Kyle was startled to hear that there was going to be an attack on the Kingdom during the Festival of Lights. He had known that the Red Adders had been getting bolder, but this was too much! If they seriously believed that they could get away with anything, they had another thing coming. The Kingdom of Cervine may allow for some leeway when it came to criminal activity. But even the most forgiving of the nobility had their breaking point.
Yet, try as he might to relax, the fact that his bag had not been found was weighing on his conscious. The letters contained within it could not be allowed to be discovered. While the trio of spies continued to debate what to do to stop the pending attack, he scoured the cave from top to bottom again in the vain hope that he would be able to locate the wayward papers.
His search however, did not go unnoticed. With his focus trained on the task at hand, Kyle did not notice the fact that he was being watched. "Still can't find your bag?" Kitt asked.
The scout had walked up to him while he was focused on searching a chest and he hadn't heard them approach. As the scout asked this he nearly jumped out of his skin. "Don't startle me like that" he complained.
"My, jumpy much aren't we?" Kitt replied.
"Sorry, I'm just really worried. I can't find it anywhere" he confessed. "I can't impress how important it is that I find it. It's just got be so wound up, that's all."
"Well, I'd be upset too if I got my bag stolen" Kitt said with a sympathetic sigh. "Course, to make matters worse you really screwed up and let them get the letters within the bag."
"Yeah, I know. If I can't find them..." Kyle froze up as he realized a second too late what Kitt had said. "Wait, how did you know-"
"About the letters of recommendation?" Kitt answered his sentence with a smirk. "What else would a young knight risk his life to protect? Ash mentioned that you were on your way to North Watch Keep, I figured that you must have lost your letters. Must be a big blow, to lose them when you're just about to enter the Academy."
"Do the others know?" Kyle asked. He was already in panic mode about the letters' absence. Now that his sin had been uncovered, it was only a matter of time before his family suffered from the fate that he had doomed them too.
"Nah, they don't suspect a thing. Ash thinks you're just some foolhardy kid. Erik on the other hand hasn't been able to think about anything since he found out about the Adders' plan. His sister's family is in the capital. If something happens to them, he would never forgive himself."
"How did you figure it out? That I lost my letters, that is."
"I guess you could call it intuition." Kitt chuckled. "Course, this was a big hint."
Kyle found a shape flying at his face. With just a second to spare he managed to intercept it with his left hand. To his surprise, the familiar feel of his bag's leather embraced his hand. A glance confirmed his suspicion.
"Where did you find this?" he asked. His eyes wide in shock, he couldn't believe it.
"I took it off an Adder on his way here. Didn't realize it was so important until I heard you complaining about how you had to get in here or die trying. I was going to give it back to you, but you rushed into there before I could say anything. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about this little mishap. Could happen to anyone after all."
"Thank you so much!" he said. Relieved that he had retrieved his missing bag, Kyle could hardly believe it. The crisis that he had been dreading for days had somehow been averted. "How can I ever repay you?"
"Well, maybe you could help us with the Red Adders?" Kitt asked. "I don't say this lightly, you could die or make your family a target for their revenge. If it wasn't so serious I wouldn't consider asking you this, and would just send you north. But as Erik said earlier, we can't afford to let their attack on the Winter Rose stand unopposed."
"I get that the attack on the Festival of Lights would be a devastating blow to the Kingdom, but you act like it would be cataclysmic. Surely it wouldn't destroy Cervine."
"You would think" Kitt sighed. "But the thing is that the Kingdom isn't in the best place among the Northern Kingdoms of Tiber. There have been whispers of possible attacks by an alliance of Pador in the west and Semiarid in the east. If Cervine becomes embroiled in a civil war right now, our neighbors would be free to launch their attacks without fear."
Kyle's eyes went wide in horror as he realized that the attack on the Festival of Lights would indeed be the end of the Kingdom. If nothing was done to stop it, the next couple of decades would be overwhelming and painful to hundreds of thousands of people.
"We can't allow that to happen" he replied. "I don't know what help I can be, but count me in."
Kitt smiled. "Glad to hear it. The Festival is about a month a way so we won't have much time. The first thing will be to head back to the capital to warn King Horace."
"Kitt, have you got a moment?" Ash asked.
"Yeah, sure, what's up?" The stealthy scout turned away from Kyle to answer him.
"We're going to need to get a message to Horace about what's gone down here. Erik and I are headed out to see if we can't catch up with the remnants of this base before they can get word to their compatriots that their plan has been discovered. Do you mind running back to Winchester? We can meet up at the Horseshoe when we get back to reassess the situation then."
"Sounds good to me. I'm going to take the kid with me, if you don't mind. He's agreed to help."
"Just make sure he doesn't get himself impaled on a spear or lose his head" Erik replied. "He seems like the type to get himself into a trouble a lot. I may not be around to heal his sorry self next time."
"I can take care of myself" Kyle protested. "I just got unlucky last time."
"Man, when it rains it pours for you, doesn't it. If that was unlucky, I don't want to see what it's like when you have a horrible day."
"Real funny" Kyle said, rolling his eyes. "Just watch, I'll save your bacon yet."