Chapter 27 - People in Distress

Alex walked up the hill without hurry; the cries were getting louder, but he was taking his time. Tina followed him behind slowly, too.

With her voice trembling, Tina asked,

"And if he's dead?"

"We'll get back,"

"And if they don't believe us? They saw what Ravi said to us back in town and how you reacted,"

Damn, she is right. Alex doubted Ratamir and the others wouldn't believe in them. Still, looking at it analytically, they were all strangers to each other. Five old adventurers accustomed to violence and being on the brink of death constantly? They would not take the sudden vanishing of one of their members gladly. The fact that Ravi picked a public fight with the newcomer wouldn't help him, either.

Alex accelerated, hearing the noises of people in distress in the distance. He trotted towards the sounds that grew louder and louder. One person screamed for help while the other voice shouted curses. He's probably alright, Alex thought, almost getting to the top of the hill.

After two more minutes, he looked down to the other side of the rock formation, and what he saw almost made him drop his jaw. Below, Ravi stood in the middle of a camp. A big bonfire was in the center, with boiling pans and delicious-smelling food. Horses were tied in another part of the camp, several tents laid empty and close to the fire, a flag fluttering in the air, and in the middle was the drawing of a skull with two big tusks from below.

But what impressed Alex wasn't the camp structure. Was the quantity of bodies lying on the ground. At least eight orcs were dead on the floor. Some with heads severed others with profound gushes on the neck, others without a leg or hand. But all were definitely one hundred percent dead. In the middle of the mayhem stood Ravi with his maniac smile,

"Where's the WINE??!!!" He screamed to the heavens, pointing his sword at an orc in front of him in the least athletic way possible. He looked like a clown holding a sword, but somehow, he seemed terrifying in that position. That man was the devil. An imp of death who had danced on the ground and made out of the orcs their victims of his macabre dance.

Alex remembered how he wanted to take his dagger and face the man not one day ago, and now he understood how wise it was to avoid the conflict. Ravi was a whole new level ahead of Alex, which could scare someone else, but it put a smile on Alex's face. He had another goal to achieve: to be stronger than Ravi.

In front of the human swordsman stood an orc with a giant axe in his hand, almost the size of the creature himself, and behind it, a dark elf with beautiful features and a curvy body.

She screamed and called for help nonstop, and neither the orc nor Ravi gave her attention. Tina and Alex started down the hill while watching the strange interaction.

Ravi would attack, be deflected, and scream, asking for the wine. In a mix of anger and fear, the other orc kept there, ready to defend himself.

The swordsman pressed again, and the orc dodged the strike, trying to hit Ravi but missing. The human struck back and found his axe entangled with the orc's axe. He let the blades slide in one another, and with a swift motion, he severed the orc's right arm.

Tina gasped, and Alex kept walking,

"Where is the wine?" Ravi asked, but the orc had his eyes bulged. He was probably not listening to anything. "You aren't going to answer, are you?" Ravi asked, but before the orc could assess the question, he quickly severed the humanoid's head. The swordsman cleaned the blade with a swift movement in the air and pointed to the female dark elf,

"Where's the wine?"

"He's going to kill her?" Tina asked and halted, "He can't do that. She is defenseless,"

Alex didn't reply and accelerated towards them. He was almost sure the man wouldn't kill her. Killing an innocent was off-limits for Alex, and he doubted the guild would take it without complaining.

An orc that tried to kill you or that had evil intentions? That was more than acceptable, but the woman was just screaming and crying, asking for anyone's help. In front of her stood the man she had seen killing ten people in a heartbeat.

Ravi kept walking towards her with his sword in hand. His eyes with nothing but a void inside them. He touched the woman's neck with his blade as soon as Alex put one foot on the camp,

"Hey! Ravi! We won!" Alex shouted. The man turned his back, standing with the sword still touching the neck of the elf, who cried and cried but didn't move one single centimeter under the threat of the man's blade.

The swordsman seemed to retake control over his own acts. His maniac smile disappeared from his face, and with a trembling hand, he sheathed his sword,

"What a mess," he muttered, and for one second he seemed really shocked by his own actions. But the shock lasted just one second. He quickly shrugged and crouched before the elf, "Hello, miss, I'm sorry for killing all your friends… sometimes I can get out of hand, you know? I want to ask you just two important questions, alright?"

She sobbed hard, looking into the eyes of Ravi, and slowly nodded. She had black eyes as seemed to be the case with most dark elves. Her ears were prominent since her hair was cut almost on the scalp. She tried to say something but couldn't. Ravi waited half a minute for her to catch her breath. Alex noticed that, unlike the orcs, she wasn't using black leather clothes and instead used tattered ones as Alex had seen white elves using in the white elf district.

"Okay, I'll ask now. First and most importantly, where's the wine and second—" Ravi's eyes followed the woman's hand as she pointed towards the horses in the distance. Besides them was a large crest that Alex assumed was full of wine. 

Ravi left her there without asking the second question and headed straight to the real prize. The swordsman opened the chest, looked inside, and took a bottle out of it,

"That's perfect! What a good day!" He shouted, taking the cork out with his teeth and gulping the wine with gust. The horses around the man protested, probably smelling his blood, sweat, and wine stench. Ravi replied, patting one of the beasts and gulping even harder at the bottle. For one moment, Alex thought the man was going to drink the whole liquid,

"And the second question was…" Alex muttered. The man took a deep breath as if he was drowning in the wine and Alex had just saved his life with a question. Ravi looked at him as if he had said something fantastic and started to walk fast towards them, almost tripping along the way in one orc's head.

"Oh, yes. I almost forgot." Ravi said, crouching and offering the wine to the elf woman, who promptly rejected it, "Can you tell me what the hell happened here and who you are?"