A warm fireplace, not quite as rich food, women sewing leather clothes, hunters returning from gathering, everything is as good as ever ...
But in the next moment, Betty's voice became blurred and Sanchi's figure gradually distorted ...
Pain travels from the back to the top of the head ...
"Keane, wake up.
You're safe now."
The voice was somewhat unfamiliar, but the figure looked familiar.
She was kneeling on the side, fiddling with something in her hands.
At first, the boy thought he had seen Nevaika (meaning "battlefield maiden", a generic term for the maid or daughter of Killian, the god of war), but the pain in his body was so real.
He tried to get up, but collapsed from the dizziness attached to the headache.
"Don't be reluctant.
I've examined your body and treated a few burns.
The rest will recover with time.
Come on, drink this down.
It will ease the pain."
A bottle of potion was handed to the mouth.
The boy could not think much about it, so he drank it.
After a while, the potion began to work.
He sat up and looked at the place where the fight had taken place before.
"I've checked.
Sadly, they're dead."
The boy did not respond and staggered over.
Mirei's arm was almost severed.
The fatal wound came from some kind of sharp object that penetrated the body.
betty's chest also had a pierced wound, a stone still clutched in her hand.
farrond fell in a pool of blood not far away, the spear in his hand was damaged.
The boy endured a headache repeatedly recalling the weapons held by the valley people, but Betty's wounds did not match those caused by the weapons.
"There is a purple-blue color around the wound, which is frostbite and is caused by magic.
It should have been done by a mage.
If that's what you want to know." The woman on the side couldn't help but speak up.
"Hmm." The boy concentrated again on his memories.
The swelling sensation of blood rushing into his head almost made him faint again.
After closing his eyes for Betty, he took out what his aunt was biting into her mouth, a piece of skin with flesh attached.
Seeing this, the woman couldn't help but have wet eyes and her voice became trembling, "In order to protect you, she fought like a female wolf to the end."
The boy's emotions finally broke the bank, and he hugged his aunt's corpse, tears flowing down unstoppably.
A few moments later, he struggled to raise an iron sword and slashed at the corpse of the valley man next to him, paying no attention to the splattered flesh and blood.
The woman did not expect the child to behave in such a way, and for a moment did not know what to do, so she had to stay on the sidelines.
The boy did not stop until the corpse in front of him was a bloody mess.
He then dragged his iron sword towards another unfamiliar corpse, the blade poking it through several times until he had no more strength to pull it out.
He searched, his eyes gazing toward the broken spear in the blacksmith's hand.
"That's enough! That's enough!" The woman stepped forward and pulled the boy to her feet, gazing into his eyes, "Sleep, now." The latter obediently fell to the ground and fell into sleep in the twinkling of an eye.
----------
In the roaring flames, a familiar face is turned into charcoal.
The burning breath will dry the wet corners of the eyes.
Until the open fire will rest, the sky only showed a splash of proof of the last valor of the dead.
The boy put away Betty's necklace and turned to look for his dagger, but he found only a few coppers on the Upper Valley man's body.
He felt the pocket knife used to trim the wood in his pocket and thought back, over and over again, but never remembered the dagger's whereabouts.
"Let's go.
I'll take you somewhere to get out of the way." The woman said.
The boy looked at the woman, but could not recall her name for a moment."You're - a pharmacist?"
"Yes.
I'm Sela, the village apothecary.
You don't remember me?"
"Remember, it's just not very clear."
"And do you remember how you fainted?" Seeing the boy shake his head, Sela realized that it was mostly due to a misplaced memory caused by the head impact.
"Sela, I can't go with you.
I'm going to find them and get revenge for Betty." Keane pointed to the bodies of the valley people.
"But you don't have that power right now." Sela drew the iron sword the boy had strapped to his back, "You struggle to even swing this iron sword."
"Will you help me?"
"No, I can't do that." Sela sighed longingly, "If there were only a few of them, I could throw a few vials at them, be it poison or whatever.
But there are many of them.
Even if we find them, how can we kill them and get out in one piece?"
"..."
"Come on, I'll take you to Sanchi.
we can go back the way we came, up the plateau on the south side of the Sleepless Mountains, and-"
"I'm not going to the highlands.
You're right, I can't use the iron sword.
