Chapter Two: The Beginnings of an Outlaw

After a night of drinking and chatting with the Templars, Fergus felt a little obliged to offer them a little sample of his bagpipes. The Templars were looking at it beforehand with puzzled faces, for it was indeed an odd looking device for the musical arts. He played them the two songs that he thought (or anyone today would enjoy) would be a crowd pleaser: "Scotland the Brave" and "Amazing Grace". Although a few of the troops enjoyed the first song, the others groaned with dismay when a few actually thought about covering their ears. It wasn't because Fergus was terrible, mind you, it was more because these humans never heard such a noise. But that soon changed after "Amazing Grace" as they enjoyed that more than the first. As he finished, the Scotsman did receive a small bit of applause from them; although some were reluctant to do so.

The night soon grew dark as two of the guards stood at their posts both at the cart and a few others were around the camp. Fergus was still at the fire as it continued to burn. He looked over to the wagon as a guard went over to take a piss as the other soon fell asleep. Seeing that he still had some food left over, he thought it would be at least decent enough to offer these Keidran something to hold them over. Being careful not to wake up the guard, he peeks in through the bars and sees three wolf Keidran and two Tiger Keidran, all of them still chained to each other. The wolves consisted of two males and one female while the tigers were both female. They see him and glare at him with disdain. He couldn't blame them. Hoping to maybe soften them up, he offers them some of his leftover food through the bars.

Looking at it, the tigers seemed hesitant while one of the male wolves and the female stayed hunched over in a corner as the latter growled and bared his teeth at Fergus. Fergus grimaced as he felt that maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Looking at her cohort, one of the female tiger Keidran hesitantly looked to the bit of food and crawled over to it her chains rattling as she did. She froze when the sleeping guard stirred a little and snorted. Fergus grew concerned as well but was relieved as the guard went back to sleep. The Keidran proceeded to quickly grab the bowl of food from him and scuttled back to her fellow tiger. They all had looked at him confused, not sure what to make of this human. He gave them a small smile but before he could try to say something to them, a rustling leaves came a little ways from them. Fergus presumed it was the other guard coming back and went back to his spot near the fire. Just as he sat down, the guard came through the brush and stretched. "Anything happened when I was gone?"

"Nope. Just the same fucking amount of quiet around here." Fergus lied as he rolled to his side.

"And the Keidran?"

"Still there. Untouched and chained up."

"You can get some sleep now if want to. I'll inform one of the others to switch with me and sleepy here." The human guard slapped the backside of his sleeping cohort's head waking him up with a snort. Telling him so, the guards switched shifts as Fergus continued to lay. As the night dragged on, the Scotsman pondered over what had transpired and soon, came up with a plan.

After a quick breakfast, the wagon train kept moving onwards towards the destination Fergus learned was called North Leighton. Fergus, meanwhile, was still going over his plans in freeing these Keidran without letting off any hint that he had some indication of doing so. As he was, he felt a sudden tap on his shoulders. It was one of the soldiers watching last night. "You okay there, friend? You seem awful quiet compared to yesterday."

"Oh yah, that I am wee laddie. Just broke me trail of thought you did, you gommy gowk (simple looking fool)!"

The soldier looked puzzled if not slightly insulted, probably from not understanding what the hell the Scotsman just said. "Okay…sorry then. Anyway, we should be close to the town in about five more miles according to the map. We'll see to it that you can get to wherever you need to go in no time."

"Sure, sure. Tell me something, tiny. Just for curiosity's sake, has anybody ever been friendly with these furry buggers while NOT being enslaved?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know, ya eejit, like not treating them like slave and master?"

"Oh that," the soldier laughs. "No, not as far as I know. Why should we? Things have been pretty good for us here so far."

"Maybe for you but what of them?" Fergus jabbed a thumb at the wagon of Keidran. "You ever had that one nagging thought in your wee head about how they feel about it?"

The soldier looked at him with curious suspicion. "What are you saying exactly?"

Reading the room, the young Scotsman could see now all were looking at him suspiciously. "Och, never mind. Forget I said anything. I was just thinkin' aloud," said an exasperated Fergus. It seemed that he had his answer after all. More the reason to shut his trap and not give these clods a hankering to suspect him.

Shrugging it off, fortunate for Fergus, the whole troop resumed what they were doing before. It was quiet for the rest of the trip until they finally reached the town of North Leighton. It looked just about the same as any normal town he's seen, only with furry occupants as either slaves or servants. The wagon train made its last stop at a large cabin made to be a jail cell, as Fergus soon saw while the Keidran were being loaded inside.

