Chapter 2

The Soldier

“For the four demons, that damned fire didn’t want to go out.”

Dan put the helmet on his head, and both soldiers were on their way back to their post after spending the last few hours trying to put out a fire that came out of nowhere, which Brad never had.

Dan was trying needlessly to clean his cheeks of soot, but all he got was the opposite effect, staining his face even more, which became covered with ash. So they were forced to stop at a fountain so that he could rinse his hands and face.

“Not so bad for the first night, is it?” said the cheerful young Dan.

“If you find it exciting to put out a stupid fire, you’ll go crazy when we have to stop the drunken brawls kicked out from taverns.” Dan took off his helmet and shoved his whole head into the tub filled with water, while Brad leaned against the wall from where the latter came out, watching the young boy’s head disappear into the water with his spear in his hand.

The sun was beginning to peep from the mountains; the city had not yet woken up completely; in front of them began to advance some farmer who, with his carts, brought the weekly harvest to be sold at the market in the square full of people. In the meantime, they would get a good night’s sleep.

The night shifts were the most exhausting and tedious, rarely had something interesting happened or that had not pushed him to doze off on his desk, which did not happen that night.

“Hey, Brad. Do you listen to me?” he turned to Dan; the boy looked at him as if he was waiting for something. The dark hair was wet, and the droplets fell on the boy’s face until they entered the tunic under the chain mail.

“I wasn’t listening to you”, the soldier said, snorting.

“I noticed it”, he sighed, stretching. “We can finally go home.”

“If that’s the case for you... the important thing. Go home. I’ll do one last round of reconnaissance.”

Dan stretched his arms upwards and looked up at the sky, gradually becoming more apparent.

That night seemed endless. Ever since he joined the city guard corps about a decade before, he’d never met a night shift so hard.

He turned to look at Dan; the boy was young, he did not know exactly how old he was, but he sure had not reached eighteen years of life. He had joined the guard corps to help his family living outside the walls. Although life was tranquil outside, Dan was eager to find a place for all his family within the city. When he asked the reason for this decision, he replied: “A storm will strike us, Brad. I just want to be safely hidden within the walls at that moment”.

The commoners who lived among the game had the ancient beliefs that the world would soon come to catastrophe. They raised their children through stories about older people they weren’t sure existed: a people of dark demons praying to dark gods that sooner or later would destroy the world sooner or later. They believed in myths and legends, tales of fear based on stories dating back thousands of years before; they had never tasted real-life and the difficulties they encountered within the city.

Brad shook his head and set out towards the base of the garrison corps as Dan hurried to follow him.

They heard a cry coming from one of the narrow streets around the square.

Immediately they rushed to the place where the cry came from. They found a prostitute with her hands to cover her eyes, not to look; her body trembled and not because of the cold, although she was almost naked, covered only by a petticoat, from which the swollen nipples could be glimpsed under the light cloth. When they arrived near the woman, she pointed to a spot before her, closing her eyes. Both soldiers looked in that direction.

What they found in front of them was certainly not a good show. A body, a dead man, with his eyes turned towards the sky, his body completely rigid, his hands slumped along his sides and his eyes empty, while copious blood was slowly dripping from his open lips, dripping into a small puddle formed on the ground, creating a constant and disturbing sound.

Next to Brad, Dan vomited, making a choked sound, as he poured the contents of his stomach onto the ground. The boy could not bear the vision of a dead body; probably, it was the first time he had seen one.

Immediately they were joined by other guards.

“Can we handle it?” one of the other guards asked.

“It is unnatural. A barbarity,” said another.

“An execution,” Brad replied.

The man was resting with his back to the wall; in his chest, he had a huge hole, the inside could be seen while his heart was thrown to the ground next to the body, around it a pool of blood, as if it had been torn when still beating.

“While Werod approached, I place my life in your hands. Oh, Waruld enlighten me and protect me from the darkness over us,” he heard Dan say as he rubbed the amulet he wore like a necklace.

“He’s just a dead old man”, he tried to reassure him. “Go home; we’ll take care of this.”

“Darkness is coming and will overwhelm us all; we must choose the right side.” After looking at the corpse for the last time, he looked up and turned away without saying a word.

If seeing an old man dead caused him all that terror, the guard’s job was not for him.

“The new one?” asked the other guard.

“Leave him alone. We should warn of the dead body.” Brad nodded to the other, who looked towards the fortress.