The king paced back and forth in his great hall. His former general had been retired for many years now, and he knew that he had already done much for the country, but the kingdom had need of him once more. The reason was that the humans had begun to attack their boarder more and more frequently, and the signs of war were beginning to brew. The former general always wrote him off for his warmongering ways, but still there weren't all that many options for him to go with. He knew why the former general was so against starting a war, even though the king hadn't personally gone through the previous wars there wasn't anyone who didn't know about the monster that had been employed by the humans, who caused more damage than either side had together. A true monster in every form of the word as far as most people were concerned, it had even been rumored that he had not been a human in the first place, and that he had been a creature that had formed a contract with one of the human kings.
"What to do? At this rate things will spiral out of control and we might lose the people's support."
The king's advising General was sitting down in a chair going over some of the field reports while the king continued to pace back and forth speaking his concerns. The advising general laid down his work and looked up to the king.
"Don't worry so much, he should be arriving at any time now."
The king frowned at his advising General who calmly returned to his papers when the kings attention turned to him.
"You know that he won't come becouse of the message that we sent, he wouldn't come if the capital was on fire and all of us were being murdered for the world to see."
The king huffed and the advising General continued to look at the report in front of him before turning it in the kings direction.
"That's not why he would be on his way here, this message was just delivered an hour ago from our spies on the humans land. And I will bet my position that he has also received a similar report, so we should be expecting him any minute now actually."
The king grabbed the paper and read a report almost identical to the one that Falcon had received. The kings face turned pale as he finished the report and it slipped through his fingers to land on the floor without a sound. The king looked at his advising General and tried to speak but the words wouldn't come out of his mouth. The advising General nodded his head in confirmation, which made the king swallow the lump in his throat and try to stop himself from trembling.
"It is exactly what it looks like, humanity has killed its strongest soilder for such a petty reason and now they are at their most vulnerable. This kind of news will peak the intrest of the former general grea..."
A sudden explosion in the side of the hall caused the advising General to stop his statement mid sentence. The two of them looked on as a figure emerged from the smoking stone wall which was surrounded by debris. The former general Falcon walked toward them with the a paper clutched in one of his claws. His face was etched with rage and he was giving off an aura of pure anger which was making the other two occupants of the room feel nauseous. The former general knelt in front of the king and held out his sword.
"I have come to assist you in your campaign against the humans, I no longer have a reason to refuse your request."
Both the king and advising General were left in stunned silence neither of them would ever have imagined that the former general who was usually so against war would be the one to offer his services for such a thing without any persuasion at all. The advising General was the first to recover his composure as Falcon rose to his feet.
"Ahem... I can brief you on the current situation of things. And while we do that the king can have some time to deal with the, *ahem wall problem."
Falcon nodded and followed the advising General over to a table which was covered in papers and various reports. While Falcon looked over these with the advising General the king called his servants in to deal with the wall problem, and once he had walked over to hear what the two of them were talking about.
The king looked at the two of them, and was reminded of a time when he was just a small child when he had seen the Falcon general in a war council to deal with a small uprising of pirates on the coast which had happened after the conclusion of the war. That memory made him think of the stories he had been told about the war which made him speak unconsciously.
"It's just a shame that there isn't a guardian any more, if there was that would improve our odds quite a bit."
The two who were looking down at the table suddenly looked up at the king. The advising General was about to say something when the former General spoke up.
"I actually met one right before I came here. He said something about dealing with a contract, and he actually saved the messenger that you sent to get me. I only saw him for a few minutes but from what I could tell he was quite strong, though I don't really know if he would bother helping out with a war after what happened the last time with the previous guardian."
The two others were once again shocked by the new revelation.
"Tell us what you know about this guardian."
Both of them said at the same time.
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Gordan got back to the village without any more complications and as he had predicted the group finished interrogating the man who Gordan had brought back for them.
"Oh, we were just looking for you, Bjorn said that you wanted to interrogate the prisoner as well. I must warn you he is a bit of a tuff customer, we couldn't get much out of him, and what we did might be false as it is."
Gordan nodded to the strange person who he had yet to meet and followed him toward the hut where the prisoner was being kept.
"This is far enough, I can deal with the next part on my own, and it might be better if you didn't let anyone near this house until I give the okay."
The person nodded and scurried out of the hut, shutting the door tightly behind him. Gordan set the cat creature on the ground and then turned his attention to the human who was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room surrounded by a barrier so that he was unable to move. The person had a smirk of defiance on his face as Gordan walked toward him.
"Do you really think that I will tell a monster like you anything true? When the captian finds out about this he will be coming here and then all of you stupid monsters will know the meaning of pain."
His confidence made Gordan smile brightly as he continued to approach the captive.
"Thank you for that bit of information. I didn't think that I had rooted your group out so easily. Now I have something I want to know from you. Have you ever had your hand submerged in liquid metal before?"
The pirate looked at him with a slightly confused expression, not understanding what that had to do with anything.
"No?"
He gave his reply in a sarcastic tone, assured that the monster was merely bluffing to intimidate him.
"Good, then this will be fun."
A sphere of liquid metal appeared in the palm of his hand and the pirate swallowed in fear.