I exhaled heavily, dropping to sit down on the ground. Ahead of me a strange beast squirmed, its head was feline, but covered in scales, with bear like paws and a stout body. It had been following us for almost a week, then proceeded to hunt us slowly, making it ironically the same to us as we were to the gnolls. We’d finally cornered it, I stared at its now mostly limp body, a pair of gnoll swords I’d appropriated crushed beneath it.

Frejr walked up to it, plunging the blade into the creature’s skull, and stilled it. I rested just a bit more, before standing to retrieve the swords. I shoved the creature, roughly shoulder height, causing it to roll over, my feet almost covered in its blood. I reached down and drew out the swords from its chest with a wet squelch, one after the other. My shield bumped against the creature’s chest, and I kept it away.

A cursory examination revealed the blades to be lost causes, its length was bent and pitted, this wasn’t something I could fix up with normal maintenance. It also wouldn’t be worth a trip to the blacksmith. I threw the blade away, moving to grab another pair from the others I’d collected from the gnolls. I only drew one as I fought, the shoddy workmanship meant that it could fail at the most inopportune times, which meant backups.

We moved swiftly on, pushing ahead out of the deep forest. The army had wizened to the fact that we were only four, sending in hordes of soldiers to comb the areas, killing all of them wasn’t an option. While we did inflict casualties, we were forced to retreat deeper in, where creatures like these lived, so deep that old, large trees blocked out the sun, and turned to groves rather than dense forests.

We sat in a circle, Numen patrolling due to his experience in these matters. I would swap with him later, being more suited for stealth than Frejr due to my armour, and my experience. We pulled rations from packs that we’d also retrieved from the gnolls, during one of our ever more insignificant raids. We’d run out of food early on, continuing by raiding their supplies, and destroying whatever else we found, either by flame, or letting the earth swallow it. We kept an eye on him for both, knowing the risks he took every time he did so.

So far though, he’d mostly done minor things due to the compulsions, like for instance giggling as he tripped me in the forest, barking at us with all the presence of a drillmaster, and so forth. It was rather disorienting if I were to be honest. But what was really taxing him was the lack of sleep, several times I’d caught him muttering to himself, his head falling suddenly as he entered microsleep.

He finally snapped at us later in the night. “I can’t keep going like this.” Qent said, leaning forward with exhaustion screaming out from every fibre of his being. “We haven’t had a single uninterrupted night of sleep since the week we started, we were hunted by bloodsoaked, thrice-cursed chimaera along with the local deadly fauna, and the last fight we had killed around five people at the most. I’m not… I can’t.” He rocked himself, struggling as he almost collapsed.

“It’s the magic.” Frejr explained. “It’s taxing him too far.” She nodded to him. “I did tell you to rest more and do less. Go sleep, we’re not going anywhere for a while, it’s safe tonight.” He nodded blearily, collapsing onto the blanket he had laid onto the ground.

“It’s obvious we’re not going to be able to continue this way.” Frejr noted. “We’ve at best, reduced their fighting force by half, Qent is close to breaking down and Numen and I can’t take much more. I don’t understand how you can still function, but it’s an undeniable advantage. I’d suggest we give up for now, their security is too tight now, and we too weak.”

“We can move to Kikre, scope out the changes, most likely the bulk of the army has moved on, leaving a token force as they move to assault Torven.” Frejr remarked.

“So if we go now, we might be able to catch them off guard and recuperate there while the gnolls take the next few days to catch up?” Numen interjected. Frejr nodded.

It wasn’t a bad idea, though I felt it was something of a gamble. With Numen and Frejr both agreed on it though, my half-baked protest would only be an annoyance. I slept soon, the three of us taking over watch duties in Qent’s stead.

I dug several pits into the ground, two days distance from where the gnolls were. They didn’t tend to send scouts, and had I a larger group of people to work with, I’d take advantage of that. As it was, I and Numen peppered the ground with a variety of lethal traps and a few designed to cause a lot of harm. They had healing potions, but whittling down their supplies was a definite benefit.

Qent was decidedly cheerier now with a full night’s sleep behind him. He aided us directly for a moment, until Frejr berated him and told him to rest, his strength and stamina not quite up to the task. Frejr pitched in herself, though with the way her armour was it was far more awkward for her to perform. We finished up fairly quickly, Numen teaching me interesting methods to hide them from sight. That done, we proceeded towards Kikre, staying within the forest to travel.

