"Sam don't sleep!"
"Ah, what, um - it's you Madim, stop bothering me, let me sleep."
"I'm telling you, you're fucked up, we're on patrol, in case you haven't noticed." The man looked sadly at his subordinate, realised that it was useless to wait for a response, turned around and looked into the night distance and spat overboard.
"Madim, why are you even bothering, we're on a ship, hundreds of metres from the shore, there are fifteen thousand of our guys on shore, and we can't see any locals." Sam turned to the sergeant, at the same time uncorking a flask, with something with a degree of strength clearly different from zero.
"Come on, let's have a drink, it's your favourite, by the way!" Sam said hopefully, fearing in his heart that the sergeant would rush to the officers to report his misdemeanour.
"Ah, all right, come on." Madim stepped away from the side of the boat and with a quick step approached the negligent sailor and snatched the flask from his hands.
"Hey, leave me some of that!" Sam shouted indignantly, trying to take the flask away, but failed and got a light poke in the head.
"Why, I shared it with you, didn't I?" Sam asked indignantly, scratching his slightly sore head.
"I forgave you for your carelessness on duty, and the punch was punishment for having unaccounted-for alcohol on board." Madim muttered, sucking down the flask from time to time.
"Fuck you... how long are we going to be here?"
"I have no idea, but don't relax, we're not in Midgard after all." Madim, already slightly tipsy, handed the flask to its owner and stared thoughtfully into the dark distance.
"You're a sergeant, so you should know what our leaders are up to." Sam drank the life-giving alcohol without embarrassment, savouring every drop.
"I'll run to the captain right now and ask him, because Sailor Sam, from another half-rotten village, is very curious when we'll be done, he's got a cow to milk tomorrow morning."
"All right, I got it." After these words Sam put his hand on his head and thought about it, which he did with difficulty, and after a couple of minutes of brainstorming he came up with his brilliant idea.
"If they don't talk, it means we're here for the long haul!" With a smile of ten teeth said yesterday's peasant with pride on his face.
"You're a genius, mate," Mardin said, barely concealing his laughter. Sam didn't understand the joke at first, but seeing the poorly concealed smile of his interlocutor, he gradually understood.
"Fuck you, if you don't like my version, give me yours." With offence glaring at his vis-a-vis with incomprehensible look.
"I'll tell you one thing, you can't relax."
"Why, we haven't seen any locals at all, the town is empty, there are thick forests around and no one in them either." Sam said tiredly, leaning against the side of the ship.
"And you haven't heard yet?" Madim asked in bewilderment, crossing his arms over his chest.
"What?"
"The Central Group was pretty banged up, I overheard some chatter at the officers" council, and a messenger ship came in yesterday.
"So?"
"Tongue over shoulder, the Central Group lost four thousand men and a dozen ships, it was a real massacre, if it wasn't for the Prince's armoured frigate, the whole group would have been finished." Madim spoke, watching the confusion on his subordinate's face, the man wanted to punch him in the leg, but after thinking it over quickly he decided against the idea.
"It's better for us, let the central group take the blame, and we'll loot in peace." Sam told Madim his point of view.
"Sam, you idiot!" The sergeant shouted, the thought of kicking the idiot in the leg again creeping into his soul.
"Commander, you think about it, while they're pulling the locals' attention away from us, we can make a good profit on the looting." Madim covered his face with his hand, he wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, 'Maybe this fool is partly right,' the sergeant thought.
Madim was distracted from the argument and thought hard, on the one hand he was confused by the fact that the town was empty, because if they had left it with all their belongings in advance, they knew about their arrival and had prepared themselves.
On the other hand, there was a non-zero probability that the savages thought that the prince's group was the only one. Their forces aren't limitless either, which means they will only be opposed by the local population, as the army will be fully occupied by the prince and his army.
'Hmm, I don't know, maybe Sam's right, though looking at him, his being right would be a mockery of common sense and logic.'
