Noah sighed and sat down and wondered why the dogs were so aggressive . He pulled his bag off his back and grabbed some bandages and wrapped them around his thigh. He set his bag on the ground and took a moment to breathe and he decided not to think about why the dogs were so aggressive as he couldn't think of any reasonable answers. After a bit he got back up, put his bag back on his back, and then he went over to where the first dog walked over and he saw it dead on the ground. 'I can't be making dumb mistakes like this.' Noah thought, frustrated and looking at the bandages on his thigh. He sighed again thinking, 'I need to get out of here, whoever owned these dogs is gonna come looking for them.' He began to continue walking towards Spearhead, wincing each time he stepped on his wounded thigh.
* * *
After another half hour of walking, Noah began to hear voices talking. He quickly stopped and hid himself in the surrounding brush. After a few moments he began to slowly head over towards the voices.
"Did you find the dogs yet?" A voice asked, obviously annoyed.
"No, I lost the tracks." Another voice tiredly responded. In the middle of this sentence Noah saw the people talking. The voices were two men walking on the trail and heading towards Noah. Behind the two men was a clearing with some activity going on in it, however, Noah was too far away to properly see what was going on in it. 'This may be a bandit camp. That would explain why there were dogs and why they were so aggressive.' He thought. 'It would also explain why there are people here, but I shouldn't jump to a conclusion like that without proper evidence.'
"Well that makes this patrol that much harder." The first man said. He had a big and bulky build with a mix of chain and leather armor and a sword on the left side of his hip. Even from the close distance Noah was from the bandits, it was hard for him to see any more details. It was the same with the second man. All Noah could see was that he was taller and had a slimmer build.
"Yeah I feel you." The second man responded, "I've been on three patrols dedicated to finding those dogs, and let me tell you, we'll need this whole forest to burn down to find those dogs."
"Those dogs were raised well." The first man responded. "Too well almost." Noah smiled to himself, glad that we rid the bandits of such an important tool. The pair was far enough from Noah that he could continue to the clearing to figure out what was going on. A part of his mind was screaming that Noah was an idiot as all the signs pointed towards it being a bandit camp, but he wanted to make sure with his own two eyes. After a small while of sneaking towards the clearing he made it to the edge of the clearing, making sure that he was well hidden but could see what was going on in there. And he saw what he expected. There were multiple tents set up all around the clearing, with groups of barrels and boxes also set up around the clearing. Noah counted at least 20 people walking around the clearing. There was a larger tent set up in the middle of the clearing with some posted as guards around it. Without a doubt this was a bandit camp. Noah sighed, feeling stupid. He quickly quieted himself so as to not be detected. Two bandits came walking in front of Noah, heading towards a stack at boxes close to where he was hiding. Noah's heart froze when he saw them walk close to him and he lowered himself to the ground and made sure to all his movements and he quieted his breathing as much as possible.
"Why'd we have to lose so many men?" One of the pair said. Noah recognized his voice as the bandit that escaped from him at the carriage raid.
"There was nothing that we could do. Nobody expected that there would be two people that are actually good at fighting in the south." The other bandit responded. Noah didn't recognize this voice. After a bit the same voice said, "That's we raid this land of cowards. They like to talk and negotiate instead of fighting back."
"Yeah, after all we aren't trained fighters. We're just men who want to provide food for our families. After all, if they're rich enough to not worry when their next meal is, they're rich enough to 'donate' food to us who are starving." The first bandit said. Hearing this shocked Noah, he always thought bandits were just greedy criminals and just that. 'But the south isn't like that at all, they may not be suffering as much as the north but they certainly aren't having a good time either. They only seem complacent with what's going on because they don't want to die, and who wants to die. And just because you're suffering doesn't mean you should wish those who are doing better than you to do worse just so you can do better. You should be spending your energy on bettering your situation instead.' Noah thought, and inaudibly laughed to himself thinking about just how much he changed since he began this journey. However he stopped when he heard thunderous wingbeats. He wasn't the only one to hear it. The bandits were scrambling around trying to hide themselves from Nightmare. After a while Nightmare stopped over the clearing, to the bandits surprise. Even though their camp is in the clearing, Nightmare has never stopped over it.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Nightmare asked.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" A man angrily shouted, coming out of the large tent. Noah guessed that this man was the bandit chief.
"I'm allowed to go wherever I want to in my territory." Nightmare calmly responded. "And you're not exactly hiding yourselves in this clearing."
"Well you never stopped here before." The bandit chief responded, annoyed.
"Well I'm allowed to go wherever I want, whenever I want in my territory." Nightmare replied, "And anyways, I've heard that you've been robbing my people." Noah snorted when he heard this and angrily thought, By your people you mean your gold. After this thought he immediately panicked, thinking that somebody may have heard him. He looked around and breathed a sigh of relief, everyone was too focused on Nightmare to hear him.
