The flames crackled merrily. The fire, by all the laws of physics, was scorching hot and hurt if you put your hand into it, but it was not he who warmed it. Warmth was given to the body by inner strength, which warmed better than any fire. Friends still lit a small fire, which devoured dry brushwood thrown by people sitting around him.
When everyone woke up after their first consumption of the blood of sentient beings, the scenario that happened to Alexander was repeated: everyone tasted the blood from the maximum number of fallen soldiers. The wounded have long been dead. The corpses were stripped and carried away into the forest, the trophies were carefully collected and packed. All but Alexander remained naked. Even the girls decided not to cover up their charms with what the locals called clothes.
- We must return to the camp, - Semyon threw more brushwood into the fire, without even attempting to get up, - They will start to worry.
- It is necessary, - Alexander got up and stretched, - And we also need to stick together and not give Gennadievich a lot of power. You know that he is a good leader, but a frankly bad person.
Everyone who knew what was at stake nodded in agreement. But like Semyon, they did not make any attempts to get up but frowned at the fire.
- So, enough to become limp! Well, come together!
And seeing that his words did not have the desired effect, Alexander had already frankly shouted:
- Rise! Took things in hand and move back!
Throwing out the fireplace with his foot and making sure that the fire began to extinguish, he took his things in his hands, and without looking at the others, went towards the camp. His companions, as if waking up from a dream, grabbed the luggage and settled down after him. After a couple of minutes of such a move, Alexander, without turning around, began to give commands, loudly, so that everyone could hear him.
- We come to the camp. We tell everyone what we have learned. We have another meeting. We are not on the rampage, we do not particularly contradict Gennadievich, but we defend our point of view. We don't tell anyone about blood. It's clear?
Indistinct confirmation was his answer. Among the things of the warriors, of course, there were flasks. Here is one of them and filled with the blood of the wounded, skillfully cutting his veins in the right place. The knowledge of some of the fallen warriors was very, very specific.
- Further weapons. Choose what you want to use. I say right away that axes and maces are better, swords are frankly bad, but it is also desirable for someone to take them.
- I'll take the sword, Sash, - Semyon, who was following, answered almost without delay, even interrupting his leader, - I always dreamed of swinging a sword for real.
- Well, here you have such an opportunity. As they say, be afraid of your desires - they tend to come true.
At this, everyone was silent and the detachment moved to the sounds of the surrounding nature. Soon Yevgeny caught up with Alexander and, having caught up with him, walked beside him. Fully nude and fully clothed men would look comical if someone outside was watching them.
- We leave too many traces. You know that finding corpses for the locals will not be difficult, the animals will not eat them overnight, and then the local authorities will wonder who is having such fun. And walking in the footsteps of eight people is not a problem.
Alexander had already thought about it himself, but fortunately, this problem was not urgent.
"The Baron will not be looking for his scouts for the next two days. So we have four days before the camp is found. So think about how to solve it.
- And the soldiers?
- The soldiers are still far away.
A fight on the road was staged by the local baron's vigilantes and soldiers of the royal army. The truth of the neighboring kingdom. For a year now, a war was waged between the glorious and glorious kingdom of Orod and the no less glorious and glorious kingdom of Elur. They were now in Elur territory. The Ordos decided to bypass the royal army of the Elurians and strike them in the rear, for the sake of which they passed through the mountain passes of the Nalimsky ridge and entered the Great Northern Route leading to the northern mines. It was with the scouts of the vanguard of the city's army that the baron's vigilantes, whom he sent to check the route, fought after the caravan men informed him about the strange horsemen they had recently seen.
- Yes, and you understand, they will not now figure out who killed their colleagues.
- Well, yes, that's right. And I see you are acting according to army laws - is the initiative punishable?
Alexander turned and looked into the face of the smiling Eugene.
- Rather, I entrust the task to the one who thought of the problem and plucked up the courage to report it. And that means it can solve it.
"You know, you don't look that smart. And you say very, very reasonable things.
- It's not enough to say. Need to do. And now our life and the lives of several hundred more people depend on what we will do.
- Vampires ...
- What? - Alexander even stopped and stared at the interlocutor.
"The life of several hundred vampires depends on us, not people," Eugene did not even think to look away.
