Xenarra: The Dragon Throne - Chapter 19 The First Mission

We all went back to the barracks and went to sleep early. To try and sleep well at least before we set out. The next day I had a quick wash trying to wake myself up as it was dark outside. Then I made sure all of the others were up. I just put on some cheaper clothes though as although the expensive clothes are nice and comfy the armour which I will have on will ruin them. We all then made the walk to the amoury, where we would get all of our equipment for the mission coming up.

After arriving at the armoury we found it locked up. “Damm it, where are they? It should be unlocked for us.” I was mumbling as we walked trying to find the master of weapons, who was in charge of the amoury. After searching for a while I decided to look in the room he was staying in. I banged my fist on his door for a minute, until I heard footsteps coming from the other side. With a creak the door opened.

A fat man who reminded me of the adjendunt appeared on the other side of the door. “Who is bashing on my door at this early hour? I will have you flogged!” He was pissed probably due to being woken up from sleep, at least, that’s what I thought, until I saw a woman appear with barely any clothes on. I saw Usha’s hand clench seeing that. I gave a quick salute as he was my superior, then explained the situation. “Hmmm, how strange my brother never mentioned this? Sigh, ruining my peaceful night it seems….Just give me a second sergeant.”

He then went back into his room. I heard swearing at the noise of crashing of objects. Then the man came out stroking the scantily dressed woman’s ass. He gave a lewd smile as he left. It didn’t take long for us to reach the armoury. He opened up the door and let us in showing us all of the armor types and different weapons.

We all went into the area where the first class units equipment is stored. First, I grabbed some leather armor with fur on the inside, so that when I am moving the armor doesn’t cause me to have any rashes or blisters. Once that was all tight, I put on some chainmail, then light plate armor, so my vital points were all covered. Then I attached a belt which had a sword sheath build into it, on so my sword could be with me. Then I grabbed that sword and also got a spear and a shield. However, as a tier one, all of these have runic enchantment’s such as durability, sharpness, weight(Lesser) also a strengthening enchantment as well. This just makes us that bit more effective in battle.

After we all had all of our gear on, I made sure we all had packs on our backs with essential medical supplies, rope and some basic camping equipment. Then we moved over to the food stores getting some basic rations packed away before heading over to where we were going to be meeting the messenger.

We were not waiting for long as the messenger arrived on a horse. He didn’t look that interesting. He was just average in all aspects. The only thing that made him stand out was the fact that he was riding a horse which not many people were able to do in this area apart from officers and knights. So this would make us all stand out more from anyone else which made me frown. “You don’t think you couldn’t ride a horse, it would draw attention to us.”

All I got was a “hmph!” In response, ‘guess not then’ I thought to myself. We then began to head down to the gate. The messenger was in the middle, with me in front, Gram behind and the others on both sides. This way the messenger will be totally surrounded by us, giving him the highest amount of protection on all sides.

After we finally got out of the fort, we began to pick up the pass a bit. After all, the message seemed to be fairly important. The messenger wanted to go via the most direct route to the city which made sense. This meant we would be able to follow a road all the way there. The most likely chance of us getting attacked would be when we crossed through the woods. The rest of the journey would be mainly in open terrain.

The first day of traveling was fairly uneventful. The squad just talked among ourselves as we walked. The messenger seemed to be fine with that. He just rode on in the middle of us silently. Though he spoke as it was getting nearer to nightfall. “Say, why don’t we stop up here and make camp sergeant?”

I looked at him quickly before carrying on to scan the area. “I don’t think so, we will keep on going until we are nearer to the river that is up ahead. This way we have fresh water and it means we won’t have to watch one direction at night.” He shut up again after my reply. After around another hour of traveling we made it to where I wanted to set up camp.

We unpacked the tents for ourselves while usha went to find some fire wood so that we could start a small fire. It didn’t take us long at all to get all of our sleeping arrangements sorted out. When Usha came back, we assembled the wood in the centre of the camp for the fire. Going up to it I lit some kindling with a match. Then used that to get the fire going slowly adding bigger and bigger pieces of wood. Then I let it go down to embers so that we could cook on it without burning all of our food.

Then we cooked a little of the salted meat and ate it alongside some bread for our dinner. I had just finished arranging the night watch when the messenger who I now know was named Anubis, an odd name, an old name. “So which tent am I sleeping in?” I looked at him and laughed. I just pointed to the floor. “I’m sleeping on the floor!”

“Of course you are if you didn’t bring anything that is your fault.” I then went to bed myself. Throughout the night I heard lots of moans and grumbling. It made me smile a bit that he was suffering. In the morning we had a quick meal then set off. Anubis looked so tired, under his eyes were black circles.

A few hours later we neared the forest. Before we entered I made sure everyone stopped and was ready for an ambush if one took place. We all tightened our packs and held our spears that bit tighter. They looked nervous. “We are the nine and Usha, this is not worse than demons, so we will be fine, don’t worry yourselves.”

Then we entered the forest. It was dark and thick, the leaves of the trees blocked out most of the sun. It wasn’t for this dragon I doubt we would be able to see I thought to myself. Only after we had entered. A yell could be heard from the forest.