From afar, there was no movement in Kikre, no smoke, nothing that would indicate that anyone lived there. As we drew closer I realized Kikre truly was deserted, there were no signs of life, tables were knocked over and some houses had damaged walls. I looked around, the gnolls weren’t here. Numen brought my attention to footprints, leading out from the village. Many left from the village itself, but of the returning footprints…

I followed them out, my footsteps picking up as I followed, they headed out, towards the farms. The others followed, as my imagination ran away from me. I stopped when I saw it, a dire wolf pack had come out of the forest, to rest where a mound of earth had been shifted. One of them dug at the earth, dragging out a corpse from the ground itself.

I stared at them for a moment, and they took notice, turning to me and growling. I snarled at them, and would have thrown myself into the group if Numen hadn’t restrained me. His arms crossed in front of me, and he dragged me backwards. I exhaled, extricating myself from his grip.

The dire wolves seemed to grow a bit wary of me, slowly backing away. Perhaps they’d had their fill, the other corpses they’d already pulled out certainly suggested it. It surprised me how quickly my thoughts ran towards this kind of analysis, but perhaps it was weirder that I had these outbursts. I didn’t remember having this back when I was home, I was more… apathetic.

A sudden growling from behind took me by surprise, and I turned, Frejr had already moved into place, placing herself between me and the scarred dire wolf that seemed to have come from the opposite way. I looked at her uncomprehending. “Lapi?”

I stepped forward, easing my hand to push Frejr’s blade away, and stepped towards Lapi. It bowled me over, laying me onto the ground and leaning its head beside my ear to growl softly, before moving off me. I groaned as I got up, the others staring in mixtures of bemusement and uncomprehending shock.

Lapi’s matted fur was quite a sight, how long had she been chasing after me? I brushed my hand through the fur on her head, and she wagged her tail once, stilling it thereafter. I snorted, her head followed my hand ever so slightly as I moved, so at least I knew then that she still enjoyed it.

“This is Lapi?” Numen asked me. Walking over to pet her as well, Lapi sniffed, curling herself up around my legs. Are you really a wolf or a cat? I thought to myself.

Qent and Frejr looked at Lapi, perhaps recognizing her from the fight in Haen. Qent looked shocked, though Frejr was as usual generally unreadable. “He followed you all this way?” Qent asked. Lapi’s ears pricked up, and she went to gently nip him on the leg.

“He’s a she.” I replied to his hurt expression. “She can also understand you. I don’t know why she followed though. Were you worried or something?” I rubbed her head again, while she kept her head turned from me.

I shrugged, turning towards the mass grave, I made my way forward. The stench was unbearable, already palpable from where I first stood. Lapi followed, sniffing occasionally but mostly not seeming to enjoy the situation. Spoiled. Completely spoiled.

I looked at the corpse the dire wolf had dragged out. It was a woman, her body had begun to rot, but it was clear she had died from a strike to the back of the head. This wasn’t a combat wound, her skull had been cracked almost open. I looked to the other corpses that had been revealed, to find the same for all the corpses at the top. I pushed them aside, moving further down, until I found one with a slash to the body, a combatant. They’d been buried here, and then the rest had been killed.

I crawled out wordlessly. They’d killed children. Even the civilian corpses buried under the other corpses had dirt stuck fast to their knees, their elbows and their hands. They’d dug the graves, put their defenders inside, and then they were executed. I turned to the road where the gnolls would be arriving from the south, and set my mouth grimly.

Remodelling the armour to use as a scoop, I returned their corpses to the earth. Then I went off to the river, while the others prepared the traps to set and the plan for the ambush. I needed to wash it off, until nothing was left. Lapi followed me, ostensibly for her own bathing purposes.

I washed myself first, soaking myself in the armour and scrubbing away all the gunk that had attached itself to the outside of the armour. In the past few weeks we’d occasionally bathed. We all went off on our own to do so, though I never actually removed my armour, have I mentioned that I can change its properties to make it permeable to water? It’s useful that way.

I then proceeded to scrub down Lapi, who made it a point to make me scrub through all the fur on her back and free up whatever dirt had lodged in there. The farm actually took turns with Lapi’s bath, it was one of the few times she would let people touch her, so it was pretty popular with the children and the other canine lovers.

I smiled at that, remembering the arguments over the order that they would be able to wash Lapi. She looked up and leaned against me to rest herself. I patted her for a bit, then left the water. I needed to prepare for the reception. I clenched my teeth, even knowing they were a separate group didn’t really ease on the anger I felt.

I crushed it down again, there was nothing to gain from recklessness, even less to gain from death. Lapi shook herself off, mostly drying her heavy fur. She followed me to where the others were waiting. Qent looked determined now, his face no longer pale and green. Frejr and Numen looked up from their discussion, and upon seeing me, nodded and gestured me over. We had four days left.