Gordan eventually say back down as he watched to progression continue. When it eventually ended he looked over to see that the assassin was almost covered in snow and half frozen.
=Sigh=
Gordan rubbed his eyes and quickly got to work thawing out the persons skin, thankfully it wasn't to the stage of full frost burn but he still had to use a bit of magic which made him lose sight in one of his eyes. The coldness eventually began to grow more mild until the path started to clear up. Gordan wanted to continue on with the journey but with the horse still asleep that wasn't going to happened.
Gordan absentmindedly stroked the fir that had been draped over his shoulders, it was unlike anything that he had ever seen before, and it was extremely soft. The thought about the creature that he had run into, and was quite glad that the others had been asleep, since he had no desire to even talk about such things as being born without a magic aptitude. Gordan smiled to himself remembering when he had first learned what it ment to be considered as inferior as an insect. It had taken him many years to learn exactly why people saw him in such a negative light. It was only after he learned of the Winter March that he even thought of the possibility of using magic through temporary sacrifice. No one but his emidiat family and the servants ever knew about his rather special condition, and he made sure that no one else, not even the king learned of it.
The light began to shine brightly once more onto the path in front of him and he stood up, making sure to cover up the fire pit with dirt. He gently took the fir off of his shoulders and lay it gently in the bottom of his bag, As he was piling the objects back into the bag he noticed the green core that he had given to Leech several days before. He frowned examining it to try and understand what was going on, but after a minute of thinking his face burst into a smile and he began to laugh. He leaned back his head and continued laughing for another minute, when he was finally able to regain his composure he saw that there was a small note attached to the core. He gently pulled the note off and began to unfold it carefully.
-Gordan,
By the time you find this letter you will most likely have already dealt with the king and know of the situation. I wasn't completely honest with you when I told you what information that we received from the person you caught. The core that you have with you works as a type of tracking signal and will draw the beast away from the village. We have no intention of you being killed in this endeavor I hope that you can understand that, but we have to look out for our own you understand. I'm sorry that we had to cast the concealment magic on this letter until after you arrived at the kingdom and we do have some faith that you wouldn't do anything rash, but we cannot risk the core being left close to the village putting it in even more danger. I would also like to apologize for not warning you of the ants, or the Winter March but we couldn't take any chances you see...
I know that you might hold what we did against us, but there wasn't really anything else we could do. I sincerely hope that you are able to survive this ordeal, and if we ever meet again we will all formally apologize.
-The Village Doctor
Gordan began laughing again, only this time at the sheer stupidity of the entire village. They actually thought that somthing like a core of this size would be able to do anything but bring back the being who belonged to it, and in this case that would be the mage. Gordan wondered if they thought that the Master person would be so stupid as to give them the key to get rid of the threat even before he had decided to send the threat in the first place. Gordan could imagine them all back living their lives, thinking that every one of their problems would be solved and only at the cost of one random individual.
Gordons leaned back his head and covered his face with one of his hands, he had been betrayed once again.
Gordan sat there for a while reading over the note multiple times. He found it ironic that they had used a spell to conceal the letter using a spell that only worked on those with a magic aptitude. He wondered what was going on in the kingdom that they would not be willing to assist one of their most imporstant allies when it came to the production of goods. From the sound of it the people in the village were very much aware of the current situation, but that only ment that they were probably to desperate to have thought about what that might mean for them. He folded up the note and put it back into his bag slowly, he needed to forget about that for right now. Betrayal was somthing that Gordan was quite familiar with, in fact he should have been much more careful when dealing with the villagers... He had almost opened up, which made the whole ordeal to be worth it to him, since now he was reminded that he should be ever vigilant no matter how nice the situation might seem.
He slowly finished packing up the rest of the supplies and put it onto his back. He would still go through with the mission that he had accepted, but now he lacked the obligation to assist them any further than that.
Gordan woke the horse who was in a very deep sleep, and folded the blanket back into his bag. The horse looked around rather dazed, it had been effected by the strong magic that had been oozing from the creatures, common side effects included and were not limited to; drowsiness, vomiting, swelling of the lungs, throat, and eyes, as well as possible death. And even if those things were bad, the effects were amplified the closer the target comes to the creatures. Thankfully this did not apply to people or creatures that did not have magic aptitude, which was the reason that Gordan was able to even stand in the presence of the king of the creatures. But needless to say it wasn't exactly an easy thing for him to wake up the horse, the toxins were quite potent and had the habit of making sure that they would last.
Once the horse woke up Gordan piled the people onto his shoulders again and they walked until they were in sight of the castle without any further interruptions. The area surrounding them had begun to change into a rather bleak sceane, which served as evidence to the Winters March. Before they merged onto the main highway Gordan stopped and set down both of the people that had been on his shoulders. Thanks to the uninterrupted walking they had reached the destination about an hour ahead of Gordans prediction, which would give him enough time to learn what he needed to out of the assassin who had still yet to regain consciousness. Gordan slit his finger and used his blood to draw a circle on the assassins forehead, once he had completed it he sat back and watched as the assassin squirmed in pain from the spell which was one of Gordans favorites becouse of its low penalty operating costs. All that he had to give up was a small amount of blood and bam, no other problems what so ever, and the spell was only as limited as the blood in ones body, but it had to be his own blood to work correctly.
After the the squirming stopped the assassin opened his eyes and sat up, he tried to look around but his eyes had glazed over so he was able to see. Gordan leaned down next to him, which made the assassin flinch in fear.
"Don't worry about it kid, as long as you answer my questions there won't be a problem at all, have I made myself clear?"
The assassin nodded in understanding, this was another thing about the spell that Gordan liked quite a bit, it made people more persuadable, meaning that he almost never had to resort to more messy meathods in order to obtain information.
"Okay let's start with a simple one. Why is it that you tried to kill me and the soilder?"
The assassin stayed quiet for a moment and then closed his eyes.
"We weren't after you, just the soilder. The king sees him as a threat now that his uncle has returned from the boarder."
Gordan stifled a smile, he had guessed that it had somthing to do with the people from the night before but, it would seem that this was a bit more complicated then he had first assumed.
"Okay, that's good, you're doing great. One more thing, why do they need the soilder dead specifically?"
The assassin was quiet once again and then spoke once again.
"Because he has been made aware of information that would be rather troublesome if the kings uncle were to be made aware of."
Gordan nodded his head and wiped the blood off the assassins forehead, being careful to make sure that all of the blood was cleaned off. The reason why he didn't ask more questions was becouse he could tell that much more of the pushing might have caused him permanent damage, which was one of the few draw backs of the spell, everyone had a limited amount of questions that they could be asked at once. Right now Gordan didn't have the time or energy to deal with the assassin so he would have to be satisfied with the information that he received. He placed the assassin in a bed of grass and began the preparations to wake up the soilder.