The tingling of flames was mirrored in Kandor's eyes, as he stared into the fire. The dancing flames bored him, bored him to death. He hated having to hold nightwatch. It was dark, lonely, nothing ever happened, and he really wanted to sleep. Needed to sleep. He was a wreck the next day every time he was on night watch. His sector of the camp was especially quiet, and no one had stuck around to give him company for at least a few hours. He usually didn't bother to do so either, so he couldn't really complain. He pulled his gaze from the fire, and towards the pile of firewood that the previous nightwatch had dropped near the pit in an uninspiring manner. Kandor considered stacking the firewood, just so he had something to do, but it seemed rather pointless. Neither did he have any interest in risking to wake up some of the easily angered mercenaries, as many tended to take the obstruction of their sleep as a personal offense, and Kandor had no business making his own comrades his enemies. If there was one thing almost every soldier of the Cormorants was keen on, it was to pay back their comrades for all the wrong they had done to themselves. Though that behaviour was likely not unique to the Band of the Cormorants, but just another petty part of the mercenary life. The voice of the girl, the mayor's daughter returned to him at the thought. Why did he decide to pursue this life again?
His thought was interrupted as he heard a flock of birds rise from one of the nearby trees and disappear into the night sky. Kandor watched the silhouettes fly up, before they became one with the darkness. Then he noticed another shadow that stood up against the dark blue background of the late dusk. A human, hunched, sneaking along the outside of the camp. On a hill. What?
As confused as he was, Kandor was also alert, though it did not seem to be worth waking anyone up for. Likely just a poor thief. Who apparently had no idea how to stealth. Kandor sighed, and picked up the blade.
The foot of the hill was a good three-hundred meters away from his campfire, maybe even slightly more. Kandor decided there was no harm in letting the fire continue while he was gone, as it was well contained, and he really did not want to bother igniting it later again. Then again, how long would it even take for him to be back, he just had to deal with a little thief after all. He had previously encountered thieves during his night watch, though he had never been left to deal with them alone. For a moment he hesitated, looking towards another crackling lightsource, no five hundred meters from his. He heard drunken laughter from the direction, and immediately dispersed the thought of calling them over to help. He was a first officer after all, there was no way he couldn't deal with a little thief himself.
He turned back and began walking towards the hillside, his vision of the little blackened figure constantly being disrupted by the tall tents he was passing. His two-handed sword already tightly grasped and leaning on his unarmed shoulder, he moved quickly and quietly through the camp. His footsteps softly thudded on the dry grass as he accelerated. He had lost view of the thief. Shit, he thought, if the bastard was already creeping around the tents it would become much harder to find him without making a larger commotion. Kandor was certainly not interested in that. He would much rather catch him quickly, knock him out to avoid his struggles, tie him up and hand him over to the fourth man first thing in the morning.
The fourth man was the captain of the auxiliary troop, and since his responsibilities were overall fairly slim, he had also been assigned as camp officer, in charge of most logistical questions of their easily village-sized camp. Kandor had very little to do with the fourth man, but had been present during many of Samson's conversations with him. He seemed to do his job well, and there was nothing negative Kandor had to say about him, besides maybe his tragically disfigured face. Samson had told Kandor that Lanks, the fourth man, had taken an arrow to his right cheek. It must have been a weakly shot stray arrow, as it did not pierce far into his face, leaving all vital parts well intact. The issue was that whoever had been in charge of sewing his wound had terrible messed up, causing an infection to quickly spread through much of the right side of his facial tissue all the way to his ears. They had to cut off most of the flesh, and Lanks could be considered lucky to have even survived the infection and the resulting blood loss at all. There was mostly only skin left on that part of his face, making it almost impossible for him to smile, and one could often see the movements of his teeth against his facial skin when he spoke. Kandor was earnestly terrified the first time he had met Lanks. Thankfully, the auxiliary captain's injury and horrifying ugliness was a rarity within the mercenary band, only truly contested by Rendol, the second man of the Cormorants.
Kandor slowed down as he got closer to where he had last seen the thief, realizing that the hill he had seen from afar was actually much steeper and higher than he had imagined. Given the previous location of the thief, it would be fairly hard to smoothly descend into the mercenary camp at this position without making much noise or risking to fall, so he had probably gone further along the hill to enter the camp from a safer position, Kandor deduced. Still he walked all the way to the beginning of the slope, and the end of the tents, before turning left, north-wards, where he expected the thief to have snuck away.
