I let go and after a second, the very air blowing at my torn hand greatly increased the stinging pain. I tried balling up my hand into a fist, but I stopped halfway as the pain of building pressure also started to become overwhelming. I howled out in intense pain and confusion. This was probably the most pain I had ever experienced in my whole life and no matter what I did, the pain would just oscillate between extreme and almost unbearable. I saw Truth shuffle around a bit, and a portion of my pain transformed into anger.

  Really?! You’re still not finished? I picked up the blood-soaked rapier with my right hand and made my way over to him, gritting my teeth in a weak attempt to stifle my screams. He turned his body around to face forward and he started to push himself back up off the ground with his one arm. His eyes still had a red glint to them and through the blood around his mouth, I thought I saw a smirk. No, he must have been laughing. Laughing at me as I cry out from what happened to my left hand. He was probably thinking about how maybe I understood his pain a little bit better now. Son of a bitch. I got closer to him and he was just about to get onto his feet when the red glint from his eyes vanished. He immediately fell back down to the ground with a thud and I saw him cough out a lot of blood. Oh? Run out of time? I stood over him and looked at his completely drained expression as he continued coughing up blood, wheezing hard in between the coughs.

  “Checkmate!” I said, much louder than I planned to. He coughed one more time before laying silent on his back. His right hand and the front of his vest was covered with the coughed-up blood. He tried to raise his head up off the ground, but it was futile. The red sparks were gone, but there was still some fire in his eyes, which only served to make me even more angry and annoyed.

  “Indeed. I…am greatly disappointed with myself. I could not afford to lose…no matter what.” I had the feeling he was about to say some deep and meaningful last words. I didn’t want to hear them. I kicked him hard in the side. I kicked him as hard as I could in my agonizing, weakened, and exhausted state. It was enough to roll him over.

  “Save your high and mighty words!” I was screaming because it was impossible to speak in a normal voice. I stuck his rapier straight into his back. There was no way I was going to let the defeated suffer less pain than I was experiencing. “This was a fight to the death and you lost!” I grabbed him from behind his collar and started dragging him over to the edge of the roof. It was a struggle, but Truth had no strength left to resist. I dropped him just short of the very edge of the roof, close enough so that he could easily look out across the horizon without having to lift his head. However, I wasn’t hearing any screams of pain or bloody coughs. I pulled the rapier back out of his back and he grunted. Good, still not dead.

  “Am I to take this…as the last sight before…my execution?” Truth managed to wheeze out. Oh, we’ll get to that. I took his right arm and splayed it out on the ground. Then, I slashed at his wrist with the rapier. However, my aim was off and the tip of the blade clattered against the stone roof, part of the blade slicing through only a bit of flesh. Still it did make Truth let out a scream. Sort of, it was still very soft. I wiped some tears out of my eyes with the back of my hand and slashed again, more accurately this time. It cut deeper, but still did not sever. The scream was definitely louder this time, but still nowhere near what my earlier volume was at. I stomped one foot onto his back, and crouched over him.

  “You’re the one to say it,” I finally managed to calm down my voice somewhat, speaking in between pained gasps. “There should be no mercy between enemies. After everything you’ve done, all the death you’ve caused… don’t think I will give you an easy death. This is the least you deserve.” I put the rapier down and grabbed his head, turning it so I could get a good look at his face. His pain was evident, but he was devoid of any fear.

  “As it should be…” I slammed his face into the ground, but not hard enough to knock him unconscious. I looked back over to my left hand, completely drenched in my own blood, still bleeding, and still hurting like hell. I heard Truth let out a short groan. I looked out across the horizon at the now-setting sun. Perhaps I could have taken in this sight as something beautiful if it weren’t for everything else that was going on.

  “Enjoying it, Truth?” I asked, with a sadistic lilt to my voice.

  “If you mean the view…sorry to say, but I’ve seen it…a thousand times. A lot…blurrier than usual though…” I grabbed his head again and saw that his forehead was bleeding, and although he still didn’t look scared, his eyes were a bit disoriented. The lack of their usual flare did make me feel a bit better.

