A Desire For Strength

The battle continued, not much had happened still, they were unorganised and failing to make any headway and we were slowly getting more and more tired. Their bodies were also beginning to pile up as well. Although it had taken a long time. "Damm, where is Anubis? He should be here by now," I muttered.

Almost like magic, a new commanding voice was heard. "In the name of the Duke, stop all fighting, if not you will die." We all got distracted a bit and that moment allowed one of our attackers to hit Swain in the shoulder. He screamed out in pain, as the blow dug into his arm.

Hearing his scream, I had looked over. Seeing what had happened, there was a feeling of rage building up in my body. 'I am weak.' is all I could think, first it was when I was getting robbed, then it was the battle with the demons and now this. In that moment I made up my mind. 'I must get stronger to stop my comrades from dying and being put into bad battles all the time.'

I heard an order to charge from the voice. Whether it was including us, I didn't know. So I made sure we all held the formation and stopped all attacks for now. "Can you still hold Swain?" I was worried, if they continued to attack him and he collapsed. We could all die. All I got was a grunt in response, showing that he would hold.

The thundering of hooves and boots could be heard. The guards that I could see, were slowly beginning to drift and run away from the battle, not wanting to be killed. Once the last of them had run off, I could see Anubis with the man who had led some troops to save us. Before going to them, I made sure that Swain's arm was treated and had some temporary bandage on, so that the wound would not get infected.

Then I led everyone over to Anubis and his new friend. As I arrived the medallion was thrown back at me. The man looked at me for a second before saying in a much more gentle voice, "This is an odd medallion, I won't ask where you got it from but it is very odd. It has three requests instead of one. Use the two remaining requests carefully. There may still be a much worse reason that you will need to use it."

Then he left us, making sure the men he had brought with him were organised. It seemed like that had caught the noble as well. I couldn't hear what was said but the noble lost his head for whatever it was. I was surprised to put it mildly. A noble was just flat out executed. Then after that we began to head to the city. I wanted to get Swain's arm looked at as quickly as possible. As long as we were quick some healing magic could be used hopefully.

We arrived at long last at the capital of the duchy. On the city gate was the name Wyverngate which is the name of the city. The walls were white and the city itself seemed much brighter than the other city I had been to. It also seemed more busy as well. Though the city was dwarfed by the colossal keep that overlooked it. The home of the Duke.

We had to go to the military building which was near the keep, so that the message would be delivered successfully, according to the mission. We got a few looks as we walked through the city. We were smelling of blood and Swain being hurt as well, got us just as many if not more looks. Though as we were in uniform of the army, nobody stopped us from going on our way. In fact more people got out of our way than in it, making our time moving through the streets easier.

With most people getting out of our way we passed through the gates into the inner city where the administration buildings and other more important buildings were located. I had the others take Swain to the hospital to make sure his shoulder gets looked at. While me and Anubis carried on walking to the military building.

"You should have seen the commanders face, Adoh. It was brilliant. He was so surprised when I showed him the medallion. He was staring and kept looking at me and the medallion. It was like, he had seen a ghost. When he had finally got out of his state, the first thing he asked me was if this was real. Once he had confirmed it was real, he then finally asked me what I needed him to do. Though once I had said it the rubies on the medallion lit up, then it made an odd noise before shaking a little, then it turned back to normal. The commander's face was after that, well perfect."

Listening to the story of Anubis using the medallion made me laugh so much, I nearly doubled over at one point as he described the facial expressions of the commander. Amidst my laughing and his talking we had finally reached the military building. It was nearly identical to the one where I had enlisted into the army but this one was only bigger, much, much bigger.

As we walked in, I stopped laughing and Anubis stopped telling his story. The atmosphere inside was, umm, the best way to put it would be to say tense, extremely tense. Anubis as he had been here before led us to the place we had to go. Though this was only after we had undergone a few security checks. Me having blood on me, raised some eyebrows for some reason.

It didn't take us long to reach the place where we had to go. "Adoh, could you wait outside please? This will be easier and quicker, if I go in alone." I nodded in acknowledgement and just stood around outside. My thoughts ended up drifting to Sam. I was wondering where she had gone, what was she doing. My hands unconsciously drifted to where I was keeping the letter she left. Then as my thoughts were about to get deeper, the door opened and Anubis walked out with a smile. "It's all done Adoh, you and your squad get a day rest here, then you must leave back to the fort immediately after that. There is some trouble at the border apparently."

I left him there, heading to the infirmary, going to find the others. As I was walking I smiled to myself, getting a sense of deja-vu. It was just like at the fortress, going back to the infirmary trying to find them. This time however, I ran into them on the way there. It seemed like they had used some healing magic on Swain's shoulder.

I told them what I had been told. They were happy at the rest we would be getting but when I got on to the trouble at the border, they frowned. "Looks like we will be back fighting demons, huh, Adoh?" At the mention of what was to come Swain looked particularly unhappy. I guess he hadn't got over our last encounter with them yet.

To lighten the mood, "All drinks are on me tonight." That made their smiles come back but I knew what was behind them, a fear, a fear of demons. I still had fears of that battle, no massacre, so they probably did too.