An hour later I was seated in the meeting room of the Loyal’s base. My injured arm had been properly bandaged and I was nursing a light ale that was helping me keep my mind off the pain. I had changed out of my bloody and mud covered clothes and had put on something clean, although not as fancy as the old clothes had been before they had been in a swordfight. In the chairs around me were the other members of the Loyal. They were watching me, waiting.

“Was the mission tonight successful enough?” I asked to begin the conversation.

I curled up near a tree and then looked over at Undir. “I’m going to rest for a little bit here. Wake me when Risgar and Drarak arrive.”

Undir looked concerned at me. “Are you sure you want to rest now. You look fairly injured. If you don’t wake up then we might not be able to bring you back with us. If that happens then you might die.”

I shook my head, “No there is something important that I need to do now. If I don’t do it now then it might be too late.”

“Too late? What do you mean?”

It was silent as the snow fell on the battlefield. I looked over to see the Apostates all still stopped and looking at me. I was chilly, not frozen but cold from the snow falling around me. I could still feel the pain in my body with the cracked bleeding skin but compared to before it was almost pleasant. Empty of the power I had held I could finally move again. I pulled myself to my feet and looked off into the camp. Things were quiet there, everybody still taking in the disturbance that I had caused.

I was forced to release the sword and push with both of my hands and with one leg to break free from her grip. I managed to stumble away and turn back to the man in red robes. He was charging me with his sword pressed forward. I had to run backward and escape his reach. It brought me father and father way from my sword. The woman gurgled and I could tell that she was still live. She held at the sword in her wound. The blood wasn’t flowing however. She must have been holding it back with her power.

The outskirts of the city was chilly at night. I say in the dark bushes with Risgar at my side. In front of us we could see the light of the camp. It was large, very large. The rebel nobles had a lot more soldiers then I thought they were going to have. They should have had reduced forced because they too very effected by the attack at Demon’s Road. They must have deliberately kept their troops out of harms way in preparation for this attack.

“That is a lot of troops.” I whispers in the darkness.

I stood at the edge of the road pondering thoughts about Lady Kindeily for a while. Finally I resumed my run. There was a couple of detours where I stopped for something to eat and to take a break in a small wooded plaza. Eventually I had gotten bored and it was getting latter in the day. I headed back through the streets toward the Loyal’s base. I approached where it had been before but when I looked around for it I saw nothing.

‘Do you see it. The ward must be preventing me from identifying it.’

“Then what is our first small step?” I asked.

“You know how the king has had his forces reduced about the orc attack at Demon Road?”

“Yes, I was there.”

Drarak narrowed his eyes a little as he looked at me. “I see. You made it here awfully quick. The kings soldiers only got back a couple days before you arrived in the city.”

“I took a raft.”

He quirked a smile at me, “A raft? That doesn’t sound like something a normal person would do. Or even possible.”

“It was made of ice.”

“That is just your guess right? Humans using the powers of gods could never reach the level of powers of the gods.” I responded desperately.

“You think that it is possible. If you didn’t then we wouldn’t think it. Already now you are becoming something not precisely human. You know that this scene is not normal. It is formed like the dream you had of the Slayer, part real and part fiction. We are part of you but able to speak our own voice.”

“We need to talk.” I told her.

The was a few moments of silence before the Slayer said, “I see that they didn’t kill you. That is good. The fact that you are allowed to return to your conduit means that you must have made an alliance with them.”

“Indeed, they are the people that you expected that they would be. They call themselves the Loyal and they are counter to the Cloaked Betrayer. They claim that some of them are descendants of those who helped you in your battle against the gods a hundred years ago.”

When I woke up it was not very comfortable. I was laying on a bed but it was lumpy and small. I sat up and glanced around the room. It was small and sparsely furnished. There was a small window that let in dim light, I must have slept through most of the day. Somebody had changed my clothes and I was wearing plain cotton clothing like a commoner would wear.