Apparently Noah wasn't the only one who got angry at Nightmare's words as the bandit chief said, "You only care about 'your people' so you can just take gold out of our economy."
"Oh? Your economy?" Nightmare responded. "Ever since four years ago it was no longer your economy. It's my economy."
"Well that still doesn't change the fact that you are just taking gold out of it." The bandit chief responded, anger being shown all over his body.
"And it still doesn't change the fact that you are stealing from your own species." Nightmare responded, getting annoyed. "And from my people. Anyways, I'm done with this conversation." When he finished talking, he began to suck in air. The bandit chief continued to shout at Nightmare but Noah immediately began to panic. He began to slowly back out of the bush he was hiding in. The reason he began to panic and back away was because dragons that breathed fire sucked in air before releasing it to gather fuel for their flame sack. The flame sack was an organ in the dragon's neck that was responsible for creating dragon fire. The bandits didn't know this however, and the bandits were either shouting at Nightmare or standing there confused.
After a few seconds, Nightmare stopped sucking in air and the bandit chief shouted, "SO ARE YOU JUST STAY THERE AND NOT SAY ANYTHING!" And as he finished shouting, Nightmare unleashed his flame, and the bandits began to scream. The flames quickly consumed the clearing, burning the entire bandit camp to the ground. Noah was left standing there completely shocked and only able to watch the destruction. The bandits stood no chance and every single one in the camp died in less than a minute to one attack. Noah began to shake in fear, he noticed that the flames stayed in the clearing and didn't spread to the treeline. He began to think about how lucky he was, 'I'm so damn lucky. If I didn't have this book, or if the flames hit the trees I would be done for.' He grabbed his bag while thinking about this. He looked up through the flames and into the sky. He saw something black and instantly dove into a nearby bush. Nightmare was still in the same spot as before the flames, watching them burn the clearing. Noah tried his hardest to keep still but still shook somewhat. He hoped that he didn't shake the bush too much.
After a small while Noah heard Nightmare say, "Good thing the fire didn't spread to the trees. I like the look of this forest." This made Noah worriedly think, 'He's powerful enough to destroy the entire Spear Forest!? What did I get myself into? No! I have to do this. I'm the person with the best chance to kill Nightmare and free this region. Remember the plan.' He shook his head and tapped it with both hands. He looked back to where Nightmare was and saw him flying back to Spearhead. He kept still for a bit longer to make sure Nightmare would start circling back and when he saw that Nightmare wasn't circling back, he excited the bush. He looked around and saw that he dropped his spear. He ran over to it and picked it up. While he was picking it up, he looked over to Spearhead, panicking and thinking that Nightmare might have heard it fall and was trying to bait him. He saw that Nightmare was right at Spearhead and didn't look like he was going to head back. Noah sighed, relieved, and looked at what was left of the bandit camp. With the flames gone, what was once a beautiful clearing was now charred and full of ash. He walked into the clearing, the ash staining his shoes and the bottom of his pants gray. He began to walk around, occasionally kicking a charcoal. He saw something orange and bright in the distance and, under the knowledge that nothing living would be here, walked towards it. When he got close to it he felt a wave of heat hit him. He instinctively put an arm in front of his face, but he put it down to actually see what the orange thing was. At first he only saw a bright, orange pile, but upon closer inspection, he saw that it was a pile of superheated, deformed, barrel rings. Noah had to stop himself from audibly gasping. He had only seen metal turn that color when his father took him to the blacksmith to see how weapons were made. 'It took the blacksmith multiple minutes to get the metal to that point, and it's already cooling!' He thought and went back to walking around. He ended up at the place where the bandit chief stood. He looked up at the sky and imagined himself in the place of the bandit chief and shivered. He moved his foot and felt it kick something. He looked around and saw that what he kicked was a black skull with a big hole in it. Startled, Noah jumped back and almost fell over. He then noticed that there was an entire charred skeleton where he was. The skeleton blended in with the ash pretty well and caused Noah to think about how many things he kicked he thought were charcoals but may have been bones which made him shiver again. 'How am I ever going to kill Nightmare if he can do all of this in seconds. This is suicide' Noah thought, clenching his hands, 'No, I have to see this through. I can't disappoint my father and the town. I have to do it.' He decided to get out of the clearing to clear his head and walked off.
Authors Note:
I'm really sorry I wasn't able to get this out when I said, turns out I was a lot busier then expected and that threw me off quite a bit and I forgot to write. I won't let this happen again, and if it does then feel free to hold me accountable. I should be able to get chapter 12 around schedule, but it will be shorter as I don't have much planned for that chapter and I can't write for the next five days.