lit, with very few torches visible. And this was just the first floor. Sun arrived at a ladder leading to the next floor. He could hear the cries of the old and young and smell blood and waste through the ceiling.

Sun grew angrier by the second with mana coalescing on his fist as he clenched it tighter. His mana slowly grew hotter, and its blue light turned bright orange, and the darkroom was dark no more.

Suddenly, the barn's door opened with a guard pulling a goblin by the leg. "Hey, you!" He yelled at Sun, "Lock this filth in his cage." He threw the bloody goblin at Sun. The goblin screamed in pain when Sun caught him with Sun's burning fist.

"Oh, sorry," Sun shook his hand to cool it off.

Sun carried the goblin to a bench and laid his body with his back facing the ceiling. Scars covered his back, and a large print of Sun's hand burned on the back of his shoulder. "Just kill," The goblins whispered, "Kill Korge. Korge no slave."

"So your name is Korge," Sun said, "Well, stay still. My healing magic isn't as good as my brother, but it will get the job done."

"What?"

Before Korge realized it, his wounds closed. Only the pain in his muscles and broken bones remain. "Now that you're somewhat good. I need to ask you something very important. Where is their Captain?"

"What? No know where Captain." Korge stared at Sun, "And why ask?"

Sun rolled his sleeves, revealing his shoulders. "I'm not part of the Black Crows. My name is Sun, and I'm here to kill the Captain for the Maston and Orgut tribe. Do you at least know what their Captain looks like so I can find him?"

"Orgut? Me dad safe! Tell me!" Korge grabbed Sun's collar. "Tell me!"

"Woah calm down. I don't even know who your dad is?"

"Arga, he name Arga!"

"Oh, well he's fine."

Sun released his collar and kneeled on the floor. He cried on the hardwood, and his cries could be heard all over the barn. Sun sat next to him and patted his back to calm him down. After some time, Arga returned to his sense and got up, "Me not know captain face, but me know where captain stay." He said, "Me bring you place, Captain stay. But promise you beat Captain!"

Sun laughed, "Don't worry, I'll beat him."

The two got up and ran out of the barn. On the way, they planned how they would sneak in the Black Crow's barracks and into the Captain's office. Arga also mentioned the Captain's impenetrable armor, made from the finest and strongest material Arga has ever seen. Sun doubted the armor is that strong, and it's most likely due to mana that made impenetrable. But no matter how tough the armor is, Sun could just bake the Captain with his flames. It would be gruesome death, but after seeing the state of his captives and the horror waiting for him on the second floor, he could not feel any remorse for him.

The opened the barn's door, expecting to see an empty square, but instead, they saw the mercenaries running around like chickens, trying to get their weapons. Black clouds began to rise from the chimneys connected to the large furnace sitting next to the cave. And mercenaries dragged the giant red wall to block the cave entrance.

Smoke and Cossack ran through the panicking mercenaries and met up with Sun. "Something strong, really strong, is coming out that cave. And I don't know what it is?" Smoke said, "But that's not our only problem. Half of the Black Crows already left, along with their Captain."