Chapter 23: Traitor
Alexander woke up in a panic wondering where he was. It took him a few seconds to realise that he was in Alice's tent. He quickly managed to calm down and get out of the bed. After dressing in the same clothes he had been given yesterday he made his way out of his room. He walked out of the tent and tried to ask one of the soldiers in Lareen to get some food and send for Doctor Linden. Whilst trying to do it in Lareen he confirmed most of what he said in Vereen. The soldier appeared to be quite patient with him, letting him try a few times on his own before providing the correct words. The soldier then sent one of the other soldiers to get a servant with food and Doctor Linden.
A few minutes later a servant came carrying a plate of food and a glass. The servant placed the plate and glass on the dining table in the tent before leaving. The breakfast he had been served seemed to be quite heavy. It consisted of baked beans, ham or bacon, white bread with butter and jam, eggs and two sausages. He had also been served a glass of what appeared to be apple or pear juice. It didn't take him too long to finish even though it was indeed rather heavy.
Feeling stuffed he moved to the desk and tried to do some self-study whilst waiting for Doctor Linden to arrive or ask him to go somewhere. He didn't get to study for long before Doctor Linden entered the tent.
"I am glad to see you studying without me. As I mentioned yesterday we are going to go do some work. We just need to head to my tent first to grab some things first then we can get started on the day."
Alexander quickly stood up and followed Doctor Linden. Once they started walking he got to see that Alice's tent wasn't too far away from the centre of the camp. From the looks of it most of the higher ranking officers and people had their sleeping, or main, tent in that area.
When they got to the tent that Alexander had been lead to yesterday he was given a wooden board with a slot, some paper, a quill and a small bottle of ink.
"You might already be guessing what you are to do. You will be following me on my morning round now and noting down the information of the different wounded. You will note down their name, rank, place of birth, some medical information and any medication I end up administering. As I mentioned we will be doing all of this using only Lareen. Now come along, there is quite a few tents with wounded."
Carrying the board and accessories he had been given Alexander followed Doctor Linden as they made their way through the camp. They didn't take too long to arrive at the first row of white tents used for wounded. Inside they went from one wounded to another, all of which were soldiers of the Verenden army. No one in the first tent knew Alexander, so there weren't any comments. They mostly just assumed he was an apprentice or something to the doctor.
They continued through quite a few tents, spending upwards of two hours going from one wounded to another. By the time they reached the tent that Alexander had woken up in his hand was hurting from writing. At first he didn't even recognize the tent as the one he had been in. After so many tents they all just flowed into each other. That was until the shouts came.
"I fucking knew it! I told you Kristof that fucking kid is a bloody traitor! He was probably a spy!! That is why the doctor took him away! Just look at how fucking fancy he is! Probably just pretended that he only spoke Vereen and all that!"
"Yeah!! You can't really say anything else seeing him here huh Kristof! I'm going to fucking kill him if it is the last thing I do in this world! Death to traitors!!!"
The group of soldiers that Alexander had seen talking together when he woke up two days ago where shouting. Kristof tried to hold back one of them as they started running towards Alexander and Doctor Linden.
"Guards! Get in here now!"
The soldiers came closer and closer to them. There didn't seem to be any response from the guards outside.
"Alexander, start running. NOW! Guards! Get the fuck in here, you don't want to ignore this, else the Grand Magus will have you."
Alexander was so shocked by the situation that he stumbled trying to step back. He fell to the ground just as the first of the soldiers reached him. It was a large man, around 1.80m tall. He was well muscled, short blond hair and dark green eyes. He seemed to be extremely angry. Baring his teeth as he seemed to be growling at Alexander. Spit flying in his face. Then the pain started. One fist after another hit his face, whilst kicks started to assail his body.
He could hear shouts around him as he was lost in the pain and darkness from his swelling face. He thought he recognized the voice of Kristof and Doctor Linden. But why would Kristof help him? He didn't know him at all, they had barely spoken on his first day awake.
