"We thank you dearly for managing to save our son Cadin." Silvia thanked Cadin, embracing her wounded son. The wound he once had was already partially healed, no longer bleeding out. Foren was also more healed, his wounds clotted and only leaving spots of red blood staining his camouflage robe.
"You are welcome, though it seems his own soldiers were killed in combat. We offer you a sum of prisoners that you may use for repairs or replenishing your forces if you wish." Cadin consoled the saddened three.
"Thank you, but it seems like you may also need a few for your army." The woman helped sit down her son on his chair, resting on her own after. Cadin along with the other cavalrymen and Joken looked back at them, covered in wounds, armor and cloth torn, their faces filled with blood of enemies or their own.
"Thank you, I hope this setback does not damage our relations with one another."
"Not at all, our gains outweigh this loss. Thank you also for helping my son in taking other camps. He may have had this much success in a few months, but with you the gains and victories only took days. We thank you dearly for that, hopefully our son also gains great experience from this, military and combat experience." Silvia composed herself, taking a deep breath before looking back to Cadi with a smile.
"As for now my husband will start governing over the newly taken camps. But I must ask, what had happened for such damage to occur? That even my son and his trained soldiers were nearly wiped out?" The father looked at Cadin with a face of annoyance while Silvia simply held a face of concern and curiosity.
"It seems there was a new threat in the last camp. One that seemed more equipped and more dangerous than the other soldiers. We could not see them from the trees. And overpowered your son along with his men." Cadin clasped his hands together on the table, swallowing before talking again. "The threat seems to pose a great danger, though we do not know anything about it. We only know that they are skilled enough to take down my soldiers and your son's soldiers, heavily injuring him as well. We had to leave the camp but we took the prisoners. I do not wish to fearmonger, but they may even reach here." The father sighed after Cadin spoke.
"If they will, it seems our alliance has made them reveal themselves to us. Maybe they know we are here as well." He spoke in a gruff voice, Cadin nodded in reply.
"Again, you may have the prisoners, you may even keep the entire group. Use them as guards or sightseers. The attackers do not seem to care about them as well, killing both of our men when we retreated, it seems they are foreign and not allied." Cadin continued.
"It is only fair that we leave a small sum of prisoners to you, about ten or twenty may suffice. As a fair compensation on your part. Both of you have taken many losses and injuries, we only saw about seven or eight surviving soldiers from his group." She stood up, "You may return to your homes. Whatever this threat is, I am sure we can handle it. Even with what it has done to my son and our soldiers. Rest and heal and you may return back here once all is done."
Cadin stood up, the meeting already finished. He walked to the exit with his men behind him, pushing the chairs back in before heading out.
"My lord, forgive me for not saving more of my men under our command." Joken apologized, outside the people walked around while the camp's soldiers escorted the tired and wounded prisoners to different sections.
"It is alright, at least we did not lose all of them. None of us would have expected such an attack. For now we must head home, I will return to the river camp and you return to the outer camp with what is left of our army."
"Yes my lord."
The group reached the platform, as they got inside, the platform began descending.
A sense of calm entered Cadin's mind, hearing the sound of birds chirping and the people speaking with little fear in their voices.
'Wonder what has happened to my original camp. Hopefully it still stands and functions right.' Cadin thought to himself, keeping his mind busy until the platform reached the bottom.
On the ground, the wounded footmen stood in their formation, incomplete and filled with injured men. The horses all stood in front of the unit, with a few horsemen tending to them.
In little time they mounted their horses, beginning their march back home after what had happened. The sun above began descending down, marking the nearing end of the day.
Their march resumed, a strange sense of calm and sadness loomed over the entire unit, losing many of their soldiers while heavily injured from a sudden attack.
Cadin placed his hand on his arrow wound, feeling if it was healed fully or not. The skin was rough.
'What did we get attacked by?' They continued down the path, now far away from the camp, the soldiers were exhausted, despite this though, they continued moving with little sign of stopping despite their tiredness. Their faces now one of vigilance, looking around at the trees.
An hour passed, the unit emerged out of the forest and into the warm embrace of the outside plains.
Cadin took a deep breath of the plains, refreshed and out of the warzone he entered.
The army continued on with their march with no breaks. In the distance, the sun was starting to set, beginning to leave an orange tint to the plains and the world around Cadin.
"Joken, since I am returning to the river camp, I leave the safety of the outer camps to you." Cadin turned to Joken next to him, giving him the news.
"Very well my lord, I won't let you down."