"Fuck," I cursed as I opened my eyes to the sound of people talking, and the smell of shit all around me. "Why does it smell so bad here?" I said as I barely moved my hands and rubbed my eyes before sitting up. My body was feeling oddly weak today for some reason when I heard a voice.
"Well, the smell, of course, is because of you, son," he said, as I turned my head to look at the person who spoke, an old man with long white hair and a glorious silver beard.
It took me a second to understand what he meant when he said I was the source of the smell, after which I looked down at my body, and for sure, I was covered with all kinds of gross shit. "What in Zeus's name happened to me?" I said with a look of disbelief at my own condition.
"We would like to know the same, Squad Leader Ithax," said a familiar voice from beside the old man. Upon hearing the voice, I turned my head and, as I had assumed, it was the captain, which prompted me to straighten my back out. I couldn't stand up, as my body still felt weak for some odd reason.
"Salute, sir. Squad Leader Ithax reporting, sir," I replied with a salute.
"It's a bit too late for the formalities. You should have done that with the general first," he replied with a sigh, as he took my hand and gently put it back down, then swiftly proceeded to wipe his hand with a piece of cloth.
"Now, young man, would you mind explaining to us what happened to you…" the old man started to speak. I wasn't given enough time to understand the situation clearly, but what I knew was that right now I had to explain why I was in such a state. As I began to think back, a striking pain struck my head, and my ears started to ring, after which the captain grabbed my shoulders. "Are you okay?" he asked, upon which I nodded lightly as the headache started to wane slowly.
"I-I remember the sabertooth tiger. It had attacked us; my horse had its hooves cut off. The next thing I knew, I had jumped off the horse, barely managing to keep my bag of supplies," I said as I paused for a second and gulped the saliva that was in my mouth.
"After that, I ran. I am not exactly sure for how long, but I ran until sunset. It took me a while to understand that I had not masked my scent in a forest filled with dangerous beasts, which explains all of this," I said as I pointed at all the shit on my body, which did mostly as expected.
"I found myself then a safe place to stay, under a giant redwood tree, where I dug a 'bed' for myself." Then a look of horror appeared on my face, as I continued to recount what had happened.
"Not much long after that, as I was about to sleep, some kind of liquid fell on the top of my head, and I looked up…there were so many of them," I said as I shivered, terrified.
"So many of what, child?" the general said with a concerned look.
"Spiders, so many spiders. Hundreds of them glared at me as if I was but a piece of meat waiting to be eaten. The next thing I knew, I heard the spiders moving towards me, and my body sprinting away from the tree. I don't know how long I was running; at some point, they stopped chasing me, and…then I woke up here," I said slowly, turning my head to the captain and asked, "By the way, captain, where am I?"
"You are at the western wall, kid," the old man replied.
"HUH!!! How? I ran a lot but should have been nowhere near the western wall…how does that make any sense?" I said, a shell-shocked look on my face, which was when the general asked me another question. By this point, it had finally kicked in, how
rare of an opportunity it was to be able to speak with such a man, especially as a commoner. I was speaking to the great general of the western wall, who had kept the empire safe from the demonic invasion for the past 15 years.
"Did you have any injuries?" he asked, to which I nodded and said, "I had a few broken ribs, and a great deal of internal injuries the last time I had gotten to check my condition, but it's probably worse now than it was then," I said, and started to lift up my tunic to check if the bruises had increased, but two sights surprised me.
"Gyaaaah!" I screamed as I noticed the gigantic tattoo that was now covering the entirety of my left pec, and the second most astonishing thing was that there were no longer any bruises on my body. I have no idea how this was possible, and guessing from the captain and general's expressions, they too understood that I had no idea what was going on.
"Hmm, I don't know how to take this situation. On one hand, I am happy that a talented young man like yourself figured out a way for yourself to survive, but at the same time, this is far too suspicious. For now, unfortunately, you will be held under strict surveillance, young man," he said to me with a sympathetic look on his face, as he called a few soldiers and spoke. "Take him to the cellars, and keep him there. Feed him properly; he is not a prisoner, he is just being kept there for surveillance. I would like to believe he is still one of us," he said, after which the two soldiers that had come to escort me saluted the man and took me to my cellar, where I would be spending a decent amount of my time, I imagined.
Honestly, I thought this was it, this was where I would die. But honestly, I wasn't even scared about this; after going through what I had in the forest with the tiger, the wendigo, the snakes, and the spiders, I didn't feel quite as scared as I would have been, had I not gone through those exact things.
***
"What should we do with the squad leader, sir?" I asked the general, which caused him to look at me with a frown on his face.
"For now, keep him in the cellar, and see if he can get more of his memories back. But such a kid is no real concern; we can keep him in the back of our minds for now. But we have more pressing concerns right now. The movement of the demons feels off; they have halted all offense, and I have a bad, very bad feeling about this. Send a scout to my room; I have a letter that needs to be delivered to His Majesty," the general said as he stormed off back into the castle.
The last thing I heard him say as he entered the gates was, "Captain, you better recover quickly. I have a feeling that things will soon be getting very sticky on our hands."