Marcus and his three squad mates peer into the great rift, the mission is ensure that nothing dangerous comes up. Inside, between the walls of rock and earth, the wooden platforms that connected the different mines are now charred ruins still with shattered ladders hanging, swaying in the cold wind blowing from inside the underdark.
Balto, one of the four soldiers, a brown-skinned man in a dog-like mood, leans down and spits. Harris, the least tanned of the four, a light-brown-haired young man who still has some childish grease on his face, is startled by Balto's action.
"It's not safe to do that. They might think we're challenging them"
"Are you scared of the dark whores, brat?" Balto asks and glances at Harris out of the corner of his eye. "We don't need scaredy-cats in the army. I know cowards, they usually drop their weapons when hear the first arrow whistle, right after they shit their pants"
"Don't be so hard on the boy, Balto," says Pit, whose kindly, plump face might make him seem the most harmless in the squad, were it not for his six feet tall, big, powerful hands, and formidable broad shoulders. "It's not his fault he missed the invasion. He wasn't prepared for something like that anyway"
"None of us were prepared for anything like that, and yet we put up a fight!"
Harris lowers the head and bites his lip. A part of him is ashamed that he was on leave, but another part is relieved that his grandfather wanted to see him and spend the time. True, as soon as the news got out Harris grabbed his father's old sword and rode back to the citadel, but by the time he arrived, the Great Miracle, as the change to the walls is known, had already happened.
Men like Baldo, who were present and came face to face with the death brought by the dark elves, could not but despise the absent soldiers.
Pit, seeing Harris crestfallen, dedicates a smile and gives him a powerful slap on the back, almost sending the boy face-first into the rift.
"Besides, who doesn't shit their pants during a battle? There's nothing stinkier than a war camp," Pit let out loud chuckles that echoed through the crack.
Pit's show of kindness, though brusque, helps ease Harris's tension. Balto clicks his tongue, and not wanting to be further irritated by the rookie, he decides to turn his attention to Marcus.
Marcus is lost in thought, his eyes studying a handkerchief with an embroidered crystal that he holds in a hand, as if he can somehow find the secrets of heaven and earth within the cloth.
"A gift from some damsel?" Balto twirls his spear, thrusts the point into the earth, crosses his palms over the end of the hilt, and rests his chin on both hands. "Was it Vinny, the carpenter's daughter? Or Lira, the butcher's? I don't want to kill your illusion, but those two offer handkerchiefs to anyone with a cock between his legs and a sword at his waist"
"Maybe she's trying her luck" Pit joins the conversation. "Maybe one day, one of us humble soldiers can become a captain and a full-fledged knight. An ideal match for any woman looking to marry"
Balto laughs.
"In these days being a knight doesn't mean anything. Before they gave you a fortress or land, now they don't even give you that. It's not even safe to be offered servants. Now they are workers and if things start to go wrong they will leave"
"The reforms, yes. The wizard king is a single-minded and wise man," says Pit, not realizing that Balto was actually criticizing such reforms.
"My sister wove it" Marcus takes the romantic mystique out of the conversation by revealing who made the handkerchief. "It's blessed by... You know what"
Balto and Pit look at Marcus with growing interest.
"You're talking about, that thing in the basement, right? How did you get it to bless you?"
"Are talking about the blue entity? The one that helped bring about the Great Miracle? Have you seen it?" Harris also tries to join the conversation, eyes bright with curiosity. He immediately receives an angry look of gritted teeth from Balto.
"Don't talk about things you don't understand, rookie. We could be sent to the gallows if you get your tongue out," Balto says.
Harris takes a couple of steps back.
From the bowels of the great rift comes a new wind gust. The gust is strong enough to tear the handkerchief from Marcus' hands and drag it towards the nearby forest, a clump of trees that clashes with the end of the Great Rift, some growing hunched over towards the abyss.
"Shit!" Marcus exclaims and without hesitation runs after the cloth.
The handkerchief is tossed by the wind and dives into the trees. The chase lasts about four minutes, until the scarf is caught by one of the branches. Marcus jumps up and, clinging with arms and legs to the trunk, scales up high enough to reach out and retrieve the blessed gift.
He was about to climb down and return to his squad, but from that height he notices a hooded presence in the bushes 15 paces to the north. At first, because of the bow holding the figure, Marcus thought it was a hunter. But when he tunes his eyes to take a more careful look, finds that the bow is made of an albino wood, with an iron tip moistened by mysterious poison, and is held by blue-wristed hands.
From the top Marcus can also see a dirt path. Appearing on horseback, without noticing the assassin, come first Captain Claus and second Captain Axiel.