Faldrid waited as Vale inspected some tracks up ahead.
This was the first time he had been on "the ground" so to speak, in what seemed like ages. He had gotten used to a life of working behind the scenes. It may have been selfish of him but he much preferred the desk work over battle.
To rub salt in the wound though he had been put in a group with her.
"Hey Faldrid, you don't look too happy. Are you still upset that you, a soldier, have been ordered to actually fight?" Sadine said in a joking manner.
"I have no qualms about fighting, but travelling with you...well that's another matter entirely."
Sadine tossed her head up and laughed, "You don't mean that. But you better not slow me down. After all, you haven't fought since the last time we saw each other."
Faldrid smirked, "You better not get anyone killed. Though if you're still as careless as you were the last time we saw each other, that's just a distant dream."
This left Sadine trying to find a comeback to that, but before she could say anything another voice entered the conversation.
"If it's been so long why would our lord want you back on the field?" asked Loutrin
Faldrid was taken aback by his presence. He hadn't noticed him before at all. Though he was able to get a better look at him than last night. He was slender and had a long nose. He looked to be refined, but also tired in a sense. He wore a dark blue cloak and was fidgeting with what looked to be a long thin skewer made of metal.
Sadine appeared to be unaffected by his sudden appearance however, "Hmm, that is a good question. Faldrid?"
Faldrid gave out a sigh, "It's probably his way of punishing me."
A look of confusion spread over Sadine's face, "Punishment?"
Faldrid rested his head on his hand staring into the distance, "It was my job to oversee strategy for Yorburn, but I failed to predict certain things. Which led to that disaster."
Loutrin didn't take his attention away from the skewer in his hand and continued to spin it around his fingers. "If Lord Mortis thought the incident was your fault, you got off easy with just having to fight."
Faldrid's face turned into one of discontent, "He probably wasn't harsh because I still made precautions that ended up alerting him when things went to hell."
Sadine looked at Faldrid with a curious expression, "Is that so? But still why didn't you think there would be any Luxian scouts in the area? Don't tell me that your becoming senile, old man." She smiled at that last part
Faldrid clenched his teeth in irritation, "of course not, and I'm not old. I thought that since one of the luxcian's main traits is to literally control light that our scouts would be easily able to spot one, especially if they had been spotted."
"Now that I think about it, Umbren said something about seeing a flash of light." Loutrin said, looking towards the horizon.
Faldrid stared at Loutrin, baffled by what he had said, "And you didn't think to check on it?"
"No, I checked on it, but I didn't find anything."
"Then why didn't you at least report it?!"
Loutrin looked towards Faldrid, "I dunna know."
Faldrid became increasingly frustrated, "What do you mean, "I don't know!?"'
Loutrin put the skewer he was holding to his chin, "Well Umbren didn't say anything about it, so I didn't bother to. Also, if we did say something what would you have done? Would you have called off the operation just because we thought we saw something."
Faldrid was looking for something to say, but Sadine cut him off, "Ha, he's got you there Faldrid."
"Sadine, come look at this." Vale called out to her.
Sadine road to where she was further up the road, "Coming."
"I would have thought of something," Faldrid said
"Yep." Loutrin said with a bored look on his face.
Sadine dismounted her Attoka. "Could you really not find anything? Well fear not! the best tracker of the Hands of Morta will lend you their services."
"Shut up. I just wanted a second opinion, that's all. We can't afford to waste any time. And I wouldn't say you're the best at anything." Vale looked over her shoulder as she squatted on the ground.
"Wow, that was harsh. Anyway, what do you want me to look at."
"It's obvious that the wagons stopped here for some reason."
Sadine looked around, there was more dirt and mud ahead of them on the cobblestone road than there was behind them. She also caught sight of ashes and crumbs littered on the grass next to the road. However, Vale was looking at something else.
"Feces, huh."
Vale looked at Sadine as she squatted next to her. "How old are you thinking?"
Sadine sighed and picked up a stick, "If only it rained recently, then we would have some mud footprints."
She picked up a stick and poked the droppings, "Well they're not hard as a rock, so I'd say under a day, but couldn't you have easily figured that out?"
Vale nodded, "that was exactly what I was thinking. I'd say they are half a day ahead of us based on that and the other things that they left behind."
Sadine frowned, "You still haven't answered my question."
"I wanted to make sure. We need to know how to pace ourselves. Lucky for us they stopped for a while, especially since we got off to a late start."
Sadine walked back to her Attoka, "Well we better get going then, if we want to catch up."
Vale whistled and her Attoka came running towards her.
