My name is Julius Uerius and this quest has not gone well. Originally I was supposed to return with the heads of twenty beastmen in order to assume my rightful place at my father’s side. It should have been simple, I was allowed to bring my guards with me; men who were more than capable of taking down a pack of Lupusi yet now all I had with me was Rufus. It all went wrong the moment I got sick. We were already deep into the wolves’ territory having come from the east by sea instead of the west by the mountains. My people normally didn’t come by this route, claiming that there were deadly beasts living on the plains, but I had dismissed the stories. I made a mistake.

We’d gone hundreds of miles inland along the plain before we ran into our first problem. Water was scarce amongst the tall grass, especially at the height of summer in the center of the plains. We would run across the occasional oasis, but they were rife with animals, not all of them friendly. I was scratched at one such oasis by some kind of fish while I refilled my canteen. The resulting fever left me weak. As my men and I searched for another oasis to camp near we were set upon by some sort of giant cattle.

These beasts were huge, easily twice the size of our mounts with horns and tusks and a hunger for flesh, their initial charge killed far too many of my men. Our lances were able to hold them off and my ice magic was able to kill two before the mana drain knocked me out, but I knew as I slipped unconscious that I wouldn’t be waking up.

It was to my great surprise that not only did I eventually wake up, but to a stone roof no less. I tried to get up, feeling better than I had in days, only to discover my hands were bound as were my feet. I took a second to take stock of my surroundings, the stone roof above my head was slanted and low to the ground, reaching a maximum height of only 6 feet, I wouldn’t be able to stand anywhere except in the center line of the building. The ground was bare and my only companion who was similarly trussed up was Rufus Ira, the head of my personal guard detachment. I addressed him as soon as I could properly marshal my thoughts, “Centurion report!”

Rufus responded, “I’m sorry sir, but we have been captured by a Lupusi. After you lost consciousness, you fell from your horse, I was able to get you on to my mount before you were trampled, but most of the men fell in your defense. We made a break for it, but the damned monsters picked us off, we didn’t make it very far. The last of your guards tried to buy us some time to get away, but they only bought us a few seconds. We were quickly surrounded by the last three monsters and frankly I doubt we would have survived. I prepared to sell my life dearly when suddenly our captor attacked the beasts. It appeared and then suddenly the monsters just kept falling into pits. After it took care of the monsters I tried to take it out so as to preserve the secrecy of our mission. I failed sir. I expected death once again, but then it did the strangest thing, after it disarmed us, it healed you sir, then it healed me. The method it used was strange as well, obviously some form of beast magic, clearly inferior to our own, but it seems to have worked well enough. My shoulder was shattered yet now I can move it about with only a little bit of pain. As to where we are currently, I don’t know. We are obviously still on the plain, but beyond that, I couldn’t say.”

I thought about all that Rufus told me and I was left with a very unpalatable decision to make. We could either attempt to escape from our captor right now, and somehow try to make it hundreds of mile across a waterless plain without our gear or mounts, or we could remain captive and leave our fates in the hands of some Lupusi who could clearly use magic. My first instinct was to try and free myself, then run, but the more I thought about it the more impossible the option seemed to be. We simply wouldn’t make it, without our weapons and armor we would wind up food for the first predator we ran into.

We needed to somehow either get our gear back and some mounts or submit to captivity. I laid out our options as I saw them to Rufus and asked for input his response was less than helpful. “Sir, I’ll do as you command, but yeah I don’t see a lot of other options. Without my sword or at least a knife I’m no match for one of them Lupusi. If we could get free I might be able to get us across the plains without you dying, but that’s only if we managed to avoid all the predators. I don’t think we would be able to manage that, since the only thing keeping them away on our way here was our numbers and size. Without those two advantages I’d say nine times out of ten we end up dead somewhere along this gods forsaken plain.”

So it looked like captivity was our only shot at survival. Not good. One thing was certain though, my identity needed to remain a secret. If they knew who I was then the best treatment I could expect would be a slow death. After all, Father would never negotiate for the life of a failure. Despite being the first born son, I had younger brothers who would easily fill the void I left. No, my only shot would be to remain anonymous. If they took us as slaves we might eventually be able to steal some equipment and escape. I could still complete my quest if I was patient.

