"Come with me," a soldier approached Leon as soon as he reached the outer ring of the tents making up the campsite.
The bloodmancer spared only a single look at the lightly dressed soldier. He ran his eyes through the state of the man's clothes and equipment before lowering his eyes and following him as ordered.
'That's a neatly organized camp,' Leon thought as he walked through the outer ring of the tents. There was at least a single soldier on the outside of each of the tents, making up the current group of watchmen. On the other side, hidden in the shadow of the tens, the rest of the local group would sit down by the campfire, talking, feasting, and drinking.
'The tents stop the light of the fire from blinding the watchers,' Leon observed, moving his eyes over the scenery only to then push them forward.
The inner ring of the campsite had no further guards. The tents were exactly the same as the ones used by the normal soldiers but from the looks of things, they served a far smaller number of people.
The bloodmancer brought his eyes all over the campsite before turning them down and even going as far as to lower his eyelids. He then followed after his guide with nothing but his instinct telling him where to place his steps.
"We are here," the scout soon stopped, turning around to look at the outsider. "The commander is waiting for you inside," he then informed before turning away and walking off.
'I guess he wasn't invited,' Leon thought, raising his eyelids by a tiny little bit before shaking his head and moving forward.
The tent wasn't secured in any form that he could recognize. There were no additional guards nor any locks stopping Leon from pushing the material away and then sneaking inside.
"I didn't expect you to come so soon," Leynel said as soon as Leon pushed his head inside only for his body to follow a moment later.
The bloodmancer then threw a quick glance at the insides, quickly noting the positions and stance of all those inside along with an extremely valuable piece of intel sitting right in the middle of them all.
'This map... I have to find a way to get a closer look at it,' Leon decided after glancing through the insides of the tent and as he raised his eyes to the officer he was already aquatinted with.
"Nor did I expect you to invite me to such an important meeting," he replied, raising his eyebrows as he looked at Leynel.
There was no need to explain his words. The people in the tent wore clothes that were strikingly different, and more elaborate than those Leon could see on the outside.
And within an army group of any kind and in any period, those who could dress better for the battlefield were usually those who bore more importance within said group.
Leon then looked around the tent once again. This time, however, he took his time to carefully gather the few bits of information he could pry from the empty faces of the officers sitting around the map in the center of the tent.
"So?" Leon then turned his eyes back on Leynel before crossing his arms on his chest. "What do you need me to do?"
Leon's question was as abrupt as was the soldier's invitation to follow him right the second he neared the camp. And yet, for how out of nowhere his question came out, his closed stance and confident albeit tired look on his face spoke to how certain he was of his guess being correct.
"What makes you think I need you to do anything?" Leynel asked, refusing to simply play along with Leon.
They didn't know each other nearly well enough to just skip through the bullshit. And he still had to uphold the respect of the position he held within the ranks of this unit.
Especially with all those officers keenly observing the encounter.
"Travel as far as I did in my life and you will have no other choice but to learn how to read people," Leon replied with a tired sigh. He then switched his body slightly to the side, implying with his stance alone that he was ready to leave the tent at a moment's notice.
Leynel stared at Leon's face for a while. He then released a deep sigh and shook his head.
"I don't think I even want to know what you went through in the past," he muttered only to then beckon at Leon to sit down and join the circle of his officers around the map. "I guess that means I won't be able to surprise you," he then added.
Leynel's finger moved over the map only to point at the forest right by a set of marks that length-wise could correspond to the name of the nearby village.
"I need you to go and check the depths of this forest for the presence of either a massive or extremely small group," Leynel revealed as he brought his finger back.
The bloodmancer leaned over the map, taking just a few seconds to imprint its copy into his brain.
It wasn't a magical spell, but a simple memorization trick that he trained himself for years in the past and now grew so used to, he could perform it basically on the spot.
"That's the gleenwood village, am I right?" Leon asked, raising his eyes from the map.
Now that its copy was safely stored in his mind, there was absolutely no need for him to waste time looking at it again.
"You don't know how to read?" Leynel asked, raising both of his eyebrows in a fit of genuine surprise.
"I do know," Leon replied offhandedly. "Your language is just one of those I can speak but not write," he said only to then raise his hand to his chin as he rubbed it while moving his eyes up. "Or can I really say it? It's not the first time I'm talking in this language but surely it's the first time I encountered this writing system," he added.
It would suffice to say, that Leon knew nothing about the writing systems or languages of the world as a whole. Yet, he could make an educated guess about how varied it was by weighing his options and assuming stuff that he learned from the history of his own world.
'Languages mostly come from only a few sources. But writing?' Leon held back a small smirk. 'Writing often gets developed by many cultures way past the point of the initial migration.'
"Well, it doesn't matter," Leynel cut the topic of the language only to tap his finger at the woodlands marked on the map. "We are either looking for a huge group of refugees slash deserters or a small group of chaosbringers."
'Something like an intelligence agent I shall assume,' Leon thought. He then raised his eyes from the map and onto the officer's face.
"You are not very specific, you do know that," the bloodmancer muttered while giving Leynel an eye.
"Is that a problem?" the officer replied, raising his eyebrows as he leaned back on his seat and crossed his arms on his chest.
"A problem? No, it's not," Leon smiled as he refuted Leynel's words. "It's just the start of negotiations. After all, you are not going to tell me you want me to work for free!"