*BOOM* *BOOM*
The sound of rifle fire seemed to quite down the sounds around him. Then he felt a coldness on his face. Before a gentle pair of hands guided him upwards. Slowly his eyes managed to open despite the swelling and pain. He was shocked at what he saw. Four people lay on the ground with riddled with bullets. Surrounding him and Doctor Linden was maybe 15 Miran soldiers. They were currently aiming their rifles at 12 unarmed Verenden soldiers.
Amongst the 12 Verenden soldiers Alexander spotted Kristof. He didn't seem to have been hit by any bullets but had bloody hands and a cut on his face. He could also make out the soldier that had been on top of him and punching him standing in the group of soldiers. It appeared that none of the initial attackers had been killed, only ones that had stood up or moved after.
"Get on the fucking ground pieces of shit! You've got 10 seconds before we do it for you!"
The Miran soldiers took a step forward at this and continued aiming their rifles. Some of the Verenden soldiers obeyed the command immediately, amongst them Kristof, laying down.
"I ain't listening to you fucks, just shoot me!"
The large Verenden soldier defied them. Once the obedient people had laid down the Miran soldiers didn't even wait the full 10 seconds before moving. The quickly moved over to the group and knocked the remainder unconscious. The proceeded to tie all of them up. One of the Miran soldiers, from his insignia most likely a sergeant, made his way towards Alexander and Doctor Linden.
"You do realise that the Grand Magus has confirmed that he is a seed and that he will be adopted by her family? There is no way that I can't tell her what happened here, and that includes your soldiers lack of response. Sure he was fighting for the enemy roughly a week ago, but he is a 14 year old kid! He didn't really know what was going on!"
The sergeant seemed to be holding back what he was about to say. He was somewhat red in his face.
"Sir, with all due respect, I don't fucking care. We shouldn't let the fucking enemy become one of us so easily. And letting him wear fancy clothes, like if he was a noble. He isn't a part of her family yet, so I will do what should be done with the enemy that doesn't know their place. I am sure the Brigadier General would agree with me."
Just as Doctor Linden was about to retort the tent flap seemed to disintegrate. All of them turned towards the opening as Alice walked in slowly. She seemed pissed.
"The Brigadier General would probably agree with you, if he had been told before I found out. Now it seems like you and your men have deserted. Which means I will have to judge you by martial law for desertion during a time of war. I just have one question before you disappear, do you think I am stupid?"
The sergeant couldn't do anything but stare at Alice. This was far from what he had expected would happen. He had been told that she would be busy with the preparations for the next push towards Elmden. That was why he had taken the chance to ignore the call for help when Alexander got attacked by his former allies. With all of his mind he was trying to figure out what he could say to stay her hand. How could he survive this or get a message to the Brigadier General for him to save them?
"Gra…"
He barely got to open his mouth before his body started collapsing. It looked like someone had placed a weight of a few tons on his shoulders. The sound of bones breaking could be heard he was pushed into the ground. Blood and other matter flowed out of every visible orifice. Blood even started flowing straight out of his skin from pressure building inside him. Then he collapsed flattened to the ground, released from the weight just before his body would have exploded.
The rest of the guards looked at their former commander in fear. One tried to run but got incinerated for the effort. A few of them quickly put their rifles in their mouth and pulled the trigger. Better to die quickly than by whatever method the grand magus would employ they thought. The remaining guards collapsed from fear and shock.
"Tsch, seems like there were some lucky ones to collapse. They will get to be executed by firing squad tonight for desertion. As for the attackers."
"Grand Magus, that one there tried to stop them. He then helped me in trying to fight off the ones that pounced on Alexander."
Doctor Linden pointed towards Kristof.
"I see, well I guess I will have a chat with him later after dealing with the rest of them. Give me a minute to get some proper soldiers here. In the mean time please take Alexander away and see to his wounds properly. I don't think you should bring him with you on these rounds unless you bring guards. If anyone else recognizes him they might react the same way."
Doctor Linden nodded at Alice as she made her way out of the tent. He then helped Alexander and guided him out and towards his medical tent. With the amount of swelling on his face it would probably take a few hours with something cold on it before he could see properly.
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