It was no fifteen seconds and thirty meters later that he heard the distinct sound of shoes sliding across loose soil, quickly followed by a light shrieking noise and a series of thuds. To his surprise the sound came from behind him, and not from the direction he had anticipated. Kandor quickly turned around just to see a small hooded figure tumble into the plane of a nearby tent at a rapid pace. He hurried over, within seconds reaching the thief's position, who seemed to struggle to free himself from the entanglement. Scratching his head slowly, Kandor looked down at the odd character in front of him. The thief didn't strike him to be anything like the thieves he had previously encountered. The thick, long, hooded coat seemed somewhat heavy and rather uncharacteristic for someone who wanted to be agile and precise in their movements, and while the figure moved somewhat nimbly and quietly, they didn't even manage to find their footing after such a soft fall.
For a second Kandor just stood there, his blade still raised and pointing at the thief, before the figure finally noticed him and suddenly stopped struggling. Then a grunt could be heard from inside the tent
"What the fuck?", the low voice slowly began, obviously displeased by the sudden commotion next to his tent.
"Who the fuck is there?", another voice emerged. It was obviously a shared tent, so it must be some of the lower ranked mercenaries.
"It's nothing", Kandor replied calmly, "just caught a thief, don't worry about it."
Then he realized who he was looking at. Silver strands of hair fell through the hood as she turned her head towards Kandor, who immediately recognized the pretty face of the mayor's daughter. His facial expression froze, and he even forgot to lower his sword which was positioned dangerously close to her soft skin.
"Give the bastard a good beating for me", the voice of the first grumpy mercenary said loudly, before a sudden force struck the girl that was still sitting on the tent's outer plane. It almost lifted her off the ground, as she was brutally shoved away from the tent.
"S-ure", Kandor was still about to reply, when the mercenary had already given the intruder a rough kick from inside the tent. Somehow, Lia managed to suppress a pained scream, as she landed in the rough grass, her body sliding across the ground through the momentum.
Completely caught off-guard by the events that took place in the last few seconds, from revealing the thief's identity to the mayor's daughter being violently kicked into the dirt, Kandor still didn't move. What the fuck is going on, he thought.
The beautiful girl laid on the ground, facing him. It was dark, but the moonshine illuminated her now unhooded head, the long silver hair almost sparkling like the stars even in the unorganized state they were currently in, and teardrops rolling down her face like little glass marbles. Kandor took a deep breath, his mind still unable to determine the best path of action to take, but at least it seemed functional enough now to tell him to put his weapon away. The two-hander slid back into its lock on his back, as he stepped closer to her, his hands trembling.
"You got it?", the second voice from inside the tent pulled him out of his nervous state.
"Y-yeah, you can go back to sleep", Kandor quickly responded, before crouching next to her.
"Thank god", the mercenary said, as he quite noticeably seemed to return to a sleeping position.
What to do, what to do. Kandor's mind spun. He couldn't possibly talk to her here. What the fuck was she doing here anyway? Should he bring her somewhere safe? Where was safe? There was no way he could climb that hill while carrying her. His tent would be safe for a little while, but it was a good three hundred meters away. But to safely bring her out of the camp without anyone noticing it would be at least five to six hundred meters along the hillside. Fuck, why do I need to hide her anyway? What the fuck is she doing here?
As his mind continued to rampage through those thoughts, Lia slowly supported herself on one of her arms, her eyes still full of tears, and a faint whimper in the air around her. Fuck, she can't stay here like that, Kandor thought, a sudden wave of decisiveness rushing through his body. He offered her his hand to help her up, and she looked at him with a pained smile as moonlit glass marbles continued to roll down her cheeks. She held onto his arm as he gently pulled her up to her feet, though she seemed weakened and struggling to maintain posture, as her hands were pressed onto her left waist, which must have taken the brute impact from the kick.
Kandor's expression was stern but worried, as he lead her a couple steps. He decided it would be best to directly get her out of the camp at first to find out why she was even here. Suddenly, he noticed more voices and movements in some of the tents nearby. Maybe the events of the last minute weren't so subtle as he hoped for them to be, but the fur and leather tents were not all that soundproof after all.
"Fucking eh, I will teach whoever is making such a ruckus in the middle of the night a good lesson", Kandor heard a figure grumble in a nearby tent, while a shadow of a person slowly standing up emerged on its outer plane. Rendol. Fuck.
Kandor looked at the mayor's daughter in shock. The last person he would want to have to explain this situation to was definitely Rendol. That was not even considering that he had no good explanation for whatever was going on right now. His head swung back to Rendol's tent, where he saw the shadow seemingly pull up a pair of pants. An apologetic expression lay on Kandor's face as he turned back to Lia, who seemed just as shocked at the turn of events. Kandor picked her up, grabbing her upper body with one arm and her legs with the other, before starting to run along the hillside towards the north.