Chapter 5 - Leaving Lark

'For those fools who tried to take advantage of their green, only death awaited them,' thought Pan over and over again in that seemingly simple phrase.

 After all, maybe green could be used for more than just healing using herbs, the question was, how? The text says that the green ruin was infused with the essence of the "Green Walker," but from what Pan knew everything had to be infused for the essence to work, or maybe the text was talking about a deeper approach?

 'It's just a fable,' thought Pan with a helpless sigh, then closed the book. He would still try, of course, any scrap of help would be very useful to a crusader, but he didn't get his hopes up in the matter.

 Crusaders have been around for centuries and as rare as green was, there were still some crusaders getting it, if the answer was in a simple fable, they would have found it long ago.

 As the three days flew by, Pan was now outside the city walls and heading north of Lark with the caravan. The rich enough could afford smaller carriages and even take a servant or two, carriages that stood in a row in the center along with the food wagons filled with jerky, grain, and water. As for the crusaders, they rode horses along the sides at a slow pace. Those without conditions like Pan, were obliged to accompany on foot, but for Pan who was used to hard work on the docks this was not a problem.

 Pan also bought a bastard sword that was now hanging from his waist, making him feel much more secure.

 The entire road was made of salt and of course, just like the city walls and the main avenues inside it, salt and light were natural enemies of the fallen, he was not able to kill one, but it weakened them a lot. Now how they managed to harden the salt to look like stone Pan had no idea, that was a closely guarded secret of the Order, Nanna used to say that those who control the salt roads control the world and he had to agree.

 As for the road, it was about twenty meters wide and stretched as far as the eye could see. On either side of it you could see fertile fields being sown and at the far end of the farmland in the north Pan could see a white silhouette horizontally. This was the sacred wall of Lark's lands, made of salt and metal and filled with essence.

 The walls grew bigger and bigger as they got closer and when they finally got close, Pan watched in awe at the giant engineering feat of essence and architecture.

 The walls were about forty meters high and slightly curved, making it difficult for any fallen to climb while weakening them with salt and essence. Looking closely, small dots could be seen moving here and there on top of the wall, Pan guessed they were soldiers and crusaders on guard.

 As they finally passed through the walls the atmosphere in the caravan became much darker, the Crusader ranks closed in around the novices and held their weapons with unshakable firmness. The youths in turn closed the carriage windows and those who did not have one held up whatever metal would give them courage, from religious symbols to weapons and shields, they closed their hands on them until their knuckles turned white.

 Pan wasn't in the best of moods either, he looked back and saw the wall getting smaller and smaller, making him feel more vulnerable than he ever will in his life.

 'I refused to be a merchant and became a crusader, poetic justice I guess?' Pan remembered bitterly the day he was offered a lucrative spot in one of the caravans of a famous merchant group in Lark. 'So much for not leaving the walls and here I am.'

 "Heads up!" Said the crusader master Leopold as night began to fall. "We'll stop here for today, prepare the fires and make the salt circle," he ordered, as the Crusaders followed everything like a well-oiled cog.

 They hurried to make a circle of fresh salt around the camps as a second layer of defense. Pan volunteered to help with the fires and tents, which earned him smiles and heartfelt thanks from the graduates, and soon after he sat by a fire with a pot of hot soup.

 "We're doomed," said a young man from a nearby group. It was the same little brown-slanted boy from the first day of the ceremony, the same one who grinned like a fool, now looked like he was on the verge of a breakdown.

 'Looks like he finally understood, or someone told him the terrors of being a crusader, we're not heroes, we're sacrifices' thought Pan, taking a sip of soup.

 "You don't need so much helplessness my good companion, the whites will certainly have difficult times, but the rare ones like us will do much better", replied a young blue who, by the way he sat, spoke and by how he only seemed to be close to the little brown by his inclination, he was certainly a nobleman, Pan could see the natural rancidity that nobles had for the common people through his flattering smile.

 "Yeah, besides, look at all these grads, how can some fallen ones touch us?" Declared a girl with freckles and an excited voice, relieving the rest of the group.

 "Yes, yes, there are also many 'obstacles' between us and the possible fallen ones," said a "nobleman" at last, who refused to hide the disdain in his voice, as he looked at the commoners in the camp.

 He also looked at Pan for a moment and as if remembering something then smiled and walked over to him.

 "You there, you were that green weren't you? What's it like knowing you're going to die before you're even mature?"  Asked the nobleman to Pan and then laughed shamelessly at his own "joke".

 The "noble" was neither tall nor short, he had the saggy skin of a man who had never lifted a weight in his life, his hair was even neater than those of the ladies Pan remembered seeing in the taverns, and their clothes were so colorful that bothered the eyes.

 "You tell me," replied Pan, throwing the bastard sword he'd bought still in its scabbard towards the young noble.

 The "noble" tried to catch the sword in midair, but it turned out to be much heavier than he thought, this plus the momentum made him fall on his ass to the ground. Which, of course, was a delight for everyone else who laughed with amusement at the comic scene, including a few graduates.

 A bastard sword averaged 1.5 kg but Pan's weighed 3.0 kg. He asked for it that way because he never had any training in fencing, so brute strength would serve him better than grace.

 It took the young noble a while to realize the ridiculousness of his situation and when he did, his beautiful porcelain face turned red as blood, he looked at Pan with hatred, but the presence of the Crusaders prevented him from ordering his servants to do anything.

 'He must be a rich merchant's son, a noble would have been trained properly, well I don't think it makes much difference, both are problems,' thought Pan as he noticed that the boy was not a noble, just a very wealthy young man who dressed like one.

 Pan never stopped to notice the difference between a noble and someone with a lot of money, he only noticed the clothes and avoided any conflict with someone who had money and nobility screaming at his robes. But now he couldn't care less, he was now a chosen one of the Order, no one touches what belongs to the Order.

 'Being a crusader has its benefits in the end,' thought Pan, as he looked venomously at the merchant's stocky servant who just stared back with menace in his eyes.

 After that, there was no more intrigue, everyone was too tense to think about anything other than getting to the Order as quickly as possible. Being outside the walls was something most of them had never done in their lives.

 Pan was the same, after finishing his meal he improvised a place to sleep but was unable to close his eyes. Whenever he looked into the dark of the woods that surrounded them, it seemed to him that the dark was watching him back, lurking, waiting for the moment when he would fall into deep dreams, only to wake him up in a nightmare.