"We should head back and warn the village!" I urged the other two who had become overrun with curiosity. That sudden, powerful shake had done nothing but intrigue them. Thurge in particular seemed to have been overcome by some form of possession. However, even without any in this body, I knew magic when I felt it...
Whatever was outside this mountain was terrifyingly powerful. And it was not alone. So many spells had gone off beyond the mountain! We needed to warn them!
Yet, I was suddenly uncertain if I should encourage them like this. If the Festival of the Fallen Star did not go ahead. How would I save Lightning's friend? How would I prevent Thunder from...
"That's the sound of screaming. Grown men as well." Bolunch deduced as he suddenly dropped his animals to sprint to a nearby log.
"Then they must be..." I start to say as I realize that they were likely retreating from a fight.
"Something has ambushed some of our hunters!?" Bolunch exclaimed.
"W-Wait! NO!" I called out after him as he ran off to help the strangers. How could he be so reckless!?
"We should help." Thurge encouraged before I sighed in defeat. It was clear the boys had already made up their minds. So all I could do really was chase after them and help as well. Maybe this was meant to happen?
Were these the red machines, perhaps...?
Evidently not, though, when I finally caught up to Bolunch and we came across the men in question. For they were distinctly not crimson or armoured much if at all. Some had metal, bowl-like helmets but others did not. For the most part, they only had pale, green uniforms of some kind, broken apart by the brown of their belts and straps.
And the state of their wounds and muddied faces proved further what they had just gotten out of...
"Redskin?" one of them let out with a gawk in some language I could not understand.
"There are people here?"
"I thought we all pulled back to Bridge City? How're these kids here?"
"Pipe it down, you're not much older than them." a gruff one commented as he approached us with his gun hovering down by his side. Whoever they were, it was clear they lacked arcane equipment of any kind.
"None of them are pursuing, Captain!" one of them called back as a loud ping suddenly filled the air. That man then put something into his gun. Likely to replace what he intentionally took out.
"We make the best of it, then. Form up and move up that ridge!" the lead one clearly barked as the men began to march on ahead without us. Although, one or two of them seemed to look at us fearfully. Others just seemed to be glad that they were alive.
"That's... A first." Bolunch commented as he watched the green-clothed men disappear.
"Should we guide them back to the village?"
"I think so, they would be safe there and we could tend to their wounds." Thurge argued as he cautiously moved near the tunnels they came up in. Whatever was out there, it sounded distinctly metallic...
"The machines..." I quietly uttered as I realised what those men were clearly running from.
"Maelta, come! We can show them the way and save our food!" Bolunch urged me as he made a mad dash up the nearest slope. An action that seemed to surprise these men enough to make them raise their weapons at him. However, when it became clear he was passing them, they seemed to calm down.
Many of them, however, seemed to urge the others to follow him. If I went by how their bodies twitched as if they were awaiting the go ahead. Yet, rather than excitement, it was panic that drove these men to do so. As they were all cautiously glancing back at those tunnels.
"Alright! Gather up all your explosives. We're going to mine that tunnel!" their lead snapped as they all started to make a pile of pale green balls and brown paper bricks...? Whatever they were, it was clear they wanted to do something down there...
"Captain, that Cardinal couldn't so much as blast a hole in this place! What's a pile of handies and some stickies going to do!?"
"It'll plug the gap long enough for us to make a defensive line or to hide away in the forest!" the lead seemed to correct before he started to shove men about as he took charge once again.
"The village won't be hostile to them, right?" I cautiously questioned Thurge as I kept on glancing at their beat-up weapons. Scratched and dented as they might've been... It was clear they all still worked. And I had a distinct inclination to side with the guns should conflict erupt.
The stories about the Warlord's War are quite a present thing in my mind right now. Political upheaval many, many years ago in my homeland which saw old dynasties swept aside. With the side favouring to trust new technologies such as firearms prevailing... My family just happened to be one of those on the winning side of that bloody conflict.
And although it was from a time long before even my mother. I understood the gravity of it all. If they were to be spooked in any way. I might never see my chance to stop Thunder!
Or maybe, Thunder came along with them...?
"Maelta." Thurge let out as he started to tug on my arm gently.
"Right..." I said as I started to follow him. Cautiously looking back at the soldiers who seemed to shadow our movements. And it wasn't long until we broke into a sprint ourselves in order to catch up with Bolunch. But rather than that, we just found him strolling back to the soldiers with his previously held animals.
"Hey! This way!" he called out to the soldiers with his free arm as he rolled it inwards.
"Bolunch!" I hissed as he didn't quite seem to grasp what he was inviting into his home!
"What? They're injured and clearly tired. It's the least we can do given that this has never happened before!" he exclaimed as he continued to invite them all in with friendly gestures.