  “Well, this is as good as it’s gonna get.” I picked his rapier back up and started to stand up again. “Anyways, that right hand of yours…well, maybe it matches more with your left now.”

  “I guess…it looks better through my spyglass.” I would blink in confusion if it weren’t for the pain making my blood too hot for such actions. “Should be around here…somewhere…” Hmph, all the blood loss and damage must have finally piled up enough to mess with his senses. He’s probably not even listening anymore. I looked out across the roof and spotted the metallic object again. I guess that’s the spyglass. Alright, I know it won’t actually help, but I’ll bring it over to this bastard before I continue. I’m not completely merciless. I walked over towards the spyglass, and when I got close enough, I saw that it was lying on top of some kind of paper. When I got close enough to pick it up, I noticed that it was a map. I didn’t really care about the map, and I assumed it was just for this area, but after taking the spyglass, I noticed something about the map. It wasn’t a map of this area. It looked to be a map of…the area around Holtzan. Over there…in the forest part…some writing that didn’t match the rest of the map…

  I grabbed both of them, without even realizing I had grabbed the map with my bloody left hand, and stormed back over to Truth. It sounded like he was still rambling about something so I smacked him over the head with the spyglass. He stopped muttering, and I put the spyglass down so that I could grab his head with one hand while holding the map with the other, momentarily able to ignore the pain.

  “Where did you get this map?!” Truth just looked back, dazed and tired. I squeezed his head. “I asked you, where did you get this map?!” I said it louder this time. His eyes seemed to perk up. It was what I wanted, but I also hated it at the same time, because his eyes suddenly livened up close to their usual flare.

  “Why? Are you lost?” I smacked his head into the ground.

  “Don’t play with me?! Answer me! Where did you get this map?!” My agitation caused the pain in my hand to increase again. However, I managed to keep the screaming internalized out of sheer willpower and the need to hear him clearly. He let out a dry laugh.

  “Just kill me already.”

  “Oh, I’ll do a hell of a lot worse than just kill you if you don’t hurry up and answer me!”

  “Wasn’t that the plan?” My muscles seized up as my rage continued to grow, which, of course, just made my pain worse again. After recovering slightly, I was about to smack his head into the ground again when I suddenly heard Tasha’s voice.

  “Dad! W- what’s going on?!” I let go of Truth’s head and turned around. Tasha was standing by the edge of the hole in the roof and I thought I could make out Flora’s arms, struggling to get her up onto the roof. Tasha turned back to assist her as I tried to think up a good answer. Well, turns out my mouth didn’t feel like giving me enough time to come up with one.

  “This bastard has one of Dennis’ maps!” I grabbed Truth’s head again. “Where did you get it?! Wait! Were you the ones who killed him?!” Tasha ran over to me and grabbed my right arm.

  “Dad, stop!” I tried to shrug her off, but I didn’t have the strength anymore.

  “W- what’s going on?” Flora asked as she came running over as well.

  “This! This map! It belonged to Dennis! It’s one of the ones he wrote on back when we were at the forest village!” Tasha, still intent on wrestling me away from Truth, did seem to understand what I was saying. Flora had no clue at all, but her eyes widened with horror.

  “B- Mr. Braith! Your hand! Oh my gosh, what happened to it?!” I took a closer look at my hand and saw a fair amount of my blood smeared onto the map as well, which was far more important at the moment. I let go of the map and picked it up with my other hand, shaking it a bit to try and get some of the blood off of it, some drops falling onto Truth.

  “D- Damn!” I shouted out, for fear of having ruined it.

  “Mr. Braith, doesn’t your hand hurt! It looks horrible!” Well, yes, it hurts a shit ton, but- my train of thought was cut off as she took my hand into both of hers. The pressure did hurt, but I was marginally more concerned with how quickly my blood ended up staining both of her hands. She did her chant and the pain was instantly halved. That was still actually a lot of pain, but then the wounds started closing up and the pain receded more alongside the regeneration. After about fifteen seconds, I felt that the hole in my hand had finally fully closed. The rapidly diminishing pain helped to alleviate my rage a bit. “Better now?” she asked, still wearing a very heavy expression of concern.

