While I jogged through the forest at a steady speed, as to not wake the children. My mind began to wander again.
Slipping to last night's events.
"No, no, no, no, no." Henry said, while shaking his head side to side, and crossing his arms over his chest, as I lifted the large piece of flaming wood in my hand.
"it be the work of the devil!" Henry said, with anger.
'Uhhh this imbecile!' I mentally shouted.
"You still don't believe me?" I questioned, in a strained voice, as I gestured to the flaming red hot piece of wood, I had gripped in my hand.
"No, I don't, it be the Dark Arts!" Henry snarled, in anger as he watched Adam drop the wood back into the fire.
"How is that the dark arts, hmm, I'll tell you, it isn't the dark arts you stubborn prick." I said in anger.
Continuing before he could continue his rant.
"Should I drive my blade through my chest, oh wait, that too you would believe a trick of the dark arts, because your faith is not strong, and the work of God is not clear to you." I said, hoping to use a lack of faith for the reason he thought it was the dark arts.
"You question my faith." Henry squealed, at my words in anger.
"That I do." I said.
Henry started blustering in anger and fury, unable to get a word past his tongue.
"See, you cannot even speak to defend your faith, is it you who is an agent of evil, come to sway your friend away from the light." I said, gesturing to John, who had been sitting quietly, since I had pulled the log from the fire.
"No that's not~"
"Not what? Not what you meant, your faith is so lacking, you wouldn't believe me no matter what I did." I said as I shook my head, in disappointment, using all of my acting skill to make me seem truly disappointed.
Looking at John I said.
"Has your friend always been such a non-believer, a heretic to Christianity?" I questioned the bewildered John.
John sat stunned at my words, unable to speak, at the implications that his friend, the one he had known all of his life, might be an agent of evil, a worshiper of the devil.
'Henry, an agent of hell, is it possible?' John wondered, as he replayed every memory he could remember that had Henry in it.
John turned his head to look at his friends.
"Henry?" John asked, in a questioning tone.
"What, I am no agent of evil." Henry tried to explain.
"But Adam just showed us proof that he is 'the Adam', just like the bible said, when he gave Adam the mark, it made him immortal, and unable to be wounded, look at his hand, there be ash, but there be no burns." John said, gesturing to where I stood by the fire.
"True, but the bible also said, "Adam has white hair", his is a light black color, and then there is the mark he placed on 'the Adam' from the bible." Henry said, raising one of fingers to point at me.
'uhhh!' I thought, in annoyance, knowing I would need to wash out my hair dye, which thankfully, was at the end of its life, and could easily be scrubbed out.
Thinking quickly, I spoke again.
"My hair is white, I just need to wash the fake color from it, and there is no mark, at least one you can see?" I told them as I undid my braided hair.
At the moment my hair wasn't as long as it had been in past years, which was to my waist, instead, my hair now was in a simple long braid that went down my back, and stopped in between my shoulder blades.
Originally, I wanted to shave the sides of my head, to give me a more Rouge look, but from the look Julius had given me when I told him, I could tell he didn't think the same as I did, and instead mumbled out "barbarian", as he left me to think on his remark.
But what does he know, Julius was cut from the cloth of high society, unlike myself, who couldn't care less about social status, or the fu-paws of the "high class", who in my opinion, was nothing but a bunch of rich medieval redneck hillbillies.
Although not as bad as he once might have been, Julius still harbored a sense of his past life, where his father was a relatively prosperous merchant, where he grew up in the upper Escalon of Roman citizenship, where riches, and finerie, was a standard of life for him.
But, I decided to just wait and cut the sides of my hair, 'maybe when I'm on my way home, I should do it, just to be an annoyance to the little shit'
While I was lost in thought, I hadn't paid attention to John and Henry who were currently in a heated debate.
[John/Henry POV]
"Did you see what he did?" John whispered to Henry.
"Of course I did, I'm right next to you, and had my eyes as wide as you when he did it." Henry whispered back.
looking at Adam for a moment, John turned to look at Henry who was also now looking at the young man who was un-tying his hair braid.
"And you still don't believe that he is 'the Adam'?" John whispered to Henry.
Henry let out a snort of derision.
"Nay, he isn't him, it is impossible." Henry said simply.
John turned to face Henry again.
"How would you know?" John asked flatly.
"It is simply impossible that the two of us could accidentally be employed by the first man created by God." Henry said, condescendingly.
"I say there is a good chance that we could, who's to say God did not put this in our path, as some sort of test to help him" John said seriously.
"Help him, John, we don't even know if this is him or not, from the smell of blood coming from the forest, and the noise from his battle, I doubt there is much help we could possibly give him." Henry said angrily.
"True, but he said his hair is white, and from the look of it he intends to prove it so."
John said, as he looked at Adam who had moved to the cart and started washing his hair, with the water from one of the many skins they had brought on the journey, as well as some sort of weird thing that they later learned was called a sponge.
"If his hair is truly white, it must be him. How many others have you seen with white hair?" John pushed.
Henry grimaced. "None," he said in an unhappy voice.
They continued to watch Adam wash his hair, using the wet sponge to scrub his hair.
But unfortunately for them with only the light from the fire, which had died down since the start of the attack, they could barely make out Adam's figure, let alone the color of his hair.