“Centurion, for the time being we must submit to captivity, so from now on you shall be Rufus of Bellum and I shall be Julius of Bellum. Do not defer to me in public, I shall be your son and we shall do as our captors say until an opportunity for successfully escaping them presents itself. Until such a time, try to avoid drawing any attention to my unique status. Is that understood?”

Rufus responded, “Yes sir, I’ll do my best.”

It was only after our conversation ended that I noticed the shadow of a figure looming over the entrance to the slanted structure in which we currently resided. I was startled at the sudden appearance of such a large and brutish lupusi showing up right in front of us. I think the fear I was feeling showed because the beast halted its’ advance and crouched down at the entrance of the structure. It started growling and howling at us, I think in an attempt to communicate, but neither I nor Rufus understood a word it said, then it seemed to switch languages. The words had far too many consonants to be real, but at least it almost sounded like a language. When we still showed no response it switched its’ method of communication once again. This time the words actually sounded like something a human might say, they were all gibberish but at the very least they sounded somewhat human.

The Lupusi seemed to try another few languages, but those quickly ended, my guess was that he wasn’t fluent in whatever they were. Only one of them sounded vaguely familiar, almost like a degraded version of my own language, “Buenos dias, Me llamo Nopea Aattoson, Cómo te llamas?” I decided to ignore his attempts for now as being able to communicate with him would likely not help in our escape just yet. Rufus seemed to come to the same conclusion or at the very least decided to follow my lead. We both stayed silent, so the beast shrugged its shoulders then dragged us out of what I now see was some kind of stone tent. He then untied my legs then hoisted me up onto the back of Rufus’ mount. Apparently the horse had survived and was now being used to carry meat for the Lupusi. Which I guess could be considered good news since it meant it was unlikely I would wind up on the menu. Then the Lupusi retied my legs so that I could not escape, nor fall off of the horse. He did the same to Rufus and then he started leading us away from the only stone structure I could see for miles.

Where ever we were going it was unlikely to be close. I spent most of the journey observing our three captors, one was a white Lupusi, very small, probably the big one’s child. There was also a Hircum, potentially the mate of the big Lupusi as it kept whining at the big one. How the two mated I have no idea, but who could say when it comes to monsters. They kept walking, in relative silence, every now and then their child would whine and the big wolf whom I was beginning to think was called Nopea would pick it up. Based on the repetition of certain sounds the three uttered I believe the Hircum was called Gurt and the white was called Auttaa.

Regardless of their names, the little one slowed everything down to a slow walking pace. So far being a captive wasn’t so bad, the ride was smooth, but they never once stopped to take a break which was unfortunate since I had to piss. I did my best to hold it in, as we would surely stop before night fell, so I did my best to endure the discomfort. When we finally came upon the Lupusi’s camp, things did not go well.

At first a sentry growled at our captor, our captor growled back and the sentry eventually stepped out of the way. Then a mob began to gather, wolves and goats gathered around us with only the will of a single Lupusi to keep us from them. Frankly I couldn’t even be sure that our captor wanted to keep us from them, after all, we might simply be the main course, he might have just healed us to keep our meat from spoiling. My worries and concerns mounted, and I could feel myself sweat from sheer nervous energy. Several of the wolves advanced on us and our captor growled a warning at them. Then the biggest of the trio growled back and began advancing. I was sure we were done for when I felt the telltale tingle of magic being used. Then the biggest Lupusi fell into a hole and was buried so that only his nose and mouth remained above ground. Apparently our captor was very skilled with magic as his spell took next to no time at all. I felt myself shiver with anxiety, and then with a glare and a growl he cleared a path through the mob.

He led us up to a small farm house, it was hard to tell in the fading light, but it seemed to be well constructed, made up of mud bricks and wooden shingles. There were two large Lupusi backlit by the door to the house. The larger one had to be at least seven feet tall, he was broad, muscular, and heavily scarred. He was clearly a veteran of many fights and his glare was nothing if not intimidating. There was also a smaller white Lupusi standing next to him and from her smaller stature and the way she leaned on the big one I could only assume she was his mate.

