Chapter 41: A Puppy

Chapter 41.

01. Reskeme watched a group of soldiers from the wall as they buried one of their comrades, His group wasn't the only one that day that had returned from the forest with a dead friend. Three holes were being dug in the wide-open space between the fort and the river. The graveyard was covered in a disturbing amount of wooden markings. The soldiers used these wooden triangles to mark the dead to help the soldiers visit their fallen friends or to tell the deeds of the fallen soldiers. Reskeme waited until the bodies were all buried, It was the least he could do for his squad was to attend the funeral of their friend.

02. He had delivered the message to the commander of the fort, the woman had looked stern and like she was ready for battle at any moment. She hadn't even come out of her house without being dressed in full armour. Reskeme had sensed her channelling a disturbing amount of mana and was sure she could squash him like a bug if she wanted. The commander was also attending the funeral, She was standing on the wall with her helmet in her hand and holding her arm in salute to the fallen soldiers.

03. The woman's long blond hair blew in the wind, her fierce brown eyes stared with a burning intensity into the forest as if looking for something to vent her rage. Reskeme, The Commander and all the soldiers waited for the graves to be covered and marked with a respectful silence. The burying of the dead was a sacred thing, silence was the way to give the dead a chance to find their way to find the path to the eternal afterlife. Reskeme waited, as he knew the commander was going to make a speech to the soldiers at the end of the funeral.

04. In a loud commanding voice Commander Serulia of house Dolar Said," We have been given the command to conduct a raid on the enemy encampment. I'm sure all of you are just as excited as me to take the attack to the enemy." A cheer rose from the surrounding soldiers, every one of them was without a doubt excited to take revenge. Reskeme had no desire to join a large battle, the odds of dying were just too high. He was happy that his squad was planning on leaving the next day and returning to the Eagles' fortress.

05. Reskeme left the wall deep in thought, he pulled out his mana gauge and was happy to note he had 50% left. Reskeme decided he would do some rune crafting for a while. After the funeral, he only had an hour left of the light. Reskeme walked over to his tent, he looked sheepishly at the tent that had somehow fallen over. He kicked the fabric and decided he liked to sleep under the stars anyway. Reskeme was lucky that the weather had been so good lately, He pulled out His old knife and admired the long slightly curved blade.

06. Reskeme hadn't used the dagger since he had gotten it and he decided it would be perfect for testing out runes. Reskeme held the unbalanced dagger in front of him and channelled a small amount of mana, he pulled out his Rune from his coat. Reskeme used his mana to copy the image from the rune, that strangely resembled a leaf or a flame onto the flat of the blade. Reskeme felt his rune looked good, there were a few minor differences but overall he thought he had done well.

07. Reskeme didn't power the rune and created another rune further down the blade, he didn't want a repeat of what happened last time. Reskeme wanted to see how many he could put on but ran out of the room after creating 3 runes. Reskeme had no idea what might happen if he put a rune on the other side of the weapon. He felt it would be a bad idea, Reskeme took a deep breath and channelled a small amount of mana. He channelled through his first rune, something odd happened all three runes began slowly glowing and he wasn't able to fill the rune one at a time. Reskeme knew that if he didn't fill the runes, He channelled more mana, his veins started to burn and the runes seemed unwilling to fill up completely.

08. After 25 seconds of channelling Reskeme was approaching his limit, His veins were burning and he was straining to keep concentrated. All three runes all of a sudden became a solid green glow, Reskeme sighed with relief, He was unsure why that had happened and damned certain that he might pass out if he had to activate 4 at the same time. Reskeme looked down at his mana gauge and wasn't surprised that his mana gauge was down to 20% left. He sat down with a relieved sigh and lay onto his back staring up at the darkening sky.

09. Reskeme held his faintly glowing knife in front of himself, Three runes glowed dimly in the evening light. Reskeme wondered why Kellar told him to make the rune perfect, He watched the three green runes for a couple of minutes. Reskeme noticed that his mana had dug into the metal creating the three runes into the steel. With 30% of his mana channelled into the weapon, Reskeme felt unsafe holding the knife. He held the knife and experimentally poked the rune with his finger, To his surprise nothing happened. He looked around and found some mostly dead grass Reskeme walked over and pressed his knife to the grass with the same results. Reskeme channelled some mana through the rune and wrapped it around the blade. After a second the entire blade was shrouded in green mana, He touched it gently to the grass causing a whoosh of green fire.

10 Reskeme jumped back and stopped channelling, the fire burned for a moment on both the blade and the grass before disappearing, consuming the small patch of grass. The runes only seemed to affect anything when he channelled mana through them, Reskeme smiled happily and reexamined his runes. The runes were still glowing green and intact but the metal of the weapon looked slightly charred. Reskeme guessed that he could only use his fire mana on this weapon a couple more times before it would be useless.