Boom. Boom. Boom.
"Madim did you hear that?" Sam jumped up quickly, from his seat holding his rifle out in front of him. The sergeant, without further thought, drew his broadsword and the two men began to walk slowly to the port side of the bridge.
Boom. Boom. Boom. - The loud sound of waves crashing against the side of the bridge increased with each step, except that Madim couldn't tell if there was anything else there. Slowly approaching the side, the sergeant clenched all his courage into a fist and leaned out overboard.
"PZZ." The sound of a loud fart was heard from the side. But to the sergeant, tense as a tightrope, the sound was akin to a cannon shot.
He jumped up and turned round to the sailor, who was already laughing at the top of his lungs and could barely stand on his feet.
"Your mother told you you were an idiot!" Madim shouted angrily, clutching the hilt of his sword with a distinctive crunch.
"Hahaha, Sergeant I salute your courage and heroism." The sailor mumbled through his laughter, tears streaming from his eyes.
"Fuck you," the sergeant quickly recovered and deciding that the joke was not so bad, waved his hand and was about to leave to check the next guard.
"Aghhh!" A half-quiet shout reached Madim's ears, and he turned round, but Sam wasn't in sight. Goosebumps ran up the sergeant's spine, and he held his broadsword out in front of him and walked slowly towards the only place the jerk could hide - the mast.
Buch. Booh. Boom.
"Sam, come out, the joke's gone on long enough," but there was no answer, and only the raging waves of the sea came over the side, their splashes preventing them from hearing anything.
"Sam, if you've fallen asleep I'll kill you," Madim said with a shudder in his heart as he slowly approached the mast. 'Bitch, if that's his thing, I'm sure as hell going to whack him with the garda.' - The sergeant thought to himself, gripping the hilt tightly.
Madim noticed the edge of a red uniform peeking out from behind the mast, realising that it was just another stupid joke the man calmed down a little and put his sword back in its sheath and approached the mast with a quick step. As expected, Sam was sitting under it, and judging by his closed eyes, he was asleep.
"Sam, wake up, you fool!" The sailor did not react to the shout, and seeing that words were useless, he grabbed the negligent sailor by the collar and shook him as hard as he could. But he kept his eyes closed as if on purpose, pretending to be asleep.
'Ooh, what am I going to do to you' - Madim thought to himself, "Stop what", his thoughts were cut short by something squelching, the man jerked his hand away on reflex and looked at his glove, the brown surface of which showed barely visible red drops of fresh blood.
'Bitch' - The sergeant thought to himself, with a quick movement he checked for a pulse, the sailor was dead. Realising this was no longer a joke, the man opened his mouth and shouted.
- Alllaaar... - The shout failed, something hard pierced his throat from the back. The man fell to the deck, face down. The man desperately tried to scream, to warn his men, but all that came out of his mouth was the quiet gurgling of blood spurting out. The man, feeling weak throughout his body, was well aware that his days were numbered, but quiet surrender was not part of his plans.
With his last strength he fumbled for his pistol, with difficulty he took it out of its holster, and with cold fingers he tried to pull the trigger.
But he failed, a hand gripped his palm, preventing him from pulling the trigger. Madim looked up to see a man in a black baggy garment, wet from head to toe, with a half-mask over his face.
The assassin held his hand, squatting down, keeping his eyes on his victim's face. He put two fingers to his mouth with his free hand, clearly indicating that silence was to be observed.
Wrenching the pistol from his chilled hands, Hito gently released the sentinel onto the wooden deck and removed himself from the dying man's area.
The last thing Madim saw were dozens of the same men climbing aboard, inexplicably from wherever they had come. Finally weakening, the man closed his eyes, slowly sinking into the impenetrable darkness. The last thing he heard, at the edge of his agonising consciousness, was the sound of the waves that were beating with persistence against the side of the ship.
Boom. Boom. Boom.