"They have guns! You don't!" I remind him, only to realize too late that he probably doesn't know what they are.
"Come again?" he asked, confused by what I had just told him.
"Weapons!" I clarified, putting it into terms he'd understand.
"So do we?" he pointed out as he tapped his spear's tip on some bark before he started to guide the soldiers.
"He's hopeless..." I say as the soldiers start to gather up.
"CAPTAIN! THE CHILDREN ARE GUIDING US!" one of them shouted back to those who had headed back down.
"HOLD UP FOR US!" one of them, likely the leader called back before a couple stopped in their tracks. A human trail for them to find their way with.
"If this goes wrong, your home is doomed, Thurge." I commented as I kept on looking at their guns.
"Your home is there as well?" he questioned, confused by my choice of words. So I silently swore inside my mouth before I shook my head and looked up at him.
"I'm sorry... I just can't keep this up." I tell him with a miserable groan. Sighing what frustration I could as I try to get ahold of the awkwardness of my situation. I still had my mind but the body of someone else. It was hard to keep up with at times.
Even more so now that a completely new group had made itself known. One that had things I knew about but the people of Maelta's village did not. I just could not see how I could play dumb knowing about these things. Knowing the history these things can create when in the right or wrong hands.
And to also know about those aggressive, red machines only made my concerns worse. I knew full well that at worse these men were bringing some kind of war with them. Even if a lot of this was set in stone and that I could do nothing. It did not sit well with me.
It just wasn't in me to turn a blind eye to this kind of stuff... Yet, I was having to struggle with it all internally. Because how could any of these people help me? They would have neither the patience, will or anything...
Yet, that didn't seem to stop Thurge from looking at me with a rare display of emotion. And while he was not my friend, I could smile at how good of a friend he was to this girl. And I hoped she herself was aware of what was going on. At least so she would know that she was in good company and that I was not doing anything foul to her body...
"You are troubled." Thurge commented.
"I have... A lot on my plate." I downplayed jokingly.
"Sometimes, it is best to share a meal if it is too big for one." Thurge explained with a slight smile before it disappeared.
"I don't think you'd like it." I told him, carrying on with the euphemism I had just established.
"A friend's job is to try and eat it anyway." he reassured me with before he waited expectingly. He likely wasn't going to let me walk away from this, was he? I suppose I had no choice, then.
"Something dangerous is coming, please trust me in that regard. It is coming and it is dangerous..." I tell him as I look back at where we had just come from. That presence of magic. The sounds of thumping metal. The weariness of these soldiers.
Whatever happened here in the past was soon to come and it would be bloody. And I needed to escape this place before I got caught up in it. Beyond stopping Thunder, it was not my place to meddle. That's all that mattered...
I had to let all these people die for the sake of someone I knew and loved incomparably.
"I trust you, He seems disturbed as well."
"He? Him?" I questioned as I followed his stare to one of the soldiers.
"No, I don't know how to put it. But you know who I am on about." he tried to explain, but, no, I really did not know what he was on about.
"Yeah." I said anyway as I felt like that might've been what Maelta would've actually said.
"When Bolunch is done taking these men to our home, would you like to go somewhere quiet?" he then asked me as he suddenly took my hand. An action that left me blushing as I just wasn't expecting it at all. It even reignited a prior thought in my head about Maelta's place with these two.
"It's important?" I asked him, just to make sure if it was something I might be able to dive out of.
"Yes, it's about Him." Thurge nervously explained as he glanced up at nothing once again. But, when one of the soldiers caught sight of his stare. He got aggressive all of a sudden.
"Keep it together!" the head soldier snapped back at them as he got in the way of us and that irritated soldier.
"Hey, if that redskinned boy wants to have a look, I'll let him!"
"Do not provoke your fellow human, Private! We're all in this together!" the head one snapped as he shoved them on ahead before he seemingly nodded in apology.
"So, how exactly is Bolunch planning on having them helped when none of us can understand the other?" I decided to ask Thurge in order to pass the time.
"They understood what 'follow me' meant."
"I'm pretty sure most people get what a waving gesture likely means." I pointed out.
"Then it will be through these similarities that we will find our common ground." Thurge answered with a nod as I nodded alongside him briefly.
"What? Just make them rub their bellies if they are hungry?" I awkwardly laughed out. Trying to ease the tension that walking aside so many armed men brought.
"Bolunch never did cook our boar..." Thurge then complained as he rubbed his own stomach.
"Make sure to remind him when you get back into the village, then. Don't let him get away with it!" I urged him as I started to contemplate sneaking in a few bites myself. This body after all still functioned like one even if I just occupied the mind of it.