The guy, with enthusiasm began to get food, at first he quickly ran to the forest and gathered there wood, and a long more or less flat stick, returning the guy built a fire, good thing the lighter was, and began to plan the future sharpshooter, fifteen minutes later he finished wielding the knife, hammering in the middle of a small twig, cut the point into four parts, thus increasing the area of defeat.
Dima took off his turds and went knee-deep into the not too turbulent water stream of the river, it was unbearably hot outside, but in the river the water was just ice-cold, the guy shivered unhappily, and slightly getting used to it, started to look for fish, and there were plenty of them here, a little waiting Dima slightly twitched his legs raising a small cloud of sand, on which a couple of small fish flew at the same second. A sharp blow, the improvised spearhead collided with the sandy bottom.
"It's empty." Nervously Dmitri pulled the gun out of the water, for the second attempt, which happened ten minutes later, the blow was close - very close, but again missed, the fish as if leading the guy by the nose, not wanting to get caught. But she didn't know yet, her luck was about to run out. And the guy continued to stand knee-deep in water, cursing in his thoughts his crookedness and bad luck.
...
A group of horse riders was travelling along a road trampled by many thousands of sandals and hoofs. At the head of the group rode the abbot himself, the man was very excited, he could not answer himself how he felt about the events that were taking place. 'With the appearance of the messenger everything will change very abruptly, Horus had spoken of him before, but Hin had no idea that he would appear so soon, I wonder what he is like?' The abbot pondered, he was pulled out of his deep thoughts by the shout of a monk riding beside him.
"Mr Abbot, we are approaching the village of Rimu, it is just on the bank of the river Ao, what are your instructions?" Each member of the expedition took their undertaking as seriously as possible, Abbot Hin was a calm and extremely sensible man, and if he was galloping away, it was obviously a serious matter. Though no one knew why they were even going.
Hin decided to leave the explanations until the nearest village to the river. It would be quicker and safer, even though he was the abbot, but he could not guarantee that there was no spy among the brethren and servants.
"Quickly we enter the village and find the house of the headman, further instructions there." Hin shouted loudly, wanting to be heard, but he could not outshout the noise of the horses rushing at full speed.
The monk who had asked the question only nodded silently and turned his head to the road. The thatched roofs of the houses were already on the horizon. There was no fence, or even a crappy fence, in the village, and the whole group drove into Rima without slowing down, scaring the peasants away.
The village was not that far from his abode, he had even been here a couple of times and had personally met the local headman, a short and stocky grandfather with a long grey beard.
The riders approached a small hut made of hay and bamboo. It looked very unattractive, like all the houses of the local peasants in principle. Hin dismounted from his horse and an old man was sitting on a bench outside the hut with a wrinkled face, sparse grey hair and a very long beard of the same colour. Hin raised his hand and his escort stopped, his companions began to get off their horses, and he walked briskly up to the headman.
"Greetings to you, good man." said the abbot and made a polite half-bow, though he was older in rank and status, but he did not change his habits of polite dialogue with his elders.
"And good luck to you Hin, why did you come here?" The grandfather seemed not to care, his voice was weak and monotonous.
"Not here, will you invite me in?" The abbot asked and looked round at his men, all of whom had already got off their horses and were drinking at the nearest trough.
"Why not, come in." The grandfather said quietly and got up from the bench and went inside, Hin following him. The interior was even more depressing than the exterior, the muddy clay walls flowing to the earthy floor lined with straw, with only a chest, a small bed, and an old blanket lying in the centre of the room.
The old man hurried to the chest, and digging into it a little, took out a burdock and two wooden cups. Hin sat down silently on the blanket, it was very thin and his heel felt the cold ground. The old man sat down opposite and filled the cups with a murky liquid and handed one cup to the abbot.
"May the Choir protect us, and ourselves." The men said in sync and downed the contents of their mugs. Hin felt a little shiver, he had already got used to the cheap booze that the peasants usually made. He felt good, the tips of his mouth stretched into a slight smile.
"I wanted to ask you, have you seen anyone suspicious in your village?" Grandfather rubbed his chin thoughtfully with his hand, and after half a minute he answered.
"No, we haven't seen anyone suspicious lately. Give us a hint, son, who you're looking for: a man, a woman, young or old." Hin hesitated a little, he was somehow uncomfortable to say that he himself would like to know who they were looking for, but soon continued.
