It was night once again when Arkham found the Frebran camp that had sent the scouting party, they were a lot closer than he would've expected.
There were around thirty people from what Arkham could see, too many to be a reconnaissance party but too small for a vanguard. The location of the Crown could be a reason why they were here, the only way to know for sure wast going down there.
Since his black armor was extremely noticeable during the day, Arkham had moved in the shadows of the dunes. It was a good thing he didn't happen across the camp in the day, they would've all probably mobbed him.
Arkham slowly stalked towards the camp and watched a four man patrol leave the camp after the last shift returned. He should be able to handle four people at a time, the only problem was making sure none escaped.
"You guys think anything bad happened to them?" Arkham could hear one soldier say to the others as he got closer, making sure to stay in the shadows.
"Definitely something happened, how can all five of them fall into a sandpit!?" Another soldier chuckled.
"I'm surprised the damn bird they took didn't come back, maybe it fell in with them too."
'Quatre, seems like you did it.' Arkham thought this was at least some good news.
"No, it's very bad. Perhaps coming this far was a mistake."
"Sooner we meet with the caravan, sooner we can go back to base."
'Caravan? Base?' These two words were the most useful of the chatter, Arkham thought. A caravan meant supplies or resources but the soldier specified "meet" not "take", this far from the mountains meant someone had to be trading with them. As for their "base", this all but confirmed their presence in the region. There was something going on with the Intel on the mountains, the Febrans were a lot closer than ever imagined.
The soldiers kept talking but nothing more useful came from them. Now, Arkham was waiting for them to get to an area when he could ambush them. This was also a good time to test out
his new skill.
His time finally came when they got to an area with relatively small dunes and started to turn directions. Their route seemed to be a circle and Arkham roughly guessed where they would be going, he would move to that area and hide in wait for them.
Just like clockwork, they started to move by Arkham who had hid himself under the sand.
"Aaaaaaahh!"
"Aaaaaaaa!"
Two of the Febrans screamed as two large black claws erupted from the ground below them. Arkham managed to crush a good portion of their ribcage with his claw before turning to the closest Febran looking in shock.
His tail moved and stung the young man upwards from under his rib cage, causing a good portion of his organs to be exposed to the venom.
"Auuuaggghhh!"
The man's body started to stiffen up and he collapsed to the ground, his body starting to rapidly grow pale. For all intent and purposes, he was essentially marked for death. Of course, having seen his comrades die so quickly, the last Febran started to run away.
"Aaargh!" The man groaned as the stinger nicked him on his heel. Within seconds he found it really hard to summon the strength to move, every action was weak and to seem to take an eternity to execute in his eyes. Soon his legs failed and he resorted to using his hands to move, soon after that he was doing little more than trying to squirm away.
Arkham approached the man and raised his tail high, the man was starting to drool on to the sand now. With a quick swipe, Arkham broke the man's neck and killed him.
'Hmmm, nothing.' Arkham thought as he started to bury the bodies in sand, it looked like he needed even more. He would've hit the entire camp eventually, hopefully by the end he gained some more progress towards being human again.
Right now, it was only a matter of time when the missing soldiers would be noticed.
Arkham didn't want to take a chance, so he looked around for more patrols to hit to lessen their combined fighting power. It seemed like they had three patrols of four or at once, so getting rid of two more was optimal.
Their camp was nestled in a spot with large dunes, this helped against being shouted at night but also asked one to see the whole camp from atop a dune. Another thing was that one could also see farther ahead for miles too.
It took some guesswork and a fair amount of running but Arkham was able to find another patrol.
"Aaaaaaa!"
"Aaarggff!"
"Aggghh!"
"Ommphff!"
This time went slightly better, Arkham managed to bodyslam three at once and his tail caught the last one. This time he had luck but that still didn't change the fact that this new body was still awkward to move in. Sand really did hamper his ability to move and extra energy was constantly used to counteract his weight on it.
Once again, no words appeared before Arkham's eyes. Arkham shrugged off the disappointment again and started to move back to the camp again. If he was lucky again, he would be able to catch the last patrol before they were relieved and noticed the missing Febrans.
Unfortunately, that was not the case. When Arkham made it back to the camp again, it was brightly lit up this time with armed guards actively placing more torches down. It looked like when Arkham's fears of them finding the bodies were misplaced, hiding them had cost him time and now they knew something was up.
Sneaking close again would be impossible, they would all be on Arkham within seconds. Those lights meant stealth was now gone, the other option was a frontal assault. Both options meant nothing but the same conclusion, Arkham had to fight them.
Now the question was only when he had to fight them.