- Well, yes…
- Then I will give our girls the task of washing and cleaning all the clothes that we got. We will have to meet with the locals soon. It is inappropriate to do this naked, - Evgeny chuckled, - And the clothes of the soldiers cannot be recognized should.
-So do it.
Further to the camp, they were silent and everyone thought about their own. Personally, Alexander simply digested in his mind the memories of people about the world into which they were brought, and tried to sort everything out on the shelves. It turned out that they were thrown into rather wild, sparsely populated places, and under other circumstances, it would have been possible to hide in these forests forever, but they appeared exactly at the moment when a mess happened here for the first time in a couple of centuries. And we got almost to its center.
The camp greeted them with surprised eyes and a stupid bustle. They did not manage to get the fire. The huts looked like anything but weather protection. Everyone did everything according to their understanding. And walking around it was heard that even now Aleksey Gennadievich was trying to organize the work, he did it very badly. Most of the time he spent on intrigue, and not the correct organization of people.
- Hunters-scouts has appeared! I already started to worry. And who did you rob? Role players?
Ignoring the exclamations of his former boss, Alexander threw his load on the ground and shouted as loudly as possible, urging everyone to get together.
The deputy director was unhappy that his words were ignored, but he did not aggravate the situation and go to conflict, he was also interested. And most importantly, the smell. From the things that these "morons" brought, as he silently christened the company arguing with him, a mesmerizing smell of blood. The smell was faint. The blood had time to dry, but the nose caught it, and a desire flared up inside to possess this blood.
When everyone finally gathered in front of Alexander, he climbed onto a fallen tree so that everyone could see it.
- What I will say now is incredible, but I ask you to believe me and take my words as seriously as possible.
He managed to capture the attention of the crowd, although in such a situation it did not require any special effort. Dressed in a suit strange for their time, the man attracted attention by himself, he didn't even need to say anything. People stood quietly and were ready to listen.
"We are not only vampires, not only nagas and brought in who knows where. This is a completely different world. This is not Earth. I don't know if this is a parallel world or some other. Whether we are delusional in isolation or experiencing a massive hallucination is completely irrelevant in this case. Around us is another world.
People stood and looked at him, expecting to continue. Even Olga Viktorovna and Alexei Gennadievich were silent and did not try to say anything, neither about vampires nor about another world.
"I stumbled across a battlefield between several people and drank the blood of the dead. With human blood, everything happened exactly like with wolf blood, I received their knowledge and memories. We are in the kingdom of Elur, Duchy of Kas, Barony of Savoyard. In this world, besides humans, there are other races of intelligent beings. But no one has heard of vampires. The mountains that you can see in the west are called Nalim or Nalim. They are the border between the kingdom we are in and the kingdom of Herod. Further to the north lies the Great Northern Route. It goes to the rich mines in the very north of the kingdom - the Zalon mines and the Zalon fortress. The forest in the north and east is not inhabited by people at all. It is called the Cursed Forest, and as the locals believe, various evil spirits live there. Nobody saw her, but the road in the north is laid along the mountains since this is a safer place than through the forest to the east. The mountains are inhabited by goblins and they are dangerous. You will see a small furry creature on two legs - kill immediately or it will kill you.
Alexander himself did not know why he was telling people all this. Although latently and understood that such a monotonous enumeration of simple facts acts on them in something hypnotic and they do not succumb to panic or hysteria. So instead of dividing his blood drop by drop among everyone, he went on and on and on.
- The kingdom of Orod and Elur are at war and very soon the Orod army will pass through these places, from north to south. Their goal is to capture the capital of the duchy before winter. By the way, now is the beginning of September.
After a pause, he looked around the people and decided not to continue, but to allow them to digest the information received. But he quickly changed his mind. It is necessary to forge the iron while it is hot - there are no tantrums and no attempts by the director to show who is in charge here.
- Now, more than ever, it is important for us to build temporary shelters from the weather and the sun. We now have tools for cutting wood. We need to build simple huts. Don't try to make them too solid. They are temporary and should only protect from the sun and heavy rain. We will most likely have to leave this place in a couple of days.
- Why should we trust this sucker ?!
"Started. You didn't think, Alexander, that everything would be so smooth? "