"I don't know myself, I only know that he will stand out, in clothes and behaviour, and he's somewhere nearby, it's very urgent." The old man only nodded and poured the vodka into glasses again. The men quickly emptied their mugs. Suddenly the old man stood up and said.
"If it's urgent, then we'll look for it, I'll tell the men to look for it in the surrounding woods, but only this," the grandfather's expression changed from cheerful to wary.
"Just what?" Nervously asked Hin.
"We have recently settled here brigands, people say they escaped from the neighbouring province, so I think we should hurry." Hin was angry, 'No not now, why am I so unlucky'. - was running through his mind.
"Why didn't you send a messenger to the monastery right away, you weren't born yesterday." Hin sighed tiredly and waited for an answer to his question.
"Don't be angry son, they appeared recently, impudent as jackals, and very stupid, they came and began to demand tribute, well, they were beaten by men and tied up and thrown into the barn. Tomorrow morning we wanted to send a messenger to you, but they ran away, I don't know how." The old man summarised and stared at the floor. Hin only sighed nervously and propped his chin with his hand.
"How many were there?"
"Three, that's what I'm saying - fools, three to attack a village.
"Well, gather the men and look for them in the surrounding woods, we'll ride along the shore and search there, I'll give you three warriors to make it easier for you."
"We'll call it a day." The old man said and poured the rest of his bourbon into mugs. They drank without words, both left the hut, the headman walked through the village, and Hin called the older monk to him.
"We are looking for a strange man, he must be somewhere nearby, allocate 3 warriors and let them and the peasants scour the nearest forests, the rest are divided into two groups: the first is looking upstream the second downstream, and there are bandits hanging around here, you know what to do with them, all right?"
"Will there be any signs, who to look for?" The monk asked confusedly, not quite understanding what they wanted him to do.
"No, there won't be, look for someone different from us," the abbot glanced angrily at his subordinate, the latter didn't bother him with unnecessary questions and bowed and summoned the people who were resting. Three of them walked, the others saddled their horses and quickly rode off into the distance.
The abbot looked at them and praying for success, sat down on the grass in the lotus position and began to try to communicate with Horus.
...
Dima was frying caught fish on the fire, he had to stand in the freezing water for two fucking hours, and all for the sake of five small fish, the catch annoyed the guy, but he reasoned that it was better to have a small fish than no fish at all.
The fire was burning brightly, crackling with tar, the sun was already slipping towards sunset, and Dima decided to spend the night right here, anyway at night to go somewhere without light sources only a suicide would do it. And the fire would scare away predators, if there were any. As he watched the fish cooking, the boy thought a lot about the past day, it still seemed to him that it was just a bad dream and he couldn't wake up.
'Why me, I'm not the leader, I don't know anything, how am I going to be the saviour of all?'. The guy was lying a little, in his 23rd year he had already managed to study to be a mechanic and work at a couple of three jobs, and quite successfully, he even got a letter of recommendation from the factory, and was enrolled in the institute as an engineer, even though he had only studied a year and a half, but between girls and drinking he still managed to study and, unlike his classmates, to pass credits on time. The boy smirked nervously.
'Only that's in the past now, now I'm out here in the fucking country, in the fucking corner of the universe, alone, lost in the woods.' A small tear dripped from the corner of his eyes, a pungent smell of burning pulled him out of the all-encompassing sadness and longing. The boy shook his head, chasing away the bad thoughts, and looked at the smoking fish.
"Oh fuck," he swore, taking the improvised kebab off the wooden twigs, the fish was already slightly burnt. Dima was not saddened by it, a hungry student could easily eat more than that.
The guy took a twig in his hand and took a bite, 'in principle it's good, if only there was vodka, or at least salt'. He thought to himself, eating the fish in both cheeks, the dinner was sorted out quite quickly. The guy decided to put the second batch of two fish. The fire was crackling pleasantly, dispersing the darkness around him, Dima lay down on a hastily made bed of grass, the guy was slowly enveloped by morpheus.
"You bitch, aaaaah!" Someone screamed from the bushes, Dmitry jumped up, grabbed his sharpshooter and looked around nervously. But nothing happened soon the guy's nerves failed and he shouted at the top of his voice.
"Who's there, show yourself?" Out of the darkness came, a short Asian man dressed as if in a rotten barrel, in his hand the night visitor clutched a big cleaver.
'This sucks.' - Dima said to himself.