Sitting doing nothing while others work was not to my liking, so I asked if I could go scout, Kace agreed but as long as I didn't bring any food back for the group. The others need to learn and the threat of hunger was a powerful learning tool.
I left and headed east from the camp, as it was the last direction that I didn't have a somewhat grasp on the local geography. I wandered in a zig-zag pattern so that I could get a pretty complete map of the area.
I first smelled a campfire and followed my nose to find yet another camp, this time it was much closer to our camp. Being only a mile from our camp, this was a potential threat and I wanted to make sure I as much information as I could.
Once the camp was in sight I couldn't see or hear anyone, so I attempted to walk closer to get a better look at what was going on, I walked in a crouch up to the wall and peeked in, what I saw wasn't a camp but a burnt shell of a camp, all the tents were burned even the Sergeants tent.
Panic started to creep into my mind as I looked around the camp, that's when I saw the bodies by the entrance of the walls. The sergeant was propped up like a grotesque puppet with metal-tipped spears through both hands and one through his stomach that exited out his back, the trainees were also dead I saw them in a line behind where the sergeant had tried to defend them and saw that someone had cut off their heads and left them beside their pile of dead bodies.
I threw up at this as panic started to make me stumble back, after I was done heaving I ran as fast as I could to our camp to inform the others.
I made it back in record time! I sprinted straight threw the gap in our walls and was desperately trying to put the gate in place when Sergeant Kace saw the look of terror and dread on my face before asking worriedly "Bruni, what's going on? why do you look like you saw something unimaginable terrifying?
"Sir I just came from a camp that I found east of us!" I spoke as fast as I could while still struggling with the gate, to put it into the 2 shallow groves that dig on each side to hold it in place easier. Someone killed them, sir, the sergeant is dead" I said before I explained what I had seen at that shell of a camp.
"Dear gods above!" Kace exclaimed I have to see this for myself. Bruni, can you explain the way to me I need you guys to pack up camp as quickly as you can I will be back in a half-hour." he commanded us with his no-nonsense tone.
"yes sir." was all managed to get out before I started talking in a rush to describe the paths I had to take to get to the other camp.
Kace took off running as the rest of my group gave me worried looks seeing the panic I was in and the rush to fit the gate back in place after Kace left. We ripped down the camp in moments and packed out kit bags, I grabbed some long tree branches a few inches thick and 6ft long and started to use my belt knife to make spears for us, all we had were the knives and the reach sucked, so least I could do was give us options.
After the wooden spears were shaped I flame hardened the tips in the bed of coals in ht firepit before filling in the pit with dirt so that a trail of vapor wouldn't rise into the air like it would if I had used water.
"Who would do something like that?" Bell asked as she stared at the ground in worry.
Hazel came over and hugged bell "I don't know but it definitely wasn't another group, no one has metal spears out here." she said as she held Bell tighter when she felt the girl started to cry. The tension was getting to all of us, Hes and Fes stayed by my sides and refused to leave, Richard sat not too far away as well making a spear for himself that was a bit longer than the ones I was making.
I handed out the spears to everyone and had us keep an eye on the gaps in the wall to make sure no one could get within 20 paces of camp without being seen.
About 20 minutes later we could hear sounds of combat drawing closer to the camp, I rushed to the wall beside the gate and saw Sergeant Kace at the edge of the clearing sprinting away from 2 attackers in Black cloaks.
Kace seeing the gate was closed, stopped halfway through the clearing that our camp was in to turn toward the man and women that had been attacking him.
When Kace turned around I saw that a few small cuts in his combat uniform that were bleeding, clearly Sergeant Kace was struggling with the 2 attackers and I had closed his only hope of winning this fight.
"BRUNI GET THE OTHERS AND RUN!" he yelled as loud as he could, "I will hold them off as long as I can! You must report to the Commander that The Order of the Grim has managed to infiltrate deep into the county!" he yelled as the women rushed to stop Kace from yelling any more information out.
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