One Week Later.
"Why not combine the names?" Shiv asked, fed up with the two men's bickering.
"Hah! You really think that wasn't our first solution?" Duncan scoffed and shook his head. "Leave the thinking to us, my friend. What combination do you think would work? Revenge Mirrors? Mirror's Revenge? Revenge of the Mirrors? Pshaw!"
Surprisingly, Briggs was in agreement with Duncan. "The only option is to go with either Revenge or Mirror. There is simply no compromise that we will both agree upon." He gave Shiv a pointed look. "Trust me. We've tried."
They were riding on horses with the coloring of tigers that they had captured before leaving the city. Shiv still hadn't gotten over the fact that normal horses all had stripes of various colors and that it was the ones without stripes that resided in savannahs.
"Why don't you call it Reflection?" Blaze suddenly piped up from atop her wolf made of flames that had been her constant companion since the battle against the spider. "It's got 're' from 'revenge' and you can see your reflection in mirrors." She explained her thinking in a clear and concise manner, as if she were talking to children… despite the fact that she was the only child in the group.
"I told you, no compromises will satisfy this-" Briggs began, but was cut off by Duncan.
"Why, that's a brilliant idea! Say, why do you call your group 'Revenge', anyway? Don't get me wrong, it is, as Shiv would say, 'cool wicked', but it also seems a bit tacky." Duncan smoothly interrupted.
"It's 'wicked cool'. Not 'cool wicked'." Shiv tried to butt in, but was ignored.
"Oh, now you're willing to be reasonable? I suggested that name for those very reasons twenty-three minutes ago." Briggs scowled, though he too, was ignored.
"Uncle called his group that, because his girlfriend made him mad and he wanted to get back at her." Blaze informed Duncan. Shiv grimaced, recognizing the simplified explanation he'd given to the girl himself not too long ago, and pretended not to see the dark look Briggs sent his way.
"That doesn't even begin to do it justice." Shiv laughed, trying to save face with the short warrior. "Why do you call your group Mirror?" His awkward attempt to change the subject was successful only because Blaze echoed his question.
"Oh, it's simple really: my commanders hate them." Duncan laughed with a hint of evil while his conversants all looked at him with incomprehension. "Uh, mirrors. My commanders hate mirrors. You know… because they're so ugly?" He lost steam and ended up looking back and forth between them to find anything resembling support.
"That's really mean, Other Uncle." Blaze said with a disapproving look.
They were interrupted by a man riding up on another of the striped horses. This one was forest green with black stripes. "Sirs, there has been a group of eleven armed men sighted on the road ahead. What are your orders?"
"Ask them if they want tea." Duncan said while Briggs simultaneously ordered the soldier to just continue keeping watch on them.
They looked at each other while the soldier saluted and left to do… who knows what. Duncan looked exasperated, and Briggs looked amused.
Blaze looked confused. Uriel, sitting on her shoulder, shifted in his sleep. He looked more and more like a miniature wolf every day, growing fur and teeth on his body that was more flesh than wood these days.
Soon, they rounded a corner on the road and were able to see the group heading their way. "They're merchants." Duncan said what they were all thinking.
And indeed they were. The elven guards were the vanguard for a caravan of covered wagons being driven by intimidating men in weathered armor. There were even more troops riding various mounts on either side of the convoy, and an undetermined amount behind it.
"That's no normal merchant caravan." Briggs announced before turning to look at the column of soldiers and wagons behind them to give orders for a few squads to disappear into the woods in the case that they were needed for an ambush or to prevent escapees.
Shiv had slowly been picking up on a few of the tactical aspects of being a leader, but had been infinitely surprised to find Blaze absorbing and utilizing that, and all of the other aspects as if they were second nature to her.
That was why Duncan raised an eyebrow at the fierce little girl on her feral, fiery mount. "And what should I do with some of my Reflections? Gah, that sounds weird. Sorry, I'm sticking with Mirror. What do you want my Mirrors to do?"
Blaze was busy looking at the approaching convoy through a looking glass she'd acquired from who knows where. "They look tough. You should bring your scariest men up to be our bodyguards.
"But… we four are the most powerful suckers here. Any bodyguards would just get in the way." Shiv scratched the back of his head.
"It's all about appearances. We may be the most powerful, but my commanders look the most powerful by far." Duncan shushed him and motioned for her to continue.
"...That's it." She said with a deadpan delivery.
"Oh. Well, I would also suggest you tell some of the Mirrors to position themselves in the trees beside the back of the enemy formation. The Revengers are great on land, but tend to get a bit lost when they have to climb a tree." Duncan suggested, causing Shiv to wonder just who was in charge of Mirror.
Blaze thought about it a bit, glanced at Briggs, who nodded, then turned her mount to ride back and give the orders. At first, the soldiers of both groups had been more amused than anything by Blaze being mentored by their leaders and consequently giving them orders, but over time they had come to respect the fiery little girl. Shiv didn't know why or how, but they treated her with more deference than they did even him, who was the official leader of the combined forces.
Soon, both groups had come to a stop. Shiv had initially thought that his group was much larger than the supposed merchants, but now found that these merchants actually had a comparable number of soldiers.
A group of men exited one of the lead wagons to mount some striped horses and moved till they were about halfway in between their group and Shiv's.
They stood there, waiting for several minutes while Duncan snickered and Briggs hid his amusement with a stoic face. Finally, Blaze finished giving orders and making arrangements and joined them again. With the group now whole, they moved forward to meet the men, making sure the ugly Mirrors were in prominent display.
"Hello there! What is a large group of scary men such as yourselves doing on a backroad like this?" Duncan began speaking before they had come to a stop, starting the conversation on his own terms… whatever those were.
"Backroad? Surely you must know that this is the main highway that links the cities of the country together." The largest of the men replied in a reserved tone. "And we could ask you the same question… what is your business on this road?"
"Why travel, of course!" Duncan laughed. "What else? We are traveling to the city that I suspect you left not too long ago."
"On what business?" The man glanced at the wolf of fire bearing a little girl missing a leg as it began to prowl around the two groups of leaders.
"Please, is this a conversation or an interrogation? I ask a question, you ignore it. You ask a question, and I answer it. Is anyone else seeing this pattern?" Duncan said rude words in a polite tone and an easy smile, clearly not meaning any insult.
The man didn't seem to be upset. "I am the leader of this convoy taking special materials to the King and Queen of these lands. We have the proper documentation, if you desire to see it."
"How? They're dead." Duncan said with no change in expression or tone.
The man, however, paled, and his companions gripped their weapons. "Who? Who is dead?"
"The reigning monarchs. And pretty much everyone in the capital or that other city. Uh, the Farmland, I think it was called."
The large man searched Duncan's face for some sign that the insane young former noble was playing a nasty trick on him, but couldn't find anything. He turned to Shiv and Briggs next, and they both nodded. "They're all dead. If you had loved ones out there… I'm sorry." Shiv said, with the wry realization that he was not only potentially sorry for the man's loss, but also for causing the man's loss.
"H-how?" The man's voice dropped to a whisper.
Shiv sighed. "Sometimes I find it crazy that people can't tell just from looking at me. I mean, there's got to be some way to tell, right?" He shook his head. "It should be obvious."
"What should?" The man wasn't getting it.
"I killed them all."