Chapter 12

The full moon illuminated the inky black night, generating enough moonlight to pierce through the pitch black darkness, for one to barely see. The cold wind constantly whooshed gently through the air, making the atmosphere chilly, while it blew the leaves on branches and grasses rotted in position, causing it to sway and rustle, as it danced rhythmically, with purpose, to the acoustic tune of the breeze.

It was already deep into the darkness, way past the midnight point. By this time, one should be snoring his sorrows away and should be viewing all his dreams and desires come through or living out his worst fears and nightmares in dreamland. One should be deep in sleep, but Senro wasn't. He was completely wide awake, despite all his twisting and turning failed attempts to force himself to sleep.

This wasn't because he was laying uncomfortably on the bare, even grassy, but rough patch of land, in which he and his companions were managing to sleep on, nor was it due to the hooting of the owls nestling on the gigantic trees, close to his position or the constant echoes of the shrill screams of whatever ungodly creature, that was making those scary and terrifying sounds from afar, nor was it due to the unbelievably loud, baritone snores of the tall, lanky carriage driver, sleeping with gusto, with all his limbs spread out like a windmill, next to him. He was sleep deprived, simply because he was too enthusiastic and highly expectant of the upcoming mission ahead.

It had been fourteen days since he, Sasha and Zedd began their journey to the town of Fleming and they were just a day away from the town. The town of Fleming was eight towns away from their home in the town of Benison, with each of the eight towns approximately two days, apart from each other, that is, if one were to travel by carriage, as they were travelling. They began their journey, after they had gathered enough provisions that would last them till they reached the next town, enough clothes and coins (money) to last them the trip to and fro and Zedd hired a medium sized carriage, pulled by three horses with strong physique, as well as a competent carriage driver, who knew the way to Fleming town, to take them through the journey.

Though Mom (Grace) had assigned about half of her trained warriors to assist them in the mission, they all didn't journey together. The warriors left first, dividing themselves into a party of ten, before Senro and company left. The warriors were warned by Zedd to do nothing suspicious when they got to Fleming town and to just go with the flow, so as to not attract attention to themselves and ruin the strategy she had in mind. She stated that when she arrives in Fleming town, then she will brief everyone concerning the mission, they would discuss her strategy and then the mission would then finally commence.

Some days, the quartet were lucky enough to reach a civilized area in the night and chance upon a cheap inn to accommodate them and the horses, with a room to sleep in and food for them and the horses, which in turn helped to preserve the food rations they already had at their disposal, for other days. Of course, they would have to pay for the food and the room, with each inn in the towns charging different prices. But most of the time, they arrived at uncivilized areas in the night, be it in a jungle, forest or a wilderness, with no villages or towns miles ahead and they would be forced to pitch a tent to protect them from the desolate cold of the night and endure sleeping uncomfortably on the bare ground, just like how they were now.

For the first five days, from the time they began their journey, Zedd was tightlipped about the details of the mission, even after the constant badgering and disturbance from him and Sasha, but due to boredom from lack of activities to do and topics to discuss between them, Zedd could no longer resist and she explicitly relayed the details of the mission to the both of them.

The town of Fleming has been terrorized and has basically been taken over by a vicious bandit group calling themselves "The Black Moon" and not only did they terrorize the town, but also neighboring villages as well. This bandits just appeared out of nowhere one day and took over the whole operation of the town. Each day, with no invitation whatsoever, they would just badge into people's homes and without any prior warning, steal people's belonging, be it food, clothing, money and every single thing of value. They would r*pe wives in front of their husbands and girls from teenage age and above in front of their parents and abduct them, dragging them to their headquarters, deep in the Boravine jungle, in order to use them as sex slaves. They would also advance into business centers, be it markets, shops, bars, inns, brothels and cause trouble and mayhem and the bandits would take for themselves, any single thing of value they could find and this had brought business in the town, completely to a standstill. Travelers, who were visiting or passing through the town and didn't know the predicament in which the town was in, were robbed of all their property and were forced to live in the town by the bandits, so as not to spread the information about the town been seized by them . Of course, the neighboring villages knew about the predicament the town was in, but they didn't dare warn the travelers, out of fear for their lives and that of their families. Anyone who dared to resist the evil deeds of this bandits and summoned the guts to fight back against them would be killed in the most brutal possible and this deterred people from resisting. The gates and borders of Fleming town were manned and monitored by the bandits, so as to be notified of people coming into the town and prevent the terrorized people of the town from escaping. This was to ensure that information wouldn't leak out, especially to the ears of the capital, because of the identity of the bandit leader, as they continued to recruit men to their ranks. The bandits were the law of Fleming town as well as the judges, juries and executioners. The poor people of the town of Fleming worked and labored for this bandits and they were completely at their mercy, as they pleaded deeply in their hearts for a savior to rescue them from their predicament. They pleaded deeply in their hearts for a miracle of freedom.

How the capital was able to get a hold of the information regarding the situation, the town of Fleming was in, was a mystery to Senro, but he was glad and excited that he would be able to come to the rescue of this helpless people and he couldn't just wait to beat the crap out of the bastards terrorizing their town.