  “Yeah.” I suddenly felt myself being brought to my feet and pulled away by Tasha.

  “Dad, what was that about killing?! The stuff you were screaming about?” Even if I may have been riled up due to my injury, I was going to stick with my decision. I tried to pull free from her grasp again, but I was just too drained, both mentally and physically.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “We need to kill him. Otherwise, all our efforts would have been for nothing. There would be no justice for all that he’s killed.”

  “We can’t kill him. We just can’t.” I was not in a well-enough state to force things my way. But, after thinking on it a bit, I realized that Truth’s injuries were too severe anyways.

  “Alright, fine. We’re done here,” I said with a bit of irritation as I still wanted to deal a finishing blow. “Let’s get out of here.” Tasha was taken aback by my sudden compliance, but I hoped that she’d just let it go anyways. Flora let go of my hand and went over to Truth. “Come on, you too, Flora. We should get out of here now.”

  “He’s in terrible shape,” Flora commented. She turned her head back around to face us. “He’ll die if he doesn’t receive treatment.” I think I preferred just having her cowering behind us. Her occasional assertiveness was often annoying. Tasha moved around so that we were looking directly at each other.

  “Hey, what?! I fought with my life on the line up here! If I didn’t fight hard enough, I’d be the one lying on the ground!” I spoke with genuine emotion, but my words were partly covering up the truth. Tasha’s upset expression softened greatly, proving the effectiveness of my statement. Her grip slackened too, and I finally pulled away from her. I walked over to Flora in order to get her away from Truth. It seemed that Tasha and Flora weren’t aware of the details, and it wasn’t something I planned to get into. “Come on, Flora.” She didn’t budge.

  “If I heal him-” I instantly grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away. I was still weakened, but I regained enough vigour to at least overpower Flora.

  “Don’t you dare finish that sentence! We are not going to save the lives of our enemies!”

  “But-”

  “But nothing!” I stared hard into Flora’s eyes, or at least tried to. She shied away quickly. “I know that you and I may have differing ideas of right and wrong, but this is unacceptable! We came here to give these bastards some hell for what they’ve been doing!” I grinded my teeth. “If I had things my way, I’d execute every last one of them in this fort. You can say that’s going too far, but if you then try and tell me that you will waste your energy to help these people, then that’s just plain idiocy! They will not thank you, they will not redeem themselves! If anything, you will only embolden them when they launch future attacks. Being a good person is the worst thing you can be right now!” She still did not turn back around to face me after I ended my rant. “Look at me, Flora,” I commanded.

  “Is…Is that…?” Flora, still facing away from me, leaned further to the side and gazed out over the roof.

  “What? What are you looking at?” I tried peering as well, but saw nothing. Then, I realized I still had the spyglass in my right hand, along with the map. I brought it to one eye and looked again. In the distance, I thought I could make something out just barely. It looked like clouds of dust being kicked up, but I couldn’t make out what was causing it. I tapped Flora on her shoulder and handed her the spyglass. “Use this and tell me what you are looking at.” She complied.

  “It…looks like cavalry…a lot of them.”

  “How many is a lot?”

  “Um, a hundred? No, more than that. Definitely more than a hundred.” I was on high alert once more.

  “What?! Describe them! What do they look like? Are they more True-Bloods?!”

  “Um, they…I think they are wearing fur as well…I guess they might be.” Oh, great. Hundreds of reinforcements. Wait, maybe this will convince them to hurry up at least? I turned around to walk past Tasha and then over to where my sword was.

  “Enemy reinforcements are coming. I’m sure we can at least agree that we are not in a position to continue this fight anymore today.” I didn’t hear audible agreement, but even Tasha wouldn’t be stubborn enough to stick around for this. I retrieved my sword, sheathed it, and then jumped down the hole. The floor I landed on was draped in wet and burnt fur coats. Most of the crates and barrels burned up, leaving behind just charred pieces of wood. Upon one last glance, it looked like some of the liquid on the floor was actually water and not just oil. Well, I won’t blame them for making such a mistake. Well, thinking more about it, I guess this means at least one of the floors did have barrels of water and other gear and supplies. Enough time was already wasted on idle thoughts, though. As quickly as I could, which really wasn’t too fast, I made my way back to the bottom floor.

