章 5: Village beneath the Valley
Dom collected the Man's axe, and patted his unconscious body down to see if there was anything else of worth with him. He found a small sharp dagger with a jewel encrusted handle, which was of a quality too expensive to have found in this village. This re-enforced Dom's earlier decision to not trust him and to strike him now rather than wait for him to attach Dom first.
He stood back up and looked down at the Man and thought for a second, before remembering it was a game and not real, as real as it felt. His fist still hurting from the first punch to the man's side. He grabbed the dagger and stabbed it in to the Man's throat unenthusiastically. Blood spurted out, spraying on Dom's fur coat whilst the man gurgled, his eyes opening and bulging in both shock and horror. Dom's hand felt warm as he felt some of the blood splat on his hand.
[You swiftly and decisively killed a traitor within the village, whilst gathering some information. This has been added to your overall score.]
"Just as I thought." Dom mumbled, this was all part of the test. Stage one was to gather information, stage two to come up with an action plan, stage three to enact the plan. But as this was a high difficulty mission, there would be twists and turns at every step.
If this wasn't a game, Dom would not have stabbed a man through the throat. He is not sadistic or murderous. Never the less, the way the man died was very realistic and did cause a bit of a shock to run through Dom.
The demeaning way that the man spoke about the Village Chief and Daughter, as well as the overly friendly attitude made Dom feel some doubt about him. When he saw the wound he realised it wasn't from falling on some wood as explained by the Man, instead it looked like a shallow stab wound from a struggle. Then the weapon that he carried with him, made him doubt him even more, the other guards he had seen running around did have swords, so why didn't he. He also noted the way he had looked at him with greed when he dropped in to conversation that he could be the next Captain, rather than obvious joy or ambition that would have been expected. Finally, if he was genuinely panicking about the incoming attack, why wasn't he in more of a rush.
Dom looked around the room one last time, the Man had said he was in the room as he was investigating something. Was he? Or was that a reason to postpone him even more. Regardless if an attack was less than an hour away he needed to investigate the situation, the room could wait until later.
He headed outside, Villagers were still scrambling around, most of the armed men were now near the northern palisade wall, the rest running around were mainly youngster. To his left was the northern wall and to his right was the town hall. He decided to first head to the wall and get a good understanding of the actual defences available to them.
As he walked up the mudded pathway, he realised how poor this village must be, the lack of any technological advancement made him feel that this village was some where in the early Iron Age. He struggled to work out where it would have been geographically based on the pale complexion of the villagers he saw.
"Captain!" One of the men shouted him, he had a sword at his waist. He wore a fur hat, and had a short gruff brown beard and moustache that adorned his face. "Did Judas find you?"
"Of course he did Paul!" Another Man interrupted, he was bald with no facial hair but a large claw like scar ran down the side of his face. "Can you not see the blood on Captain's coat, that must have been from Judas's wound, looked nasty that!"
From the conversation, Dom finally learnt the traitor's name. The name was quite apt and Dom laughed inside at the game creators style.
"Shut up John." Paul lamented, "They are about 40minutes away, Peter is at the valley edge watching their movements, he'll come here when they are within eye range. I assumed that you would be happy with that Captain?"
"Very pleased," Dom replied. "What is the situation?"
"We have the towns guards, Myself, John, Judas, Peter, Little Paul and Michael." Paul replied, "Then there are the 7 Woodsmen, one still hasn't come back. 15 Farmers and 15 Fishermen."
"Judas won't be joining us, and I doubt the 8th Woodsmen will be doing either." Dom replied matter of fact. He walked towards the gate at the front of the wooden palisade. The palisade was well built, however it was mainly meant to create a village boundary than create an actual long term defence.
One of the Woodsmen was stood at the gate and pushed it open for Dom as he replied, nodding his head at him in a sign of respect as he approached. John and Paul walked alongside Dom as he headed through.
"The Valley is deep," John commented in respect. Dom agreed whilst nodding, two small mountains lay on either side of the valley, with large trees covering both sides. The River rolled down from one of the mountains, past the side of the small village that they were in. "It's amazing to be able to wake up and view this every day. The river flows fast at this time of the year, and you can often see bears trying to grab fish as they jump through the flows."
"The Woodsmen have done a great job of clearing parts of the valley. I was looking forward to growing the village out towards it." Paul added.
"What do you mean by that?" Dom asked inquisitively.
"As you know Captain, the Chiefs Grandfather founded the village at the bottom of the valley, with the intention to one day encompass it. Allowing us to be a central point of trade for the surrounding kingdoms. With the river that flows to the east, it will allow for so many future trade opportunities. He had also started to draw up plans to change the flow of the river through the valley and moving us higher up it, but the Chief's Father changed those plans, allowing us to build the village that we call home." John replied.
Dom nodded at John in thanks and went silent whilst trying to think for a moment. The key aspect of this mission was to protect the villagers, he now had a good understanding of the military strength and a reasonable idea of what they were due to face. He now just needed to come up with an action plan on how to protect them.
"Thanks for reminding me John, have the Shepherds keep guard in front of the palisade for now and to keep an eye out for Peter, giving him cover if he needs it." Dom ordered, "Have the Woodsmen by the gate, I'll meet with the Chief shortly and come back with an action plan. John keep guard and control here, Paul come with me in case I need to relay orders."
Both men nodded in agreement as Dom turned around and headed back in towards the Village centre, heading towards the larger building that he assumed was the town meeting hall, where the Chief would live.
As they reached there, a medium sized crowd of women, children and elderly were gathered outside, surrounded by lots of thick wool covered sheep. A slim, slightly better dressed red haired woman was the centre of attention, calming the crowd down and directing the sheep in to the centre of the hall.
"Captain!" She yelled towards him, "My father is inside, people are panicked and don't know what to do. Please tell me you have a plan"
"Mary, the Captain always has a plan!" Paul interrupted, which Dom was grateful for as he was un-sure of names, he really hoped the game would have given him some better background knowledge, but understandably information gathering was another part of the quest. Maybe the game should give him a stats page to see, or allow him to select a subtitles option.
"I'm sure he does Paul, but he can answer for himself!" Mary replied frustratedly.
"I do, where is your father?" Dom added before a row broke out, "I have ideas but I need his opinion first."
"He is inside, trying to sharpen his blade, but he's too old to fight." She replied matter of fact, before turning back to the crowd. "It would be better if I used his blade instead."
Dom ignored her attitude and headed straight in to the main hall, ignoring any distractions that may affect his remaining time, which was shrinking by the minute.
The Hall was made from better quality wood than the majority of the wooden houses, it had a large open space, that was currently full of sheep and a few elderly villagers. There was a large open fire pit in the centre, with tables and benches at the edges of the room. At the end was an old man sat in a seat that was slightly higher than the others, he had a long grey hair with a long grey beard, the side of his eyes had deep crows feet, and the eyes themselves had started to loose that shine and lustre that they would have had when he was young. You could tell from his thick set build that he was once a keen warrior before wounds and age turned him in to the man before them.
"Captain." He spoke, with a deep voice that instilled a level of prestige that one had earnt and not been given. "I will join the men at the front shortly."
"I don't think you will need to." Dom replied, "However it all depends on what is more important to you, the village or the villagers?"
"What's your plan?" The Chief asked in an inquisitive tone.
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