[Ridge]
The Duke's forces basically just replaced our wounded in number. We didn't gain any numerical advantage over the Nycia soldiers pinned down around us.
What we did get were Knights. Street fighters and rag tag Mercenary groups can be great in a scuffle, but if you want undeniable teamwork and efficiency you need Knights. The Duke not only had Ravenous, his personal guard, but he had also attracted rogue Knights throughout the South these past months.
While the Viscount grew his forces through his underground connections, the Duke began tracking down Knights that his Noble connections had worked with before. Using his own network, he amassed his own following that was slightly smaller, but further trained, than the Viscount's.
The main brunt of that is still Ravenous though. It's painful to see now that the fighting has become rather stagnant. There are many faces that had only just begun to become familiar that are no longer among them. Old man Pete was lost early on. He came from a time even before elite Knights.
If elite Knights were the product of unethical training and grueling work, I can only imagine what Pete's generation was like. He was one tough old man, that much was clear just from talking to him.
He's not with them anymore though, and I have no one to ask why to. That's because there are even more faces that I can't find in their ranks. Sir Kierce is effectively missing. That man had issues worse than Tellur, but boy was he strong. If he's not here, what were the chances of the rest of them making it this far? It's a downright miracle.
I can't ask about him either though, because Martina sure isn't with them either. I didn't really expect him to be though. I've been telling myself this whole time that he's dead actually.
I have no idea what happened to the cheerful guy after we parted ways, only that I regret it. I've had such a bad feeling about it this whole time. Isn't it strange that I automatically assumed he wouldn't be with the Ravenous guard?
Why couldn't he have made it back to his room and then escaped just like me? Or maybe he could've run into some other Knights in the halls late at night and fought off attackers during the invasion. There was really every possibility that he could've been just as fine as the rest of us, in the sense that he was alive, and on his way to the cabin with the Riddotha family.
Just the Riddothas, since the Lushares who were staying at the Manor were all gutted during the attack. Kadeeth's fiance was the only one of her family not caught by the Nycia invaders, taken prisoner and then brutally murdered. That's because they later found her body in her room, where she died from the smoke and flames in her sleep.
I don't know what I expected really, but Kadeeth didn't think too much of it. I guess after chatting with his father about how much he's improved some part of me was tricked into thinking he was normal or something. He's not. Never has been, never will be.
He didn't even bat an eye. My colleagues are missing, most probably dead, and I don't even have time to sit down and process it. His fiance, the woman he was supposed to spend the rest of his life with, is gone and the first thing he asked me after hearing the news was if I was okay.
What on Dim do we do now?