Leaning close to John, Henry whispered.
"He could be doing some sort of spell, or magic to change his hair."
John looked at Henry.
"No matter what he says, you won't believe him will you?" John said, with a hint of anger lacing his words.
Before letting him speak John continued.
"We are going on a crusade, how many agent's of evil would go on a crusade to the holy land, hmm?" He asked.
And again, John continued before Henry had time to get out a word.
"So how about you stop guessing, and let his actions speak for him, because from what I have seen not too long ago, was that he killed monsters from hell. If he was an agent of hell, why would he need to attack them, hmm, oh yes, he wouldn't need to, because he would be working with them?" John said, with snark, while slowly getting louder and angrier, as Adam's words crept into his mind.
The idea that his life long friend might be trying to misguide him, down a possible path of evil.
Henry opened his mouth for a rebuttal, when he was cut off by the crunching sound of Adam's approach.
Both John and Henry turned and watched as Adam slowly made his way into the light.
The first thing they saw was Adam's physique. All of his 6 '3, chunk of hunk, walked into the camp, while he used his once clean and dry tunic to dry his hair.
"By God man, what is the matter with your body?" Henry said in bewilderment.
Adam looked down at himself confused.
"What?" He asked, as he continued to dry his head.
"Your body…it looks funny." John said, as his eyes stared up and down Adam's muscular swimmers body fazeek.
Never before had either John, or Henry seen such muscles before.
Adam looked down, then back up at the two men, one skinny as a pole, and the other a bit chubby, clearly neither were the fit types.
"This is what it looks like, when you have a steady diet and work hard." Adam said as he pointed at himself.
"But we are getting off topic again, and it's getting late, and I would like to start tracking the werewolves at first light." Adam said, before removing his makeshift towel from his head.
"I don't know how much of the dye I was able to get out, but from what I can see, I managed to take out most of it." Adam said as he combed through his white hair with his fingers.
John hit Henry in the arm when he saw the white hair, and said. "See, I told you."
Without looking away from Adam, Henry returned the hit and said. "And I said, It could still be magic." He said.
"You are just too slow minded to see the truth when it's right in front of you, I have half a mind to believe his words are true, and you truly are working with hell." John said, finally looking away from Adam, to give Henry one of his best scowls.
[Adam POV]
I let out a sigh, realizing Henry still didn't believe me, while John did.
But all I could do at this point was shrug, I was too tired, and at this point didn't really care anymore, to try and change his mind.
So, While John and Henry bickered back and forth, I saw the corpse of the werewolf I had hit into the camp by accident, laying on the ground dead, near my blanket.
Not wanting it to start stinking up, next to where I was going to sleep.
I walked over to the body and grabbed one of its back legs, and dragged it just into the forest, before dropping the leg.
As I pulled the body to the woods, I was able to see the piles of bodies, scattering the thick forest floor, like a strange carpet of werewolf fur.
"We're gonna need to burn the body's tomorrow, and move our camp.' I thought as I turned around to leave.
Making my way back to camp, I could still hear the two still going back and forth. I decided we had had enough of that, so once I was standing by the fire watching the two bicker, I clapped my hands together, managing to gain their attention.
"Look, as much as I would like for the two of you to figure out, whatever it is you two are bickering about, I'm tired and need some sleep, so could we at least stow it until tomorrow?" I asked them, angrily.
Both of them looked up at me, neither saying a word.
Satisfied with the silence, I clasped my hands together.
"Great." I said, with a fake smile, before going off to my own blanket for some well deserved sleep.
Breaking from my thoughts as I finally neared our new camp spot, which was half a mile from the still smoldering bodys of the werewolves.
I let out a small sigh, as I looked down to see the two boys still dead asleep.
Slowing down, I started to walk the last hundred feet, until the camp came into sight.
Where I could see John sitting on the ground near the fire, while the shape of Henry could be seen asleep, even though it was almost noon.
'Lazy, must have gone to sleep after I left, but at least one of them decided to stay awake and on watch' I thought, as I got closer.
The new camp was closer to the road, with forest on three sides, and a road about 20 feet from one side of the camp, instead of our old camp, which was farther into the forest, in a small clearing.
When John saw me, he stood quickly.
"Who are they?" he asked me loudly, once I had come closer.
"Shhh" I said, as I tilted my head to the two sleeping children in my arms.
"Who are they?" He asked again, with a sheepish look.
Ignoring him, I walked past him, to my own bed role, which either John or Henry had put out after I had left, to lay both of the boys down.
The older boy was easy, but the smaller boy, seemed to not want to let go, and instead, unconsciously wrapped his arms around my neck, unwilling to let go.
For as old as I am, I had almost no experience dealing with small people, or I mean children, but to me, they are small people, only without all the baggage adults carry around.
Thankfully after a moment, the small boy's grip lessened, and I was able to lay him on the blanket, next to his brother.
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I did it. The problem was I cut instead of post, on my phone, which does not have the toolbar at the top like it does on my computer, so I was unable to find the file, then view history, once I was back on my computer.
Thank you all for showing this technologically impaired person how to use technology.
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I added a lot to this chapter, compared to what I originally was going to post, by over 1000 words, so if there are any issues please let me know.
-BEAN-
Word- 2,423