'What is...this?'
It was true that a forest surrounded the mountain they climbed, but standing this high he should be able to see the highway leading up to the mountain, the checkpoint at the foot or at least some kind of human activity, but nothing was to be seen. As if this was an ancient forest, never touched by men before. A light mist donned the top of the trees, adding a mysterious layer over the whole scene, and all kinds of sounds could be heard, from familiar animals like birds and bears to unknown low roars and high pitched cries.
"Isn't it beautiful?" Lisa suddenly whispered.
Remembering her presence, Ray turned to look at her. She was still gazing into empty space, a small smirk on her face, but now he didn't think it was strange anymore. Confronted with such a foreign, yet mesmerizing view, even he was stunned for a while.
"It is, but....where are we?"
Ray knew they weren't on the mountain, they started out from, anymore.
No matter how much he wanted to deny it and no matter how ridiculous it sounded, going by the events up until now and the sight before him, it was impossible to refute.
Shrugging her shoulders and pointing to his left, she replied, "I don't know, but this place is quite odd. In front and to the right are only trees, but to the left, all of a sudden, are mountains, with not a blade of grass on them."
Following her finger, Ray was, once again, shocked. These majestic and expansive woods, as if cut off by the Gods, had an extremely evident boundary and nothing grew over it. The mountains were the same. Not a fragment of the brownish yellow soil fell over into the forest.
The two seemed to reject each other fundamentally.
'This can't be real! How is that even possible?!' Despite not being a geography or physics major, he knew that without outside intervention something like that wasn't possible. No, even then it didn't seem plausible.
Like for many things that day, Ray couldn't come up with a satisfactory answer. He decided to abandon thinking about it for the moment, as they still had the problem of not knowing where they were or how they could get home.
Just as he was about to turn to the others, he heard a sound, coming from a path that led downwards.
Slowly two men came into sight, both wearing leather armor with chainmail draped over it. A short sword at the waist and a wooden shield in hand, they looked like medieval soldiers. Overall the equipment seemed to be of low quality or merely overused, as scratches and dents were all over them.
The shields, both carried, looked, at first glance, to be the same run of the mill product, but they had two vastly different insignias on them.
One was a bull, standing on its hind legs, with a triangular shield as it's background. It radiated strength and an overbearing feeling of bravery.
The other shield depicted a winged snake coiling around a sword. It had a strange glint to its eyes, making it seem intelligent and vivid.
Ray noticed that, compared to their poor armor, the paintings on the shields were incredibly lifelike, almost as if a master artist painted them. This mismatch created a disharmonious feeling making it an eyesore to look at.
"Dammit, why do we have to patrol around this deserted area. Who in their right mind would willingly come here?!"
"Well orders are orders and skipping out on them definitely wouldn't do us any good."
Having come a bit nearer, Ray could pick up bits and pieces of their conversation.
'Patrol? Orders? ' Hearing them talk made Ray frown. 'Are they soldiers? But why out here, there's nothing but nature. And that weird clothing....'
Connecting the dots, he could now somewhat guess what happened to them. Still, he didn't dare confirm this, as it was utterly absurd.
With Ray being able to see them, it wasn't long until the two men also noticed the groups presence.
"?!"
"Who are you?! How come you are here?!"
While the man with the bull on his shield was taken aback and appeared petrified, the other one immediately yelled at them after recovering from a short surprise of meeting people in such a place.
Ray's mind started operating at max speed right away. There was no way he could tell them they walked through a cave and magically ended up here, especially if this was the kind of scenario he thought it was.
"W-We were trapped in that cave after an earthquake and had to come out on this side. The actual place we wanted to go to is the cottage owned by our private college. You don't happen to know how we can get there?"
Josh, on the other hand, didn't seem to think like him and blurted it all out, without any warning. At first, he sounded a bit nervous but got more confident the more he spoke and, in the end, his tone carried a distinct hint of pride when he mentioned their college.
"Kid, what are you talking about? Don't try to distract us with your bullshit! Odo let's catch these pricks. Maybe we'll get rewarded by the count!"
Having awoken from his stupor, the first man also started shouting at the group and, apparently, wanted to exchange them for some benefits.
"Idiot, what reward? We can speak of luck if we don't get denounced for allowing people to get this close to the camp. Still, you're right, Bert. We have to catch these kids and bring them before the commanders."
The one called Odo didn't seem to agree with his partner entirely but still voiced his consent on the, for Ray and the others, important part.
'F*ck! Why is this idiot always talking before thinking.' Ray gnashed his teeth, 'I have to remedy this before it is too late!'
"Excuse me, but there must be a misunderstanding. We just became a bit lost and stopped for a second to rest. But we are about to depart, so if you could allow us to go our way?"
He knew lying would make the situation only worse, as he didn't know where they were now and couldn't say where they had come from, so he pointed behind him while talking to them, indicating that they didn't want to go near, wherever the two came from.
"Sorry kid, can't do. We have orders to take anyone with us we encounter, so you can either quietly follow us, or we'll drag you all there."
Still, Ray's soft approach didn't seem to work, as Odo spoke in an increasingly harsher tone, slowly pulling his sword out.
"Hiii!!"
Seeing the sharp glint of the sword, Max freaked out and voiced something that could only be described as the stifled scream of a pig.
Unfortunately, for him, that sound brought Odo's attention right onto him.
Scared by the blade, Max struggled to get on to his feet, trying to run away,
but as soon as he rose and started sprinting, the sword flashed and cut directly into his left leg.
He fell, not realizing what happened and gradually looked down to his legs.
"AAAHHHH!!!"
They say you don't feel injuries you don't notice, but if you do they will hurt even more.
Max's leg was cut down to the bone. Blood and flesh littering the ground. Coupled with his ungodly scream, it made a horrendous picture.
'I have to help...They will kill him!' Shocked to his core, Ray was rooted to the ground, not daring to move, but his mind working all the same.
The others were equally horrified by the rapid development. Just a few minutes ago, they were still thanking God for surviving the earthquake, and now they seemed, again, at death's door. Whether it was Josh, Sarah or Lisa they were all paralyzed, not knowing what to do.
Odo looked down on Max, not a change in his expression. For him, cutting someone down was seemingly nothing special. Not worth mentioning.
"See what happens when you try something. Well...since I don't actually want to drag someone along the mountain I'll end this quickly."
Declaring so, Odo raised his sword above his head, wanting to go for a clean cut across Max's neck. But before he could swing down Ray, who ran forward without thinking, crashed into him, shaking up his stance and almost making him fall over. Lisa, as if given a signal by this, sprinted after him and tried to distract the one named Bert.
Unfortunately, Ray never took any martial arts classes and also didn't work out much, so the only thing he could do is try to ring Odo to the ground.
"You little shit! Don't make this more difficult than it is!"
Quickly gaining the upper hand, Odo put his arms around Ray and lifted him up. Surprised by this show of strength, Ray couldn't react in time, was thrown to the ground and subdued. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lisa, who was hugged in a chokehold from behind by Bert.
"Bert, we let one escape."
"Does it matter? We have the others. Let's not mention him.
Hehehe, I wonder what the commanders will do with these little scouts."
'Escaped?' Ray wondered. Weren't they all here?
Barely raising his head, he could see Josh's running silhouette disappear into the mountains.
'Motherf*cker'