11.He put the dagger in his belt and winced at the heat coming off the blade, Reskeme grumbled and decided it would cool down just fine in the dirt. He took his case off his back, staring at his weapons he had a clever idea. Reskeme didn't want to test runes on his naginata, he decided to do it on the longer Darva javelin, he figured he could always get more of them anyway. The javelin had a long straight point that was very similar to his javelin, it was clearly meant to pierce armour. He used his mana and carved a small rune onto the metal point of the spear, Reskeme checked over the rune and tested it before activating the rune. He felt proud admiring his rune, With this, he could now set the enemy on fire with a throw.

12. Reskeme could hear the gates of the fortress slam shut and a loud clang as the bar fell into place. He unrolled his blanket and made sure all of his weapons were within reach. Reskeme pulled out his dried travel food and began eating the salted meat and hard bread. He was happy to eat food and downed the bland food at a frightening speed. He heard a soft bark, Reskeme watched the fluffy dog as it happily walked over and stared up at him. The Wite and black fluffy dog barked again, and licked his leg, Reskeme finally broke and tossed him a piece of his jerky.

13. The fluffy dog sniffed the meat and happily picked it up in its mouth, Reskeme smiled at the little dog as it walked over and lay down on his tent-like it owned the place. Reskeme liked dogs, before he had been taken by the guild he had a stray that occasionally followed him around. Reskeme felt sadness for his old friend that he had lost, A damned cart had run his best friend over killing the dog. Reskeme climbed into his blanket and slowly fell to sleep, he felt the contented happiness of the dog as he slowly drifted off to sleep.

14. The following day came, Reskeme looked around for the fluffy dog and couldn't find it. he packed up his things and pulled his knife that he had somehow forgotten about from the dirt. He was surprised to find that his runes were still active. He put the faintly glowing knife in his throwing knife case. Reskeme cast his illusions and waited for his guards. His squad were all walking over leading their fully packed horses, Reskeme walked to the stables and brought his horse over before packing all his things. With naginata in his hand, spears on his back and knives on his belt they rode out of the gate heading out of the city.

15. before the gate could shut a fluffy dog ran out of the gate and trotted happily beside Reskemes horse. He glanced down at the dog and smiled to himself, at least the dog would warn them if something was trying to sneak upon them. It was good the fort had given each person in the group a full two days of rations for the journey. Reskeme and his group headed back along the route they had taken to get to the waterfall. They didn't need to carry large amounts of water as the river was only a short distance away.

16. The dog let out a bark and startled the guards, they hadn't seen the fluffy dog and gave it a glare before ignoring it. It wasn't their problem if the fluffy dog got itself killed, The dog was so fluffy and adorable that reskeme couldn't help but give it a snack every hour or so.

17. The guards moved slow making sure not to walk right into an ambush, His guards had bows drawn with arrows knocked and were ready for battle. The day passed in silence, no one wanted to make noise and draw attention. The night was falling and reskeme felt like he wouldn't be able to walk in a straight line. The squad rode in the night for two hours, there slow pace made the trip take much longer, to everyone's relief they rounded a bend and could see the faint light coming from eagles peak fortress. Much to everyone's discomfort, High pitched howling could soon be heard as the group continued through the trees.

18. Luckily for them they had no torches and passed along the trail, howling could be heard close by, making the horses start nervously stomping around and trying to move quickly. 30 minutes of tense silence passed, Reskeme jumped in his saddle and almost cut his horse when it snorted. The squad finally left the forest and were lucky that the two soldiers with bows on the walls were a bad shot. In the guards' defence, their nerves were on edge and the shot was over 200steps away. Carley yelled," DONT Shoot Us YOU Idiots!!" A sheepish soldier yelled back, "HURRY THE DARVA ARE OUT IN NUMBERS TONIGHT, WE ARENT LEAVING THE FORT."

19. A loud howl came from behind the squad, Carley commanded, "RUN" the horses didn't need more than a gentle nudge to gallop as fast as they could. The whole squad began charging towards the opening gate. Reskeme was in the rear of the squad, He watched the soldiers on the wall from his running horse point to the tree line and start frantically shooting. The squad was running past stumps not caring about using the path. Reskeme didn't have time to look back, a spear flew past him with a whoosh of air, a second spear hit the mark causing his horse to scream in pain and stumble. Reskeme was not a good rider and tumbled from the saddle of his stumbling horse. Reskeme hit the ground with a thud, rolling to absorb his momentum, Reskeme had the presence of mind to toss his weapon away from himself soo he didn't have a horrible accident. A bell began ringing signalling an attack of the enemy. The last thing he saw of his retreating horse was it passing in the gates without him.