“Are you sure the willows will show up here?” Aurel asked Rigle after hours of waiting for the willows that weren’t showing up.

“Yes, I got the information from a fellow hunter, so I trust it. Looking around, a lot of monsters appear to drink from this pond, and since there are no carnivores around the willows probably won’t camouflage; let’s wait a little bit more,” Rigle answered, sounding certain his plan to wait was the correct one.

Sure enough less than an hour later a group of willows showed up. They looked like wild Mustelidae, with their bushy tails, short limbs, and brown fur. Without question, they were mutated from Mustelidae and that mutation had changed some of their traits, but the resemblance still remained. They were little horned ferrets that didn’t really pose much of a threat, but their cowardly nature made it hard to hunt them.

They were fast critters, but it wasn’t only the speed with which they ran away that made hunting them irksome, their camouflaging ability was the biggest reason people hated hunting these tiny monsters. Being small monsters they evolved in the wild to be able to avoid other monsters that might prey on them, and they stuck to hunting only injured living things in groups.

“Look at these cute little creatures,” Aurel said.

This was perhaps his first time seeing living willows, he’d seen dead ones, but he’d never hunted willows with me before.

“They look cute now, but if you were lying injured in the wild and saw a swarm of willows heading for you I bet they’d look more menacing then. A swarm of willows can devour a fully grown adult completely within minutes, they don’t even leave bones behind,” Rigle whispered to Aurel.

We watched the willows—about fourteen of them—make their way to the pond, I looked at Rigle as I got on my knees slowly, readied my bow with an arrow nocked properly on the bowstring I’d pulled taut, I waited for the signal from him and we both let the arrows fly. We hit two willows, and the rest sensing danger immediately scattered around, camouflaging as they did so, but we didn’t bother with the rest, our hunt was already a success.

Aurel rushed out with a rucksack he’d gotten from Rigle to fetch the dead willows before any other monster feasted on the dead corpses, the rucksack was treated with many herbs and magic to hide the smell of whatever was put in it, it was an invaluable item for hunters.

Our hunt successful, we made our way back to the cave. Our journey back was a little tense, Rigle and Aurel were on edge, scanning around their surroundings constantly to make sure there were no monsters around, and luckily we ran into no monsters. We ran for half the journey, but then it got dark and we had to be extra careful, I think the darkness was what made my traveling companions really tense, the memory of our encounter with the Falupians still fresh in our minds.

We got back to the cave to find Mileena sitting just inside, close to the entrance, it appeared she was keeping watch because she spotted us before we got close.

“I reckon nothing happened while we were away?” Rigle asked her as we entered the cave.

“A lot happened. We had no encounters with monsters, but it was a battle tending to poor Radley. His temperature went up so I used up all the drinking water we brought trying to keep his body cool, then later his body became too cold so I wrapped clothes and my sleeping mat around him. I cleaned his wounds and reapplied the temlick paste on them, it has been a very stressful day,” Mileena vented, her voice more than her words conveyed her frustrations.

Rigle sighed, rubbing his temple with his hands as he went in to examined the wounded Radley, I couldn’t think of any words to say to the frustrated Mileena so I only smiled at her as I entered the cave. I heard Aurel who was walking behind me ask, “So are we leaving right now?”

“No, Radley’s condition isn’t stable at the moment, we’ll spend the night in this cave and journey back to the settlement tomorrow,” Rigle said squatting beside Tadley who was sleeping next to his injured brother. He must’ve exhausted himself worrying about his brother I thought when I saw him.

“When did he fall asleep?” I asked Mileena, pointing to the sleeping Tadley.

“Not too long ago, he has been crying all day worried sick about his brother,” Mileena answered, a dark expression on her face.

“OK, let’s determine the guard shifts and get some rest, Mileena you and poor Tadley can skip today’s shift and rest properly, it must’ve been a very stressful day for you,” Rigle said.

Mileena didn’t object, and taking his suggestion we split the shift between me, Rigle, and Aurel. Rigle took the first shift, and Aurel took the last shift.

The night went by without incident, Radley’s temperature kept fluctuating throughout the night, but other than that nothing major happened. We were up early and started our journey back to the settlement, our progress was significantly slower as we had to carry the injured Radley.

We sent Mileena out ahead of us to scout our route back, afraid the corpses of Falupians we left out in the open might’ve attracted more monsters, and sure enough, she came back with some bad news. There were farrows feasting there, so we had to take a slight detour, which meant going up the mountains and that significantly slowed down our march.

Three days later we were back in our settlement, Radley barely alive. The first thing we did was head to the temple to employ the help of a healer, and even though Radley was healed his wounds were so severe that we were told he’d be bedridden for a month at least to fully recuperate; however, he was awake and the color had returned to his face. Tadley shed oceans of tears hearing his brother’s voice again after days.

Aurel and I took the opportunity to present the game we’d hunted to the chief priest as an offering. Looking at the two critters it was hard to swallow what we’d experienced just to hunt them. Willows weren’t by themselves difficult monsters to hunt, but the journey had been a dangerous one; once more I was reminded of why traveling far away from the settlement was something anyone rarely did, and yet I had to convince not only my father but also the recruits when the time came for me to seek out the oracle.

Is it even worth it? It’ll be a dangerous journey, is it selfish to ask people to risk their lives just for me to satisfy my own curiosity? Perhaps I should look for alternative means, perhaps there are other ways…

“What are you thinking about?” Aurel asked.

“What?” I asked, aware he’d said something but not sure what exactly he’d said.

“I asked what you were thinking about,” he replied.

We were on our way to the lake to wash our bodies, we had gone first to our sleeping quarters to get a new pair of clothes to change into, once we finished washing our bodies we also had to wash the clothes we’d worn on our journey.

“I was just wondering if seeking out the oracle was a good idea, this journey served to remind me just how dangerous a journey it would be. I mean, we didn’t even stray too far away from the area protected by the gods this time, but yet…” I vented to Aurel.

“You’re overthinking again. Just decide a path you want to take and stick to it. If it is necessary to seek out the oracle, then dangers notwithstanding we must make that journey,” Aurel replied simply once I was done venting.

He can’t understand I thought. It was a lousy feeling to be responsible for the lives of others and seeing them get hurt due to my own decisions. The feeling of guilt and impotence, I absolutely despised feeling that way. Asking the recruits to put their lives on the line to make that journey with me was affecting me, I wasn’t confident I would be able to keep them safe, so I was hesitant; at least with the hunters they would be compensated, but with the recruits, there would be no compensation, they would simply follow because I commanded them to.

“What if I just make that journey alone?” I asked.

“Absolutely not. Brother, not one of the recruits is a coward, some of them have already been on the battlefield, and for those who haven’t, the sooner they learn to fight risking their lives the better,” Aurel said to me.

“I know, but—"

“Brother, where are you?” I heard my sister’s melodic voice ask in my head, interrupting me as I spoke.

“I’m washing up by the lake,” I replied.

“What?” Aurel asked, looking at me curiously, my stopping mid-speech must have piqued his curiosity.

“Minerva cast [mind talk],” I answered. Aurel nodded and then focused on washing his body, ignoring me.

“What do you plan on doing after?” my sister asked.

“The journey took more of a toll on me than I initially thought it did, so I would probably go back to rest; it’s going to be dark soon anyway. Why do you ask?”

“I wanted to show you the weapon father made using the rune you wrote, also Grigore finished the enchanted weapons for the recruits,” she said.

“OK, thank you for informing me. Can it wait till tomorrow? Let’s meet bright and early tomorrow,” I said to my sister.

“OK,” she said and cut off the link between us.