I want to go back to the village first ...."
Although she didn't know the purpose of the boy's return to the village, Sela was always relieved to see him change his mind.
----------
There were no words along the way.
After all this, it was lonely for Keane to step into his home again.
He sat in the chair where his aunt used to sit, looking at the cold fireplace and remembering the days of winter.
At that time ...
soon, the boy forced himself back to reality.
He picked up his hunting bow and walked to the blacksmith's house.
Sela's not in the mood to tidy up her messy home.
She went straight to the basement, pried a narrow slab of stone with her dagger, and took a tarpaulin roll from underneath and put it in her walking bag.
Sela raised her dagger and with her other hand she pulled the vial from her pocket and moved noiselessly towards the door.
She looked out through the doorway and saw the boy banging around with a hammer.
"What are you doing?" Sela asked as she stepped forward.
"Collecting door bolts, door locks, and hangers." Keane replied as he removed the locks and iron grommets from Willie Dale's door.
"And why is that?"
"The iron products in the village were robbed by the valley people.
I need iron to build weapons."
After dinner, Keane sat in front of the fireplace, holding his pocket knife and staring.
He pressed his head from time to time, as if the few arrows in front of him had put him in some kind of distress.
"There was a time when my greatest pain was having no one to talk to.
You didn't have to suffer that." Sela rubbed the bottle of medicine in her hand, considering whether she should persuade the boy to drink the sleeping potion.
It was the first time Keane had looked closely at Sela.
the firelight reflected on her ice-lake-like face, with its detailed, well-defined eyebrows, straight nose, and slightly nasal voice, and amber eyes that exuded a strange charm.
"I was recalling the name of the mage.
I remembered it once, but now I've forgotten it again.
I'm also trying to remember what those valley people looked like, but-" Keane shook his head in frustration, the pocket knife in his hand going nowhere.
Sela thought for a moment and pulled the bench over to sit on one side, "Maybe I can help you remember his name, but-"
"What?"
"I need to go through your memories." Sela pursed her lips, "I can't explain too much to you.
Aside from being an apothecary, I'm also a less-than-qualified mage.
I can find the answers you're looking for in your memories through simple magic.
The process is like turning the pages of a book.
But only if you accept the pages of the book where I dominate your thoughts."
Although he couldn't understand what Sela was saying, Keane nodded his head in response.
Still somewhat hesitant, Sela withdrew her hands, "This process will cause you to relive the pain of a few days ago.
Are you sure you want to do this?"
"So that I can keep them in mind."
"Okay." Sela placed her hands on either side of the boy's forehead.
A short incantation and the two entered into meditation.
A pair of young hands fiddling with a pig-driving stick, surrounded by children wielding wooden swords to chase ...
A certain woman measured her height with a plow harrow and carved marks with a knife.
Then she took the plow and harrow to the vegetable patch ...
The bottle flew over his head ...
all his temperature came from the lamb in his arms ...
Sheepskin coat is no longer warm, he stuffed hay into his clothes ...
"Your aunt is all over the continent ..."
"Taking a beating hurts, but it makes you strong ..."
"Take care of yourselves and wait for me to come back ..."
"Frostfire! Frostfire Yush!"
"Schoen Han! One-eyed! Blind! Dagger! Stick it in the back!"
"Jester!"
"Bear claws! Mountain Peak!"
"Iron Fist! Prime-wind Iron Fist!"
"Skin! A man who's lost his skin! There are bite marks on the body!"
One after the other, the two men read out the memory fragments in unison.
Keane could not read much and had to carve imaginary symbols on the arrow shaft for recording clues.
Afterwards, he held the arrow and lay down on the bunk by the fireplace.
The resonance of the magic drained the boy's energy."Sela, how did you escape the village?"
"No, it's not what you think." Sela tossed a herb into the fireplace."I was still in the forest picking herbs when the valley people showed up.
When I returned, I saw Willie Dale's headless corpse and not a soul left in the village.
It was then that I knew something had happened to the village.
So I gave chase along the main road." She paused, "If I had been there, I might have been able to do something to avoid all this.
I ..."
The smell from the herbs spawned drowsiness, and before the apothecary could finish, the boy had fallen asleep.
