13
Joshua saw the remains of the small warrior raining down over the entire battlefield, but had no idea what it was he was looking at. The fighting had stopped, and the few enemy warriors remaining was running away from the battle in panic.
Ace sat disheveled and confused looking at the empty battlefield, next to him lay the delusional warrior who had been swept up along with Ace. He quickly ran a few meters away from the warrior as he still had no idea what he was capable of, the remaining nine trainees had also stood up, and gathered around Joshua along his remaining warrior.
Ace got on his feet and walked towards Joshua when he saw the warrior stand up as well, the feeling of life and death came washing over Ace, and Joshua along with the other trainees all began running towards Ace.
He expected the warrior to start moving towards him, but instead he just stood there before he once again raised his arms up and stood on one leg.
Joshua stopped running when he saw the warrior's strange behavior, and instead just starred in wonder at the strange scene. As soon as Ace realized he wasn't in danger, he bolted and joined the remaining group of trainees.
"do you have any idea what is happening with him kid?"
Joshua asked while looking at Ace, he couldn't make heads or tails of what he was seeing. He didn't want to fight an enemy warrior, unless he had to right now. Ace looked over at the delusional warrior and just sighed.
"I have no idea, except that I know he is poisoned sir… only the gods know what is happening to him right now"
Joshua looked shocked by hearing that, very few tribes used poison, and no warriors in the cloud weaving tribe would ever use poison, the only explanation was that one of the trainees used poison.
"are you the one who poisoned him?"
With all that had happened and the massive explosion, he had forgotten he was standing in front of a superior, and just shrugged his shoulders in indifference.
"sure was, or you could say it was a group effort. I had to use it all to make sure it would work, and boy did it work… I mean look at him"
Joshua did look at the unfortunate warrior, and even though he felt endless rage at that moment towards the enemy tribe, he also felt a bit of sympathy towards the delusional man, who just stood there, completely motionless.
"spread out and look for wounded, we need to move soon before more tribes come by"
It was hard for Joshua to make that decision when he knew people could get left behind, but the sounds of the battle would soon gather bandits or undead beast and he knew they were too weak for another fight.
The first thing Joshua did was send his last soldier towards the spot were his men had fallen, he desperately hoped for one of their warriors to still be alive, it would make the rest of the trip much safer.
Joshua himself ran towards the spot Grail and Nyra had been fighting, it was too quiet and he knew the battle had finished, but he feared for the outcome. Grail was a commander in the cloud weaving tribe, but he was also the weakest one.
Nyra was a legend amongst her tribe, Grail was not as skilled in combat as the greatest commander in the sky leaping tribe Nyra.
He knew the conclusion the moment he saw his commander on the ground, and Nyra nowhere to be seen, Joshua hurried over to Grail and knelt down in front of the enormous man. The blood had stopped flowing out and he was ice cold, the sight of his commander's lifeless corpse was too much for Joshua, as he burst into tears.
Grail had been much more than just a superior officer to him, he had trained and cared for Joshua like he was his son, and Joshua had long since seen Grail as a father. It all seemed pointless to Joshua as he sat there in front of his dead commander, then a hand landed on his shoulder and he flinched.
It was his remaining warrior who stood behind Joshua with an unconscious man on his shoulder, he looked at Joshua like he was awaiting orders. Joshua looked back at Grail for a moment and bowed his head to his fallen leader and friend, he wiped his eyes and stood up, all the sadness had disappeared from his face.
"how many survivors has been found?" Joshua asked his warrior
the warrior sighed and kicked a rock as he responded.
"one, we found one warrior and zero surviving trainees amongst the fallen"
Joshua cursed under his breath but regained his composure quickly after, this was not the time for anger thought Joshua it was time to leave.
Ace and the other trainees had not found a single survivor, but that didn't mean they hadn't found anything. After fighting real warriors, all the trainees realized the importance of both armor and weapons.
The warriors had been stripped of their armor, and if it didn't fit they would just carry it by the side instead, even the four hunters had begun looting the corpses and one of them, a burly muscular kid had found the Warhammer still intact, and was carrying it around proudly.
Ace didn't care as much for the warrior's armor as their weapons, he had tried lifting up some of their equipment and it was much too heavy for him to carry.
When Joshua called back everyone, Ace had already looted four warriors' weapons and had found a spear, two different sized swords and a one handed axe, which he was carrying in his arms as he joined the group.
Joshua looked over the battlefield and felt a sting of pain, they had lost so much in this battle, even their commander. Now it was up to him to bring the rest of the trainees to Necron before it was too late.
In his hand was a bird figurine made of wood. It was a present Grail had received from his master when he became a commander, Joshua gently placed the bird in his pouch, this was both a memory of his mentor, and a proof of death to the tribe.
The small group left the battlefield with burning piles behind them, they couldn't leave their comrades for looters or as food, so they burned the corpses.