  I was nearly breathless when I finally made it back down to the bottom floor. I took a couple moments to catch my breath and to try and think clearly. It was a struggle to just make it back down here, so running away on foot wasn’t feasible. Fortunately, one of the first things I saw down here was there were still a few horses. Alright, steal some horses. Now, where to run? I slowly walked over to the horses and noticed the many crates and barrels lined against the wall. Well, they don’t really catch your eye when you’re fighting about sixty troops at once. I stumbled before reaching the horses and fell on top of a crate, the map clutched in my hand also falling to the floor. This feeling of weakness was almost infuriating. As I picked myself back up, I noticed two things. One, the crate actually contained rations. Two, Flora and Tasha weren’t here. Oh, you’ve got be kidding me! I began thinking about how I had to run back up to get them when they suddenly came down the stairs.

  “You two! Why are you only just now getting here?!”

  “Oh…um, I had a lot of trouble getting back down,” Flora answered.

  “Y- yeah, and I had to help her!” I found Tasha’s statement oddly energetic. Although, she is almost always energetic.

  “Alright, fine. We can take these horses and make our escape. Heading back to that oasis for now might be good.” I picked the map back up again and went to get over to the horses but stumbled again, my feet feeling like blocks of lead. This time, I had great difficulty trying to pick myself back up again, the world around me also startting to spin.

  “Mr. Braith!” Flora came over to help me back up. It was somewhat embarrassing but I didn’t bother to argue. “You’re in no shape to ride a horse.”

  “It’s fine…I just…need to sit on it…” I said in between breaths. Flora reached into her satchel and took out a potion apple. I hated having to use up any more of them, but it looked like I didn’t have much choice. I took it from her and took a bite of it. I chewed very little in order to get it down as quickly as possible. Almost immediately, I felt my fatigue begin to fade away and my vision steadied. Flora had explained to me already that potion apples quickly lose their magical effects after the first bite so there was no point in asking her to store away the rest. I did ask her to put the map away though.

  We then went to pick out some horses. Initially I was unsure of how many horses we needed to take. I have been on one of them before, but those were quite extraordinary circumstances. I know Tasha definitely hasn’t been on one before, but Flora I wasn’t sure about. When I got close to them, they put up an intimidating front, but that was quickly dispelled when Flora tried calling out to them. Well, only for her. She easily took one of the horses out from the makeshift stable, but when I tried getting a different horse, they put on that menacing front again.

  “Tasha, get on Flora’s horse and wait outside for me.”

  “What do you mean?” Tasha asked.

  “Just move on ahead. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to bring over one of these horses.”

  “Okay?” The two of them went outside and I waited for them to get a bit further away from the base. Then, instead of trying to get closer to one of the horses again, I went back to the crates and barrels. Alongside them were a pair of lit lanterns. I took one of the lanterns and started looking through the barrels until I found one with oil. I knocked that barrel over and oil quickly poured out across the floor and splashed up against many of the other barrels and crates. I took a few steps away from the pooling oil and threw down the lantern. The oil instantly caught fire and the floor lit up. The horses began panicking, but their reins were still tied to posts. “Alright, which one of you would like to get out of here?”

  ***********************************************************************************************************************************************

  Atop the stone structure, Colonel Truth lay by the edge of the roof as his not-so-welcome visitors continued to argue. He stared out with clouded vision as his body ached with pain, and at the same time, began to chill as the blood loss grew worse. His men were defeated and his enemies were just debating amongst themselves about who knows what. These moments before inevitable death were far from ideal. He accepted power and advice from a stranger years ago and had long renounced some of the morals and principles he once held. If he could, he would cry in misery. Was it pride or something else that prevented that, though?