One by one, the Keidran stepped out of the wagon and into a cell large enough for them all with steel metal bars holding them in and was in the farthest corner of the building. Their shackles and chains clanked as they shuffled on into the cell, passing others like theirs that were to hold other potential Keidran slaves. The jailer slammed the door shut creaking in protest, followed by the lock of a key. The jangling bundle of keys were latched onto the jailer's belt. Fergus took a good look at the poor souls locked up. Even though he was suspicious to think of them as possible brutes, he couldn't help feel somewhat pitiful for these hairy beings.

"I must thank you laddies for allowing me to tag along." Fergus said as he followed the human soldiers out of the jail cell. "I'd probably lose me fucking head going in circles in this melted welly (fucking miserable) world."

"Our pleasure, even if your music was a little…um how to say this without being offensive…odd."

The head Templar of the three just got done with getting the paperwork all signed and finished as he walked on over. "Anything we can do you for, stranger?"

"Aye, just point me to the nearest inn with the best food around here and we'll call it even." Fergus replied.

"The Benbow Inn is probably your best bet here in this town," the head Templar said. He pointed him in the direction to go down to. "Just down that road, it's on the right hand side next to the butcher shop."

"Thank ye, braw (Scottish for "man"). I'll take yer word for it."

The Templar took out a small purse of coins and handed it to Fergus. "A little common courtesy, compliments from the Templars. Just enough for room and board for you should you choose to stay in town tonight."

"Thank ye again." Fergus took the small coin purse from him, said so long to the soldiers that accompanied him, and made off to the inn. After checking in a room for the night and having some food, he laid back on his bed as he mentally prepared for what he was about to do before falling asleep.

All was quiet, save for the chirping of crickets as everyone and everything else was asleep. Not a thing was stirring, except for a stranger cloaked in white bedsheets and head covered with a pillow case made to look like a mask. On the figure's back was a large sword. The hooded stranger made its way to the holding cell where the Keidran were at.

The figure walked up to the entrance where two guards stood at the entrance. One of them gestured and ordered the stranger to halt. When the figure refused to do so, the human guard demanded the figure to halt as he and his fellow guard had a hand on their swords ready to attack. Before they could though, the stranger dashed for the closest one and stiff armed the guard hard against the building wall and slammed a hard right hook into the other knocking him out cold. Turning his attention to the guard slammed against the wall, the stranger put him in a chock hold and made the guard pass out.

The stranger knocked on the door as he held up the unconscious guard up for the door slot. No sooner did the guard inside open the door that he was greeted by a hard fist to the face, knocking him onto the floor and out like a light with a slight moan. The Keidran imprisoned looked in fear and suspicion at the strange figure hooded and cloaked, bending down and grabbing the cell keys from the jailer before walking over to them and unlocking the door.

The next morning, the town was in a scurry like chickens scattering around the coop. Word spread of a strange figure in white came in the middle of the night and freed the Keidran. But who? Upon investigating the guards after they regained consciousness, the main Templar (wearing a robe all in white with his order's insignia as a small button holding it together) could have speculated one person could possibly have done this; and he had a witness from the same inn he was staying at see him leaving. But why? And for what reason? Without hesitation, he made out a warrant for the Scotsman's arrest.

Somewhere outside of North Leighton, Fergus stopped at heavily forested part of the woods he was traveling on and buried his makeshift garb under a rock he found big enough to hide it. He hoped those fuzz balls were able to get a good distance away from town. They were rather surprised a human would go out of his way to free them and risk getting caught by the law. When one of them asked why, one of the three that was able to speak English, Fergus simply shrugged and said "Cuz' it seemed like the right thing to do." They didn't do harm to me nor know for certain if they did any kind of harm and what kind it was. Just so long as they didn't try to harm him for freeing them.

Although a couple of the Keidran weren't so trusting of him, the others were most grateful for him. He said "no problem" and told them to scat to wherever they needed to go from here, wherever that might be at. One of the female tiger Keidran came up to him, gave him a small peck on the cheek, and thanked him before she took off with the others. Fergus smiled as he remembered that moment, his cheeks turning slightly red. Chuckling, he brushed the dirt off his hands on his kilt and continued down the the road as he walked on the grass. He figured it was only a matter of time before the guards may come after him. He only hoped to make as much distance from the town as possible while not leaving any trace. His only hope now was to find a way back home.