After a few moments of watching from the sidelines, Sela decided to leave.
She went outside the house, cut her finger with a knife and drew a very small charm on the door, then turned around and walked into the forest.
----------
When he woke up, Keane found no one around him.
He immediately ran to the dispensary, where Sela was also nowhere to be seen.
The boy slumped his shoulders and returned to the hunter's cabin.
Sitting in front of the dying fireplace, he revisited the arrows that held the clues and soon set about packing his bags.
"Arrows, daggers, bows, blankets, leather cords, and I need food and water, or honey wine."
"Looks like you're ready to go." At some point, Sela walked in, with some dead branches and leaves stuck to her body.
The boy was a little surprised to see Sela return."You fell down? You look tired and unrested."
"Yes, not last night.
So I took a nap at the edge of the forest." Sela wiped her dry lips with her finger."I want to take you to some people, my friends.
They might be able to help you."
"Help me get revenge?"
"Yes.
When you see them, you have to hold yourself.
They look similar to us, but they are not human."
"So are they elves?"
"Elves? No, no.
That's about right." Sela responded vaguely.
----------
After leaving the sparse alpine woodlands, the two continued their journey south.
As the terrain dropped, the climate became milder.
Mosses, vines, roots and dwarf plants covered the ground, slowing them down like a footlocker.
Whenever they encountered open space, Sela would always look back in the direction of the golden waterwheel under the influence of the boy.
The only thing that filled their eyes was Whispering Forest, which draped from the shoulder to the foot of the mountain like a tattered cloak.
Although the upper end of the animal's fur has shed a large part, but as the owner of the mountains will never want to abandon it.
Keane tried hunting with a bow and arrow, but never got as far as the traps he set before setting up camp.
To combat the slippery conditions, he tied arrowheads to the soles of his shoes with a leather cord to get more friction.
Whenever she sets up camp, Sela always gives priority to baking the herbs she collects along the way on a stone on one side of the campfire.
Before setting out the next day, she would patiently grind the herbs into powder.
At the request of her companions, she refined animal fats to make them more flammable.
To reduce the obstruction of the underbrush, Sela had to cut off part of the hem of her garment and later tie the edges to the soles of her shoes to prevent slippage."Hiking through the forest was like unclogging a pig's colon with a twig; there was a lot of resistance."
"Don't you always go to the forest to collect medicine?"
"Yes, but I don't usually get into these kinds of trouble."
While resting, Keane tied a long, thin bamboo tube containing animal fuel to the arrow to make an incendiary arrow.
After lighting the hay fuse, he fired the incendiary arrow at a mound of earth.
The impact of the arrowhead caused the fuel to spill and the mound was surrounded by flames.
"Impact can cause fuel to spill, or it can cause a reaction by mixing different powders.
This is exactly how the fueling powder works.
I will show you sometime.
With the combustion powder, you don't have to use hay to ignite the grease." Sela was about to say something else when she noticed that something was wrong with the mound.
The flames had alerted the creatures living in the mound.
She tugged her companion up, "Let's get out of here!"
Keane was overwhelmed, "What? What's wrong?"
After fleeing some distance, Sela stopped."I was careless.
I should have checked that mound in advance to make sure it wouldn't cause us any trouble."
"Trouble? Like a beehive?" Keane looked back at the mound of dirt.
"It's more easily ignored, so I think it's more deadly than a beehive." Sela pinched a fallen red ant from the ground and brought it to her companion's eyes."That mound of dirt is the Fire-cracker Ant's nest, and that's the guy."
Keane observed the large, carbon-red ant, "Are the large pincers on its mouth the reason for its name?" .
"Yes, it is poisonous.
If bitten by it, the wound will hurt like fire and will continue to bleed for a few days.
Those with more serious injuries will become allergic and even faint que." Sela explained.
"So if you get bitten by this ant a few more times it can be fatal?"
"Absolutely." Sela nodded."From what I've seen, bears and boars don't mess with them.
Fire can kill them.
What's interesting is that they're not afraid of fire.
That's different from most bugs." She crushed the Fire-cracker Ant's belly capsule and tossed it aside."Flames excite them and promote the secretion of venom, which they use to put out fires."
Keane was listening very intently.
It was not until Sela waved her hand that his attention was regained.