Our captor seemed to report all that had happened while he was out, his smaller companions allowing him to do the talking, though the littlest one ran up to the white wolf and was quickly snatched up. I think I may have been a little hasty assuming that my captor was the little white’s father, based on the way the female was holding him I’d now say he was more like a big brother or uncle. In either case once our captor was done speaking the dominant male barked out a short response. What he meant I have no idea, but that’s when I finally noticed there was a third figure waiting for us.

The third figure was another one of the Hircum, though he was dressed flamboyantly. Where the Lupusi I had seen were almost uniformly wearing leather vests and pants, this Hircum was in light and bright silks. He spoke at length to the dominant male who seemed to basically ignore him. The big male responded to the little Hircum, but the whole time he seemed to radiate anger, as if he was barely restraining himself from instant violence.

He strode off into the night followed by the Hircum and our captor, while we were left with the two whites and our original Hircum. She disappeared for a couple of minutes then reappeared with some hay. She dropped an armful in front of our horse who immediately started eating. Meanwhile we were left just sitting on the horse, staring at the roof. Eventually she and the little Hircum started unloading the primitive travois of its’ skins an meat, bringing them into the house. We were relatively unsupervised and it would have been the perfect time to escape, you know if there wasn’t a camp full of hostile wolves less than four hundred feet away.

So we sat and waited until eventually the trio that left us returned. They helped to bring the meat indoors before our original captor let us down. He untied our legs and then brought us inside. He took us to a small room with a small stone depression in the floor that also had a hole. He then proceeded to piss and shit into the depression, which was awfully embarrassing to watch, but then he did something amazing. He lifted a lever and water washed the waste away, down the hole at the bottom of the depression. I was shocked, I mean I knew some powerful mages had places to do their business indoors, but those all required magic to operate. I hadn’t felt any magic, which meant that however he had managed it, it was mechanical in nature. He then walked to a raised stone counter, turned another lever and proceeded to rinse his hands with the water that came out of some sort of spout.

I’d never seen anything like it, he then motioned for us to do the same, so under his uncomfortably watchful eye, we took care of our business. Then he made us wash our hands in the water coming from the spout. An odd ritual, but if that’s what it took to piss indoors without the aid of a servant I’d gladly repeat it.

Then we were brought into what was obviously the kitchen and fed some meat, probably from the giant bulls of the plains. After eating our captor brought us into a small room obviously designed for a child, motioned for us to stay put, then shut the door. My guess was that these would be our quarter, at least for now. I wonder where they’d put the horse…

I took the opportunity to talk once again with Rufus, “So, we are now captives on a farm with what looks like a small army of Lupusi camped outside it. Not exactly an ideal situation, but at least our captor seems strong enough to keep us safe. I’ve frankly never seen such effortless and quick magic. Can all beast do that, or is he special?” I asked.

Rufus answered, “Honestly I’m not sure. On the battlefield they certainly don’t, in fact they rarely use magic, although the Hircum certainly use some powerful spells. If I had to bet I’d say that our captor, who I think is called Nopea is something special. We should do our best to stay close to him for now, everyone else looks pretty hostile.”

I agreed with his sentiment, everyone besides Nopea and the little white wolf seemed to be glaring daggers in our direction whenever we showed our faces. Best to stick with the one person that not only could keep us safe, but didn’t seem to actively hate us. With that decision behind us we both went to sleep, the floor was hard and the lack of blankets made it cold, but both of us were tired enough not to care too much. Sleep came quickly.

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AN- Well, this is my first switch to a different POV, I wanted to give everyone a little bit of background on the character and give some insight into why the two prisoners will be acting the way the do in the following chapters. I'm going to keep writing some more today, but I wouldn't expect another chapter out for at least a couple of days. But then again who knows, I am terrible at predicting how long I will continue to be inspired. Also, feel free to leave a review, I am done with the setup for the story, all of the key characters in this first arc besides the love interest have been introduced, or at least mentioned. Let me know what you think. Thanks. [th_113_.gif]