  Truth did not have enough left in him to even ponder it deeply. Regardless, he wanted them to kill him before he succumbed to his injuries, in order to preserve what little honour there may have been in his final duel. Despite his opponent’s after-battle actions, it really was quite the exhilarating battle. It had been so long since he had last taken part in one, now that he thought about it. Truly, though, it was a shame and he was filled with many regrets, but when he embarked upon this path, he knew such an outcome was more than likely. If not this rogue group of adventurers, the Cruxean army itself probably would have come to crush them. Well, they would try to. At the very least, Truth could rely on the many other True-Bloods spread across Midgard. His death would change nothing. Most of his officers were even more resentful of the Battle-Hardened and Farseers than he. He finally closed his eyes.

  The volume of the argument suddenly spiked, although he could not make out why. Well, given that he wasn’t dead yet, were they actually debating on how he was to be dealt with? The last thing he actually wanted was mercy. Not because he wanted to die, but because of how disrespectful it would be to his subordinates. It may even be more disrespectful to all that the True-Bloods had killed thus far. The group had only begun actively hunting down people recently, but they thoroughly eliminated all non-human groups and settlements they encountered throughout these wastelands and the plains to the east of the Nature Clan’s forests. There were far fewer encounters than they had expected, though. Truth’s attempts to continue recalling this was hindered by the onset of overbearing numbness. No point in thinking about this anymore, he won’t be around to lead anyone soon enough.

  There was now a persistent silence. Were they finished arguing? He heard and felt someone coming closer to contact him. Then, there was a soft whisper. Well, his hearing was probably impaired so whether or not it was a whisper he did not know. What he could tell, though, is that it was definitely not Braith’s voice. Ah, so it’s one of those girls, then. The clever non-humans that found a way to manipulate such a strong fighter. Although, given their last exchange, Truth found Braith’s character to be something that probably could be easily influenced with the right provocations. As he continued to think about Braith, he remembered the last thing he heard him say. It was a question about the map. He only had it up here to plan future movements of his army. As for how he got it? Well, it was just from some merchants headed to Brennan. He did not meet them personally and the troops that encountered them did not mention anything special about them.

  The pain began to dull as the numbness overrode it. Well, it looks like death from blood loss was going to be how he went out. He then realized that he had actually been muttering for a little while now. There was a bit more energy left in him than he expected. Not that it mattered, though. Soon enough, his mind began to empty out all of these useless thoughts as he prepared to embrace permanent sleep. Just as his consciousness was ready to fade away, one last memory remained. Surprising to him, though, it was neither the memory of his torture nor the massacre of his town.

  It was of the time he visited one of Cruxe’s villages at the foothills of the mountains. It was the last one standing among all the fringe villages when he visited. His battalion had just finished making a sweep across the northern Dridam Plains. Most of his men did not bother meeting with the people there, and were far more concerned with honing themselves to kill more enemies. It was just him and his former second-in-command. They went to an orphanage that housed the surviving children from the other fringe villagers that had been raided. Why was this his last memory? Truth tried to stave off the end long enough to figure this out. No realization would matter in death, but his curiosity was fighting strong.

  The orphanage was also a church. He remembered that his second-in-command spoke highly of them and spoke at length with the priest. But, what did Truth do? He spoke with someone there as well. What did they talk about? The war, it had to be about the war. The war had been going for six years and Truth had been in dozens of battles thus far. The number of outlander tribes numbered in the hundreds. But what about that? Why are those numbers…important? Truth continued to struggle to recall in his final moments. He needed to know.

  Then, it came to him in a soft voice like the one he heard earlier. It was an emotional voice that conveyed both hope and despair. It was a voice that sought reassurance but expected rejection. It was a voice that planted something inside of him that would bloom towards the end of that long and bloody war. Truth could hardly believe that he had even forgotten it. He let out a sigh of relief, or at least felt like he did. He felt truly at peace now as his body no longer resisted the grip of sleep. He remembered the reason why he started this crusade.

  “When will the war end? Will we finally be safe when it does?” the child asked. Truth tried his best to put on his most comforting smile.

  “The war will end when there’s nobody left to hurt innocent people like you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, I promise.”

  If you are someone reading this because you are actually following it when the earlier chapters were first uploaded, then wow. I'm not surprised that there are random followers leftover, but I am surprised you would still decide to come back and read this.