As the rest of the party caught up with her, Vale looked at Faldrid, "Sorry for the wait."
Faldrid smiled, "Don't worry it's better to be safe than sorry."
"Oh, Faldrid, did you learn your lesson from what happened yesterday?" Sadine teased him.
Faldrid gave an irritated grin and ignored her.
The group rode along in silence, the only sound coming from the attokas' hooves hitting the road beneath them.
Faldrid thought about what Loutrin had said. At first, he thought he would have been able to prevent the horrible fate that befell all the fallen soldiers, but now he didn't know. What could he have done, without jeopardizing the completion of the mission as a whole? If he knew that Loutrin and Umbren might have been spotted, what could he have done? He might have been able to put Umbren and Loutrin into his group, so they could avoid the risk of being recognized. But even then, what if that wasn't how the disguised tenebrage's covers were blown? Besides, no matter what he did he would have to get the decision passed that stubborn Yorburn.
"Hey, Loutrin," Faldrid rode up next to him.
"Hmm."
"Do you remember our talk last night around the campfire?"
"Yeah, which part of it."
"Well, I understand that you don't know what happened after you were knocked out, but what about before that? If you don't mind me asking of course." Faldrid gave an awkward chuckle.
Loutrin looked towards the sky, which was blue with no clouds in sight, "Mmm, I guess I can, but what good would it do? What has happened has happened, and we can't change it. All we can do is just let it motivate us, to never let it happen again."
"How am I supposed to prevent a similar instance, if I don't know what happened in the first place!" Faldrid raised his voice in irritation.
"You doing okay back there Faldrid? If you want, I can come keep you company. You must be really anxious about being back in the field." Sadine called back to him from the front of the pack.
Sadine and Vale road in the front. There were a couple of Hands of Morta behind them, and behind them were the other members of the Black Crescent, which Faldrid led. The group numbered around seventy-five in total.
"Sorry, but I don't think that your presence would be comforting in the least!" Faldrid shouted back.
"It's your loss then."
Faldrid turned back to Loutrin, "so, going back to our conversation."
"Umm, well I guess you had a point before."
Faldrid's eyes widened in anticipation. He didn't know what he would do with the answer that he was going to get, but he did know that he couldn't wait for it.
Loutrin grabbed one of his skewers from his belt and started spinning it around his fingers. "Well, once we got to the camp, we found a hole in the wall that they erected, big enough for us to pass through."
"Wait, you're telling me that there was just a random hole in the wall, big enough for someone to easily pass through."
"Yeah, pretty much. master Miglo was pretty excited to go through it, too."
"Did no one find this suspicious, since a hole big enough for people to pass through it, would negate the whole purpose of the wall, and be easily noticeable?"
"No, not really. We all just followed Miglo in."
"Oh, I see. Sorry for the interruption."
Loutrin nodded and continued, "After that, I think we all just met in the center of the camp to be counted, and then I fainted."
Faldrid looked down deep in thought, "What happened just before you fainted."
Loutrin tilted his head trying to remember, "The only thing that I can recall is that they were counting us like livestock."
Faldrid closed his eyes and thought to himself
The fact that everyone fainted after all the counting led him to believe that they were just looking for the tenebrage that the scout spotted. At least now he knew that the tragedy could have been avoided.
Faldrid closed his eyes for a second and then opened them and looked at Loutrin, "Do you possibly remember anything else? Maybe after waking up?"
Loutrin's look darkened, and he stopped fiddling with the skewer in his hand. It was as if he was frozen in time, as if his soul had travelled back to a dark and traumatic time.
"You don't have to answer if you don't want to. Forget that I even asked." Faldrid said.
Loutrin remained the same for about a minute. It got to the point that Faldrid began to worry. Fortunately, Loutrin went back to the way he was before. He nodded and began to fidget with the slender metal skewer in his hand as he looked towards the horizon.
With that their conversation came to an end. Though the same could not be said for Faldrid's own thoughts. With his new-found knowledge, Faldrid thought about what had happened. Judging by the random hole in the wall surrounding the camp he would have to think that the enemy had wanted the tenebrage force to come inside. However, that itself was a really risky move, and no one in their right mind would go for it without some sort of hesitation, but judging from the time Umbren and Loutrin were spotted to the time they entered the camp, there would be little time for hesitation. What the normal thing to do would be to put all the guards on alert and prepare them for an attack. But to be so confident as to let a sizable portion of the guards relax, while also letting in a hostile force into the camp is almost insane. The same person to make that trap, must have also been the same one to leave those horrific tents behind. Just who this person was, Faldrid didn't know, but he did know that he did not want to meet him.